For clues into GW's strategy for their model lines, let's talk about other armies analogous to Seraphon/Lizardmen in terms of their age and proportion of legacy models. What springs to my mind is the Skaven. It seems to me that the Stegadon and Carnosaur kits are rough contemporaries in age to their bells, catapults and doomwheel? And our terradon riders and their Stormfiends, roughly in the same edition of WHFB? These specifics aside, both model ranges also seem to have similar numbers of old metal and finecast unit choices. Both have had several classic models erased from the game (globadiers, tehenhauin, etc.) while other old legacy models remain in the battletomes (razordons, ratling guns). GW has chosen not to go back and update models like the plague monks, night runners, etc. Even the appearance of great looking nightrunners in Blood Bowl did not bring new nightrunner kits for their main game. Instead, GW seems content to continue to sell resin casts of old models, even if they're ugly. Meanwhile, Skaven were expanded with scenery and spells. So now I'm feeling a bit more bullish about Seraphon getting endless spells in the future, though likely not simultaneously with the book and Pyramid. Seraphon seem to beg for endless spells. The slann are the focus of their lore, and are lauded for their magic. So surely they ought to sling some Lizardy spells (I see a serpent head on the scale of Ravenak's Gnashing Jaws, or balls of light from Azyr?) I'm also pretty convinced that GW will feel content to continue to sell us legacy models in finecast and out of date battleline sculpts, while simply expanding their range, like they've done with Skaven. It makes sense from a business perspective. By expanding their product range, they can report growth, which maybe meets the mandates of their shareholders. GW has been, if nothing else, in an expansive mood in recent years, with multiple new game lines launched each year. Their product diversity has done nothing but grow. Rehashing old models does occur, but with extreme rarity compared to putting out new stuff. So here's to the new! And here's to Seraphon continuing to look rather retro, at least for the next few years!
Not really sure I buy into the premise of "new models = growth". Selling lots of models = good revenue, good news for shareholders. GWs unwilingness to invest into retiring all metal and finecast models has become pathetic at this point. Not questionable, not lazy, not slow. Simply pathetic. Faction terrain, Endless spells, one new/revamped kit per AoS battletome release. One new/revamped kit per 40k Codex release. One new/revamped kit per faction per 40k PA release. Delay OB and SM wave 3 release by half a year each to make room in the pipeline. It's not fukking rocket science that this approach would catapult sales into the stratosphere, given GWs latest track record of releasing amazing minis (from a pure modeling perspective). But the longer I am in this hobby (and it's only been 2.5 years), the more I get the impression that GW still does things as if they were 10 guys in a garage. They made huge strides in their internet/social media presence, model quality and amount of releases, but everything else in still mindbogglingly random.
It's the notion that when a company is adding more SKUs /products to their offerings, it is expanding, as in growing in size. It may not mean that they're making more money, but it much more directly increases their stock value than increased revenue. In simple terms, it means the value of that share of GW you just bought should increase, because you're buying into a company that sells X many games, and offers X -many products. And this portfolio is likely to increase next year, without incurring additional cost (hiring more employees, buying more machines, etc.) A share like that is likely to increase in value. To your point, I don't think they can keep expanding indefinitely, and when the bubble pops, whether or not it makes business sense for them to fovus on revamping their existing lines is a mystery to me, but maybe? You're right though, it's not 'fukking rocket science'. But GW is not as dumb as you think, and I'm pretty sure what we're seeing now is a company that can stay healthy for a long time. Maybe long enough to give us new Saurus infantry!
Thats a shame if its the case. GW will lose out on a lot of money. 3rd party sellers are getting better and better and I will just update my models from their lines instead. I would have rebought my whole army if they updated all the models, now Ill just buy a whole army from someone else.
They don't want to update old, old world factions except for Chaos. Chaos for obvious reasons are important. Seraphon are in direct competition to Stormcast. They are a direct competitor. The big all powerful good guys. All I hope is that the New battletome makes the plastic Seraphon good. The Seraphon line is too big for AoS, and its probably going to be pruned down somewhat. Like Cities of Sigmar.
I was looking at the entries in the Seraphon page of GW and I'm finding it hard to "prune" down things other than just rolling most Oldbloods/Scar-Vets into one model entry and then doing the same for the Skink Priest on foot. We currently have a lot of options but it's not too outlandish especially when compared to Gloomspite Gitz. New models not super likely, losing a lot of entries also not super likely.
They could get rid of the Skink star priest, saurus sunblood, eternity warden, chameleon skinks, skink priest, razordons, salamanders etc etc. Kroxigors. They got rid of empire archers, the cannon, knights! These people pruned Bretonia and Tomb kings! No one is safe!
I'm STRONGLY considering on doing the same, and I've been looking for decent (see also: inexpensive) replacements for Razordons & Salamanders. In some ways, I'll bet there are a few companies which are holding their collective breaths, to see what GW does. There's a bit of a cottage industry built up around Lizardmen/Seraphon replacement models. IF GW updates any Seraphon, then many/most fans will flock to the new official ones. To that, GW does have more hold in that, if you play in any kind of tournament, don't you have to use only GW models?
I agree that, in some respects, our army has been made a bit thematically redundant compared to SCE. But, even though GW could prune the line, I also doubt they will. That said, I think GW could combine the Old Blood on foot and maybe the Sunblood. Possibly, I also think they could combine Skinks & Chameleon Skinks.
I think you dont need to worry. We were already pruned before when they got rid of the skink heroes and combined the ancient steg and young steg together.
While there are some nice metal models to be sure, most of them just don't have the same level of detail of even the finecast models, let alone the modern plastic ones. The Tehenahuin model still looks pretty good, though. But I agree. I still think we might get endless spells, but I've never had a lot of hope that we'll get brand new ones. I don't think we'll see any major models retire, unless they decide to combine some rules like people have suggested.
Fine cast is awful. I refuse to own one fine cast model since getting back into this thing. metal? are you serious? Back in the day, 25 years ago. I remember going into my local store and looking at the metal models, all in their blister packs. I have to admit, it was much more then nostalgia. This is before there were even models for Lizardmen. In those days, what was really cool was the Bretonians. There use to be quite popular you would get toy soldiers of knights and men at arms. They had nothing to do with GW though. GW seems to have based the Bretonians off of them. Why they were so good? because they were very plain but characterful, they made WHFB have a stronger connection to the real world. Also great metal models were the undead in those days. People laugh at the old Nagash model. But to me it looked great! There is a difference between a model looking cool and a model having character. Old Chaos was just weird. You use to get bolt guns in fantasy battle. As they travelled through the warp. Still looking back now, I was surprised at how many miniatures they created at that time. I suppose its a bit like mantic games now, they have quite a big range. I actually like a lot of the mantic miniatures. I really like their direction. But I feel like, they haven't arrived there yet. Also their lore seems pretty weak at the moment. But the general ideas seem really interesting. Nowadays, GW plastic is the best. Why is it so good? I started off with Warhammer 40k Epic. (the game with the tiny figures, best game ever) and warhammer 40lk 2nd eddition. I got fantasy later on (The one with high elf and goblins, and I think the shitty cardboard ork on wyvern). If you ever saw how crap those old plastic models were, when you had 40 elfs all in the same dumb pose, and longed for the metal minitures who came in 3 or 4 different poses. Well basically, modern day plastic is amazing. Everything got better, the model designers, the medium, the paints etc etc. Even the rules to the game seem to be getting better. Maybe the only thing that didn't get better was the lore. That said, the metal days, thank god they are behind us now.