Empire Rumours

[eldargal]

Via Darnok, Hastings, Ghost21, Harry and Myself on Warseer:

So i understand empire will get 4 kits. Knights obviously. 2 character ones (cant properly remember which ones but if you notice the priest of morr rules i would guess WP's will get a kit). And a new war atlar. The Altar kit will be a dual kit. The second option will be a Nuln seige cannon. Massive cannon used to defend the walls of nuln.

Empire are not getting updates of current knights, there are different cav coming though. The old crappy horses/knights remain. War altar makes something else, but afaik it's not a cannon of any kind.

I heard more Knightly Orders, not just one box of generic knights, plus warrior priests halflings and some characters, including a female. Never heard anything about a war altar/cannon kit, I heard a vague whisper of a war altar/war wagon kit.

i really shouldnt mention it but some things are back from 4th ed?.. im thinking

Oh, forgot about demigrpyh/griff/griffon cavalry. Looking forward to seeing those actually.

take with salt..

warrior priest of morr/ sigmar/ ulric, the ulric may be a re release from soc

oh and a special warrior priestess of myramidia?

i really need to find the rest of my tutoen guard from somwhere



i had heard of a sprue re-cut for the knights though

well i really really shouldn't

but inner circle knights, wicked plastic box interest anybody?

... lots of options... only 5 though... main reason for knights not getting a new box

the gods are very prominent now , theres also a sphere of influence as i understand it so ulricans wont be affected by sigmaric priests...

Harry corroborates Myrmidia priest(ess), hints at this arriving quite quickly, others suppose this means October as November is 40k months and December Christmas sales. So October or January. Hope I've not missed anything. I can't see it being October on account of there being no mention of new Empire kits in the WD.

Edit: updates:

ive heard that too.. just that theres 2 kits one makes a multi version of an altar the other a wagon

the priests do have some interesting abilities.. morr are very anti undead...sigmar as you know and ulric are frothing loonies

So, two kits a war altar/war altar and war wagon/ siegecannon?


no 1 they wont no 2 expect mini forces from various places,

i realy shouldnt but theres going to be mini armies like allies or sth (not sure on exact wording)

there will be things like a araby one and kislev, also i heard estalia, and oddly some insect kingdom

Ghost is referring to pikemen not making spears useless, so:

Empire rumoured to get pikemen.

Mini-armies/ally list with Kislev/Araby possible too. I hope not as part of the Empire book, that would be bad.

[Mr.Pickelz]

From what you've stated, i'm thinking January, as October is too close, and will probably be filled up by necron info. Interesting though at the sound of new knights, and a Nuln seige cannon? I'm goin to take a guess and say, that it will be something similar to what the Ogres got, as far as a cannon-cart goes. ;)

[phoenix01]

If these rumors are realized, then I may have to revisit the concept of starting a WFB army.

[Wildeybeast]

Is there an army book to go with these new kits? Because TBH, we are the best served army in terms of models and kits, whilst new ones would be nice, there doesn't seem much point (other than money making) if there anre't new rules to go with them. I can see a War Altar/ War wagon plastic combo kit, and prayers being updated to work in a similar way to the race specific spells. If there is a new book, I can't see it being released in Oct as we would know about it by now.

[eldargal]

No hint of a new book that I know of, maybe rules in White Dwarf like VC had.

[TheCastigator]

Are there any more rumblings about a Fantasy book being out this year? Are we starting to see a new trend of filler releases, like VC, or are these indicators of what's to come?

The latest round seems to have VC and Empire near/at the top of the new book list.

[Faultie]

Stuff back from 4th? Do I dare hope that Kislevites are back?!

[Wildeybeast]

No hint of a new book that I know of, maybe rules in White Dwarf like VC had.

Oh wonderful. New WD rules. They will compliment the FAQ printout I'm carrying round with army book splendidly. :D

To answer the castigator's question, the general feeling is that November will see Necrons and December is always a 'filler' month where nothing special is released. So no, i don't think there will be a book this year. Rumours are that the first one of 2012 will be Wood Elves or Bretonnians, both of whom suffered quite badly under the new rules.

[eldargal]

ive heard that too.. just that theres 2 kits one makes a multi version of an altar the other a wagon

the priests do have some interesting abilities.. morr are very anti undead...sigmar as you know and ulric are frothing loonies

So, two kits a war altar/war altar and war wagon/ siegecannon?

