And I think I can explain why....

How do!

As we await the next instalment of Broken Realms, my mind turned to how much I enjoyed Morathi (not like that you dirty bugger), especially when compared to Psychic Awakening for 40K.

This is highlighted by my continued love for the Rogue Trader era of 40K. Now, brace yourself and maybe grab a cuppa, because inevitable meandering is inevitable here.

See, the Rogue Trader era (which spanned around 5 years) was a hotbed of unbridled creativity. It had to be, as they were busy creating what has become an absolute SciFi juggernaut. The setting and the forces within it were all being thought up, fleshed out and bulked out. Sure, not everything survived, and some stuff (including Marines believe it or not) weren’t fully codified until quite late on.

And that’s kinda where AoS is right now, though with what seems to be more of a coherent plan behind it (RT was gloriously bonkers and chaotic).

I mean, in its first five years, we’ve had new takes on old races introduced. We’ve had the Realmgate Wars, the Necroquake, and what’s currently rolling out with Broken Realms.

The setting itself is one of near unlimited potential in the stories that can be told. With the relatively newly established Cities of Sigmar, there’s room for distinctly Old World tales (nefarious cults, Skaven invasion, sieges etc). With so much lost during the Age of Chaos, tales of tomb robbing, dungeoneering etc are near unlimited. And all whilst there can be colossal shake ups of the status quo.

Each and every race feels important. No participants in a home brew campaign feel convoluted or out of place as say, Lizardmen once did (at least to me). That all helps players to feel invested and dare I say valued. Sure you might wish for a better or more expansive army book - but every race feels like a legitimate part of the setting, with the ability to make its own mark.

To go back to the Necroquake, the published and evolving Official Background feels creative again, because it can have serious ramifications in the way the Old World couldn’t, and 40K is struggling with (seriously, most of the volumes of Psychic Awakening just....ended. Like there was a conclusion missed out from the print run).

For me, all it boils down to the core of the setting (the Realms themselves) still being kinda vague. Yes, we know that other than Shyish how they work (interior pretty stable, very edges utterly inimical to life, and shades between in between as you travel toward one or the other). We also know the Realms interact with each other. And that broadly, rather than being orbiting planets, they’re interpreted planes of existence.

But, when it comes to specifics of geography? Not so much. Yes we’ve some maps, but it’s clear those are regions of a Realm, rather than the whole of the Realm (as a map of Talabheim was to a map of the Empire). Again, this gives us guidance for our own creation, without setting very many rules.

I also like that actions have consequences. Nothing goes unpunished overall.

Even the relationships between the Gods is intriguing, and full of potential.

The Gods of Order are a very, very loose alliance. Yes they will combine forces quite readily, but each still has their own agenda. Some are hidden (Morathi), some are open (Sigmar) and some, for now at least, remain unknown (Malerion).

Nagash? Well....let’s face it, the dude is nothing if not a pragmatist. If it serves him and his overall aims, or interferes the least, he’ll be open to helping out.

Gorkamorka? He and his are just having a fantastic time with all these new and interesting fights popping up. Suffice to say I’m intrigued what the Big Green Git might do during Broken Realms. I’d love for him to go old Skool RT and smack Khorne in the gob again. Don’t care if it’s for a reason, or just because he can.

Sigmar’s pantheon acts as a really nice counter to the Dark Gods narratively speaking. Where the baddies arguably have the numbers, the Goodies are more willing, and indeed able, to work together, temporarily setting their own rivalries and agendas aside.

By setting their stall out this way from the get go, I feel fans of AoS aren’t as.....sniffy, as 40K fans (BA and Necrons temporary alliance to wreck a Hive Fleet sent people nuts, despite both being known for honourable conduct). Anything seems possible. Nothing feels particularly taboo. And it’s still in its infancy.

My only real fear here is that they won’t know when to stop, and it all becomes overly convoluted. A fluid setting with room to evolve is cool and interesting. An impermanent, overly fluid setting where it doesn’t feel like anything really sticks, not so much.

But man. I love my AoS background!

On the subject of GW not knowing when to stop its somewhat scary that AoS has about as many "factions" as 40K has - yet without the dominating Marines and Imperial lines; AoS has VASTLY more creative freedom within each of its armies.
So GW can likely add a few more before they hit a limit - I hope they do stop as new armies are great but big additions to current armies are also important and its clear with Slaanesh and Lumineth getting big updates this year, that GW realises this need too.



Other than that my only real gripes about the setting are that GW still hasn't put into place a dating system. It's annoying because its nice to know when stories relate to each other temporally and spatially. They are slowly getting there with maps; but right now dates are mostly a case of before/after major events like the start of AoS or the Necroquake event. Massive landmark events that define the setting.


I'd also say that for all the creative freedom the design team has; Black Library is playing catch up, especially since Josh Reynolds has moved on. I feel like AoS is being used for a lot of new talent, which is great, but at the same time a lot of GWs experienced and skilled talent is tangled up with big 40K stories and settings. I'd love to see some more experienced and skilled authors take up the fantasy mantel for AoS and dive into the setting in more depth. I hope that things like the Soulbound RPG are going to help deepen the lore and attract writers to write about the setting.

Plus with BL/GW being more open to every army getting stories (no chosen side here) it means that you can write great sagas about orks (orruks) or demons and not just about glorious marines and Imperials (which was the bulk of BL stories about 40K - its actually shocking how few Eldar, Ork, Tau and such stories there are. I can accept Tyranids being a bit tricky, but darn the other Xenos races should have more than the handful of books they do have)

True. Though for AoS novels, I highly recommend Warhammer Horror.

Again, with the setting constantly evolving, anything can happen in them.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
True. Though for AoS novels, I highly recommend Warhammer Horror.

Again, with the setting constantly evolving, anything can happen in them.

I've not yet dipped into the horror - I keep getting side tracked by classic Old World stuff - mostly Gotrek and Felix omnibus editions.

A worthy read for sure!

For Warhammer Horror, I strongly recommend starting with the Anthology books, as they’re the best showcase. If the story your on isn’t to your taste, then just like The Fast Show, there’s another along in a minute.

Of course, if none tickle your fancy, you’ll probs be best off not reading further

Truthfully, Psychic Awakening was fine--the problem is that the 'payout' got spoiled far in advance with the leak of 9E and COVID delaying releases and the usual whinging over "too many books!" derailed anything meaningful really being mentioned.

Right now, Broken Realms has done one good thing:
It created the first City of Sigmar that actually feels unique. Har Kuron is, IMO, what they kept promising us when Cities was first announced:

Bits of Old World flavor with a distinctly AoS twist.

They do need to be a bit careful about over saturating with too many armies. I think after getting a full blown vampire line, malerions shadow elfs and maybe one more faction for destruction they should calm things down a bit. But the setting is a great sandbox for creativity. They can get away with stuff that wouldn't work in the more grounded old world setting.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

Each and every race feels important. No participants in a home brew campaign feel convoluted or out of place as say,

Well, except for those sea elves who's fish can swim through the air....

I love the Deepkin models. I just can't bring myself to play them on the grassy fields represented by most of our tables/terrain though. It's just too much of a clash.

Don't they essentially carry an envelope of water around themselves?

Lore still kind of gak. Cool things happen but in a world that in it's own off the wall uniqueness feels bland.

 Overread wrote:
Other than that my only real gripes about the setting are that GW still hasn't put into place a dating system. It's annoying because its nice to know when stories relate to each other temporally and spatially. They are slowly getting there with maps; but right now dates are mostly a case of before/after major events like the start of AoS or the Necroquake event. Massive landmark events that define the setting

I see adding a codified dating system into AoS being much the same as making ones own rope that will probably hang themselves later.

I much prefer the major event timeline. As a very long time D&D player of a number of published settings I couldn't tell you what the current year of any character of mine adventured in the Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, Dark Sun or any save maybe Ravenloft toward the end of 2nd ed with the Lich Azalin re-arranged the demi-realm and turned the biggest city into undead. It didn't really matter to the events of the campaign we were playing. It would have bound the DM more than provide any structure especially if any additional material was published and moved what little meta-plot those setting had.

As a wargame, I feel similarly with AoS. We start throwing concrete dates on things then we start worrying about how that might affect the lore of our armies. Fortunately, most armies are composed of the long-lived to functionally or actually immortal. But not every faction. I don't know about you, but I like the idea of Captain Hans Franz of Hammerhall having to be Hans the First, II, III, and so one depending on how dates shake out but Hans being a basically a direct copy of his father, grandfather or great (times X) grandfather to keep up with the story.

Nor do I want the 40k issue of thousands of years of things being bad, but like the last score of years of 41st millennium being absolutely crammed with terrible events happening. Which also suffered the short (and brutal) life issue when GW moved things up a couple of centuries which should have killed most if all the Imperial Guard heroes. Honestly, probably should have done in most space marine heroes too given that even chapter masters still fight and few marines live past a few centuries as they begin to slow. Yet, the whole First Founding gang is still there because most of them have models. Which I totally get. Just pointing it out.

