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 nathan2004 wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:

 nathan2004 wrote:
Aesthetically would they just be a blend of dark elves and vampires?

They are pretty unique - Zombies with guns, pirate vampires and Wights, lots and lots of guns and cannons including those mounted on monsters and Necrofex colossus- they really like guns

The minis line could be as awesome as the one for Cathay

Thanks that's a very different take on vampires then I've ever seen in a wargame or movie honestly (that I can think of off the top of my head).

It's basically Pirates of the Carribean x Vampires. It's no surprise the White Dwarf article that gave them rules came out between Pirates and Dead Man's Chest.

Exactly

Original is probably the last thing i have in mind when i think if them. Now, that doesn't means that they wouldn't make a great army, but undead pirate is one of the oldest and most used "fantasy" trope

SnotlingPimpWagon wrote:

 lord_blackfang wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Also, we can’t rule out the stuff that ended up in Total War didn’t start off as notes, sketches and possibly even mock-up greens/conversions from any point in WHFB’s history.

Considering all the ancillary material GW did in the past - Mordheim, Lustria, Dogs of War etc... I'd be very surprised if the studio didn't have a pretty complete picture of Cathay looks and lore by the late 90s. Their work for Total War was getting it all into a format that an outside team that didn't know it by heart could use as a reference, and I'm pretty sure they stated as much at some point in the design blogs.

As for the upcoming models, they are certainly all done from scratch, casting technology has advanced so much that any sculpting done 10+ years ago would have been useless.

And I'd be all for the Vampire Coast, TOW desperately needs an infusion of non-human factions asap.

I wouldn’t be so sure about the outline of the Cathay aesthetic being solved in the late 90s already. As far as I know, there was 1 official published artwork of anything Cathay (a dude with a sword) and that concept differs from what we got out of the GW and CA collaboration. (The old artwork was way cooler and far less generic than the Chinese fantasy, that we got with TW3) there is also some vague smell of the new Cathay look bearing corporate touches of trying to interest Chinese markets (like with 3 Kingdoms) and playing it safe in regards to avoiding wilder concepts (making it more familiar for the public that has seen any sort of fantasy with a stereotypical Chinese aesthetic) or having a non chaos faction, that is evil-ish.

Thing is GW is old and have had a lot of creative staff over the decades. Any creative staff working long term for GW would likely have a whole body of concepts for things that have never seen the light of day. From rough sketches to high detail that almost got made and then didn't.

GW's creative archive could contain loads of designs for units, models, factions and races that have just never seen the light of day and might never do. Some might be lost when staff moved; some might be forgotten in a draw in some cabinet in a corner of the office.

There's every chances that Cathay had more than one design style too from different staffers or just experimenting with a theme.



So it wouldn't surprise me if GW had designs for models and whole armies that we've never ever ever seen in their archives.
Heck Old World refresh already has had one or two models released that never saw the light of day back then

Worth mentioming that Warmaster covered certain factions that never really got attention in WHFB, Araby for one. I feel like I vaguely remember that warmaster had a cathay or nippon army list released in some sort of magazine (not white dwarf, one of the other ones)?

Yeah Araby got an entire full army released for Warmaster, though it seems neither GW nor CA wanted to explore them in the Warhammer game at all.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
And I'd be all for the Vampire Coast, TOW desperately needs an infusion of non-human factions asap.

...6/9 of the factions in the army books aren't human-centric. With Cathay that moves to 6/10, though you could argue about Cathay and WoC.

Hardly a situation where such an infusion needs to happen "asap", blackfang.

Dead Humans, mutated Humans (not yet released), blessed by evil gods humans, early modern humans, knightly humans and asian humans (not yet released)
With Kislev and Chaos Dwarfs getting maybe.
It is rather human heavy

 Overread wrote:
Yeah Araby got an entire full army released for Warmaster, though it seems neither GW nor CA wanted to explore them in the Warhammer game at all.

given that most of the existing background is from older editions and more about mocking Muslims while throwing different cultures who don't like each other together, there is a good reason CA not wanting to touch it until GW re-worked the background

 Dysartes wrote:

 lord_blackfang wrote:
And I'd be all for the Vampire Coast, TOW desperately needs an infusion of non-human factions asap.

