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So I was on board until I saw those horrendous giants and the guys with Mario mallets. What the heck happened to this army in the design phase? The Infantry and Calvary were totally on point, and the mage needed a quick head swap and leg swap to be just fine and playable.

Then out of nowhere comes these Cow Giants that do not look like they even belong in the same game, let alone the same faction as the elves.

Yeah. Not for me either. Lucky really. Last thing I need is a new faction.

I mean, after fish elves, beastmen elves aren't much sillier...

 Togusa wrote:
Then out of nowhere comes these Cow Giants that do not look like they even belong in the same game, let alone the same faction as the elves.

I actually think it was a good idea. High Elves always had a greek thing going for them. Why not give the new High Elves a little Minoen style, mixing classical greek elements, but adding some bull imagery and elements, but keeping the bull as some sort of wise and powerful creature instead of a dumb brute.

epronovost wrote:

 Togusa wrote:
Then out of nowhere comes these Cow Giants that do not look like they even belong in the same game, let alone the same faction as the elves.

I actually think it was a good idea. High Elves always had a greek thing going for them. Why not give the new High Elves a little Minoen style, mixing classical greek elements, but adding some bull imagery and elements, but keeping the bull as some sort of wise and powerful creature instead of a dumb brute.

Speaking as someone who deals with cattle every day... bulls are dumb brutes.
Don't put anything that will crap in its food and water up on a pedestal.

Voss wrote:

epronovost wrote:

 Togusa wrote:
Then out of nowhere comes these Cow Giants that do not look like they even belong in the same game, let alone the same faction as the elves.

I actually think it was a good idea. High Elves always had a greek thing going for them. Why not give the new High Elves a little Minoen style, mixing classical greek elements, but adding some bull imagery and elements, but keeping the bull as some sort of wise and powerful creature instead of a dumb brute.

Speaking as someone who deals with cattle every day... bulls are dumb brutes.
Don't put anything that will crap in its food and water up on a pedestal.

Removed

The Minoen civilisation used to rever the bull for its strength, power and as a symbol of fertility and prosperity. Yes, the actual animal is indeed distasteful, but pretty much all animals are to certain point. My point was that it was a good idea to integrate bull design to a greek inspired force since the Minoen and the Greeks had much contacts and the former had a lot of cultural impact one the later.

I think the giant-elemental things look good; the oversized horns & hammer aesthetic works for them, the rocks on the back seem very well sculpted, and the armor looks as good as it does on everything else in the faction. It is the associated infantry that missed the mark for me.

I'd like to know what were they thinking too.

I don't mind the hammers, however I wish they'd go for maces or simply a different design of the hammers. The scale of the bull iconography on top of the helmets is an overshot element. Personally would prefer to see the bull as a style on the chest plate and the helmets being more uniformed across the kits.

I don't like the bull but I suspect a broader audience will love it.

The rest of the kits look decent enough, they're AoS fantasy design. I hope there are two or three more kits that haven't been shown.

The bull giant isn't bad. What's fething horrid though is the hammer elves. Mainly the ridiculous helmets.

Man, I hope you guys never saw these if you hate "ridiculous helmets":
-Silver Helms
-Black Guard
-Phoenix Guard
-Dark Elf Warriors
-High Elf Spearmen
-Dragon Princes of Caledor
-High Elf Mages

Warhammer's Twitch stream is still free. Phil Kelly explained this stuff in Online Preview #1. This is a link to the preview, to when the reveal was.

We have "four Elementari Temples" which are shrines for Lumineth attempting to restore Hysh after they royally screwed things up.

 Kanluwen wrote:
Man, I hope you guys never saw these if you hate "ridiculous helmets":
-Silver Helms
-Black Guard
-Phoenix Guard
-Dark Elf Warriors
-High Elf Spearmen
-Dragon Princes of Caledor
-High Elf Mages

None of those helms even come close to the ridiculous looking helm this guy is wearing!
I just hope that when the models released that the bull head & horns are a separate piece that must be added to the helm. Or that someone quickly releases a 3d print file for a head/helm without that "feature".....

Suuuuuuuuure they didn't.

I agree with the op, the original teasers looked great, these though just don't work for me.
And I'll agree with another poster, it'll stop me buying another army.

I just want to point out chairs.

Take a look at the chairs on almost any GW dragons - the old ones were huge high backed armchairs strapped to the back of a lithe serpent dragon. Even the Fyreslayers persist in having very abnormally tall almost thrones on the back of their dragons.


If those dragons can fly with a huge chair-sail then I'm sure elves can fight with a few horns on their heads.