I also like the no formal dating as it still indicates that Chaos and chaos still largely control the Realms. I think the lack of accurate time keeping goes hand and hand with the lack of space tracking. I like that AoS is a setting where most of the map is, "Here be dragons." I think it gets far too over-looked that much of the Mortal Realms looks like planets inside the 40k's Eye of Terror. Since many people call AoS less Grimdark than 40k since some factions are completely horribly evil. The funny thing is much of the lands itself of AoS are very much evil to the point they were almost irreversible (and may still be).

I do understand the desire for formal dates. They would definitely provide structure and perspective. However, I don't think structure and perspective would really help AoS since the lack of those elements really leaves the setting more in the hands of the players. Sure, there are major events that drive a meta-plot. Without dates, it allows the margins for a player to have a have their armies exist or even be at some major battles and events since there isn't a time frame too large or too small for them not be there.

 AegisGrimm wrote:
Don't they essentially carry an envelope of water around themselves?

{shrugs} Couldn't tell you as I'm not inspired to read their lore.
But even if they do? I still think the sight of flying sharks over our green fields, medieval buildings, & pine trees doesn't jive.

On reading thread title: Yup

On reading first line: Do you need to?

Regarding dating system, in..october, or november WD they started publishing timeline of events for AoS, and they outright said "We will not be adding any definite dating, it leads to continuity issues" which...makes sense in a setting that spans literal tens of thousands of years (age of myth).

The benefits of starting a whole new game.
I allso belive this was very big experiment by GW, and they chose the least favorable game system they had. Could have taken LotR but im guessing that is a more protected IP/ game system???, and thus they did not want to mess with it.

 Saturmorn Carvilli wrote:
Which also suffered the short (and brutal) life issue when GW moved things up a couple of centuries which should have killed most if all the Imperial Guard heroes. .

And unsurprisingly GW retconned that away.

Cronch wrote:
Regarding dating system, in..october, or november WD they started publishing timeline of events for AoS, and they outright said "We will not be adding any definite dating, it leads to continuity issues" which...makes sense in a setting that spans literal tens of thousands of years (age of myth).

This is a fair point well made.

I hadn’t really noticed the lack of a dating system for the background to be honest. But adding one would tie things up more than feels necessary. Though it would be cool to see that some of Sigmar’s campaigns last decades or more.

I think it makes sense from a certain perspective how they are handling it. They had to make a big decision about their lines - would they keep the Middle Earth stuff, or get rid of it?

They decided to keep it, and that meant they had a very well detailed, fully mapped out, real world adjacent fantasy setting. The Ur Fantasy setting for that sort of thing, you can't get better than Tolkien. Any sort of grounded "real" fantasy was going to be in that setting going forward.

So they had WFB, not selling well and also in a grounded setting. I'm a huge fan of the Old World, but from a strategic POV I can see that they probably felt it was too similar in theme to LOTR in terms of low fantasy stuff. Why have two competing lines?

So they went for something wacky, out there, heavy metal high fantasy, a pulp fantasy painting on amphetamines.

Has it all landed? Not really, I would say. The release was botched and certain choices they've made don't sit will with me. It doesn't help that I don't love the aesthetics of the new Orcs and the new Slayers. Stormcast look cool, though I find the background a bit meh (I would actually prefer them as faceless minions of Order, a counterpart to the Daemons. I think ordinary people should be scared of them, even though they are defending them.)

I like a lot of the broad imagery of the setting. These bastions of Order in the middle of absolutely blasted, magic swept wastelands filled with mutant barbarians. Awesome stuff. Mad realms of fantasy themed around the Winds of Magic is also cool and could lead to awesome themed boards and armies. Stuff like the marauder warbands of Warcry hint at the cooler idea of a universe conquered by Chaos, where Chaos is the dominant faction split into lots of warring subfactions, a vision of the apocalypse. Order is on the backfoot and only exists within their walls.

And within that you can cram in whatever wacky stuff you like. Sky Pirate Goblins, Snake Elves, whatever you want. I'm open to it. In a lot of ways it is a bit like a really amped up version of my own fantasy setting I use for Dungeons and Dragons.

Where it falls down for me is really the focus on legacy characters from WFB. It really makes this awesome, epic setting feel small and boring that we still have Tyrion, Teclis, Nagash, Sigmar and Morthai wandering around. Not interested, don't care. I especially don't like that they are these huge mythic figures, super hero like, that the plots revolve around. I hate that stuff in game settings. I find that stuff so offputting that I don't really want to engage with the written "lore" at all. I wish it had been a proper reset in that sense, not based around old characters. A couple of the plotlines seem okay, but they could easily have been told with new characters. Leave the Old World dead, move on. Also, side note, I know everyone loves Flesh Eater Courts but I can't help but see them as a middle finger to the best human faction in WFB, the Bretonians.

I feel the same about 40K, but 40K has become fossilised in all the hyper gothic and self serious stuff that GW can claim is unique to the setting, leaving behind all the generic sci fi stuff and leaving no space for that in their line up. That is why we will see more generic sci fi games doing well, because just like there is a niche for LOTR there is a niche for ray guns and space ships sci fi without the gothic melodrama.

 Kanluwen wrote:
Truthfully, Psychic Awakening was fine--the problem is that the 'payout' got spoiled far in advance with the leak of 9E and COVID delaying releases and the usual whinging over "too many books!" derailed anything meaningful really being mentioned.

Right now, Broken Realms has done one good thing:
It created the first City of Sigmar that actually feels unique. Har Kuron is, IMO, what they kept promising us when Cities was first announced:

Bits of Old World flavor with a distinctly AoS twist.

Pretty much none of the Psychic Awakening books had any relevance to the 'payout' what so ever. They could've stuck Phariah at the start of the series or in the middle, narratively it would make literally no difference. They were essentially the timeline paragraphs you get in codexes expanded into a full book, which usually amounted to, "Chaos/Xenos is doing something, Imperium intervenes and thwarts them despite heavy casualties, but actually the battle isn't over/Chaos was only pretending to be dumb and planned to lose (but this will never be touched on again)". The only book that really did anything different was Blood of the Phoenix ("lol you were fighting a hologram all along XD") and The Greater Good, because it actually played each faction to it's strengths, gave everyone involved both a good showing and an arse kicking, but the stakes were so low because they're just fighting over some random sub-sector of zero importance.

Not exactly the 'biggest deal since the 13th Black Crusade!!!' like they made out in the marketing.

In one book, Broken Realms has done more than the entire PA series. It actually showed some interesting developments for Order, advanced the narrative for one of it's characters and whilst I don't think stuff getting destroyed/killed necessarily makes for good storytelling unto itself, Anvilgard falling at least added some stakes to the BR series going forward.

Honestly I think GW is in a position where no matter what they do in 40K their lore fan's won't be happy. The Morathi book did change things, but ultimately one city changed hands. That's akin to one world in 40K changing hands; or getting blown up; or a crusade etc...

Basically lots happened in the Morathi book; but honestly not a huge amount changed at the same time if you compare it to 40K lore.


I think that the issue is 40K lore has been going a long time and some people want to see big changes that just aren't going to happen because its tied to the physical game. The same happened with Old World and the same will happen with AoS. People just don't see the "walls" in AoS yet because its all so new to them so its fresh.


But its going to have the same patterns and shifts. If anything the almost noboarders no timeline nature of the setting makes events even more light on impact in some sense. In Old World if Nuln was destroyed it would have been huge. The game would still have had steam engines (engineers escape etc....) and such; but a main city would have changed. The time period and location hold importance.


In AoS whole swathes of land and time can shift and change and - it affects nothing in the grand scheme of things






By all means I enjoy the lore and I get that as group written lore with no real loremaster in charge at GW its a lot easier for them to just let writers go wild with freedom (Even if that can be very hard to write for) and not care. A city lost or gained; a kingdom made or burned doesn't matter etc....

One city changed hands, sure, but it also set up LRL/Idoneth+DOK conflict, and you know, a brand new full-powered goddess in the setting, no big deal. Not to mention that Imperium has a million worlds, Sigmar has only a small number of the free cities, so it's less like "a planet changed hands" and more like "Well, Cadia changed hands".

In AoS whole swathes of land and time can shift and change and - it affects nothing in the grand scheme of things

And you will note that that they're aware of it, keeping the narrative around Cities of Sigmar (be it as participants or just targets) as opposed to "The Empire", cause you are 100% right, no one cares if 500 square miles of mushroom forest changes hand, but that's true in any setting. They've (so far) kept all of the narrative on the individual cities cause they are strategic objectives, just like IRL.

I am pretty opposed to the idea that we NEED a progressing narrative in the game setting. I would rather keep that stuff to novel series and comic books where it is appropriate. A game setting is supposed to be a springboard for imagination, rather than a passively consumed narrative.

If I want to experience the fall of Nuln or Anvilgard, much cooler to build themed terrain, paint up a bunch of themed minis, and then play out the scenario and tell the story on the tabletop. That is where half of the original stories come from, improvised storytelling on the events of a game. That is what games can do for us that other media cannot, and I think the main strength of settings.

