Age of Sigmar - Slaanesh Replaced? plus big book, stormcast archers, dismounted celestan

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**Flashman**

Hmm... intriguing. I am very interested in a new and possibly simpler Warhammer

**lord_blackfang**

Sounds cool.

But I hope I can pick up some current starters on the cheap, I'd rather have more Skaven and HE than the rumoured fantasy space marines and fantasy chaos space marines.

**edlowe**

Somebody posted this over on bols in the comments

I had the chance to spend about 20 minutes with the upcoming book Age of Sigmar by A. Lanning (a novel, not the game) that deals with the aftermath of the end times. The prologue makes it very clear that Sigmar survives and the whole plot takes place after the end times. Nothing that I have read suggests that there is any time travel involved. It is just a continuation of the story on a much broader scale. I think it is safe to say that the game of the same name follows the story of book and doesn't establish a totally different setting.

In the prologue Sigmar survives and pulls the winds of magics through the gap into the warp. In the process the pure untouched currents of the warp are tainted with the personifications of the winds - the Incarnates. This is the birth of eight new minor gods. But most of the book is not about sigmar or the incarnate gods directly, only three chapters as far as I could see were written from their perspective. The rest of the book is an ordinary fantasy adventure story. The book follows Martellus Mann, a reikguard quartermaster who was slain in the end times, but is reborn in Sigmarshall, the domain of Sigmar. I then skipped some hundred pages forward so I don't know what happened in the aftermath, but in the middle of the book, he has gathered a large party of heroes from many realms and realities in a quest for something called the spirit mill or soul mill or something like this. I know for sure that there are several worlds and that the protagonist can travel from one to the other but I didn't read a chapter where this was described in person and I don't know if this is part of the game world. In the middle of the books there is a huge betrayal, sigmarshall is under siege by the armies of the chaos gods. incarnate fights against incarnate and all are cast out from the warp. Mann starts a search for sigmar in the believe that he was reborn somewhere. The second half of the book is set on a world called Regalia. And here it gets interesting: Regalia is the only area/realm/world that has a map in the book. Regalia looks like the old world or earth and has very familiar regions and city names, etc. But there are some huge alterations: there is no Ulthuan, but a huge landbridge that connects Canada with Scandinavia. There are no elven or dwarven sounding cities or lands but strange sounding names in the Americas and Africa that don't fit any race of the old setting. There is no empire, but lots of different states in Europe and Asia - Nuln, Middenheim, etc are there, but Altdorf is not. There are more things you can deduce from the map if you assume that it represents the setting of the game, which I strongly think it does. Mann finally arrives in the city Heldenheim that is build in the Worlds Edge Mountains just in time to visit the crowning of emperor Karl Franz where he announces his plan to conquer the whole world. Mann thinks that he has found Sigmar and the book jumps to the epilog. Sigmar is chained somewhere and starts to dwindle, but then he smiles and proclaims that his great work to eliminate the chaos once and for all has only started. He vows to conquer the warp.

Could be a load of gak or not, sounds kinda like mtg and its different planes.

**lord_blackfang**

Sounds like a good setting for skirmish battles.

Stargate: Fantasy edition?

**Do_I_Not_Like_That**

edlowe wrote:
Somebody posted this over on bols in the comments

I had the chance to spend about 20 minutes with the upcoming book Age of Sigmar by A. Lanning (a novel, not the game) that deals with the aftermath of the end times. The prologue makes it very clear that Sigmar survives and the whole plot takes place after the end times. Nothing that I have read suggests that there is any time travel involved. It is just a continuation of the story on a much broader scale. I think it is safe to say that the game of the same name follows the story of book and doesn't establish a totally different setting.

