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Just as a thought-experiment, which of the factions or units introduced in AoS could've feasibly have been introduced in Warhammer Fantasy - and if so, how much would need to be changed in their lore?

For example, I could totally see the Brutes, Goregruntas and Boss-on-Mawkrusha be in WFB, as sort of proto-Warbosses that didn't have the brains to figure out leadership. Mawkrushas and Goregruntas are also pretty much par for the course for creatures of the Badlands, honestly.

It's a shorter list to list the ones that would not fit in.

Sky dorfs because they are just so far out there.
New sea elves, if you made a big stretch maybe.
The flire slayers because slayers already exist and again would not make any sense.
Other then that everything could fit.

Dwarves of old had skyships - have a look at the Man O War range and some of the older original artwork. So the Kharadron could most certainly fit.

The real difference isn't really the theme of the armies, its the visual design which is in part less constrained because your basic troops don't have to stand rank and file with each other any more.
The other aspect is the visual designs being more glarish than they were in the past; though part of that you could also say is the steady advance of GW's casting technology and plastic working.

Take the dragons. The early ones were much smaller and very thin because they were cast in metal. Costs would go up for all to make bigger models whilst the weight would also be quite significant. So we got very thin, almost eastern style dragons with wings.

Fast forward and today they can make chunkier bodied dragons like the magmadroth. Same is likely true for things like the dwarf balloons; simply not economical in the past to produce for the scale.



So I'd say no faction newly introduced would have had trouble fitting in the past game. Troops would have some adjustments to poses to suit and chances are old fantasy would have retained a little more of a muted edge to some of the designs or a more rustic basic to say the machines.

 The Wise Dane wrote:

For example, I could totally see the Brutes, Goregruntas and Boss-on-Mawkrusha be in WFB, as sort of proto-Warbosses that didn't have the brains to figure out leadership. Mawkrushas and Goregruntas are also pretty much par for the course for creatures of the Badlands, honestly.

Pretty sure those units were already in WFB. They just didn't have dumb names. Mawkrusha was a Wyvern, Goregruntas were just boar cavalry, and the brutes were just nobs.

I would say most of the DoK models, except perhaps tranformed Morathi, as Dark Elvs already had harpies, which were believed to be reincarnated Witch Elves, and the Melusai would fit with the Bloodwrack Medusa, which wasn't too far out of the setting in 8th edition.

Same goes for Tree Revenants and Kurnoth Hunters, I would say.

Yeah, Ironjawz are just Orcs+ with warbosses as troops and more massive versions of older beasts to the point that elite Black Orcs are regular infantry.

 Overread wrote:
Dwarves of old had skyships - have a look at the Man O War range and some of the older original artwork. So the Kharadron could most certainly fit.

The real difference isn't really the theme of the armies, its the visual design which is in part less constrained because your basic troops don't have to stand rank and file with each other any more.
The other aspect is the visual designs being more glarish than they were in the past; though part of that you could also say is the steady advance of GW's casting technology and plastic working.

Take the dragons. The early ones were much smaller and very thin because they were cast in metal. Costs would go up for all to make bigger models whilst the weight would also be quite significant. So we got very thin, almost eastern style dragons with wings.

Fast forward and today they can make chunkier bodied dragons like the magmadroth. Same is likely true for things like the dwarf balloons; simply not economical in the past to produce for the scale.

So I'd say no faction newly introduced would have had trouble fitting in the past game. Troops would have some adjustments to poses to suit and chances are old fantasy would have retained a little more of a muted edge to some of the designs or a more rustic basic to say the machines.

Pretty much this. More subdued designs and some lore stretching and anything could've fit in the Old World. Especially in 7th editon when they were pushing over the top fantasy(and obviously when the AoS concepts started) that I love so much.

Just the Pride and Powderkegs blurb in the BRB shows it where the Empire was using exploding flying machines and clockwork angels to fight the dwarven silver zeppelins and gyrocopters.

In the Old World it was a big lore stretch that many players (especially low fantasy enthusiasts) didn't like and chalked up to a crazy engineer's delusions from warp stone exposure. In AoS that's an average Tuesday and why I love it so much!

It's fun to know that Stormcasts were planned for 8th too and see they were preparing for it by giving Karl Franz a brand new eccentricity of wanting to make a knight order of all 8 ft tall knights.

