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Pretentious? Moi?

As for Fluff and porn. That job position has been made obsolete in the last decade.

DukeRustfield wrote:
Hashut is a Chaos God or Daemon Lord. That is per the official Tamurkhan source. Further, the Chaos Dwarfs were mutated, came into being, because of Chaos.

And yet they count both him and themselves separate and aloof from Chaos. They don't even call themselves Chaos Dwarfs, their name for themselves is "Dawi Zharr" - Fire Dwarfs.

They can call themselves whatever they want. It doesn't change the fact they're 100% Chaos. WoC might think they're worshiping the Lollipop God, but it just turns out to be some form of Tzeentch.

Chaos Dwarfs don't exist, so, yeah. Aside from that, I find it a real shame that Fantasy is not more popular and appreciated. I find the Lore is way better overall than 40k, more interesting and better written. Also in 40k there are some armies that I would just definitely not play as, but in Fantasy I wouldn't mind playing as an army, even if I don't like it a great deal, it is just more fun. I personally think that 40k took a wrong turn in the 6th edition rules, with all the very small in between steps and flying business, it is a little too much, also considering the new theme simply seems to be, make a bigger robot for every new army. I can only hop that Fantasy doesn't fall into that pattern as well, but I don't think it will.

I wouldn’t really call any of GW’s fiction “lore” it is more a collection of short stories. Each set is designed to make a specific army look good. For the most part I have never cared for GW’s story lines. They lack depth, are very predictable, and steal a lot from other syfy/fantasy works. We have to keep in mind that GW stories started as RPG type stores to get people into the game. Then with each edition subsequent designers have added/changed to suit their needs that is why it is all so choppy. In the many years I have been playing I have found it best to just leave GW bad writing where it is and let your group run their own stories.

Why do I get the feeling that most people here only look at the short stories in the codices and don't bother seeing the supplementary material?

Because the "supplementary material" isn't for the game. It isn't supplementary, it is marketing, at the best. What you need for the game is the army book and BRB.

Anything with a logo being official means all the computer games too. My character Snotsky was a gay squig herder in Warhammer Online. And a Daemon Prince (you could never kill him permanently and he hung out in the Inevitable City all the time!) He totally wrecked the O&G lore.

...how can Orks n Goblins be gay or straight when they reproduce via mushroom spores?

40K does that. Fantasy does not. It's a MYSTERY. Or at least something they never bothered to mention.

Mountain-Breaker wrote:
Considering the new theme simply seems to be, make a bigger robot for every new army. I can only hope that Fantasy doesn't fall into that pattern as well, but I don't think it will.

Didn't this theme start in Fantasy though? Screaming bell, Coven Throne, Hurricanum, Vortex Beast etc.

 Eldarain wrote:

Mountain-Breaker wrote:
Considering the new theme simply seems to be, make a bigger robot for every new army. I can only hope that Fantasy doesn't fall into that pattern as well, but I don't think it will.

Didn't this theme start in Fantasy though? Screaming bell, Coven Throne, Hurricanum, Vortex Beast etc.

Yeah, I think so, though these all still seem much smaller than the new Eldar whatchamacallit.

I suppose so, my point is simply that in Fantasy there is at least some creativity. The recent 40k ideaology is just, lets make a bigger robot to make the last really huge one seem not good anymore.

Mountain-Breaker wrote:
I suppose so, my point is simply that in Fantasy there is at least some creativity. The recent 40k ideaology is just, lets make a bigger robot to make the last really huge one seem not good anymore.

Glad to hear there is no "super-monster-arms-race" in Fantasy.

Fantasy in warhammer fails in the same way many fantasy worlds fail. They are just too crowded with too many different species all living next door to one another. The Privateer Iron Kingdoms are even worse in this regard.

These settings really have not advanced from D&D settings that were created back in the 70s.

 Sigvatr wrote:
...how can Orks n Goblins be gay or straight when they reproduce via mushroom spores?

Something I have brought up before when the whole "Orcs are raping and pillaging the farm lands" thing comes up.

They have nothing to rape with. Nor the desire to do so.

They are all about the pillaging.

Mr Mugguffins wrote:
They have nothing to rape with.

That's not true...mankind has proven to be...very...original...when it comes to using stuff to penetrate others...

As Manchu pointed out in the 40k thread, Chaos Warriors are so much better than CSM in 40k. Chaos just feels better in the Fantasy setting.

I wouldn't say that the World is crowded, there's plenty of space for all races to exist.

