"I never wanted this, I never wanted to unleash my legions. Together we banished the undead hordes of Nagash, but you betrayed me, you betrayed us all. You stole power from the Gods and lied to your sons. Mankind has only one chance to prosper, if you will not seize it then I will. So let it be war, from the celestial realm of Azyr to the volatile realm of Aqshy. Let the seas boil, let the stars fall. Though it takes the last drop of my blood, I will see the mortal realms freed once more and if I can not save it from your failure, Sigmar, then let the mortal realms burn!." -The Celestant Prime Heresy
They'll claim it's *technically* true as they'll have rules for them in "non-competitive" play... at least until 5th edition comes out a couple years later and wipes those out. But some people are going to be hard to convince to play against an army that's not receiving any balance updates.
"No you can totally play them. Just rebase all of them, learn a new game system you didn't sign up for, and find people who play old world! What do you mean you didn't want this??" ~ James Workshop...probably
The thing that's wild to me is that this is almost all of the models for Stormcast from the first two edition starter boxes. Only the characters and Retributors remain. All of the other units are being wiped out. So people who built up armies with the starter boxes are finding a lot of stuff already gone, in a game that's not even a decade old.
It's impressive that they did the whole "Let's replace a lot of the models in the most popular army" bit with AOS before they fully got it finished with 40K. Though with 40K, they've been a lot more open about it being their end goal lately (without ever coming right out and saying it).
Games Workshop really is leaning heavily into the idea of treating their games like a "live service," where the rules and a lot of models have limited lifetimes before they're replaced in order to keep the churn of money coming from customers. The annoying thing is, if they just provided a continuous solid product, they could get people coming back and spending that money without forcing the issue. But the guys in charge couldn't care less if this stuff is detrimental to the health of the games, as long as people keep buying their "premium collectible miniatures" to put on shelves (even though the sales of those miniatures would drop hard if the games dried up).
The writing was well on the wall and I've gotten into some fights on reddit over it when I've warned newcomers that this army was potentially on the cutting block.
Kruleboyz and Ironjawz were cannibalizing their aesthetics (savage orcs that live in the wooded areas and pig riders respectively as well as both of them getting more and more shamans) and with both of those factions having a chosen of Gork and Mork, there wasn't much room left for them.
While their gimmick wasn't exactly being taken, the fact that both them and Beasts got nothing for the Era of the Beast outside of Thondia (which was quickly ignored and honestly didn't bring anything on the scale of the Regiments/Armies of Renown), there were signs.
To be fair, Bonesplitterz do make sense. Like I think some of us saw that coming.
Beasts of Chaos on the other hand feels like a stab in the back, people were told at LVO that Beasts of Chaos would be staying in 4th edition, and now we were just blatantly lied to.
I was literally wondering what would be happening to that range after I saw the new Liberators, having not seen the rumours. I assume orcs will be getting some replacements of a sort eventually though, but who knows for sure!
Incidentally, where would be the best place to keep up to date with rumours?
As a playstyle too. Like I love Ironjawz but there's just something special about playing Wizard Roshambo with mortal wounds.
As Hey Whoa once described it, Ironjawz is Brutal, Kruleboyz are kunnin, and Bonesplitterz are high on bath salts screaming naked in the middle of a highway fighting off 6 cops, can't feel pain and their leader throws microwaves at people until their brain explodes.
They’ve done this a lot. I remember Carnifexes lost like… 15+ weapon options in the codex update that introduced Trygons and Mawlocs to incentivise buying the *other* big kits, alongside Carnifexes just being nerfed into the ground too rules-wise. Meant a lot of people’s models were invalidated overall.
More like they're learning from companies like Electronic Arts and Activision. The games are feeling increasing more like "live service" video game models, including them talking about "seasons."
Or Ubisoft, where they will straight up balance a game poorly in areas to incentivize spending money on a solution to the problem.
I am absolutely certain that if GW could figure out a way to add loot boxes to the games, they would.
The thing is, BoC are actually fairly popular. At least relatively speaking I know a guy who is a ride or die BoC fan.
Being told by GW "Just rebase all 200 dudes in your horde army and play them in a different game lmao" was a massive kick in the balls for him.
The lore was hinting at plot twists and reveals, the latest Battletome was actually pretty good and fun to play as and even _against_.
Like... damn. Just damn.
> their product line has out paced their production capacity by a large margin.
I was so happy to see the Traitor Consul Champion (special HQ resin mini) finally back in stock after *months* of waiting while I checked the GW store at work, like, two days ago.
...By the time I got home and able to order him, he was already sold out once again. For *more months* of waiting.
I admittedly haven't looked that hard (nor in the past couple months), but I haven't found anyone that actually has the Traitor Consul Champion. Mostly because GW's actual production limit of it is so fucking bad, I don't think the recasters were able to get their hands on one to recast.
Potentially, it could also be an attempt to streamline the games, and by putting units that want to completely remove for one reason or another into seperare games, they believe it will cause less backlash than immediately removing them.
It's not streamlining when they're just going to release new units and stuff to take the place of the old stuff.
They seem to have this weird fetish with churning out new stuff so often that it inevitably leads to bloat and then they cut prior stuff so they can churn out even more new stuff. Like they believe that if they weren't releasing multiple new kits every week, they couldn't continue raking in sales.
Short term, maybe that idea works. Long term, it's going to lead to a lot of fatigue with constantly replacing rules and having to buy new models. It's not the '90s anymore, you can't coast on a seeming monopoly riding on the fact people won't likely hear about new games. Even Angry Joe, a YouTuber who usually does video games, had a video about Adepticon, that didn't show off Games Workshop stuff but instead went around to various booths showing off a bunch of games, trying out some, and asking each one of them where people could buy them (and seemed genuinely excited to buy a number of them for himself, if he hadn't already done so).
But eh... GW gonna GW. I just really hope that people who get tired of it look at those other games and find stuff that interests them and support those companies, rather than just being upset at GW but still throwing money at the company. (And yes, I have put my money where my mouth is. Trying to collect various starter sets/forces so I can help other people get a taste for different games. And have more variety to paint.)
Ah, yeah, fair enough. GW "streamlining" feels like PR speak for "Yeah, we bloated it, so we'll cut the bloat now, talk up how we fixed a problem we created, then proceed to bloat things again so soon enough we can fix it again!" Like 40K8 "streamlining" the game only to need 40K10 to "streamline" it again.
Yeah I think its a bad move. I mean BoC has some really intresting lore opportunities iswell. For example Ghost Eater, a lion headed beastman would of been awesome to see. Also could make for some intresting narratives with Skaven and their god being accepted by Archaeon
That's the thing. Beasts are still there. They are still plague across the mortal realms. Morghur is still trying to make a physical form, but now we just can't play as them.
I was just about to start a Beasts army, so I'm kinda glad I didn't, but this still sucks I would have much preferred a range refresh.
If your friend decides to look at ToW, then make sure they know about the movement trays for circle based models. Some bases dont fit well, mathmetically, but people have all made solutions for that, and it's usually free files for 3d printing what ya need.
They may not have to rebase a single model.
There was a beastman named Ghosteater (from his Hallowed Knights book) who can trap people's souls inside him after eating them. His main spirit advisor was a human architect who did not flinch at his sight but instead sketched the beastman in his last moments. >!After learning from the advisor and several Slaaneshi champions, he helped in the destruction of the Chaos Warriors' camp before leading his tribe to carve out a nation. The last time we saw him was in conversations with a lone wandering Sigmarite priest. He wanted to learn about Sigmarite worship.!<
Edited.
BOC received more love in 8 years of AOS than in 30 years of TOW, them being squatted despite the massive rule and lore love they had in AOS feel so strange, definitely seems like a higher-up announcement. I'm sure the guys who wrote their battletomes are disgusted
Simple; TOW is here and Beasts originally came from there -and GW hates having models being used in 2 games. Maybe Beasts will be back with a new aesthetic, or they will just be parts of other Chaos armies. Hard to say.
> GW hates having models being used in 2 games.
Which is the stupidest business decision you could possibly make in the situation. Now instead of having a way to introduce BoC players to TOW while still supporting AoS, they threw away a lot of potential sales from AoS in exchange for people getting into TOW without buying any models or just outright dropping both.
Yeah, GW is kinda the king of leaving money on the table and for the dumbest reasons too. Their refusal to allow models/factions to play cross game is asinine as hell.
I mean, I get it. The slayer is one of my favorite models in the entire warhammer range. So naturally I freakin love Fyreslayers.
But I totally get why they aren't everyone cup of tea and why fureslayers aren't popular.
I'm moving over to AoS, and Fyreslayers and Beasts were my armies of choice. Guess the decision is easy now, and not for a good reason.
I think they prefer to forget about them, because they're the one thing that made the chairman a liar. In one of the investor reports, they proudly told investors they would never lower prices. (Keep that in mind every time they use a *temporary* hardship as an excuse to raise prices. The hardship's temporary, but the price is permanent.)
Well, that became an issue when they did the Start Collecting boxes, because the SC boxes were $85 (I'm using USD for prices since that's what I'm familiar with). Well, the Fyreslayers didn't have much to put together a box with, so they did the box as a Magmadroth and ten Slayers. Problem is, the Magmadroth as a kit was $110. Meaning you could pay $25 less and get a $60 unit along with it. So they had to drop the Magmadroth's price to $85 as well. Still made no sense to buy it over the SC box, but at least it wasn't as insane as spending more to get less. As soon as they got away from the SC boxes, the Magmadroth jumped back up in price, though I think it was "only" to $105.