In the prologue Sigmar survives and pulls the winds of magics through the gap into the warp. In the process the pure untouched currents of the warp are tainted with the personifications of the winds - the Incarnates. This is the birth of eight new minor gods. But most of the book is not about sigmar or the incarnate gods directly, only three chapters as far as I could see were written from their perspective. The rest of the book is an ordinary fantasy adventure story. The book follows Martellus Mann, a reikguard quartermaster who was slain in the end times, but is reborn in Sigmarshall, the domain of Sigmar. I then skipped some hundred pages forward so I don't know what happened in the aftermath, but in the middle of the book, he has gathered a large party of heroes from many realms and realities in a quest for something called the spirit mill or soul mill or something like this. I know for sure that there are several worlds and that the protagonist can travel from one to the other but I didn't read a chapter where this was described in person and I don't know if this is part of the game world. In the middle of the books there is a huge betrayal, sigmarshall is under siege by the armies of the chaos gods. incarnate fights against incarnate and all are cast out from the warp. Mann starts a search for sigmar in the believe that he was reborn somewhere. The second half of the book is set on a world called Regalia. And here it gets interesting: Regalia is the only area/realm/world that has a map in the book. Regalia looks like the old world or earth and has very familiar regions and city names, etc. But there are some huge alterations: there is no Ulthuan, but a huge landbridge that connects Canada with Scandinavia. There are no elven or dwarven sounding cities or lands but strange sounding names in the Americas and Africa that don't fit any race of the old setting. There is no empire, but lots of different states in Europe and Asia - Nuln, Middenheim, etc are there, but Altdorf is not. There are more things you can deduce from the map if you assume that it represents the setting of the game, which I strongly think it does. Mann finally arrives in the city Heldenheim that is build in the Worlds Edge Mountains just in time to visit the crowning of emperor Karl Franz where he announces his plan to conquer the whole world. Mann thinks that he has found Sigmar and the book jumps to the epilog. Sigmar is chained somewhere and starts to dwindle, but then he smiles and proclaims that his great work to eliminate the chaos once and for all has only started. He vows to conquer the warp.

Could be a load of gak or not, sounds kinda like mtg and its different planes.

If even half of that is true, I'm grabbing a parachute and heading for the exit door, and I suspect half of dakka would be following me

That sounds like a bloated mess.

**timetowaste85**

Conquer the world? Is Karl Franz going evil?? Would be seriously interesting and a bit of a mind feth if the alignments (other than chaos, of course) switched around.

**mikhaila**

timetowaste85 wrote:
Conquer the world? Is Karl Franz going evil?? Would be seriously interesting and a bit of a mind feth if the alignments (other than chaos, of course) switched around.

Not evil, he does it for the greater good. You couquer the world, and get rid of every nasty little orc, goblin, chaos spawn, skaven, or halfling that you find. Making the world safe forever.

**timetowaste85**

Had a halfling raid the kitchen recently, eh? Franzie usually gets along with the denizens of the Moot.

**Kanluwen**

Yeeeeeeeeeah, sounds like a load of crap to me.

**timetowaste85**

Kanluwen wrote:
Yeeeeeeeeeah, sounds like a load of crap to me.

Any reason why? Inside knowledge? It DOES sound like the kind of thing GW would do, which is why I ask.

**Ratius**

Come on guys, youre judging the whole of 9th on a 20 minute flick through by one guy over on bols based on a novel he read by an author who may or may not be writing cannon and/or a decent story?
I'll wait for the offical launch.....and judge then.

**adamsouza**

So, to me at least, it seems like they are following 40Ks example with the 3 book hardcover format and threw the fantasy equivalent of KILL TEAM into the core rule book, so they could justify a smaller model count in the starter.

I'm not a big enough WHF die hard to buy the hardcover, but I'll pick up the starter box for the mini rulebook.

**notprop**

So Warhammer using the (very good) Lord of the Rings system then (my guess?!?!?!).

Could be sweet!

**Flashman**

timetowaste85 wrote:
Kanluwen wrote:
Yeeeeeeeeeah, sounds like a load of crap to me.

Any reason why? Inside knowledge? It DOES sound like the kind of thing GW would do, which is why I ask.