Yeah, the world certainly isn't crowded. There are no speeders or space ships to get you around. If you want to go somewhere you're taking a boat and since most of the races are landlocked, you're going by foot. I was just looking at Lustria and TK books and there's hundreds of miles in every direction of absolute nothing. The only reason races ever collide is because they choose to.

Fantasy does have a lot of opporunity for customization, you just need to look a bit more into the fluff

For example, you can make an Conquistador/expedition force fighting for gold in Lustria, perhaps you can create an army based on the many Nations that has yet to appear in the lore(it shouldn't be too hard to predict the apperance of their armies because the nations are based on real 15th-16th century nations and the armies would look almost exactly the same, refer to my comparison of the Landskecht and the greatswordsmen), you can also do a dogs of war army using the Empire rules. The Medieval and Renaissance times were full of mercenaries, and I'm sure the Warhammer world is too.

 Zweischneid wrote:
Dunno.

While I like fantasy in general, I find it works far worse for a "static" "nothing-really-ever-changes" setting of a Wargame. Not just WFB, but also Warmachine, etc.. .

Warhammer 40K is "large enough" to have some epic stuff without unsettling the broader framework. In WFB, the truly epic "LOTR-style" events are all in the past. The game itself feels too much like an eternal shuffling over ... something ... that has no meaningful impact.

I can see that point but i disagree very much. I like fantasy because things feel more at risk than 40k ever has. Who gives two craps if the imperium loses 12 forge worlds they have over 1,000 more at least and who cares if they lose 100 worlds when they have a million. In the end every fight seems meaningless. Sure you probably meant something to some people that barely knew of your existence if ever but as they say in 40k "you won't be missed". Problem is when you fight those games nothing feels like it matters if i fight on a hundred worlds and my accomplishments mean nothing. On the other hand with fantasy the empire has gotten close to destruction innumerable times by a lot of evil factions. Dwarfs are losing land due to the 'war of the beard', skaven and greenskin incursion and their own grudges probably. The only couple things in fantasy in the lore that have seemed over-the-top to me are sigmar possibly and maybe aenarion the defender and he was basically d*mned for doing what he did. I dunno i don't even feel like the fellblade wielding dude that killed nagash was that over-the-top. I imagine it as some shrivelled prune getting the crap beaten out of him by another frail dude that were protected by some dark gathering and they probably only succeeded killing nagash because he was meditating and focusing some end all spell to kill everything and turn them into undead or something.

Fantasy has more humor, more fun stories, more feels at stake and yet it isn't as grim-dark and emo and never will be to the extent 40k is. In fact if 40k didn't have orks it'd lack humor almost entirely. In fantasy you have ogres, orcs & goblins and skaven at the very least. Skaven are like a dark humor version of many stories or anything in general, goblins have humor in a kooky sort of way, orcs are dumb and goofy but interesting and ogres are hilarious in a childish way but still manage to be funny.

I feel like fantasy is the better game in every way pretty much. The only bad thing about fantasy is that you need more models often. It's a lot more tactical i feel and i feel it's not so rock, paper, scissors like 40k but instead fantasy is more banana peel, anti-matter, infinity with chances to change into giant gorilla, birthday cake and bow tie. Then movement is a huge deal. Saying a unit is terrible in fantasy is just infinitely harder to be certain of in comparison to 40k. Given the right circumstance in movement, magic or various characteristics it can change entirely.

Anyway i dunno i guess i'm going off topic now. My point is fantasy is superior. I used to not care about fantasy and loved 40k but then i felt 40k just got less goofy and over-the-top and became more emo, grim-dark and over-the-top. I was first introduced into 40k with the first dawn of war games and back then cheesiness and comic-y goodness reigned supreme.

---------------------

A lot of armies have a lot of customization. One good example is the different greater clans of the skaven and another is all the uniforms and heraldry books. Some skaven have bronze or brass weapons and some are made of obsidian like volcanic material. Then you have the navies for skaven and some others which can have heavy pirate influences.

DukeRustfield wrote:
Yeah, the world certainly isn't crowded. There are no speeders or space ships to get you around. If you want to go somewhere you're taking a boat and since most of the races are landlocked, you're going by foot. I was just looking at Lustria and TK books and there's hundreds of miles in every direction of absolute nothing. The only reason races ever collide is because they choose to.

