New Rumour Engine image

[JeffTibbetts]

Hey all! I just looked at the Rumour Engine today and I'm certain this is an AdMech thing.

Have a look for yourself: https://www.warhammer-community.com/2017/02/08/rumour-engine-2/

And here's the pic if you don't want to follow the link.

Before you say it's for Duardin in AoS, take a look at at the design of the pistol, and compare it to something that's already in the range like the Phosphor pistol below

[Battybattybats]

Hmmm.
It could be they are carrying the ad-mech style to the Duardin but i wouldn't have expected the blue glowing pieces, i'd think they'd want to keep the colour style more distinctly separate.

So i'm getting hyped.

[Odds.043]

Oh my god... I have so many thoughts... that thing in the background is making me so confused. If it's admech it's got to be 1 of 3 things: a new robot, a ground vehicle, or a flyer.

 

The color scheme and shape of the background thing makes me think a haywire weapon, or at least some kind of electricity based weapon or ability (what with the tesla esque feel of the design). The foreground thing baffles me though. I can't think of how to justify it in relation to the background. It looks like it could be part of a gun, oR maybe just a random bit off a vehicle. The little bulb comming off of it like that us also confusing...

[Vel'Cona]

Looks pretty dwarfish.  Based on the rumours, that's probably what's coming next.

[Odds.043]

I mean, unless dwarves invent fantasy electricity, I'm not really seeing it as dwarves... it looks to tesla for fantasy

[JeffTibbetts]

I really don't think it's dwarves or AoS. For one, that blue glow is a signature element of the Mars Skitarii and Cult Mechanicus official paintjobs. As Bats pointed out I don't see the studio just borrowing the design AND color palette for AoS Duardin wholesale. Sure, there could be some overlap since they're likely to share some steampunk roots, but nothing so blatant in my opinion.

Also, the thing in the background looks a heck of a lot like the rubber electrical dampeners or shock disruptors you see in power relay stations across the US. It's a very distinctive look that wouldn't make a lot of sense on anything that wasn't based on electricity. It COULD be something like a Tesla coil but they don't really look like that exactly. Maybe there's some rule of cool going on, but either way the visual cues point to something electrical.

[Magos Takatus]

As said above, the colour scheme fits the GW studio Adeptus Mechanicus force too well for anything else to be likely. As for what it is, I have no idea. Why I saw a set of keys I guessed a lowly Lexmechanic and we got an Arch Magos so if I guess it's part of a tank it'll probably be a superheavy vehicle. I don't want to guess something too big or nobody will be able to afford the finished model!

For what it's worth, I think Jeff is closest with the detail. I was thinking Tesla Coil but his picture vis more accurate. GW Mechanicus seems strongly themed around glowing blue electricity effects so that seems the safest guess.

[Odds.043]

I suppose another good question to ask is: skitarii, cult, or both?

 

The diagonal pose of the background d thing reminds me oh Grey Knight jump packs (the teleport things) which makes we think we might get a jump unit of some kind.

 

The grimy detail we can see on the paint suggests the picture was taken really zoomed in to the model. It might be an infantry sized model, or just a really small part of something bigger, but the two fused bulbs are making me wonder if it's supposed to look like that, or of it's just so close the paint fused the two together.

[Battybattybats]

Well let's consider what we've been rumoured to be getting at various points.

New robots. A long while back there were reports that 2 new boxes of robots were coming. A dual-build set with 2 humanoid robots, which implied that it was 2 of the 3 remaining 1st-edition robots, and a single-build set many expected would be the Crusader, the mantis-like original of the variant Vorax.

I'll put the pic of the 1st ed metal versions in a spoiler tag as the image is large.

http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110630052042/warhammer40k/images/6/65/Legio_Cybernetica_Robots.JPG

We don't see that electrical gear on any of those designs, but as we know from the Castellan/Kastellan re-design while it kept some elements a lot were also radically redesigned. So it could still be one of the robots.

Also rumoured was a Mechanicus Flyer. Something i really want for no other reason than it feels like it should exist. No details as to what it looked like were forthcoming and it could have been a misidentification of either the Forgeworld Heresy era Mechanicum flying drone the Vulturax or the new space marine armored flyers.

We have no certainty as to what a Mechanicus flyer will look like. There's sketchy skull-shaped flying craft in an artwork of the Imperial Palace that i first saw in Shield of Baal: Leviathan (there used to illustrate one of the cities in the Cryptus system) and which is in the current White Dwarf on page 83 with a group of other artworks of Terra but as the artwork has been around a while where it could inspire the designer it's not likely to be a deliberately foreshadowed design, but that has happened before so it is still possible.

With the recent slew of resurrecting old designs in new forms like the return of the Grav Attack (originally made from a deodorant bottle and bits of zoid) now for the Custodes instead of Marines it's possible a Mechanicus flyer might be based on the 1st edition Ornithopter which had rules and was represented in the rules with a model-kit kitbash/scratch-build.

http://images.dakkadakka.com/gallery/2010/12/22/165907_sm-Copyright%20Games%20Workshop,%20Retro%20Reivew,%20Rogue%20Trader.jpg

That would certainly fit the robot-limbs style of the plastic range.

Other recent rumours of a plastic thunderhawk or plastic warhound titan might have some mechanicus logos but these stylistic elements are quite unlikely. Apparently there is a 3-legged titan type called a Punisher class Titan with tesla weapons in one of The Beast Arises books, specifically The Beast Must Die but it would be very strange for that to be made in plastic before a plastic Warhound Titan.

And of course it could be something entirely different to any rumours we've heard.

