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 angelofvengeance wrote:
It's new, different and you don't like it, is effectively what you're saying.

No. That's not what he said at all. Maybe try reading what he wrote and responding to that rather than pretending he said something else just so you can insultingly dismiss it all.

There are legitimate reasons that I would be reluctant to invest in AoS that clash stupendously with my wanting to play in a smaller, more skirmish-oriented Warhammer world.

I understand the love of the old stuff, but I am ready for something new, maybe it's because I haven't been an active player since 6th edition but I am the most interested in the fluff I have been since Mordheim and may actually start playing again.

Slaanesh is missing? Better get lugi on the case.

 Lockark wrote:
Slaanesh is missing? Better get lugi on the case.

Damn, that's a mad old reference.

 angelofvengeance wrote:

 Yodhrin wrote:

 Manchu wrote:

 AlexHolker wrote:
I hate the map. It just drives home the point that this is not a world. It's just a bunch of "fantasy" thrown at a wall.

Disagree. I thnk this sort of pre-modern conception of the world is appropriate to a fantasy setting and has always been more or less of an factor. For example, where would you have located the Warp on a map of the previous World of Warhammer ("Mallus")? WHFB evoked modern conceptions of geography because it aped the Enlightment; but it was no more a "world" than the Nine Realms for doing so.

Whut?

The whole point of the Warhammer World(I won't dignify Age of Shareholders by using its term) was that it didn't ape the Enlightenment. It was in fact essential to the setting that "the Warp" not be depicted on the map - Warhammer was a setting in which a small island of humanity was beset by truly existential horrors; mutants and beastmen within, monsters and barbarians outside, twisted ratmen beneath, and the horrors of Chaos beyond. And not some utopian ideal version of humanity either, but a version of us redolent with our worst qualities; superstition and ignorance, intolerance, greed, corruption, and vice of all kinds. Even the fantastical "allies" of humanity were a mixed blessing.

The geography of the world helped to convey that essential characteristic, it was "here be dragons" on a global scale, it drove home that these people were not so very different from ourselves; there's a reason that jokey "Clichea" map exists - the best fantasy uses elements of the real to help us insert ourselves into fundamentally implausible situations and characters.

Age of Shareholders and its loose collection of barely connected magical pseudodimensions has nowhere to hook into except for the tattered remnants of the previous fiction; "Sigmaron" or "Sigmartown" or "Sigmaropolis" or whatever the hell it's called has no relevance to us, it has nothing to say about our past or our essential qualities as a species, it has no real culture which we can relate to beyond "Hey Bob, Sigmar sure is awesome yeah!" - "He sure is Joe, he sure is!".

It's...sterile. A reality constructed with the sole purpose of being commercially mutable, able to be twisted into whatever shape is necessary to sell the latest plastic doodads. AoS is the Saturday morning cartoon version of Warhammer.

1. It's new, different and you don't like it, is effectively what you're saying.

2. WHFB was performing very poorly, and only accounted for a small fraction of sales. If people ain't buying it, what's the point making more stuff that folks won't buy? And not everyone is willing to read a few hundred pages worth of rules before playing the game. Keeping it simple and easy to pick up is the right way for GW to go.

1. Yes, but the reasons I don't like it are not arbitrary or reactionary, they're based on a critique of its qualities and its merits relative to the old background. Seriously if you're not even going to bother engaging with someone's argument then don't presume to know their motivations.

2. This is a trend I'm noticing with AoS-defenders - throw out a handful of technically factual statements devoid of any context and with dubious relationship to the specific topic being discussed, then act as if you've just proven your PoV beyond all doubt. First, WHFBs poor performance has many potential causal factors, most of which we can only speculate on(and GW are no better since they do no market research), but which very likely relate to the expense of starting and maintaining armies, the requirement to paint up huge blocks of infantry, and rules bloat; I would argue that, if anything, the background(which is, remember, what I was discussing above) was an asset that kept people playing the game and spending money long after they otherwise would have walked away. Second, the background in no way had to change in order for GW to release a smaller, simpler ruleset; they could have brought out a new version of Mordheim, they could have put together a new game based in the Border Princes, they could have just made Warhammer 9th Ed a large-warband-skirmish game using exactly the same format they are for AoS(free core rules, expanded rules and background through campaign packs/boxes) by narrowing the scale of the fictional justification for the battles to something more personal both in terms of geography and story.