While I don't know much anything about the old world, I could be totally wrong, BUT I believe any of the armies in Age of Sigmar can be in the Old World. Just need a good story to do it.

It can't be rushed like how some 40K stories seem to be or come out of no where, but done properly any faction can be in the Old World.

Baron Klatz wrote:


It's fun to know that Stormcasts were planned for 8th too and see they were preparing for it by giving Karl Franz a brand new eccentricity of wanting to make a knight order of all 8 ft tall knights.

Huh, that's interesting. That would explain the concept art.
Not sure I like it that. To me, the appeal of the Empire was that it was normal humans fighting monsters. If they start fielding supermen then that would undermine the concept.

Klatz you raise a good point, fantasy much earlier on was a little bit more "low" than it is now.

Or at least no it wasn't because it still had huge fantasy races of orks and demons and beast men and dragons and elves. But it was much more Tolkien Traditional in what was presented. Plus several factions (humans and high elves) were very standard in what they had - rank and file spears, pikes, swords and bows. So the bulk of many armies could be very standard infantry.


Right now its fliped right over and a lot of it is very high fantasy; even the basic rank and file troops are turning out very fantasy inspired.
That said GW hasn't really fleshed out the humans yet (barring the stormcast who are not really - well - human) so there's still potential for them to throw in a more "standard" army. However the sculpts and poses will likely copy high fantasy choices and direction.


Thing is fantasy in general has marched on from those earlier days. Even something as low fantasy as Game of Thrones is a world away from those earlier low fantasy novels and stories.

Yeah, I touched on that in another conversation in rumors, everyone's trying to move away from standard Tolkien fantasy with very reasonable success. Old World was low to high fantasy that kept climbing the high fantasy ladder to make itself more unique and put in newer units and creatures like D&D/WoW did by the inevitable expansion into the magic side of fantasy.

AoS is heroic and epic fantasy inspired by the Greek and Norse mythos that inspired Tolkien. Lots of gods and titans (god-beasts) that shape the plots and setting while mortals are tested by great trials and forge mighty epics as they face the wrath of gods and monstrous off-spring.(the overlords throw an interesting twist by being mostly anti-god worship though. Their advancement is also at odds with the setting to make that foil for them stronger although it also serves as good shout-out that it was the Greek and Roman eras that saw great technological marvels that wouldn't be seen again until the 17-18th century "Victorian steampunk" days with things like the first steam-powered device and a clockwork calculating device far ahead of it's time. Nevermind gardens with mechanical birds that whistled and moved.)

As for humans, I wouldn't be surprised at some standard spear, gun and bow troops. Certainly have their mentions in the lore between city guards and tribesmen.

They'll likely be a big mix release between mundane troops and special troops with fantastical mounts and warmachines.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

Baron Klatz wrote:


It's fun to know that Stormcasts were planned for 8th too and see they were preparing for it by giving Karl Franz a brand new eccentricity of wanting to make a knight order of all 8 ft tall knights.

Huh, that's interesting. That would explain the concept art.
Not sure I like it that. To me, the appeal of the Empire was that it was normal humans fighting monsters. If they start fielding supermen then that would undermine the concept.

Meh, never hurt Bretonnia with it's Grail knights. Empire having it's own chaos knights/Grail knights by Sigmar wouldn't have changed much.

They likely never would have been in the mass numbers they are in AoS unless the new daemon armies were as numerous as they are now in which case they'd be needed to just balance the odds.

I guess it can work if its well written. I mean, in theory a stormcast would just be a warrior priest of sigmar hopped on ludicrous levels of faith.
To me, it runs the risk of moving the focus from normal humans fighting monsters, to monsters fighting monsters. The latter isn't as interesting as the formal, imo.
And this is from someone who collected lizardman as an army.

Frankly, they all could. Especially if you pulled something similar to the Gathering Storm in 40K.

Have the End Times proceeding as they did, but instead of the world blowing up, at the climax the Stormcast arrive. Sigmar has returned, and just like in AoS he's been building an army to take on Chaos. There's a gigantic fight, Archaon is driven back, but the world is shattered. Lustria is still a smoking ruin, the remaining Lizardmen are in space, the dwarf holds are over-run, the Empire and Bretonnia are in shambles.

Then, just like the Gathering Storm, you skip forwards about 100 years.

