Leaked Drukhari Model, Lady Malys?

[DemonGSides]

1 hour ago, TheVoidDragon said:

It seems a bit odd to me that when Space Marines are supposedly getting a 2nd codex this edition, Imperial Guard just had a big 2nd wave of what's effectively a side faction just because, Eldar just had a fairly substantial upgrade to some of their core kits and even Tau had a big wave of stuff to expand on Kroot, yet when it comes to Dark Eldar - something that has not received any significant attention in years - many are thinking they'll get just the one character and that'll probably be it.

 

It's more likely to get a single kit than it is to get a refresh, simple as.

 

Admech, Necrons, custodes, Sisters, these all got a single release alongside their codex. This is the minimum expectation, so if nothing else, people you see espousing this viewpoint might just be doing a bit of keeping their expectations low so a bigger release is a more fun surprise. 

[CL_Mission]

17 minutes ago, DemonGSides said:

 

It's more likely to get a single kit than it is to get a refresh, simple as.

 

Admech, Necrons, custodes, Sisters, these all got a single release alongside their codex. This is the minimum expectation, so if nothing else, people you see espousing this viewpoint might just be doing a bit of keeping their expectations low so a bigger release is a more fun surprise. 

It's not really important since I agree with what you're saying overall but in the interest of being unnecessarily pedantic Necrons received three models (Orikan, Imotek and the Translocation Shroud Overlord) with their codex. Even though I am more hopeful about Drukhari's chances of getting more models this edition I'm still keeping one or two models as a realistic expectation, if we get more leaks or information this will probably change though.

[DemonGSides]

22 minutes ago, CL_Mission said:

It's not really important since I agree with what you're saying overall but in the interest of being unnecessarily pedantic Necrons received three models (Orikan, Imotek and the Translocation Shroud Overlord) with their codex. Even though I am more hopeful about Drukhari's chances of getting more models this edition I'm still keeping one or two models as a realistic expectation, if we get more leaks or information this will probably change though.

 

Fair point!  I think Necrons fall into a bit of a special zone, considering they were the big bads of the previous edition and I can assume all of those kits were holdovers from that and the Covid knock-ons.

I actually completely forgot about the two named ones (My opponent who plays necrons barely plays either) and was only thinking about the fancy Overlord! 

Edited Wednesday at 09:45 PM by DemonGSides

[TheMawr]

57 minutes ago, TheVoidDragon said:

It seems a bit odd to me that when Space Marines are supposedly getting a 2nd codex this edition, Imperial Guard just had a big 2nd wave of what's effectively a side faction just because, Eldar just had a fairly substantial upgrade to some of their core kits and even Tau had a big wave of stuff to expand on Kroot, yet when it comes to Dark Eldar - something that has not received any significant attention in years - many are thinking they'll get just the one character and that'll probably be it.

 

Personally Im conflicted, every objective logic would point to a bigger seized update, but its exactly because that last sentence of yours that is creating pessimism.
but that same pessimism was shared with Necron & SoB players about 6 years ago, Eldar players about 4 years ago, Tyranid players about 3 years ago, Astra Militarum players about 3 years ago and CSM players about 7 years ago ( hell.. they are back to pessimism again :p bad joke, bad joke.)

 

It also ebs and flows for me... seeing the lower traction on this topic compared to say.. the Drop pod one ( I mean .. really ? it isnt even actually a spacemarine ) gets me in a "there must not be enough audience for a proper big dark eldar release." mood.

 

Like I said there is a lot of objective logic able to be used to indicate Drukhari will get a big release, but its not a company that does well with patterns.

 

In the end its all a matter of wait and see, wish/dream/speculate as if the sky is the limit.. but assume/expect nothing but the minimum ;) In the very least, this leak made the already extremely unlikely worst case scenario people where prepared for (squatting) even more unlikely.. to the point of impossibility.

 

[Nephaston]

20 minutes ago, DemonGSides said:

 

It's more likely to get a single kit than it is to get a refresh, simple as.

 

Admech, Necrons, custodes, Sisters, these all got a single release alongside their codex. This is the minimum expectation, so if nothing else, people you see espousing this viewpoint might just be doing a bit of keeping their expectations low so a bigger release is a more fun surprise. 