Well I guess we will have to disagree because I consider the overcrowding to be an enormous flaw in many fantasy settings. A few hundred miles is nothing, thats like driving across the state of Kansas. I am sure if there were a TK army in Colorado, people in Kansas City would not feel to comfortable about it. The Old World is even more completely crowded, and Orcs by the way are supposed to be all over the place as well as many chaos creatures.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:


I can see that point but i disagree very much. I like fantasy because things feel more at risk than 40k ever has. Who gives two craps if the imperium loses 12 forge worlds they have over 1,000 more at least and who cares if they lose 100 worlds when they have a million. In the end every fight seems meaningless. Sure you probably meant something to some people that barely knew of your existence if ever but as they say in 40k "you won't be missed". Problem is when you fight those games nothing feels like it matters if i fight on a hundred worlds and my accomplishments mean nothing. On the other hand with fantasy the empire has gotten close to destruction innumerable times by a lot of evil factions.

It's a problem in both (or any wargaming setting, admittedly).

40K is notoriously bad at getting "threat" and "scale" right somehow. Tyranids are supposedly that big, looming apocalyptic threat, but all they ever seem to achieve is getting curb-stombed by a random Space Marine Chapter or Craftworld nearby. Etc.. .

Yet, because it is so large, the very fact that it's NOT always the existence of the entire Imperium riding on a battle or military campaign, even if it brings out all the cools stuff and apocalypse-sized battles, is what makes it manageable.

I don't have to, or want to put the entire Imperium at risk. I want to put a well fortified Forge World at risk, fight over it, and perhaps lose it. That is the point. And I can do it because it doesn't matter in the entire setting which way the fight ultimately goes.

The fact that the Empire has been "close to destruction" but never really gets destroyed, is part of what makes it ridiculous. I can't really go out and raze the Empire. I can't even go and raze Nuln or Praag. Doing so would immediately put me at odds with what every other Warhammer Fantasy player and their knowledge of the setting.

That is the problem. I cannot fight "meaningful" battles in WFB on the scale they are supposed to be played (with Karl Franz personally leading an army against Archaon, say) and have an impact in the world that would be commensurate with that kind of fight. To get Warhammer Fantasy down to the "sandbox-level", I need to basically break it down to the "unnamed village" level, which raises the question of what Karl Franz (or whoever) wants there.

It seems easier to me to justify .. say ... Dante and Vect clashing personally over an important (but ultimately, not THAT important) Imperial Forgeworld.

Mountain-Breaker wrote:
Chaos Dwarfs don't exist, so, yeah. Aside from that, I find it a real shame that Fantasy is not more popular and appreciated. I find the Lore is way better overall than 40k, more interesting and better written. Also in 40k there are some armies that I would just definitely not play as, but in Fantasy I wouldn't mind playing as an army, even if I don't like it a great deal, it is just more fun. I personally think that 40k took a wrong turn in the 6th edition rules, with all the very small in between steps and flying business, it is a little too much, also considering the new theme simply seems to be, make a bigger robot for every new army. I can only hop that Fantasy doesn't fall into that pattern as well, but I don't think it will.

I'm not entirely a fan of how 6th edition seems to get sexually aroused over flyers. The big monstrous creatures is about the same as fantasy though. In fact at around the time of the last skaven book with the hellpit abomination almost all the fantasy armies had to throw in a monster or two or some kind of centerpiece model. In fact all of them probably have. Well that and every army had to get monstrous cavalry to make normal cavalry seem like a joke. Go figure. At least high elves aren't so big on getting new monsters but maybe that's because they already have dragons. Center-piece models do look great though.

For 40k tau disappointed me in most ways except the new pathfinder kit and the new monstrous creatures battlesuit. I expected more auxiliary units like with kroot and vespid or a new alien race. Instead we got a missile pod broadside which looks pretty stupid and a railgun in the form of an 8-bit guitar broadside (unsure if i like or hate that one). Where's that xv-9 that forge world has? Why couldn't we see some sleek nice design for a huge battlesuit.

Eldar for me were also somewhat disappointing but holy crap does that eldar flyer look awesome. The wraith knight is also pretty cool. I just wanted to see some more aspect warriors though. I mean i also thought the aspect warriors with jetpacks on forge world looked awesome.

I still prefer fantasy though.

 Zweischneid wrote:
It's a problem in both (or any wargaming setting, admittedly).

40K is notoriously bad at getting "threat" and "scale" right somehow. Tyranids are supposedly that big, looming apocalyptic threat, but all they ever seem to achieve is getting curb-stombed by a random Space Marine Chapter or Craftworld nearby. Etc.. .

Yet, because it is so large, the very fact that it's NOT always the existence of the entire Imperium riding on a battle or military campaign, even if it brings out all the cools stuff and apocalypse-sized battles, is what makes it manageable.

