Hi guys
When we fist conceived Arms of Sorrow (quite some time ago...) it was going to be a small expansion for Battle for Alabaster - primarily designed to tie-up the storyline from the first game, and continued the fight between the Strain and Vanguard. That would then set up a larger release which would introduce two new factions. As we started to develop AoS, it soon became clear that what we were in fact working on, was another product the size of Battle for Alabaster - which would be a stand alone game in it's own right. This left me in a difficult position - I had already announced Arms of Sorrow (at the end of the BfA rule book), but I desperately wanted to bring in the new factions as well.
What I have decided to do, is (broadly speaking) both.
Arms of Sorrow will be a direct continuation of Battle for Alabaster, with the action taking place on the Vanguard Bastion ship. It will be a stand alone game of the same size as Battle for Alabaster. It will contain all new miniatures for Vanguard and Strain, counters and tokens, completely new tiles and a new rule and scenario book. The core rules will be the same as BfA, but it will introduce some new elements (which would be usable in either game). At the same time we will release two smaller expansions - one for Firebrand and one for Bounty Dogs. - Each will contain brand new miniatures, cards, rule and scenario book, counters and some new tiles. These will be usable with either BfA or AoS, though the narrative will link them in primarily with AoS.
It just makes more sense to me to release the new factions as expansions - so if you already have BfA, you don't need to buy the game again (which is essentially what you will be doing if AoS was Firebrand vs Bounty Dogs) to get the new material. Or if you just want the Firebrand, you don't have to buy the Bounty Dogs as well (and vice-versa).
We're already pretty deep into development on this stuff and 90% of the miniatures are done for AoS. I'm not going to talk about release dates at the moment though.
As a preview, we are going to have resins of two of the character miniatures for AoS at Salute this weekend - Phaedrus Chirurge and Commodore Grist. We'll have very limited numbers of both for sale.
Phaedrus is on a 40mm base in this picture, Grist on a 50mm
Anyway - I hope that answers some of your questions about what we're planning.
cheers
mike