Old World News

[Sception]

Bring Chaos to the Old World with a horde of rampaging Marauders - Warhammer Community

Tear civilisation down.

www.warhammer-community.com

Spoiler

New plastic Marauders and Marauder Horsemen for Warriors of Chaos, releasing in an 'army reinforcement' box. They look amazing.

Between these and the recent 'War of Settra's Fury' with new Tomb King hero kits, it seems that now that all the 'official' factions have seen their arcane journals and oldhamer line re-releases, and Cathay is out testing and seemingly confirming the game's ability to support an entirely new faction, we're now entering a new phase of Old World support where those factions are starting to see more new plastic kits specifically for Old World.

On the one hand, that's really good news for the old world as a game and a product line, since I don't think we'd be seeing these things if the GW execs hadn't judged the game successful and worth long term support.

For undead specifically I feel a bit more mixed, as this suggests a cycle of support for the old world factions that have already been released, which means we probably won't be seeing any official vampire stuff any time soon, and the tomb kings heroes we already got might have been 'their turn' already, so it's entirely possible that we won't be seeing any more new Old World undead releases for a while.

But yeah, this is good news for the game as a whole, so I'm still hyped. Now if only they'd nerf Cathay so that the game could be worth playing.

 

[Seneschal]

Wow great sculpts indeed! This was the longest awaited update ever, the previous sculpts were older than dirt.

and yes, Cathay needs the nerf hammer.

 

[Velmates]

For official support and arcane journals for vampires that's bad news, I guess. However, the current book is good, especially considering the usual meta. We'll see how the legacy factions will be supported in case of a second edition.

That being said, I am very happy with the stuff that came out for the soulblight gravelords. I practically replaced my whole VC army with current models from that range and they look fantastic on square bases. The most outstanding of all models is, ofc, the dragon (which I don't have, yet). In addition, there's a lot of stuff from the night haunt and flesh eater courts. So, overall much more than we've ever had available.

 

[Disciple of Nagash]

Wow, they are some decent models. If there's one area I'll give GW their due it's the quality of the models and designs - Age of Sigmar especially has recently had some models which are massively impressive. I agree with Velmates, I could replace most of my older models if I didn't love them so much. That said I'll still be purchasing a lot of them!

I know we're probably assuming that the legacy armies won't get looked at in the near future, but I still think overall this is good news. If TOW had tanked there would be absolutely no change, this way with what looks to be an overall success gives us more chance that perhaps in second edition etc that the legacy armies might be incorporated. I can't see GW continuing to ignore what are potentially lucrative avenues

 

[Velmates]

Maybe and hopefully you are right. They have a lot of stuff in a kind of fantasy setting that they only need to supply with both square and round bases in order to make dual-use kits. As of now, they don't seem to want it be done as there are currently different models coming out for chaos, high elves, etc. Anyway, as customer, you are still free to use on a modular basis (like I do for gravelords/vampires). I hope, they, at least, supply updated rules for the legacy PDFs in case of a second edition.

As for the quality of models: I think there are a lot of good and often better sculpts out there (e.g. last sword, titan forge, and many smaller or private ones) - they are often more dynamic and/or creative. The problem is (and I have tried many in between end times and tow), they often suck in cast quality and lack detail. The rise of cheap printing helps but, at the end of the day, cast models from gw still outshine most. Especially when it comes to the physical properties of the plastic, like hardness/frailty, ability to heat-bend, work them with clippers/file/tools in general, most other companies are inferior.

 

[Sception]

Oh, yeah, that's super true. Like, I love these sculpts, but that's a subjective take, and a lot of recent model designs have been kind of uninspired at best - though that's thankfully been more of a problem over on the 40k side of things, Old World, AoS, & Box/Specialist game stuff has mostly still been more compelling.... though I do kind of feel that the creativity and distinctiveness of AoS has been declining a bit recently, like most of the models are still cool, but they wouldn't be out of place Old World Warhammer Fantasy or really any generic fantasy setting.