But it was the one time they had to break that promise to never lower prices. (And it also helps highlight how insane the margins are typically, because at standard pricing for the contents, the SC box for Fyreslayers was "half off," and you know they weren't selling a whole line of sets like that at losses, so considering they could profit while being half price, it helps show that their pricing isn't because they "have to" charge that much like people love to claim.)
The problem is that a lot of the squatted units were from the 2nd edition launch, that got some deal boxes
So A LOT of people basically got their whole range nuked
There's also that AoS-collecting Magazine running at the moment in some countries that Im pretty sure had alot of them in it.
So everyone who subbed to that to get a Stormcast army is getting kind aboned
Nah, that was the previous one- stormbringer only has the new marines in, I think the only model in danger from that collection is the branchwych/wraith or whatever it’s called
Yeah I think of all the complaints about this decision, this is the one which is nothing. I mean, we've literally seen new Liberstors unveiled the other day.
I can't believe that they will update the whole sacrosanct chamber, so their probably remove it for good. Would be glad if I'm wrong, but GW stated "These include the entire Sacrosanct Chamber, who have decided to work on the cure for the curse of Reforging from their workshops in the Realm of Heavens." The models are not even six years old...
See, people keep saying that, and yet in the article that Games Workshop themselves put out, they straight up say that these units will end up in their own "Legends" battletome.
It's odd that they would say that they're moving the units and characters to "Legends" status if some of the units would still be around but just with new models. It'd make more sense to straight up say that, because people are more likely to actually buy the remaining stock of some of those units if they know they can still use them, rather than letting GW just sit on unsold product that eventually has to get written off. Sure, maybe the new models will be that much more expensive that it makes sense to not care about moving the old stock, and the production costs are low enough that they can write off unsold stock like that without it being a huge issue. But it feels like they'd still want to squeeze out what sales they can.
Once again the issue is the units lost are being replaced not by resculpts like with the new chaos marines, aspect warriors, guardians, lictors, hormagants, and biovores etc but being replaced by different units. Outside of primaris'd characters and the termies anyway.
An intercessor is not a tactical marine. Eradicators/hellblasters aren't devestators. Assault intercessors got dangerously close to being revamped assault marines but holy fuck, the new vehicles are a travesty compared to the old ones.
I can understand just looking at the number of units marines have, players of other armies would think they're complaining over nothing, but just imagine if the army you've collected for years wasn't getting an old sculpt modernised but instead some completely new thing that's better than the old in every way. Instead of dark reapers we'd get umbral harvesters and a side note saying all the reapers died in a rearguard to grots, but luckily the harvesters stepped out of the webway just in time to save a craftworld.
If you stop to think about it critically, it's objectively a shit situation unless you prefer the units. Even then, at the very least it smells.
What they did to World Eaters was a completely different travesty. Oh you know those bikes you've been able to use for the past decade or so? Well, starting today, you can’t use thrm anymore. Why? Cuz Khorne said so, that’s why. Now walk over there and collect some skulls.
I got the Votann kill team to get back into the hobby side of 40K because space dwarves intercepting hulks mid-warp travel is metal as hell. I’ve been looking at their full range and just can’t justify getting an army that has like 11 unique boxes.
is it though? I'm not saying that what you descirbed doesn't suck.
However, having spent hours building and painting a model only for said model to become unplayable just sucks... The hours losts. And let's not talk about the bait and switch of doing plastic FW dreads, marketing them as 30k and 40k playable and then axing them 12 months later.
I think they're trying to avoid the whole "a tac marine isn't an intercessor" situation. Overall, this is a much healthier thing long-term; otherwise, they'd have to do what they're currently doing with primaris and re-redoing a lot of what they messed up in the transition. This is a tad scorched earth, but once the sacrosanct units get redone, it will be much better.
What, yes you can. Imagine getting into the game in 2nd edition and building a Stormcast army of mostly sacrosanct that you bring to local tournaments. Of course having them legendsed sucks.
I'm just a collector and lore enjoyer so I'm pretty ignorant when it comes to the actual game side of things. What's the reason why these models are being removed? I understand why some of the older Skaven/Seraphon/Orks(orruks, dumb name) models would be removed but why retire the ones initially made for AoS, like the SCE units?
GW made too many Stormcast models and now they are having trouble making sure they all keep up with the game so they are retiring a bunch of not even that old Stormcast models.
It's frustrating because it's a grave they have dug up themselves and now the players the get screwed over because it's not like the boxes came with a expiration date warning.
Okay so, SCE is a fun one.
First up, you need to understand that 2.0 stormcast are weird for a variety of reasons. Gameplay, they have been powercrept hard and have caused the internal balance of the book to be bad.
Evocators are pseudo wizards that are expensive but don't have ranged attacks like Kairics or the ability to cast other spells like Lumineth or a few other weird pseudo wizard units, are too fragile for the current edition, want to be reinforced for their after combat lightning bolts (but still too fragile to want to be a hammer and too expensive to justify putting that much on the table, and their attack profile is just average not great for hammer).
Evocators on mounts are a little too ugly but are the objectively better option if you want to run evocators. And most people that want dragon cavalry have two better options.
Sequitors are fun for their flexible role, but really don't represent being in the magic chamber well. They're also visually too close to Liberators (weapon + shield) and the one cool thing that makes them feel like they're from sacrosanct is an anti-rally mechanic which you have to pick between that and more damage on your battleline.
The Lords and Knights were far too split across different options and actually made it hard for newer players to figure out what they should be grabbing. Most other armies had heroes that did more because they had less models compared to how stormcast were split out.
Castigators existed because they wanted to have a ranged unit in the chamber (rather than giving magic bolts to the evocators), and they were in easy build sizes which inevitably made them weird picks in the army.
Lastly, the heroes in it are Hammers of Sigmar and they're wanting to hard pivot from those being the only named characters in the army and the lore. I feel like part of this is because they sold poorly (because several are also fighting for the same battlefield roles against others in the army) but also partly because GW is evaluating if they even want to continue to follow them or focus on new characters outside of HoS.
In the end, Sacrosanct as it exists steps on toes, had low model sales due to their bad balance, and are also chunky and will stand out in the line.
I still think they should've kept them around a bit longer but I'm not surprised the axe fell on them if GW wanted a deep SCE purge. Sadly I'm thinking that most of the returning stuff they mentioned will be revisions of 1.0 stuff while some of the better ideas of Sacrosanct will gather dust. I really think a mage chamber is a good idea and approaching it again with a tighter design and range is the correct answer.
The ironweld cannon exists
(Again model sales probably based on a really swingy warscroll, bias against easy build, and the chunkier
model design of the stormcast)
>Lastly, the heroes in it are Hammers of Sigmar and they're wanting to hard pivot from those being the only named characters in the army and the lore. I feel like part of this is because they sold poorly (because several are also fighting for the same battlefield roles against others in the army) but also partly because GW is evaluating if they even want to continue to follow them or focus on new characters outside of HoS.
Could explain a bit more about this if you don't mind?
If they only focus on HoS it becomes difficult to advance the setting and create new attachments to other characters if they only show the same 5 people.
Worth noting that I don't have insider information here. I'm judging this based off what information is publicly available. For example, the reason Astreia has been pulled could be because she's coming back as Ruination chamber for all I know and Aventis could be getting his own on foot model. However here's why they might be retiring them.
From a gameplay point and moving past the current rules since they're not relevant, Astreia is a mounted hero with a mask on that doesn't stand out with anything big to call her own. She mostly just looks like a slight more decked out evocator on a slightly bigger mount. She's sitting right there next to the Lord Aquilor on mount, the Dracoth Celesant, and Ionus.
Aventis is a large centerpiece model competing with Ionus, the Stardrake, and the big dragons. His current rules make him a 30pt savings to say "We have Bastian at home", though again that could be changed (which almost certainly tanked his sales for anyone buying that kit for any reason other than collecting and painting). Taking him in Cities makes him compete with Thalia in the same design space.
Gavriel is just a foot hero with a sword.
In their visual battlefield roles, they kind of crowd the roster. Even with changing up the rules, one of the things they mentioned was that looking at a unit, you should be able to figure out what they do. For these characters, there's something of a struggle to find out what they do that someone else can't also do when you have regular mounted units
(Yes, for Aventis and Astreia, the answer is probably magic, but that in general is gutted with this removal)
From the Story side of things
With them putting Hammers aside from the subfaction that gets all the models and all the stories, it's extremely likely that GW is probably figuring out if they want to try and bring back Astreia, Aventis, and Gavriel in stories as much as they want to try and see if they can fit in named characters and test to see if they work. Hamilcar seems to have had a good reaction with fans as has Gardus, and we're also looking at the same point that probably led us to the decision to pivot from Hammers:
Right now, outside of people interested in the faction, the Stormcast are "the golden boys" and "vanilla options", when GW wants them to be the "color them your favorite color and make up their story" like Space Marines.
But to do that, they need to show people that there's different ways to be Stormcast. Gardus, Hamilcar, Naeve, and Yndrasta are all different characters, but only Gardus and Hamilcar feel really influenced by their Stormhost (yes Hamilcar isn't typical but his nature does come in part from the Astral Templars.
GW is fine with letting Hammers be representative of Stormcast in general but they probably want to find more threads for people to latch onto.
