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No idea what the story behind AOS is(don't care), nor have I played it( too many games, too little time ), but the game at least looks awesome.

While the "Stormcasts" are obviously the posterboy/girl marines of the game, they look amazing. Its like an army of that chap from Gladiator - the one at the end with the metal face. Given a quiet month with nothing to buy at all, I wouldn't mind a copy of Storm Strike.

You can use whatever you want. You can use figures made out of papier-mache if you want. You just have to check with your opponent.
On a slightly more serious note, I have seen more conversions going the other way, making marines or custodes using stormcast bodies.

I don’t play Stormcast, or AoS yet really.
But I still dislike the Sigmarines thing, and I think it’s worse when fans or neutral parties still use that term, almost like it was accepting being bullied kind of thing


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 auticus wrote:
"Hurricane crossbows" = "Hurricane bolters"
"Bolt Storm Pistol" = "Storm Bolter Pistol"

They are indeed close enough.

Bit of a stretch to me personally.

Also is there even such a thing as a Storm Bolter Pistol?
Isn’t that mixing two 40k weapons to make one similar to the Stormcast one?

I think we live in a world where everyone gets offended by everything. No one is bullying anyone by saying sigmarine.

At the extreme if someone says something you dont like, put them on ignore.


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Storm bolt pistol is close enough to storm bolter for me. At the end of the day who cares? It doesnt impact my life if you choose to feel stormcast are nothing like marines, and it doesnt impact your life if others feel the similarities are close enough to use the term sigmarine.

 Kanluwen wrote:
The funniest part to me is that those same people whining about "Sigmarines"(hurr!) are perfectly a-okay with Chaos Warriors; who from the outset were designed to be something similar to Chaos Marines.

We just never had a "good" version. Closest was the Empire Knightly Orders, but since they were mounted nobody seemed to make the connection.

Uh...Chaos Warriors came first. Fantasy came before 40k. So CSM emulated Chaos Warriors. Not the other way around.
And Knights of the Empire came before Space Marines. Come on Kan, you know this.

 auticus wrote:
I think we live in a world where everyone gets offended by everything. No one is bullying anyone by saying sigmarine.

This 1000 times. I used to know a guy who would get pissy if you referred to nids as bugs. If you're gonna feel bullied by someone saying something about your plastic dollies, you're probably to fragile to leave your house

grimdark83 wrote:


This 1000 times. I used to know a guy who would get pissy if you referred to nids as bugs. If you're gonna feel bullied by someone saying something about your plastic dollies, you're probably to fragile to leave your house

Personally I really, REALLY cannot stand the way "Tyranids" is pronounced. They are such brutal badasses that they deserve to be "TY-RAN-IDS" - as in "tyrannosaurus" or "Tyrant". But nooooooooo we have to call them "Tea-ri-nids". The first has prehistoric balls behind it, the second is whimpy, hipster BS. Whenever I was corrected over the pronounciation, I had a monsterous urge to slap the **** out of the perpetrator. GRRRRRRRRRR!!! Back in the day, when one put a Screamer-Killer or Hive Tyrant on the table, the other player would look at it as if it was a T-Rex!

Sigh. My Screamer-Killer was called Jeffrey. I miss ol' Jeff and the way he used to put the gaks up other players...

I have a Hammers of Sigmar army and when a cool space marine release happens, I'm like "I already have stormcast."

So yes.

Sometimes when I see a pic of a new mini on my clubs site or dakka, I cant tell if its power armour/custodes or stormcast. It all looks the same powerarmourish asthetic.

Sigmarines because they look like space marines but in AOS and marines were there first I gues. When I saw one for the first time I was like "ohh its a space marine but isisnt... its something to do with sigmar making marines" I dont get pissy if someone refers to my eldar as space elves.
Please note that technicaly space marines dont exist and they are "Adeptus Strates" and we should be refering to them as Astrates?. But EVERYONE calls it space marines. I imagine its a way for GW to rebrand space marines as they phase out the old line and primarise everything. Give it 1-2 generations and all the new blood will be saying astrates because they wont know any different.

Stormcast can be either male or female. And people have claimed over and over again here that it is an important part of the Space Marine fluff that they are exclusively male, so fundamental to the Space Marine concept that it would completely ruin them if GW ever changed it. So, clearly, Space Marines and Stormcast must be conceptually very different after all...

Nah. Sigmarine is just shorthand. Everyone knows the feminine form of the masculine Sigmarine is Sigmarie, but people just can't be bothered with grammar.

 Geifer wrote:
Everyone knows the feminine form of the masculine Sigmarine is Sigmarie

In France, it is the other way around. Marine is a feminine name, while Marie can be either masculine or feminine - the most obvious examples are of course a certain political father/daughter I won't mention here...

Stormcast are more like Custodes, in my mind, rather than fantasy Space Marines.

which released first out of interest? Custodes or AOS?

 Argive wrote:
which released first out of interest? Custodes or AOS?

In terms of plastic models, Sigmarines beat Custodes by about 15 months when Age of Sigmar was released in 2015. Custodes as a concept (and with at least one metal miniature) existed for thirty years, and got much of their current look codified in the Horus Heresy trading card game from the mid 2000s.

You're also well advised to look to Blood Angels for the direct aesthetic predecessor models of Sigmarines in 40k. More than Custodes, and released earlier in plastic, Sanguinary Guard armor is a closer match to that of Sigmarines. They were released in 5th ed, which would put them around 2009 or so, and in turn derive their look from Dante who got his model in 1996 or '97 and is himself a more developed version of a concept explored earlier on a Blood Angels Captain.