As for cows being dumb, lets not forget a lot of captive bred species are not exactly selected for their wild spirited intelligence generation after generation. If anything the more docile, less inspired ones are more likely to get selected for breeding because they are easier to handle.

While I'm not a huge fan of the big cow, that's mostly because it's just a type of unit I'm not big on. I'd rather an elf be riding on something.
Over all I dig the bull imagery.

The other thing is that I don't like the hammer design. Particularly the single-handed ones. The head is too big and they just seem clumsy for both the big guy and the hammer elves. The two-handed ones are fine, though.

The helmets are certainly...bold...but fine.

They are not wowing me as the Idoneth did....

The spear and cavalry is nice - but I have quite a few elves already
The giant bull spirit is quite cool - tempted
The Sphinx is nice - tempted

Don't like the Croquet Mallet Elves or the Bull helms myself so will pass on those.

 Overread wrote:
I just want to point out chairs.

Take a look at the chairs on almost any GW dragons - the old ones were huge high backed armchairs strapped to the back of a lithe serpent dragon. Even the Fyreslayers persist in having very abnormally tall almost thrones on the back of their dragons.


If those dragons can fly with a huge chair-sail then I'm sure elves can fight with a few horns on their heads.

only war saddles had such back supports, and those were just for horses. Without them hiting any hard target would come with a huge risk that the rider would be left imbeded in to the target, with the dragon flying away.

Ah and wood bisons that live in the wilds are dumb too. Same with bufflos etc.

Not a big fan of the Hammer elves helmets. One of the art pieces showed them with much smaller curves and what not, and I thought it looked way better.

That's ok, not every faction is for me. I'm still looking forward to Malerion Elves.

 Kanluwen wrote:
Man, I hope you guys never saw these if you hate "ridiculous helmets":
-Silver Helms
-Black Guard
-Phoenix Guard
-Dark Elf Warriors
-High Elf Spearmen
-Dragon Princes of Caledor
-High Elf Mages

I did see those, and had a problem with those helmets back then too. Phoenix guard must have iron neck muscles to keep their heads up during a stiff breeze.

Ithilmar, yo! Stronger than steel but light as silk.

Something I want to press home:
We're seeing two distinctive 'styles' so far.

The Elementari Temples are where we saw those massive helmets with the bull's heads. The mages we've seen are tied to the Elementari Temples. Apparently the Elementari Temples take cues for weapons and armor from their elements or things that are part of their chosen element. The bulls are something that dwell on the mountains, so the Lumineth devoted to the 'mountain' aspect have taken to displaying it.

The other style are just the 'militias', from what we've got so far information wise. Those are the Auralan Wardens(spearmen) and Sentinels(bowmen) and the Vanari Dawnriders(cavalry).

I'm a fan of everything they've shown so far, except for Teclis' weird pants and his headwrap/shawl thing and his weird facial expression. I feel like the concept art for Teclis with the crown/helmet thing and serene expression was perfect, but was VERY poorly translated in to model format because it wasn't used at all. Oh, and the weird looking Y pose he's in. I like every model shown so far except for Teclis himself.

Honestly I'm planning on thinking about swapping the hammer elves heads for some kind of more Roman helmet, I absolutely love the giant mountain spirits.

For some reason, I feel like they fit the theme of Aelven units, and this could be my opinion but they're not actually cows. They are mountain spirits with giant Feth off hammers. The fact that they seem to be more enlightened Minotaurs helps hammer home the Greek themes I'm enjoying so far. I dunno, I may be an Elf shill.

 Overread wrote:
I just want to point out chairs.

Take a look at the chairs on almost any GW dragons - the old ones were huge high backed armchairs strapped to the back of a lithe serpent dragon. Even the Fyreslayers persist in having very abnormally tall almost thrones on the back of their dragons.


If those dragons can fly with a huge chair-sail then I'm sure elves can fight with a few horns on their head.

I don't give a crap what the fiction is. I DO care about what the models will look like. I'm neutral on the hammers, but those helmets aren't inspiring me to open my wallet.

 Thadin wrote:
I'm a fan of everything they've shown so far, except for Teclis' weird pants and his headwrap/shawl thing and his weird facial expression. I feel like the concept art for Teclis with the crown/helmet thing and serene expression was perfect, but was VERY poorly translated in to model format because it wasn't used at all. Oh, and the weird looking Y pose he's in. I like every model shown so far except for Teclis himself.