 

True, but let's also consider timing; EC are out now, WE, TS, DG, GK are single model releases, Knights of both flavours will also most likely be a kit each, SW will be a big refresh, while all the other chapters are single model by technicality but could also be a big wave of characters. Big question mark is Votann, who desperately need a bit more, so let's just assume they are a big release so GW doesn't land in the USB-Stick of Grudges.

 

Taking the roadmap into consideration and roughly splitting it into the seasons of the year we get;

DG, TS, WE, and SW in Spring:  3 small one big release

IK, CK, BT, and GK in Summer; 4 small releases, which would also leave enough space for that alleged heresy box

LoV, and Muhreens in Autumn; 2 big releases, or 1 big release and 5/6 small ones

 

That leaves the winter slot for a big release just ahead of the holidays, and seeing as dark eldar are dead last, it would be a nice consolation price, and just enough time to squeeze a campaign out of this edition before 11th.

 

This is of course, sheer hopium.

[TheMawr]

1 minute ago, DemonGSides said:

 

Fair point!  I think Necrons fall into a bit of a special zone, considering they were the big bads of the previous edition and I can assume all of those kits were holdovers from that and the Covid knock-ons.

I actually completely forgot about the two named ones (My opponent who plays necrons barely plays either) and was only thinking about the fancy Overlord!

 

Covid gets way too much miscredit in regards to GW releases.

They actually didnt release less in that time, some of their biggest releases ever where in covid time. And necrons specifically during covid got more as the other two recent starter villain releases ( though deathguard was heavily plagued with redundant releases... a seperate unit champion as if this was 1995 for example, it could be it adds up to more kits than necrons. ) but definitely got more than Tyranids and even more than 10th editions starter Spacemarine release. ( although Necrons had fewer actual units, wich tend to imprint on people's memories better as big releases, like your post shows :) and probably even rightfully so... 10 model unit>solo infantry character as far as releases go. )

 

Thats one thing ( drawing it more ontopic.) that makes me cautiously optimistic for dark eldar. "big" releases for 10th edition have been relatively quite small compared to the editions before... though that would be an assumption that GW sticks to their average 140-150 kits per edition.. it could also be that 10th edition gets less total kits to accomodate for Horus Heresy's plastic push.

[Tokugawa]

2 hours ago, TheMawr said:

 

Personally Im conflicted, every objective logic would point to a bigger seized update, but its exactly because that last sentence of yours that is creating pessimism.
but that same pessimism was shared with Necron & SoB players about 6 years ago, Eldar players about 4 years ago, Tyranid players about 3 years ago, Astra Militarum players about 3 years ago and CSM players about 7 years ago ( hell.. they are back to pessimism again :p bad joke, bad joke.)

 

It also ebs and flows for me... seeing the lower traction on this topic compared to say.. the Drop pod one ( I mean .. really ? it isnt even actually a spacemarine ) gets me in a "there must not be enough audience for a proper big dark eldar release." mood.

 

CSM customers could be pessimistic any month any year, when they looking at new released toys for loyalists.

[Ripper.McGuirl]

I'm just going to reiterate that if they were only going to release one model for Drukhari, I highly doubt it would be Malys, a character that never had a model and hasn't had rules in years. If they were going to do that, the money would be on Urien Rakarth, a character that has been around since the inception of the Dark Eldar, has a range rotated finecast model, has good rules, and shows up in the lore more. It is true, though, Games Workshop is anything but consistent with their release schemes, so it really is anyone's guess. I'd just be really surprised if their one release for a niche faction with a small following was an even more niche character with an even smaller following. Unless, again, they decided to do a Malys novel, in which case, hell yeah, gimme that Malys novel.

[TheVoidDragon]

3 hours ago, DemonGSides said:

 

It's more likely to get a single kit than it is to get a refresh, simple as.

 

Admech, Necrons, custodes, Sisters, these all got a single release alongside their codex. This is the minimum expectation, so if nothing else, people you see espousing this viewpoint might just be doing a bit of keeping their expectations low so a bigger release is a more fun surprise. 

 

There's more to consider than just how many kits some of those got this time, though. Admech, Necrons and Sisters have all had a decent amount of new releases over the past few years.

