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oh, so you have no clue what you're talking about and just want to gak post, go it.

I admit to having not read the Lumineth battletome before attempting to define "WoW-monster" as "thing that makes no sense in any context." Would you like to attempt to explain a) why cow-monsters, b) why the shoulder-mountains, or c) why the giant mallets instead of a weapon that make sense without saying "they look cool, stop asking questions!" or "it's magic, stop asking questions!"? I'm prepared to retract my definition if it turns out that there are explanations for these things, but every peice of GW lore I've read for the past ten years has taught me that there probably won't be.

A) It's a Ymetrican Longhorn Buffalo as the inspiration for the construct. They dwell only on the Hyshian peaks, so are tied to mountains. They're peaceful enough but can be extremely violent when threatened. Also, functionally immortal unless their horns are removed.

B) The 'shoulder-mountains-, again, are an aspect of them being constructs and not living animals. Each of these constructs is effectively the 'centerpiece' of an Alarith Temple. It's a lifetime labor for the Stonemages and Stoneguard of that Temple. The faceplate? It's what allows the literal spirit of the mountain to 'bind' itself to the construct in question.
Every single step of crafting the construct involves material from the mountain itself. The peaks are shaped to echo the mountain, with living Tohnasai trees carefully tended to echo the cloudbark copses that grow on the mountains. The masks and armour they wear? It's ensorcelled armour made of sunmetal that has been quenched in the mountain's lakes and waterfalls. The banners that they wear, hanging off their armour? The likeness and runes of the mountain spirit that is to possess and animate the body are proudly displayed.
Avalenor the Stoneheart King is...unique. No Aelementari Temple built that body nor the weapons. The 'theory' is that the mountain Avalenor itself created their war form(which is what the constructs are called) after Celennar(the Spirit of the Moon that aids Teclis) convinced it to join the fight in purifying the Realms from Chaos.

C) Why mallets and picks? Again, it ties to the mountains. There's two distinctive types of Alarith Stoneguard and each take a different approach to their weapons and ideas. The hammers contain enchanted granite 'bequeathed' to them by the mountains they've devoted themselves to. Part of the Aelementari Temple initiation is to give themselves over to the element in question and for the genius loci of a place to accept them.
In the case of Alarith(mountain) temples? They isolate themselves on the peaks, surrendering their food and armor and equipment to the mountain and relying only upon what the mountain offers. The first Alarith Stonemages had algae and moss start growing around them where they sat. Creatures literally came out of the cracks to bare their throats to them so they wouldn't starve. The mages are able to turn themselves and other Alarith into living stone.

There's two 'schools' of each of the Aelementari Temples, from what we've seen. For Alarith it's the mountains themselves or the ores and minerals that make them up. It's the whole vs the parts, seemingly, with the mallets being enchanted granite (as mentioned) from the mountain. The picks are diamond cored, harvested from the mountain.

The champions of the Stoneguard? They can, if they choose, wield paired hammers of enchanted sedimentary stone from the mountains...or possibly leftover from the Spirefall that necessitated the formation of the Aelementari Temples in the first place.

Also note that hammers were a very normal weapon in armies. Once you get things like plate mail it becomes much harder to slice or attack with a sword. So you swap for a hammer. You bash into the armour. You might dent it, which in the right spot might hinder movement; but also that force is carried through into the body underneath the armour. Even with metal, chain and padding, you could bruise and break bodies under the armour.

Many knights also had a weapon (I forget its name) which had a hammer one side and a pick the other; one to smash and bash armour; the other to puncture through it.

Swords are popular in stories and films and games, but in reality they were not often the best weapon for every situation.






So hammer wielding units in the magical realms makes sense; they are clearly aimed at being heavy damage dealing units to heavy armour. If you want to go magical classic then they are also very effective against the undead who typically either don't have any organs or skin (skeletons) or don't really care if you hack chunks off them with a sword. Again breaking bones is a very valid and viable strategy in war.

