GW News: BIG N' SMALL WAAAGH! COMIN'

I don't, actually. I just have no interest in painting nighthaunt at present though.

I am, however, participating in the 9th age's secret santa.

Would anyone else like to do a scaly secret santa, where we share the gifts of the plaques?

 

It's still a chicken-egg scenario. SCE and Space Marines get the love they do in no small part due to a disproportionate number of GW's sales being kits from those ranges (especially given their beginner-friendly design from a hobby perspective), which in turn drives incentive to keep customers coming for those.

How this pans out for other factions is a different story, though suffice to say that variety is the spice of life in a lot of cases. From the outset, Daughters of Khaine at least started with enough unit variety to really expand on the Witch Elf theme from Warhammer Fantasy, whereas the Dwarf Slayer theme wasn't really expanded upon with the Fyreslayers beyond "Crazy Half-Naked Axe Dwarf" save for the volcanic overtones. Even Kharadron Overlords have more going for them, and that's after considering that the units that most likely inspired them aren't even in their own battletome.

 

Not really - Melusai and Khinerai aren't much of a variation from the standard Witch Elf, they are still Crazy Half-Naked Murderous Elf Lesbians, just with a snake tail or bat wings. How original.

Besides there's a lot GW could do with Fyreslayers to boost their variety, if they only put the effort into it - young Magmadroth Chariots, Female Fyreslayer warriors, animated statues carved from obsidian and empowered with Ur-Gold runes, anyone with half a decent imagination and a love for Dwarfs could do something great with them. But then all the guys with any love for Dwarfs seem to have gone over to Black Library to write about Gotrek or have vanished from GW entirely so that the Elf fanatics are free to balls-up the AoS game with ever more game-breaking shenanigans because aElVes aRe CoOl.

 

To a small degree.

I don't think that GW picks their "favourites" at random. They could give Fyreslayers all the attention in the world and they still wouldn't outsell Space Marines. Some aesthetics, stories and themes are simply more popular than others.

Still more original than having an army composed of essentially one model (with minor tweaks) and a mediocre looking monster. On the other hand, for such a small force, the Daughters of Khaine are quite diverse in model selection while still maintaining a unified theme.

 

GW sometimes picks favorites due to staff preference, too. Dark Elves were wildly popular within the staff members during 7th ed WFB, so they got a lot of new sculpts.

Other options for Fyreslayers: Bring back Malakai's Goblin Hewer as a Fyreslayer artillery piece. An axe-throwing war machine? Yes, please! So many other things they could bring. The Slayer-specific subfaction from Storm of Chaos (WFB) had a lot of interesting options. They had the Dwarf equivalent of fricking Goblin Fanatics, for crying out loud. Dwarves spinning around with axes on chains like a Fanatic? Why did THOSE go away?!?

 

I can definitely see that happening in the past, but I wonder if that is still the case today. GW seems a lot more corporate now. I would guess (and it is only guess) that such decisions would increasingly be left to the corporate "bean counters" as opposed to the passionate hobbyist staff members.

 

For those interested in the Battleforces, I wrote this post for the recent Cadia Stands box: https://warhamateur.com/guides/cadia-stands-where-to-get-the-best-prices/

I do intend to post something similar with the Battleforce prices (and also get round to including NZ/Aus/hopefully Canada), but the store list will remain pretty much the same. Might help save some people a couple of pennies that they could better spend on more paint =D

 

For @Lord Agragax of Lunaxoatl !!! I hope this brings you some joy! Thoughts?







And some other stuff...





These guys are awesome, full of character and fun (squig on a stick!)...



I don't play 40K, and I have zero use for this model, but I must admit that it is pretty cool....

 

Give me wolf riders!

But seriously, that causes a dilemma. Do I keep my pile of old metal-and-plastic goblins wolf riders for The Old World, or base them for AoS? Choices, choices... I suppose it'll have to wait for the warscroll.

 

It certainly does! I'm not planning to use my Beastmen in AoS but it's good to see that the 3rd Edition Battletome has a great new piece of cover art (particularly with a Sigmarine having been stomped into the dirt) and that they are getting at least one significant buff.

And as for the Beastlord model, he is fantastic! Luckily I have not yet bought the old Finecast model so I can now wait a little while for this new plastic version to arrive and grab him to be my Beastlord, Alarak the God!

As an aside, I feel all the more sorry for Ogre players now, they really got the short straw in terms of model quality for their 3rd Edition release.

I'm most impressed by these as well, as you know I'm a big fan of the Gobbos!

I hope you're suitably impressed by the new Wolf Riders, you can now grab a box or two to add to your Rippa's Snarlfangs to make your Hobgoblin Wolf Raiders at last!

I certainly think they're great, but like @Tk'ya'pyk I already have some of the old ones in my Greenskin army. I really wanted another 10 as I made 2 units of 5 with different weapon options, and stupidly didn't pick up a second-hand but complete box I found in a model shop , and of course these new ones look far and away better so won't fit.

I'm not getting rid of my current ones, mind, I'll just have to keep looking around my fave model shops and see if I can find some more old ones second-hand.

And the Underworlds warband is once again great fun. I'm not sure if I'll have a place for them in my Greenskin horde, but it's still great to see Night Goblins getting some love (shame though GW once again didn't bother to give them a new piece of cover art, that's three of my favourite AoS armies that they've frowned upon in this way now, alongside Fyreslayers and Skaven, but at least Beastmen got a new piece of artwork so that's something)

 

Cool. It's about time Beasts of Chaos got a new book. The new Beastlord model and the Goblin Wolfriders look great.

That 40K Chaos model does look creepy as hell.

 

GW also showed us the roadmap for AoS book releases.


Khorne and Tzeentch are bound to be the Chaos books, yes? Or would they be updating Slaanesh already?
FEC and OBR are bound to be the Death books.
What about the Order books? Seraphon, Kharadron Overlords, and Cities of Sigmar are all possible. I will guess KO in spring and CoS in summer.

 

I don't know how you AoS fans deal with such a high rate of content release. 5 new books in spring!!! That's nearly two (1.67) books per month over the course of spring. This is probably my biggest reservation when it comes to The Old World. If GW employs the same tactic, which is basically something akin to pay-to-win, then that is an instant deal breaker. They simply leave no room for rules/meta stability.

 

There's truth in that. GW does change/push the meta often in AoS. But the books I think GW will update haven't been updated in a few years. So, it's not quite as offensive.

 

Too many factions then?

 

...yeaaaaaaah, as of today's shipment, I now have... hmm... 28 wolf riders? I think? Don't know if that includes characters or not though, and at least two are hobgoblins instead of goblins, mix of old plastic and metal.