AoS Age of Sigmar Rumours - Mk II. (Our new name)

http://kiwihammer.co.nz/massive-age-of-sigmar-rumours/

Tl:dr

"
- Lizardmen are not gone. There is a race called Servants of the Exoatl that guard the pole portals on flying pyramids, but no drawings and no fluff page (other races and tribess get at least half a page). They get unit cards for their old units (which confirms that they are simply lizardmen with a new name), but instead of beautiful pages with pictures like the rest of the bunch they get a simple list in the appendix of the compendium book.
"

Exoatl = The name of the old ones.

Earlier in the link it is said that the Exoatl uses "ancient technology powered by magic".
More engines coming our way!

 

More engines would be nice. Being permanently stuck flying around the poles would be ... meh.
I'm not changing my fluff, my Slann found some jungle to land in.

 

Remember Kroak send lustria with us.

 

What? what? The only datums I have from the end time books are the synopses folks have posted here...

 

Kroaks final act was to lift up massive chunks of lustria and cover them in force-shields.
He then made them float upwards (to where is unknown, but a good guess is together with the pyramids)

I think you will have plenty of jungle to go around! north pole or not!

 

Also, if the "multitude of worlds" parts of the fluff-rumors are true, your own army's backstory can be whatever the butts you want. I like to imagine the lizardmen finding a nice moon to rule somewhere, and intervening on the planet when necessary to fight chaos / steal cows / etc.

Two unsolicited thoughts about this latest rumor set (if any of this is true; does the atmosphere on this world taste saline to you guys?):

1) I am saddened by the lack of picture pages (whatever that means). That could mean we get a separate book sooner, or it could mean nothing good.

2) I would *Love* to see more ancient magic tech stuff! Powered armor for infantry? A Bastiladon that carries a rules-cannon? Skinks on terradons with laser jezzails? Carnosaurs with force fields? Time-travelling Kroq-Gar rescuing Kroak for the new work to be done? Le sigh. A Saurus can dream, no?

 

If this turns out to be true then I wouldn't be too annoyed, generally speaking.

Fluff-wise I like the diaspora of races. The previous geographical cache of factions was restrictive and tedious; having a spread of nations linked by similar beliefs but differing ideologies, and ease of travel fluff-wise, makes for a better and more conflicted world where alliances/rivalries are more easily explainable.

In particular, the change to the Elves seems interesting. I like the sound of them, but will have to wait until I see more for myself.

The Waaghkin fluff as being the grease and muscle of the Old Ones Exoatl seems a bit uncomfortably close to the LM.

Speaking of, thinking about it, I don't mind the name change to Exoatl as jarring as it might be. It's understandable from an IP perspective given the rising popularity of Lovecraft especially with his resurgence as a result of the internet."Ex- "certainly seems like a case of nominative determinism if they're still "absent" in some degree, so with that in mind it doesn't bother me so much. Still, etymologically speaking: "Ex-" = "of/from/without" and "oatl" being a derivative of the Nahuatl denotation for snake means.....what? From Snake? Former Serpents? :s

I like the ancient-power-tech' and floating pyramid fluff for the LM, it's what I had imagined a post-End Times LM would be like. What I do not like is how they appear to have suffered in terms of exposure. Perhaps, given the possible future success of 9th, they will be expanded on.

This magic vs. theugenic/pantheon mechanic looks interesting, however the possibility of avatars (an excuse to field Nagash I expect) could be taken as confirmation that top tier Lords will continue on from the End Times.

 

Indeed: GW is phasing out the books, as clearly stated on the webstore, but the models don't look to be going anywhere, even previously book-dependent ones like Nagash.

 

Well, it doesn't fill me with total dread.

- simple turn sequence: initiative -> player 1 unit 1 moves, shoots, casts -> p1 unit 2 moves, shoots, casts -> … -> player 2 moves, shoots, casts -> melee
- players roll always against each other, for example Melee vs Initiative and Range vs Initiative, Might vs Armour
- units regenerate all lost wounds at the end of the phase
- both sides in a melee fight simultaneously, winner can roll to fight instantaneously another round until one side is extinct or one side chooses to break from the combat

I don't know about this combat system though. It's SO different sounding. Everything moves and shoots for both sides then melee happens. Ok, that sounds fair enough and pretty easy to do. Units regenerate all lost wounds at the end of the phase sounds bad to me though. Even if say melee extends as a single phase until a unit breaks away or is destroyed, then the remaining unit regenerates?

So giant dragon attacks saurus, dragon kills all saurus after long melee but saurus reduced it from 5 wounds to 1. Dragon regenerates all 5 wounds and goes on to do same thing somewhere else, running the board for the duration of the game.

Is that what it sounds like to anyone else?

 

Honestly, that was the part that I frowned at too. @Raptor_00 your Dragon example is pertinent, as wounding by attrition is a tactic often used against big Monsters/Machines/Heroes etc. when a suitable rival isn't available. I can't see the logic behind it, perhaps someone could try and speculate for me?

 

That's how the bit you quoted sounds to me too. It is wildly different from the WFB that we know, so much so that I would lend it even less credence than normal... Though that system might work to our advantage, with the sheer number of monsters that we have available. (You get a carnosaur, and you get a carnosaur, and you get a carnosaur, carnosaurs for everyone!!)

 

That would be pretty awesome.

I guess if you don't think of the game as having big blocks of troops anymore it's ok. It would really be our carnosaur vs the dragon, and that's a more fair fight I guess. But I agree with you on their credence, some of those rules seem like a fan made explosion of crazy that they can't be true...which worries me GW made them and they are.

 

Guys, how many rules have been misunderstood by players through ALL of 8th edition?
We had the books for so long and STILL learn we were wrong about stuff..

This guy had the rules of a new game edition for an hour.

 

You're right, and I could be jumping to huge conclusions of combat based on a mis-read by someone who could be looking at a draft copy that's changed 20 times.
Not everything in it sounds horribly bad. It fits a lot of the rumors I've seen though. And might hold small kernels of truth in each of those lines written there. So they might give us a small glimpse of things. And if we can kind of see how what is written works together as game mechanics, we might get a better idea of seeing if this is true, what might be wrong, and how as a whole this all fits together with everything we've heard over all sources.
I WANT to believe this edition will be cool and awesome and revive fantasy, and it just might.

 

soo...we are Portal bitches? Bouncers at a club.

 

The Bouncers of Eternity ^_^

We've always been the real front line against Chaos. It's the warmbloods, tall and angsty, short and hairy, or totally variable, that keep messing things up. We're kinda the scaly Grey Knights of this setting: incorruptible(?), selflessly devoted to our creator(s), cold-blooded (hiyooo) killing machines. If we keep on that way, then I'll (probably) remain interested.