 Overread wrote:
Also note that hammers were a very normal weapon in armies. Once you get things like plate mail it becomes much harder to slice or attack with a sword. So you swap for a hammer. You bash into the armour. You might dent it, which in the right spot might hinder movement; but also that force is carried through into the body underneath the armour. Even with metal, chain and padding, you could bruise and break bodies under the armour.

Many knights also had a weapon (I forget its name) which had a hammer one side and a pick the other; one to smash and bash armour; the other to puncture through it.

Swords are popular in stories and films and games, but in reality they were not often the best weapon for every situation.






So hammer wielding units in the magical realms makes sense; they are clearly aimed at being heavy damage dealing units to heavy armour. If you want to go magical classic then they are also very effective against the undead who typically either don't have any organs or skin (skeletons) or don't really care if you hack chunks off them with a sword. Again breaking bones is a very valid and viable strategy in war.

A hammer is a completely normal weapon. There is a difference, however, between a warhammer (which generally has a small striking surface and a long dense head to apply a large amount of force to a small area in order to break things) and a mallet (which has a very broad head to apply a controlled amount of force to a wide area without breaking it). One is designed to be an efficient weapon. The other is a tool designed for a completely different purpose that can be repurposed as a weapon but isn't going to do a very good job.

I want to stress here that this is a matter of verisimilitude rather than realism, and as such is something of a subjective bar (it's about suspension of disbelief), but the Lumineth giant broad flat-faced hammers look to me like the rough equivalent of someone giving a model scissors instead of a sword. They do broadly the same thing (cut things), and I could totally back-fit an explanation as to why the scissors are there if I wanted to, but the fact that they're scissors still looks ridiculous.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kanluwen wrote:
B) The 'shoulder-mountains-, again, are an aspect of them being constructs and not living animals. Each of these constructs is effectively the 'centerpiece' of an Alarith Temple. It's a lifetime labor for the Stonemages and Stoneguard of that Temple. The faceplate? It's what allows the literal spirit of the mountain to 'bind' itself to the construct in question.
Every single step of crafting the construct involves material from the mountain itself. The peaks are shaped to echo the mountain, with living Tohnasai trees carefully tended to echo the cloudbark copses that grow on the mountains. The masks and armour they wear? It's ensorcelled armour made of sunmetal that has been quenched in the mountain's lakes and waterfalls. The banners that they wear, hanging off their armour? The likeness and runes of the mountain spirit that is to possess and animate the body are proudly displayed.
Avalenor the Stoneheart King is...unique. No Aelementari Temple built that body nor the weapons. The 'theory' is that the mountain Avalenor itself created their war form(which is what the constructs are called) after Celennar(the Spirit of the Moon that aids Teclis) convinced it to join the fight in purifying the Realms from Chaos...

Where else in the setting does this idea of a sympathetic link created both by objects and by retaining the shape of the object occur? Writing a long and detailed explanation of the one thing doesn't help it fit into the broader context of the setting, it's world-building on the level of Harry Potter where the setting is made up of random isolated bits of stuff that sounded cool at the time but have no relationship to each other. Something that makes sense only in the context of its own page in the army book doesn't necessarily make sense in the context of the broader setting.

I accuse the giant goat monsters of being "contextless" because there's no indication that anything resembling them in any way exists or is possible outside their own fluff.

None of which really changes that yes, there's been a lot of thought into this whole concept. WoW/MMO designs just tend to be busy for the sake of being busy based on the enemy.

PS:
The mallets are described as being used as you said. Long handled mallets, wielded with grace+skill with controlled strikes.

Where else in the setting does this idea of a sympathetic link created both by objects and by retaining the shape of the object occur? Writing a long and detailed explanation of the one thing doesn't help it fit into the broader context of the setting, it's world-building on the level of Harry Potter where the setting is made up of random isolated bits of stuff that sounded cool at the time but have no relationship to each other. Something that makes sense only in the context of its own page in the army book doesn't necessarily make sense in the context of the broader setting.

