GW News: SKAVEN VICTORY! #NewAoS

And priced about 250 euros

Grrr, !mrahil

 

You don't need to tell me mate, I'm well on the way to building my fan-made rules empire. Now if only there were those willing souls who would embrace it, rather than cling on to the decaying remains of 'officiality'...

 

A very nice Slann model indeed! GW have finally listened to one of my wishes (it won't last mind). I dread to think how much he'll be, but given he's on a Carnifex-sized base and GW still price Carnifex-size units resonably (around £30-£35) surely it'll be about that much, won't it?












Won't it?

Now I like these Skink Cavalry a lot. A nice reinvention of the old Horned One Riders to take them away from being 'Super Cold Ones'. Either rules for these will be cropping up in an expansion for the Lizardman army book or I may well just save them for one possible army list I had in the works called Warhammer: Cult of Sotek...

I'm really not hugely fond of these Saurus to be honest, principally because they seem to have got the guy who sculpted the Carnosaur Oldblood in permanently to sculpt Saurus - these have the same fat feet and short jaws. Give me more Saurus sculpts like the plastic foot Oldblood any day. The shields are also too AoS-ified, give me back the old scaled shields when Lizardmen were Lizardmen. But then, I already have enough of the old Saurus for my needs.

But, for those who wanted Saurus to be more hench and weren't worried about giving them proper-sized jaws, I hope you'll be happy with those.

Also I'm most looking forward to see what other Lizardman content GW has up their sleeves. This looks to be an all-out army refresh, something I wasn't expecting after Warriors of Chaos had one so soon.


And my opinion toward all the other releases previewed...



It looks as if GW can't release anything cool without dropping some Daughters of Khaine, Vampires and Primaris Marines along with it.

 

At least the vampire box comes with some neat terrain, the bamboo pallisades are neat.
Shame of the weird trees wit hands they come attached too though.

 

Might as well wait until GW releases the scenery separately, as they have done here:
https://www.games-workshop.com/en-GB/ravaged-lands-gnarlwood-watchcamp-2022

I like that scenery, mind you, it would fit quite well as Lizardman-themed scenery, especially the pieces with actual ruined Lizardman stonework.

 

Eighth Edition for Life!

Wouldn't that be nice. I'd be shocked if that was the case though.

I've made custom rules, but only for fun, I've never fielded it.

More or less than the "current" sculpt?

I agree about the shields. They're my least favourite part of the new sculpt.

 

It took me just a moment to figure this out. Ya did me dirty. I posted the Seraphon pictures clipped straight from the live feed as it was being presented in real time. Today I go through the thread only to find that you posted yours "first"... but only by going back retroactively and editing an earlier post. Makes it look like I double posted you, when the reverse is true.

Dirty . Two can play at that game though (even if only out of principle).

 

Justice (petty revenge) has been served.

 

I wouldn't get your hopes up, as far as I can see the body is the same for both versions, with just the arms and head different. Doesn't stop someone making cast or replicating the sculpt of the body, but personally I would think it'd be more effort than it's worth, unless you really wanted to make Mazdamundi with all your heart.

I recall your custom characters, but you've never tried writing rules for a unit yet, at least not to my knowledge.

And as to not yet fielding custom rules...




It's only by fully playtesting you can actually determine whether what you've made is suitably balanced or not, and in general captures what you want it to convey on the field, and then better informs your rewrite if that's not the case.

To be honest they're about the same - neither capture Saurus in the best possible way, and I would never trade my 6th Edition Saurus for those, even if I hadn't painted them all yet.

 

At last you have revealed yourself to @Cristhian MLR.

At last you have had revenge.

Glad to see it's not just me that is regularly on the receiving end of the Revenge of the Sith

 

I'm late to the party. This is very exciting. It's nice to see new models for the actual army after so long. It's a shame that I already have most of what I need (or maybe my wallet will thank me). Overall, I like these models.

The Slann looks really cool! A bit more activity (which some will like) and I'm excited that we have options for the kit. I really like the new palanquin/throne and how it's made to float without a stand. But I think it's a bit big and visually "swallows" the Slann. I'm also a bit visually distracted by the Slann's feet/legs. I would have preferred them to be de-emphasized or more tucked away. But those are all nitpicks. A great model that I would consider buying.

The Saurus Warriors look sweet! They are more muscled and fierce-looking (although might be harder to rank @NIGHTBRINGER). I like the new shields well enough, but I miss some scaly ones, and think we could have had a mix. I also hate we don't have clubs & spears options. Others have said they saw spears. I think that's just the standard bearer. Whereas I have a fondness for the old kit, I like these and I will probably buy at least one kit.

