I’m going to open with a disclaimer about not knowing any of this for certain. I have no insider details about what warbands might or might not get updated. I don’t even know if there will be any more at all. That said, based on the available public information, I can say with pretty high confidence that we’re probably getting only 5 of the remaining first edition ‘legacy’ warbands updated for second edition, and possibly even less. Well, absolutely probably no more than 7, for sure for sure. Why do I say this? Follow me down the path of madness as we pretend GW is leaving intentional clues and not just things my pattern-recognition monkey brain believes are important.

I recently played a Grand Alliance warscrolls match with Magore’s Fiends against Headkrakka’s Madmob and had a pretty fun time! Slayers and BA/RF vs Brutal with RS/DS made for a tight match that came down to the last couple moves. It had me thinking though – will I ever see Magore or Madmob re-released? What about the other remaining GA warbands?

Background

Since second edition launched, we have been having old edition warbands re-released with new edition rules. The primary way this has been done is with Grand Alliance boxes at the end of each year with 16 bands from the past. Year 1 of Embergard, 2024, saw 16 different 1e bands released with four per Grand Alliance, alongside 13 more warbands with digital-only rules posted on warcom for free. The ‘classic 13’ appeared to have been based on things released in the prior year or so before Embergard changed the edition, and was probably a way to say ‘hey we know you just bought these, you can still use them”.

The second year of Embergard saw a release of another round of 16 bands in November 2025 as well, but not all were ‘new’. Mollog’s Mob, Zarbag’s Gitz, Thricefold Discord, Thorns of the Briar Queen, and The Skinnerkin were already given bespoke rules for second edition prior to this release as part of the ‘classic 13’, meaning we only saw 11 ‘returning’ warbands that you ‘couldn’t play before’.

This year is year 3, and whether we get a set of Grand Alliance 4 packs or not, we surely won’t be getting 16 newly returning teams. I don’t think we will even get to 11 this time around. I say this despite there still being 18 old warbands left to be updated!

Deductive Reasoning

Here’s everybody who hasn’t been re-released yet:

Order: Steelheart’s Champions, Chosen Axes, Stormsire’s Cursebreakers, Skaeth’s Wild Hunt, Morgwaeth’s Blade Coven, Storm of Celestus, Gryselle’s Arenai, Domitan’s Stormcoven
Chaos: Garrek’s Reavers, Magore’s Fiends, Eyes of the Nine, Godworn Hunt, Grashrak’s Despoilers, Skabbik’s Plaguepack
Destruction: Ironskull’s Boyz, Headkrakka’s Madmob
Death: Lady Harrow’s Mournflight, Drepur’s Wraithcreepers

The first thing to notice is that they don’t fit cleanly into 4×4 Grand Alliance Boxes. You simply can’t fit all 6 chaos warbands into a box, so you’ll be leaving out at least 2. You also can’t fit all 8 Order warbands into a 4 pack, so we’re up to 6 excluded by necessity if the prior pattern is to continue.

Additionally though, there are some lore reasons why we probably won’t see some of these teams make their return this year (or probably ever):

Chaos Beastmen or Beasts of Chaos for the newer folks have ‘retreated into the woods’ and have been written out of AoS. There’s speculation that they’ll come back at some point with a significantly heavier focus on Morghur-like mutations in a weird high-fantasy and more copywriteable IP, but they likely won’t look anything like the prior faction, and thus Grashrak’s Despoilers don’t really have an AoS faction anymore.

Savage Orcs/Bonesplittaz have likewise been unceremoniously booted back to The Old World, possibly because of some colonialism/racism problems they presented, and they’re also no longer a part of AoS which spells doom for Headkrakka’s Madmob. We can sadly be pretty confident that those two bands are out for eternity.

Thicc-cast babymarines are no longer a part of AoS either after the stromstrike armor and slimmer profile were made the norm. It’s unlikely GW would continue to produce kits for the warbands with the old and defunct armor patterns such as Steelheart’s Champions and Stormsire’s Cursebreakers as the stormhost chambers they hail from are effectively written out of the modern lore, and the models wouldn’t be usable in the flagship Age of Sigmar. The Farstriders and Ironsoul’s Condemnors buck this trend, but that’s because of the classic 13 thing and not ‘by choice’. I would imagine neither of those two are ever getting a rules refresh beyond what they currently have, and will probably hit the retirement home once we advance to third edition down the line.

In a similar vein, the Age of Sigmar mainline product is expected to get an edition change and lore relaunch next year. Nothing is confirmed, but from what I hear we will be moving forward in the timeline significantly, and that all the mortal realms will have been collapsed into one consistent world again. Azyr won’t even be ‘a thing’. With the focus on Sigmar Lied/Ruination Chambers in the recent lore and Warhammer+ TV series and how basically stormcast are being reforged so much they lose their souls and are allowed a final real death now, the faction might actually be going away eventually. If there is something like stormcast 1000 years into the future, they won’t look that much like what we have right now, so it’s possible that all old stormcast are out as we move forward. Domitan’s Stormcoven might not survive this transition despite being newer models.