That said I am not opposed to time skips and changes. You could have different versions of the setting at different time periods (ideally quite spaced out) allowing for different versions of factions and settings and letting people choose which playground to mess around with in their imagination.
But I vastly prefer it if that sort of stuff is driven by factions and armies as a whole, which is what the gameplay is about, rather than individual immortal super hero characters that are pivotal to every conflict and story in the setting. That makes this vast apocalyptic world seem really small and soap opera-ish to me, and I think it is better suited to a comic book or TV show (both things I really enjoy, not knocking them, but just not what I want from a game setting). I want to make my own heroes and tell my own stories, and having these super hero immortals wandering around always seems to make that pointless.

I know, it doesn't bother everyone, and someone will surely tell me that I can still do that etc etc. It doesn't matter, it's an emotional reaction more than anything, you know?

I mean, AoS is very much a "mythic" setting, like say, pre-classical Greece. It's Achilles that chops down Hector, not random Achean mook, and gods meddle into the affairs of mortals directly. It's part of the charm, at least for me. They still don't need to be present *at your battle*, but they will drive events, just like Zeus trying to bang anything moving did for Greeks.

That being said, I would very much prefer to keep the actual gods to lore, if we could get Nagash, Alarielle, Teclis and yes, even Archaon out of the battletomes it'd be nice.

Cronch wrote:
just like Zeus trying to bang anything moving did for Greeks.

Now don't suly the good name of Zeus, he probably also banged immobile stuff too.

I kinda agree.

I love the option for literal Gods to take the field, but would hope most players would only do so for narrative rather than power reasons (personal preference, nobody is ‘wrong’ in their preference here).

It also helps that being Gods, they’re kinda really difficult to actually kill properly. Sure you might knack one heavily, but they’d recover in time.

I guess I just don't love that everything is driven by a few immortal beings. It really makes the setting feel much smaller to me. And maybe it wouldn't bother me as much if said immortals were not imports from the Old World who are now godlike immortals for...reasons.

This sort of thing has always been part of Warhammer, Nagash is around for donkeys years. I just preferred it when Nagash was not centre stage. I liked it better when GW were not pushing the special named characters as much, and definitely when they did not drive the events in the game world to the same extent.

Not a deal breaker of course. But it sort of puts me off reading more about it.

That, and the first battletome I picked up had turned my beloved Lizardmen into a bunch of holograms dreamed up by Slaan in space ships. I mean, kudos for the brave and out there take on the faction but it absolutely struck the wrong note for me and was really, really offputting. I like for themes to be represented in the miniatures, and nothing about the Seraphon miniatures says "We are actually conjurations from the mind of an immortal frog" to me, they just look like the same old Lizardmen. They didn't even give them a new paint scheme or something.

Edit: And there's the conundrum. On the one hand, I like and applaud the new direction and want less attachment to the old. But on the other, when they went REALLY out there with my first Warhammer army I was pretty annoyed and upset by it. I guess because they took the feeling of personality and reality away from my troops? After all they're just daydreams a frog is having somewhere.

Yeah, I know they've started retconning that now. But...I mean the damage is done.

Lizardmen lore hasn't retconned its evolved. They've gone from purely magical creations based on creatures in statis into living breathing creatures settling and building civilizations.


It's not changed the old lore, it has simply advanced to a new state.

It doesn't feel like a change so much as a soft ret con because GW's big mistake with AoS is having a world full with a rich detailed history - that they skipped over to make the 3rd age Age of Sigmar. A huge history of many factions is buried in the Age of Myth and the Age of Chaos. We'll see bits fleshed out here and there, but its like watching Lord of the Rings without the Hobbit nor Fellowship of the Ring. We get the awesome battles and fights of Two Towers, but play catch up with themes and ideas the whole time as we put things together.



I agree the Lizardmen just being dreams meant that it was only Slaan who had personality; or not personality but a sense of life beyond battle. If you read Pestilens (the story not the battletome) you get a really great feel for how they are creations, but also have personalities
But having them as living breathing breeding creatures takes it up a step. I'd just hope things settle a bit.

Thing is with Characters like Gotrek running around and such GW clearly wants normal lifespan stories to take place; yet at the same time the big sweeps in power the god s tories want require hundreds of years (AoS is already clearly several hundred years on if we have generations of humans who don't remember the Age of Chaos). It's a bit of a mish-mash element and it could end up messing the lore up a lot if they are trying to jointly have characters like Gotrek appear at key events; but at the same time have hundreds of years between those events to have a sensible passage of time ot let them take place and develop. A slowdown is, I think, the right approach as that way we get to have our mortal and semi-mortal heroes appear and take part without them being swept away so fast that they feel worthless. Even Aelves and Dwarves age and die



(I'm honestly surprised GW let Josh go and didn't just make him lord of the AoS lore because he seemed to really get the setting and has a talent for creation small heroes and big godlike heroes at the same time).

Current AoS is set like, 100-or-so years past the initial Realmgate Wars campaigns. Humans are trashy, short lived gremlins after all.

Cronch wrote:
Current AoS is set like, 100-or-so years past the initial Realmgate Wars campaigns. Humans are trashy, short lived gremlins after all.

It's variable and hard to pin down.

Eg many of the Cities of Sigmar are described as huge settlements now, well behind the front lines of the war enough that infighting and political pressures have arisen to question if the war at the front lines is needed as much. Some regions regard Stormcast as myth already; whilst generations of people and Aelves are described as having been raised within the Cities and not during the Age of Chaos. Which means that its got to be well over 200 years since humans seem to at least live to their 50s if not longer in the setting.

I mean, 100 years is plenty enough to have huge buildings, also important to note that aelves in AoS iare not described (to my knowledge) anywhere as dying race with no kids...and all of the elves in CoS would be coming from Azyr anyway, where there was no Age of Chaos. Like, most citizens of cities of sigmar are colonists from Azyr, not the few survivors of the age of chaos, so it makes sense they'd have no recollection of it, or only passing as their cities were fortified.

Aelves are most certainly not a dying race; if anything humans are more at risk than aelves at present.

200-300 years is the range I get the impression of passing between RGW and Necroquake. How much since, not so sure but it doesn't seem to have been that long, less than a century.

As for story and important things happening; BR Morathi had more relevant plot developments than all of PA combined. Morathi gaining true godhood is a big deal. The city that flipped wasn't just some random city--it has four realmgates for starters; that many in one place is extremely rare and I don't know of any other location that has more than two. It is an important city politically speaking, and is not all that far from Hammerhall which is more or less the Cadia of AoS. Meanwhile Morathi also got an alliance with IDK in exchange for the souls of the Cythai, which is a big deal that Idoneth now have them, and we know that the soul of Anaerion was released with his current status unknown. Oh and Slaanesh had a kid.

The 'setting is too big to be important' argument is all relative anyways. Why care about the fate of the entire galaxy in 40k after all--it is one of billions. Ditto for any sci fi setting. Why care about any given character when they are one human among billions if not trillions of others? You can go on and on. It's even applicable to real life; why care if a box of GW minis is 40 or 60, the collected value of an entire army will be minuscule compared to money spent on rent, taxes, bills, either way!

It is an argument which ignores that a well written setting will engage the reader so they care about specific things within it. And if one finds themselves not caring after they read there is nothing wrong with that--the setting probably just isn't for that person.

Oh and Slaanesh had a kid.

Wait, what?
...
WHAT!?

Rihgu wrote:

Oh and Slaanesh had a kid.

Wait, what?
...
WHAT!?

Slaanesh is currently imprisoned so he gave birth to some sort of avatar that is now coalescing in an unknown location in the Mortal Realms. Surrounded by massive armies of hedonites ready to follow it when it wakes up, which seems to be something that will happen fairly quickly. From what we have it seems like the sort of thing that may be too big for the tabletop but who knows maybe there will be some massive centerpiece to represent it.

But nothing important happened!

I just hope it means we might see new demon models. In 30 odd years demon models haven't actually increased all that much.

Tzeentch still has screamers and flamers; Khorne still has hounds; Nurgle Beasts and Slaanesh fiends.

I'd love to see some new demonic beasties appear!

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

Rihgu wrote:

Oh and Slaanesh had a kid.

Wait, what?
...
WHAT!?

Slaanesh is currently imprisoned so he gave birth to some sort of avatar that is now coalescing in an unknown location in the Mortal Realms. Surrounded by massive armies of hedonites ready to follow it when it wakes up, which seems to be something that will happen fairly quickly. From what we have it seems like the sort of thing that may be too big for the tabletop but who knows maybe there will be some massive centerpiece to represent it.

But nothing important happened!

No way are they inventing a new 'Avatar' and not about to give it a model, especially in a setting with plenty of literal gods running around on the tabletop already.

Slaanesh got several new daemons already (Enrapturess, Contorted Epitome, Shallaxi, Syll'Esske). Plus all four have spent the last several years getting everything redone in plastic; IMO much nicer than a split between new kits and old direct-only resin. Having daemons be all-plastic is really nice, especially with how good so many of the sculpts are. And now that they are (almost) all plastic anything else we get will have to be new. Also notable that while daemons have not picked up many new units in their history, they have not lost them either, bar herald mount options.

Mortal Slaanesh, meanwhile, has almost nothing and desperately needs miniatures. Though FWIW the new cavalry are riding exalted steeds of Slaanesh, so a new daemon sculpt at least.

I've been really impressed with the way GW has handled AoS since its cursed launch. There's been quite a few events/armies I've wanted to nab but sadly I live in a very 40k/30k dominated area with maybe one person (pre-covid obvs) that I could do AoS with.

