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Have you read any of the more modern lore? The new Novella stories are fantastic reads.

 Overread wrote:
Have you read any of the more modern lore? The new Novella stories are fantastic reads.

I nerd out hard on the battletomes and Josh Reynolds books

I have not read any of that stuff. I will give it a go on my kindle if I can pick the books up. Any recommendation?

The reason why I’m not playing AoS right this very moment is because I was tabled in 1 turn by a Death Monster Mash. And Round 2 doesn’t start until 1.

 Da Boss wrote:
I have not read any of that stuff. I will give it a go on my kindle if I can pick the books up. Any recommendation?

All the BL stuff is on Amazon kindle with the exception of some short stories (though the way AOS releases its easier to get msot of them in collected books anyway)

I'd recommend
Legends of the Age of Sigmar: Omnibus 1 - it contains Fyrslayers, Sylvannath and Pestilens. Fyrslayers stuff sort of didn't grab me (the opening did but the story in one is just a long list of battle events iwthout much character stuff going on). Sylvannath really needs you to have read a few of the earlier Realmgate novels to get (Realmgate Wars Vol 1 would catch you up where you'd need to be). However Pestilens is the real gem of the book in a big way - its a whole novel (and they do sell it on its own but at the same price as the omnibus so might as well get more stories). Pestilens is in all ways a really epic read and great fun!

After that check out the Novellas:
Warqueen, Heart Of Winter and if you've read up a lot on Gotrek then The Bone Desert (personally I'm still going through Demonslayer and plan on going through all their adventures before getting into the AoS Gotrek stuff). The Red Hours is also good but isn't the best of the novellas (the story is good and the plot really neat but the pacing feels off and like the author really wanted double the page count to flesh it out).

Then there's Inferno 1 and 2 which contain short stories from everything GW currently makes (40K, Horus, AoS, Necromunda and some Bloodbowl).

That's mostly what I've read and recommend so far. Realmgate novels are good to read as a start to the setting, but they can get a little heavy on the war and a bit too light on characters. That said they do establish a fair bit of world building and set the stage for the invasion of Stormcast as they hit back against a chaos ravaged wordl

 MonkeyBallistic wrote:
I because any tension or tragedy in their deaths is instantly dispelled by the lore in which they just keep coming back to life..

But that's not true. Never was. Stormcasts can die permanently, either through exotic means or because they cannot make it out of reforging. These two elements have been outright stated (though the latter was not emphasized enough, I suppose) since the very beginning. And that's without taking into account that reforging is a horrible process.

There's tension in a stormcast getting killed because he either a) Dies (and it's not a nice death, going by Soul Wars and the malign portents shorts) or B) has an awfully high chance of having a fate worse than death (the price of apotheosis from malign portents is a good example).

Lord Kragan wrote:

 MonkeyBallistic wrote:
I because any tension or tragedy in their deaths is instantly dispelled by the lore in which they just keep coming back to life..

But that's not true. Never was. Stormcasts can die permanently, either through exotic means or because they cannot make it out of reforging. These two elements have been outright stated (though the latter was not emphasized enough, I suppose) since the very beginning. And that's without taking into account that reforging is a horrible process.

There's tension in a stormcast getting killed because he either a) Dies (and it's not a nice death, going by Soul Wars and the malign portents shorts) or B) has an awfully high chance of having a fate worse than death (the price of apotheosis from malign portents is a good example).

So, are you saying that only most of them come back to life? Okay. I feel like my statement was like, 5% wrong

 MonkeyBallistic wrote:

Lord Kragan wrote:

 MonkeyBallistic wrote:
I because any tension or tragedy in their deaths is instantly dispelled by the lore in which they just keep coming back to life..

But that's not true. Never was. Stormcasts can die permanently, either through exotic means or because they cannot make it out of reforging. These two elements have been outright stated (though the latter was not emphasized enough, I suppose) since the very beginning. And that's without taking into account that reforging is a horrible process.

There's tension in a stormcast getting killed because he either a) Dies (and it's not a nice death, going by Soul Wars and the malign portents shorts) or B) has an awfully high chance of having a fate worse than death (the price of apotheosis from malign portents is a good example).

So, are you saying that only most of them come back to life? Okay. I feel like my statement was like, 5% wrong

I think it's a matter of optics.