[Ripper.McGuirl]

1 hour ago, TheVoidDragon said:

 

There's more to consider than just how many kits some of those got this time, though. Admech, Necrons and Sisters have all had a decent amount of new releases over the past few years.

I mean at this point pretty much every army has been totally overhauled (except for maybe grey knights?) since the last time the Drukhari even got so much as a new unit. With the exception of Hand of the Archon (which is super cool but really just a Drukhari accessory sprue), they have only seen refreshed kits in the last 15 years, and even then, only a couple.

Whole armies have come into existence *and* gotten new waves of models in that time (GSC, Ad Mech, Knights, Votann, etc).

But we got at least Malys coming, and I am genuinely stoked about it.

[DemonGSides]

2 hours ago, TheVoidDragon said:

 

There's more to consider than just how many kits some of those got this time, though. Admech, Necrons and Sisters have all had a decent amount of new releases over the past few years.

 

Sure I agree, but that's not really in contention with my point.  Just that the standard is mostly 1 model release on codex, maybe some more sprinkled in through KT and if you're lucky a random release.  I just simply stated I understand the caution about getting excited about something more without any other evidence.

 

edit: Though after looking through this editions releases... it does feel like there's a lot of refreshes and army expansions.  But I still think I understand the caution about getting too excited.

 

Edited Thursday at 02:40 AM by DemonGSides

[TheMawr]

1 hour ago, Tokugawa said:

CSM customers could be pessimistic any month any year, when they looking at new released toys for loyalists.

 

True, while its sensible to never compare with what loyal marines get, I think its a bit harder for some if the comparing army is so similar.. and yet treated so dissimilar.  Though I was truelly joking, I dont see a point of grouping people per playerbase like that ( and if I would, I would fall under the chaos banner as well as the eldar one ;) )

 

1 hour ago, Ripper.McGuirl said:

I'm just going to reiterate that if they were only going to release one model for Drukhari, I highly doubt it would be Malys, a character that never had a model and hasn't had rules in years. If they were going to do that, the money would be on Urien Rakarth, a character that has been around since the inception of the Dark Eldar, has a range rotated finecast model, has good rules, and shows up in the lore more. It is true, though, Games Workshop is anything but consistent with their release schemes, so it really is anyone's guess. I'd just be really surprised if their one release for a niche faction with a small following was an even more niche character with an even smaller following. Unless, again, they decided to do a Malys novel, in which case, hell yeah, gimme that Malys novel.

 

I actually dont even think range rotation is a thing anymore ? They did two I think and then it faded and the resin purging started fullforce.

 

While I agree with Lady Malys being a much less likely solo release candidate than Urien and her being more indicative of a larger release, I do so with another motivation ( not necessarily disregarding yours.)

 

The token solo character release is a rather new initiative, and I dont think many if any we have seen so far are specifically designed as a token codex character release. The majority of them are either leftovers from earlier bigger release projects or, even more, an update of a fairly established concept ( this requires less supervision of a higher up that would be occupied with bigger projects, and as such is something that gets done off-project, thrown into a database and extracted upon need.) with some seemingly experimental (intern?) one-offs that are relatively incoherent (but mostly happen in AoS) making up the rest.

Lady Malys falls under none of these categories. On the other hand, she is the kind of character that would fall into end of edition campaign kind of project territory.. and the last one.. in 2023, is also a place she got a lot of mention in the kill team box featuring the hand of the archon. If she was made for AoO, but held back.. she could still fall in above mentioned category 1 ( a leftover release used as a solo character release.)
 

[Nephaston]

4 hours ago, Tokugawa said:

CSM customers could be pessimistic any month any year, when they looking at new released toys for loyalists.

Must be a year beginning with 2.

[TheMawr]

2 hours ago, DemonGSides said:

 

Sure I agree, but that's not really in contention with my point.  Just that the standard is mostly 1 model release on codex, maybe some more sprinkled in through KT and if you're lucky a random release.  I just simply stated I understand the caution about getting excited about something more without any other evidence.

 

edit: Though after looking through this editions releases... it does feel like there's a lot of refreshes and army expansions.  But I still think I understand the caution about getting too excited.