Heh. I make pairs of armies and play them against my wife. Slowly getting my Dungeons and Dragons group interested as well.

I think there are always more people around than you realise as well, might be worth talking to shop owners or something.

I was really unimpressed with AOS at the start but now I would say it is more interesting to me than 40K as something I would actually like to play.

Most of my local gaming community ignored AoS for 9th Age, if they didn't drop Fantasy thing all together.

Then the General's Handbook came out and interest picked up. The local Facebook page is pretty active, and people are setting up games (a bit less in the last few months than 2019, obviously) for both it an Warcry. We've even got a few new shops that have opened up since the GHB has been released.

And yeah, I think the creativity on the Fantasy side has definitely gotten the lion's share over 40K which has just mostly gotten more and bigger Space Marines.

Regarding dating, it's a deliberate policy to keep the timeline vague as they don't want to be tied down to a dogmatic and finite chronology. WD went into the timeline in a cool column, which spread over a few issues recently, where they stated this policy.

Whether or not this is the best way to go is open to conjecture. That said, however, it'd been a while since I read a history of the mortal realms and doing so in these issues made me realise lots had been added, e.g. Idonith history. To be honest, it read well and I immediately accepted this new info into my understanding of the mortal realms. Having an ambiguous timeline allows this retconning to occur without you thinking it's too jarring.

Ambiguous timelines also allow the players to not be specific in their own timelines, as opposed to the wonky timey-wimey of Warmachine where a character can literally be facing off against an older, younger, or even mostly dead version of themselves, or Battletech where the timeline determines what you can even USE.

Much prefer the loose major-event based timeline. The most frustrating thing when planning a campaign based in Faerun is having to check up on every date and year and npc and decide where to set the campaign... Then just decided to say feth it, and included who/wherever I wanted as it fit. When a player asked what year it was, the best I could give was "After the spellplague" and tell them I'm playing loose and fast with times.

I wanted to make a properly time-set campaign but god it was just too annoying.

Best to keep it out of 40k/AoS and let people place things where we want roughly. It'd also cut down on the dumb gak arguments about how primaris are out of place lore wise, with people failing to realize that other new models pop up all the time suddenly with the same "they were always here!" style of reveal. I doubt it, but I can only hope.

Let the writers have their loose event-based sandbox to write stories and models in to.

I'm not bothered about the timeline at all. I only care about the concepts in the game and how well implemented they are. Make up your own timeline if you want on, these games are supposed to be creative, I say!

Agreed about Faerun, that sort of thing is why I would never run a game in Faerun.

My problem with a lack of a proper timeline is it becomes hard to see the overall story of the setting.

You can't see how the setting as a whole evolves and changes when there's no real means to correlate between events.


You can see the pressure when a single faction is being beaten down on by several others in major battles at the same time or one after the other if you can see the timeline. Right now we've a very rough timeline that is sort of ok for most because we are going along with the ride right now. Give it 3 or so years and who will remember if Katakross's invasion of the Eightponts is before or after Morathi's ascension or the Lumineth invasion of Nagash's realm etc... Suddenly it becomes a lot lot harder to put together the overall story from all the parts.

Even if its a simple century by century dating system at least something allows you to have a rough means to see things unfold.

I'd be on board with a loose event-based dating system. Keeps things flexible between major events, but with a nice skeleton to throw meat on.

This event happened, then this, then this, then this and so on and so on.

Let's avoid getting bogged down, where it becomes vital to date when Freeguild General Hans von Hans had to use the John.

I could get behind post-age of chaos events having a century listed. But during the age of chaos and especially the age of myth I really do not want specific dates.

I reckon in time there'll be a more concrete timeline. Having this loose system now allows the writers to find their feet and not have to worry about chronology when it comes to introducing new races, etc. Years from now though, when the setting's more certain, I think there'll be more than just 'the Age of Sigmar.'


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The Age of Myth and Chaos... I reckon they'll always be all over the place, as they should be though due to the destruction of historical records

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
I could get behind post-age of chaos events having a century listed. But during the age of chaos and especially the age of myth I really do not want specific dates.

To be honest that would be fine. Pre Age of Sigmar we don't know all that much by intent. We know the very start of the Age of Myth, but otherwise its a period of myth with much lost info; same for the Age of Chaos. To have no dates is fine for those eras. Plus they are minor points in the history right now. So knowing them in perfect order isn't a huge issue and wouldn't be unless GW suddenly made a huge series of books for them.


AoS is the current era and its the one we are invested into with the bulk of stories.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

Rihgu wrote:

Oh and Slaanesh had a kid.

Wait, what?
...
WHAT!?

Slaanesh is currently imprisoned so he gave birth to some sort of avatar that is now coalescing in an unknown location in the Mortal Realms. Surrounded by massive armies of hedonites ready to follow it when it wakes up, which seems to be something that will happen fairly quickly. From what we have it seems like the sort of thing that may be too big for the tabletop but who knows maybe there will be some massive centerpiece to represent it.

But nothing important happened!

Wouldn't that be Sigvald?

 jaredb wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

Rihgu wrote:

Oh and Slaanesh had a kid.

Wait, what?
...
WHAT!?

Slaanesh is currently imprisoned so he gave birth to some sort of avatar that is now coalescing in an unknown location in the Mortal Realms. Surrounded by massive armies of hedonites ready to follow it when it wakes up, which seems to be something that will happen fairly quickly. From what we have it seems like the sort of thing that may be too big for the tabletop but who knows maybe there will be some massive centerpiece to represent it.

But nothing important happened!

Wouldn't that be Sigvald?

Nope Sigvald is totally separate and escaped from Shadspire where he was imprisoned in a mirror. He's powerful, but he's nothing like as powerful nor as pure Chaos as the new spawn. There's still short stories coming out by GW (about a page each) teasing things and the entity is still, forming, in them. We likely won't know what it is until the Battletome launches or at least the pre-order week etc... Even then GW could be REALLY mean and have it as a focal pont of something forming, but taking so long to form and fully birth/hatch that its defence forms the focus of the Tome, but we don't get to learn really what it is until the next one or a further major event (eg a Slaanesh focused Campaign book later)

 Overread wrote:
My problem with a lack of a proper timeline is it becomes hard to see the overall story of the setting.

You can't see how the setting as a whole evolves and changes when there's no real means to correlate between events.

To me, AoS is still being defined. Seeing it evolve or change seems superfluous when it hasn't even been fully defined yet. I definitely haven't had time to get bored of it, in fact I kinda feel like I am only getting to know it.

If they added a timeline, I wouldn't mind. I also wouldn't mind if different realms had different timescales, like time passing faster in Faerie and so on. That could be a way to explain inconsistencies, but honestly I think inconsistencies are not that important and people who get upset about them mostly need to chill out.

I wouldn't expect a timeline simply because I wouldn't expect the realms to have a consistent concept of time.

 LunarSol wrote:
I wouldn't expect a timeline simply because I wouldn't expect the realms to have a consistent concept of time.

I'd think if they are able to conduct military operations and trade across realms then they should have some kind of time system in place otherwise it would be impossible to organise anything. I do get that GW has been a bit funky with "oh time moves differently in different realms" but I've a sort of feeling that that might be bundled with the "oh the realms are infinite in size and are ever growing" kinds of bits of lore. Ergo yes it was a formal official thing said once; but then might get retconned quietly for practicalities sake.

 LunarSol wrote:
I wouldn't expect a timeline simply because I wouldn't expect the realms to have a consistent concept of time.

Uglu and Hysh act as the 'Sun and Moon' of the Realms, funnily enough. I dont know how it works on those planes, but there has to be a pretty coherent way of telling time if two realms are part of the day/night cycle.

There is some mention here and there of time flowing differently between realms but I would hesitate to say it is cannon. What IS cannon is that severe Chaos corruption can screw with time due to overlay with the Realm of Chaos, and there are certainly vast swathes of the realms still in that state. So to some degree time is relative and exact dates wouldn't work.

 Overread wrote:
My problem with a lack of a proper timeline is it becomes hard to see the overall story of the setting.

That's fine. The only story & chronology of events that matters is what goes on on our table tops.

ccs wrote:

 Overread wrote:
My problem with a lack of a proper timeline is it becomes hard to see the overall story of the setting.

That's fine. The only story & chronology of events that matters is what goes on on our table tops.

That was true when gw games were settings. Then players whined nothing happens so now they are stories so gamers tabletob　stories and events became　irrelevant and only gw stories matter.

Be carefull what you wish for.

tneva82 wrote:

ccs wrote:

 Overread wrote:
My problem with a lack of a proper timeline is it becomes hard to see the overall story of the setting.

That's fine. The only story & chronology of events that matters is what goes on on our table tops.

That was true when gw games were settings. Then players whined nothing happens so now they are stories so gamers tabletob　stories and events became　irrelevant and only gw stories matter.

Be carefull what you wish for.

This approach still works just fine. Believe me, I ignore company supplied "story" all the time in both miniatures & RPG gaming.

tneva82 wrote:

ccs wrote:

 Overread wrote:
My problem with a lack of a proper timeline is it becomes hard to see the overall story of the setting.