...6/9 of the factions in the army books aren't human-centric. With Cathay that moves to 6/10, though you could argue about Cathay and WoC.

Hardly a situation where such an infusion needs to happen "asap", blackfang.

Most vampires were human when they were living but The Vampire Coast also, like many TOW factions also includes (dead in this case) ogres

Zombies and skeletons SHOULD cover all living races but only really released for Mordheim and Cursed Company.

I would have had very low hopes for Vampire Coast IF Cathay had not come out - its seems a easy win for GW - so likely they won't do it

chaos0xomega wrote:Worth mentioming that Warmaster covered certain factions that never really got attention in WHFB, Araby for one. I feel like I vaguely remember that warmaster had a cathay or nippon army list released in some sort of magazine (not white dwarf, one of the other ones)?

Overread wrote:Yeah Araby got an entire full army released for Warmaster, though it seems neither GW nor CA wanted to explore them in the Warhammer game at all.

I think the conversation was more revolving around games that mattered and were actually purchased.

 Overread wrote:
Thing is GW is old and have had a lot of creative staff over the decades. Any creative staff working long term for GW would likely have a whole body of concepts for things that have never seen the light of day. From rough sketches to high detail that almost got made and then didn't.

GW's creative archive could contain loads of designs for units, models, factions and races that have just never seen the light of day and might never do. Some might be lost when staff moved; some might be forgotten in a draw in some cabinet in a corner of the office.

There's every chances that Cathay had more than one design style too from different staffers or just experimenting with a theme.

Anyone else remember the old rumours, from the days of Portal some twenty years ago, about GW planning to release 'Cathayan pig-men' who were cursed by Tzeentch?

 kodos wrote:
mutated Humans (not yet released),

While in the far past, Beastmen were created as a fusion of human and beasts when the raw stuff of Chaos erupted from the ruined Gate, after thousands of years, they recognize themselves as a separate race from man and are fully capable of breeding true, hence why Gors look down upon those Ungor and half-horns that join the herds from human mutation.

kodos wrote:given that most of the existing background is from older editions and more about mocking Muslims while throwing different cultures who don't like each other together, there is a good reason CA not wanting to touch it until GW re-worked the background

Yeah... we can already see that the Cathay release is getting a bunch of conspiracies about trying to attract Chinese attention so they're not grim enough - though being a somewhat socially stagnant realm run by immortals seems plenty dark. I don't know that we need to get into more of that with the rest of the Warhammer World until they come up with some interesting hooks. Even with Kislev you occasionally see a post here or there arguing that it would be difficult to do because of geopolitics. I don't think that's actually true in either case, but frankly youtube's algorithm already feeds me enough clash of civilizations nonsense without needing more of that amped up.

Shakalooloo wrote:

Anyone else remember the old rumours, from the days of Portal some twenty years ago, about GW planning to release 'Cathayan pig-men' who were cursed by Tzeentch?

Yeah - though I recall at the time there was some chatter that the Celestial Dragon Monk may have been willing Tzeentchians, etc. Honestly, catching these interviews that folks like Jordan Sorcery and Filmdeg are doing with the second and third generations of GW people, there's quite a number of stories that "so and so moved their office and then years later we found these notes under a sofa". At some point - and quite possibly even now - GW was just a load of weird nerds pursuing wacky interests and sometimes management would decide this or that would sell. So I'm not immediately inclined to think all of those rumours were true, but there's no reason to think none of them ever were possibilities that someone was noodling with.

 kodos wrote:
Dead Humans, mutated Humans (not yet released), blessed by evil gods humans, early modern humans, knightly humans and asian humans (not yet released)
With Kislev and Chaos Dwarfs getting maybe.
It is rather human heavy.

While counting Tomb Kings and Beastmen factions as human focused is a stretch, Kislev is surely now guaranteed following Cathay's announcement? They were both part of Total War's design and the original marketing of Old World, and fit in with the upcoming Chaos threat theme/date of the setting.

bobthe4th wrote:

 kodos wrote:
Dead Humans, mutated Humans (not yet released), blessed by evil gods humans, early modern humans, knightly humans and asian humans (not yet released)
With Kislev and Chaos Dwarfs getting maybe.
It is rather human heavy.

