Read the following posts on Seer RE: the new army;
"I had my LGS owner ask his GW rep when they met in person. The rep wouldn't confirm what the new race was, but he did say "isn't it interesting how the first map of Cathay was in the Warriors of Chaos book?"
I'm assuming that since there was a map of the whole world with the elves, he meant one with the details such as the wall and names of battles, etc.
Also, it was interesting that the Dragon King was mentioned in passing in the new Knight of the Realm novel. GW likes to drop hints like that, and it didn't really have anything at all to do with the story."--odmiller
and
"if i wasn't in the know id say
Warhammer Armies: Throwing Star Wielding Monkeys
but i am."--stepping on you
and
"The entrance of this new race will be similar to the chaos warp opening...an event to herald their entrance.."--Don't remember where I read this
Could be bullshiat but Cathay has tribes of warrior monkeys, the Dragons IIRC reside in a "Heaven" style place apart from the world (Hence their entrance). Combine this with the maps of Cathay, the lack of a distinct Asian theme in Fantasy and the growing China middle-class/market.....I'm willing to bet we'll be seeing Cathay as the new army.
To start some actual conversation about Cathay as the next possible army.
What does everyone think a common Cathay theme will be in the army? Possibly the use of certain types of army book specific weapons or an army specific ability? Maybe the use of certain mounts or a certain tactical trick, how much Asian flavor do you think will be put into the Cathay book?
So let's speculate and churn us up some butter! or... rumors rather.
Typeline wrote:To start some actual conversation about Cathay as the next possible army.
I'm hurt you would think anything otherwise.
Well, for starters even the boys at ol' GW can Google/Wikipedia so let's assume (oh how they've caught me on this one) they look at the country's literature. Now here I would say giving GW license to "borrow" your literature would take Dream of the Red Chamber and turn it into Candide, but it would all work out for the best, right?
So we have some AWESOME Lord choices from RoTK. I'm pretty sure they would have above average magic (they are coming from Heaven and have been able to seperate themselve from the known world).
For Common troops - conscripts? Gotta take a lot of monkey men to build that wall!
For Specials - I'm envisioning again - something in the way of Plaguemonks - but all drunken monkey's holding gourds filled with a "flammable" liquid. Then we get the Drunken Monkey (who I envision riding a hoda just like Lizardmen).
What does a Monkey ride on? I would say an old Ford stepside, but then I'm thinking of Clyde again. Can a monkey ride a salamander? Always looking for the antithesis to the Cold One - Monkeys riding "Hot Ones". (even a little chuckle?)
Rares - King Kong and Grape Ape Baby! Are you kidding me? Seige engines like the ones from Curse of the Golden Flower (That was freaking awesome).
Is this more like what you had in mind?
Or you could just look at the Easterlings from LotR and get a better idea as GW is generally unimaginative and they already have the molds.
Well I've heard that it's not a human army so it doesn't contradict that.
Personally, I feel an army of monkey men would sort of cheapen the Warhammer look.
Yes, we have ratmen but they have an interesting image and background.
another peice of evidence is in the ogre kingdoms book. Maneaters/Bruisers can take a cathayan longsword (I bought the model because I though that it looked funny, little did I know that it had some of the best stats). on the model the sword is huge and this is a ogre were talking about...
GrrBear wrote:another peice of evidence is in the ogre kingdoms book. Maneaters/Bruisers can take a cathayan longsword (I bought the model because I though that it looked funny, little did I know that it had some of the best stats). on the model the sword is huge and this is a ogre were talking about...
Evidence of big ass apes being from Cathay? Could be.
But I think them being monkeys is incredibly racist. Why not just Asian people? Is that so hard to do?
I wasn't saying that they were monkeys, I was only refering to size, for all I know they could be... someting else. Just because something isn't human (in a fictional relm) dosn't make it inferior, Just ask the librarian of the unseen university.
It's a well known fact that the British are the only people who actually have souls making everyone else just glorified animals.
I think an army based off Chinese wuxia films would look bad-a. Curse of the Golden Flower/Hero/House of Flying Daggers style with ornate armour and clothing.
avantgarde wrote:It's a well known fact that the British are the only people who actually have souls making everyone else just glorified animals.
I think an army based off Chinese wuxia films would look bad-a. Curse of the Golden Flower/Hero/House of Flying Daggers style with ornate armour and clothing.
If GW is capable of sculpting anything like that, i guarantee they'll have no problem selling them...
An east-asia theme has the potential for a variety of amazing multi-part plastic humans, siege engines, some extra dramatic 'warriors worth a thousand', etc.
Maybe incorporate a 'tactics' system similar to the IG to give it some extra flavor so it's not just 'the empire's new clothes'.
But nah, let's take something that could be excellent and put it in a blender with a monkey and see how stupid it can look after we hit 'frappe'
Self fulfilling prophecy - reviled before it's revealed. Where are my internets?!
But seriously, they offer me an army that lets me field Ma Chao and his Agile Cavalry, I will just hand over my paycheck.
They offer me monkeymen, well I guess they still get my paycheck, but it'll be for imperial guardsmen instead.
avantgarde wrote:It's a well known fact that the British are the only people who actually have souls making everyone else just glorified animals.
I think an army based off Chinese wuxia films would look bad-a. Curse of the Golden Flower/Hero/House of Flying Daggers style with ornate armour and clothing.
If GW is capable of sculpting anything like that, i guarantee they'll have no problem selling them...
Oh no, FETH OFF with Dynasty Warrior and Team Ninja, that is horrible GAK and should not be brought into this. Defile something else.
"If they make Asia the land of yellow monkeys that's it, I'm done.
I really thought they'd outgrown that whole non white=non human thing."
Well We finnaly got a dark skinned tribe of Chaos warriors so thats a step in the right directions.
I was hoping that GW could be bave and put out Araby or somekinda desert kindoms. The elemental lords could rise up to take on Chaos, they rock in warmaster. Bring a Jafar Wizard or an Aladdan Like guy that can use 3 wishes per game. Camal riders (Like in warmaster) Dual wielding simatar warriors, a Sultan with his heram. How about some Desert king Who rides a Lion, Gian hyenas, A king cobra mount, Witch doctors curses and hexes. Put them both together and call it Desert nomads.
Oh but wait there is more money in Ninja. So lookout for flying monkies. Sure to Offend at least 4 ethic groups.
BrookM wrote:Oh no, FETH OFF with Dynasty Warrior and Team Ninja, that is horrible GAK and should not be brought into this. Defile something else.
Why would am i considered to be defiling something? Im just saying with art concept available its atleast as probable as yellow monkeys others
have said.
BoLS has a rumour of Forgeworld working on Chaos Dwarves. Not clear whether its a full army, or reinforcements for someone else. Warriors of Chaos would be my guess if it is reinforcements.
the cathayans are human... the cathayan int he genevieve novels is. and it was jsu that ht ekign wa refered to as the monkey king it doesn't mean he is a monkey...
also tzeentch has a large following in cathay iirc, and is refered to as Tsin Tsin. and has a pagoda tpe way of gaining rank with the tzeentch cults
yeah,
I think armoured monkeys could be cool... Like Planet of the Apes.
It has a easy size equals might system
>squirlmonkeys>monkeys>chimps>apes>kong
Mashing Monkeys with Asian Weaponry/History is no more racist than mashing Monkeys with Viking Weaponry/History...
BrookM wrote:Oh no, FETH OFF with Dynasty Warrior and Team Ninja, that is horrible GAK and should not be brought into this. Defile something else.
Why would am i considered to be defiling something? Im just saying with art concept available its atleast as probable as yellow monkeys others
have said.
You think im trolling?
We just don't like anime fan anime getting mixed up with our hobby.
BrookM wrote:Oh no, FETH OFF with Dynasty Warrior and Team Ninja, that is horrible GAK and should not be brought into this. Defile something else.
Why would am i considered to be defiling something? Im just saying with art concept available its atleast as probable as yellow monkeys others
have said.
You think im trolling?
We just don't like anime fan anime getting mixed up with our hobby.
Its been in there since the Eldar got added, deal with it.
Tau are much more American Mecha then they are Japanese Mecha. Its those damn Elves that are anime/japanese influenced.
Also Cathy = China
China =/= Samurai
China =/= Ninja
How about an army based around the 4 beast God/Kings to take on Chaos? Xuán Wǔ, Bái Hǔ, Zhū Què, & Qīng Lóng
I don't like it when people confuse racist (denying people their rights on racial grounds) with poor taste. Yeah in the 90s it was all the rage to overreact to everything and treat a rude t-shirt the same way we'd treat a cross burning, but this is the distant future year 2000 and something and we've moved beyond that.
So (as far as I'm concerned) yellow monkeys for China is very, very bad taste, but not racist.
Panic wrote:Mashing Monkeys with Asian Weaponry/History is no more racist than mashing Monkeys with Viking Weaponry/History...
Plus thinking about it I'd prefer Viking Monkeys.
Panic...
The reason it's in bad taste is there is a long history in the US (can't speak for UK or points beyond) of parodying east Asians as yellow monkeys (and African Americans as black monkeys). I went looking for examples but the Red Chinese blocked my search.
And with GW's charming history of making Mexicans into frogs and just this year making their one dark skinned marine chapter into hideous red-eyed jet-black mutants... well Asian monkeys would be a very, very, bad idea.
I don't play WFB, but I'd like to have GW base models that could be used to make a Jokaero army...
If there were GW monkeys and GW apes, Jokaero could possibily be done as a counts as nid's...