With the aid of the Stormcast, many of the Skaven hordes infesting the Dwarven holds have been thrown back. But some dwarves, chiefly younger ones, decided the holds were too vulnerable. They instead turned to the new technologies that enabled flight, and took to the skies. The Kharadron Overlords have been a common sight in the skies of the Old World ever since.

That's just an example, but you could easily justify all the rest. Morathi mutates as a result of the incursions of Chaos. The Iodneth were always down there, they were elves sent to guard the Vortex against attack, but with Chaos rising they have emerged to fight directly against its encroachment. The Fyreslayers emerge from the increased volcanic activity through the dwarf holds.

It could all be justified.

90% of the Fyreslayer collection could just be a Slayer army from the Old World, with a new monster woken from the depths by the world-shaking powers unleashed.

 Glane wrote:
Frankly, they all could. Especially if you pulled something similar to the Gathering Storm in 40K.

Have the End Times proceeding as they did, but instead of the world blowing up, at the climax the Stormcast arrive. Sigmar has returned, and just like in AoS he's been building an army to take on Chaos. There's a gigantic fight, Archaon is driven back, but the world is shattered. Lustria is still a smoking ruin, the remaining Lizardmen are in space, the dwarf holds are over-run, the Empire and Bretonnia are in shambles.

Then, just like the Gathering Storm, you skip forwards about 100 years.

With the aid of the Stormcast, many of the Skaven hordes infesting the Dwarven holds have been thrown back. But some dwarves, chiefly younger ones, decided the holds were too vulnerable. They instead turned to the new technologies that enabled flight, and took to the skies. The Kharadron Overlords have been a common sight in the skies of the Old World ever since.

That's just an example, but you could easily justify all the rest. Morathi mutates as a result of the incursions of Chaos. The Iodneth were always down there, they were elves sent to guard the Vortex against attack, but with Chaos rising they have emerged to fight directly against its encroachment. The Fyreslayers emerge from the increased volcanic activity through the dwarf holds.

It could all be justified.

Yes! This is how it should have gone. They didn't need to destroy everything. Such a decision was unnecessary and just brewed bad blood with the existing fanbase.
Not to mention that had WHFB still existed, they could have capitalized on WH:TW.

Haha, this is just the tip of the iceberg though, there's already been talk of the "real" crazy stuff yet to come and AoS has already dropped lore hints of new races native to the mortal realms.(there's one ancient race that constructed a lost weapon with enough power to decimate a realm for instance)

These releases are likely a transition phrase probably even influenced by TWW. They're new and exotic but not so much as to alienate the larger fanbase. They're still orcs, elves and dwarfs. With how the planned out productions go to 2021 and TWW's license ends in 2022 there's likely a correlation.

Once they get past all they can do for the original races they're gonna start moving on to other things. The God-beasts alone should provide a lot of opportunities as they were primordial gods of the realms.(though I hope they work on Duardin Rootkings first, dwarfs that live in mountain-sized trees and use the metal-hard bark as weapons and armor would be awesome to see. )

Also, shattering the Old World's landscape, renaming and trademarking everything as well as putting in such huge high fantasy creations would've still split the fanbase and had TWW fans scratching their heads at what happened to the Old World which is now the Aold Wyrld. It also wouldn't have saved TK or Bretonnia and still put them in lore only reference territory.

Better they started a new massive setting where they give all the races room to grow and flourish into thriving races on new fantastical lands with endless horizons than crammed together on a even more split up and ruined world with everything from the past changed or destroyed.

TW Warhammer is already setting itself up for world ending in its own storyline. I fully expect the 3rd game to be a breach of chaos and have the world go nuts and if not actually end at least set the stage for the ending in the intro cinematic for TW SIGMAR. At this stage a Sigmar from the TW team is almost a certain release.

It's a profitable release for TW in its own right and there's pretty much no fantasy RTS competition at all so every reason to continue. Merging into Sigmar would be the right choice and even with all the new factions GW has added; pretty much all the old units are still viable so all the work the TW team has put into TW Warhammer can be carried over.


Of course the other option is that the TW team could keep Warhammer, being the last bastion of that franchise in the market, though it wouldn't make sense for GW to want that to continue. They'd far rather have it advance to Sigmar and that carry into more popularity for their new lore. Heck a TW Sigmar could well introduce the setting well enough that it could bring back even more old fantasy players who've not kept up.