[Wildeybeast]

Sounds pretty awesome to me. If Jan sees an IG wave as rumoured, it would sound like the ideal fantasy release to go alongside them. Not a new codex level release, but the next best thing, providing two popular armies with substantial new releases.

[Chronowraith]

So, two kits a war altar/war altar and war wagon/ siegecannon?


If they bring the War Wagon back i might actually pick up an Empire army.

[gcsmith]

Sigh another empire book b4 brets, why is every army getting 2 books b4 us

[sps62487]

I agree with you about Brets. But Pegasi Knights i think are the best. Grail knights are just too many points. I think for adepticon i will run a Monty Python & the holy grail theme army. I picked up my buddy bretonian army that was build about 4-6 so i have 2 of the new boxes plus a ton of crap say about 8000 points for about 300. I just need another trebuchet and another box of pegasi knights. I have at least 12 of the grail knights on foot so that shouldn't be a problem and i can always grab a man at arms and green/yellowstuff two coconuts together :P. Just need a few cav bases and i am good i'll post some pictures if i do go to adepticon and ggo through with this.

[gcsmith]

pegsasis knights aint that good, too expensive

[bobrunnicles]

If they bring the War Wagon back i might actually pick up an Empire army.

Totally agree! War Wagon? If we really see that I'm afraid I will have to issue a manly 'squeee!' of joy :)

[Chronowraith]

Totally agree! War Wagon? If we really see that I'm afraid I will have to issue a manly 'squeee!' of joy :)

Truth be told if they came out with a War Alter than didn't look like it was sculpted back around the birth of Napolean I'd consider Empire too. The War Wagon was just a favorite of mine several books ago.

[Ranmasolo]

I would love to see a War Alter kit, something besides a Corpse Cart to convert into my WoC War Alter. You know... And for my Empire army... Heh... :D

[eldargal]

no 1 they wont no 2 expect mini forces from various places,

i realy shouldnt but theres going to be mini armies like allies or sth (not sure on exact wording)

there will be things like a araby one and kislev, also i heard estalia, and oddly some insect kingdom

Ghost is referring to pikemen not making spears useless, so:

Empire rumoured to get pikemen.

Mini-armies/ally list with Kislev/Araby possible too. I hope not as part of the Empire book, that would be bad.

[wittdooley]

If they rerelease Tzar Boris in Finecast, I may pee a little.

[Wildeybeast]

Being able to take Kislevites and Halflings in the old book was cool, but I think now they would detract from the ethos of the Empire. If they do allies, why not just do a Dogs of War style thing, with mini army lists for the likes of Araby, Tilea, Halfings, Kislevites etc that can be taken as allies for good armies or standalone lists.

[eldargal]

I agree, some kind of allies book would be ideal, like SoM but without fulcrums and whatnot. Unit cards of mercenaries and minor nations/races. It is speculation but I wouldn't rule it out, it would be the best way ofgetting amazons into the game and I know they're coming at some point.

[eldargal]

Ghost21 has confirmed (in the rumoured sense) the allies book is a seperate expansion like SoM and won't interfere with other army releases.

[Old_Paladin]

I wonder if this is part of the reason for the Ind and Cathay rumours we saw a few years ago.
There was a lot of chatter about them becoming armies, with a new line of models and rules; and the time frame between idea and release would fit pretty closely.

Or it could be the 8th ed version of Dogs of War and the Regiments of Renown; if enough people wrote in about their army/favorite unit having been phased out.

[eldargal]

Could be, this would have been indeveloment for a year or two at least, I assume. Oh and ghost21 just said something about expecting WD rules before the book so we might see some things sooner, Araby and Kislev were mentioned in context.

More from ghost:

i think cd are a fw thing for now, sorry

theres 5 "states" in the book / supplement

aparently 2 "good" 1 nutural, and 2 "evil ish"

My vote:

Good: Kislev & Araby
Neutral: Amazons
Evil: Insect People and ???

[Old_Paladin]

My vote:

Good: Kislev & Araby
Neutral: Amazons
Evil: Insect People and ???
For Me

Good: Kislev & Tilea
Neutral: Armies of the far East (Ind, Nippon and Cathay)
Evil(ish): Fish-People (they have gotten several clues in resent books) & ?

[eldargal]

You could be right, I just heard amazons were getting kits so penciled them in as neutral. Coudl also be Araby in evil, if it represents a nasty wizard and entourage or something as opposed to the whole country.