And to those pulling the Stay On Topic shtick; I don't accept this is off-topic. If it's OK to discuss rumours about rules changes, and it's OK to discuss photos or descriptions of new models, then it should also be OK to discuss maps, and artworks, and the fiction, because those are part of the game as well and for some the background and aesthetic will be the main factor in their decision to buy(or not) into AoS. If there are going to be arbitrary rules about what aspects of a release we're permitted to comment on, can we at least be told what they are up-front?

and this here is another reason why I wont be buying in addition to everything else> boxed set of AOS "Celestial Thunder", 20 miniatures for $200 lol!!! wow!

My vote is to put discussions that aren't about news and rumors into the Dakka Discussions thread, or the one in AoS GD for reviews and such; or start a new thread there. Let's talk about news.. and rumors.. that includes things you don't like about something that isn't out yet, but shouldn't include things that are already last week's news. Not because they aren't worthwhile topics, but because it dilutes the thread and artificially bumps it and obscures other news and rumors.

But my vote doesn't count for anything This isn't a democracy. However, I shall exercise my vote by not responding to that topic.

In the arena of the news and rumors: the Lord Celestant on WD77 looks so cool I like him MUCH better than the hammer/sword guy on WD76, and I far prefer the cloak over the "shredded" warcloak thing.

The egyptian cat thing is neat too!

The Combat Gauge sounds like the dumbest tool ever; you'd have to be the nerdiest superfan on the planet to "wear it away from the gaming table as a unique accessory". Though I confess that I've worn a Cult Mechanicus pin that I got as a freebie (from my FLGS ) for placing a large web-only order.

The dice shaker is totally baffling.

Collectively, these two accessories remind me of the bits box and the coffee mug... er.. water pot.

Then again, if he were stuck in a vault 60 floors underground, McGuyver could take the combat gague, dice shaker, dice, chocolate tin, and coffee cup and build a personal teleportation device to get out. But when he got out he'd still be eaten by a zombie.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

RazorMind wrote:
and this here is another reason why I wont be buying in addition to everything else> boxed set of AOS "Celestial Thunder", 20 miniatures for $200 lol!!! wow!

It's just 4 boxes of Liberators, which are $50 boxes. You literally get nothing else! In WMH terms, those would be $10 minis. Cheap for that game! So it should be considered cheap for this one too.

On a different note, I'm not entirely sure why you'd want 4 boxes of Liberators though, with so many other models, and with the game mechanics not really working well in that 50+ model range.

Despite the possibility of engaging the wroth of the Mods, I will attempt to answer Yodrin's criticism of the new setting. There are several things that jump out. The first is that the susinct description of the warhammer world is that it is eerily similar to the 40k set up. Secondly there is a distinction to be made between a good setting and a well written setting. There is a strong argument to be made that outside of a couple of black library authors, Games Workshop's fluff has never been well written. Thirdly accusing people of making assumptions without evidence then referring to the new setting as age of shareholders is a little Hypocritical. ( I am not saying that this is not true, merely that there is a lack of evidence to back this claim up)

Regarding the new setting, one persons sterile is another persons mythological. Saying that there is nothing in Age of Sigmar that connects to our shared identity is simply not true. The concepts of Valhalla or Eden, of angels or more recently super heroes are all ideas that exist across cultures. The campaign of vengeance of reclaiming what was lost, is certainly a much more optimistic set up than before but no less relatable. Most of us have a desire to be more noble and braver than we in fact are, we wish we were able to take action in a world in which we often feel impotent. So the new setting is a much purer fantasy than before. It is fine to dislike this style but these days there is much more of the former style to enjoy. It actually has a lot in common with Star Wars which was always a kind of space fantasy.