Vertrucio wrote:Considering how the Tau are basically your Gundam/Mecha in 40k,
No. They aren't. Seriously.
Have you ever even seen a Gundam before? They look nothing like Tau.
Tau are supposed to be Japanese, the fact their mechs are an EPIC FAIL is irrelevant.
The name 'Tau' is supposed to invoke the Dao/Tao.
Their 5 elements are based on Japan's book of 5 rings.
Fire Warriors carry katanas.
They're supposed to be Space Japan, they ain't particularly good at it, but that was the plan.
Well, they could do a combine Nippon/Cathay force. Your arguments for Tau being modeled after Japan are good ones but there is a great deal of Chinese influence in their army as well. Mainly;
Their style of armor
The caste system
Utilitarianism
/As a side, I thought Tau was a common Chinese family name?
BrookM wrote:Oh no, FETH OFF with Dynasty Warrior and Team Ninja, that is horrible GAK and should not be brought into this. Defile something else.
Why would am i considered to be defiling something? Im just saying with art concept available its atleast as probable as yellow monkeys others have said.
You think im trolling?
We just don't like anime fan anime getting mixed up with our hobby.
And I would definitely consider you an expert on "our hobby", being a veteran of 2 whole years.
I think KK is right. However, the new wraithlords (and possibly the older ones) look strikingly like EVA's...
Eldar has been pretty animu^^ for a while now. I would consider AESTHETIC design of the Tau to be more of a Western realization of the Anime aesthetic - which is pretty much fail. Greys in little stubby, box shaped suits? I would check out any Mecha show produced after 1980 before I labeled their Suit design anything but throwbacks to robotech.
I wouldn't really mind if they made Cathay/Nippon full of monkey people, but if they do and the sculpts look good I will try my hand at painting yellow base coats for the first time. Just to make it in really bad tastes.
I hope they have some cool looking weapons.
Now that I'm thinking about it though, what kind of fighting style would you think a race of monkeys would employ? I always think of kung fu as a pretty good example of a humanoid fighting in a monkey's style. Maybe they'll have martial artists or something like that, to add extra 'bad taste' sauce.
Christ; this is looking like a pure 'no-win' situation in my eyes. According to this thread it'll be either
1. Emotionally scarred fringe flicking manga characters, complete with swords three times their size, clad in mid-90's goth wear that isn't fashionable now (nor was it in the mid-90's, to be honest). If GW goes down this route they may as well include Poke swarms to fill out a core choice.
Please do not include a manga influence. I know Tau have it, but it only affects their vehicles and armour. Much as I love certain manga films; it has no place in 40k.
Also, god help GW if they refer to this eastern army as 'Nippon'. Saying ''I play nids'' is great. Saying 'I play nips' is a wee bit different.
2. Banana swilling, Tarzan baiting Kong spinoffs. Monkey men? Really? I appreciate the popularity of the show Monkey but come on. KK has every right to feel aggrieved at the unpleasant inclinations, and I can only guess what would happen if Monkeymen were due to originate from the Old World's equivalent of Africa!
3. Japanese inspired Katana swinging death acrobats o' doom. Wow. That must have taken all of ten minutes to think up. Not content with ripping off feudal France piecemeal with the Brettonians, GW declares war on originality and uses Shogun: Total War as it's main reference point. Throw in some dragons, koi carp riding monks (or whatever) and hey presto, a fantastic sterotype with which to dilute GW even more.
Anti flak flare one: I know GW has never been original. Everything from the Horus Heresy to the council of thirteen is stolen. Why not, and this is a big ask, try something new?
Anti flak flare two: I'm only attacking the rumour here. If you like the idea of an army of apes or eyeliner wearing Manga waifs, then fine.
Could it be so hard to have a whole new species? One that is totally original, or at least so far removed from Tolkien/Geiger/Fafner(!)/WW2 that it feels..... for once, unique?
Anti-Mag wrote:Could it be so hard to have a whole new species? One that is totally original, or at least so far removed from Tolkien/Geiger/Fafner(!)/WW2 that it feels..... for once, unique?
Most likely anything I suggest will be shot down in flames, and my parachute won't open.
It could be anything. A race of pure psychic energy, a race of walking golems akin to (but not copied!) the titans in Shadow Of The Colossus. Obviously human minds have come up with great ideas over the years, but surely it can't be impossible to create one new idea, especially given the somewhat whimsical nature of Warhammer.
I find it highly offensive what you guys are consider anime /weabo and that you would use such a term to describe me .
ESPECIALLY you know nothing about asian culture. You think they only look like that in the animes?
Have you ever considered thats what chinese armor looks like in the first place?
Wait dont tell me you think within thousand of years of ancient chinese history you think ALL their armors look only like terracotta warriors do?
Where do you think japan got their concept for their anime in the first place? here have some look at REAL current Tao Temple Guardian Diety Statues.
Im not a weabo (derogatory ) anymore than your ignorant.
I find it highly offensive what you guys are consider anime /weabo and that you would use such a term to describe me .
ESPECIALLY you know nothing about asian culture. You think they only look like that in the animes?
Have you ever considered thats what chinese armor looks like in the first place?
Wait dont tell me you think within thousand of years of ancient chinese history you think ALL their armors look only like terracotta warriors do?
Where do you think japan got their concept for their anime in the first place? here have some look at REAL current Tao Temple Guardian Diety Statues.
Im not a weabo (derogatory ) anymore than your ignorant.
OK, I was keeping out of this thread because idle speculate never leads us anywhere as far as GW goes. However, I cannot be the only person that thinks those pictures are full of all kind of W1N. Animated stone temple guardians with armor and weapons supported by chinese style armored troops for the w1n. If PP can mine that line of thought with skorne sculpts so can GW (except their models wouldn't bring the whole range of suck that PP usually brings)
Ok, whatever a new race for fantasy is it's not gonna be something unique and original. Simple reason, GW is a business designed to sell miniatures, armies with a strong basis in something familiar can be marketed easily, you don't have to spend money and time explaining what they are. Same reason movie studios make movies loosely base on old TV shows, the creative work has already been done.
Being creative and unique carries more financial risk than the alternative, since GW has to answer to their share holders I think it's foolish to expect something radical. You can wish for it, just don't expect it.
As for the ideas posted in the thread so far, I think Fishmen would end up looking to close to Lizardmen without scales so they are out, monkeys seem unlikely, Cathay or Araby as new human armies seems a stronger possibility. Yes it's more humans, but it's an easier sell to the people controlling the money.
I think Fantasy is probably over-crowded with armies as it is though, but your opinions may differ
Anti-Mag wrote:Christ; this is looking like a pure 'no-win' situation in my eyes. According to this thread it'll be either
1. Emotionally scarred fringe flicking manga characters, complete with swords three times their size, clad in mid-90's goth wear that isn't fashionable now (nor was it in the mid-90's, to be honest). If GW goes down this route they may as well include Poke swarms to fill out a core choice.
Please do not include a manga influence. I know Tau have it, but it only affects their vehicles and armour. Much as I love certain manga films; it has no place in 40k.
.
That goes to the heart of the Tau love/hate nexus.
A lot of players hate the Tau because they are a tiny beacon of light in a vast ocean of grimdarkness.
A lot of players like the Tau because they are a tiny bit of relief from a monotonous ocean of grimdarkness.
I'm not so keen on that one, I like my psychics to stay in the future. But that's how gamers usually are I think. We already have magic no need to throw in psychic powers too.
Anti-Mag wrote: a race of walking golems akin to (but not copied!) the titans in Shadow Of The Colossus.
That would be awesome. A couple of huge colossi on the table with a ton of troops backing them up. But you did kind of shot yourself in the foot there, it is sort of copied from Shadow of the Colossus. Everything is copied form somewhere else, they call it inspiration. It usually turns out a little different each time though.
Anti-Mag wrote:Most likely anything I suggest will be shot down in flames, and my parachute won't open.
It could be anything. A race of pure psychic energy, a race of walking golems akin to (but not copied!) the titans in Shadow Of The Colossus. Obviously great human minds have come up with great ideas over the years, but surely it can't be possible for GW to create one new idea, especially given the somewhat whimsical nature of Warhammer.
But I'll rule out apes in spacesuits.
GW have a long history of copying whatever bit of comic-book culture has recently become popular and munging it all together to make a new game or army
They are not without wit, but they pretty much are without originality.
I would expect an Eastern fantasy army to combine some well known bits of Chinese and Japanese historical armies.
Yes, I agree Kkr. I also agree with Grimhowl that GW bases it's creations on popular franchises in order to boost sales. I wouldn't be surprised to see Necrons get buffed around the time the new Terminator film is released, for example.
Hmm. I guess from my point of view, bland armies don't have me reaching for my wallet. I just can't remember the last time GW produced something that I thought was original, and perhaps in a similar vein, cool. Hell, even the Old World map looks like a three year old's interpretation of our own globe.
How are monkey men racist to asians.... or to anyone? There's only one race, and that's the human race, and if darwin is right then we all come from monkeys.... so get over it.
Angron wrote:How are monkey men racist to asians.... or to anyone? There's only one race, and that's the human race, and if darwin is right then we all come from monkeys.... so get over it.
Like it or not, people have been characterizing other races as monkeys/apes for hundreds of years in order to make them seem less human.
The most familiar example is characterizations of African-Americans in the US south, but there are plenty of other examples (French characterizations of the English in the medieval period, Asian characterizations of Europeans, Allied characterizations of the Japanese during WWII, etc.).
I don't see GW really wanting to go there - they're bound to offend someone whether it's justified or not. Doubly so since most WFB armies are just fantasy veneers on real world cultures.