That's fine. The only story & chronology of events that matters is what goes on on our table tops.

That was true when gw games were settings. Then players whined nothing happens so now they are stories so gamers tabletob　stories and events became　irrelevant and only gw stories matter.

Be carefull what you wish for.

Speak for yourself. Me & my mates are really happy they changed to a progressing setting approach and have been enjoying the AoS story quite a lot.

You can even set the AoS armies in Old World, and the game still works, cause lore is entirely optional for a wargame.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

ccs wrote:

 Overread wrote:
My problem with a lack of a proper timeline is it becomes hard to see the overall story of the setting.

That's fine. The only story & chronology of events that matters is what goes on on our table tops.

That was true when gw games were settings. Then players whined nothing happens so now they are stories so gamers tabletob　stories and events became　irrelevant and only gw stories matter.

Be carefull what you wish for.

Speak for yourself. Me & my mates are really happy they changed to a progressing setting approach and have been enjoying the AoS story quite a lot.

40K has an uphill struggle here, because it’s been the same for so very, very long. I think a chunk of the pushback, at least initially, was based on the assumption nothing else would happen, and no further developments would occur. Whilst that now doesn’t seem to be the case, Paycheck Awakening wasn’t exactly great. Promised a lot, delivered relatively little in terms of background. Indeed, many volumes just sort of....ended. No real conclusion etc

I think the problem was the PA stories and lore were more like fleshed out duel army pack lore. A neat little thing to go with the release, but often as not just a smaller story within the universe rather than saga shattering events or such. And often those do just "end" because the idea is they set the stage and then the players are the "end" with the battle and such.

Passage of time in the Mortal Realms varies from one realm to another, actually. The number of different kingdoms having different ways to measure time (with calendars, seasons and so on) makes it irrelevant to speak about specifics. They wrote about it in a White Dwarf article about why they didn't put dates on the timeline events and this is also why they'd rather talk about "ages" rather than years.

That's the same reason most of the important named characters that appeared in the lore are either immortals, already dead or have very long lives.

Recent V9 codexes in 40k completely removed the timelines with codex related events, though. Maybe GW don't want to bother with them anymore, since it can be annoying when you try to insert new events in it. The more vague you are, the fewer chances you have to make time related incoherences.

But yeah, with AoS it's clear we have the perfect example of the difference between a completely new universe and another that is well established. You have more freedom to create new stuff in the first, undeniably. Destroying the Old World was traumatic for players, sure, but for game developpers and background writers ? It was a blessing.

40k is still crippled with one foot in the past and another trying to move desperatly towards the future (but not too much). It's clear they're scared to really shake the background in 40k.

Cronch wrote:
You can even set the AoS armies in Old World, and the game still works, cause lore is entirely optional for a wargame.

Irrelevant argument, since with it you can also have Space Marines fighting the Old World Empire with historic Romans joining the fray. Just need to adapt the armies to a single system, but it would also work in the end.

Lore isn't optional. It's what defines the wargame. Otherwise, everything is free for all and there is no reason to distinguish one from another.

The problem 40K has is 30 years of 40K marketing and Gw's lore suddenly getting to the near 40999 and rebranding to Warhammer 41K is likely a MASSIVE thing for marketing to even consider.


Plus everyone would still call it 40K like everyone calls Astra militawhatevers Imperial Guard




In the end dates and timelines aren't evil nor are they barriers to advancing stories or depth of stories or any of that. It's down to both the skill of the writers AND skill of whoever is in charge of the setting as a whole.
Authors achieve it all the time, I think the only reason GW is having issues is that they've got so many writers and bits of lore and I don't think anyone has managed to keep track of it all internally well enough. So now they've a bit of a jumble and, in the end, its likely not cost effective for them to unjumble it all whilst also producing new stuff.


I think this is why some other franchises often do big "reset the setting" events. It lets them clear out all the jumble in one go; return to hteir roots and restart everything. Heck Marvel and DC restart things ALL the time. The story lines for many characters have repeated so many times that even casual people who arne't invested into them already know the general setup. A new Spiderman universe setting is likely going to follow several major key events over and over each and every time - and fans do lap it up.


I do wonder if GW could do the same some day with 40K; but at the same time I don't think their market, marketing nor what they've produced thus far really gears them up well for it. I'd wager pushing into Warhammer 41 would be a better move.

Both WFB and 40k had the same theme : the universe is on the brink of ruin and devastation, with constant reminders of the End Times being near. WFB eventually got it, while 40k is still "near midnight's hour".

If 40k finally get past it (and I think GW will eventually, that's the perfect excuse to fundamentally start anew the rules and the factions instead of their bloated state as years pass on), it will certainly change its name as well into something like Age of Guilliman or whatever. When you make something completely different like WFB and AoS, people won't call them the same. They will make the difference (especially if they're attached to one of them emotionally and don't want anything to do with the other).

After all, you never saw AoS being called WFB 2.0, because it was never that in the end. Like Cities of Sigmar aren't really called AoS Empire, because that's not what they are as well.

Har Kuron, on the other end...you may call them AoS Naggarond or Dark Elves...even if technically, they're more tied to Morathi than Malekith...and that's a big difference still.

I think there's a big difference between the lore of a setting moving on and the company changing the entire game in one swoop.

AoS wasn't the lore advancing, it was a straight up destruction of the old lore and most of the old game. It was honestly a horrible mess trying to on the one hand remove the entire background and start fresh; whilst keeping the background characters and models and armies and some stuff.

AoS at launch didn't know what it was and that was mostly because all it was supposed to be was a boutique line of models with some casual rules on the side. The lore, the game, the armies, the collections, the customers - all didn't really matter one bit. All that mattered were making models; selling models and collectors.



I can't see GW repeating that for 40K.
They CAN advance the 40K storyline. It won't end the "end is coming" angle, so much as change the state of it. Thing is you can do that without having to change ANY of the armies on the tabletop. You don't have ot write out the Eldar; change the Imperium from Gothic to Indian; merge the Tau with Orks and remove the Kroot and then change the entire Tyranid line to a flight only army.


You don't have to strip away the old to advance the storyline. If anything a lot of the "story isn't going anywhere" arguments are moot; the story doesn't HAVE to go anywhere for the tabletop side of things.

The biggest letdown in regards to the Psychic Awakening campaign books was that they weren't more like AoS campaign books. Forbidden Power, Wrath of the Everchosen, and BR Morathi have all been awesome.

There's a big divide between people who want to mess around in a setting and people who want to take part in an interactive story.

Time and new things happening are more important for the second group, and GW seem to have identified that as the direction they want to go in.

But they want to have their cake and eat it rather than work hard to make it make sense so they have things be poorly defined and vague for maximum freedom.

I find this sort of story generally pretty insipid, because your big superhero characters that move everything can't really suffer worse than a setback here or there and the quality of the narrative tends to be very poor. That's why I don't care about timelines or whatever.

In my experience there are two main groups. There are people who believe that AoS should just be WHFB 2.0, and there are people who prefer the new direction that the game is headed. For example, many people didn't like the Lumineth Realmlords because they weren't "High Elfy" enough. But the thing about the Lumineth is that they aren't just High Elves is AoS. They are the Lumineth Realmlords, and while they take some visual cues from High Elves, they also have a lot of Greek aesthetics too. My hope is that with the release of The Old World the people who just wanna play WHFB can play there and GW will be free to take AoS in new and bold directions.

Yeah, I think that was particularly evident during first edition. These days most people understand that AoS is its own thing, its never going to be WHFB 2.0, and was never intended to be. But there was (and to a notable extent, still is) resentment at that, IMO understandable given they literally blew up WHFB and replaced it with AoS.

But I do feel there should be a third group separated out for the people who turn to psychopathic hate and light their armies on fire.

On the one hand, I can't say I particularly like the direction AoS has gone in (compared to WHFB).

I'm not a fan of the move from 'traditional'-looking armies to armies that frequently seem to consist almost entirely of dinner-plate sized centrepiece models, competing against one another to be the most overly-elaborate centrepiece model on the table.

Most of the newer aesthetics, as well as the general move towards very high fantasy, just don't really appeal to me.

However, I'll freely admit that this is just down to my own personal taste. So, to be clear, I don't consider most of the new models to be objectively ugly or anything like that. They're just not my thing.


On the other hand, I think AoS is far better off in terms of not having a clear 'favourite' faction with about 10 times as many models and 50 times as much advertising as any other faction. With 40k, you're often left with the distinct impression that the writer of a given codex has never even played the army before and is just doing a rush job so that they can get back to writing more Marine supplements.

Further, in spite of my above complaints, there are definitely AoS models that I do really like. For example, I really like the Sylvaneth Tree-/Spite-Revenants and I think it's a fantastic kit. Hell, I bought a few specifically for DE conversions. I also like the Abhorrant Archregent, and some of the new vampires are fantastic (I expect they'll also make it into my DE army, assuming the upcoming codex doesn't kill my interest in 40k altogether).

Meanwhile, I can't remember the last time I was really excited to own a particular 40k kit.

When Age of Sigmar was getting leaked, I was actually pretty optimistic. I really like rank and flank fantasy, but 8th edition had really gotten out of hand especially in the model count stakes. The idea of taking that and making it into a more loose game where you could throw whatever models you liked on the table in a more warband structure and the rules were less complicated seemed appealing. After all, I always had Kings of War to play if I wanted rank and flank.