Claiming Sigmarines are Marines ported to the fantasy setting is a simplification that is casually speaking close enough to the truth but doesn't hold up to scrutiny in every aspect. The motivation on GW's part is pretty clear, trying to insert a concept into their fantasy setting that can match the success of their Marine range in 40k. But it's not so much that they simply copied Marines over, which is factually untrue, but tried to identify characteristics of Marines that they would use to craft the fantasy version.

I won't go too deep into the background, as others are better able to comment on that, but Marines and Sigmarines share a number of principles, such as the background of highly elite rapid insertion superhuman troops that are the direct extension of the will of their god.

Aesthetically, they are meant to match Chaos Warriors as superhuman warriors clad in full plate armor. Chaos Warriors already have that look and wear it well as the barbarian invaders with spikes, sharp edges and aggressive lines defining their armor design. By contrast, Sigmarines' sculpted armor incorporates artful lines meant to evoke the image of an ordered military, while using exaggerated armor plates and mass to still convey the idea of heavy and thick armor (and heavy, powerful weapons). You can easily see the same design process in Sigvald, who as a Slaaneshi Chaos Warrior was supposed to exude sophistication far beyond what regular Chaos Warriors were meant to display. The most significant difference between him and Sigmarines, even once you account for the different visual design between that era of Warhammer Fantasy sculpting and what Age of Sigmar has, is that the Slaaneshi aesthetic disallows oversized armor and weapons to visualize power.

Marines, outside of Blood Angels that have a renaissance aspect to their aesthetic, don't match this though process because they are in a sci-fi setting and their armor need to reflect the technological level of the setting. The various power armor marks explore this in different ways, but always with the idea in mind that they simply cannot be full knights in space. The sculpted Sigmarine armor is far better suited to a fantasy setting that emphasizes craft and art over technology. The aforementioned Blood Angels units are as close to that idea as 40k gets, few and far between compared to the rest of the vast Marine range, and there are efforts in their sculpts to still invoke the technology of the setting.

GW did noticeably not take any shortcuts with Sigmarines and inserted uncharacteristic technology into their appearance. No doubt consciously, they are far less advanced than the setting would allow for. The remnants of the Empire, along with Kharadron Overlords, certainly show the kind of technology they could incorporate if they wanted to, but GW restricted themselves to employing only (divine) magic to define Sigmarines. That's clearly seen in the simple, classic look of their armor, and for all the intent and aesthetic cues that exist it visually sets them apart from Marines.

 Argive wrote:
which released first out of interest? Custodes or AOS?

Its a little complicated.

The first "custodes" model was released in 1987, however it was not called a Custodes, but an Imperial Bodyguard. This concept would later on evolve into the Custodes we know today


Rogue Trader Era Imperial Bodyguard model, later referred to as Custodes in Mourning.

The Custodes we know today existed only in art until 2016 when they finally got their own models. Sigmarine- er, Stormcast Eternals, got their models in 2015.

Its likely that the Stormcast Eternals were inspired by Custodes artwork, and the custodes miniatures were released to capitalize on the popularity of the Eternals.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 Argive wrote:
which released first out of interest? Custodes or AOS?

Its a little complicated.

The first "custodes" model was released in 1987, however it was not called a Custodes, but an Imperial Bodyguard. This concept would later on evolve into the Custodes we know today



The Custodes we know today existed only in art until 2016 where they finally got their own models. Sigmarine- er, Stormcast Eternals, got their models in 2015.

Its likely that the Stormcast Eternals were inspired by Custodes artwork, and the custodes miniatures were released to capitalize on the popularity of the Eternals.

Cor'blimey, that is vintage!

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 Argive wrote:
which released first out of interest? Custodes or AOS?

Its a little complicated.

The first "custodes" model was released in 1987, however it was not called a Custodes, but an Imperial Bodyguard. This concept would later on evolve into the Custodes we know today


Rogue Trader Era Imperial Bodyguard model, later referred to as Custodes in Mourning.

The Custodes we know today existed only in art until 2016 when they finally got their own models. Sigmarine- er, Stormcast Eternals, got their models in 2015.

Its likely that the Stormcast Eternals were inspired by Custodes artwork, and the custodes miniatures were released to capitalize on the popularity of the Eternals.

Seems to me it's more likely they were made to go with 30k getting Custodes and Forgeworld were making Talons of the Emperor on their own for Inferno. GW doesn't seem to be top of the world at co-ordination.

I feel like GW is maybe missing out a bit by having so much focus on Stormcast. I get why the focus in 40k is on Space Marines, as they were the focus from the beginning (and I love space marines!)

But with AoS, they had a semi-clean slate to work with. Having, like, triple the unit choices of Stormcast vs something like the crazy cool looking Kharadron seems silly to me. Both of these armies didn't even exist before AoS 1st Edition.

My wife saw Seraphon models so wanted them to be her army. Great! Lots to choose from even if they're old.

I saw Kharadron with their crazy steampunk vibe and loved them, but, uh, they only had a few units. . . and they kinda suck and have an old battletome.

I also was curious to see how old "free peoples" would be adapted because I kinda like their look with witch hunters, warrior priests, steam tanks, etc.

Yeah, I just went with Stormcast for the sheer variety and I think GW has made it clear what army is going to get the most love. They seriously need to release like zero more Stormcast kits of any kind for at least a year and focus on everything else.

But there's like three unopened chambers still! Think of all the potential Stormcast!