But again, that's subjective stuff. The production and materials quality though? That just objectively blows everything else out of the water. GW's injection-molded plastic is wildly superior to any other model material, the right combination of strength and hardness and workability and ability to hold detail. I mean, Malafeux or however its spelled is sort of close, but it's still kind of brittle and just not as nice to work with. And while you do still occasionally get old models in the gods-awful finecast (I picked up the old MESBG ring wraiths on 'last chance' and my two favorites, the Dark Marshal and Khamul, were finecast... tragic), the modern FW Resin, while not as good as GW plastic, is still worlds better than the resin you get from rival companies, let alone what you could print yourself. It's why I'm not convinced that 3d printing is the immediate existential threat to GW that it's made out to be. FDM has all sorts of issues with layer lines and supports, and 3d resin, in addition to being a toxic nightmare to work with, produces minis that are soft, fragile, prone to temperature warping, and just an all round pain to work with.

 

[Sception]

Preview show tonight at 7:30est. Old World will be at the event and is expected to see some significant announcements, but last rumors I heard the model reveals were going to be a 2nd wave for Cathay. Nothing is expected for Undead, as far as I know the recent Tomb Kings heroes were all that's expected for TK in the current phase of Old World releases and no other undead are likely. But who knows, vamp counts remain popular as a faction, and while I'm not aware of any "rumors" as such there has been a lot of speculation & wishlisting for a return of vampires in some form or another.

EDIT: as expected, nothing for undead. But what we did so looks pretty good, so I'm not complaining.

 

[Sception]

Old World Almanack – How The Razing of Westerland will change your Chaos armies

Rules for your new Chaos Marauders miniatures.

www.warhammer-community.com

Warhammer community article regarding "Arcane Journal: Razing of Westerland" from a few days back. Includes updated chaos rules (revised marauder entries, a different alignment system for marauders, new chaos spell lore), but also additional non-faction-specific content, including:

• new generic magic items
• slow grow campaign with experience/skill system
• 3 dedicated scenarios

I will probably pick up a copy of the book myself, as I'm interested in this sort of campaign-themed supplement, and it sounds like this one might be more successful in that regard than the war of settra's fury, at least in terms of fleshing out the campaign system a bit more.

.....

Of particular interest is this note at the bottom of the article:

* For anyone without this Arcane Journal, these updated profiles will be included in the next FAQ and errata update. This is scheduled for the end of January and will include a number of balance updates for factions old and new, based on your feedback since the 1.5 update in July. We plan to keep releasing updated FAQ and errata at regular intervals, so please don’t hesitate to contact us with your questions at: oldworldfaq@gwplc.com. And we love hearing tales of your adventures on the battlefield just as much as we enjoy receiving your questions!

So, a confirmation of a new update/errata, including specifically balance patches, for early 2026, plus future updates 'at regular intervals'. This is notable because it's a change from the stated plan for Old World up till this point, where they weren't going to do regular patches, and then they were only going to do the one big one as a stand alone thing. This is of course a mixed bag, regular patches make the physical books much less useful, and also can drop the floor out of a planned army before it hits the table, which kind of discourages committing to a new army project. On the other hand, a poorly considered supplement can negatively impact the overall game in a big way, as we've seen with Cathay, and post release balance patches are really the only way to address these problems when they happen, so while I can understand objections I'm personally happy to see it.

There's also the bit about 'factions old and new', which legacy pdf/renegade faction players have been quick to focus in on, hoping for a change to the 'supported vs. unsupported' stance on oldhammer factions, at least when it comes to first party errata and balance updates, but I'm not personally hanging any hopes on it. At the moment I'm choosing to read that as 'officially supported Warhammer Fantasy factions like Brettonians/Tomb Kings and brand new Old World factions like Cathay," but we'll see.

 

[Velmates]

Especially the "factions old and new" part got me excited for my Vampires. But lets see if they really were talking about legacy factions. Fingers crossed.

 

[Sception]

Not Old World News as such, but...

Celebrate store anniversaries in 2026 with an Aeldari Autarch and a Vampire Lord

Here are this year’s anniversary miniatures.

www.warhammer-community.com

2026 store anniversary model is another infantry vampire lord for AoS.

This one looks like it would make a great Blood Dragon for Old World. Depending on how big it is exactly it might be a bit hard to rank up, though. If that base is 32mm it should work though he might have to be turned at an odd angle. If it's 40mm he'll probably be a too big to fit.