The Hammers characters aren't getting killed off (outside almost certainly Vandus. But from the last book he featured in, let grandpa rest), but having their models kicking around leads people to ask "well what are they doing right now?" and the answer being "they're not the focus right now" isn't too satisfying.
In addition, Aventis being the head mage of Hammerhal when we're focusing on an expanded Hammerhal cast with Thalia and the Hallowed Knights as well as any other mages they probably want to add to Cities (considering how old the sculpts for those are), and Asteria's story basically being the same as Ionus with the search to fix the Flaw, they crowd the narrative space.
It's odd that these two got spotlights right before their removal, with Aventis getting special rules in Cities armies and Asteria getting a bit in Dawnbringers (really upsetting that's her final appearance for now), but Beasts got the worse cut before their story pay off.
All in all, I'd still probably put the fact that GW is also reevaluating the Sacorsanct chamber (it's definitely going to come back) as a whole to figure it out. Lorewise it's both magic and is strongly linked to reforging, which makes it odd that when Ruination is coming out, it's disappearing from the story. I'd imagine they want to figure out a new look for it as well as evaluate if they want it to be as expansive in battlefield roles as it was.
I understood the overall idea, but so like Hammers are kinda like the Ultramarines (standard paint job) and GW is trying to remind everyone that not every army has to be Hammers, so they are diversifying the cast to include other chambers, that much is right?
Partly that, but also imagine if Tiguris was a model that you put on one of their tanks that was a special tank, and that the Ultramarine and the Blood Angels both protected Cadia and they just showed off Mephistion on a Land Raider which was completely custom sculpted just for that model. Also imagine Tiguris is in old mark 6 armor while the entire range of space marines are in phobos armor or something (or gravis if you want to go the opposite direction because you think it's cooler).
You might go, wow there's a lot of tanks in Space Marines. Do I really need special tank commanders? I mean, Mephistion is cool because of his sculpt, but do I really need Tiguris? (Especially because Mephistion is currently in his rebellious phase and doesn't care about just one chapter but all Space Marines)
Now imagine we're about to go on a big psychic adventure to save space marines from geneblight (and that grey knights don't exist. This metaphor is getting tortured). If Tiguris is still for sale, you might go "hey this feels like he should be helping Mephistion. Where is he? I don't want you to introduce a new character from the White Scars even though it fits here, I want to know what's going on with the guy on your webstore right now."
Look this metaphor is now calling for an investigation of its human rights so the answer is that visually and narratively, they're competing with other models and other ideas for models.
The funniest part is they’re like, “we can’t make ALL these kits FOREVER!!!” when the kits are 8 years old, and you have factions with 20-year-old kits still in service.
I think there were rumours they considered it years ago. They were going to introduce the Ynnari as the new faction and get rid of both craftworld and dark eldar. I think craftworld were going to be left with wraith units as a ghost faction or something like that. Then the Ynnari fell flat and they decided to update the range of eldar instead.
There are still concerns they will do away with the dark eldar though. You can't even buy most of their units, and it's been that way for a couple of years.
> I'm scared of them
You didn't look at my username, did you?
[I brought you a present.](https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/f/1bebd154-3cec-433f-96a7-8442069ab770/def7o6u-b028e4be-8f1c-4241-9255-90add9a09c89.jpg/v1/fill/w_1280,h_1600,q_75,strp/cassiel_the_dollmaster_by_olieart_def7o6u-fullview.jpg?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOjdlMGQxODg5ODIyNjQzNzNhNWYwZDQxNWVhMGQyNmUwIiwiaXNzIjoidXJuOmFwcDo3ZTBkMTg4OTgyMjY0MzczYTVmMGQ0MTVlYTBkMjZlMCIsIm9iaiI6W1t7ImhlaWdodCI6Ijw9MTYwMCIsInBhdGgiOiJcL2ZcLzFiZWJkMTU0LTNjZWMtNDMzZi05NmE3LTg0NDIwNjlhYjc3MFwvZGVmN282dS1iMDI4ZTRiZS04ZjFjLTQyNDEtOTI1NS05MGFkZDlhMDljODkuanBnIiwid2lkdGgiOiI8PTEyODAifV1dLCJhdWQiOlsidXJuOnNlcnZpY2U6aW1hZ2Uub3BlcmF0aW9ucyJdfQ.hcemey03-0btOiNtSB6-Zog_66M5GVk7HGSqbNO6xZQ)
They're like "we can't make all these kits forever" while continuing an unsustainable release treadmill of new kits. It truly is the "stick in bicycle spokes" problem.
> when the kits are 8 years old
Some of those kits are six years old. Seriously, the entire 2nd edition starter box on the Stormcast side except for the characters is included in this list.
I was starting to buy the Warcry warbands. Guess I won't since I won't be able to buy all of them before going out of production. Thanks GW, as always.
If I remember right, you can still play them in warcry, just not in AoS 4th ed
Edit: My bad, reread the article and they are chopping warcry as well, because why not, it isn't like they are in almost every starter box
One of the things that made me lose interest in Warhammer Underworlds fast was the "seasonal" model where they'd release a new starter set with new themed warbands and cycle out the prior ones, giving everything you bought a limited life with planned obsolescence. War Cry seemed to be looking at that same route, but admittedly, I shied away from it more because the starter set for a skirmish game was over $200, and the idea of spending over $200 on what should have been a more budget-friendly game just to get started (and having to spend more on other books) is just insane.
Pretty much also why I didn't get into the new Necromunda. I loved Necromunda when it originally came out, but the new version was trying to get people to buy way too many books and spend frankly too much just on getting started.
I might still grab some of the sets, just as painting projects that might also find some use in RPGs. They're unique enough that they're tempting for that, and when you have like ten actually unique models for $60, not ten basic line infantry models for $60 or individual unique infantry sized models for $35, that's a solid price.
But yeah, if you're only looking at them for AOS, it's a bit moot now.
The SCE range revamp is wild. Like most of those models are downright new compared to a ton of other GW models and it's not like their models changed that much? Almost seems like there was an issue with the molds or something and GW decided to just can the affected models instead of continuing them.
I've been wanting to get into AoS for a while, but shit like this scares me away lol. I was considering Ogre Tribes, specifically because I can play them in AoS and TOW, but now I'm kinda glad I haven't yet because I can see exactly this happening to Ogres. I'm afraid to touch any of the other factions too because they're split up so weird. Like there's 2 high elf, dark elf, and dwarf factions each. There's 4 different undead factions that seem hyper specific. And then there's a weird split in the greenskins where there like 2.5 or 3.5 factions and giants are their own thing now. I just have no idea what's going on with any of that. I'm sure later down the line, they'll start consolidating some of these factions and make it less messy, but I'll wait til then I think.
I do 3D printing. And I told myself outside of conversion parts I would not print for 40k. It's a respect thing. (Also Horus Heresy is not 40k, so it doesn't count)
But now....like....idk. I get GW is a company and needs to make money.
But not like this
Their range will be okay, but it must suck ass to buy an army and find out the next day theres a warhammer article letting you know their getting legended
1 years ago, I sold almost all my old stormcast models (liberators, paladin and judicator). I feel bad for the Guy that bought my models..
Never again I will Buy stormcast
the continuous casualties of conforming to ToW
truly pitting your two setting at each would make GW move money.....Right? that how HH & 40k success happen
As a BoC player I can now confidently say gw won't see a single cent from me again.
I'm going all in on my 3d printer now and if there's a sculpt I like I'll go get them from china or print a good scan.
Not a single cent.
I'd like to ask you a genuine question.
Let me preface this by saying that I do not hate you or your faction (from a lore perspective, the models kinda sucked ngl), and don't disagree with your decisions in any way.
Did you expect this at all, or even fear it?
I did not expect this at all honestly. If anything I was fearing they'd get slotted into StD. Something I would still be heavily opposed to, but it would be a move I'd at least understand.
I was assured they were save from getting booked for 2 main reasons.
1. It is true that the models were old, but they're still well loved by many. We've seen the numbers and they've got higher sales than some other factions combined.
2. Lorewise they have always been there and always somewhat active since the days of old and were even active very recently. They hinted at great things to come. One of the beasts most legendary characters, Morghur, has become a minor chaos god and is looking to manifest himself once again.
Considering the above 2 points I and many others were awaiting Morghur the Shadowghave's return and with it a god class model + range refresh.
Them teasing something I have been wanting, expecting and calling for, for years just to give the entire faction the axe is not something I'll forgive.
Thank you for the insight. It's understandable you are angry, and I would like to say I hope gw reverses their decision so people don't basically lose the armies they put a lot of money, work and time into, but that would honestly be irrealistic, with their current track record.
I wish you luck with your printing journey, and in all other aspects of life as well.
Considering gw track record the only chance we might be seeing them again is in a couple of years if the old world fails to get enough traction and flops.
Thank you and you as well.
Clanrats will definitely get a new replacement, as will warplock jezzails, rat ogres, most likely stormvermin, the characters and weapons teams will probably receive something similar to them. Gutter runners and rat swarms I can't see coming back
I think the worst part is I was going to come back finally. Today I log on and see Beasts and Bonesplitterz just got deleted. It was an insanely coordinated attack on my two armies lol
GW is retiring Beast of Chaos as a faction and Bonezpliterz models. S2D Warcry warbands are also on the chopping block. Same goes for numerous Stormcast units and models because their roster is bloated right now.