I don't have to, or want to put the entire Imperium at risk. I want to put a well fortified Forge World at risk, fight over it, and perhaps lose it. That is the point. And I can do it because it doesn't matter in the entire setting which way the fight ultimately goes.

The fact that the Empire has been "close to destruction" but never really gets destroyed, is part of what makes it ridiculous. I can't really go out and raze the Empire. I can't even go and raze Nuln or Praag. Doing so would immediately put me at odds with what every other Warhammer Fantasy player and their knowledge of the setting.

That is the problem. I cannot fight "meaningful" battles in WFB on the scale they are supposed to be played (with Karl Franz personally leading an army against Archaon, say) and have an impact in the world that would be commensurate with that kind of fight. To get Warhammer Fantasy down to the "sandbox-level", I need to basically break it down to the "unnamed village" level, which raises the question of what Karl Franz (or whoever) wants there.

It seems easier to me to justify .. say ... Dante and Vect clashing personally over an important (but ultimately, not THAT important) Imperial Forgeworld.

I suppose it's a matter of preference or a way of seeing things. I want my battles to hold meaning. I want to feel like i'm at least somewhat of a threat.

Many cities of the empire have fallen multiple times. The empire generally comes back from it and gets its cities back but if nuln gets taken down or say just about any city except altdorf then it's not too big a deal. Well i suppose most of the gun factories in nuln are a big deal but there are a lot of things in the empire that people wouldn't care about. For instance in 'mark of chaos' you fight over the fate of talabheim. Sure in the end plot armor happens but at least you feel like you were a threat and mattered more. In 40k seemingly nothing matters. Guardsmen matter so little you may as well use them as tissues and toilet paper. Maybe the reason i wasn't fond of 40k is that i played a faction (imperial guard) that was basically at the bottom of the food chain. Sure they had a lot more guys and were in a lot more battles but space marines and such just steam-roll everybody and against armies like nids guard rarely won esp. if it was a huge hive fleet though they might have a slight chance with splinter fleets. It just got a bit ridiculous. In the previous guard codex guard didn't have any battles mentioned besides fighting traitor guard, eldar (slightly) and orks. Most battles that involve anything else seem to end in defeat esp. against the tau which i don't even think guard have one noted victory against. It's like a contest to see who can fail the least against some factions rather than who can win or win better. It's just tiring.

Sorry for the rant. It's just ultimatedly i feel like most of what's in 40k doesn't matter. I mean what's one forge world's special item that's absolutely needed for the imperium! Well how about we make the best supply of umm small fake plastic titans. Defend it with your....wait what?! Eh fight and die for it anyway.

JWhex wrote:
because I consider the overcrowding to be an enormous flaw in many fantasy settings. A few hundred miles is nothing, thats like driving across the state of Kansas.

I don't think you're getting the point. People don't walk hundreds of miles for the hell of it. There is no "driving." During the Afganistan war they were talking about how individuals in tribes had never visited the other tribes just a handful of miles away. Why would they? You are tied to the land if you're a farmer, herder, and most people in medieval times or earlier were. Even if you lived in a city, you were probably born there and probably never left it. And the hundreds of miles was just an example of nothing being there (because that was in a quote in the army book). Lustria is like 2000 miles x 2500 or something. And that's just one race's island. So if you were unlucky enough to land on like the W shore, you'd have maybe 1000 miles (through jungle) to go to reach a functional city. No one is going to do that unless they have an amazing reason. Remember, they're not carrying refrigerated trucks full of freeze-dried food. If you want to travel for weeks/months in WHFB, there better be food you can scavenge or buy or steal, otherwise you'll die. Barring undead and Daemons and such.

Ogres are also a funny race. O&G. Skaven are a BIT. All of the races have some points of humor. Dwarfs have some funny stuff with all their beer and grudges and grumpiness. I had tried to read a few 40K novels and they were so insanely humorless for a while I couldn't tell if it was a parody.

As for world-shattering events, I'm glad there aren't many of them. I said that above I think. But not every adventure has to be throwing a ring of power into a volcano. Fighting over a skaven/dwarfen/night goblin hold is pretty damn exciting if you're one of the parties involved. Being dead from an arrow is just as dead as a supernova from an elder god.

DukeRustfield wrote:

Ogres are also a funny race. O&G. Skaven are a BIT. All of the races have some points of humor. Dwarfs have some funny stuff with all their beer and grudges and grumpiness. I had tried to read a few 40K novels and they were so insanely humorless for a while I couldn't tell if it was a parody.

