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change of topic... whats good to read for AoS.
i just read soul wars and lady of sorrows.

i tried looking at black library but im afraid to jump in the middle of a series... it was hard to tell what was connected.

death themed would be fun but definitely not necessary as im enjoying stormcast lately, but again neither is necessary.

im gonna start reading the stormcast rulebook next (i think anyway).

what how about after that?

So there are a few things with Thunderstrike in the name.
Thunderstrike Brotherhoods are a formation of Stormcast that led the initial charge into the Mortal Realms. The units that came with the first AoS start box on the Stormcast side are what make up a Thunderstrike Brotherhood:

The Thunderstrike Host is the newest wave of Stormcast clad in Thunderstrike Armour, an enhanced version of the Sigmarite plate worn by the Stormcast. When Be'lakor enacted a ritual known as the Cursed Skies, Stormcast became unable to return to Azyr for Reforging. The Thunderstrike Armour bypasses this curse and allows its wearers to be reborn again.

thanks gert.
where is that belakor thunderstrike information from?
please dont say the rulebook... lol

Sadly Lexicanum only has the Warhammer Fest 2021 Community article listed. It's probably in the rulebook as well and possibly the Stormcast Battletome.
I know the Cursed Skies ritual was from Broken Realms though.

thanks sir... at least its a place to start digging.
i'm in a reading mood lately anyway

Updated for subject change

Get any of Josh Reynolds' books. Excellent writer, excellent portrayal of the grand alliance as something with nuance.

I +1 the "anything by Josh". IT was a dark day that BL lost him as a writer as he not only wrote a LOT but he really got the setting and was doing really great stuff with it. Huge shame and I feel like with BL having so many of hteir authors tied up in 40K stuff we are missing out without Josh. Esp as he did things that weren't just "this book is for the next X release" type books.


I'd also recommend checking out any of the Novella stories. They are all generally really solid writing and give a nice adventure feel without getting too deep.


Gotrek books are also a good read, though I wish they'd get some sense of long term plan with him. I feel like he keeps jumping to new ideas at the end of every book only to re-set at the start of the next. Plus there's this constant "going to bring all the dwaves back" kinda feel to every single one that never happens that just feels like the writing team are waiting on the design and release team to update dwarves to actually advance Gotrek's story/character

I’ll check out Josh.
I’m almost done with the stormcast rulebook and i swear it’s like i read it twice. Feels like there’s a lot of repetition.

Dark Harvest.

I hate the Age of Sigmar setting, with a passion. But I gave Dark Harvest a go for the WH Horror section, and it was absolutely fantastic. Well set, great tones, and an interesting and unexpected twist on an unexplored part of the Age of Sigmar fluff. The audiobook in particular was great.

It was so good I basically stole the themes for the next of my DnD homebrew campaign arcs.

Yeah Dark Harvest is my favorite of the horrors so far.

 Overread wrote:
I +1 the "anything by Josh". IT was a dark day that BL lost him as a writer as he not only wrote a LOT but he really got the setting and was doing really great stuff with it. Huge shame and I feel like with BL having so many of hteir authors tied up in 40K stuff we are missing out without Josh. Esp as he did things that weren't just "this book is for the next X release" type books.


I'd also recommend checking out any of the Novella stories. They are all generally really solid writing and give a nice adventure feel without getting too deep.


Gotrek books are also a good read, though I wish they'd get some sense of long term plan with him. I feel like he keeps jumping to new ideas at the end of every book only to re-set at the start of the next. Plus there's this constant "going to bring all the dwaves back" kinda feel to every single one that never happens that just feels like the writing team are waiting on the design and release team to update dwarves to actually advance Gotrek's story/character

Yeah BL getting rid of Josh was a bad move tbh. He was doing some great stuff for AoS and then they ditched him overnight. He says that BL reasoning is that they wanted to go a different direction with AoS lore. But then one of the first novels they released after they let him go was godsbane, which is pretty much the exact same story blurb as Spear of Shadows, just with an extra stormcast! (Maybe the story is vastly different, but I've not had a chance to read godsbane yet)

I honestly think there was more to them getting rid of him as the 'main' AoS writer than what has been said publicly, but we will never know. I'm just bitter than Spear of Shadows will never see the end of the trilogy now. Only logically thing I can think is that he was becoming the main writer of AoS and they didn' t want any one name associated too strongly with the IP. But that's just my guess and is probably wildly off!