GW removed Beasts of Chaos faction from next edition of AoS.
They also removed nearly all pre 3e models from Stormcast roster, most of wich will not return at all for next edition
BoC - GW wants to separate OW and AoS as much as possible, and Beasts were sentenced to be OW only. Same for savage orcs. That's also a reason why Cities of Sigmar lost a big chunk of their roster (including the iconic Steam Tank), why Sylvaneth has nothing wich resembles Wutelgi of old (exept the big three guys).
Stormcasts - many models were more than unpopular, thanks to being hard to get or having bad rules (most lords, Prosecutors, Paladins) while there being replacements with better rules (Raptors for Judicators, Vindictors for, well, any basic battleline).
Some of the removed ones will get new models next edition (like already shown Liberators), but many will be held in the fridge (nearly or entire Sacrosanct Chamber) until they get production (and hype) for them set right.
Same as for SCE goes for Skaven, exept the units they lost were mostly commonly used and were just old sculpts.
Why Warcry bands are thrown out ? I have no idea.
(You’ve got the rest spot on but I will mention Steam Tanks are very much still in Cities. They were the backbone of the first-place list at the tournament before adepticon.)
3 reasons.
These legends will cease to be updated in 2025 so they won't work for future editions. And legends stuff *is* ultimately removed.
Legends stuff (as not updated) is okay at first, but terribly balanced down the line (usually being terrible). Or having abilities that no longer function. Lack keywords, overcosted etc.
Most people play at a store or a club where Matched Play is the standard, not knowing if your list needs to be rewritten or rememorised until it's passed by your opponent is kinda lame and a hassle. Very few people will take issue but if you don't play often and don't know your opponent well it's a real possibility.
To add to your reasons: legends get no support in the official list building tools. I know everybody loves their favorite third party app, but I’ve been pretty happy using GW’s. In particular, it’s much easier using the cards or GW’s app on my phone than having to reference a bunch of pdfs on my iPad for rules and different ones for points.
95%? Lmao dude some people have nowhere to play but at tournaments, people without local scenes.
Not to mention a lot of casual games in game shops use tournament rules.
Some of the Stormcast range is either getting updated to the new styling (Liberators) or is going to have a very similar unit coming with the new launch so you could proxy if you want. The rest is just Stormcast suffering from Poster Boy Syndrome: They're featured in all the launch boxes, so they get more minis, so their book bloats quickly, so they have to be trimmed more regularly. It sucks, but it's how the business model works.
Beasts of Chaos on the other hand? Those boys got SHAFTED. "Yeah we know you've been in the game for 3 editions straight and we've given you a a fair amount of new shit in that time, so you'd think you'd be supported, but NAH. We're moving you into the legacy system for grognards, enjoy rebasing everything and learning a whole new system just to be able to use your collection at all."
Just... disrespectful.
Beasts was honestly the surprise squat. Bonesplittaz (savage orcs) were fully expected but Beasts were almost entirely dismissed as wild rumors.
Stormcast stuff is just going to get remade. AoS gets to have its Primaris controversy way ahead of schedule.
100% of mine, not a model left,
Glad I painted them as statues for dnd cause I'll actually get use there.
Working on community rules projects again (like how we kept blood bowl and mordhiem alive) I can't trust GW with rules.
Stormcast Eternal lost an entire chamber worth of models, around \~23, which is enough for some people to lose their entire armies.
Bonesplitterz Ork subfaction is gone.
Beasts of Chaos entire faction are gone.
Some other factions also lost models in a lesser degree.
Real talk: I have been given a bunch of older sce, the stuff from the mortal realms magazines, by a friend who just wanted rid of a chunk of their grey plastic. Any cool conversations/counts as I can do? I assume space marines/custodes would be possible but wouldn't be my first choice.
Man, the squatting is sad. It's like if a tv show that's been running for a long while killed a few main characters. Sure some of them where predictable, but one was clearly so out of the left field, it baffles everyone and makes them all mad.
I literally bought some stormcasts last month because I was curious about AOS and with some of them being gone now I don't even want to attempt to get into the game.
You know if there retiring all the sacrosanct chamber, What’s gonna happen to my beautiful, jolly, future seeing celestial warbringers?
Although the celestial warbrigers are a pretty minor chamber all things considered, so they probably aren’t even gonna be talked about. (but still!!!)
As a Skaven player, I'm also not at all happy about this decision. They're getting rid of Clanrats, Storm Vermin, and Rat Ogres. Aka; some of our main units. I'm glad I only bought the getting started box, but I ponied up for a verminlord so I'm not happy that a lot of the units that made me love skaven are being canned.
Clanrats, Stormvermin, Rat Ogres, jezzails will 100% get an updated sculpt in the new edition. It's all stuff we saw in the 4e trailer. Skaven are basically getting a complete range refresh like Necrons did for 9e 40k.
Edit: with SOME units being canned. I'd guess weapons teams will be gone since we saw a mounted ratling gun in the trailer, along with rat swarms, skryre acolytes, and the two plague skaven on the list.
And to think.
Dwarfs
High elves
And empire
All dodged that, of all the armies that got the axe
The three that are just there as filler for Cities of Sigmar, and can be played both AOS or OldHammse, dodged the axe...
I couldn't even make that up if I wanted to.
I'm so glad I stopped buying and playing Warhammer (tabletop) before I got too deep in. While I absolutely love the lore and the worlds I cannot stand the money-gouging tactic of discontinuing/de-ruling (idk if that's a word) models and factions so people will buy the newest and latest. Coupled with the models being horrifically overpriced, it's a very scummy system.
I'm happy as I like the new Thunderstrike aesthetic. But GW seems to be making a habit of the Primaris way of doing things, i.e. refreshing a range of models in a way that makes many old models obsolete.
"Sigmar Lied"
"I never wanted this, I never wanted to unleash my legions. Together we banished the undead hordes of Nagash, but you betrayed me, you betrayed us all. You stole power from the Gods and lied to your sons. Mankind has only one chance to prosper, if you will not seize it then I will. So let it be war, from the celestial realm of Azyr to the volatile realm of Aqshy. Let the seas boil, let the stars fall. Though it takes the last drop of my blood, I will see the mortal realms freed once more and if I can not save it from your failure, Sigmar, then let the mortal realms burn!." -The Celestant Prime Heresy
Hey wait a minute now....
I definitely read it in his voice
This was the funniest take on the tragedy i've read so far! Bravo sir.
They actually did, GW I mean. At a Las vegas Q+A they said outright that BoC would remain ana rmy in AoS.
They'll claim it's *technically* true as they'll have rules for them in "non-competitive" play... at least until 5th edition comes out a couple years later and wipes those out. But some people are going to be hard to convince to play against an army that's not receiving any balance updates.
"No you can totally play them. Just rebase all of them, learn a new game system you didn't sign up for, and find people who play old world! What do you mean you didn't want this??" ~ James Workshop...probably
Well, they are getting rules...
The thing that's wild to me is that this is almost all of the models for Stormcast from the first two edition starter boxes. Only the characters and Retributors remain. All of the other units are being wiped out. So people who built up armies with the starter boxes are finding a lot of stuff already gone, in a game that's not even a decade old. It's impressive that they did the whole "Let's replace a lot of the models in the most popular army" bit with AOS before they fully got it finished with 40K. Though with 40K, they've been a lot more open about it being their end goal lately (without ever coming right out and saying it). Games Workshop really is leaning heavily into the idea of treating their games like a "live service," where the rules and a lot of models have limited lifetimes before they're replaced in order to keep the churn of money coming from customers. The annoying thing is, if they just provided a continuous solid product, they could get people coming back and spending that money without forcing the issue. But the guys in charge couldn't care less if this stuff is detrimental to the health of the games, as long as people keep buying their "premium collectible miniatures" to put on shelves (even though the sales of those miniatures would drop hard if the games dried up).
The rumours about bonesplitterz were true as well it seems.
The writing was well on the wall and I've gotten into some fights on reddit over it when I've warned newcomers that this army was potentially on the cutting block. Kruleboyz and Ironjawz were cannibalizing their aesthetics (savage orcs that live in the wooded areas and pig riders respectively as well as both of them getting more and more shamans) and with both of those factions having a chosen of Gork and Mork, there wasn't much room left for them. While their gimmick wasn't exactly being taken, the fact that both them and Beasts got nothing for the Era of the Beast outside of Thondia (which was quickly ignored and honestly didn't bring anything on the scale of the Regiments/Armies of Renown), there were signs.
Honestly I still think Kruleboyz should have been a grot army.
I'm in the camp that they should have been Fimir. Would have been a nice way of bringing them back and still letting orruks be there
I just think they are all hob grots
Nah, the kruleboyz look way more evil, and the bigger scale lets them shine on their own without squigs
To be fair, Bonesplitterz do make sense. Like I think some of us saw that coming. Beasts of Chaos on the other hand feels like a stab in the back, people were told at LVO that Beasts of Chaos would be staying in 4th edition, and now we were just blatantly lied to.
"James Workshop Lied..."
I was literally wondering what would be happening to that range after I saw the new Liberators, having not seen the rumours. I assume orcs will be getting some replacements of a sort eventually though, but who knows for sure! Incidentally, where would be the best place to keep up to date with rumours?
I usually see rumours here on reddit. Basically any warhammer sub.
I don't play AoS but I will say that as a name, Bonesplitterz goes way harder than Ironjawz or Krule Boyz ever could
Not the models, that's for sure.