Coming back losing part of yourself is about as bad as outright dying, and quite easily worse. You exist, but the things that made you yourself are not there anymore, and you don't see those you cared about, despite those awfully familiar (or not, depending on how bad it is) faces growing more desolate, day after day. I guess you feel tension if you know the feeling in question, but I really do not wish anyone to have familiars with neurodegenerative diesases. I at least find that much worse, the pain doesn't end there, it continues to fester and those around the "reforged"/affected are unable to do anything but watch how the husk of their beloved one continues the downward spiral.

Saying, "eh, but they come back to life" in this circumstances strikes me as beyond callous.

It does require the losing part to be well written tough. Too often in fantasy when employing the trope "they come back at a terrible cost" the terrible cost bit gets forgotten/ diminished.

It's pretty well established at this point that while Stormcast don't fear death a great many of them do fear reforging.

Honestly I expect that at some point some god is going to throw a big spanner in Sigmar's works. As it stands even without reforging the Stormcast are a legion that will ever grow greater in number. Nagash certainly wants to break that soul harvesting trick and we don't know what Slaanesh might do if he ever escapes prison - a hungry god might well sup upon lightning saved souls to fill his empty belly.

It opens the door for the traditional GW tropes of chaos marines.

Chaos tainted sigmarines (straight up copy/paste chaos marines)
Death tainted sigmarines (the deathcast which are already a thing in the narrative)
Destruction tainted sigmarines

Which gives you a super hero enemy army.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
It's pretty well established at this point that while Stormcast don't fear death a great many of them do fear reforging.

Still doesn't make them worthy of much in the way of sympathy.

They're pretty much single-use items. They don't have families, only have the vaguest recollection of human feelings, etc.

So what if reforging pushes them even further into robot-ness? It's what they are.

Beric Dondarrion sure is an interesting character in isolation but a whole army of them? Not so much.

jouso wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
It's pretty well established at this point that while Stormcast don't fear death a great many of them do fear reforging.

Still doesn't make them worthy of much in the way of sympathy.

They're pretty much single-use items. They don't have families, only have the vaguest recollection of human feelings, etc.

So what if reforging pushes them even further into robot-ness? It's what they are.

Beric Dondarrion sure is an interesting character in isolation but a whole army of them? Not so much.

That's the point actually, the narrative has been intentionally written where the superhero good guys are less and less empathetic. I think it's an interesting line and am interested in how they follow it.


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 Overread wrote:
Honestly I expect that at some point some god is going to throw a big spanner in Sigmar's works. As it stands even without reforging the Stormcast are a legion that will ever grow greater in number. Nagash certainly wants to break that soul harvesting trick and we don't know what Slaanesh might do if he ever escapes prison - a hungry god might well sup upon lightning saved souls to fill his empty belly.

While never explicitly stated the Stormcast books imply that they are degrading over time as new Stormcast do not keep up with the rate of reforging flaws combined with permadeath. Something worth noting is that some stormcast die and go back but don't make it out of reforging again; just being killed enough times by mundane means can still perma-kill a stormcast.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

jouso wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
It's pretty well established at this point that while Stormcast don't fear death a great many of them do fear reforging.

Still doesn't make them worthy of much in the way of sympathy.

They're pretty much single-use items. They don't have families, only have the vaguest recollection of human feelings, etc.

So what if reforging pushes them even further into robot-ness? It's what they are.

Beric Dondarrion sure is an interesting character in isolation but a whole army of them? Not so much.

That's the point actually, the narrative has been intentionally written where the superhero good guys are less and less empathetic. I think it's an interesting line and am interested in how they follow it.

I'm not implying it's not a deliberate choice. I just find it, well, an odd path to take. And not in a good way.

I can respect that. It is not a plot device that will appeal to everyone, nothing wrong with that in either side.

To be fair, GW hasn't done themselves many favors in dispelling the "Stormcast have infinite respawns" claim. The Role Models comic has had a couple respawn jokes. It's still not a part of the lore, though. Sometimes GW embraces the memes a little too much.