I am pretty much in the same place. Teclis' baggy pants don't quite work for me. It isn't a deal breaker, just a bit off. I am actually considering starting up an army of Lumineth. I like the more traditional infantry (the spear-men), archers and cavalry for a more standard army (much like Chaos Warriors and Knights) combined with the more fantastical elements of the latest reveals to give the faction some zazz. It has been the latest reveals that have me more invested as I like the mountain and hammer theme in a faction that had otherwise hadn't really grabbed my attention.

I am just not 100% sure about a painting scheme as I kinda want to go with an Alpha Legion metallic blue-green with bronze trim to give them my vision of an Atlantean look to them. I think swarthy skin tone would also look good on the models. Really the only thing holding me up is the fact that I am already so far behind on my painting that I really don't want to add to the pile of shame. If I can ignore that, I wouldn't mind having a second army to allow friends of mine to play AoS but can't afford to start a 'big' army game (read: not skirmish). Plus, I kinda want to support my FLGS when current events blow over.

 Saturmorn Carvilli wrote:

 Thadin wrote:
I'm a fan of everything they've shown so far, except for Teclis' weird pants and his headwrap/shawl thing and his weird facial expression. I feel like the concept art for Teclis with the crown/helmet thing and serene expression was perfect, but was VERY poorly translated in to model format because it wasn't used at all. Oh, and the weird looking Y pose he's in. I like every model shown so far except for Teclis himself.

I am pretty much in the same place. Teclis' baggy pants don't quite work for me. It isn't a deal breaker, just a bit off. I am actually considering starting up an army of Lumineth. I like the more traditional infantry (the spear-men), archers and cavalry for a more standard army (much like Chaos Warriors and Knights) combined with the more fantastical elements of the latest reveals to give the faction some zazz. It has been the latest reveals that have me more invested as I like the mountain and hammer theme in a faction that had otherwise hadn't really grabbed my attention.

I am just not 100% sure about a painting scheme as I kinda want to go with an Alpha Legion metallic blue-green with bronze trim to give them my vision of an Atlantean look to them. I think swarthy skin tone would also look good on the models. Really the only thing holding me up is the fact that I am already so far behind on my painting that I really don't want to add to the pile of shame. If I can ignore that, I wouldn't mind having a second army to allow friends of mine to play AoS but can't afford to start a 'big' army game (read: not skirmish). Plus, I kinda want to support my FLGS when current events blow over.

I'm in a good spot to start a new army, so that's nice for me. I've got no idea how I want to paint them. I've been practicing the white armor, gold trim with blue and tan cloth on older Elf models (Sisters of Averlorn) but I'm feeling kinda uninspired. Might go for a nice bright blue or purple armor. I bet purple armor and gold trim would look hella regal and pompous, as Elves should be.

Sounds like you might want the army pack then Carvilli.

Purple/gold is a classic.



I've started with blue but lately I've been thinking on turquoise, especially with the bases that I do.

Karol wrote:

Ah and wood bisons that live in the wilds are dumb too. Same with bufflos etc.

They're as smart as they need to be. No dumber than humans, which happily crapped in and drank the same water for 10,000 years before they figured out poopwater isn't that good for them.

Anyway, I like the spear armed units (even if the spears are so long they will snag and make transport a significant emotional event), I kind of grew to like the mountain cow, but I don't like the teclis sphinx and I hate the horned hats on the hammerers. Not the theme, just how amazingly huge the cowhead is.

Also not a fan of the Cow Elves, mountain cow, nor the wizards but really like the spears and cavalry. That empty armour is a thing of beauty however and will be picking that up regardless, might have to get the starter set they announced if it seems like the army is playable with just those limited options (never played AOS before so have no idea).

 ingtaer wrote:
Also not a fan of the Cow Elves, mountain cow, nor the wizards but really like the spears and cavalry. That empty armour is a thing of beauty however and will be picking that up regardless, might have to get the starter set they announced if it seems like the army is playable with just those limited options (never played AOS before so have no idea).

Army building wise the only mandates are that you take leader and battleline minimum requirements for the point value of the game.

The bull aelves are unlikely to be battleline, whilst I'd imagine that the spears and cavalry and perhaps the archers will be battleline. So long as you take those minimums you can then build your army from whatever else you want up to the maximums (eg at 2K the max for leaders is 6); with no limits on troops, which form the bulk of the models in most armies. War engines and monstrous creatures are both limited (4 of each at 2K) so right now there'd only be 1 model that would fit into that (the huge bull avatar).

Now leaving out the elite infantry and avatar might leave you a little weaker or might leave you "not broken"; however you shouldn't have trouble with a solid core. Plus there's every chance GW might introduce other powerful options. Heck right now with Ossiarchs a whole army of deathriders (basic cavalry) can do pretty darn well.