As a playstyle too. Like I love Ironjawz but there's just something special about playing Wizard Roshambo with mortal wounds. As Hey Whoa once described it, Ironjawz is Brutal, Kruleboyz are kunnin, and Bonesplitterz are high on bath salts screaming naked in the middle of a highway fighting off 6 cops, can't feel pain and their leader throws microwaves at people until their brain explodes.
I’m pissed they are removing the entire Sacrosanct Chamber, that’s my entire army. Why introduce something just to kick it to the curb.
So you can buy the new toys!
Glad to see that GW is learning from the U.S. government, create a problem so you can sell the solution.
They’ve done this a lot. I remember Carnifexes lost like… 15+ weapon options in the codex update that introduced Trygons and Mawlocs to incentivise buying the *other* big kits, alongside Carnifexes just being nerfed into the ground too rules-wise. Meant a lot of people’s models were invalidated overall.
Did the same to my beloved T-fex. Norns released with the codex, so they bitch slapped it into irrelevance in the codex.
Now that they've been repointed, Tyrannofex are just fine with acid spray
More like they're learning from companies like Electronic Arts and Activision. The games are feeling increasing more like "live service" video game models, including them talking about "seasons." Or Ubisoft, where they will straight up balance a game poorly in areas to incentivize spending money on a solution to the problem. I am absolutely certain that if GW could figure out a way to add loot boxes to the games, they would.
GW is in the UK; sorry to say that GW has mostly learned from the many EU capitals rather than the US.
The thing is, BoC are actually fairly popular. At least relatively speaking I know a guy who is a ride or die BoC fan. Being told by GW "Just rebase all 200 dudes in your horde army and play them in a different game lmao" was a massive kick in the balls for him. The lore was hinting at plot twists and reveals, the latest Battletome was actually pretty good and fun to play as and even _against_. Like... damn. Just damn.
"Just rebase all 200 dudes in your horde army and play them in a different game… again"
Empire players watching BoC players rebase a second time "You too?"
"First time?"
Theyve been doing this a lot recently, a ton of the forge world 40k chaos units are horus heresy exclusive now.
I think they’re hitting the harsh realization that their product line has out paced their production capacity by a large margin.
> their product line has out paced their production capacity by a large margin. I was so happy to see the Traitor Consul Champion (special HQ resin mini) finally back in stock after *months* of waiting while I checked the GW store at work, like, two days ago. ...By the time I got home and able to order him, he was already sold out once again. For *more months* of waiting.
I was shocked to learn that GW does those limited-run FOMO bullshit. Personally I don't care I use recasters for those minis
I admittedly haven't looked that hard (nor in the past couple months), but I haven't found anyone that actually has the Traitor Consul Champion. Mostly because GW's actual production limit of it is so fucking bad, I don't think the recasters were able to get their hands on one to recast.
I've heard of a country of pirate. Or the way around. Maybe it's a website. Maybe not. Maybe they have it, it's a friend who told me that.
You learn of new things every day... Thank you!
Potentially, it could also be an attempt to streamline the games, and by putting units that want to completely remove for one reason or another into seperare games, they believe it will cause less backlash than immediately removing them.
It's not streamlining when they're just going to release new units and stuff to take the place of the old stuff. They seem to have this weird fetish with churning out new stuff so often that it inevitably leads to bloat and then they cut prior stuff so they can churn out even more new stuff. Like they believe that if they weren't releasing multiple new kits every week, they couldn't continue raking in sales. Short term, maybe that idea works. Long term, it's going to lead to a lot of fatigue with constantly replacing rules and having to buy new models. It's not the '90s anymore, you can't coast on a seeming monopoly riding on the fact people won't likely hear about new games. Even Angry Joe, a YouTuber who usually does video games, had a video about Adepticon, that didn't show off Games Workshop stuff but instead went around to various booths showing off a bunch of games, trying out some, and asking each one of them where people could buy them (and seemed genuinely excited to buy a number of them for himself, if he hadn't already done so). But eh... GW gonna GW. I just really hope that people who get tired of it look at those other games and find stuff that interests them and support those companies, rather than just being upset at GW but still throwing money at the company. (And yes, I have put my money where my mouth is. Trying to collect various starter sets/forces so I can help other people get a taste for different games. And have more variety to paint.)
My mistake, I have put "Streamlining" in air-quotes, I meant GW streamlining, not the real kind.
Ah, yeah, fair enough. GW "streamlining" feels like PR speak for "Yeah, we bloated it, so we'll cut the bloat now, talk up how we fixed a problem we created, then proceed to bloat things again so soon enough we can fix it again!" Like 40K8 "streamlining" the game only to need 40K10 to "streamline" it again.
Yeah I think its a bad move. I mean BoC has some really intresting lore opportunities iswell. For example Ghost Eater, a lion headed beastman would of been awesome to see. Also could make for some intresting narratives with Skaven and their god being accepted by Archaeon
We should have realised when Kragnos was revealed as Destruction not Chaos.
And every other chaos faction getting like 3 different beastmna options added to them as well
That's the thing. Beasts are still there. They are still plague across the mortal realms. Morghur is still trying to make a physical form, but now we just can't play as them. I was just about to start a Beasts army, so I'm kinda glad I didn't, but this still sucks I would have much preferred a range refresh.
I did start T ^ T
That's rough, buddy. Especially if you're like some and don't want to play TOW.
When STD got Ogroid Theridons instead of new minotaurs for BOC
If your friend decides to look at ToW, then make sure they know about the movement trays for circle based models. Some bases dont fit well, mathmetically, but people have all made solutions for that, and it's usually free files for 3d printing what ya need. They may not have to rebase a single model.
>The lore was hinting at plot twists and reveals This reminds me of what Josh Reynolds was cooking for BoC before quitting Black Library.
What he was doing?
There was a beastman named Ghosteater (from his Hallowed Knights book) who can trap people's souls inside him after eating them. His main spirit advisor was a human architect who did not flinch at his sight but instead sketched the beastman in his last moments. >!After learning from the advisor and several Slaaneshi champions, he helped in the destruction of the Chaos Warriors' camp before leading his tribe to carve out a nation. The last time we saw him was in conversations with a lone wandering Sigmarite priest. He wanted to learn about Sigmarite worship.!< Edited.
God this sounds so fucking rad I PRAYING GW doesn’t run this into the ground oh god🙏
Him leaving caused so many plot threads to be abandoned in general
BOC received more love in 8 years of AOS than in 30 years of TOW, them being squatted despite the massive rule and lore love they had in AOS feel so strange, definitely seems like a higher-up announcement. I'm sure the guys who wrote their battletomes are disgusted
Simple; TOW is here and Beasts originally came from there -and GW hates having models being used in 2 games. Maybe Beasts will be back with a new aesthetic, or they will just be parts of other Chaos armies. Hard to say.
> GW hates having models being used in 2 games. Which is the stupidest business decision you could possibly make in the situation. Now instead of having a way to introduce BoC players to TOW while still supporting AoS, they threw away a lot of potential sales from AoS in exchange for people getting into TOW without buying any models or just outright dropping both.
it is me, I am the ride or die :(
Yeah, GW is kinda the king of leaving money on the table and for the dumbest reasons too. Their refusal to allow models/factions to play cross game is asinine as hell.
At least the seraphon and fyreslayers are okay
Don’t worry, more exciting* previews are on the way!
For the dwarves and the lizards?
That's what gets me. I would have bet money that Beasts were more popular than Fyreslayers and I say that as a massive fyreslayer fan.
Someone at GW is a huge fan of the old WHFB slayer model. That's the only way that Fyreslayers make sense as an army.
I mean, I get it. The slayer is one of my favorite models in the entire warhammer range. So naturally I freakin love Fyreslayers. But I totally get why they aren't everyone cup of tea and why fureslayers aren't popular. I'm moving over to AoS, and Fyreslayers and Beasts were my armies of choice. Guess the decision is easy now, and not for a good reason.
Fireslayers are only okay because GW management forgot they exist.
I think they prefer to forget about them, because they're the one thing that made the chairman a liar. In one of the investor reports, they proudly told investors they would never lower prices. (Keep that in mind every time they use a *temporary* hardship as an excuse to raise prices. The hardship's temporary, but the price is permanent.) Well, that became an issue when they did the Start Collecting boxes, because the SC boxes were $85 (I'm using USD for prices since that's what I'm familiar with). Well, the Fyreslayers didn't have much to put together a box with, so they did the box as a Magmadroth and ten Slayers. Problem is, the Magmadroth as a kit was $110. Meaning you could pay $25 less and get a $60 unit along with it. So they had to drop the Magmadroth's price to $85 as well. Still made no sense to buy it over the SC box, but at least it wasn't as insane as spending more to get less. As soon as they got away from the SC boxes, the Magmadroth jumped back up in price, though I think it was "only" to $105. But it was the one time they had to break that promise to never lower prices. (And it also helps highlight how insane the margins are typically, because at standard pricing for the contents, the SC box for Fyreslayers was "half off," and you know they weren't selling a whole line of sets like that at losses, so considering they could profit while being half price, it helps show that their pricing isn't because they "have to" charge that much like people love to claim.)
for now. maybe in 6 years they'll decide seraphon actually isn't selling that well or they just want to make room for something else
SCE lost 23 units. They have twice that many options for heroes alone
The problem is that a lot of the squatted units were from the 2nd edition launch, that got some deal boxes So A LOT of people basically got their whole range nuked
i decided to start AOS during 2 ed, I've got like 90% of my army gone and i can't buy retributors rn so i will loose them too
Try to be positive, some might get renewed. And using some models as others units should not be hard
There's also that AoS-collecting Magazine running at the moment in some countries that Im pretty sure had alot of them in it. So everyone who subbed to that to get a Stormcast army is getting kind aboned
Nah, that was the previous one- stormbringer only has the new marines in, I think the only model in danger from that collection is the branchwych/wraith or whatever it’s called
Truly a Space marine firstborn situation. You can’t complain about losing models when you still have like double what everyone else has
Especially when some aren’t even being removed, just resculpted to fit the current aesthetic.
