It might not be a source of panic just yet, because this:
Geedubs said:
Much of the action in the first wave of books and supplements takes place in and around the Border Princes – the barrier lands between the Empire and Orc territory. Accordingly, we will be focusing on nine core factions.
Suggests that they're starting off with fewer factions to see how well the game does and make it easier for new players to get on board with the setting, like Warhammer: Total War only had 4 factions to start off with and expanded later on.
I mean we've already seen that they're planning on making Kislev and Cathay models in time, so they definitely are planning to expand the game as time goes on so long as it is successful, so I wouldn't be at all surprised if they gradually released supplements for the other factions later when their regions of the world are examined, much like Warhammer: Total War, and that the PDFs are simply a placeholder for existing players to keep using their army until then.
I think it's also worth bearing in mind that most of the factions that are going to get the love first are either those who were scrapped soon into AoS (Bretonnians and Tomb Kings) or those that had their model range severely culled as AoS marched on (Dwarfs, High Elves, Wood Elves, and Empire too if we're counting the fact that they're going to be replaced with the new Cities of Skubmar range in the AoS section of the GW website in the near future). By contrast, most of the factions that are currently being left out of model and book love survived the Fantasy-AoS transition pretty much unscathed (certainly Vampires, Skaven, Daemons, Ogres and Lizardmen still function as armies in their own right, and right now Dark Elves still have the vast majority of their models spread between Daughters of Khaine and Cities of Skubmar), so it sounds to me as if GW have the operation spread out over a long period of time and are focusing on the most neglected Fantasy factions first, which conveniently enough are also some of the bigger players in the Old World.
As for Chaos Dwarfs, it may well be that GW have a new plastic range still in the works, because they haven't been subtle about them remaining in the AoS universe in recent times with the Hobgoblins and Horns of Hashut, and are waiting until the range arrives before giving them full rules in both AoS and TOW.
Something I am pissed about though is that they're classing Tomb Kings as Evil now. They're clearly the good-guy Undead, with Vampires serving as the evil thralls of Nagash.
However, good to see Beastmen are there (here's hoping for the return of Beast Herds and Raiders to distinguish them from Orcs and Warriors), plus Dawi, Greenskins, Bretonnia, High Elves and for a change, Tomb Kings being the Undead faction that is front and centre. Also it's great to see the confirmation of the return of the old models! As
@Killer Angel has already said, this is the biggest win!
Interesting to see the Island of Blood Swordmasters appearing again, perhaps they'll be released in their own plastic set at last. Plus the appearance of Irondrakes confirms my hypothesis that they'll be moved over to the TOW store when the game arrives.
Looking forward to seeing the classic Orcs come back, as I'm still missing some spear Boyz and Boar Boyz for my Greenskins. Also the appearance of the old plastic chapel makes me hope they're going to bring all the scenery back as well, which would be the icing on the cake.
Strange to see the old Finecast/metal Treeman making a return when the plastic one currently in the Sylvaneth section of the website was originally released in 8th Edition, but it shows they're pulling all the stops out to bring old models back.