Personally I think a re-release of the Chaos Dwarves should be in order.
Thinking about it, there has been a few "whispers in the wind" about them. The last big international add-on release (not Lustria campaign, I forget what it was) had something about Chaos Dwarves in, and let's not forget the Chaos Hellcannon. Conveniently crewed by Chaos Dwarves, with no explanation as to why they are their, or where the rest of em are.
GW is screwed either way, as people are generally going to fall into one of two groups regarding the introduction of a new army:
1: The "no more human armies" group, or
2: The "no more non-human armies 'inspired' by real cultures because it is ultimately going to be offensive/unoriginal" group.
I have an idea for an original race, actually. I was going to write an army book on it, but never got around to it. It's sort of a race of barbarians who have some aspects of beasts in them. I suppose I was inspired in part by barbarian tribes from D&D and the Bothans from Star Wars. Basically, they'd look like fairly bulky, tall humans (Warriors of Chaos sized) with a very thin layer of hair (like we have on our forearms, but more of it) and big sideburns and stuff. They'd use lots of shamanistic magic and be mostly CC-centric.
I'd love to see a cathay army in fantasy. It would give a great number of conversion possibilities for 40k and I like the idea of another major human empire anyway.
Kid_Kyoto wrote:Tau are supposed to be Japanese, the fact their mechs are an EPIC FAIL is irrelevant.
The name 'Tau' is supposed to invoke the Dao/Tao.
Their 5 elements are based on Japan's book of 5 rings.
Fire Warriors carry katanas.
They don't carry katanas. If you'd ever seen a traditional Japanese sword you'd know it has very little resemblance to the short-straight-bladed knife with a flat, studded scabbard that Fire Warriors carry. And "Dao/Tao" isn't even a Japanese word.
The Tau are not Japanese. They are exotic aliens whose culture is different from the Imperium of man, but to then assume that means you can just map them onto any culture you find to be exotic is a sign of ignorance of what that culture is like.
To get things back on topic, when Tau came out, I heard players who knew little about Japan or anime proclaiming them to be GW's attempt to get Japanese players into Warhammer, as though no non-whites can enjoy this game without some superficial indulgence army. This was all despite GW Japan closing all it's stores at the time. They are slowly reopening, and I can promise you that Tau do not appeal to the Japanese customers in my local shop any more than any other army. The most popular armies by far are Space Marines and Chaos Space Marines. Now people are making the same uninformed claims about Cathay- that GW is doing it just to get into the Chinese market. Don't you think that's a bit patronizing?
The Tau are not Japanese. They are exotic aliens whose culture is different from the Imperium of man, but to then assume that means you can just map them onto any culture you find to be exotic is a sign of ignorance of what that culture is like.
Except their armor, tech design, name, and general culture is strongly themed in japanese media and culture. Their artistic design is directly based off of japanese "mecha" and their society, clothing, hairstyles, and basically everything else is based on a futuristic vision of japanese/chinese influences.
To get things back on topic, when Tau came out, I heard players who knew little about Japan or anime proclaiming them to be GW's attempt to get Japanese players into Warhammer, as though no non-whites can enjoy this game without some superficial indulgence army. This was all despite GW Japan closing all it's stores at the time. They are slowly reopening, and I can promise you that Tau do not appeal to the Japanese customers in my local shop any more than any other army. The most popular armies by far are Space Marines and Chaos Space Marines. Now people are making the same uninformed claims about Cathay- that GW is doing it just to get into the Chinese market. Don't you think that's a bit patronizing?
Not really. All of the fantasy armies are based in a "real world" fictional setting. The empire is germanic, the vampires are classic european vampires, the tomb kings are clearly egyption, the brettons are clearly european or english knights, there is even a south american continent of men wearing animal clothes and weilding obsidian axes. Fantasy is a colorful mirror of the real world, cathay is clearly meant to be a mixture of japanese and chinese cultures into a single "dragon empire". It shouldn't be patronizing to think of them as such, understanding the basis of a design and the cultural heritige and design ethos that goes into a design isn't patronizing. The tau are space anime japanese in the same way that the space wolves are space vikings and the death korps of krieg are spaze nazis. The connections may be tenuous and strictly visual, but they are far from unintentional.
As for cathay being a segue into the chinese market, I think it may hold some weight. Its not likely to be the best performer, but a level of familiarity within a setting is proven to increase adoption rates within a platform. Adapting a product to its region is a standard practice within global business, and a more historically asian army could well improve sales significantly in the asian markets. The reason Tau don't do well in japan is the same reason 40k doesn't. The japanese culture is inundated with neo futuristic settings featuing robots. Its mundane to them. 40k (the tau specifically) doesn't do well in japan compared to fantasy because it has so much competition from artistic sci fi sources that frankly are just better. The tau designs are great in a lot of areas, but the biggest ones (the alien empire designs and the mechs themselves) are just awful.
For examples of how culturalization can improve a platforms success (40k is a platform for model sales) just check out the xbox and xbox 360s attempts to break into the japanese market. Time and time again the system and its games have been rebuffed by the japanese consumers and to date virtually all of its best selling games have been traditional JRPGs designed specifically to help break into the japanese market. Japan and to a much lesser extent china is a not a market that takes well to a large amount of foreign cultural influence (to an extent, though bizzarely western popular culture is consitently very popular).
Tau does resemble Samurais , and the Tau Ceremonial Knife, you are right they arnt Katanas.
But they are indeed Tan To Kanji = ( Gut Knife aka seppuku knife )
@ShumaGorath: DKoK are NOT nazis. They resemble WW1 German soldiers far more closely than WW2.
My opinion is that a monkey race would look stupid as well as being in absolutely terrible taste. I don't even consider myself that sensitive to racism. For example, as a person of scandinavian descent, I don't mind that scandinavians are the evil barbarians because it's a loose enough association. I do think that it's a subtle dig that the Warhammer world resembles Earth so closely and the Dark Elves inhabit the U.S. but I take this in good humor. That being said, making a Chinese-themed army of monkeys is too much. Sure, Monkey is a beloved figure in Chinese legends, but it is still going to look terrible.
Those pictures of the really pissed off looking guys that Luna posted look totally awesome. I would be tempted to buy some if they looked like that.
And enough with the hate on dynasty warriors/anime culture. I'm not at all a fan of anime but it's a legitimate source of inspiration, especially because GW tends to translate things into a more acceptable form for its specific setting. Relax. No one wants to put school girls with cat ears into WHFB or 40k.
Besides, if I could play Lu Bu on the table, I wouldn't lose a game.
Tau display a strong influence from Japanese/Chinese aesthetics both hisotric aesthetics and more modern ones.
Fire Warriors are wearing armour that is prety much a futuristic version of Ashigaru (honestly wiki ashigaru, the resemblance is uncanny)
Ethereals have costumes that are similar to Japanese nobility dress.
The caste system maps onto the 5 buddhist elements (fire, water, earth, air, heaven)
The very notion of castes is reflective of modern Chinese communist society.
The vehicles and crisis suits bear a strong anime influence. For anyone saying that the suits don't look like anime I advise you to watch appleseed which features man-sized bunny eared suits with weapon arms and jetpacks that bare an uncanny resemblance to the crisis suits.
Accusations that GW introduced them to try and widen a growing asian market are probably not unfounded but if GW did try that then they failed dismally. All the Japanese players at my nearest store play space marines, most of them exclusively.
Equally they could have produced them to appeal to a growing market of youth culture that is interested in east asian aesthetics, culture and ideas. In which case they probably suceeded as Tau have been a resounding success for GW.
As for Cathay/Nippon
They are NOT the same thing. Cathay is China and Nippon is Japan and whilst I wouldn't really mind GW fudging the two together a bit (Japan did copy pretty much all of its culture from China initially so there is a huge amount of overlap between the two militarily) it would be understandably insulting for Chinese people if Samurai were suddenly marching around their armies so I think they should be kept separate.
There is a huge amount of potential in both armies for units and ideas. Terracotta golems. Samurai with killing blow katana. Ninja assassins or skirmishers. Skirmishing martial artists with skills based on dfferent styles. Chinese dragons. Immortal weapons. Warrior monks with unusual and complicated weaponry. That korean thing that can fire over 100 arrows in one volley. firework rockets. landmines! animated temple guardians. horse archers. unbreakable wandering ronin. giant oni. flying bird tengu. A surprising absence of shields on anybody.
Monkey men in asian culture represented a specific satirical representation of a certain small aspect of their overall culture. That's why it isn't all monkey men but monkey men, pig men, tiger men, bird men, ox men, demons, etc, etc. Doing just monkey men would limit the concept in addition to being in bad taste. If they must do asian culture as beastmen then lets have a kind of beastmen alliance. Not just monkeys but monkeys, oxen, tigers, cranes and serpents all together. It wouldn't be in the best of aste but it would be better taste then monkey men, more culturally appropriate, provide a more varied range of models and open up the army conceptually.
Besides, all this is irrelevant as BOLS reported its Chaos Dwarves.
Samurai armor was a result of Chinese influence (Their foot soldiers originally had such armor). I believe Jes Godwin stated in an interview that Tau armor design was based on Chinese foot soldiers whereas the exo-suits were anime inspired;
GW will fail if they go with monkey people instead of Cathay. Why do they want another Beastman type army ? are they going to give up on Beast of Chaos?
People, people, I think you are all forgetting something here.
If they do monkey men, we'll finally have readily available source of convertable plastics for that Jokkaero army we've all been dying to make, am I right!?
cathay is clearly meant to be a mixture of japanese and chinese cultures into a single "dragon empire".