The world described doesn't sound that different to what went before to be honest. Everything else is a bit vague possibly because he seems to have skipped half the book.

**unmercifulconker**

So guys I read the upcoming book and got a good glimpse of the parts which are essentially the rumours we have at the moment but sorry guys I skipped all the important bits in the middle which explains the story lol my bad.

Can't quite believe that paragraph, there's just something about sigmarshall.

**NAVARRO**

mikhaila wrote:
So this is from GW as of a minute ago. I will continue to hammer my sales rep about 4 times a week, and he's promised to call me whenever new info pops up.

-Age of Sigmar is not a boardgame, is not an intro game to something larger. It's the main event.

So its the real deal from day one, not something that will scale up like some rumours hinted.

I really hope that GW publishes something really GOOD for everyones sake. Don't know why but I have the gut feeling that the rumour of the ridiculous minimalist pamphlet ruleset is going to be a reality.

**Eumerin**

Flashman wrote:

The world described doesn't sound that different to what went before to be honest.

Aside from the apparent lack of elves...

On a somewhat unrelated note, I'm wondering if the release order of the races in TW: Warhammer is related to something that GW is doing? Presumably GW will fill in any apparent gaps in the racial line-up (I can't see GW cutting the elves, for instance). Perhaps the focus will coincide with the planned TW: Warhammer releases?

Just a random thought that occurred while reading the comments on this page.

**edlowe**

It would be quite easy to have a progressing storyline that introduced the races and their realms over the course of a year, with a get you by hordes booklet in the meantime.

**Charles Rampant**

That book synopsis is pretty weird, and pretty hard to believe (simply taking a photograph of the map would surely have been enough to prove his point, but obviously nobody has any kind of portable camera on them these days). That said, I can imagine them wanting to break the Empire apart and turn the map into more city states (easier to have a more diverse 'Human' faction that way, especially one that fights against itself). Where do the Elves go, though? Are they on other worlds? Is this basically going to turn into Thor 2, and if so, do Dark Elves get way cool shard space ships?

**Alpharius**

Did we already have confirmation of Age of Bubblehammer - and is this just further confirmation of that?

**Kanluwen**

timetowaste85 wrote:
Kanluwen wrote:
Yeeeeeeeeeah, sounds like a load of crap to me.

Any reason why? Inside knowledge? It DOES sound like the kind of thing GW would do, which is why I ask.

Elements of it sound like things that GW would do, certainly, but a lot of it also reads like a disgruntled fan throwing together bits and pieces from the rumors and claiming that he "read a novel". It's interesting as well the author that was supposedly writing the book; the only "A. Lanning" that I could find is "a Marvel Comics writer/inker who has worked in the past with Dan Abnett"(still is on Nova and Guardians of the Galaxy as far as I know).

I could see the surviving Incarnates becoming minor deities, I could see wars of aggression between previously friendly factions if there is a new world established, etc.
But too much of the supposed details from a "quick read" just sounds like this was a guy putting together a list of things that he could use to troll people.

**edlowe**

Kanluwen wrote:
timetowaste85 wrote:
Kanluwen wrote:
Yeeeeeeeeeah, sounds like a load of crap to me.

Any reason why? Inside knowledge? It DOES sound like the kind of thing GW would do, which is why I ask.

Elements of it sound like things that GW would do, certainly, but a lot of it also reads like a disgruntled fan throwing together bits and pieces from the rumors and claiming that he "read a novel". It's interesting as well the author that was supposedly writing the book; the only "A. Lanning" that I could find is "a Marvel Comics writer/inker who has worked in the past with Dan Abnett"(still is on Nova and Guardians of the Galaxy as far as I know).

I could see the surviving Incarnates becoming minor deities, I could see wars of aggression between previously friendly factions if there is a new world established, etc.
But too much of the supposed details from a "quick read" just sounds like this was a guy putting together a list of things that he could use to troll people.

I think he co wrote the titan graphic novels with abnett?