But when I saw how it was done, with no points and joke rules, it did get my back up. I had a lot of fondness for WFB and it seemed like they were saying that they thought I was stupid for having that fondness. And then factions started disappearing, and some of the new factions (Fyreslayers) were really underwhelming.

By now I've mellowed out. I think it's got a lot of potential to be cool, the core world concept is quite cool. I still prefer WFB, but I think it's cool that AoS exists for all it's crazy nonsense.

I was much the same, the launch was confusing and crazy and horrible. I saw armies I'd only just got started with and got excited about being fragmented and a management team that clearly didn't have a clue about its market.

Or at least about its gaming market.

AoS at launch was a disaster of a mistake that shouldn't have happened but did. Sad thing is Old World had so many old kits around them that they could well have evolved most armies toward the styles the are now. Heck Tomb Kings had perfect AoS style models with their extreme bone constructs.
I'm still sort of amazed GW didn't bring them back unless the management of the time made them chuck out the moulds too

Still we are getting vampires back this year and I'm loving the new additions - splitting the Chaos Gods has made for some neat twists. Whilst on the one side I can't run the Slaanesh+Khorne demon army I planned to one day run - I can now run a big Slaanesh force with fiends and seeker chariots and new mounted mortal seeker riders and all!

 Overread wrote:
AoS at launch was a disaster of a mistake that shouldn't have happened but did.

It was inevitable. GW was going downhill with their proud commitment to no market research and firm belief that GW customers were generally collectors who did the hobby on the side. Something, a new game or edition completely backed by that mentality to sell poorly as a result, was eventually going to happen.

Age of sigmar is looking way better now, and I been trying to get people to give it a look. But 40k is way to entrenched in the GW gamers minds here.

I still think it needs work, as from reading the setting it still feels like a made by corporate numbers.
The sigmar army’s still look out of place with so much more of the setting and the monotone army’s end up being bland for a lot of players.
The newer stuff looks way better, with a lot of meh GW design.
Stuff like the lumeth archers keep me from buying in at all, can’t take them seriously.
But then seeing the new slaanesh stuff and it’s some of GW best models easy.

Apple fox wrote:
Age of sigmar is looking way better now, and I been trying to get people to give it a look. But 40k is way to entrenched in the GW gamers minds here.

Out of interest how do you try and get them involved?

I've oft found one of the only ways is when people actually start seeing more than one army in person and seeing the game played. It's why so many of those game outreach programs that use fans as local representatives, often require those who sign up to own at least two or more modest/starter forces from different armies. The idea being that they can run demo games on their own; that the person they are introducing hasn't got to pay or do anything save turn up and play. Sometimes its the only way to get people involved.

If you can paint them well and throw them down on a good looking board with some terrain (Eg AOS Terrain) then you can have a good chance at least with tempting them.

I have the starter box all done, but that has mostly been met with no one really interested. I off corse have my fantasy battles army’s to use, but that has got as much interest for going back as for trying Age of sigmar.
And with GW prices I can only afford to by so much, and my ability to paint is very very slow so even my new stuff is going to be months before it’s even nice enough to move to show off the game.

Also all the interesting story elements seem to be in extra books, so really hard to gain interest there.

Can point people to excellent Youtube lore channels. 2+Tough is a personal favourite.

A good angle is roping in the Chaos players with mono-God forces. To 40k the idea of being able to mix & match the daemons, devoted, and marked units of a given god freely without penalty remains novel. Imagine the freedom of being able to combine Death Guard, DoN, and CSM units w/mark of Nurgle into one detachment without losing any of the benefits, for example.

Lore channels is a good start for me, at least if I know the more interesting stuff I can talk about it.

Sadly The death guard player has no daemons as of yet. And another players interest has been purely for the stats in 40k.
My own daemons could be used, but as of yet has been a pure 40k army.

We are a multi game group so I am hoping a mordheim campaign soon will get some interest in Age of sigmar one as well.
As most of the interest in the game comes from outside the GW sphere. So I am hopping with the newer army’s to display I can get some interest.
We don’t have a GW store close enough now, so building interest is weird.

Of the new factions released I think Stormcast, Nighthaunt, Idoneth , Daughters of Khaine and all of the Chaos releases have been pretty good.

The Chaos stuff is really over the top, but it suits the setting. I prefer a slightly more grounded version but can appreciate the new stuff is showcasing what AoS is about.

Stormcast are a cool design. I prefer them as lifeless constructs of Order than big beefy heroes in armour, but that's fine I just never use any unhelmeted heads. I don't like how much new stuff they got at the start, because it does show that the plan is for them to slowly take over the release schedule like Space Marines have for 40K, but that is probably some time away and no one is writing a bunch of novels about how unstoppable stormcast are that are actually popular so I'm good with it.

Idoneth are a cool concept for spooky sea elves. I would have liked more of a Deep One vibe and more lovecraftian monsters, and the flying eels and sharks on forest battlefields is a bit dopey, but they're great minis for roleplaying games where you can have actual underwater adventures.

Nighthaunt are just nicely designed spooky ghosts. Not sure I would make a whole faction out of that concept but if you're gonna these are really nice and push the strengths of the GW casting material to it's limit.

DoK are limited as hell but all of their kits are cool. Would have prefered to see them added to a dark elf list but an entire army of murderous elf ladies with mutant murderous elf ladies is also pretty cool.

Of the other new factions...
Fyreslayers - Stupid lazy name, stupid lazy background (ur-gold, really) and a really disappointing design for the models. Also an "army" from what, 4 kits, all of which are super over priced. Yuck. All the dwarves with helmets bigger than their entire bodies standing on their tippy toes with mushy flame detail sculped onto their hair. Awful. I bet barely anyone plays these and they are one of the worst sellers.

Kharadron Overlords - would be cool for a Privateer Press Game, but the full steampunk vibe is not really jiving with the rest of Age of Sigmar properly.

Cow Elves - The hats man. The hats. The models minus the hats are fine. But. The hats. And so over priced. Also not digging the giant centre piece monster. But it's just a style thing, it's technically good. Oh and Teclis is ugly as sin.

Bonereapers - The big constructs are cool but the basic troops should just have been skeletons. The Skeletor theme here is not working for me.

Nu-Orcs: Urgh. I find these a really ugly, pretty much 40K inspired design. Really don't like them at all. Common Orcs and Goblins are my biggest WFB fantasy army, so I am definitely biased, but I find these to be the worst Orc models GW has ever produced. Giant orcs covered in slabs of metal painted bright colours, it's just ugly as hell and not compelling at all. I also hate the giant boars and the fact that all the stuff I like got squatted for this hideous garbage. No thank you.

So they've got a fairly equal number of hits and misses, and where there are misses it tends to be purely on the model aesthetics. Trying to jack every single faction up into something really over the top. A bit like those ridiculous Skaven Rat Ogres with the gatling gun arms that look like they are for a different game entirely. You need some stuff that isn't like that to sell the over the top stuff or else it just becomes visual noise.

Fyreslayers where when our dwarf player noped out hard originally.
The overlords haven’t seen any interest from our warmachine players so I dunno. I think they just kind of weird and both of these look like they should have been part of a dwarf city’s or something.

Otherwise I really wish the storm cast where a bit less “Heroic” don’t even mind they lore for them so much, other than think it’s bland. But I don’t think they fit in so well with the look and feel of basicly everything else.
And the 40k players see them and the jokes are basically the same as originally made.

But new slaanesh models I am just so like these are amazing, and all the newer models in the daughters of Khane line have been fantastic just scary price without a group to play with.

I had high hopes for that release because I love Azers from Dungeons and Dragons, but the models were just crap and overpriced crap at that.

Same reason I'm probably not going to pick up Idoneth or Daughters despite liking the models, 4.40 euro per Witch Elf is really not good enough, especially when the set is two sets of 5 monopose models.

Apparently KO are some of the best selling armies for AoS, even back when their rules were complete doggyfaeces.

That's really interesting to know. I think they are nice models, they just don't fit with my idea of the setting at all. The sky ships are very cool though and not much like that exists in the market. If I was gonna do a steampunk game I would definitely pick a couple up.

I think the steam punk will come along once GW does humans who are supposed to be full of steam punk elements. It's just a design choice that, thus far, hasn't really been developed much beyond the ancient steam tank.

Steam punk can certainly fit; Skaven have been running around with mad-science for years already

Cronch wrote:
Apparently KO are some of the best selling armies for AoS, even back when their rules were complete doggyfaeces.

I wonder if that’s down to them being pretty unique in the Fantasy war games market?

Sure, Steampunk is a thing, and fans of that style are spoiled for choice. But I can’t think of anything else quite like Kharadrons. As someone normally adverse to Steampunk, I appreciate Kharadron because they’re not lazy “stick a cog on it and call it” Steampunk. Rather than uninspired Victoriana, they look like a technology that’d been developed by artisans. Please note this is just me trying to explain my take - don’t take it as a dunk on Steampunk as a thing. If it’s Your Bag, you shine on - my opinion is not important.