Nobody else has seemingly attempted to interact with the genius-loci of the Realms. It's a whole thing with regards to this book. Teclis was able to interact with the first of them(Celennar), and through that the other Aelementari Temples ended up happening.

The idea of the genius-loci did exist prior by the by. Both the Sylvaneth and Wanderers had that going. Neither of those factions though had anything close to an 'avatar' that those spirits could potentially inhabit.

The Idoneth did have an 'avatar' in the form of the Eidolon of Mathlaan, which is soul-stuff of fallen Idoneth coalescing into the form of Mathlaan, a slain god of the Aelfs that Teclis taught them about.

The goalposts, they be moving like the Brinam Wood!

 Kanluwen wrote:
...Nobody else has seemingly attempted to interact with the genius-loci of the Realms. It's a whole thing with regards to this book. Teclis was able to interact with the first of them(Celennar), and through that the other Aelementari Temples ended up happening.

The idea of the genius-loci did exist prior by the by. Both the Sylvaneth and Wanderers had that going. Neither of those factions though had anything close to an 'avatar' that those spirits could potentially inhabit.

The Idoneth did have an 'avatar' in the form of the Eidolon of Mathlaan, which is soul-stuff of fallen Idoneth coalescing into the form of Mathlaan, a slain god of the Aelfs that Teclis taught them about.

Does any fluff anywhere else in the game suggest that there are "genus loci of the Realms" in the way the Lumineth book talks about?

I would say that the Idoneth Avatars and the Sylvaneth are not contextless in the way the cow-monsters are, because perhaps the most defining conflict of the setting is that the gods are fighting over who gets the soul-stuff of dead people to use to make more soul-golems to fight each others' soul-golems over who gets the soul-stuff. Soul-golems are connected to plot elements that exist outside their own books. Genus loci aren't.

Before I'm accused of splitting hairs here I refer back to Kanluwen's explanation of the visual design of the model: Everything about the cow-monsters is apparently informed by the fact that they're sympathetic links to mountains to make the mountain-spirits inhabit them. Without the distinction between soul-golems and genus-loci-golems there's no reason for them to look the way they do.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kanluwen wrote:
...PS:
The mallets are described as being used as you said. Long handled mallets, wielded with grace+skill with controlled strikes...

My point was that a mallet is designed to apply force to things without breaking them, which makes them not much of a weapon.

Yes but that's partly a function of density and weight.

A dense and very heavy head on a mallet would be near useless for a person because you'd run out of strength to use it.

 Overread wrote:
Yes but that's partly a function of density and weight.

A dense and very heavy head on a mallet would be near useless for a person because you'd run out of strength to use it.

Given two hammers of equivalent density/weight the one shaped like a warhammer (long head with a narrow jaggedy striking face) is a more effective weapon than the one shaped like a mallet (broad flat head with a large striking face).

Whether or not you can make a physics-based argument that in the context of the game the mallet is still a functional weapon that doesn't change the fact that to the observer the mallet looks like a tool rather than a weapon.

I can't say I'm a fan of these cow-elves.

To me there's a weird disconnect between the shape of the model and the actual theme. I mean, cows (and bulls for that matter) aren't exactly well-known for being slender animals. And this a cow with mountains growing out of it which is also wielding a hammer . . . but for some reason it's also really, really thin. It looks a cartoon character that's just been deflated.

Each to their own, of course, but to me it just looks like a bit of a mess both visually and conceptually.

However, I should add that I don't particularly care for anything in the new High Elf (or whatever the pretentious, trademarked name is) range. I don't think the colour scheme helps. It looks like they were wearing UN uniforms, before someone vomited the entire Dulux range of whites onto them.

 Overread wrote:
Yes but that's partly a function of density and weight.

It's also an aspect of material, too. Wood and plastic are often used to provide an absorbing factor and spread the force out, while hammers tend to be more destructive.

 Overread wrote:
A dense and very heavy head on a mallet would be near useless for a person because you'd run out of strength to use it.