If things are off topic, just report them.

I'm thinking this giant book that's due to come out will be really awesome. Loving the fluff snippets that have been posted so far.

Not sure if the fluff is well written or if it's just exciting because it's all so NEW, but I find myself intrigued by the Mortal Realms.

As always though, my affinity is with the little man, the lowly human. I am desperate to find out the plight of the average man in this new setting.

Sadly we don't know much yet except that GW is only showing Empire models that had a close link with Sigmar in the world that was. Will their be state troopers or organised armies in the new fluff? I am still trying to find a new fluff home for my Altdorf army. A lone kingdom tucked far away? A band or mercenaries or smugglers? Give me more info on the humans GW!!!!

 Bottle wrote:
Not sure if the fluff is well written or if it's just exciting because it's all so NEW, but I find myself intrigued by the Mortal Realms.

Yes! It's new lore, a whole new background and game world, the first significant game world GW has written in... forever? For years, I stopped reading all the Warhammer Fantasy bits -- some because I lost track, others because I got bored... whatever. Part of it is also is because I enjoy human races, and the humans in Fantasy were just so... meh. Models, too.

The new Sigmarites aim to fix that, by making superhuman.. humans I mean, do you want the Sigmarite crossbowmen, or Empire Archers? Do you want a Bretonnian knight on a horse, or a Lord-Celestant on a Dracoth? Paladin or Liberator?

You get the idea And the Sigmarites being in the center of Order is kind of neat.

I'm actually reading Fantasy fluff for the first time. I had thought that I'd pass on the next big book (the 264 pg one), but now, I'm undecided. There is, at least, a chance

 Bottle wrote:

Give me more info on the humans GW!!!!

YES!!

And please sell us many upgrade packs with cool sculpted shoulders that we can put onto the Sigmarites

The whole reason that I decided to redo like, 10,000 points of Blood Angels is because there are fantastic sculpted, factioned bits now, and my old models were all generic space marines with decals and stuff. Those sculpted, swappable parts (instead of decals) are a HUGE motivator for me to invest into an army.

Haha well I much prefer the Empire archers to the entire sigmarine range so far. :-p

By human I meant the average joe. Not the indestructible captain scarlets.

Who mines the Sigmarite? Where do they live? It is all a utopia or does it have dark secrets. Are there criminals, Pirates, smugglers? What about towns and villages or peoples in the other Mortal Realms?

This is what I'm interested in.

So far the only bit of interesting fluff from the Sigmarines for me has been that they lose a bit of their humanity every time they die and are remade.

I am also finding the realm of life stuff really interesting too.

Like it or not, WHFB as a setting was inspired by the Thirty Years War, including elements of the Enlightenment. I guess the issue is, someone ITT figured "the Enlightenment" stands for unalloyed positive developments for humanity? Uh, well except for the utter catastrophe of the wars, famines, plagues, witch hunts, etc., that ravaged the Holy Roman Empire in particular and Europe at large throughout the seventeenth century. This non-fictional grim world was pretty closely mirrored geographically and (in a tongue-in-cheek manner) culturally by the World of Warhammer, you know with a dash of punkified Tolkien to flavor. This was cool and certainly unique this side of the pond. And with decades of manufacturing fluff for sale, it definitely took on a lived-in quality.

But it had limitations, too. For one thing, it was a bit too "historical" in the sense that there was no good reason for time not to proceed and yet in so doing the changing world would in some ways invalidate elements of the product line (for the sake of which, and only for the sake of which, the setting even exists in the first place). GW's track record on what is often called "story progression" but probably should be called setting development for WHFB is ... pretty spotty. And not without good cause. Chaos simply has to be forever at the doorstep. Same with all these terrible threats. For the product line (as envisioned by GW) to make sense, it will also basically need to be the same year -- repeat, year not millennium -- forever.