In terms of their aesthetic, it’s impressive that they’re not just recognisably Dwarves, but GW Dwarves, whilst also being an original take.

This is something I’d like to see more of from the design studio. After all, AoS is still the relatively New Kid in the Fantasy Market. This gives GW the opportunity to do stuff no-one else is. They’re no longer tied to their Tolkien roots as they were with WHFB.

I think KO are perhaps not integral but certainly a pillar of what AoS is. They more than fit the setting-they fill it out and support it very strongly. Really fantastic design of miniatures and theme. But that's my own opinion.

I will speak up in defense of Fyreslayers; the detail on the miniatures is actually really nice in-person. They have a lot of 'rune bling' on them that may not suit everyone but fits their own style, and the runes in their skin have a sharp detail I feel most companies would struggle to match. The whole 'ur-gold is the name of their currency' thing was just a misinterpretation from when we didn't have the full explanation. Ur-gold is gold infused with divine essence, but non-Fyreslayers just perceive it as regular gold. So the Fyreslayers do mercenary work from payments in gold, hoping that some of said gold will be ur-gold. Ur-gold is what they use to make the runes in their skin that empower them.

Basically the fact that I can look at factions like Idoneth and Stormcast and KO and NOT immediately just go 'yawn, ho-hum it's just another generic fantasy setting but this time with miniatures that cost 3x as much' is the reason i do own an army for AOS and I never in 15 years got an army for fantasy.

Having played TWW, I got an appreciation for how good the lore of the old world is, but man was the fact that on first glance it looked super generic fantasy ever a barrier to entry to me.

That, and the individual models always looked wonky because they were designed for rank basing. You're either huddled up, bunched up, holding your weapon straight up and down, or you're HOLDING BOTH YOUR ARMS STRAIGHT UP IN THE AIR LIKE YOURE CALLING A FIELD GOAL.

I have to say when I glanced at Warhammer (this is a good 20 odd years go) it did seem pretty low magic. Indeed we've had debates before on if Old World was low or high fantasy. The stories are 100% high, but the game often appeared quite low. I think because even fancy heroes were often "character on horse" type affairs.

AoS has gone wild with sculpts, but I don't think its an inherent problem with rank and file; its new technologies and the whole ethos of the designers too. Don't forget Witch Aelves are supposed to rank up and are anything but boring in terms of pose and style.

Even though I hate AOS lore with a flaming passion and always will....they have done some amazing jobs with the new sculpts. Imo the light of eltharion is one of the best miniatures they have ever done for example....and that is coming from someone who utterly loathes AOS. The new slaves to darkness box is just awesome, no question about it.

So yeah, they have some very good, creative designers working on AOS.

Even first edition had wizards on dragons slinging fireballs and goblins swinging flails weighing many times their own mass thanks to fungus brew and entire armies of undead as a normal affair. WHFB was always very high fantasy; it was the RPG that favored a more low fantasy approach.

I would agree that the Old World was High Fantasy. It also had gritty, historically inspired elements, but there was a huge portal at the north pole spewing infinite demons into the world, that's not Low Fantasy really.

AoS is definitely even higher up, but moreso it has dropped the historical influences (or they are much less important) and gone for a more cosmic feel to the game, and I think it is also a bit more...I dunno the word, maybe gonzo is what I'm looking for but that doesn't feel quite right for such a corporate product.

Kharadron Overlords just look too high tech for me. I never really liked the very high tech skaven stuff, to be honest. The Stormfiends really crossed the line for me with that. But then I also didn't much like the steam tank. But you are right, it has always been part of Warhammer. I love Dwarves is all, but not AoS versions. They are too far away from what I fell in love with reading the Hobbit.

Which is no big problem. GW still produce the LOTR game and I can get that style of Dwarf there. I think it's cool that people like the Overlords. I'm still really disappointed by the Fyreslayers though.

Ur-Gold is still pretty lazy naming to me, and Fyre itself is really cringey to me. Just call them Fireslayers and be done with it! I'm sure the details are good, but it's the design that I don't like, the giant hats and so on. I wish they'd gone even further with the elemental aspects on the models, because the halfway house is the worst of both worlds to me.

GW is fully of lazy names right now. I think its a symptom of a lore by committee of managers rather than an individual or small team of keen lore creators who have invested years into crafting a GRR Tolkien level of lore depth. Heck when you look at old lores like that many of the more fancy names are just as "lazy" within their own races. They just sound far more fancy because they are spoken in an alien language.


I think for me Old World always looked low fantasy on the tabletop. Plus things like the serpentine dragons never really grabbed me (I've also never ever liked GW's addiction to putting high backed armchairs on dragons). AoS I think isn't just more high fantasy, its also showing it off. You're not just a wizard with a robe and staff; you're a wizard balancing on a flat disk suspended on a tornado of magic throwing huge skeleton bridges across the map etc...

Thing is Old World was getting these things too - I'm convinced if GW hadn't blown up Old World they'd have had endless spells there too and many of the more fancy designs we get now. Heck they might even have got wild with rank and file; making rear and forward rank specific models; those in a dynamic for supporting and those in a charging/slashing pose.

Heck many of the new mounts we have now in AoS would rank up very easily and yet they look night and day superior to the old horses and standard infantry mounts of the Old World models

I dunno. I really like the blocks of infantry on the table, I think from a whole army perspective they look awesome. I think a lot of models nowadays are designed to look great as individual figures and especially to look great in close up photos on the internet. And no harm in that.

The lazy naming is endemic in all GW products. And like, as you say, the old names were not a LOT better, but they were just enough better that it didn't bother me as much. But that's also probably because I got into it as a kid. The kids I see getting into AoS now have no problem with the names.

Honestly I wish GW would adopt some of the rank and file concepts. They are still running aorund with their whole "1 banner, 1 musician" per 5 models madness. Which interestingly for Slaanesh cavalry who also have an icon, means that if you build them according to the best way possible (all icons, banners and musicians in each 5 unit block) there's actually more specialists than core cavalry in the unit.

Which to me looks daft on any unit. A few can look neat with another banner or so, but even in 30 man units it can look strange.

I wish they'd adopt the whole concept that banners/musical instruments can just be "picked up by another" in the unit and you only need 1 per unit block. I think its far more sensible and looks better.

Despite the weakness to sniping abilities I haven't been able to bring myself to give large units more than one set of command models.

 Eldarain wrote:
Despite the weakness to sniping abilities I haven't been able to bring myself to give large units more than one set of command models.

Same. Just feels weird after so many years with WHFB.

 Overread wrote:

I wish they'd adopt the whole concept that banners/musical instruments can just be "picked up by another" in the unit and you only need 1 per unit block. I think its far more sensible and looks better.

It's to ensure you can't goof it up when building the unit. Oops, little timmy built our 10 elves with 2 bannerboys..fear not, the rules account for it!
Especially since in reality there is zero need to take more than 1 command group per unit, since you pick which models die in the unit and obviously these will always go last. There's only a handful of units in the game that can target individual models that'd go round that.

Anyway, the thing about KO (and other magitech stuff) is that in AoS it feels more appropriate cause it reminds me of a lot of renditions of greek myths, where gods use fancy-looking mechanical gizmos where basic humans still have spears as height of fashion.

I will adamantly stand by the use of a y in Fyreslayers. It is a fantasy setting, you have to replace letters with y wherever possible. It would be absurd not to.

Ur-gold I am cool with because it is still gold. They could have called it divine-gold or essence-gold or something, but the point is to highlight that it is still gold with all the same physical properties (just different magical ones). Ur-gold is a simple very dwarven way of doing that. In my subjective eyes, of course.

I have felt that many of the changes from WHFB to AoS were needless, overblown or just... the language filter prevents me from continuing, I have just finished reading a few of the battletomes in succession and have to say that the IDK, FEC and Morathi books have been absolutely fantastic. FEC especially has just been so much awesome, its a shame that they didn't continue the lore over into the models but it has still been a really evocative read. The only AoS novel I have read was Soul Wars though I have a few more in the que so I hope that the trend continues.
I also read the Stormcast, Lumineth, Beasts of Chaos and KO tomes and was not overly impressed, not terrible but not that good.
Hoping for good things for the Teclis BR book though! Started collecting Vanari Lumineth and hope they get their lore expanded in interesting ways.

I think some factions do need more fleshing out. BL seems to have an issue in that all the big names are tangled up with 40K and AoS is getting some less experienced authors. In terms of both just being new authors, but also just new to the setting. The Coverns book for the Daughters of Khaine has a few quite big errors that appear here and there in the lore which shouldn't have slipped GW's generally pretty darn good lore checking net. They don't destroy the stories, but they do highlight that AoS is, immature as a setting and has a long way to go in that regard.


As for factions I think some factions have been lucky in that they've had writers for their books that both loved the faction, but that the faction also had something to do and had story behind it. Some others are more in the background and I think their books will grow with time. It's important to remember that many of the pages of lore we get in something like a Tyranid Codex today is only after 30 years of growth and in the early codex lore was a handful of pages and a few short snippets on unit pages and that was it. In fact its one of the great things to see the lore go from 5 pages to 100 odd pages over the years.

I think the heart of GW is in the right place now regarding AoS; it just needs skill and time to bolster the lore.