Chaos marauders/slaves to darkness got a huge line refresh recently as well, and we may not be seeing Garrek’s Reavers or Godsworn Hunt for the same reason of ‘they don’t fit with what we have available for the flagship product’. Old chaos warbands from Underworlds likewise have less in common with more modern kits, so we are less likely to see some things like Magore’s or Eyes of the Nine either.

Fyreslayers, despite being one of the first factions released for Age of Sigmar, haven’t gotten any attention for literal years, their last thing that came out being a warcry warband. Depsite the Chosen Axes being a fan favorite, they weren’t re-released when it would have made sense in Aqshy/Embergard. Does that mean they never will be? Are Fyreslayers/naked dwarves getting phased out of the game? Hard to say, but there’s a real possibility that it’s so and therefor Chosen Axes might never resurface either.

But I have even more compelling evidence than “what’s been going on in larger AoS” – how often these warbands actually appear on 2e cards. You can hem and haw over whether a warband ‘fits’ in the lore, try and read the tea leaves about what’s coming down the line and what warbands might get shoved into a Spearhead to try and sell kits, and so on. Let’s pretend to be objective about our predictions, and lean on some good old-fashioned empirical evidence. We have one observable metric: how many times has a given warband been featured on a second edition card?

Photographic Evidence

If something is featured a ton of times in second edition card photos, it means the design team/art team still have the models and are still thinking about them. Decent chance they view it as an underworlds product and will come around to releasing it eventually. If something literally NEVER appears on a second edition card nearly two years in, well… you’d be a bad bettor if you put money on seeing that warband on shelves ever again.

Looking back at every card in second edition, I have tallied a list of how many cards feature each of the yet-to-be-released first edition teams. Here’s the count:

16 cards show Gryselle’s Arenai (1 in Nexus of Power, 2 in Deadly Synergy, 3 in Hunting Grounds, 1 in Raging Slayers, 1 in Realmstone Raiders, 2 in Wrack and Ruin, 3 in Reckless Fury, 1 in Countdown to Cataclysm, 2 in Blazing Assault)

15 cards include images from The Godworn Hunt (2 in Nexus of Power, 1 in Deadly Synergy, 2 in Hunting Grounds, 1 in Raging Slayers, 1 in Realmstone Raiders, 1 in Edge of the Knife, 1 in Wrack and Ruin, 1 in Countdown to Cataclysm, 1 in Pillage and Plunder, 4 in Blazing Assault)

14 cards feature The Chosen Axes (1 in Nexus of Power, 2 in Deadly Synergy, 1 in Hunting Grounds, 1 in Realmstone Raiders, 3 in Edge of the Knife, 1 in Wrack and Ruin, 1 in Reckless Fury, 1 in Countdown to Cataclysm, 2 in Emberstone Sentinels, 1 in Blazing Assault)

9 show pictures of Morgwaeth’s Blade Coven (2 in Deadly Synergy, 2 in Hunting Grounds, 1 in Realmstone Raiders, 1 in Edge of the Knife, 1 in Wrack and Ruin, 1 in Emberstone Sentinels, 1 in Blazing Assault)

8 cards feature Skaeth’s Wild Hunt (1 in Hunting Grounds, 1 in Realmstone Raiders, 2 in Edge of the Knife, 3 in Wrack and Ruin, 1 in Reckless Fury)

I was surprised to find 3 cards with fighters from Skabbik’s Plaguepack: (1 in Raging Slayers, 1 in Reckless Fury, 1 in Pillage and Plunder)

Domitan’s Stormcoven was found only once in Hunting Grounds.

There’s MAYBE 1 card showing Magore’s Fiends: (1 in Wrack and Ruin) I’m pretty sure that’s Riptooth’s foot on Rock-Splitting Tread.

Steelheart’s Champions: ZERO

Stormsire’s Cursebreakers: ZERO

Storm of Celestus: ZERO

Garrek’s Reavers: ZERO

Eyes of the Nine: ZERO (Despite popular opinion that it’s Turosh’s hand in Total Collapse from Countdown to Cataclysm, it’s actually Sarrakar Blackwing’s because Turosh only has one arm ring)

Grashrak’s Despoilers: ZERO

Ironskull’s Boyz: ZERO

Headkrakka’s Madmob: ZERO

Lady Harrow’s Mournflight: ZERO

Drepur’s Wraithcreepers: ZERO

Conclusions

So realistically we only have 6 warbands with definitive representation in card images. Of those, two of them (Gryselle and Morgwaeth) are from the same AoS faction of Daughters of Khaine, so it feels less likely that we would see them both released at the same time. I would be pretty comfortable saying that the next re-release (if there are any) will include one of these two bands. More likely Gryselle, because they’re both more recent and less lewd as well as in more photos.