Cathay is Chinese, Nippon is Japanese.
And neither one has been fleshed out or shown militarily. Cathay could be a military mix of japan and china. IIRC the skaven trained under cathayan ninja masters. One is an island, the other is the planets largest human empire (which makes this monkey retcon everyone is talking about annoying). Either one could be either country. Cathay is likely to be an amalgamation of chinese, korean, japanese, and possibly even mongolian (though we already have the ogre kingdoms) military histories. With a strong emphasis on chinese folklore history.
The geography is a strong implication but really not particularly telling of what the army would actually compose of.
For the people that thinks stylish armor Dynasty warrior wear = weabo anime / video game , let me add something to your perspective for chinese armor.
I'm pretty sure the term doesn't just apply to japanese historical and cultural influences only, and it doesn't have anything to do with videogames (though those are a big area of exposure to anime fan-ness).
Please be more complicated than monkey men, please oh please oh please let there be much, much more to it than that. It will be so bland and boring and tastless and miss out on so many possible cool ideas that it would be a travesty if the army were simply "monkey men".
But they probably can't get a sculptor that can pull of an good asian human, so they may very well be doing an asian beastmen army. Because humans can't be anything other than German or French.
If they do go with monkey men.... i rather they do the whole army with concept of chinese zodiac ( different animals )
rat = swarms
ox = chinese fire ox ( like a charriot on fire )
tiger = well tiger , elite choice
rabit = core troops
dragon = dragon !
snake = tunneling scouts
horse = fast calv
sheep / ram = heavy calvary
monkey = mount riders / warmachine crews
rooster = flying creatures
dog = HQ body guards
pigs = fat ogres
That would just be Beasts of Chaos with fluffy bunnies and boring animals instead of a rabid horde of maniacal half-men that want to RIP AND TEAR your HUGE GUTS.
Also: I doubt most people would want an army of furries. Before anybody pulls out the 'ZOMG beasts of chaos are furries!' card, remember that BoC are based off traditional images of minotaurs, satyrs, and demons.
Mad Rabbit wrote:And enough with the hate on dynasty warriors/anime culture. I'm not at all a fan of anime but it's a legitimate source of inspiration, especially because GW tends to translate things into a more acceptable form for its specific setting. Relax. No one wants to put school girls with cat ears into WHFB or 40k.
Agreed, I'm pretty damn sick of all the hate myself, and I'm not an anime fan either (I like mecha but I couldn't tell you anything about Robotech or Appleseed other than the fact that there are robots in them, I just don't watch the stuff). Especially since the people throwing the hate around likely have no idea what the hell they're even talking about or why they even hate it, probably thinking of catgirls like you said.
BTW Luna, those statues are awesome, I love that stuff. And that fire warrior art is probably my favorite Tau art by far. The only thing I don't really like about Tau models are their stupid helmets, I just don't like them...and the crisis suits, I really hope they make a new kit for them with the next codex update. But yeah, it's not that hard to make Tau dark and gritty, people say they don't fit in just because they don't want them to.
Me too, i dislike the Tau helmet. To be honest, ever since Tau came out, i have waited for a chance to be able to give them skink / saurus heads. But you know for some reason they made the neck piece flat ( every other plastic head usually is semi sphere for easy gluing) So unless i add GS to it , no easy head swap :'/
I actually love the firewarrior infantry models and especially the kroot. As for the crisis suits, there is a great model there but the proportions are wrong. There is a piece of art in the first Tau book (and probably the second, but I don't own it) of a single crisis suit with two fusion blasters posed like it is firing down in two different directions. The proportions on it make the whole robot suit thing work. Go with that rather than the suits we have now. And the silly non-weight supporting feet need to be changed.
Railguns wrote:I actually love the firewarrior infantry models and especially the kroot. As for the crisis suits, there is a great model there but the proportions are wrong. There is a piece of art in the first Tau book (and probably the second, but I don't own it) of a single crisis suit with two fusion blasters posed like it is firing down in two different directions. The proportions on it make the whole robot suit thing work. Go with that rather than the suits we have now. And the silly non-weight supporting feet need to be changed.
Have they ever explained where the crises suit pilot's legs go? Are they huddled up in the main chest area , or does it extend down to the thigh area like power armor?
I think it's been said that the pilot sits inside the main torso in a fetal position, he doesn't literally wear the thing like a suit. But since he's hooked up to the thing he'll still feel the shock of losing a limb or something if one of the arms gets blown off.
bravelybravesirrobin wrote:Ethereals have costumes that are similar to Japanese nobility dress.
You think that, huh?
The caste system maps onto the 5 buddhist elements (fire, water, earth, air, heaven)
Which are oh so different from the classical Greek and Hindu elements, eh?
The very notion of castes is reflective of modern Chinese communist society.
Have you by chance been to China? I can guarantee you that despite whatever faults China may have, their society is structured in no way even remotely resembling the Tau.
For anyone saying that the suits don't look like anime I advise you to watch appleseed which features man-sized bunny eared suits with weapon arms and jetpacks that bare an uncanny resemblance to the crisis suits.
So two aerials on the head and a jetpack are all it takes to make something anime now?
No, a badly designed robot suit makes something anime now. I have no problem with somewhat more realistic animes like Death Note and Ghost in the Shell, but stuff like Gundam really dulls the image of anime to be honest.
LunaHound wrote:Oh no, FETH OFF with Dynasty Warrior and Team Ninja, that is horrible GAK and should not be brought into this. Defile something else.
Let me understand this? That imagine is deflining warhammer, but monkies and apes from asia is not?
Huh?
?? You lost me
*edit there seems to be something wrong with quoting, its all blue now
I was referring to BrookM, who was commenting that the picture you posted was defiling warhammer. Its odd a samurai-esqe Type model is bad, but apes and winged monkies for warhammer is good?
So, Cathey, huh?
http://www.bordertownburning.de.vu/
Go check out this site for some Mordhiem inspired Cathey stuff. Aside from all this non topic talk, There is still the Legend of the Five rings stuff still out there.
Another new army for fantasy out there might be some chaos dwarfs.
Cheese Elemental wrote:No, a badly designed robot suit makes something anime now. I have no problem with somewhat more realistic animes like Death Note and Ghost in the Shell, but stuff like Gundam really dulls the image of anime to be honest.
How does the singular entity which defined the 'real robot' genre dull the image of anime?
Vertrucio wrote:Considering how the Tau are basically your Gundam/Mecha in 40k,
No. They aren't. Seriously.
Have you ever even seen a Gundam before? They look nothing like Tau.
Tau are supposed to be Japanese, the fact their mechs are an EPIC FAIL is irrelevant.
The name 'Tau' is supposed to invoke the Dao/Tao.
Their 5 elements are based on Japan's book of 5 rings.
Fire Warriors carry katanas.
They're supposed to be Space Japan, they ain't particularly good at it, but that was the plan.
the problem there is that DAO/TAO has nothing to do with traditional Japan or Japanese for that matter.. The elements is correct but the fact that no fire warriors had little katanas on their sprues kinda shoots that argument right out of the air.. (and don't even try to convince me that the ritual knife is a katana, cause isn't.
ON that note, if they are doing monkeys, I want the POO FLINGING kind..
Cheese Elemental wrote:No, a badly designed robot suit makes something anime now. I have no problem with somewhat more realistic animes like Death Note and Ghost in the Shell, but stuff like Gundam really dulls the image of anime to be honest.
Would it pain you to know that Gundam (and it's whole franchise) is by a land-slide, the most popular and longest running Mecha Anime of all time?
I guess the Japanese don't know their own animation as well as you do!
Realistic shows like Death Note eh? As someone who has watched anime for about... 20 years now, studied japanese culture and the language with his own free time, who's favorite subgenre of anime is Mecha and read the Manga of Death Note before it was produced into a show - let me just say that quoting something from the past few years of the history of the artform doesn't make you a connoisseur of the medium.
And Death Note isn't realistic at all, it's probably one of the most "out there" Manga's I've read in terms of believability and "realism".
"I have a magic book that lets me dictate when people die, along with my Death God side-kick - I shall rewrite the world in my own Utopian image - all the while being embroiled in such a hokey murder mystery it would make Alfred Hitchcock shed a tear?"
Stupid stereotype arguments and anime pissing contest aside, the only old non-human armies that were in the original books are Zoats and Fimir. I would assume they fixed the Fimirs fluff (I can't see the bean counters wanting market an army whose main goal is grabbing women to rape) and I have always liked the models and rules for them..
As GW has shown in the past, they do a crappy job (i.e racist / insulting) of including non-Europeans. It's better that they just don't go down that road.
That said, if they go for the cheap carcaritures, don't be surprised to find the anti-defamation groups on their asses, likely with expensive lawsuits in America.
If you think GW is financially challenged now, just throw them into a few "on principle" class-action lawsuits by people with nothing to lose, and see how they do.
Somewhere, in our race-conscious, lawsuit-loving, anti-corporate America, there is got to be a Judge who'll certify such a lawsuit, and woe betide any corporation who lands in his sights...
-DD no one is going to sue them for a monkey race. Tasteless? Yes. But not to the point where anyone could sue. -Cheese Elemental just stop arguing. You're hurting your cause so much more with every post. -Johira, clearly the tau are inspired by futuristic mecha anime. The caste system is not reminiscent of communism, and the actual society is a bizarre mix of a few current cultures, startrek and HALO. Mostly star trek and HALO. However almost every visual design is heavily inspired by asian art, popular culture, and history. To say otherwise is foolish. You can nitpick minor details, but simple because the sword the fire warriors have with their futuristic samurai armor is not the exact length of a katana doesn't mean thats not what its based off of.