I haven't really been on board with AoS books all that much but I can break down what I've read:

The biggest issue IMO for the early AoS stuff is that it was blindingly obvious how much interference from Marketing there was. Undying King and Soul Wars are really good books but there are some utterly jarring moments where a character will just say something that is clearly out-of-universe. The worst one is Nefferata saying "Welcome to the Deathlords." which made me physically cringe at the forcefulness of it.

Yeah I think that's one big issue with AoS. Because it was born of marketing and managers it doesn't have the same heart and sole to it.

It doesn't feel like its got a lead writer or pair or small team that's really die-hard loving the setting. Building maps, stories, interconnected events events and such.

It has a very fragmented feel; heck the simple lack of dates and any effective maps (we are starting to get those) made it really hard to tell when things happen in relation to each other.


Even the main story we don't actually have any real idea how long the Age of Sigmar has been going on for. Some books suggest that its already many centuries since the Stormcast marched forth; others suggest that its only decades since. About the only dating are big events; eg before or after the Necroquake, but that is super rough.



AoS lore feels bitty and chopped up somewhat and lacking an overall focus save for following marketing and production and sort of creating a story that revolves around the Gods kinda.

The thing with the whole dating part of it I actually don't mind. We're not talking about a single planet but entire realms that have different seasons and calendars, strapping a dating system on there IMO would lead to more issues than it solves. Heck, look at 40k where the first rule about the background dating system is "Don't trust the dating system".
I do get the irritation though. People like to have solid dates for when things happen so they can plan around them and have their characters participate but I think AoS is a lot more forgiving than 40k considering how long lived or flat out immortal certain characters are. Vampires, Aelves, Dawi (I will not use Duardin), Bone Dudes, Chaos monsters, Stormcast, and the list goes on. I think the only ones that suffer are Humans but then people can just add more numbers to the ends of their names and create whole dynasties.

I think the real issue is that online sources aren't nearly as well-curated as 40k or WHFB mostly because it hasn't been around as long but that the fanbase has grown only recently so older publications just aren't there to be used. I can hop on the 40k Lexicanum and find pretty much everything with a citation to which book the info came from but the AoS side is basically empty. Heck, Arkhan the Black got thrown into the void between realms in the Broken Realms series, and his Lex article is about four lines long featuring more about his appearance than his history. Katakros however, has a full article with links to the Ossiarch reveal videos and the books he's featured in.
I do think there is a turning point coming for AoS where the online sources are coming closer to matching those of 40k and the Old World though and I'm glad that the setting is getting more solid.

Thing is 40K has a dating system. You can 100% date things to specific points in time in relation to each other.

Now yes GW does make a mess of it, heck they even had to ret-con a bunch of dates because they wound up taking the 40K setting toward its last years and didn't want to start marketing 41K as a game.


For me in AoS yes each realm has its own dates, but at the same time they are interacting with each other in an insane degree. These aren't worlds so vastly far apart that events on them won't ever be felt; events on one are most certainly felt on the others.

Honestly AoS feels just like a managers pitch; a setting so open and free that there's no foundation. Which is exactly what AoS was as a product at launch. It wasn't meant to be a lore or game or anything more than the most casual light touch spread over the sale of models.


I'd also argue that the number of immortal or long lived characters in AoS is ok, except it entirely means that humans don't work. Which is a problem because a LOT of people associate with humans and it also hinders your human characters. Also just because many of the races can live very long lifespans; it doesn't really help either.

Again we hit the issue of trying to judge time - is that elf who can't recall the Age of Chaos 1000 years old or 100? Is that massive city built by magic and Sigma in a year; or did it grow over many generations? Are those trade networks established over generations of caravans exploring the world or are they simply the result of rapid expansoin in the last 30 years?


Again all these things are solved by a simple mapping and dating system and trying to hand-wave it all away as impossible or just so complex I think kind of creates a setting that is hard to get into through a total lack of proper foundations.


Now I'm totally open to the idea of the AoS setting having a period of chaos and settling down; to having some kind of big events "The Time Vortex" that suddenly knocks the realms onto general time (like the Necro Quake awoke many ancient powers); creating a period of confusion within the setting nad lore and then an age of order nad structure and such.


Thing is freedom to create your own is given by firm foundations. You could found your own stories in Old World or 40K because you know how things relate in space and time to each other.
You know when a huge hive fleet is smashing into a region of space and what might be happening there because its marked in space and time.

