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Ok, sorry if this question has been asked but i am interested and do want the answer. I am a big WH40k Black Library fan. Recently I have been reading some old WHFB books and i enjoy the juvenile nature to them. My question is what is the difference between the AOS and WHFB? And if i do want to get into the AOS Black Library... where should I start?What books?

The biggest difference is the scope. In Warhammer Fantasy books the saving of a city could be the central plot point and still be satisfactory when it ended. The reason this worked is because unlike the AoS realms the Old World was finite the say, the loss of Averheim would actually be a thing of importance. On the other hand AoS novels are set in the endless vistas of the 8 realms, where they have grander goals such as awakening a goddess or recruiting titian sized monsters to their side. The adverse effect being that since there is so little build up of the culture or the lives of the common people some people find it hard to empathise with the Stormcast Eternals.

Starting AoS you should look at following the realmgate wars series of novels, I believe War Storm was the first.

*disclaimer, opinion* I think it's rather telling that the characters I like best in the series are the Death characters, Manfred, Neferata and any interactions with Nagash. Because either this way or that they still have the same goals as WHFB and largely the same personalities.

 ALEXisAWESOME wrote:
The biggest difference is the scope. In Warhammer Fantasy books the saving of a city could be the central plot point and still be satisfactory when it ended. The reason this worked is because unlike the AoS realms the Old World was finite the say, the loss of Averheim would actually be a thing of importance. On the other hand AoS novels are set in the endless vistas of the 8 realms, where they have grander goals such as awakening a goddess or recruiting titian sized monsters to their side. The adverse effect being that since there is so little build up of the culture or the lives of the common people some people find it hard to empathise with the Stormcast Eternals.

Starting AoS you should look at following the realmgate wars series of novels, I believe War Storm was the first.

*disclaimer, opinion* I think it's rather telling that the characters I like best in the series are the Death characters, Manfred, Neferata and any interactions with Nagash. Because either this way or that they still have the same goals as WHFB and largely the same personalities.

Yeah it was the Death book series that got me to actually care about stormcast. I do feel as someone who has read all of them that you can easily just read warstorm and then pick up the books in what ever order you find interest in. Since warstorm just set's up the current situation in the realms etc and what the stormcast are doing. You are correct though CL Werner pretty much said the same thing the story is more "grand" so to speak. Normal people do appear in some of the realm gate books but I think we will see more of them when the season of war books/campaign books come out.

If I have to recommend books? Warbeast, Bladstorm(Has an epic sigmarite tribal priestess in it made me start a devoted of sigmar army), Fury of Gork, Call of Archaon, Audio Drama series/Mortarch of night(I recommend this as well takes place before lord of Undeath) and Lord of Undeath(Best realm gate book IMO and the last). The other's are okay but eeeeh.

I do also have to say the sliver tower novel is also a good small read it's quite depressing in the good warhammer way.

I'd add that the fluff is still being developed year 1(well, ok, the start of 2 now) vs. a well-developed world so that plays in as well. I'm a huge WHFB fan who has been enjoying playing AoS but the fluff is taking time setting in. Some is great, some a yawn, for me. The campaign RGW books actually worth a read. Especially second half of Godbeasts and AllGates.

I did not like the AoS fluff initially but have come to enjoy it as it has been expanded upon. Certainly the initial fluff was pretty shallow but I was willing to give it a pass as being very new. Now I still like WHFB's fluff better than current AoS fluff, but as VeteranNoob stated the former has 30 years of development vs the latter.

It's a little out of date, but this is a start...

 ALEXisAWESOME wrote:
The biggest difference is the scope. In Warhammer Fantasy books the saving of a city could be the central plot point and still be satisfactory when it ended. The reason this worked is because unlike the AoS realms the Old World was finite the say, the loss of Averheim would actually be a thing of importance. On the other hand AoS novels are set in the endless vistas of the 8 realms, where they have grander goals such as awakening a goddess or recruiting titian sized monsters to their side. The adverse effect being that since there is so little build up of the culture or the lives of the common people some people find it hard to empathise with the Stormcast Eternals.

Starting AoS you should look at following the realmgate wars series of novels, I believe War Storm was the first.

*disclaimer, opinion* I think it's rather telling that the characters I like best in the series are the Death characters, Manfred, Neferata and any interactions with Nagash. Because either this way or that they still have the same goals as WHFB and largely the same personalities.

I think this was the biggest problem with the old books. Since the world was quite small, the city was always saved, gotrek always lived, thanquol was always defeated etc. The loss of averheim was of such importance that it could never happen in a black library book. This robbed many of the books of a lot of their dramatic weight. In AOS you can put a city's fate in the balance and have the outcome be a genuine surprise.

What AOS lacks is the small scale stuff, where an encounter with a few beastmen or a single chaos knight feels significant. There is no reason why AOS should not be able to do this sort of thing but I think the editorial mandate is for more scale.

I think the best AOS books are the ones not tied directly to the campaign books. Warbeast, fury of Gork and the audio dramas being the best examples of this.

Chikout wrote:

 ALEXisAWESOME wrote:
The biggest difference is the scope. In Warhammer Fantasy books the saving of a city could be the central plot point and still be satisfactory when it ended. The reason this worked is because unlike the AoS realms the Old World was finite the say, the loss of Averheim would actually be a thing of importance. On the other hand AoS novels are set in the endless vistas of the 8 realms, where they have grander goals such as awakening a goddess or recruiting titian sized monsters to their side. The adverse effect being that since there is so little build up of the culture or the lives of the common people some people find it hard to empathise with the Stormcast Eternals.

Starting AoS you should look at following the realmgate wars series of novels, I believe War Storm was the first.

*disclaimer, opinion* I think it's rather telling that the characters I like best in the series are the Death characters, Manfred, Neferata and any interactions with Nagash. Because either this way or that they still have the same goals as WHFB and largely the same personalities.

I think this was the biggest problem with the old books. Since the world was quite small, the city was always saved, gotrek always lived, thanquol was always defeated etc. The loss of averheim was of such importance that it could never happen in a black library book. This robbed many of the books of a lot of their dramatic weight. In AOS you can put a city's fate in the balance and have the outcome be a genuine surprise.

What AOS lacks is the small scale stuff, where an encounter with a few beastmen or a single chaos knight feels significant. There is no reason why AOS should not be able to do this sort of thing but I think the editorial mandate is for more scale.

I think the best AOS books are the ones not tied directly to the campaign books. Warbeast, fury of Gork and the audio dramas being the best examples of this.

I am going to have to agree here in my opinion I had this same problem with whfb as well. The dark elves could never make any gains on the high elves no matter what, same with the vampire counts they could never take any cities or grow their lands because such things could never happen in a BL book.