A lot depends on capacities of the individual and how much training they have. Human endurance is actually quite good if developed, and that's not even considering the differences in anatomy between humanity here and all the species created on Sigmar's multi-planed world.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

Where else in the setting does this idea of a sympathetic link created both by objects and by retaining the shape of the object occur? Writing a long and detailed explanation of the one thing doesn't help it fit into the broader context of the setting, it's world-building on the level of Harry Potter where the setting is made up of random isolated bits of stuff that sounded cool at the time but have no relationship to each other. Something that makes sense only in the context of its own page in the army book doesn't necessarily make sense in the context of the broader setting.

I accuse the giant goat monsters of being "contextless" because there's no indication that anything resembling them in any way exists or is possible outside their own fluff.

So how do you add anything new to the setting if everything added has to either already exist or be implied to exist?

In this case? You've simply learned something new about the setting. And in the future? Any other sympathetic links will have the foundation you demand.

These cow warriors seem really odd design. Shame, i was pretty excited to see new elf warriors, but ultimately I'm not gonna get any of them. They're just too silly for me.

ccs wrote:
So how do you add anything new to the setting if everything added has to either already exist or be implied to exist?

I know I wasn't the one you were asking, but if you're intent is to work something into the setting that feels natural (rather than a random ass-pull that you're desperately trying to retcon), I would think the best option would be to comb through the preexisting fluff. It wouldn't surprise me if there were already creatures mentioned or alluded to in the fluff which have never been given models. Failing that, you could instead attempt to extrapolate out from the existing fluff. e.g. if a race uses elemental magic (and maybe even small elementals), then you could give them a larger elemental. In the fluff, this could be justified as an extension of their existing abilities, perhaps requiring rare materials, significant sacrifice and/or being potentially dangerous to their creators (to explain why it hadn't been done before, or why they're not used more often).

That would be my best suggestion, anyway.

The AoS pre-existing fluff is kinda super flexible and not all that nailed down. Armies like Lumineth are basically hardly mentioned save for subtle mentions here and there.

You can't really use the fluff, GW hasn't written it fully yet. We are in the early stages (yes I know its 2.0 but between launch (which wasn't even 1.0) and 2.0 there was a bit of a mess) and much of the lore is still up in the air.

Heck the Realm of Shadow is hardly explored in the lore and is waiting for Malarion's army to make its appearance. Same for the Realm of Light until Lumineth made their appearance.

 vipoid wrote:

ccs wrote:
So how do you add anything new to the setting if everything added has to either already exist or be implied to exist?

I know I wasn't the one you were asking, but

Nor did you understand the question I asked.

"AoS has no fluff!"
Here's some new fluff!
"No, not like that, you were supposed to understand I meant "make it more like the Old World" when I asked for more fluff"

Every damn time. Just move on to 40k please, or 9th age to play with Janusz and Krzstof....

To be fair over half of AoS is just Old World stuff in a new setting.

Even the gods are all Old World stuff


Btu yeah GW has very clearly shown that AoS is not the Old World in style, themes or lore. A fact that makes Gotrek very grumpy.

The model range looks elegant, graceful yet powerful.

The aesthetic going with the range is not one that I like, but I can easily see what theme they were shooting for, which is a great compliment to any army's model range.

See I love the range, I think its one of the best elf sets GW has released other than the Daughters of Khaine.

 Mothsniper wrote:
Is it just me?
Or the new Stonehart cow units are lame...

Yes, it's you. They're fething sweet.

 Kanluwen wrote:
Cathallar, Wardens, Sentinels just so happens to be one of the best/most easily accessible(in terms of models) Warscroll Battalions in the book...


Auralan Legion: 1 Cathallar, 2-4 Sentinels and an equal number of Wardens. Nets you reroll save rolls of 1 while within 3" of any other friendly units from the same Battalion.

Yeah I realized that and I think I will focus my lists on that and dawnriders because I don't like the stoneguard nearly as much as I thought I would.