If they were exactly the same they would be space japanese. Not tau. The point of artistic interpretation is to draw paradigms from one popular design ethos and transfer it to another. That is what they were stated as having done, its what they obviously did, and it's what they do with almost every army.
Could you give some examples of un-favourable inclusions of non-europeans?
I'm not super knowledgable about the Tau but I can't see how they could be considered offensive, and there are a fair few non-european SM and IG characters..
(of coures, I don't know their exact histories, maybe they are super stereotypes ;P).
Anyway, I don't get what's wrong with using non-european cultures as the basis for various alien races.. If you can't use any foreign culture as inspiration for anything, you are really limiting yourself.
Given that games workshop sells models on several continents I'm pretty sure a good number of their races are based in foreign culture no matter where you are already.
@Shuma: The US is a wierd place, and people can sue for any reason. Whether they win or not is a different issue. As is how much it costs in actual dollars to ultimately prevail in such a lawsuit.
JohnHwangDD wrote:@Shuma: The US is a wierd place, and people can sue for any reason. Whether they win or not is a different issue. As is how much it costs in actual dollars to ultimately prevail in such a lawsuit.
It's not that expensive when the judge throws the suit out for being ridiculous.
And, no. I don't see the point of monkey men in fantasy. Just re-work the gakking Chaos Dwarves!
Finally, a ray of light! A shining beacon of wisdom!
(And a thread rapidly reaching its expiration date?)
The day the chaos dwarves come back are the day they bring back the zoats and the squats and every other awful and stupid race that was removed for a good reason.
Although the All-Knowing Wiki is not infallible, it reports that Tau aesthetics were heavily influenced by East Asian history and pop culture. It says, "The Tau Infantry models, according to sculptor Jes Goodwin, were designed to have subtle influences taken from Chinese foot soldiers, while the Battlesuits and vehicles drew from anime style exo-suits." Fire Warriors have armor that resemble Qin Dynasty infantry armor or that of the Japanese samurai armor, especially with the rectangular shoulder pads. The Crisis Suits look very little like a Gundam, but much more closely resemble something out of Appleseed.
Topic #2: Cathey / Nippon
I am not familiar with the WHFB universe, but if it is true that Cathey = China and Nippon = Japan, then a pure Cathey army would and would not have:
YES: Fighting monks, chariot-riding generals, ninja-like assassins in black, black powder artillery, cutlasses, thin shortswords, glaives, chain whips, hookswords, "The Flying Guillotine" (all Chinese)
NO: ninjas as such (Japan), samurai (Japan), Katana/Nodachi/Todachi (Japan), Nunchaku (Japan), Tonfa (Japan), shuriken (Japan) Cherry Clan candies (USA)
Topic #3: So, what *IS* the new army?
Possibilities (according to the rumors and the buzz) include:
- Cathey
- Cathey / Nippon / Others as a "Dragon Kingdoms" army
- Fishmen
- Chaos Dwarves
I don't think that monkey/ape Cathey is a very realistic possibility here.
If it is indeed a "Dragon Kingdoms" army, I would like to see:
- Dragons! Long, scaly, wormy dragons with whiskers!
- Ninja, samurai, and countless terracotta warriors that are "without number."
- Assorted generals with special skills or bonuses, a la Imperial Guard Commisars
- A possible command squad that includes a prince and his retinue of a pig warrior, a water demon, and a monkey that rides on a cloud (a la Journey to the West)
- Ninja monkeys. Why? They're freaking ninja monkeys, man! I mean, come ON! Monkeys throwing suriken around? Priceless!
And, no. I don't see the point of monkey men in fantasy. Just re-work the gakking Chaos Dwarves!
Finally, a ray of light! A shining beacon of wisdom!
(And a thread rapidly reaching its expiration date?)
The day the chaos dwarves come back are the day they bring back the zoats and the squats and every other awful and stupid race that was removed for a good reason.
They never took em fully out. They're still crewing the Chaos Hellcannon.
DD no one is going to sue them for a monkey race. Tasteless? Yes. But not to the point where anyone could sue.
In a country were a person can sure an RV company for putting a coffe maker to close to the drivers seat (because he was stupid and on a relatively straight length of road decdided to stop driving get up and make coffee) and win is a very sad country.
In a country were a person can sure an RV company for putting a coffe maker to close to the drivers seat (because he was stupid and on a relatively straight length of road decdided to stop driving get up and make coffee) and win is a very sad country.
It's fairly easy to sue over personal injury cases. I doubt anyone is going to swallow the monkey race and claim that it was a racist attack. Claiming that someone could sue for this is the same as my saying that someone could sue because the edge of this laptop is kind of sharp and uncomfortable to type on.
Yeah, I could cut my wrists somehow and try and sue. But I likely won't win and i definitely won't be able to claim that it was done in an effort to defame whites.
Also, youtube was always a den of crap, idiocy, and really poor quality movies of people getting hit by things to the sounds of KORN and Linkin Park.
This is funny... if G-Dub does a Asian themed army it's gonna be odd... The Dark Gothic look that is G-Dub has mastered, doesn't fit into the Anime Asian theme.
The Tau are Proof, G-dub made to grab onto a "Fad" anime... they could've made something much better and already in the mytho's of 40K, but Tau...
I'm still on the fence with this one, not because Anime or Asian themed armies are bad or suck... I love Anime. just G-dub pulling it off seems unlikely...
I'm bettin all this is just Smoke and Mirrors...
as far as the anime haters... you guys are all funny...
go put a head on a spike and paint some more chain mail... over and over and over...
"Yay! more Chain mail and spikes... I hate new things!"
Kid_Kyoto wrote:If they make Asia the land of yellow monkeys that's it, I'm done.
I really thought they'd outgrown that whole non white=non human thing.
I feel you! it wasn't until the Mid 90s I seen a Black guardsmen. I've never seen any other race represented by the studio... and please save your salamanders speech...and to this day G.W. paints the entire galaxy as Europeans... veryveryvery rare is it for g-dub to have any other ethnicity in the game... so how is that racist? it's fact...
"Phase 13 - The melanochrome, or melanochromic organ, is hemispherical and black. It functions in an indirect and extremely complicated manner. It monitors radiation levels and types bombarding the skin, and if necessary sets off chemical reactions to darken the skin to protect it from ultraviolet exposure. It also provides limited protection from other forms of radiation."
this means they have to be "White" to begin with...but enough logic... Kid Kyoto is a very respectable member of the gaming community and I mean the Whole thing not just Dakka...
and the guy who keeps screamin racist... your... mislead and in need of real life experience
I wish infinity was plastic... it's so refreshing...
those 3 armies doesnt look any grim dark to me either.
Besides we have Dogs of War.
Nitpick: Bad grammar is bad.
Ogres eat humans. GRIMDARK.
O&G are a sad race always at war because they never knew any better. GRIMDARK.
Lizardmen are trying to stop Chaos, which is GRIMDARK. It carries over.
Please note the flowing layered robes, wide shoulder pads, partial top knots, use of ceremonial staffs and details around the belt. I can certainly see similarities there.
I'll concede that the more recent models (which I only just saw) have moved away from this design quite a lot.
JOHIRA wrote:
The caste system maps onto the 5 buddhist elements (fire, water, earth, air, heaven)
Which are oh so different from the classical Greek and Hindu elements, eh?
Greek didn't include heaven/ethereal and the Hindu/Buddhist elements obviously influenced each other.
JOHIRA wrote:
The very notion of castes is reflective of modern Chinese communist society.
Have you by chance been to China? I can guarantee you that despite whatever faults China may have, their society is structured in no way even remotely resembling the Tau.
Just Hong Kong.
Okay fair enough Tau society doesn't really reflect modern Chinese society but Tau society is clearly intended to reflect communism which China at least professes to adhere to. Communism was defined quite nicely by Marx as "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" which models nicely onto the tau system of expertise in different areas working harmoniously. Their desire to incorporate other races and the philosophy of the greater good also reflect communist philosophy. In practise Tau society is an exagerrated parody of communist ideology but you can't deny that theyw ere trying for space commies can you.
JOHIRA wrote:
For anyone saying that the suits don't look like anime I advise you to watch appleseed which features man-sized bunny eared suits with weapon arms and jetpacks that bare an uncanny resemblance to the crisis suits.
So two aerials on the head and a jetpack are all it takes to make something anime now?
Now admittedly the Crisis Suit looks different but can you honestly see no similarities?
Or do a thought experiment. Contrast the appearance of crisis suits with dreadnoughts, wraithlords, deff dreadz or sentinels. Dreads have a corpse inside, are boxy, covered in skulls eagles and other gothic touches. Deff dreadz are giant trashcans with lots of exposed wiring. Sentinels have prominent servos, are boxy and are covered in gothic touches. Wraithlords are ornate, spindly and piloted by a ghost.
In contrast crisis suits have clean lines, a living pilot in the centre, roughly accurate proportions and little ornamentation. Which of these seems the most mecha like to you?
And that's not counting the similarities you didn't address i.e. here is a samurai
note the sword he is carrying, note the shape of the hilt and the pattern on the binding. Is that not similar to a Japanese sword? And for all those decrying that the sword isn't a katana well you're right. It is a wakizashi. Samurai swords come in a pair, a long sword and a short. The tau ceremonial sword is the short sword, the long sword is the pulse rifle that they carry. This is even acknowledged in the tau codex when they talk about long knife as the name of a tau tactic.