**Thargrim**

Charles Rampant wrote:
That book synopsis is pretty weird, and pretty hard to believe (simply taking a photograph of the map would surely have been enough to prove his point, but obviously nobody has any kind of portable camera on them these days). That said, I can imagine them wanting to break the Empire apart and turn the map into more city states (easier to have a more diverse 'Human' faction that way, especially one that fights against itself). Where do the Elves go, though? Are they on other worlds? Is this basically going to turn into Thor 2, and if so, do Dark Elves get way cool shard space ships?

Lol sarcasm i'm hoping, 90% of people I know how a little something called a cellphone which most modern ones are capable of taking very crisp images. The fact that people supposedly get their hands on this stuff, and don't take images leaves me with the impression they are either brain dead or don't care to be taken seriously. No images, and i'm not gonna believe what someone says. As for the elves, that's anyones guess, besides we don't even know if this rumor is valid or not.

**nels1031**

100% positive it was sarcasm Thargrim.

**TwilightSparkles**

Stripped down rules make sense in the starter given that the current GW mindset for Fantasy seems to be "hey guys, we ran the game into the ground , ignored most factions for new releases, then brought out £250 worth of books to finally kill it all, before probably making it so loads of people have armies that don't even work in 9th"...I would imagine certain parts of GW management cannot fathom why they put softback rules only books in boxsets full of miniatures then try sell a big set of hardbacks for £50.

The rapid release of 7th 40K in my local community absolutely damaged the playerbase, and by comparison to these rumours that change was minor even though the need for another hardback rule set was painful.

A potential saving act is if they do the starter before the new hardback set, because if it goes the other way then I think that a month later they start on 10th edition and hope fantasy isnt relegated to specialist by the time they finish.

**Kanluwen**

edlowe wrote:
Kanluwen wrote:
timetowaste85 wrote:
Kanluwen wrote:
Yeeeeeeeeeah, sounds like a load of crap to me.

Any reason why? Inside knowledge? It DOES sound like the kind of thing GW would do, which is why I ask.

Elements of it sound like things that GW would do, certainly, but a lot of it also reads like a disgruntled fan throwing together bits and pieces from the rumors and claiming that he "read a novel". It's interesting as well the author that was supposedly writing the book; the only "A. Lanning" that I could find is "a Marvel Comics writer/inker who has worked in the past with Dan Abnett"(still is on Nova and Guardians of the Galaxy as far as I know).

I could see the surviving Incarnates becoming minor deities, I could see wars of aggression between previously friendly factions if there is a new world established, etc.
But too much of the supposed details from a "quick read" just sounds like this was a guy putting together a list of things that he could use to troll people.

I think he co wrote the titan graphic novels with abnett?

Maybe, I don't have them. But he wasn't listed anywhere so I would find it hard to believe.

**Guildsman**

Assuming this is legit, it sounds like a better explanation of the "bubble" rumor. From the description, it seems like there will be multiple versions of "Earth," or whatever you want to call it. Each will only contain a few of the old factions, with the others having not developed/never existed on that world. There will be a world centering on humans, one centering on dwarfs, etc.

Now, that doesn't mean that I like it. Alternate reality stories drive me up the wall. I've seen very good authors screw up alternate reality plots in the past, and GW's staff writers inspire no confidence in me that they can pull it off well.

**Azreal13**

Kanluwen wrote:
Yeeeeeeeeeah, sounds like a load of crap to me.

Given this is a GW product, this statement is unclear as to whether you think it is legit or not?

**the_Armyman**

I peeked in a dusty drawer yesterday, and had a "short" talk with my 5th Edition Dwarfs. I assured them that as long as the rules don't suck, I'd brush them off and give them a spin around the block. I really want to have faith in GW, but it's like they revel in tripping over their own dicks when it comes time to write rules.

**agnosto**

Sounds like an old Weiss and Hickman book about traveling from one bubble world to the next.....the death gate cycle.