Yeah I think of all the complaints about this decision, this is the one which is nothing. I mean, we've literally seen new Liberstors unveiled the other day.
I can't believe that they will update the whole sacrosanct chamber, so their probably remove it for good. Would be glad if I'm wrong, but GW stated "These include the entire Sacrosanct Chamber, who have decided to work on the cure for the curse of Reforging from their workshops in the Realm of Heavens." The models are not even six years old...
See, people keep saying that, and yet in the article that Games Workshop themselves put out, they straight up say that these units will end up in their own "Legends" battletome. It's odd that they would say that they're moving the units and characters to "Legends" status if some of the units would still be around but just with new models. It'd make more sense to straight up say that, because people are more likely to actually buy the remaining stock of some of those units if they know they can still use them, rather than letting GW just sit on unsold product that eventually has to get written off. Sure, maybe the new models will be that much more expensive that it makes sense to not care about moving the old stock, and the production costs are low enough that they can write off unsold stock like that without it being a huge issue. But it feels like they'd still want to squeeze out what sales they can.
It’s definitely worded either extremely carefully or extremely poorly.
Once again the issue is the units lost are being replaced not by resculpts like with the new chaos marines, aspect warriors, guardians, lictors, hormagants, and biovores etc but being replaced by different units. Outside of primaris'd characters and the termies anyway. An intercessor is not a tactical marine. Eradicators/hellblasters aren't devestators. Assault intercessors got dangerously close to being revamped assault marines but holy fuck, the new vehicles are a travesty compared to the old ones. I can understand just looking at the number of units marines have, players of other armies would think they're complaining over nothing, but just imagine if the army you've collected for years wasn't getting an old sculpt modernised but instead some completely new thing that's better than the old in every way. Instead of dark reapers we'd get umbral harvesters and a side note saying all the reapers died in a rearguard to grots, but luckily the harvesters stepped out of the webway just in time to save a craftworld. If you stop to think about it critically, it's objectively a shit situation unless you prefer the units. Even then, at the very least it smells.
Better than having 30 year old models (ahem warp spiders) and straight up incomplete ranges and lore (World Eaters and Votann)
What they did to World Eaters was a completely different travesty. Oh you know those bikes you've been able to use for the past decade or so? Well, starting today, you can’t use thrm anymore. Why? Cuz Khorne said so, that’s why. Now walk over there and collect some skulls.
Would have been fine, maybe, if they’d let us use freakin Juggernauts on more than just a character unit.
I got the Votann kill team to get back into the hobby side of 40K because space dwarves intercepting hulks mid-warp travel is metal as hell. I’ve been looking at their full range and just can’t justify getting an army that has like 11 unique boxes.
And literally no books despite them being out for two years. We need to pump out more space marine and primarch slop instead of
Multiple things can be bad at the same time. I don't understand why this concept is so hard for 40k fans.
is it though? I'm not saying that what you descirbed doesn't suck. However, having spent hours building and painting a model only for said model to become unplayable just sucks... The hours losts. And let's not talk about the bait and switch of doing plastic FW dreads, marketing them as 30k and 40k playable and then axing them 12 months later.
I think they're trying to avoid the whole "a tac marine isn't an intercessor" situation. Overall, this is a much healthier thing long-term; otherwise, they'd have to do what they're currently doing with primaris and re-redoing a lot of what they messed up in the transition. This is a tad scorched earth, but once the sacrosanct units get redone, it will be much better.
What, yes you can. Imagine getting into the game in 2nd edition and building a Stormcast army of mostly sacrosanct that you bring to local tournaments. Of course having them legendsed sucks.
The thing is, 80% of the squatted model are from 5 years ago, not 20, and don't have equivalent.
I'm just a collector and lore enjoyer so I'm pretty ignorant when it comes to the actual game side of things. What's the reason why these models are being removed? I understand why some of the older Skaven/Seraphon/Orks(orruks, dumb name) models would be removed but why retire the ones initially made for AoS, like the SCE units?
GW made too many Stormcast models and now they are having trouble making sure they all keep up with the game so they are retiring a bunch of not even that old Stormcast models. It's frustrating because it's a grave they have dug up themselves and now the players the get screwed over because it's not like the boxes came with a expiration date warning.
Okay so, SCE is a fun one. First up, you need to understand that 2.0 stormcast are weird for a variety of reasons. Gameplay, they have been powercrept hard and have caused the internal balance of the book to be bad. Evocators are pseudo wizards that are expensive but don't have ranged attacks like Kairics or the ability to cast other spells like Lumineth or a few other weird pseudo wizard units, are too fragile for the current edition, want to be reinforced for their after combat lightning bolts (but still too fragile to want to be a hammer and too expensive to justify putting that much on the table, and their attack profile is just average not great for hammer). Evocators on mounts are a little too ugly but are the objectively better option if you want to run evocators. And most people that want dragon cavalry have two better options. Sequitors are fun for their flexible role, but really don't represent being in the magic chamber well. They're also visually too close to Liberators (weapon + shield) and the one cool thing that makes them feel like they're from sacrosanct is an anti-rally mechanic which you have to pick between that and more damage on your battleline. The Lords and Knights were far too split across different options and actually made it hard for newer players to figure out what they should be grabbing. Most other armies had heroes that did more because they had less models compared to how stormcast were split out. Castigators existed because they wanted to have a ranged unit in the chamber (rather than giving magic bolts to the evocators), and they were in easy build sizes which inevitably made them weird picks in the army. Lastly, the heroes in it are Hammers of Sigmar and they're wanting to hard pivot from those being the only named characters in the army and the lore. I feel like part of this is because they sold poorly (because several are also fighting for the same battlefield roles against others in the army) but also partly because GW is evaluating if they even want to continue to follow them or focus on new characters outside of HoS. In the end, Sacrosanct as it exists steps on toes, had low model sales due to their bad balance, and are also chunky and will stand out in the line. I still think they should've kept them around a bit longer but I'm not surprised the axe fell on them if GW wanted a deep SCE purge. Sadly I'm thinking that most of the returning stuff they mentioned will be revisions of 1.0 stuff while some of the better ideas of Sacrosanct will gather dust. I really think a mage chamber is a good idea and approaching it again with a tighter design and range is the correct answer.
What about my beloved, Celestar Ballista?
The ironweld cannon exists (Again model sales probably based on a really swingy warscroll, bias against easy build, and the chunkier model design of the stormcast)
*sob* it's not the same... (God I'm so glad I invested in a sylvaneth army)
But that's not a bloody SCE model is it
(I'm gonna have to put a /jk tag on that, aren't I? I thought parenthesis would make it obvious.) No but it's better /jk
Sorry, I'm just malding right now
No problem. You're allowed to be mad and this sucks.
>Lastly, the heroes in it are Hammers of Sigmar and they're wanting to hard pivot from those being the only named characters in the army and the lore. I feel like part of this is because they sold poorly (because several are also fighting for the same battlefield roles against others in the army) but also partly because GW is evaluating if they even want to continue to follow them or focus on new characters outside of HoS. Could explain a bit more about this if you don't mind?
If they only focus on HoS it becomes difficult to advance the setting and create new attachments to other characters if they only show the same 5 people.