 

 

Not meaning this as a pattern GW upholds proving anything either way or as part of any argument, but regarding 1 miniature releases being a norm :

 

in 8th edition 8 of the 23 armies had a release of 5 or more kits, in 9th edition 10 of the 25 armies had a release of 5 or more kits ( not counting daemons in either numbers btw)

Now thats not even half of the armies, but remember.. of those armies in 8th and 9th edition that did not get a 5 or more kits release, 6 are "logical" ( Spacewolves, Blood Angels, Dark Angels, Deathwatch, Imperial knights and Chaos knights.) 

But it gets even funnier when looking at those that did not get 5+ kits :

 

in 8th edition :
0 kits -- 5 armies
1 kit -- 2 armies
2-4 kits -- 8 armies
5+ kits -- 8 armies  ( of wich 5 had 10+ kits.*)

 

in 9th edition :
0 kits -- 3 armies ( despite the everyone gets at least 1 kit motto starting here, Spacewolves, Deathwatch and Imperial knights didnt.)
1 kit -- 7 armies
1+KT -- 1 army ( drukhari )
2-4 kits -- 4 armies
5+ kits -- 10 armies ( of wich 7 had 10+ kits.*)

 

so far in 10th edition :
1 kit -- 4 armies   -- + 3, BT and both knights, we are assured of 1 kit, but dont know the details yet.
1+KT -- 6 armies   -- +2 , Votann and Drukhari are at least here too, but possibly/likely will end up higher in the list.
2-4 kits -- 2 armies
5+ kits -- 9 armies ( so far, none have 10+ kits, not even spacemarines.*)
 

* Im not counting models that where in the starterset here

 

So the funny thing, and thats the only reason I post this as I find this sort of thing interesting... while the expected norm is 1 model, it isnt as common as you would expect when breaking things down, until 10th edition it was in fact generally less common to get only 1 kit than it was to get 10+ kits.
Wich makes it extra sad for some armies.. like Thousand sons and Grey knights, who got upgraded from being a rare army with 0 kits in 8th edition to being an uncommon army with 1 kit in 9th edition... a position they still hold in 10th.

 

Its even more interesting that people consider 10th edition having had a lot of releases, while not a single army, not even spacemarines and tyranids, have crossed the 10 kit barrier. ( by comparison, , Astra Militarum had 17 in 9th and SoB had 19 kits in 8th edition.. thats current spacemarine and tyranid kits combined! )

 

But ofcourse, a lot of those numbers tend to go up in the last year, Spacemarines will 100% cross that 10 kit treshold, spacewolves too ( but I only counted what we have seen.) and if the rumors about the corsairs release are true, Eldar will lean just over it as well... but thats still a comperatively small amount of armies getting into 10+ kits territory.

 

And while I promised (myself too) that I wouldnt use it as an argument.. that makes me cautiously optimistic again (ssssst). But most of all I just liked breaking down these numbers.
 

 

ps : One little disclaimer, while I didnt count Limited editions, 8th edition had a tendency for inefficient use of resources.. so I do count the solo prestige miniature for SoB, I also counted their launch box wich had different sculpts than the seperate releases.
 

Edited Thursday at 04:47 AM by TheMawr

[ursvamp]

That’s a very interesting analysis. :O

I haven’t thought about it in terms of Amount of Kits Released, before.

 

I understand the impulse (or desire), in us all, to keep expectations low.

But there’s no reason not to look at this analytically, to try to determine the likelihood of a model wave.

 

I’ve been looking at it from two perspectives:

1) When, and how, does books get released?

2) What factions get models with their codex?

 

and my thoughts are as follows.

(this is gonna be a long one, so my apologies for that. I’ll put it in spoilers, and there’ll be a tl;dr after it).

 

Spoiler

Starting with 1),

it used to be that codexes were always released alongside a larger model release wave (henceforth referred to as ”a model release”), and spread out in intervals throughout the edition.

(Meaning that only a few factions -got a codex- during a given edition).

 

The time between releases being determined by both how fast they are able to produce the stuff (mainly models), as well as focus-cycling (if one month has a large model release for 40k, the next one will focus on AoS, and the next after that either on a third system or back to 40k, and then repeat) and (perhaps most importantly) the need to produce. Gw is a company and need to constanly make money, and therefore need a consistent output of new products, to entice people to keep spending money.

This means that model releases need to be spaced out throughout an entire edition.