[Old_Paladin]

Araby could easily be in the Evil-ish catagory.
If you take the Empire and Brettonia to be the good-guys point of view, they've both declared wars against Araby (the Brettonian Erranty-War was a big one).

A corrupt Viseir/Jenii and a murderous group of desert thieves (original, I know; but as long as they look good).

It could be possible that Amazons are even in the Good Group (they do serve the plan of the Old Ones and are totally opposed to Chaos). I wonder if they'll still have las-weapons, or if thats been totally re-con'd out?

[Wildeybeast]

Again, I'm going to trot out the line I said with SoM - it will be cool, but why bother? There are so many armies books crying out to be redone, why waste time releasing yet more new stuff that no one has asked for? I'm sure an allies book will add lots of cool new models and background, but I'd much rather they updated more of the army books first. Its been 14 months since 6th ed was released and they have only managed to bring out 3 new army books.

[Old_Paladin]

Three Army Books in a year is actually a really quick release schedual for Fantasy.

2010 had One army book: Beastman
2009 had two: Lizards and Skaven
2008 was a big year with Four releases
2007 had two: Empire and High Elves
2006 had one: Orcs
2005 had two: dwaves and wood elves

[Wildeybeast]

Without wanting to be picky, its been 14 months, not a year, but my point isn't the speed of releases (though that should be improved) it is that resources which are needed to support exisitng products are being diverted to releasing expansions which no one has asked for nor needs and which will swiftly be forgotten (how many people are still playing Planetstirke or Spearhead?), whilst their are armies whic have been hammered by the rules changes left to languish. It's the same in 40k, look at the likes of Sisters or Tau. Get all the army nooks/codexes in order first, then release expansions, before invalidating them with a new set of rules.

[Old_Paladin]

Resources put towards the expantions tend to not affect army book releases in any way; afaik.


And realistically, if they did it your way, their would never be expantions and edition updates would take twice as long. If an army book came out every 4 months and every army book got an update per edition it would make it a 5 year cycle from start to finish.

An expantion pack on every 5th year would suck; and the new edition on the 6th year, to start the cycle over would be worse [imagine if there were still 4 more years of 7th edition Daemons and Vampire Counts, due to that cycle].

[eldargal]

They have numerous projects on the go at once, there is no reason to think that taking a couple of people off a small allies expansion would impact the people working on, say, a new army book. There is no reason to assume throwing a couple of extra authors at a book will make it come better or faster, too many cooks and all that.

[Wildeybeast]

They have numerous projects on the go at once, there is no reason to think that taking a couple of people off a small allies expansion would impact the people working on, say, a new army book. There is no reason to assume throwing a couple of extra authors at a book will make it come better or faster, too many cooks and all that.

You don't put thsoe poeple onto a book already in progress, you get them to work on another one and speed up production. If you have several different teams all working on different armies, then you can theoretically release one every other month and get 5-6 books for each format released in a year which means only 2-3 years to get everything UTD. Then you can have year or two of expansions and fixing any armies you have broken by releasing overpowered or underpowered books, before revising the rules. Don't get me wrong I like the cool stuff, I've picked up a copy of Dreadfleet, its just frustrating when you play Wood Elves and Tau that your armies are left to languish when un-needed stuff is worked on :(

[eldargal]

I doubt the difference is that signfiicant. There are a number of WFB and 40k books being worked on at any given time, each one having a main writer and being assisted by the whole team as necessary. Splitting off the main writer to do another project wouldn't increase the amount of books they could out by that much. In fact when I've spoken to a few people with links to the design studio they are adamant that the expansions do not effect the regular book rate at all.

[Old_Paladin]

You also need to consider the length of time of everything involved, each army can easily be two year in development and GW only has so many individuals they they feel are good at making army books/codexes.

Once you've got your top 3 guys all on projects, it could be 6 more months before the first person is off their project; you might as well get the back up team to do a fun release. The sculpting team will be working on the models for the first and maybe second army books, but the third one won't be at that stage yet, so the guys without a project can hop on the expantion as needed (as they usually have significantly less models required).

The time frames might not make everyone happy; but they do have legitimate reasons for it.
GW is a business out to make money, they don't have people sitting around doing nothing; and they don't expend time on something that at least a good percentage of clients will buy (not everyone will buy an expantion, but enough people will want it to make it worth releasing).