Tau are clearly in part Japanese and Chinese inspired. We can debate how good a job GW did of demonstrating this inspiration on the models but I cannot believe that anyone would deny that it is there.
Interestingly eldar also display a lot of inspiration from Japan, most notably in the concept of "paths" and how eldar are supposed to practise a variety of paths throughout their lives until perfection. This appears to me to be a parrallel of the concept of do, or "way of" i.e. a certain way of doing something which applies to nearly everything in Japanese culture from swordfighting (kendo けｎどう) to calligraphy (shodo しょどう) to drinking tea (chado 茶どう)。
A few things was in my mind when i read the thread.
1) we talked about how Tau 's elemental cast was influenced by Buddhism / Hinduism / Legend of the 5 rings etc etc. But er....
why is everyone forgetting about Taoism ( omg Tauism )? after all it even goes as much as been related to asian week days. ( 7 elements for 7 days for both china and japan )
2) Just because GW fails at sculpting / copying anime mecha ( apple seed was mentioned buy i think Patlabor resembles more ) doesnt mean anything.
i mean just look at the art work itself , atleast FW did a proper job.
And no , GW 100% copied a manga 's battle suit . It was brought up in 4chan before ( with actual source / pics etc etc ) Ya you guys wont believe me until i find that pic so....
Interestingly eldar also display a lot of inspiration from Japan, most notably in the concept of "paths" and how eldar are supposed to practise a variety of paths throughout their lives until perfection. This appears to me to be a parrallel of the concept of do, or "way of" i.e. a certain way of doing something which applies to nearly everything in Japanese culture from swordfighting (kendo けｎどう) to calligraphy (shodo しょどう) to drinking tea (chado 茶どう)。
The original eldar were basically space elves witht the ships and tanks of the alien race from robotech. The craftworlds STILL look like it.
1) we talked about how Tau 's elemental cast was influenced by Buddhism / Hinduism / Legend of the 5 rings etc etc. But er....
why is everyone forgetting about Taoism ( omg Tauism )? after all it even goes as much as been related to asian week days. ( 7 elements for 7 days for both china and japan )
I think you're missing the big thing. The tau weren't so much inspired by actual historical traditions, but instead by japanese/korean/chinese popular culture that has arisen from those traditions. Asian popular culture is the singular inspiration for almost every facet of the tau (also HALO).
And no , GW 100% copied a manga 's battle suit
I'm pretty sure they didn't. And I know a thing about 4chan, I've seen all the same comparison pics as you.
The tau symbol though is just a colorless pokeball.
Im saying most people either forgot , or just isnt aware of the actual Taoism . which is way closer than the other listed influence.
And no , the pic im talking about isnt the tau marking.
Its an actual art book / or manga, either way a scanned black and white page , with battle suit identical to Tau crisis suit.
If you dont know what im talking about, then obviousely you missed it. Its that RARE.
LunaHound wrote: no shuma... i think you are missing my point.
Im saying most people either forgot , or just isnt aware of the actual Taoism . which is way closer than the other listed influence.
And no , the pic im talking about isnt the tau marking. Its an actual art book / or manga, either way a scanned black and white page , with battle suit identical to Tau crisis suit.
If you dont know what im talking about, then obviousely you missed it. Its that RARE.
I believe you're talking about all of the direct correlations of the Tau mech designs from the mechs in RIFTS. The Broadside design and concept is particularly guilty imho. One could easily say that the Vespids were stolen from the Xiticix too.
Though admittedly not many people know this stuff because, well, they'd have to be familiar with RIFTS and that takes a hardcore RPG geek ;-) Sadly I don't have the Tau design collage, but for anyone who's interested just poke around Google for a bit, it's pretty far from being hidden knowledge, just unknown.
Those two mechs look nothing alike. The pose and proportion is similar, the similarities end there. Should have stuck with Heavy Gear, where parallels are pretty strong.
Also did that image just imply that the devilfish looks like a book cover?
Cyporiean wrote:IMO, Crisis suits are much more likened to E-Frames and Marauders then Appleseed/Gundam.
I sort of agree with you , but thats only because their sculptors cant sculpt anything like the art works.
For example compare crisis suits / broad sides to Tau codex.
I agree that the attempt to link RIFTS and Tau designs is pretty weak.
In the first row the middle design's only really common point with the battlesuit is the bulky chest, which is one of those things that tends to go with the territory in a piloted walker, especially if the pilot isn't a near-corpse and wants to be able to move around a bit. If anything, if I didn't know the two designs I'd say the middle piece is GW's due to the large shoulder pads and armored knee protectors.
The rightmost piece looks even less familiar, other than the weak ankles. It's been a long time since I looked at my Palladium Books stuff, but does this guy look like his 'feet' are attached to other feet?
In the 2nd row we again have the think ankles, but if the intent was that shoulder-mounted weapons can somehow be copyrighted I think this is a horrible example. It's a very different system for doing so: The Tau example is essentially a backpack, the RIFTS weapon sits on the unit's shoulders. The Tau one looks a lot better in my opinion.
On the third row, the fire warrior helmet and the RIFTS helmet do look slightly similar, but again I'm not sure if the swept-back head is legally actionable. Don't some bike helmets do this? I'm not sure what the images to the right of this mean... THe armor or robot on the far right looks nothing like the tau (is that fanart?) next to him.
On the last row we compare a Devilfish to a RIFTS mecha. Again, the only similarity I can see here is the use of curves and the way both designs stick out a bit.
Its the essence guys, the essence that defines the designs.
Not the silly little extra armor plate with or without or that differs from design to design, not the silly little technical mechanical mumble jumble. But then again , thats able to convince some people right? *GW "chaos marines? add more spikes"
I guess its one of those you either see it or you dont kind of things.
ShumaGorath wrote:Those two mechs look nothing alike. The pose and proportion is similar, the similarities end there. Should have stuck with Heavy Gear, where parallels are pretty strong.
I don't really see this, even. (Although please Heavy Gear dates to the mid 90s, so it predates the Tau. ) Both designs are a bit chunky, but the Heavy gears tend to be a bit chunkier as they're usually ground-pounders with in-line skates instead of jump-jetting martial-artists. Although the new Black Talon Claw series designs kind of go against this...
So anyone wearing layered robes (pretty much the only kind of robe, apart from bath robes) with any kind of funny hairdo and a stick is a Samurai?
I honestly can't be bothered with all the silly arguments coming out here now. Seriously, Tau copied Rifts = anime? Come on! All the arguments boil down to this-
I can certainly see similarities there.
Yeah. Similarity. The Tau have design elements similar to some things from Asia. That does not make them Japanese. That does not make them anime. That does not make them a one-army sales ploy.
Warhammer isn't real. It's all fantasy. I'm ethnically German, basically. Do you think that means the first thing I did was rush out and buy a bunch of Empire models? No, I bought the models that appealed to my sense of imagination. I bought the models that I thought were quality. Japanese customers did the same thing. Chinese customers will do the same. Don't you all think it's a tad insulting to just presume everyone apart from you is so tied to their ethnicity that GW has to make an army represent them as people in order to sell well?
As for the eternal debate about PC versus ethnic representation- it all boils down to one and only one point: Are the minis cool? Or are the minis silly? If the minis look cool, the overwhelming majority of people who come from an ethnic group that the minis superficially represent won't mind. If they're silly, then you'll start to hear complaints.
I don't remember any Fantasy army releases that were nothing but silly. There are some silly options out there, but there's also GRIMDARK to be had if you want to push it that way. So I have a lot of confidence that if GW releases a Cathay army, it won't be silly. But if it is, then don't buy the minis, and GW will learn their lesson.
We don't need a bunch of baseless speculation from well-meaning people who don't know much about the imaginary army or the real-world people they share a few similarities with. We need pics of minis or lists of rules.
LunaHound wrote:Its the essence guys, the essence that defines the designs.
Not the silly little extra armor plate with or without or that differs from design to design, not the silly little technical mechanical mumble jumble. But then again , thats able to convince some people right? *GW "chaos marines? add more spikes"
I guess its one of those you either see it or you dont kind of things.
I think we don't see it because it's really not there.
I won't defend GW against the argument that they are easily influenced by pop trends. This is the company that did some special promotions for Orks when the Ang Lee Hulk movie came out, after all! They're pretty blatant about such things, and I've no doubt a high-level briefing on the Tau project said something like "draw inspiration from Japanese mecha designs" which is pretty much what Palladium Books did in a lot of places as well (RIFTS is kind of their 40k in that it tends to be a setting where every random idea gets thrown into a mixing bowl). There's nothing wrong with drawing inspiration from another source... I think most product designs and even msot art do it to some extent.
GW draws inspiration from real life and other works of art. Frankly, the Tau are a lot less plagarized than some of the WFB armies. How different can you make a mecha suit look? It's gonna have 2 arms, 2 legs, a torso, a head, some antennas and fins, and big guns. Maybe it's got a smooth, curved look or an angular look, but that's about it. If you made it radically different (say 4 arms and no legs), then it doesn't look enough like a mecha suit for people to get the visual connection.
Personally, I hope the 'new army' is Lost and the Damned for 40k.
And, no. I don't see the point of monkey men in fantasy. Just re-work the gakking Chaos Dwarves!
Finally, a ray of light! A shining beacon of wisdom!
(And a thread rapidly reaching its expiration date?)
The day the chaos dwarves come back are the day they bring back the zoats and the squats and every other awful and stupid race that was removed for a good reason.