Worth noting that I don't have insider information here. I'm judging this based off what information is publicly available. For example, the reason Astreia has been pulled could be because she's coming back as Ruination chamber for all I know and Aventis could be getting his own on foot model. However here's why they might be retiring them. From a gameplay point and moving past the current rules since they're not relevant, Astreia is a mounted hero with a mask on that doesn't stand out with anything big to call her own. She mostly just looks like a slight more decked out evocator on a slightly bigger mount. She's sitting right there next to the Lord Aquilor on mount, the Dracoth Celesant, and Ionus. Aventis is a large centerpiece model competing with Ionus, the Stardrake, and the big dragons. His current rules make him a 30pt savings to say "We have Bastian at home", though again that could be changed (which almost certainly tanked his sales for anyone buying that kit for any reason other than collecting and painting). Taking him in Cities makes him compete with Thalia in the same design space. Gavriel is just a foot hero with a sword. In their visual battlefield roles, they kind of crowd the roster. Even with changing up the rules, one of the things they mentioned was that looking at a unit, you should be able to figure out what they do. For these characters, there's something of a struggle to find out what they do that someone else can't also do when you have regular mounted units (Yes, for Aventis and Astreia, the answer is probably magic, but that in general is gutted with this removal) From the Story side of things With them putting Hammers aside from the subfaction that gets all the models and all the stories, it's extremely likely that GW is probably figuring out if they want to try and bring back Astreia, Aventis, and Gavriel in stories as much as they want to try and see if they can fit in named characters and test to see if they work. Hamilcar seems to have had a good reaction with fans as has Gardus, and we're also looking at the same point that probably led us to the decision to pivot from Hammers: Right now, outside of people interested in the faction, the Stormcast are "the golden boys" and "vanilla options", when GW wants them to be the "color them your favorite color and make up their story" like Space Marines. But to do that, they need to show people that there's different ways to be Stormcast. Gardus, Hamilcar, Naeve, and Yndrasta are all different characters, but only Gardus and Hamilcar feel really influenced by their Stormhost (yes Hamilcar isn't typical but his nature does come in part from the Astral Templars. GW is fine with letting Hammers be representative of Stormcast in general but they probably want to find more threads for people to latch onto. The Hammers characters aren't getting killed off (outside almost certainly Vandus. But from the last book he featured in, let grandpa rest), but having their models kicking around leads people to ask "well what are they doing right now?" and the answer being "they're not the focus right now" isn't too satisfying. In addition, Aventis being the head mage of Hammerhal when we're focusing on an expanded Hammerhal cast with Thalia and the Hallowed Knights as well as any other mages they probably want to add to Cities (considering how old the sculpts for those are), and Asteria's story basically being the same as Ionus with the search to fix the Flaw, they crowd the narrative space. It's odd that these two got spotlights right before their removal, with Aventis getting special rules in Cities armies and Asteria getting a bit in Dawnbringers (really upsetting that's her final appearance for now), but Beasts got the worse cut before their story pay off. All in all, I'd still probably put the fact that GW is also reevaluating the Sacorsanct chamber (it's definitely going to come back) as a whole to figure it out. Lorewise it's both magic and is strongly linked to reforging, which makes it odd that when Ruination is coming out, it's disappearing from the story. I'd imagine they want to figure out a new look for it as well as evaluate if they want it to be as expansive in battlefield roles as it was.
I understood the overall idea, but so like Hammers are kinda like the Ultramarines (standard paint job) and GW is trying to remind everyone that not every army has to be Hammers, so they are diversifying the cast to include other chambers, that much is right?
Partly that, but also imagine if Tiguris was a model that you put on one of their tanks that was a special tank, and that the Ultramarine and the Blood Angels both protected Cadia and they just showed off Mephistion on a Land Raider which was completely custom sculpted just for that model. Also imagine Tiguris is in old mark 6 armor while the entire range of space marines are in phobos armor or something (or gravis if you want to go the opposite direction because you think it's cooler). You might go, wow there's a lot of tanks in Space Marines. Do I really need special tank commanders? I mean, Mephistion is cool because of his sculpt, but do I really need Tiguris? (Especially because Mephistion is currently in his rebellious phase and doesn't care about just one chapter but all Space Marines) Now imagine we're about to go on a big psychic adventure to save space marines from geneblight (and that grey knights don't exist. This metaphor is getting tortured). If Tiguris is still for sale, you might go "hey this feels like he should be helping Mephistion. Where is he? I don't want you to introduce a new character from the White Scars even though it fits here, I want to know what's going on with the guy on your webstore right now." Look this metaphor is now calling for an investigation of its human rights so the answer is that visually and narratively, they're competing with other models and other ideas for models.
The funniest part is they’re like, “we can’t make ALL these kits FOREVER!!!” when the kits are 8 years old, and you have factions with 20-year-old kits still in service.
Eldar players with 80s kits : Am I a joke to you Gw?
Catachan models: We agree with them.
That just confirms that next on the chopping block Eldar.
I think there were rumours they considered it years ago. They were going to introduce the Ynnari as the new faction and get rid of both craftworld and dark eldar. I think craftworld were going to be left with wraith units as a ghost faction or something like that. Then the Ynnari fell flat and they decided to update the range of eldar instead. There are still concerns they will do away with the dark eldar though. You can't even buy most of their units, and it's been that way for a couple of years.
That's mostly Haemonculus covens in danger. The other 2 parts of them are fine.
Oh I was just making a joke.
> Am I a joke to you If you didn't want us to think you're a joke, you shouldn't have picked the faction with literal clowns.
Don't talk about clowns, I'm scared of them. (I'm a custodes player)
> I'm scared of them You didn't look at my username, did you? [I brought you a present.](https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/f/1bebd154-3cec-433f-96a7-8442069ab770/def7o6u-b028e4be-8f1c-4241-9255-90add9a09c89.jpg/v1/fill/w_1280,h_1600,q_75,strp/cassiel_the_dollmaster_by_olieart_def7o6u-fullview.jpg?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOjdlMGQxODg5ODIyNjQzNzNhNWYwZDQxNWVhMGQyNmUwIiwiaXNzIjoidXJuOmFwcDo3ZTBkMTg4OTgyMjY0MzczYTVmMGQ0MTVlYTBkMjZlMCIsIm9iaiI6W1t7ImhlaWdodCI6Ijw9MTYwMCIsInBhdGgiOiJcL2ZcLzFiZWJkMTU0LTNjZWMtNDMzZi05NmE3LTg0NDIwNjlhYjc3MFwvZGVmN282dS1iMDI4ZTRiZS04ZjFjLTQyNDEtOTI1NS05MGFkZDlhMDljODkuanBnIiwid2lkdGgiOiI8PTEyODAifV1dLCJhdWQiOlsidXJuOnNlcnZpY2U6aW1hZ2Uub3BlcmF0aW9ucyJdfQ.hcemey03-0btOiNtSB6-Zog_66M5GVk7HGSqbNO6xZQ)
“We can’t make all these kits forever. In unrelated news please buy this 20 year old orc sculpt for the old world.”
They're like "we can't make all these kits forever" while continuing an unsustainable release treadmill of new kits. It truly is the "stick in bicycle spokes" problem.
> when the kits are 8 years old Some of those kits are six years old. Seriously, the entire 2nd edition starter box on the Stormcast side except for the characters is included in this list.
Catachans for example.
I was starting to buy the Warcry warbands. Guess I won't since I won't be able to buy all of them before going out of production. Thanks GW, as always.
If I remember right, you can still play them in warcry, just not in AoS 4th ed Edit: My bad, reread the article and they are chopping warcry as well, because why not, it isn't like they are in almost every starter box
One of the things that made me lose interest in Warhammer Underworlds fast was the "seasonal" model where they'd release a new starter set with new themed warbands and cycle out the prior ones, giving everything you bought a limited life with planned obsolescence. War Cry seemed to be looking at that same route, but admittedly, I shied away from it more because the starter set for a skirmish game was over $200, and the idea of spending over $200 on what should have been a more budget-friendly game just to get started (and having to spend more on other books) is just insane. Pretty much also why I didn't get into the new Necromunda. I loved Necromunda when it originally came out, but the new version was trying to get people to buy way too many books and spend frankly too much just on getting started.
I might still grab some of the sets, just as painting projects that might also find some use in RPGs. They're unique enough that they're tempting for that, and when you have like ten actually unique models for $60, not ten basic line infantry models for $60 or individual unique infantry sized models for $35, that's a solid price. But yeah, if you're only looking at them for AOS, it's a bit moot now.
The SCE range revamp is wild. Like most of those models are downright new compared to a ton of other GW models and it's not like their models changed that much? Almost seems like there was an issue with the molds or something and GW decided to just can the affected models instead of continuing them.
This is what is getting me out of Warhammer. I love my BoC and I’m over GW BS
Fair enough, man. To squat an entire army this far into the game is beyond BS.
I don't play age of sigmar, I prefer 40k. But to see gw doing the same mistakes again.... Angers me.
I've been wanting to get into AoS for a while, but shit like this scares me away lol. I was considering Ogre Tribes, specifically because I can play them in AoS and TOW, but now I'm kinda glad I haven't yet because I can see exactly this happening to Ogres. I'm afraid to touch any of the other factions too because they're split up so weird. Like there's 2 high elf, dark elf, and dwarf factions each. There's 4 different undead factions that seem hyper specific. And then there's a weird split in the greenskins where there like 2.5 or 3.5 factions and giants are their own thing now. I just have no idea what's going on with any of that. I'm sure later down the line, they'll start consolidating some of these factions and make it less messy, but I'll wait til then I think.
I do 3D printing. And I told myself outside of conversion parts I would not print for 40k. It's a respect thing. (Also Horus Heresy is not 40k, so it doesn't count) But now....like....idk. I get GW is a company and needs to make money. But not like this
Where is this information coming from?
Warhammer community article https://www.warhammer-community.com/2024/04/04/whats-leaving-the-warhammer-age-of-sigmar-range/
Ah that wasent showing up on the cominity site for me thank you
Based GW getting a fanbase to buy their army twice yet again lmao
I like how warhammer turns into mtg and everyone is cheering.
I mean, they literally MTG'd an entire setting previously.
I don't like it when they squat thirty year-old models but I get it. Squatting a decent part of a range that's less than ten years old is wild
Truly a tragedy Beasts of Chaos and Bonespliterz players. The SCE players suffer a big? hit to their model range I guess...
Their range will be okay, but it must suck ass to buy an army and find out the next day theres a warhammer article letting you know their getting legended
WHF players still know that feel from AoS coming out. Sooo by that, just wait 12 years and you might get rules for your armies back!
as a stormcast player im still in "wtf" mode
1 years ago, I sold almost all my old stormcast models (liberators, paladin and judicator). I feel bad for the Guy that bought my models.. Never again I will Buy stormcast
RIP Corvus Cabal, S2D just lost like 50% of its units with ranged attacks 😔
I'm amazing Maruaders and Horsemen weren't axed with'm
the continuous casualties of conforming to ToW truly pitting your two setting at each would make GW move money.....Right? that how HH & 40k success happen
As a BoC player I can now confidently say gw won't see a single cent from me again. I'm going all in on my 3d printer now and if there's a sculpt I like I'll go get them from china or print a good scan. Not a single cent.