They are essentially monk versions of the white lions of chrace and hopefully we will see swordmasters at some point because these guys seem more like white lions than swordmasters.

Which is what I am exctied about with this range. Vanari are incredibly awesome, the sentinels are the only bad models in my opinion in that they are so boring looking in poses. I wish I could do more to customize them but you really can't but thats an AOS i've been told.

On the cow motiff... they aren't really cows, more buffalo or yaks. Buffalo are fething terrifying, if they charge you, you will be dead. American Cows are very domesticated to the point they are giant dogs. People only call them cows because they don't know their histories at all and don't know other species as well. Its always a vieled insult against GW products especially because GW AOS has always been targeted by people who don't even play the hobby or collect it. I switched to AOS because of the 40k community and I enjoy the Yak bois and their lore and their entire model range. Which I think is leagues better than most 40k models.

Once you have the lumienth on hand and actually look at them you realize how awesome they are. I am excited to see what they do with them overall.

Something I am really interested in is their River, Wind, and Zenith Temples which they talk about. With Zenith or the Winged Elves they talked about briefly in the battletome. Apparently the Zenith Temples are incredibly rare. And I can't wait to see what other Tyrionic kingdoms there are, as we still have half the race is missing, along with 75% of the faction. Which I am very interested in.

I also really unironically like the fact that Sigmar has rightfully pissed off by Tyrion and Teclis, and even Malekith in the book it hints that he has used the light of hysh for his storm vaults. Despite my love of storms I think sigmar is a complete arse and is an aggorant jerk. Which I would say about the lumineth but they are more elitist than "I know everything and I am always in the right." They had the spirefall which has humbled them as a species. Which is what is so history. The spirefall event and almost every major historical event in the lumineth lore is just incredibly well written. Whomever does the lore for the Lumineth needs a bloody promotion cause that was some stellar writing.

How about you guys or should I start a new thread to talk about their lore cause its some pretty interesting stuff.

The "spirefall" is the worst part imo, it's literally just Fall of Eldar but less dramatic.

Honestly I like it better because the fall of the eldar is less interesting this was also fantasy based. I get not liking it though, but it was far easier to comprehend and a much more tamer.

I do like how that is the one thing some people have latched onto but okay.

Please don't spam the forum- ingtær.

I'm interested to see how they expand the Lumineth in future, but that just raises a question of when that will end up happening.

One of the issues the system and its model range has at the moment is that so many armies feel very unfinished and not fleshed out. You'd have expected at least some updates to them by now since many are on a 2nd book but they've had pretty much nothing in terms of model releases. And personally a single new character model isn't really enough for me.

So yeah, all the extra teased Lumineth shrines and spirits sound fascinating, but will I even care about them when they finally get round to adding just one of them to the roster in AOS 4.0 in 6 years time?

Oh and for a system and storyline which people like to fellate for being "new" and "unique," tying the Lumineth into Slaanesh and giving them a Fall from Grace background isn't exactly groundbreaking.

Honestly whilst it says AoS 2.0 its really 1.0.

Launch didn't even have rules and wasn't a wargame; 1.0 was a rush job fix. 2.0 is the launch AoS "should have had" and its delay means that we are several years behind where it could be.

 Bosskelot wrote:

One of the issues the system and its model range has at the moment is that so many armies feel very unfinished and not fleshed out. You'd have expected at least some updates to them by now since many are on a 2nd book but they've had pretty much nothing in terms of model releases. And personally a single new character model isn't really enough for me.

You know this faction is only 6 months old, right? So why would you expect them to already have an update/2nd book?

ccs wrote:

 Bosskelot wrote:

One of the issues the system and its model range has at the moment is that so many armies feel very unfinished and not fleshed out. You'd have expected at least some updates to them by now since many are on a 2nd book but they've had pretty much nothing in terms of model releases. And personally a single new character model isn't really enough for me.

You know this faction is only 6 months old, right? So why would you expect them to already have an update/2nd book?

Yes, that's why I was talking about other factions in that paragraph.