So what you're saying is that we should look for Zoats and Squats to return by, say, 2011 at the latest?
Sorry for that, not that I'm the only one but I'm sure that I didn't help. Anyway, a Chinese inspired fantasy army would be neat, though I'd want to see people as I'm not a big fan of anthropomorphic animals. That being said, an elite unit of ninja monkeys, well they're monkeys damn it. How can you not be a fan of a monkey swarm? =)
Do we have any speculation as to a release date for this new fantasy army whatever it may be?
I've always found monkeys to be boring, really. I don't understand the appeal. Now, I can appreciate a sort of menagerie of creatures, but I hope that the army is human based with Beasts of Not Chaos support units.
If there were to be a monkey army in WFB I would personally prefer to see it represented in the Kingdoms of Ind, or Warhammer India.
I'm no Hindu expert but I know the Ramayana includes a monkey army, and many Hindus believe that people with animalistic, or another feature that resembles one of their Gods has been blessed by that God.
Yeah. Similarity. The Tau have design elements similar to some things from Asia. That does not make them Japanese. That does not make them anime. That does not make them a one-army sales ploy.
Direct quotes from the armies designer and GW corporates kind of disagree with you there.
ShumaGorath wrote:Gentlemen. I give you the broadside.
That may be the most ridiculous comparison I've ever seen.
Yes, that was the point. If you've read any of my posts I've repeatedly stated that similarities don't equate to stolen designs. All of the tau designs are heavily inspired by historical chinese foot soldiers and modern anime mecha. This is out of the mouth of the man that designed the model range. He has been quoted in this thread a few times now. If you want to argue how well he succeeded go ahead, but that is what they were designed to visually adhere to.
Hate to do it, but gotta agree with Shummy here. It was an intentional design feature to draw stylistically from mecha, and they even came out and said that the firewarriors were modeled after ashigaru footsoldiers. There isn't any arguing it, anymore than there is arguing Jes Goodwin is working on the Dark Eldar range.
So anyone wearing layered robes (pretty much the only kind of robe, apart from bath robes) with any kind of funny hairdo and a stick is a Samurai?
I honestly can't be bothered with all the silly arguments coming out here now. Seriously, Tau copied Rifts = anime? Come on! All the arguments boil down to this-
I can certainly see similarities there.
Yeah. Similarity. The Tau have design elements similar to some things from Asia. That does not make them Japanese. That does not make them anime. That does not make them a one-army sales ploy.
So you agree that they have design elements that are drawn from Asia? Because that is basically all I was arguing. Their models, fluff and suit designs have elements drawn from either historical Asian culture or modern asian pop culture. If you agree with this what on earth are you arguing?
JOHIRA wrote: Warhammer isn't real. It's all fantasy. I'm ethnically German, basically. Do you think that means the first thing I did was rush out and buy a bunch of Empire models? No, I bought the models that appealed to my sense of imagination. I bought the models that I thought were quality. Japanese customers did the same thing. Chinese customers will do the same. Don't you all think it's a tad insulting to just presume everyone apart from you is so tied to their ethnicity that GW has to make an army represent them as people in order to sell well?
I entirely agree with you. It is ludicrous to think that someone will buy an army just because it shares superficial elements with their own culture. It doesn't mean that GW didn't think that though but imhoGW the genesis of the Tau is more likely either an attempt by GW to tap into the growing interest in asian culture in the west or just the fact that lots of people in the design team have an interest in asian culture and they wanted to put that into 40K.
Incidentally I just twigged that we are both 40k players living in Japan. Where do you live? Maybe we could get together for a game some time.
As time goes on I believe less and less that Cathay or Nippon are going to get any love in this next army book. If Chaos Dwarves didn't have a real army book (just a WD write up) I think GW has pulled the wool over our eyes by claiming it to be a 'new' army.
I officially shift my vote to Chaos Dwarves. It just seems so obvious at this point.
Read my post , i made a perfect explanation for Fire Warrior's knife , i even include a pic!
bottom of page !
/shakes head.. I'm not buying it.. lol
Which part about Fire Warrior Ceremonial knife doesnt look like Tan To ?
The looks = 100% same , they both arnt meant for actual battle ( PS i dont really want to
post comparison here there are complaints + a new thread made for it )
Uriels_Flame wrote:STOP HIJACKING MY MONKEY MAN THREAD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I started another thread! Go to that one!
MOD'S = SHUT THIS THING DOWN.
I don't give a crap about Tau and Anime.
1) Ageofego started this thread, dont ask to close other person's stuff
2) There is no confirmed army , thus everything is still speculation / discussion
3) If its just me , i would understand your agitated state , but half of the poster in the thread are discussing it.
So i dont see it bothering the rest.
I entirely agree with you. It is ludicrous to think that someone will buy an army just because it shares superficial elements with their own culture.
Actually it really, really, really isn't. Brand culturalization and regioning of products has been standard practice for hundreds of years. Every top selling xbox game in the east has been a japanese produced game. Anime, television shows, books and movies all commonly have regional identities, names, and often times plots changed to better suit their target audience when they are redistributed overseas. Toy lines generally make exceptions for action figures so that there is more familiarity on the shelf in the target region. Auto makers for decades made regional alterations to vehicles sold overseas to better compete with the more familiar local markets.
Familiarity sells a product and a level of familiarity helps to introduce products to a new audience. It's not ludicrous, it's pretty basic business practice. GW was not successful with the tau, the japanese are already inundated with sci fi settings and games related. 40k itself has tanked in japan, the Tau weren't going to change that. There is a fast growing market in china though, with relatively little competition. Having a product that is distinctly asian/chinese could help immensely in regard to growing a fan base.
I know very few of the asian cultures, but IMHO, I wouldn't buy an Estalian army just for being spanish. The army would have to be really cool. Aniway, if I choose a human army for WFB, it will be the Empire (Averland themed).
ShumaGorath wrote:Brand culturalization and regioning of products has been standard practice for hundreds of years.
GW was not successful with the tau,
There is a fast growing market in china though, with relatively little competition. Having a product that is distinctly asian/chinese could help immensely in regard to growing a fan base.
Done well, by locals / natives, sure. Bad translations and stereotypes have also been around for hundreds of years.
Actually, my understanding is that the Tau release was very successful. Hence, Tau Empire as a followup, rather than, say, a Dark Eldar relaunch.
If the product is distinctively (i.e. not offensively) asian/chinese, then yeah, it could do well. If GW releases asians / chinese as clearly worse than Empire / Brets, that will be a real problem.
But really, I'd much rather see a native Chinese group pick up the reins using a GW-like engine, a la Flames, and do Cathay / Nippon / Siam / Ind / Persia / Araby. At least you avoid the overt East vs West issues.
Actually, my understanding is that the Tau release was very successful. Hence, Tau Empire as a followup, rather than, say, a Dark Eldar relaunch.
In the west they were pretty popular. The kids from the anime and manga half of the game store had something to do once that army came out. The hobby started to serve the whole of nerddom. I was under the impression that the army had no major impact in japanese sales.
Given how ugly and blocky the Tau Battlesuits are, along with the gracelessness of their Grav-Tanks, I'm not surprised the Japanese wouldn't take to them.
They have far better stuff produced natively, so why would they buy a lower-grade knock-off?
And that presumes that Tau are even notionally Japanese.
I entirely agree with you. It is ludicrous to think that someone will buy an army just because it shares superficial elements with their own culture.
Actually it really, really, really isn't. Brand culturalization and regioning of products has been standard practice for hundreds of years. Every top selling xbox game in the east has been a japanese produced game. Anime, television shows, books and movies all commonly have regional identities, names, and often times plots changed to better suit their target audience when they are redistributed overseas. Toy lines generally make exceptions for action figures so that there is more familiarity on the shelf in the target region. Auto makers for decades made regional alterations to vehicles sold overseas to better compete with the more familiar local markets.
Familiarity sells a product and a level of familiarity helps to introduce products to a new audience. It's not ludicrous, it's pretty basic business practice. GW was not successful with the tau, the japanese are already inundated with sci fi settings and games related. 40k itself has tanked in japan, the Tau weren't going to change that. There is a fast growing market in china though, with relatively little competition. Having a product that is distinctly asian/chinese could help immensely in regard to growing a fan base.
Cultural rebranding is a standard and useful practise but it takes significantly more skill and understanding than "this is a bit chinese, so the chinese must like it."
Cultural rebranding works by taking an existing product and altering it to fit the tastes and needs of your target market. Nothing wrong there. But the product needs to be something that is fundamentally wanted in that market. Cultural rebranding can make a product that there may be an audience for more likely to buy your product but it can't sell a product that there is no audience for.
As a westerner living in Japan I'm subject to examples of this kind of regionalising everyday. Kit Kat and Starbucks are particularly prominent examples of western products that formulate new flavours, products and advertising copy that will appeal to the Japanese market. You don't see many mathca lattes or kinako kit-kats back home. But what they've done there is taken a product with an existing market (chocolate bar, cafe) and altered the product to fit regional tastes and preferences. What they didn't do was slap a new more Japanese name on it and hope that made it sell, they had to actually alter their product.
As you yourself said, every top selling x-box game was produced in the east. Not necessarily ABOUT the east but produced there. The product reflects regional demand for certain game features and mechanics not necessarily a demand to see the east in computer game form.
Giving the Tau an anime theme was not necessarily a bad idea. GW (according to this theory) identified features that are popular in Japan and altered their product to include these features. The problem GW has it that in Japan and China (afaik) there really isn't a comparable home grown product to warhammer and so no existing market for them to copy. In fact there simply may not be a market for this kind of game. Kudos for trying but it didn't work.