One BIG advantage its got is that GW and BL are clearly under no limited mandate. Unlike 40K which had for a long time a rule that all stories must be by/about Imperials (humans); AoS has no limits. Long and short stories feature almost any race in varying roles as enemies, heroes, anti heroes and all. With the right authority and control over accuracy of the lore on top I think there's room to make the setting really grab people.

I don't know how you expand the Vanari more than they are, if I'm going to be honest.

They are moving away of the banner/icon/musician design space. It was already done in some of the old entries (Namarti Thralls) and now they have completely done it in the Hedonites of Slaanesh mortal release. The Blissbarb Archers homunculus is 1 every 11 (an extra model instead of a swap and make sense to have many for more archers) Myrmidesh, Symbaresh, Blissbarb Seekers and Slickblade Seekers got no command group at all, just a Leader in the unit and that's it. The extra rules are often just a passive that the unit should have anyway, so i can see them keeping this tendency. Im not sure if Lumineth were design similarly.

Lumineth have bannermen but no musicians for cav and hammer boys, only unit champions for basic infantry.

They were more or less an automatic upgrade in WHFB too, except in niche cases. And they actually cost something then.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
They were more or less an automatic upgrade in WHFB too, except in niche cases. And they actually cost something then.

Which I have considered being weird that those are free as unit with them has advantage over the ones that don't have. And then you can have multiple musicians and standards in same unit which I also think is weird.

Sotahullu wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
They were more or less an automatic upgrade in WHFB too, except in niche cases. And they actually cost something then.

Which I have considered being weird that those are free as unit with them has advantage over the ones that don't have. And then you can have multiple musicians and standards in same unit which I also think is weird.

In the original rules that came out for AoS and some of the early tomes before they got changed, you could be both a musician and a banner holder at once and still use your main weapon as normal. In fact I believe in one version of the officially printed rules there were NO limits on how many you could take. In theory this meant your entire unit could be banner, icon and musician units as well as regular troops all at once with no penalty nor cost or anything.

These days its GW's "once per the box contents" approach which is a lot better, but still not quite "sane" in my view.

"One version" of the rules being the entire first edition; you could have every single model be both a banner and musician and they did not even need to be modelled as such. The matched play rules added the modelled requirement, but it wasn't until second edition that we started to get the version we have now.

Heck, when Idoneth came out every model in the infantry units could be a champion with +1 attack! They soon eratta'd it, fortunately.

the_scotsman wrote:
That, and the individual models always looked wonky because they were designed for rank basing.

I'm afraid I'm going to have to disagree with this, considering how much of a bugger it was to get Ghouls, Bloodletters and such to behave themselves on movement trays.

 Overread wrote:
GW is fully of lazy names right now. I think its a symptom of a lore by committee of managers rather than an individual or small team of keen lore creators who have invested years into crafting a GRR Tolkien level of lore depth.

While I do accept that GW names are... a certain type of fun, even Tolkein isn't immune to GW naming syndrome:

Treebeard, because he's a tree with a beard.

Wormtongue, because we needed a small hint that he might be a bad guy using words to corrupt.

Watcher in the Water. It watches things. While in the water.

Mount Doom, just because.

People really have rose tinted glasses when it comes to warhammer fantasy. Yeah it got blown up it sucks, but AOS never will be WHFB. WHFB only became good and better once it was destroyed I feel. WHFB got more interest from getting blown up than it ever would if it continued to limp on and exist as a half baked setting with an uncaring GW. We have gotten some of the most interesting lore because of End Times, and because it blew up. Now everyone is interested. Everyone feels INVESTED into that setting because it has permanence. I love it for that reason. I hate a lot what happened to WHFB but honestly it makes me like it even more. Its still there, and you can still use those armies. And we might get new armies to replace the older models.

And plus WHFB isn't dead its coming back but in a better part of the setting. My favorite era of WHFB the Three Emperors arc. Which is fething awesome.

Vanari / Lumineth are not 'High Elves of Ulthuan." They are more of a combination of elven races. I am fine with the setting the main draw for me for ages with AOS is that its stories are incredibly interesting.

And people here who say that stormcasts aren't interesting... They are less generic and more than they are made to be. Which is the interesting part, they are poster children but each order and hero of the stormcasts is a real hero. In that true definition, and them coming back to life has its issues, the become less than they were. From a doctor protecting children to a reformed khorne worshipper turned to sigmars light. Sigmar maybe the 'good guy' but he isn't always a great guy he makes mistakes and because of his fury, he lost Ghal Maraz and got beaten because of it.

He isn't infallible, which the stormcasts illustrate by getting their ass handed to them throughout the lore. Stormcasts have a very interesting edge. Anyone can be a stormcast, if you are a hero in life you can become a stormcast. Stormcasts as a whole yes seem generic, but you read their books and their lore they are far more than seem to be.

AOS is awesome in that regard, and their models and their units you will never find anywhere else.

I love AOS the more I read, and I hated what they did to fantasy. Honestly it gave me AOS and I've been super happy since they implemented the game's story. Of course the first edition was a mess which has been reiterated here almost every page, but thats fine, it was getting its footing.

Overall I do agree with the sentiment of OP. 40k has for a while been getting itself shoot in the foot repeatedly with its over reliance on the imperium and specifically the primarchs and space marines. It has become less and less interesting overtime with its lore and its stories. Though people would like to say 40k is a setting not a story. But the whole point is that it clearly is not going in that direction. With the setting just foucsing only one narrative... Space Marines. We have no stories about the eldar, the necrons, the craftworlds, the exodites, the dark eldar, we have so few actual narratives with them in the star positions.

It also doesn't help that in AOS each race's battletome specifically feels like they are written by people WHO ENJOY that faction, each time I've picked one up I feel like this is written by that faction, and for that faction's fans. Unlike in 40k which has become a complete joke when it comes to Xenos or anything but space marines. I stopped caring about 40k because it has no stakes currently. I don't feel for any other faction but the imperials, because there are no other factions (it feels like) other than imperials. The last ten releases have all been imperial space marines or the chaos space marines. Necrons got some loving but they got nothing compared to all the hundreds of kits that marines have gotten in less than a decade. Eldar have recieved three... I repeat three kits, and some of the worst lore written about a faction in decades.

AOS feels balanced and interesting, and of course some might say its because its new of course it feels like that but, I feel its more that they learned from their mistakes from WHFB and 40k. 40k has tons of issues from its characters, its inconsistent story, and also its model line. 40k's models have started to over simply to the point they have become bland and boring. Look at the major Space marine release. With the new AOs models they have character to them, you can build them from out of where they were before and make them more or less detailed. Its entirely your point, but 40k has over simplified its gothic setting into tacticool and thats not interesting to me.

Count me in as someone who agrees with the OP. AoS feels exciting at the moment, the sculpts are fantastic, I find myself getting excited about new releases, whereas 40k just feels stagnant at this point. Sick to death of Space Marines and the lack of creativity on the Xenos front. Scenery/terrain-wise AoS is also miles ahead.

But they have a market that just won't quit with 40k, so no reason to shake things up. Can't wait for the release of the new Warhammer Quest, can't think of anything I'm looking forward to 40k-wise. The new Death Guard releases were disappointing.

dream archipelago wrote:


But they have a market that just won't quit with 40k, so no reason to shake things up.

Yup, it's basically a nurgle game. Afraid of change and slowly rotting away

I was hoping for a big change this edition (like alternating activations), but it was not to be. Having a whole army activate while having most of the big guns in range from turn 1 can lead to many "feels bad" moments where you pack up chunks of your army before doing anything because you lost a roll-off.

Some of my group bought into 40k again, but they stopped playing it. Back to AoS or Star Wars Legion mostly.

I was an old WHFB player that was bummed at the launch of AoS. But the Broken Realms and Aelf pantheon has me interested again. KoW has my mass battles covered anyway, I don't have a game where I can drop down a literal God on the battlefield like Norse Mythology. That definitely has some appeal

I do wonder if part of the appeal is the novelty in terms of GW.

As covered, 40K is pretty staid. But then, so was WHFB, if not more so. Being set on a single world, they didn’t have much wiggle room to develop things.

Now, whether they had to blow it up is for a different thread. But the other options that immediately spring to mind might’ve seen Kislev wiped off the map, Naggaroth overrun etc.

They were also limited in time hopping potential, because it had such a set history, and it was largely Empire centric.

AoS has addressed much of that. What brings neat total ruination to one city, empire, or even Realm doesn’t mean the others have to follow suit. And the timeline is super loose.

We know of three great Ages. Myth, Chaos and Sigmar.

As time has gone on, the Age of Chaos is more or less down to a couple of centuries long. The Age of Sigmar is a bit more nebulous, but probably around 200 years, if not a wee bit more? But the Age of Myth? Who knows how long that was?

The people’s of that era are likewise very ill defined. Some may well have survived the Age of Chaos, and are awaiting the narrative chance to come into play (certainly Kharadron and Fyreslayer’s fall into that category).

Cities beholden to the Dark Gods are a possibility. After all, in The Old World the marauder tribes were loyal worshippers, but relatively untouched by their Gods.

This is all new turf for even long term players, without it all being entirely unrecognisable. That’s quite an achievement in my book.