Age of Sigmar - Warhammer's Replacement?

But what is it?

Much as I hate to admit it, Warhammer remains a bit of a big deal for me, and so I'm watching the rumour mill on 9th ed. with interest, on the basis of the latest I'm seeing though the new game is not Warhammer at all.  Scrap any ideas of 9th edition.  Age of Sigmar is a different beast.  The following is according to someone who managed to get a few hours with the rulebook...

- Title of the rulebook is: Age of Sigmar: a Warhammer strategy game - full fledged rule system; no skirmish game - meaning not restricted to low miniature count: 50 models on average, way lower possible, in general you use units but you can field an army consisting of only single models - everything is on round or oval bases (there paragraph that explicitly allows legacy and diorama bases, though); - 2 books: the rules (rules and scenarios) and compendium (pictures, unit cards and fluff) - there are unit cards for every (as far as I can see) old unit in the second book, including warhammer forge models and most or all special characters. Some units get the full treatment with a small fluff text, pictures of the actual miniatures and rules, some units get only rules with nothing more. - all new rules with complete new mechanics: think not of 40k 2nd -> 3rd but Warhammer 8th -> Bloodbowl, very compact and fast paced, huge emphasis on individual champions, magic and gods (don’t know how powerful, but these have the most rule pages) ...- there are lots of different people, races, gods and lots of different alliances. The world is a lot more open minded than the old one, Empire-Orc Alliance would be unthinkable, but a human-waaghkin force is nothing unusual in this setting 
...Rules - there is only one ruleset (don’t know what is in the AoS box, but in the book there is no distinction between skirmish mode and battle mode or something like this) - rules have nothing to do with the old warhammer rules, - profile is: Melee, Range, Might, Armour, Initiative, Resolve, Wounds, values from 1-6, lower is better - simple turn sequence: initiative -> player 1 unit 1 moves, shoots, casts -> p1 unit 2 moves, shoots, casts -> ... -> player 2 moves, shoots, casts -> melee - players roll always against each other, for example Melee vs Initiative and Range vs Initiative, Might vs Armour - units regenerate all lost wounds at the end of the phase - both sides in a melee fight simultaneously, winner can roll to fight instantaneously another round until one side is extinct or one side chooses to break from the combat - there is no moral system or combat resolution whatsoever, but unit can be bounced back - units use a 1” 40k formation without any facing - magic spells are all one-use only, when you use it, you have to discard the card - you can collect ascension points throughout the game and spend the point to buff your champions, mechanic depends on your god(s) - unit costs points as before, you are not allowed to field multiple units of the same kind unless the former unit have full strength - there are all kinds of unit sizes from 1-3 to 3-15 (that’s the highest I have seen), but you can field lots of different 1-man units - you don’t buy champions, a set number of models are automatically upgraded to champions, but you cannot exceed the limit - there are rules for different weapons, magic items, war engines, monsters, special rules, etc and a large section for scenarios and terrain, larger than the actual rules 
...Setting game is set on world Regalia that is connected with other young realms through portals of the old ones. Young realms are realms that were populated by the old creators and were guided on similar historical paths. They were untouched by chaos but this has changed since the arrival of sigmar (as a new faith) and archaon (as an actual emissary in flesh and blood) 
...
Age of Sigmar box content: Extrapolated from the pictures, they are the only new models. If you think you get 3-5 UNITS for each side, you are wrong. you get 10-15 (haven’t counted) CHARACTERS per side. Each model is really individual and it is in no way possible to field the majority of them as a visual coherent unit. It is late and this summary is long as it is, so I make this brief, but I will come back later and add some info on the miniatures. Chaos looks very similar to the old style except the berserkers, the Sigmarite Force is completely different. 
Missionary Force: 3 Knights of the Order of Sigmars Blood, Roman looking armour but more bulky, leather Bands, swords and teardrop-shaped shields, champion is a woman a pair of vigilantes: Male and female, leathercloaked, tricorn, 2 hand-crossbows a hand full of heavy armoured warrior with different weapons and cloaks, almost knightly in appearance but completely over the top bulky, some have eagleshaped helmets One hooded, chainmail wearing, hammer wielding girl a bulldog standard bearer: naked, chains that are hooked into the flesh, very archaic looking one arabic looking guy with a two-handed scimitar and full armour one guy in rags that wields a chain that burns at both ends, very impractical looking 
Chaos Cult: two outriders, basically chaos barbarians as we know them, but female ~5 berserkers: african looking, no armour, barefeet, clad in cloth stripes, two axes, bald and gaunt looking, not overly muscular, bone chain, both male and female three pristesses: flowing robes, sacrifical ziggzagged daggers, skullmasks two armoured harpies with spears and shields, crooked looking, feathered wings at least five chaos warriors similar in appearance to the old chaos warriors, very dynamic fur cloaks and poses, one of them bigger on a larger base, all male as far as I could see one large bloodletter, almost twice the size of a human the leader has armour that looks like a chaos dwarfish, very babylonic, rides a demonwolf, a juggernaut, but with flesh and fur and spikes some more viking-like infantry but with more chainmail That’s only a broad description. Every model is highly individual. 

This all comes with a HUGE caveat, non of it can yet be proved, but it has a certain ring of truth to it (the original post I found on  The Warhammer Forum, via Dakka Dakka).  Not long now until we get to find out of course but this sounds like a completely new game system to me, one GW can control the size of and maintain a vice like grip on the intellectual property rights of...