[JeffTibbetts]

Very interesting. An ornithopter would certainly be cool from a nostalgia standpoint. I'm intrigued by the idea it could be an Epic-scale something or other, but I do really doubt that would be in plastic. I've never noticed any FW stuff at all with the sort of artifacting you get with 3D printing, so I assme this is for a Citadel plastic model as normal. I think all the Rumour Engine stuff so far has been anyway.

 

Yeah, I guess the jury is really still out. I don't necessarily think this bit's on a robot simply because I think it's a pistol-type weapon based on the small size, but I guess it could be a longer gun for some kind of infantry. Not sure how that might gel with a flier, but that dampener or shock thing behind it is really throwing me for a loop.

[Battybattybats]

Ah well the rumours about Warhounds and Thunderhawks is that they might be in 40k scale not for Adeptus Titanicus!

And some of the Forgeworld things like the alternate Knight Questoris heads do show 3d printing marks.

I see your point that the foreground piece is quite pistol-ish, it could be held in the hand of the pilot of an open-cab ornithopter like the old dwarf gyrocopter, as we have no orientation as to how it may be held if it is indeed a pistol.

[Vel'Cona]

They definitely do a good job keeping these "rumour engine" pics as vague as possible.  I don' think I've seen a single one of these guessed correctly to date.

[JeffTibbetts]

Yeah, Vel! Good point. 

[Charlo]

I think the coils are what name it ad Mech, as far as we know the dwarves in AoS are steam powered, not electric.

 

Like I said in the NRA, turn it to the left 90 degrees and you got a gun with a hanging power line.

[Mechanicus Tech-Support]

Part of me thinks it could be some sort of shoulder mounted gun in a resting position with the barrel pointing strait up, instead of over the shoulder ready to fire. 

[JeffTibbetts]

That's very possible. 

[Bjorn Firewalker]

Ornithopters only work in places with a sufficiently thick atmosphere. The AdMech has many facilities in space, i.e., VACUUM. If the "wings" are components of an archeotech anti-gravity system (with thrusters for use in environments where anti-gravity systems DO NOT WORK), that's fine. But if the AdMech flyer actually flies using BEATING WINGS, then that would be stupid.

[Xisor]

Ornithopters only work in places with a sufficiently thick atmosphere. The AdMech has many facilities in space, i.e., VACUUM. If the "wings" are components of an archeotech anti-gravity system (with thrusters for use in environments where anti-gravity systems DO NOT WORK), that's fine. But if the AdMech flyer actually flies using BEATING WINGS, then that would be stupid.

Yes, it should definitely use the flying brick approach utilised by the rest of the Imperium's transatmospheric craft. That would make infinitely more sense.

 

---

 

Personally, I'm not actually too sure what I'd want to see. The FW vehicles have a lot of the locomotive feel to them - I'm not sure that translate to the aircraft well. Some sort of industrial heavy lifter, maybe a modification on the look of the Arvus lighter but for Mech purposes?

 

Maybe a flying Ad Mech'd Goliath...? :D

[Odds.043]

In the book skitariius they used some kind of drop ship piloted by servitors. That would be a nice thing to have.

 

The triaros has some really tiny guns mounted if it that are independently controlled, the foreground pick could be something like that, and the background could be either some kind of antigrav repulsor, or of the picture is taken from below looking up, the primary armament.

[Battybattybats]

Ornithopters only work in places with a sufficiently thick atmosphere. The AdMech has many facilities in space, i.e., VACUUM. If the "wings" are components of an archeotech anti-gravity system (with thrusters for use in environments where anti-gravity systems DO NOT WORK), that's fine. But if the AdMech flyer actually flies using BEATING WINGS, then that would be stupid.

But most of the imperial worlds have atmospheres and it's fine for the Mechanicus to have different vehicles for void-battles and different ones for atmospheric combat. Grav vehicles would seem more efficient in combat than legged tanks too, but maybe such have downsides in energy efficiency which mattered more during the times where Mars was wracked by cybeasts, rogue servitors, rogue A.I. etc. Perhaps during the wars against the Men of Iron having everything floating on grav plates made them vulnerable. Maybe flapping-winged Ornithopters could have grav plates and thrusters they can use when needed but flapping mechanical wings when not to save fuel (the Dune Ornithopters for example had thrusters and could fly as fixed-wing jets if needed). For whatever reason our tanks walk instead of float our flyers might flap their wings.

[MajorNese]

 

Grav vehicles would seem more efficient in combat than legged tanks too, but maybe such have downsides in energy efficiency which mattered more during the times where Mars was wracked by cybeasts, rogue servitors, rogue A.I. etc. Perhaps during the wars against the Men of Iron having everything floating on grav plates made them vulnerable.

Geedub decided that walking is awesome, with having war processions out of religious reasons. The skitarii soldiers walk, their outriders walk, and their fire support tanks walk. It's only FW 30k Mechanicum that uses tracks, and the kataphron (which are a nod to the protectors of old fluff, and are Cult Mech anyway).

 

As for the rumor engine image, the upper part looks like hinges, the lower part looks round like back of many AdMech guns. Correct me if I'm wrong, but haven't all rumor engine pics so far depicted character models? This would point to some new techpriest rather than vehicles, but one can't be so sure.

[Battybattybats]

Wasn't one from the unit of tzaangors on discs?

[JeffTibbetts]

Interesting point about the character models, but Bats is right about one being the Tzangors. If you think about what's been released, it's been a LOT of characters so I guess that's been the focus by default, almost. 

 

Or maybe those ones are just the most exciting for the Warhammer Community people. 

[Odds.043]

To be fair, we're saying they've been mostly characters, but hasn't GW just been releasing mostly characters? I mean what was the last new vehicle model they came out with?

[Vel'Cona]

Goliath Truck/Rockgrinder I think.  Not that far back.  :)