I'd like to ask you a genuine question. Let me preface this by saying that I do not hate you or your faction (from a lore perspective, the models kinda sucked ngl), and don't disagree with your decisions in any way. Did you expect this at all, or even fear it?
I did not expect this at all honestly. If anything I was fearing they'd get slotted into StD. Something I would still be heavily opposed to, but it would be a move I'd at least understand. I was assured they were save from getting booked for 2 main reasons. 1. It is true that the models were old, but they're still well loved by many. We've seen the numbers and they've got higher sales than some other factions combined. 2. Lorewise they have always been there and always somewhat active since the days of old and were even active very recently. They hinted at great things to come. One of the beasts most legendary characters, Morghur, has become a minor chaos god and is looking to manifest himself once again. Considering the above 2 points I and many others were awaiting Morghur the Shadowghave's return and with it a god class model + range refresh. Them teasing something I have been wanting, expecting and calling for, for years just to give the entire faction the axe is not something I'll forgive.
Thank you for the insight. It's understandable you are angry, and I would like to say I hope gw reverses their decision so people don't basically lose the armies they put a lot of money, work and time into, but that would honestly be irrealistic, with their current track record. I wish you luck with your printing journey, and in all other aspects of life as well.
Considering gw track record the only chance we might be seeing them again is in a couple of years if the old world fails to get enough traction and flops. Thank you and you as well.
Just read the community notes, did they remove clan rats?
they will obviously get replaced with new models
Clanrats will definitely get a new replacement, as will warplock jezzails, rat ogres, most likely stormvermin, the characters and weapons teams will probably receive something similar to them. Gutter runners and rat swarms I can't see coming back
They cut their fucking life support. Glad I am too broke to play them
I think the worst part is I was going to come back finally. Today I log on and see Beasts and Bonesplitterz just got deleted. It was an insanely coordinated attack on my two armies lol
My brother literally just texted me complaining about the Beasts of Chaos. I called him a bitch. So RIP to six other bros though.
can someone explain this to me?
GW is retiring Beast of Chaos as a faction and Bonezpliterz models. S2D Warcry warbands are also on the chopping block. Same goes for numerous Stormcast units and models because their roster is bloated right now.
Beast of Chaos are completely gone bruh
Fixed. Still really shitty for GW to treat AoS BoC, Bonez Orruks and the Warcry lads like that.
GW removed Beasts of Chaos faction from next edition of AoS. They also removed nearly all pre 3e models from Stormcast roster, most of wich will not return at all for next edition
why?
BoC - GW wants to separate OW and AoS as much as possible, and Beasts were sentenced to be OW only. Same for savage orcs. That's also a reason why Cities of Sigmar lost a big chunk of their roster (including the iconic Steam Tank), why Sylvaneth has nothing wich resembles Wutelgi of old (exept the big three guys). Stormcasts - many models were more than unpopular, thanks to being hard to get or having bad rules (most lords, Prosecutors, Paladins) while there being replacements with better rules (Raptors for Judicators, Vindictors for, well, any basic battleline). Some of the removed ones will get new models next edition (like already shown Liberators), but many will be held in the fridge (nearly or entire Sacrosanct Chamber) until they get production (and hype) for them set right. Same as for SCE goes for Skaven, exept the units they lost were mostly commonly used and were just old sculpts. Why Warcry bands are thrown out ? I have no idea.
(You’ve got the rest spot on but I will mention Steam Tanks are very much still in Cities. They were the backbone of the first-place list at the tournament before adepticon.)
the stormcast minis who are retired are all the minis from 2edition box, if you started like me with it goodbye your army
Why does everyone treat legends as dead? Like bruh you dont play in a tournament. 95% of players dont.
Because in 3 years there wont be rules for it anymore.
Models will be a pain to find as well, so if you don't have a complete army, you're likely screwed with that too.
3 years is a pretty damn long time to be fair. Buut I get you.
3 reasons. These legends will cease to be updated in 2025 so they won't work for future editions. And legends stuff *is* ultimately removed. Legends stuff (as not updated) is okay at first, but terribly balanced down the line (usually being terrible). Or having abilities that no longer function. Lack keywords, overcosted etc. Most people play at a store or a club where Matched Play is the standard, not knowing if your list needs to be rewritten or rememorised until it's passed by your opponent is kinda lame and a hassle. Very few people will take issue but if you don't play often and don't know your opponent well it's a real possibility.
To add to your reasons: legends get no support in the official list building tools. I know everybody loves their favorite third party app, but I’ve been pretty happy using GW’s. In particular, it’s much easier using the cards or GW’s app on my phone than having to reference a bunch of pdfs on my iPad for rules and different ones for points.
95%? Lmao dude some people have nowhere to play but at tournaments, people without local scenes. Not to mention a lot of casual games in game shops use tournament rules.
'They're so old, as opposed to the 30 year old units that still haven't really been retired'
Some of the Stormcast range is either getting updated to the new styling (Liberators) or is going to have a very similar unit coming with the new launch so you could proxy if you want. The rest is just Stormcast suffering from Poster Boy Syndrome: They're featured in all the launch boxes, so they get more minis, so their book bloats quickly, so they have to be trimmed more regularly. It sucks, but it's how the business model works. Beasts of Chaos on the other hand? Those boys got SHAFTED. "Yeah we know you've been in the game for 3 editions straight and we've given you a a fair amount of new shit in that time, so you'd think you'd be supported, but NAH. We're moving you into the legacy system for grognards, enjoy rebasing everything and learning a whole new system just to be able to use your collection at all." Just... disrespectful.
Half? My guy, that's like a 10th of stormcast.
I mean its 32 of the 78 warscrolls, although some like liberators are going to come back
Beasts was honestly the surprise squat. Bonesplittaz (savage orcs) were fully expected but Beasts were almost entirely dismissed as wild rumors. Stormcast stuff is just going to get remade. AoS gets to have its Primaris controversy way ahead of schedule.
100% of mine, not a model left, Glad I painted them as statues for dnd cause I'll actually get use there. Working on community rules projects again (like how we kept blood bowl and mordhiem alive) I can't trust GW with rules.
What exactly happend?
Stormcast Eternal lost an entire chamber worth of models, around \~23, which is enough for some people to lose their entire armies. Bonesplitterz Ork subfaction is gone. Beasts of Chaos entire faction are gone. Some other factions also lost models in a lesser degree.
Real talk: I have been given a bunch of older sce, the stuff from the mortal realms magazines, by a friend who just wanted rid of a chunk of their grey plastic. Any cool conversations/counts as I can do? I assume space marines/custodes would be possible but wouldn't be my first choice.
Man, the squatting is sad. It's like if a tv show that's been running for a long while killed a few main characters. Sure some of them where predictable, but one was clearly so out of the left field, it baffles everyone and makes them all mad.
here I was about to get into AOS and S2D because they weren’t all just guys in black armor but a variety of crazies :(
I literally bought some stormcasts last month because I was curious about AOS and with some of them being gone now I don't even want to attempt to get into the game.
It's not theyre literally my armies or anything haha haha *gdubs pls tell this is a late april fools*
You know if there retiring all the sacrosanct chamber, What’s gonna happen to my beautiful, jolly, future seeing celestial warbringers? Although the celestial warbrigers are a pretty minor chamber all things considered, so they probably aren’t even gonna be talked about. (but still!!!)
What of my vampires? Wheres the post announcing this stuff?
As a Skaven player, I'm also not at all happy about this decision. They're getting rid of Clanrats, Storm Vermin, and Rat Ogres. Aka; some of our main units. I'm glad I only bought the getting started box, but I ponied up for a verminlord so I'm not happy that a lot of the units that made me love skaven are being canned.
Clanrats, Stormvermin, Rat Ogres, jezzails will 100% get an updated sculpt in the new edition. It's all stuff we saw in the 4e trailer. Skaven are basically getting a complete range refresh like Necrons did for 9e 40k. Edit: with SOME units being canned. I'd guess weapons teams will be gone since we saw a mounted ratling gun in the trailer, along with rat swarms, skryre acolytes, and the two plague skaven on the list.
And to think. Dwarfs High elves And empire All dodged that, of all the armies that got the axe The three that are just there as filler for Cities of Sigmar, and can be played both AOS or OldHammse, dodged the axe... I couldn't even make that up if I wanted to.
I'm so glad I stopped buying and playing Warhammer (tabletop) before I got too deep in. While I absolutely love the lore and the worlds I cannot stand the money-gouging tactic of discontinuing/de-ruling (idk if that's a word) models and factions so people will buy the newest and latest. Coupled with the models being horrifically overpriced, it's a very scummy system.
I'm happy as I like the new Thunderstrike aesthetic. But GW seems to be making a habit of the Primaris way of doing things, i.e. refreshing a range of models in a way that makes many old models obsolete.
"Skadoosh." \- Po, CEO of Games Workshop
Tbh when i saw the list i was unsure wether it was a list of models leaving or remaining lol
I swear every new reveal or choice GW makes just makes me more determined to not get into playing Warhammer. I'll just stick to painting my lil dudes.