 

This pattern hasn’t changed.

what has changed is that in 8th ed. they started making sure that each army got their codex during the edition.

in 8th this meant pushing out a codex every 2 weeks. But still keeping the pacing of model releases. Meaning that the codexes released inbetween releases, got no models.

In 9th they changed this, and instead started giving the in-between codexes a single character model (henceforth refereed to as ”a 1 character release”) and started pacing them out a bit more throughout the edition. This way of handling has continued in 10th (with a few getting 2 or 3 characters instead of just the one). The important aspect here being that in all three editions these have existed aside from the regular model releases.

and in both 8th and 9th, the 1 model releases were all done/finished before the final year of the edition (due to not being limited by the production-aspect of the timing-determining elements, these can be released basically whenever. However, they are still limited by the need for consistent output, making them serve a purpose in the abscense of somethibg else to fill that role (such as an expansion or end-of-edition narrative, etc.)).

Leaving the last fall, winter, and spring to focus on an end-of-edition narrative series (with smaller model releases throughout), and, in the case of 9th, on the last few codexes with model releases.

So based on 1), it would be natural to assume that the final 1 model release codexes will be wrapped up by end of summer, and the last 2 or 3 codexes (Leagues of Votann, Drukhari, and possibly SM, depending on how the rumors turn out) will be released as the last three model releases of the edition (alongside a probable end-of-edition narrative series, with its own splashes of models to go with it).

 

Looking at 2),

we can see that from 2015 up ’til the launch of 9th in 2020 (that is to say during much of 7th and all of 8th) the main focus was on releasing new factions and supporting/fleshing them out over the years.

During this time GW released 11 new factions:

 

Ad.Mech 

Harlequins 

Imperial Knights

Genestealer Cults

Deathwatch

Custodes

Thousand Sons

Ynnari*

Primaris Space Marines**
Death Guard

Chaos Knights

Sisters of Battle***

* Though these only got three models, those were still new models for a new faction.
**I’m counting these as a new faction, since there was no model overlap between the new primaris units and pre-primaris SM until the release of BT in 9th (or with the launch of the Leviathan box-set in 10th, for regular SM)
*** These are arguable. Not a new faction, per se, but they hadn’t been supported in a very long time, so for all intents and purposes a new army

 

and during this time all the pre-existing factions barely got any support, until the Psycic Awakening narrative that closed out 8th, where each faction (except tyranids) got at least 1 model.

 

Starting with 9th, the focus went back to the pre-existing factions, with about half of them recieving model releases during 9th, and the other half recieving it in 10th

 

Necrons (9th)

Sisters of Battle (9th)

Orks (9th)

Black Templars (9th)

Aeldari (9th & 10th)

Chaos Space Marines (9th)

New! Leagues of Votann (9th, Pending)

Astra Militarum (9th & 10th)

New! World Eaters (9th)

 

Space Marines (10th)

Tyranids (10th)

Dark Angels (10th)

Tau (10th)

Blood Angels (10th)

New! Emperor’s Children (10th)

Space Wolves (10th)

Grey Knights (-)

Drukhari (Pending)

 

This shows us a clear pattern, in which all the factions introduced at 2015 or later, has gotten no model release during 9th or 10th (exceptions being Sisters, and Votann who’s second wave seems very likely to be on the way due to rumor engines as well as 1) ) and every pre-2015 faction has gotten a model release during 9th or 10th (exceptions being GK, who got snubbed for some reason, and Arldari and AM, who stands out in getting a model release twice in 9th/10th)

 

Leaving us with Drukhari, who we have no confirmation on yet. But I see no reason to believe they would be left out of the pattern. Especially given 1).

(GK being left out is strange. But perhaps the exception that proves the rule? Lots of speculation could be had on this)

tl;dr:

Things that speak in favor of Drukhari getting a larger model release:

There has bever been a 1 model codex-release in the last year of an edition (as it would’ve served no purpose. At least in earlier editions.

We have no reason to believe this one will be different).

 

Each faction that existed before 2015 (except Grey Knights) has gotten a larger model release in 9th or 10th, so far. The only one left is Drukhari. I see no reason to assume they would get snubbed.

 

Things that speak against it:

GW historically tends to break, or not follow through on, patterns.

