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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.