Have you ever heard about Marius Leitdorf for empire?

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?catId=cat440090a&prodId=prod1530054a

The way I see it no matter if it is 40k or fantasy it doesn't make sense for most of the named characters to be in the battle. I mean what the hell would Marneus Calgar and his group of like 30 marines and a vehicle or 2 really get out of fighting over some bombed out city against Castellan Creed and his legion of tanks and valkyries? Same goes for fantasy to me, I mean on the scale that you fight why would the empire bust out 1 or 2 steam tanks? IIRC there are only like 9 of them ever made but I commonly see lists use 1-2, surely the threat of 40 chaos warriors isn't enough to bust out 2 of these plus the emperor himself... thats about it for my rant.

As for the lore I really enjoy fantasy more then 40k. I enjoy reading about the backgrounds for the different armies and the world as a whole. But I feel 40k is just too bland for my taste. I think marines are just too clear-cut, i mean we fight for the emperor against our traitor marine brothers, we do only what is in the rules and it just feels bleh to me. Yeah some of the other factions are more interesting but I still feel the same since it is such a large scale. For Fantasy you have more prevalent issues going on i feel. Oh if the forces of chaos take this city and we dont stop them they will flood down into the next province and just sweep us all down. I think my main reason though is because in fantasy the overall story seems to fit together a lot more.

DukeRustfield wrote:

JWhex wrote:
because I consider the overcrowding to be an enormous flaw in many fantasy settings. A few hundred miles is nothing, thats like driving across the state of Kansas.

I don't think you're getting the point. People don't walk hundreds of miles for the hell of it. There is no "driving." During the Afganistan war they were talking about how individuals in tribes had never visited the other tribes just a handful of miles away. Why would they? .

Well "the journey" is a staple of Fantasy fiction. And while the "villagers" may never have visited the village next door, that is hardly the equivalent to what is leading your Fantasy Army.

Arguably, those would be more comparable to the Attila, Dschningis Khan, Columbus or Marco Polos of our world.

 Sigvatr wrote:

Mr Mugguffins wrote:
They have nothing to rape with.

That's not true...mankind has proven to be...very...original...when it comes to using stuff to penetrate others...

Ouch, my nose!

 Zweischneid wrote:

DukeRustfield wrote:

JWhex wrote:
because I consider the overcrowding to be an enormous flaw in many fantasy settings. A few hundred miles is nothing, thats like driving across the state of Kansas.

I don't think you're getting the point. People don't walk hundreds of miles for the hell of it. There is no "driving." During the Afganistan war they were talking about how individuals in tribes had never visited the other tribes just a handful of miles away. Why would they? .

Well "the journey" is a staple of Fantasy fiction. And while the "villagers" may never have visited the village next door, that is hardly the equivalent to what is leading your Fantasy Army.

Arguably, those would be more comparable to the Attila, Dschningis Khan, Columbus or Marco Polos of our world.

My own viewpoint about how crowded the fantasy worlds are is shaped by my background in ecology, zoogeography, human evolution and population genetics. I am not saying it makes my viewpoint better, I am just giving you the context of why things add up differently for me than they do for you. It is noteworthy that you are focusing just how you suppose the humans are moving around. I also disagree with you on that point because the empire is more late renassance and indeed even indigenous people moved around farther and faster than you seem to credit them.

Different people can have divergent views on how much logic and coherence to real world principles are needed for the critical element of "suspension of disbelief" in fantasy, fiction and science fiction. The GW fantasy world I just find does not meet my requirement but I am not singling them out, I find it to be a widespread fault of a lot of fantasy work.

DukeRustfield wrote:
Because the "supplementary material" isn't for the game. It isn't supplementary, it is marketing, at the best. What you need for the game is the army book and BRB.

Anything with a logo being official means all the computer games too. My character Snotsky was a gay squig herder in Warhammer Online. And a Daemon Prince (you could never kill him permanently and he hung out in the Inevitable City all the time!) He totally wrecked the O&G lore.

Liber Chaotica, which was just pages and pages of discussion and theorizing on the theological issues behind the Chaos Gods, constitutes marketing to you? Novels written about original characters like Palace of the Plague Lord which ended with the deaths of all the main characters is meant to be an advertising tool?

If you're just going to adhere to "only the codex is canon" you're pretty much just ruining the lore for yourself. The stories in the codices are broad-stroked and written primarily to give a feel for the army and draw you in (not to mention intentionally written to make the army look cool so you feel good playing 'em), not to be the be-all-end-all of how you interpret the background.