New AoS starter "Thunder and Blood"

More GW news from GAMA...they are redoing the AoS starter in a neat way. It's the same Stormcast/Bloodbound lot without the Lord Celestant or Mighty Lord. But they are color molded (gold and red). It comes with a cool vinyl playmat and you can use the box for a terrain piece. I'm thinking this will be $85 retail, and that is a tremendous value. Especially since now you will get two Gorechosen characters, a WHQ character, and an exotic enemy group for WHQ.

I'd still probably choose Spire of Dawn over it at the same price but this is a better entry level product.

Warhammer Underworlds?

This is a new game, set in the Mortal Realms during the Age of Sigmar. It has been designed specifically for competitive, organised play, to support our growing community of gamers out there. For the moment, pretty much all we have in terms of detail is the cryptic video above, but you’ll be hearing much more about this new game, and seeing some of the new miniatures, very soon…

Well that certainly sounds like the return of Mordheim...

Yay skirmish!

Those new Dwarf miniatures with the airships they've announced look awesome.

New Necromunda (sort of) too!

Speaking of news from GAMA:

boardgamegeek.com/blogpost/63502/cmon-li...-director-game-desig

On the one hand, I think the license needs a really kick ass board game, like War of the Ring for the LotR license. On the other hand, a minis battle system ? Meh, the novels are much more character driven, many battles happen "off camera". But based on the first game being a "starter set" I am guessing CMON is aiming for a Warhammer like system they can milk for another half dozen huge Kickstarter campaigns.

Battles for Westeros 2.

It floundered before, but if anyone can get it to drum up enough interest, its CMON. The first KS will be a slam dunk, then we'll see what happens.

AoS Mordheim, dreams may actually come true.

Michael Barnes wrote: Especially since now you will get two Gorechosen characters,

Did you get my PM?

I did- check the drugs bag.

There's some interesting stuff kind of emerging from Shadespire. It is almost like it is a new brand- note that it is a game that "takes place in the Mortal Realms" and there is mention of new miniatures for it. It does not use any of the branding or logos of Age of Sigmar, it is "Warhammer Underworlds"

I am going to go WAAAAAAAY out on a limb here. I am going to make a hip-shot prediction this game is not going to be Mordheim reborn. I predict this will be a pre-painted skirmish game that uses cards and such a la X-Wing. Small units- like 5-6 pieces per side, focus on named heroes and monsters rather than battleline type units. The reason I think this is because X-Wing is the number one game in miniatures (per ICV2 sales figures) and it has been beating both AoS and 40k for a while. GW has not really been able to counter it with anything effectively. So I think that this game- and it will be a separate game, not part of existing product lines- is going to be their push into the X-Wing pre-painted/mass market/tournament style game. This means greater accessibility, which means no painting/assembly and no rules tucked into 200 page books. GW has had such a strong uptick in SENSE lately, I can imagine the leadership there realizing now that they need to back off of the vertical integration a touch and come up with a product that works in that X-Wing space.

I really believe that's what this is...and it is also why they are not actually showing anything at GAMA- it would totally steal the thunder from Armageddon, the new balloon dwarves, and the AoS starter revision.

I think that mostly sounds like crazy talk.

Warhammer Quest does not use any branding or logos from Age of Sigmar. The font used for "Warhammer" in "Warhammer Underground" is the same font they are using for the "Warhammer" in Age of Sigmar and Warhammer Quest.

While they certainly might try to make their version of a play for the X-Wing space, I extremely doubt they would ever offer prepainted, assembled miniatures.

My guess is still that it is Mordheim 2.0 as a lot of the language they used sounds very similar to their descriptions of Necromunda 2.0.

Aha, but they HAVE actually had prepainted miniatures before! the Lord of the Rings Combat Hex game was put out by Sabertooth, who was GW in disguise...well, actually, Sabertooth was part of the original Black Library publishing group within GW. So there actually IS a precedent for them doing that.

I just really thing that the way this looks is pointing to a new product line...not a new way to play with old minis. It could even be a different scale, something like Inquisitor (heh).

If it IS Mordheim 2.0...I am set the hell UP for it. I've got seven armies worth of units to build warbands with. I'd obviously rather it be that than something new to buy..

Wasn't Sabertooth largely allowed to run independently of their parent? I can't see GW-proper choosing to deviate that wildly with their own name on it.

What were those figures made out of? PVC? HIPS probably won't be able to handle a prepaint very well, and I doubt they will want to spend all that money on tooling if their wild new produce fails without the ability fore multi-use with the core line.

Now, Inquisitor-scale I could totally get to behind. Particularly because it could then serve dual-purpose to be used for display-level painting.

They really seem to be focused right now on getting as much use out of their existing molds (or new molds that can be heavily reused) as possible so that's why I am guessing it will be closer to Mordheim. It's not a huge stretch, it's one of their popular legacy games, and they can reuse a lot of their existing lines.

But they specifically mention "the new miniatures" for it. Not a rebox/stock liquidator like Shadow War.