Edited Friday at 09:59 AM by ursvamp

[Jscarlos18]

Valrak has said in today's stream that DE will get a multipart Archon. Apparently Lady Malys is from a planned 6th Arks of Omen book that was scrapped that would also bring Asurmen too, before the big Aspect release wave that came now in 10th.

 

So "technically" this edition Drukhari were only supposed to get 1 kit.

Edited Friday at 10:47 PM by Jscarlos18

[Nephaston]

1 hour ago, Jscarlos18 said:

multipart Archon.

Could it be?! A main HQ choice with access to more than one of two pistols and a sword? For xenos?!

 

[TheVoidDragon]

4 hours ago, Jscarlos18 said:

Valrak has said in today's stream that DE will get a multipart Archon. Apparently Lady Malys is from a planned 6th Arks of Omen book that was scrapped that would also bring Asurmen too, before the big Aspect release wave that came now in 10th.

 

So "technically" this edition Drukhari were only supposed to get 1 kit.

It seems a bit odd that they'd design the miniature, getting past the prototype stage up until the moulds are made and miniatures actually produced, and then decide to cancel it because of the book. This sort of presumes the book is the determining part, rather than the model being the thing that comes first.

I was under the impression the books follow the models, not the other way around.

Edited Saturday at 12:48 AM by TheVoidDragon

[Tokugawa]

3 hours ago, Nephaston said:

Could it be?! A main HQ choice with access to more than one of two pistols and a sword? For xenos?!

 

Don't you know Autarch?

[DemonGSides]

2 hours ago, TheVoidDragon said:

It seems a bit odd that they'd design the miniature, getting past the prototype stage up until the moulds are made and miniatures actually produced, and then decide to cancel it because of the book. This sort of presumes the book is the determining part, rather than the model being the thing that comes first.

I was under the impression the books follow the models, not the other way around.

 

They just shelve the model and release it later.  Plenty of examples of this over the years, especially with Primaris.  I think Desolators were originally planned for way earlier?

It happens.

[grailkeeper]

Its almost two weeks and GW hasn't done anything. Normally they might show off the model shortly after it is leaked. Part of me hoped the original finder might make it and upload pics- that might make GW do something. However the finder hasn't posted anything since showing off the sprue.

[ZeroWolf]

5 hours ago, DemonGSides said:

 

They just shelve the model and release it later.  Plenty of examples of this over the years, especially with Primaris.  I think Desolators were originally planned for way earlier?

It happens.

Exactly this.

 

Now, I'm curious to see what the lore in the book was, or what it might have added to boarding actions. I'd presume it would have come before the Lion and after Farsight, but wouldn’t have had much to connect to Vashtorr's plan.

[ursvamp]

1 hour ago, grailkeeper said:

Its almost two weeks and GW hasn't done anything. Normally they might show off the model shortly after it is leaked. Part of me hoped the original finder might make it and upload pics- that might make GW do something. However the finder hasn't posted anything since showing off the sprue.

It was the same with the Lord of Poxes, for Death Guard.

He was also leaked with just an unassembled sprue (on january 4) and they didn’t show him off until the next reveal show, which was two weeks later (jan 17).

 

i’m thinking it might be that they have some plausible deniability, with anonymous sprues, and thus can ignore it for a while?

In comparison, Dante and Fuegan were both leaked with their boxes, with photos of the painted model and the name in print, etc., and got adressed very quickly.

 

(I think Angron was also adressed quite quickly. And that leak was also of the assembled, painted model, among a bunch of berzerkers, if I remember correctly…)

 

Edited Saturday at 08:57 AM by ursvamp

[marspeople]

There is clearly a reason to me Dark Eldar have been left off all the schedules.

GW know the army needs a ground up refresh just like Craftworlds did and they are they are saving it for the big edition ender.

Dark Eldar as an army barely exist at the moment, so much has been discontinued due to resin or is just really old and needs and update.

Every single sign point to me that they are getting at least part of a big refresh. Nothing else makes sense.

Releasing one new character does nothing to sell the army thats on life support.

[skylerboodie]

Has any reason been mentioned of why one of the Arks of Omen books got cancelled? these were all 2023 so surprised if still blamed on COVID/supply chain delays etc