I have a feeling we're going to be getting treated to what happens when they respawn too much with a new faction added to one of the primary other three (death, destruction, or chaos)

 EnTyme wrote:
To be fair, GW hasn't done themselves many favors in dispelling the "Stormcast have infinite respawns" claim. The Role Models comic has had a couple respawn jokes. It's still not a part of the lore, though. Sometimes GW embraces the memes a little too much.

Roll Models is a very casual and light comic that's half commentary on gamers perceptions and half lore authentic whilst not taking itself too seriously. So I wouldn't read too far into it.

 EnTyme wrote:
To be fair, GW hasn't done themselves many favors in dispelling the "Stormcast have infinite respawns" claim. The Role Models comic has had a couple respawn jokes. It's still not a part of the lore, though. Sometimes GW embraces the memes a little too much.

They have gone extensively into the infinite respawn thing, it's flaws, and how it has limits. Mentioned in the core book and detailed in the battletome.

I know, I'm just saying that the comic doesn't exactly help the perception of Stormcast when the characters just (literally) laugh off their reforging once per season. For those who haven't read the Stormcast tomes (or their section in the core book) but read the comic, the meme looks more accurate than the lore.

I think Stormcast would have been a lot cooler as "daemons" of Order. I can see why they did not do that, because people like their super heroic "good guys" to be relatable, but I think the game is more boring for having them the way they are.

I do like that they are of both genders though, that is cool.

I am thinking of getting the Start Collecting and painting them up as servants of Order for my Dungeons and Dragons campaign.

I would like a faction made up of Stormcast who have gone rogue because they have lost ALL their humanity. Rather than a corruption from some outside force, a faction of Stormcast that are bad because they have been messed up by what Sigmar is doing to them would be way cooler.

I remember in the early days, GW talked about non-human Stormcast. I'd love to see some Dorfcast or Elfcast represented as models.

 EnTyme wrote:
I remember in the early days, GW talked about non-human Stormcast. I'd love to see some Dorfcast or Elfcast represented as models.

Should they actually do that I wouldn't hate the SCE so much.
As of now I find them dull/lame/lazy and I haven't seen to many of them on the tables in my area...
Except that bolt thrower artillery thing allied to other armies.

 DeffDred wrote:

 EnTyme wrote:
I remember in the early days, GW talked about non-human Stormcast. I'd love to see some Dorfcast or Elfcast represented as models.

Should they actually do that I wouldn't hate the SCE so much.
As of now I find them dull/lame/lazy and I haven't seen to many of them on the tables in my area...
Except that bolt thrower artillery thing allied to other armies.

Keep in mind that this is from the very early days of AoS, and was basically in the context of "You don't know what's under the mask. Could be a man or woman. May not even be a human". It was from the period when all Stormast had the same armor with a helment. Since then, they've released multiple helmetless options and female bodies. They may have ret-conned the potential for non-humans to become Stormcast, but I'm not sure why they would. If anything, I think it's more likely they'd add even more races who could potentially be reforged.

I converted this guy with an Eldar (or maybe Elf?) head, back when it was rumored that Stormcast had Aelves in their ranks, too (as odd as it is for Elves to be shouting to Sigmar for salvation to get their revenge on Chaos). He (still) is the token non-human in my skirmish warband of Stormcast.

 Da Boss wrote:
I would like a faction made up of Stormcast who have gone rogue because they have lost ALL their humanity. Rather than a corruption from some outside force, a faction of Stormcast that are bad because they have been messed up by what Sigmar is doing to them would be way cooler.

They could also be so lost to this rudimentary concept of "Order" that they become "Lawful Evil". I like it.

Hell, that's half the Order factions.

 AegisGrimm wrote:
Hell, that's half the Order factions.

Evil is always from perspective. In this case, not just evil to us, but evil to Sigmar or the Free People.

 Charistoph wrote:

 Da Boss wrote:
I would like a faction made up of Stormcast who have gone rogue because they have lost ALL their humanity. Rather than a corruption from some outside force, a faction of Stormcast that are bad because they have been messed up by what Sigmar is doing to them would be way cooler.

They could also be so lost to this rudimentary concept of "Order" that they become "Lawful Evil". I like it.

I would much prefer lawful neutral in the totally amoral sense.

"You are guilty of murder, the punishment is death."

"You are guilty of theft, the punishment is death."

"You have violated curfew, the punishment is death."