While counting Tomb Kings and Beastmen factions as human focused is a stretch, Kislev is surely now guaranteed following Cathay's announcement? They were both part of Total War's design and the original marketing of Old World, and fit in with the upcoming Chaos threat theme/date of the setting.

If we should have learned anything by now, it's that nothing is guaranteed where GW is concerned.

 Just Tony wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:Worth mentioming that Warmaster covered certain factions that never really got attention in WHFB, Araby for one. I feel like I vaguely remember that warmaster had a cathay or nippon army list released in some sort of magazine (not white dwarf, one of the other ones)?

Overread wrote:Yeah Araby got an entire full army released for Warmaster, though it seems neither GW nor CA wanted to explore them in the Warhammer game at all.

I think the conversation was more revolving around games that mattered and were actually purchased.

Completely irrelevant when the topic at hand is whether GW did any internal development on a faction or concept.

I'd expect Cathay to come out and then the next new full army after that should be Kislev.

With between the two either being more old armies returning or more updates to current armies in the form of new models/upgraded to modern plastic models.


NOW GW can do odd things. For example in AoS the Dark Elf army sat there almost entirely complete - a couple of hero models and you'd have the whole army work and yet GW has done nothing with it what so ever barring 1 campaign book that was more like a side set of rules.

They also teased Malarion as a major player and ruler of a whole Realm with loads of teaser appearances in the Big Rulebook and - have also done nothing with him.

Meanwhile they launched Ossiarchs off the back of a side games quest that no one really thought would lead to a new whole faction and major race in the setting.

GW also took a functional army that was selling; had updated models and - pulled it to put in another game - Beastmen into Old World





Sometimes GW acts logically; other times it acts in ways that are no doubt logical, but only if you know all the internal things that we often have no clue about until well after the event is over.

ccs wrote:

 Vulcan wrote:

ccs wrote:

 Vulcan wrote:

Doesn't mean I don't miss playing WFB, though. Especially as I look over some 12,000 points of minis I can use in TOW... and three times that many points I can't.

You have 12k pts of WHFB stuff that doesn't have Old World stats??

If you miss playing WHFB.... Why don't you do something about that?
There's other WHFB players out there, seek them out!

They're all playing TOW with the new hotness... or AoS, or KoW. No one wants to play WFB anymore.

You do realize that ToW is just the next version of WHFB, right?
It's the same old same old. New edition, new books to buy, some assorted rules changes. Changes: few +/a few -/some of no real importance....
This has been happening every few years since I began playing way back in WHFB 3e.
The only thing really different this time is that GW called it something else & made the covers blue.

Yes, TOW is the next version of WHFB... minus Skaven, Lizardmen, and Dark Elves, my three biggest armies. Yes, there are legacy rules for them. Yes, those rules are sorta garbage and not very much fun.

 Overread wrote:
Yeah Araby got an entire full army released for Warmaster, though it seems neither GW nor CA wanted to explore them in the Warhammer game at all.

i don't expect GW to ever touch Araby in any significant way without a big revamp of what the faction's lore is like. as is, it's racist. it's just racist. comparable to the old savage orcs line, except that it doesn't even get the "well, they're not human or representing a specific culture" excuse

Araby as it exists now is less "Ottomon or Arab caliphates" and more "West Asia as imagined by 19th century Europeans"

(and before anyone starts, there's a difference between something like Bretonnia being based on King Arthur and French stereotypes vs Araby as it exists in lore; read Edward Said's Orientalism)

There would be plenty of ways to make an araby army acceptable, and anyway, as an arab, i dont recall there was anything offensive in the old warmaster army/fluff (though i might be mistaken, this was ages ago). My main beef with them was that they were, as we say in french, way too "ketaine" (translate a bit to kitsch). Flying carpet.... really....

Also, i would find it dissapointing if the next new army (or revamped army) is another human one

They could bring back Dark Elves and Vampire, both Ranges are mostly overworked in AoS.