Heck as it stands when GW come to pay attention to the norsca faction remaining in Sigmar I wouldn't be shocked if they lift some of the unique units CA made for them in TW Warhammer and bring them into model form.

Haha, here's hoping that's the outcome.

The mix of easy to transfer model assets is a big boon and by the time they get to the game (2023-2025) GW will have pumped out at least 20 new factions (going by their 4 a year average) for it as well.

On the otherhand I wouldn't be surprised if, now that they've got their fantasy gameplay down, CA moved onto the cash cow thst is LotR and did AoS later in the future.

Also how much of the Norsca faction is new? Isn't it just some of the infantry?

I think it is some of the infantry and an ice dragon but I can't recall as I've not played them in ages nor compared them much to the tabletop.

That said LotR is possibly a harder contract to land for CA since the franchise itself is much more powerful. It will likely come with more restrictions and that's not just on what can be done; but also on the duration. Many film-tie-ins have very limited market durations and when those licences expire the company has to drop sales. Warhammer TW is likely vastly safer for CA to invest in; plus with no new Lord of the Rings film on the horizon the pressure there is a little less.

Now they might go chasing Game of Thrones (which should be easy for them as its even less magical heavy than warhammer) or they could even chase Malazan (although whilst Malazan is big in reading its not as big outside at least not like Game of Thrones).

I agree with Glane, I think it could all fit.

I would prefer that CA make a Total War: Legend of the five rings before a TW: Game of Thrones.

I always thought Ironjawz could fit pretty well. You basically have Orcs so beefed up thanks to their wars up in Cathay and the Ogre Kingdoms, they became even bigger and stronger than Black Orcs. You could even say that Maw Krushas and Goar Gruntaz are beasts from the Mountains of Mourn. Plenty of beefed up animals in those parts.

Fyreslayers fit the concept of "dwarfs of Karak Zorn" in my opinion. Bare naked dwarfs with a heavy fire theme and golden designs. Their mounts could even be Reptilian beasts from the Southland Jungles.

Also, @Overread. I don't expect Game of Thrones to fit very wel with the TW fomula (though people have made som good arguments to suggesting I'm wrong in this). I always expected that at some point in the future, Bethesda and Sega would colaborate on making a game set in the Elder Scrolls Universe. (though this might be more wishful thinking and won't happen in a hundred years).

TW's diplomacy system is nowhere near capable of representing Game of Thrones.

 EnTyme wrote:
TW's diplomacy system is nowhere near capable of representing Game of Thrones.

I think it depends on how you see GoT. I don't see why not.

Total War: Warhammer's diplomacy is ridiculously simple, though. It can't really seem to handle much more than "Are we at war? Y/N". It's really the only knock I have on the games.

All you need for GoT. Are you at war and then inevitably betraying them.

GoT's politics is a complicated network of alliances, treaties, and succession laws. It can definitely be done in a game, but I don't think the Total War team would be the ones to handle it. I think Paradox may be able to handle it. Crusader Kings 2 has a really good GoT mod that works really well. Also, we are really far off topic here. May be best to start a thread on this in the Video Games forum if you want to discuss it further.

CA would handle the battles

Paradox the Diplomacy and inbreeding

Now that sounds like a press release that'd get some clicks!

 Segersgia wrote:
I always thought Ironjawz could fit pretty well. You basically have Orcs so beefed up thanks to their wars up in Cathay and the Ogre Kingdoms, they became even bigger and stronger than Black Orcs. You could even say that Maw Krushas and Goar Gruntaz are beasts from the Mountains of Mourn. Plenty of beefed up animals in those parts.

Fyreslayers fit the concept of "dwarfs of Karak Zorn" in my opinion. Bare naked dwarfs with a heavy fire theme and golden designs. Their mounts could even be Reptilian beasts from the Southland Jungles.

Also, @Overread. I don't expect Game of Thrones to fit very wel with the TW fomula (though people have made som good arguments to suggesting I'm wrong in this). I always expected that at some point in the future, Bethesda and Sega would colaborate on making a game set in the Elder Scrolls Universe. (though this might be more wishful thinking and won't happen in a hundred years).

Well, Ironjaws Brutes are basically the fantasy version of Nobz, so not a huge stretch.