This is fascinating, and an inside view I wasn’t aware of…is this something we’ll-known by now?
Take it with a pinch of salt: It’s a summary of a discussion by UK residents on some forum some years ago. Presumably ones with insider contacts, because that was precisely how it was discussed, and not as speculation. Since it rhymed with what I as an outsider have seen of FW activities through almost 20 years in the hobby with regular checking out of the FW website, I see no reason to doubt it.
For instance, how much AoS stuff has FW done since AoS was released in 2015? All I can remember are 40k, 30k and shouldering Hobbit releases from GW. Likewise, FW did almost only 40k in the first decade of this century.
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The models themselves I’m not fussed about. My gaming group is happy to use whatever models are suitable and I haven’t played at a games workshop in years. I’ll be dammed if I am paying forgeworld prices.
But to have a supported rule set with Errata and FAQ? That I am excited about!
Also - lost kingdom miniatures have just released a mongol-esque hobgoblin range for 3D print if anyone is interested in that style?
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Honestly I don’t really get where this FW-fear for TOW comes from? What makes you all think this will be a FW-resin-game?
I expect this to be a GW game first and foremost. Will there be FW-support, like there is for all the other games? Probably. But I fully expect the bulk of the game being GW style plastic. Especially since they apparently want to keep supporting old WHFB armies. For a time there were FW-exclusive armies, like LoA obviously and Death Korps of Krieg. But these days seem to be behind us. There isn’t even a FW-exclusive Blood Bowl team or Kill Team, let alone a whole model range.
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I’m rather excited for forgeworld’s involvement, hopefully they’ll get to redo the cancelled projects like Blackfire Pass, a second Monstrous Arcanum and more thrones of chaos
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I might be going mad here but I’m sure there was a mention to plastic or resin in the Warhammer community article, I’ve just re-read it and there is nothing.
I thought that’s where all this plastic/resin talk was coming from 
You’re not mad, but it wasn’t in the article, it was in a comment on Twitter.
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Well, maybe you’re going a little bit mad after all 
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Hahahah 
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While thinking about the eventual return of a ranked combat Warhammer system, I thought about how weird the statlines were from 4th to 8th edition. Not the things in it, but the order. Traditional order for years has been:
M WS BS S T W I A Ld
This is a crazy mix up. Starts with Movement, that’s good since it is the first phase in your turn. Then Weapon Skill followed by Ballistic Skill - maybe in the earlier editions the fighting came before or at the same time as shooting? That would also explain Strength, Toughness, and Wounds next. Then we get Initiative - something that is used at the start of the combat phase. Then Attacks, which would be used after Initiative. Ends with Leadership, a good conclusion to see if someone runs away at the end of the combat phase, but it has never been clear why it is Ld instead of just L. WS and BS could have been reduced to C (Combat Skill) and B. There haven’t been joint WFRP statlines since 3rd edition (which has Int, Cl and WP at the end), so there wasn’t really a need to prevent treading on those for a long time.
So let’s reorder to the order that they were used in 8th edition turns:
M BS I A WS S T W Ld
And now the renaming to single characters:
M B I A C S T W L
Or if you want them to all be two letters, which is helpful for keeping them lined up if some statlines have characteristics with two digits:
Mo BS In At Cs St To Wo Ld
So what was the point in all this? Nothing really, just a curiosity about the arbitrary arrangement that stuck around for decades after it stopped making sense, and that they say that they are going to rejig the rules quite a bit. I kinda expect a balancing system similar to combat points in 40k with more bonus actions for armies with more core units and the like. I’m starting to ramble even more now…
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So the phase sequence definitely was different in earlier editions. I think (!) shooting was always before combat, but I am pretty sure magic used to be at the end.
As for possible changes in TOW: I would be fine if they changed the WS and especially BS to a fixed value, like „Unit XYZ hits on a 3+“ but keep S and T, like in 40k. One of the things which I found most disturbing when AOS dropped was that a human wounds a goblin on the same roll as a Greater Daemon. Sure there are different Saves and Wounds, but still.
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Latest news: Base sizes will (nearly) all change. 20mm bases will change to 25mm, larger bases will mostly change to be even bigger. Base size will be in the unit profile.
My opinions: I was expecting all infantry to go to 25mm. I question why most large infantry needs a bigger base than 25mm. The Knights still look like they are on 25x50mm bases, but maybe they are on some odd size like 26x52mm. A lot of the older cavalry bases were closer to 23.5x50mm anyway.
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I saw this, Im sure it will look much better for most units and not as “crowded”. But I just ordered a bunch of square bases last week! 
…now should I do it as an OW-project och a 6th ed? Im sure some dedicated soul will make a great OW-army list for us as soon as it drops. 
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Very curious about what the >25mm bases will end up on.
Overall I like the change to 25s but I think it would have been nice to continue 20s for especially small models, like goblins or halflings. In a similar vein I hope we don’t see an expansion to 30mm for the next step or my older orcs will start to look lonely! I’d just hate to end up looking like SOIAF on the table 
There’s been some healthy discussion around what the increased base sizing will mean for gameplay. Deployment will get a bit tougher with horde armies and we may see less terrain. I saw someone mention it may mean the Horde rule of 8th may not exist or be less available since an additional 40mm of frontage will make them even more unwieldy.
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I wouldnt hate 32x32 (this woukd make them compatible with the round aos bases)
But yes, it WOULD be a lot of space to fill…
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I expect it will coincide with a return to smaller units. You know, like 6th or so when you had 2 ranks of 6 models and that was a viable unit.
If (!) “hordes” remain to be a thing, guess the number will drop to 8 or so.
Larger unit sizes were accompanied be attacks from the second rank and stepping up, so there’s potentially a long tail of consequences to increased base sizes.
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Lower model counts would be a good thing. Hope that 20mm will not completely go out of fashion, so that third-party suppliers continue to produce them. Don’t want to rely on MDF or 3D printed ones for plastic models.
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Alright, wild theory time.
Thinking about the wider implications of larger base sizes: larger bases will mean a bigger footprint of the units, that might lead to the return of smaller unit sizes. I think we might very well return to the min/max size system of 6th edition. All of that would not be revolutionary.
But what if it wouldn’t stop there. What if we get more or less fixed unit sizes? The days of the blisters, where we buy (as in: physically buy with money) models in 3/4 increments are long, long gone. We now buy units (largely) in 10-model chunks. And if we take a look at AoS and 40k, army list generation is much more restricted. In AoS you can only get multiples of the starting unit, which incidentally aligns perfectly with what you buy in a box. 40k offers a little more freedom, but either has the starting size of a unit as 1 box and then allows anything up to a second full box, or starting size is half the box and max is one full.
Makes you think 
(disclaimer: I don’t play AoS and I haven’t played 40k in like 4 editions or so. My understanding of list generation might be flawed)
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