 StudentOfEtherium wrote:

 Overread wrote:
Yeah Araby got an entire full army released for Warmaster, though it seems neither GW nor CA wanted to explore them in the Warhammer game at all.

i don't expect GW to ever touch Araby in any significant way without a big revamp of what the faction's lore is like. as is, it's racist. it's just racist. comparable to the old savage orcs line, except that it doesn't even get the "well, they're not human or representing a specific culture" excuse

Araby as it exists now is less "Ottomon or Arab caliphates" and more "West Asia as imagined by 19th century Europeans"

(and before anyone starts, there's a difference between something like Bretonnia being based on King Arthur and French stereotypes vs Araby as it exists in lore; read Edward Said's Orientalism)

Wow paranoia. Why Araby & savage orcs are racist and Cathay is not?

basically because Cathay is how the current chinese government portrays their own past the same way

Longstrider wrote:Even with Kislev you occasionally see a post here or there arguing that it would be difficult to do because of geopolitics. I don't think that's actually true in either case.

true or not, but that an army build around a russian themed elite ruling over polish and ukrainian troops with a czech city as capital and its historiy being copy&paste of hungary not being the top priority for release with the current situation would suprise no one

bobthe4th wrote:

 kodos wrote:
Dead Humans, mutated Humans (not yet released), blessed by evil gods humans, early modern humans, knightly humans and asian humans (not yet released)
With Kislev and Chaos Dwarfs getting maybe.
It is rather human heavy.

While counting Tomb Kings and Beastmen factions as human focused is a stretch

dead humans are still humans

SU-152 wrote:

 StudentOfEtherium wrote:

 Overread wrote:
Yeah Araby got an entire full army released for Warmaster, though it seems neither GW nor CA wanted to explore them in the Warhammer game at all.

i don't expect GW to ever touch Araby in any significant way without a big revamp of what the faction's lore is like. as is, it's racist. it's just racist. comparable to the old savage orcs line, except that it doesn't even get the "well, they're not human or representing a specific culture" excuse

Araby as it exists now is less "Ottomon or Arab caliphates" and more "West Asia as imagined by 19th century Europeans"

(and before anyone starts, there's a difference between something like Bretonnia being based on King Arthur and French stereotypes vs Araby as it exists in lore; read Edward Said's Orientalism)

Wow paranoia. Why Araby & savage orcs are racist and Cathay is not?

Yeah, also isn't Bretonnia just based in Medieval Europe in general? Sure it's mostly French, but that's because France was a major player in the Middle Ages and you have some English troops there too. Yeomen aren't a French thing.
Similarly, the Empire is just bastardization of the German part of the HRE, complete with silly German names and fanaticism. Kislev is stereotypical Russia and Eastern Europe, with various cultures getting blended together in a single morass complete with all of the stereotypes and silly memes such as bear cav.
Norsca is stereotypical pagan Scandinavia except they serve literal demons.
The point is that Araby isn't the only faction to have gotten thrown into a cultural blender; the "European" factions got a similar treatment. Every faction got mishmashed together based on their stereotypes.

And before you start, yes, I know what Orientalism is. And I think it effectively doesn't matter. The end result will still be the same, with the "Western" factions being derived from erroneous stereotypes based more on pop-culture, gross over-simplification and exaggeration than fact. Like Orientalism.

If you see Savage Orcs and the first thing you think of is a certain demographic of people, that sounds like a you problem, tbh.

I dunno why people make it complicated to be honest - the rulebook contains lore sections for each of the returning armies, Cathay, Kislev and Norsca, so we are getting those three armies.

Then we'll probably get a new edition that might give the possibility for more. Or some campaign books with new models for the existing armies first.

I'm still a bit believer that some of the legacy factions will return, but that's probably a second edition thing.

Bretonnia is England/France during the 100 years war combined with Arthurian Legends
Empire is the HRE from early modern times mixed with the 30 years wars
Both heavily mixed with stereotypes and clishee

And no one really cares if the french are mocked that way or not or if witch hunts being a sensitive topic the way they are portrayed there

Yet other regions/cultures are different and the internet less forgiving these days

 The Phazer wrote:
I dunno why people make it complicated to be honest - the rulebook contains lore sections for each of the returning armies, Cathay, Kislev and Norsca, so we are getting those three armies.