Skink cavalry. Feathered dinos are a Seraphon thing now. Pretty nice models, with good poses and cool looking accents/weapons. They definitely stand out from Saurus Knights. No scaly shields again, but nice patterns on them. The mounts have a kind of awkward look to me, but I can see some great paint jobs coming for them. I'm sort of middle of the road on them. My real hope is for updated Saurus Knights.
The bigger question is how they will fit in with the army and what role will they fill? I'm sure GW will make these Skink riders "mandatory" to take until they get nerfed.

VERY excited to hear these are just the start of more Lizard reveals.

 

Games Workshop would certainly have no issue with you using custom rules... as long as you buy MORE minis from them!!

I don't personally incorporate custom rules/units into my games, but I can understand and appreciate why others like to do so.

From my vantage point, here are the issues:

• bias leading to imbalance (more so than the usual GW imbalance)
• splintering of an already small player pool (everyone playing different sets of rules)
• unfamiliarity for the opponent

I would never advocate that others refrain from implementing their own custom rules, but it just isn't really for me. I've made custom rules for custom characters in the past (and feel they are rather good), but I've never actually fielded it. Tastes will vary though. As long as all parties involved agree, by all means go for it. Enjoy your hobby as you see fit.

 

@Imrahil I think the Raptadon riders solve a couple Rumor Engines. Specifically, the feathers flowing behind the standard and one of the javelins.

 

I thought that too until I saw this shot:

The one on the right is the Standard Bearer, so the one on the left must be carrying a spear.

 

Hahaha

https://www.lustria-online.com/threads/gw-news-new-lizards-teased.17322/page-314#post-429133


Now we can just go back and forth editing earlier and earlier posts... all the way back to the beginning, which he would win as he has the very first post of the thread.

I'm done now though. Enough silliness... even for me.

 

GOOD EYES. I missed that. Hmm... you think GW would have shown that in this release.

 

Nice catch!

 

I personally don't have an issue with bias. Even if I were to be forced to write a Vampire Counts book (shudder), I'd still try and make it a nice, balanced, thematic book that is neither underpowered or overpowered, because I know that that is exactly what I would want if I were a Vampire player. I think about what my target audience would want whenever I write a list, and try to deliver on that (unlike GW who think only how much money they can make, which isn't fully linear with what everyone wants). Of course even with the best will in the world I've still found some of my work to be a bit strong when sharing it with one of the lads on EEFL, who has been great at reviewing it for me, but since then I have been going over it and tweaking it until it has been a lot better. That's what real testing is all about.

GW have clearly taken over 3 decades and many editions of three games to realise this with them only releasing the free balance dataslates in the past couple of years, when I've tried to take it into account ever since I started doing serious rules writing, only a four or five years now.

And let's be honest, GW haven't exactly been impartial when releasing their own books. High Elves and Dark Elves were particularly favoured over both 7th and 8th, for example. Coincidence? I think not.

There lies the importance of advertising. I must admit I perhaps should join more forums and advertise mine. Fortunately Matthias Eliasson, the previous king of Fantasy fan-made rules, has become too obsessed with his own 9th Edition to care about 8th anymore, so there's a chance for me to usurp his throne. Additionally, wherever possible I've left armies to use 'official' 8th works, my main objective is writing rules for new armies and bumping up those on the weak side, relying on existing 8th sources wherever possible. In other words, the minimum to keep 8th alive and fun for everybody.

Simple, let them have a read of the book in advance of the game, so they have an idea of what they're up against before you play. That also gives them a chance to raise any concerns over balance in which case that's more opportunity to tweak things slightly to get it right.

Fair enough.

A pity, because I have a few projects in the works that I think you'd particularly enjoy (including two relating to Egyptian Skeletons and Babylonian Dwarfs), and you're welcome to still give them a try if you change your mind, but everyone is of course allowed to choose their own path.

 

o definitly waiting, not buying it just for the terrain. Just saying it's something

The main issue with bias in fanmade projects isthat a lot of it is subconcious and it can be reaaaaally hard to detect and stop if there's only 1 or 2 writers. Which usually results in the authors favorite simply being more fleshed out, be just a little bit more thematicly coherent etc. Even if it isn't necesarly OP, it'll probably be noticeable when you only have 1 or 2 writers for an entire project.

On the bright side; GW suffers from this problem a lot too since they seem to consistently make the mistake of working in very small teams on individual projects with very little overlap, so it's not like you're truly going to be worse than the real game unless you do a really bad job