“How do I live without the ones I love?

Time still turns the pages of the book it’s burned. Place and time always on my mind, I have so much to say but you’re so far away”

~ So Far Away, Avenged Sevenfold (Nightmare Album, 2010)

by Joel McGrath

Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today in memory of our dearest models and armies. We heard in a Warhammer Community article that they were no more; we are shocked. And we are saddened. While we mourn it is important to look back on the memories and good times had with our models… Yeah. Nah. Fuck that shit. Let’s rip in.

GW in their infinite wisdom today announced a major cull of their model range in the build up to 4^th Edition Age of Sigmar – the biggest we’ve seen as a community since AoS was first released. What we expected to go were the old metal/finecast sculpts, some first wave Stormcast (that were getting replaced with new Thunderstrike kits) and most likely Bonesplitterz. What we instead got was a massive fucking kick in the dick that only the inner circle jerk of content creators and borderline conspiracy theorists already knew about.

Context is important, so I want you to know that I write this article emotionally charged, after drowning my sorrows at the pub, being heavily invested in the content of the Warcom article we’re talking about for many years. I have a very large collection of a few armies, being more of a completionist rather than an Ash Ketchum “Gotta catch ‘em all” kind of hobbyist. I personally own around 30,000 points of Stormcast, and over 15,000 points of painted Beasts of Chaos which was my first proper army in AoS outside of starting off (like everyone else) with the poster boys. I hope that gives you an idea of where this article is headed.

Let’s start with Stormcast

As mentioned above, what we expected was a removal of the first wave of Stormcast: Liberators, Paladins, Prosecutors and so on. We already knew about new Liberators thanks to the Realms of Ruin video game released late last year, and subsequent Warcom articles this past week. I think everyone was fine with that. Stormcast players understand the model range is as bloated as the typical jealous non-Stormcast player. What we weren’t expecting, and what probably nobody saw coming, was a complete discard of the Sacrosanct Chamber. It was only yesterday that I was getting excited for the idea of running a god damn Lord-Arcanum in his own detachment or whatever the fuck they’re calling it, with some Evocator “Battleline”. But instead of giving the Sacrosanct chamber a chance on the table with a decent ruleset and points combo, they’ve just fucked them off completely, with an absolutely piss poor lore excuse of “they’ve gone back home to sweep the floors”.

Speaking of their job, the Sacrosanct chamber, across all of the Stormhosts, were in charge of seeking out the truth of the ‘flaw’ and trying to fix it. You know, the one where they get progressively more fucked up every time one of their armies gets removed from the game they die and are reforged. Instead an entire Chamber’s worth of jobs, across however many Stormhosts, have been replaced by one nerd who can use chatGPT while he sits on a dragon with a thumb up his arse.

Speaking of which, lore wise, I’ll put money on Ionus getting no closer to figuring it out because ChatGPT doesn’t have access to the internet, and it’ll be a big thing with new Sacrosanct in AoS 5. Because we all know GW can’t help releasing the same thing but in new kits. It might be worthwhile hanging onto your current Sacrosanct models: they’re a cool range of kits, but are purists like me going to proxy them for things like Liberators? Probably not.

Onto Beasts of Chaos

“I’m not angry, I’m just saying sometimes “Goodbye” is a second chance”

~ Second Chance, Shinedown (The Sound of Madness, 2007)

Aren’t I so fucking lucky. My models get “Some well-deserved retirements”. Like fuck they do, some of the kits held up, like the Beastlord you released just a year or two ago. In fact, I’m that fucking lucky, I get to rebase my entire army by 2025 If I don’t sell or burn it in a fit of fucking rage beforehand! Does anyone remember when AoS dropped back in the day and someone set fire to his entire Dark Elf army? There might be a few Beastmen armies ending up in a pool of melted plastic too. Make sure to check out the Measured Gaming YouTube channel over the next week or so.

I’m sure there’s a valid reason or two for GW to nuke another one of their factions from AoS – out of pure laziness for balancing one more army in a game they create is one reason I can think of. Maybe they’ve done it just to fucking spite me. Cheers for that.

What I can say is, the time spent assembling, painting, and writing lists off the back of countless points changes, errata, editions, GHBs and Battletomes currently feels all for nothing. The memories at least I’ll keep forever.

I’m probably overreacting here, and I’d understand if you thought I was. When other hobbyists have had armies culled in the past, with all the carry-on they’ve dished up, I’ve always thought “C’mon fellas, it’s just models”. So, I’m going on public record here to apologize to anyone who’s had their Chaos Dwarfs, Tamurkhan’s Horde, Elves, Dwarves, Freeguild, Orcs & Goblins and whatever else deleted. I see you. I feel you. It fucking sucks.

Beasts of Chaos to me is a major part of my “Warhammer identity” if you will, and I’m struggling as I write this. My reputation locally, nationally, and even internationally is off the back of my relative success with them at their lowest of lows. (At least that’s what I thought until today). And I’m sure there are a lot of other players who feel the same way. Shoutout to fellow Beastlords who’ve carved it up over the years: Dan Bradshaw, The Noog, Eat Bray Love and Geordie Flett to name a few. It’s been a pleasure, lads. And to all the other Beastlords out there: I wish you well. But I won’t be joining you in the old world.

While I sit here, typing away, feeling honeslty pretty drained, especially listening to some heavy tunes (probably unnecessarily), I want to leave with a final message to everyone reading. Consider checking in on your mates who’ve had some rough news today. You never know if they could use a chat.

Maybe they are just toys at the end of the day. But we all know that our models and armies are way more than that, and we are connected on a much deeper level to our hobby. I’m struggling to describe how much these things means to us, but I hope you know what I mean.

“’Cause I’m broken, when I’m lonesome, And I don’t feel right, when you’ve gone away”

~ Broken, Seether ft Amy Lee (Punisher album, 2001)

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