The Chosen Axes were an obvious choice for release in the realm of fire season of Embergard, but that ship sailed, and it’s pretty obvious at this point that GW hates dwarves possibly in part due to Phil Kelly being an elf fan. That said, they’re very prominent in cards and have lots of real life rabid fans who would like to buy it, so GW may finally get the memo and include them in the next round. They have continued to be featured in spitewood cards! Though concerns over Fyreslayers as a faction might keep them from returning either.

The Godsworn Hunt are heavily represented cards-wise, but are from a faction that recently got a line refresh – this either means totally yes (and probably being included in a Spearhead Box down the line) or definitely no if they decide that it’s too different from the new marauders look. I personally think they fit and would say let’s assume they’re making the cut.

Skaeth’s Wild Hunt could come out, but they’re aesthetically similar to Kurnoth’s Heralds (at least the leader is) and also still don’t really have an AoS faction ‘home’ with no similar models available in that game. They also don’t have any models in the core box rivals decks, which might mean they weren’t part of the road map when the edition was being outlined. Maybe I’m just grasping at straws. I feel like these guys are a coin flip.

Skabbik’s Plaguepack had a whole 3 cards, but they were generally the fighter getting targeted by the viewpoint model and feel like they’ve been demoted to background extras like the Warcry Ogor Gorger that is getting whacked in Depserate Rage. They are already available for sale as a regular old AoS unit and have rules in that system, so it’s not like GW needs them to be released for WHU to make money on the moulds for them. If I had to guess I’d say they’re not coming back but would be quite pleased if they were!

Magore’s Fiends, as much as I love them, are basically not in any cards. And they are from the AoS launch with the silly Khorne era where every unit was named bloody-blood blood-blooders. We’ve evolved, and I would guess they’ll be left behind. I found this most surprising for Domitan’s Stormcoven, who match the modern Stormcast aesthetic and are relatively recent models. Maybe they can’t find a way to balance them, or maybe they’re planning to release more new Stormcast warbands and don’t want to flood the field. Or MAYBE since the new AoS is rumored to be 1000 years in the future and all the realms collapsed/Azyr is gone, Stormcast won’t exist anymore? Conspiracies abound.

It’s not definitive, of course, but if your warband had literally zero representation in any photos across 384 cards/twelve decks from this edition, it’s pretty slim odds to say they’ll be returning down the line.

Everything else is from way back, doesn’t have a home in larger AoS, or are generic easy-to-build models that got chucked into a Barnes & Noble Underworlds box because it was cheap. I would be very surprised to see them, no matter how sad it makes me to write that.

On the other hand, part of me thinks maybe it’s for the best. I had a ton of fun in Shadespire with Ironskull’s Boyz and Garrerk’s Reavers – they define that era of the game for me. I played a ton of Eyes of the Nine back in Nightvault. The number of games I played with Grashrak’s Despoilers are a huge weight of memory from Beastgrave. They had their time in the sun and made those imprints on me, and I’m glad to have had that. If they were to come back, I would get to play with my old toys again, but they would be different. That’s not always a good thing.

While other old favorites of mine like Sons of Velmorn have been refreshed, they’re different now, and don’t feel the same as they did to me back in Gnarlwood and Wyrdhollow. It might be best to let the past be the past, and embrace the new – Kamandora is awesome, and probably more fun than a re-done Garrek’s would be. If they bring back Arenai, am I really going to have more fun with a new and different take on an old favorite, or will I be left wishing for days that I can’t really get back? Will I relive another Farstriders tragedy?

Wrap

There you have it – my absolutely flawless and perfect logic that proves beyond a doubt that we will be getting these 5 returning warbands, and never seeing the rest again. Or maybe just getting two of them. Or maybe none at all. Which ones are you most hopeful for? I’m ready to do some Gryselle backflips, and if I get Godsworn back but don’t have the ability to sacrifice an ally to apply an upgrade I’m gonna blame PETA. Part of what make Grawl such a good boy was his ability to help Theddra and Ollo out by any means possible.

How badly do you disagree with my assessment? How much is that influenced by your desire to see your personal favorite back in action and I just ruined your day? (Trust me, I get it. A smelly goat tear rolls down my cheek at this very moment.) Engage in angry discussion with me in the comments, or email me personal threats at SpentGlory@gmail.com and until next time, I hope you’re excited to spend some glory later this year with one of those five special winners!