The Carrion Empire - new boxed set with FEC, including a new vampire

[Borgnine]

Nobody posted anything about this, so I will.

A new boxed set got teased during the Open Day lately - The Carrion Empire. It's about Skaven and Flesh-eater Courts fighting each other - and it includes a new hero for each faction. The undead got a completely new Abhorrant Archregent (or a Strigoi Ghoul King) - a good model to accompany the kinda-old one from the Terrorgheist kit. I think he looks amazing

You can find the trailer in THIS Warhammer Community post (below 40K and new goblins).

It reminds me of the Blightwars boxed set which was about Stormcasts fighting Nurgle Demons - and sometime after that, those factions got expanded. It could be just a coincidence because both of those are popular and would get updates nonetheless, but it still gives me some hope for new ghouls, vampires and rats!

 

[El Syf]

Nice to see a new vampire of any kind! Will be interesting to see if they update flesheaters or not would open the door for the other 1st ed battletomes.

 

[Menkeroth]

It reminds me of the Blightwars boxed set which was about Stormcasts fighting Nurgle Demons - and sometime after that, those factions got expanded. It could be just a coincidence because both of those are popular and would get updates nonetheless, but it still gives me some hope for new ghouls, vampires and rats!

Exactly, GW uses this tactics in 40k as well. And yeah, I also think they both can get some updates down the line after that, maybe even new book for ghouls and a book for the clan Skryre. Would be nice.

 

[Unas the slayer]

Well, Flesh Eater is going to be updated

and they are going to receive endless spells and a terrain piece.

 

[Sception]

FEC battletome preview is up today.

Death Battletome: Flesh-eater Courts – The Low-down - Warhammer Community

I have mixed feelings. Mostly, I'm still disappointed at the apparent lack of new models. The endless spells and bone chair don't really do a lot for me (if we had to have a piece of scenery associated with the FEC faction, I'd rather it was the already existing and much more visually impressive garden of morr / sigmarite mausoleum). And I'm particularly bitter at the lack of new courtier models. The varghulf, while decent for its time, is at this point a rather painfully static and outdated resin model, while the ghoul, horror, and flayer courtiers all use the wildly unacceptable "paint the unit champ a different color and throw the rest of the box in the garbage" model - and the fact that none of these are getting new models already seems to be confirmed by the pictures in the preview, which include both the current varghulf and the current horror courtier.

Beyond that, the FEC range is still a painfully thin range never meant to stand on its own and honestly kind of doesn't. That doesn't mean we can't get a respectable faction out of the book game-wise, but GW's dev's are, to put it charitably, inconsistent. With a robust, diverse book like Legions of Nagash or the new Skaven book they can drop the ball with 2/3 units and still end up with a competitively viable faction with at least some build variety, but for a faction like FEC, that only have 12 (now 13 including the new archregent) units total? And only three of those being proper units if you set aside heroes and monsters? Basically, all of their options will need to be on point or the faction will end up with only highly predictable cookie cutter lists, if they can even manage that much.

I'm not saying there's not hope here. What's been previewed is pretty nice. That command ability is absolutely nasty, the 2e summoning changes were rather favorable, the new spells look good - though actually pulling them off will be a challenge - I've got my fingers crossed for a nagash-worshipping Court that comes with bonuses to casting rolls. Speaking of courts, the choice between a range of heavily themed courts or generic lists with a variety of delusions to define your own custom theme sounds like a really nice way to do things. I don't feel as pessimistic about the book as I sound.

But yeah, after Nighthaunts remind Death players what real release waves look like, it's hard not to be rather let down here. FEC aren't like the Legions or the Skaven or the Beastment - oldhammer factions that already had well rounded model ranges to draw on. They really needed more than this.

 

[Unas the slayer]

I cannot really disagree.
New spells are nice but should come after new models...

 

[Sception]

spells & terrain preview is up:

Flesh-eater Courts Preview: Endless Spells and the Charnel Throne - Warhammer Community

Not awful, but not much to write home about. The endless spells will need to be pretty cheap points-wise to be particularly viable. The chair is nowhere near as impressive to me as the skaven's trio of tunnel openings, but sparing you a command point (or two if the regent is sufficiently cheap to make it viable to run two) to use on the ravening hunger command ability later isn't terrible.

All in all, I'm neither under- nor over-whelmed by these. Just plain old whelmed. Which leaves me with pretty much the same overall disappointment with this release that I expressed previously. Hopefully the book itself can manage to turn that around.

 

[Unas the slayer]

Well, as Death player i really want to see more variety to undead armies, and i hoped for a "nighthaunt treatment" for FEC.
But as much as i appreciate their unusual lore, i've never been into ghouls.