Then we'll probably get a new edition that might give the possibility for more. Or some campaign books with new models for the existing armies first.

I'm still a bit believer that some of the legacy factions will return, but that's probably a second edition thing.

Malarion's forces were in the first AoS rulebook - he's mentioned in the lore and stories more than once and yet his army has never appeared. Meanwhile Ossiarchs only got a mention in a side game at the very end of a campaign and then BOOM whole army. GW are more than capable of mentioning a faction for ages - heck Exodites have been mentioned for decades and so far the only model I'm aware of them having is the bright stallion from Titan Legions/Epic (and that's a tiny dreadnought sized model in that scale). Meanwhile they are also capable of not mentioning a faction ever and having them appear. Necrons, Tau and Ossiarchs were all examples of factions that were never there until they were there. Granted you could argue GW seeded Squats returning with the Necromunda releases, but still the Votaan and their whole faction were absent from any real lore until they were out despite having a big chunk of territory.

 kodos wrote:
Bretonnia is England/France during the 100 years war combined with Arthurian Legends
Empire is the HRE from early modern times mixed with the 30 years wars
Both heavily mixed with stereotypes and clishee

And no one really cares if the french are mocked that way or not or if witch hunts being a sensitive topic the way they are portrayed there

Yet other regions/cultures are different and the internet less forgiving these days

I understand that, but if every faction is getting mocked and are all based on stereotypes and cliches, why should Araby be any different?
If they played all of the European based factions super straight with not a single hint of irony or derision but hit Araby with every stereotype under the sun then yes, I'd be inclined to agree that's a problem.

But that's not how it is, Bretonnians are arrogant and treat peasants like dirt (who are perpetually covered in it), the Empire are a bunch of kooky German loons with silly names, Norsca are violent, demon worshipping savages (and also Swedish) and Kislev is a bunch of Russian memes with a bit of Polish thrown in (Winged Hussars are Polish. And the Polish really don't like Russians because of the whole Soviet thing), complete with bears.
Every faction got hit with stereotypes, many of which negative, not just Araby.

 Overread wrote:

Spoiler:

 The Phazer wrote:
I dunno why people make it complicated to be honest - the rulebook contains lore sections for each of the returning armies, Cathay, Kislev and Norsca, so we are getting those three armies.

Then we'll probably get a new edition that might give the possibility for more. Or some campaign books with new models for the existing armies first.

I'm still a bit believer that some of the legacy factions will return, but that's probably a second edition thing.

Malarion's forces were in the first AoS rulebook - he's mentioned in the lore and stories more than once and yet his army has never appeared. Meanwhile Ossiarchs only got a mention in a side game at the very end of a campaign and then BOOM whole army. GW are more than capable of mentioning a faction for ages - heck Exodites have been mentioned for decades and so far the only model I'm aware of them having is the bright stallion from Titan Legions/Epic (and that's a tiny dreadnought sized model in that scale). Meanwhile they are also capable of not mentioning a faction ever and having them appear. Necrons, Tau and Ossiarchs were all examples of factions that were never there until they were there. Granted you could argue GW seeded Squats returning with the Necromunda releases, but still the Votaan and their whole faction were absent from any real lore until they were out despite having a big chunk of territory.

Malerion's lore sections in AoS were nowhere near as extensive as the sections for Cathay, Norsca, and Kislev in the recent Old World rulebook. He was named in a few places, but always alongside Tyrion, Teclis, Morathi, and Sigmar. These factions each received a lore section similar to the other main factions already announced.

A Cawdor guy in a pointy hat was too spicy for GW. There's no way they're touching Araby.

 Lord Damocles wrote:
A Cawdor guy in a pointy hat was too spicy for GW. There's no way they're touching Araby.

Historical companies do it all the time, and they seem to get away with it without a fatwa.

I'd find ti hard to believe that an Araby faction done with as much care and attention as Cathay received will get people's ire going - so long as it avoids religious over tones regarding the Quran. So pre-Islamic mythology is up for grabs, and honestly Persian and Berber mythology well. So no Muhammed, but much Sinbad, for example.

Persian dragons are cool, and by nature very warhammerish in design anyway.