Removing Fantasy from literalistic space and time and instead contextualizing it as a mytholgical setting neatly solves these issues. No one ever asks, well what happened to Zeus on June 5, 1967, and where was he? Zeus or Odin or Sigmar is not the sort of character for whom such questions make sense. Rather than pretending such characters exist in any sort of historical sense, let's acknowledge they are legendary characters. The stories about them are not set in any particular place or time, generally speaking as a matter of their meaning, but rather exist throughout all time as legends.

I think that is what GW is really aiming for with the new setting. They are trying to give players room to do whatever they want and yet still in some sense still be playing in the same world. This has been realized so much more effectively in 40k over the years and should not be underestimated as a factor in the success of that brand.

And of course none of this is to say that any particular person should stop disliking it and suddenly like it. Nor is this an attempt to argue that this mythological setting is superior to the old Thirty Years War version of Fantasy. But I hope it does go some way to demonstrating that the AoS setting was not invented by thoughtless morons who didn't think about and don't care about what they developed.

I take the Bretonnian knight, thank you. I like my fantasy with shield and lance, both high and low fantasy. Without Nigel there GW seems to hate them, though. Oh, and I was grumpy when the "knights don't care about commoners" was turned to eleven and even the men-at-arms were reduced to toothless cretins, the Pegasi Knight boxes started to come with A PegasUS Knight only (and I ever bought one box of three) and they piled on the m ockery by replacing two Pegasi Knights in the batallion with FOUR more M@A. Yay! Now I long for those days (where the Lady wasn't a damn fraud, either), because they at least got SOME models.

They needed the Dark Eldar treatment, don't tell me kids AND adults don't like knights.

Thank you Manchu for making my point much more eloquently. I think Bretonnian fans have the most right to fell upset as they never got their day in the sun during 8th.

As far a regular humans in the new world go, they are apparently given some attention in the new novel.

I think that all the complaints about the price of the Sigmar and Khorn dice shakers are not taking into account that they both come with 8 custom dice.....

and GW custom dice are not cheap by themselves,

so while the shaker is expensive, when you take into account the dice it's not any more expensive than anything else GW sells

@Orlando: The new archers/crossbowmen for the Sigmarites are called Judicators. Please update the OP.

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:
I think that all the complaints about the price of the Sigmar and Khorn dice shakers are not taking into account that they both come with 8 custom dice.....

and GW custom dice are not cheap by themselves,

so while the shaker is expensive, when you take into account the dice it's not any more expensive than anything else GW sells

£25 for a pot and 8 dice is ridiculous whichever way you cut it.

 ImAGeek wrote:

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:
I think that all the complaints about the price of the Sigmar and Khorn dice shakers are not taking into account that they both come with 8 custom dice.....

and GW custom dice are not cheap by themselves,

so while the shaker is expensive, when you take into account the dice it's not any more expensive than anything else GW sells

£25 for a pot and 8 dice is ridiculous whichever way you cut it.

Added to the fact that for the one game I played my wife at one point needed 40 dice for her 20 archers.....

Yodhrin, thank you, those posts were excellent, it's a shame they were wasted on this audience in this thread.
The map of the old world no longer reads "here be dragons" it's just stamped with the words everything is awesome.
No complaints here and the fingers in the ears brigade is why warhammer died.

 Talys wrote:

RazorMind wrote:
and this here is another reason why I wont be buying in addition to everything else> boxed set of AOS "Celestial Thunder", 20 miniatures for $200 lol!!! wow!

It's just 4 boxes of Liberators, which are $50 boxes. You literally get nothing else! In WMH terms, those would be $10 minis. Cheap for that game! So it should be considered cheap for this one too.