You can't easily tell if your kingdom in the Realm of Fire in relation to anything save the Necroquake or the start of the Age of Sigmar. So its harder to perhaps tie it into stories that you've read; or to understand the passing of time and such.

I don't want exact dates. They are a pain for lore fans and writers alike. What I want is eras to be marked out with length. We know the Age of Chaos was ~400 years and that is extremely helpful, but locking down how long the RGW/Age of Sigmar was, how long the Soul Wars were, etc. Would help a great deal.

I'm going to break this up so it isn't a brick of text.

Maps


Human perspective


Events in relation to players

I'd ague that its hard to explore the nature of immortal or long lived lifespans when you don't have an effective dating system to allow mortal lifespans to be measured and accounted for.

I agree its not that I'm after specific dates down to exact days, but a general ability to know that its been X number of years; or generations of humans; to know that event A happens before, after or during event B without either one having to be a massive event like the Necroquake.


For me a good example is the Gotrek Stories. As you read the AoS' ones right now its actually really hard to work out just when they are happening. The stories suggest that he's travelled for only a short span of time and yet some of the events are pairing up to the main storylines which seem to move much slower with decades and long periods between them.

Eg Necroquake to Morathi' rising up as a God is covered. That, far as I'm aware, is a pretty big span of time and yet in the Gotrek stories it feels like hardly any time at all unless we expect Malineth to be spending VAST amounts of time just hanging out with a drunk depressed dwarf between adventures. Which does happen but I doubt she'd spend years doing that.


Again its hard to measure the passage of time.

Which is how gw intended it

I'd highly recommend Gombrindal. A surprisingly great look at Duardin culture in the mortal realms. Hallowed Ground is also pretty good. A pretty dark look at a messed up father daughter relationship.

i might check out grombrindal, thanks chit.
thanks all...

are the slayer series of books any good?

The original Gotrek and Felix books are the Old World while the more recent ones (Ghoulslayer, Gitslayer, and I think Realmslayer?) are set in the Mortal Realms.

thanks Gert.
is there an actual book version of realmslayer or a collection that includes it?
i can only find the audio book.
gotreks transition to the new world sounds like a good place to start his series of books.

No idea as I've only read Ghoul/Gitslayer.

There was a limited release of the transcript of Realmslayer, however I don't think its still in print. Also its a transcript so it lacks some of the value that you get with an audio novel.

Also the sequel didn't get a release. Honestly I'd say get both - they are audio novels and you get to hear Brian Blessed being Gotrek! They are fairly important too as they setup his story for the Mortal Realms and lead into the stories.



Also the latest - Blightslayer - is really good and creates a few longer term story plots and questions outside of Gotrek alone.

 usernamesareannoying wrote:
thanks Gert.
is there an actual book version of realmslayer or a collection that includes it?
i can only find the audio book.
gotreks transition to the new world sounds like a good place to start his series of books.

The first one is really good but they decided to ditch the narrator for the second one and go with dialogue only. I think it suffered as a result.

I think the Gotrek books are deliberately written as an intro to AoS. There's a lot of Gotrek saying wtf is that and then someone explains it to him.

Chikout wrote:

 usernamesareannoying wrote:
thanks Gert.
is there an actual book version of realmslayer or a collection that includes it?
i can only find the audio book.
gotreks transition to the new world sounds like a good place to start his series of books.

The first one is really good but they decided to ditch the narrator for the second one and go with dialogue only. I think it suffered as a result.

I think the Gotrek books are deliberately written as an intro to AoS. There's a lot of Gotrek saying wtf is that and then someone explains it to him.

.

To be fair that's almost like it was for the Old World. Only a little less "on your nose" style because Gotrek and Felix were from the Old World. But they still had to learn about a lot of factions that they might otherwise only have heard about from rumour; or Gotrek only know of from a few hundred years ago or a grudge or such. Gotrek books were always about picking a major in-game faction and introducing them to readers through Gotrek's adventures. Honestly its a very solid way to create a character that remains stable with a loyal fanbase and then introduce the world through their eyes and the myriad of factions (even if many of them end up getting sliced up on his axe)

I've only read/listened to Nagash: The Undying King which I got from a Humble Bundle bunch. It was basically a story about Death/Human team up to repel a Nurgle invasion of Shyish.

I expected to hate it but I thoroughly enjoyed it.