In fact from anecdotal evidence most of the Japanese players I know have space marine armies and enjoy the elements of 40k that are unique to 40k. The gothic in space, the religious imagery (gothic religious imagery is surprisingly popular in Japan actually) and the baroque overdetailed nature of the models. If GW wants to appeal to Japan then altering its product to match Japanese tastes is a good idea but it doesn't need to alter its aesthetics but rather its business model, the kind of plastic it uses, where it sells kits, reduce the amount of metal figures, produce properly translated codecii, etc. In fact it may want to even try an entirely new game.
To give another example from the world of gaming Magic the Gathering Portal: 3 Kingdoms was a version of that game produced entirely for the asian market. It had translated cards in Japanese, S-Chinese and T-Chinese, a setting that evoked the romance of the three kingdoms and every card featured an asian artist.
It tanked hard. And Magic was in a better position as there was and is a market for ccg's in asia INCLUDING the standard version of Magic. This just proves that changing the aesthetics of your game to reflect the country your aiming for's culture won't necessarily have a positive effect.
So while making an army that is visually chinese might help drive sales I am highly sceptical that it will do so. If there is a growing market for warhammer in China then GW needs to go to China, ask players what they like and don't like about the product and look at any comparable chinese products (if they exist) before carrying out any kind of regional re-brand.
I really hope it is a Cathay army...but not monkeys.
What I imagine is an army who has a background story based on balance of the elements and ancestral worship. I can see the army playing out as elemental wizards/sorcerers and using necromancy to call on the power of long dead heroes.
Ninjas and samurai are a Japanese based in origins so I don't think we would see them, if they are basing it off of the actual Cathay = China in WHFB formula. But if they want to use Cathay as a representative of all of Asia then I could see ninjas and samurai in it. What I think we might see are Shaolin monk fighters since they are based in China and could be a good source of fighting power for an army.
But all-in-all I have been waiting for Cathay for a long time and hope it really is them.
Also, some rumors I have read/heard...Is it really legal to worship Tzneetch in Cathay? If so then this could be an interesting twist to the army. An army that is a balance between chaos and order. Sort of what the Empire or Chaos would be if they just were a little more/less of one thing.
ProtoClone wrote:
What I imagine is an army who has a background story based on balance of the elements and ancestral worship. I can see the army playing out as elemental wizards/sorcerers and using necromancy to call on the power of long dead heroes.
If an undead element was present in this army I'd bet on them only having an Invocation of Nehek like spell just for their zombies, maybe a single piece of wargear that might raise the ability to keep a unit of zombies alive. I don't think one would be able to base the entire army on it and it'd probably end up being a pretty fluffy but not very effective unit/groups of units.
ProtoClone wrote:Ninjas and samurai are a Japanese based in origins so I don't think we would see them, if they are basing it off of the actual Cathay = China in WHFB formula. But if they want to use Cathay as a representative of all of Asia then I could see ninjas and samurai in it. What I think we might see are Shaolin monk fighters since they are based in China and could be a good source of fighting power for an army.
I've never asked, but do Cathay and Nippon have any kind of cannon alliance going on? I could see something like Nipponese warriors in a special slot that are basically samurai or Nipponese infiltrators that amount to ninjas. If it is Cathay, I definitely think they will have monks that specialize in demon slaying or something of the like. Demons need a solid counter from somewhere.
ProtoClone wrote:Also, some rumors I have read/heard...Is it really legal to worship Tzneetch in Cathay? If so then this could be an interesting twist to the army. An army that is a balance between chaos and order. Sort of what the Empire or Chaos would be if they just were a little more/less of one thing.
I think that would be pretty interesting myself. Maybe they'll have some solidly Tzeentch aligned wizards that can just be super beefy at spellcasting.
But regardless of how awesome Cathay would be... I fear it will be Chaos Dwarves.
ProtoClone wrote:
What I imagine is an army who has a background story based on balance of the elements and ancestral worship. I can see the army playing out as elemental wizards/sorcerers and using necromancy to call on the power of long dead heroes.
If an undead element was present in this army I'd bet on them only having an Invocation of Nehek like spell just for their zombies, maybe a single piece of wargear that might raise the ability to keep a unit of zombies alive. I don't think one would be able to base the entire army on it and it'd probably end up being a pretty fluffy but not very effective unit/groups of units.
ProtoClone wrote:Ninjas and samurai are a Japanese based in origins so I don't think we would see them, if they are basing it off of the actual Cathay = China in WHFB formula. But if they want to use Cathay as a representative of all of Asia then I could see ninjas and samurai in it. What I think we might see are Shaolin monk fighters since they are based in China and could be a good source of fighting power for an army.
I've never asked, but do Cathay and Nippon have any kind of cannon alliance going on? I could see something like Nipponese warriors in a special slot that are basically samurai or Nipponese infiltrators that amount to ninjas. If it is Cathay, I definitely think they will have monks that specialize in demon slaying or something of the like. Demons need a solid counter from somewhere.
ProtoClone wrote:Also, some rumors I have read/heard...Is it really legal to worship Tzneetch in Cathay? If so then this could be an interesting twist to the army. An army that is a balance between chaos and order. Sort of what the Empire or Chaos would be if they just were a little more/less of one thing.
I think that would be pretty interesting myself. Maybe they'll have some solidly Tzeentch aligned wizards that can just be super beefy at spellcasting.
But regardless of how awesome Cathay would be... I fear it will be Chaos Dwarves.
Well I wasn't thinking having an entirely dead feel to the army. Actually I could see the use of calling the power of long dead heroes to assist, or buff, their lords and/or heroes to be more on par with opponents they have to face. This wouldn't be something that I would imagine you could switch up mid game, you would have to apply it when you build the army list and hope you chose right. You also couldn't apply it to more then one lord or hero at a time.
ProtoClone wrote:
Well I wasn't thinking having an entirely dead feel to the army. Actually I could see the use of calling the power of long dead heroes to assist, or buff, their lords and/or heroes to be more on par with opponents they have to face. This wouldn't be something that I would imagine you could switch up mid game, you would have to apply it when you build the army list and hope you chose right. You also couldn't apply it to more then one lord or hero at a time.
I could see some hero upgrades actually. Something like 'The Blood of my Ancestors', could be a characters dead ancestors guiding his hand in battle giving him hatred in every round of combat. Flavorful upgrades like that would be pretty awesome. Or a spell called 'Ancestral Might' could be a stays in play spell that raises a units strength score. I'm a little obsessed with the word ancestor in these things. But something akin to that would be pretty boss. I don't know if the people of Cathay are that okay with the undead though.
Typeline wrote:I've never asked, but do Cathay and Nippon have any kind of cannon alliance going on?
No moreso than The Empire and Bretonnia have had, from a RL historical analogue or WFB pseudohistory.
But Western gaming companies have an unfortunate, ignorant tendency to lump everything East of Arabia and south of Russia into a single pile, which is why Chinese Shaolin Monks tend to get mixed in with Japanese Samurai and Ninjas, along with Indian Elephants for good measure.
Ratbarf wrote:Maybe its Kislev? I would absolutely love to see a fleshed out current edition Kislev army! Mongolian-Russians here we come!
I've only ever seen a couple of Kislev miniatures (never an army book or any stats) and yeah they were drunks riding bears, what would an army book for them look like?
Ratbarf wrote:Maybe its Kislev? I would absolutely love to see a fleshed out current edition Kislev army! Mongolian-Russians here we come!
I've only ever seen a couple of Kislev miniatures (never an army book or any stats) and yeah they were drunks riding bears, what would an army book for them look like?
The cover would probably have a drunk riding a bear. Inside, lots of pictures of inebriated ursus cavalry. Also, a veiled reference to Stephen Colbert.
Balance wrote:
The cover would probably have a drunk riding a bear. Inside, lots of pictures of inebriated ursus cavalry. Also, a veiled reference to Stephen Colbert.
As much as I'd love to relive the Wizard of Oz and flying Monkeys - the only Warmaster army not included in Fantasy at this time is the Araby - which get's my vote as the most likely to be released as a full fantasy army.
However, Warmaster doesn't have Ogres - but general consensus is they suck so take it for what it's worth.
It appears to contain Elephants, Hero's, Djinni, Camel Cav, and flying carpets.
I want to say they had Kislev army for Warmaster too, but I don't see it on the list atm.
Well, I guess White Scars are racist towards Asiatics, Orks to blacks, Araby to the middle east, Kislev to the Russains, Tau to the Japenese/Chinese/Korean, and Vampire Counts to Western Royalty, Undead is to Goths, Daemons are to Tammy Fae Baker, and Ultramarines are to the real smurphs!
Pick an army and it's either a "good representation of the flavor we were looking for" or "racist about xyz culture".
Uriels_Flame wrote:As much as I'd love to relive the Wizard of Oz and flying Monkeys - the only Warmaster army not included in Fantasy at this time is the Araby - which get's my vote as the most likely to be released as a full fantasy army.
So, going on this the black templars are now known as the coloured templars too? GW has to use ideas for the basis of an army, its alot easier for them to simply steal a cultures design and change it to thier needs rather than design one from scratch.
Listen man, I only ever bring up the racism thing in jest. I find calling things racist very funny. Please don't take me in seriousness. Just laugh it up.
rince_Shotoku.jpg
) Both designs are a bit chunky, but the Heavy gears tend to be a bit chunkier as they're usually ground-pounders with in-line skates instead of jump-jetting martial-artists. Although the new Black Talon Claw series designs kind of go against this...