On a different note, I'm not entirely sure why you'd want 4 boxes of Liberators though, with so many other models, and with the game mechanics not really working well in that 50+ model range.

Someone might want to field Liberators with paired Warblades or Warhammers or Warblades and Shields instead of Warhammers and Shields(which is what the AoS box builds).
It would also let someone build the "1 in 5" Greatblades or Greathammers for the Liberators you get in the AoS box.

Joyboozer wrote:
Yodhrin, thank you, those posts were excellent, it's a shame they were wasted on this audience in this thread.
The map of the old world no longer reads "here be dragons" it's just stamped with the words everything is awesome.
No complaints here and the fingers in the ears brigade is why warhammer died.

While I might find the artwork in the book interesting, or the figures cool it does not mean I like the changes. I won't be buying them until I find them for a few pounds on eBay ( the book, the figures I won't be buying even via proxy for the time being ) while I might think oh I could use x or y for z or q in 40k it's still to much of a slap in the face and I agree with Yodhrin.

While I have very loose contact with GW I've told my source multiple times I'm not happy with what they have done or how they did it but he's said it's this or bust for fantasy.

As I understand these campaign books will be what we get and how they will introduce the various new fractions. When I've asked if we will get a dedicated book to each fraction he has been less than forthcoming.

Chikout wrote:
Regarding the new setting, one persons sterile is another persons mythological. Saying that there is nothing in Age of Sigmar that connects to our shared identity is simply not true. The concepts of Valhalla or Eden, of angels or more recently super heroes are all ideas that exist across cultures.

Superheroes are not a good example. Superhero comics are about people - people who can do extraordinary things, sure, but people. It's emphasised more with Marvel than DC, but even someone like Superman is still a man with parents, friends and loved ones and not some faceless uber-mook like these "Stormcast Eternals".

What happened to Warhammer :(....

 Emicrania wrote:
What happened to Warhammer :(....

In short, skirmish free light rules, round bases, different names and fluff and a new Sigmar army.

I know I know lots of things to take in, mixed feelings and all but this looks like its GW way to move forward with fantasy.

I will repeat what I said in the previous thread: I don't mind this, hell, I actually like some of it, but I personally wish they didn't use this to replace WHFB...

 AlexHolker wrote:

Chikout wrote:
Regarding the new setting, one persons sterile is another persons mythological. Saying that there is nothing in Age of Sigmar that connects to our shared identity is simply not true. The concepts of Valhalla or Eden, of angels or more recently super heroes are all ideas that exist across cultures.

Superheroes are not a good example. Superhero comics are about people - people who can do extraordinary things, sure, but people. It's emphasised more with Marvel than DC, but even someone like Superman is still a man with parents, friends and loved ones and not some faceless uber-mook like these "Stormcast Eternals".

Actually, superhero books are chock full of faceless Uber-Mooks! I'm not sure how you never noticed them.

The guys in yellow beekeeper suits from A.I.M
The moloids
Doombots
Hydra
Secret Empire
Adaptoids
Anhiliation Swarm

The sigmarites will fit right in




Automatically Appended Next Post:
You folks have fun, i'm spending the next 10 hours setting up and running our first AOS tournement. if it goes well, i'll report back.

If it goes badly...they may just tear me apart and eat me.

These AoS threads don't half provide folks with the good use of the ignore button. At least 12 folks on it now.

I'd like to see new dwarfs as they are a possibility for next force

 Motograter wrote:
These AoS threads don't half provide folks with the good use of the ignore button. At least 12 folks on it now.

I'd like to see new dwarfs as they are a possibility for next force

According to Harry from Warseer, the next after Sigmarines and Chaos will be Skaven

Harry wrote:I would expect to see nothing but more Humans and Chaos stuff for a couple of months along with a bunch of terrain (so folks can build 'new look' tables) and then the Skaven stuff to hit.

http://www.warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?410324-First-pictures-from-WD-not-much/page27&p=7474425#post7474425