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Made in us
Clousseau




There are cities and kingdoms in the novels yes.

   
Made in ie
Calculating Commissar




Frostgrave

Spoiler:
MongooseMatt wrote:
 Bottle wrote:
Herzlos wrote:
 Bottle wrote:
White Dwarf seems to suggest both, as they are born on beams of celestial light and are undying, and yet there are "Old Bloods" and mention of cohorts "awaiting" the call of their masters.


Why does everything have to be infinite and/or undying? It kind of takes any risk out of any battle, and means there's essentially no outcome. Just eternal war, with no strategy or tactics. I mean a general really should try and keep his troops alive, but why would he bother doing that in AoS if they are either infinite (Chaos) or immortal (Sigmarines, Lizardmen).


I totally agree. I remember White Dwarf Daily shouting the praise of no longer having to battle on the grassy fields of Averland, and while fighting inside a volcano can be fun, they forget that those battles before really MATTERED because there was an Empire city you were protecting just beyond that grassy field.


Well, they wanted/needed to create a setting that could support war of any size at any time in any place, much like 40k. And in that, I think, they were successful. That does not mean you cannot have meaningful or well thought out and complex areas of interaction, such as a group of city states. In fact, you can have those pretty much where you like, destroy them all, and the setting will continue. In the Old World, if Middenheim was wiped off the map, it would cause issues later on. So, with this, you can have your cake and eat it.

True, these areas have not really appeared yet (maybe the Brimstone Peninsula, maybe some of the cities described in the fiction), but there is no reason such areas will not grow and become as well known to us as Altdorf or Ulthuan. We are. atfer all, just a few months into this story.

As for generals and tactics... The only infinite troops available to Chaos are the daemons, and the only risk you run in throwing them carelessly into battle is that you might annoy them. That may not be trivial. The mortal Chaos followers are, well, mortal and limited. Though a dedicated Khorne general might be happy throwing his follower's lives away if it meant more blood...

For the Stormcasts, it is not that simple. You have the idea that a great (I won't say ultimate) sacrifice can be made, throwing your 'life' away to create that beach head, slay that greater daemon, etc, that swings the battle. This could very much happen. But throwing lives away?

First, the Stormcasts are good guys, and they have friendships. Once you realise that a dying Stormcast can come back but is going to be 'less' than he was before, it will not be that easy to do to your mates. There is a price to pay for death.

However, we have already seen that, for Stormcasts, there are literally fates worse than death. At the Eternity Fortress, the Chaos Sorcerer was able to trap the souls of the Stormcasts. It did not work out so well for him, but a similar thing happened in the Hammers of Sigmar book - so, we know a Stormcast's soul can be trapped and the reforging stopped. We have also seen that Stormcasts can be corrupted beyond redemption - if a Tzeentch Sorcerer successfully casts a Bolt of Change on a Stormcast, he ain't going to be walking away from that.

As for the Seraphon, well, until we get the book in our hands, we really don't know what is happening there. It may be that we care as little for the individual Seraphon as we do a Bloodletter and instead the focus goes on the leaders and the general ethos of the Seraphon, as you might 'get into' Khorne, for example.

It is not as easy as just pushing the reset button on these guys though. There is a price to pay for death and there are far worse things that can happen to them. That is where the jeopardy lies.




All the fluff I've seen (not much, I haven't gone out of my way to read it) describes the Bloodbound as an infinite horde. The Stormcast as being soulless resurrected beings and locked in an infinite war and now the Seraphim as undying.

Sure if you look into the fluff beyond what GW have written so far, you may be able to find some risk, but from the preview there is none, and that's enough to put people off. The demons exist only to bloodlust their way through the enemy for the gods, the cultists are mindless drones following the will of the gods, the Stormcast are soulless and only existed at the will of a god to fight the bad guys, the Seraphim are hollow beings of energy created by their gods to fight chaos.

There's nothing in that that makes me feel like I should care about which minions are crashing against a horde of enemy minions, or any feeling that any decision I make in the long run will matter. My Stormcast wipe out the foe? Fair enough, the next endless horde will be along in a minute. My Stormcast were wiped out? Oh well, they'll be resurrected and back fighting the endless horde shortly. Does either side eventually fail?

It's a bit like 40K but worse - there's always an endless tide of Orks and always an endless tide of guardsmen with millions of tanks. Even the Space Marines, which are supposedly depleted in number managed to be everywhere and have no interest in self-preservation and always seem to fall to the endless horde of enemies, despite the fact they've been fighting for 10,000 years and have killed countless foes.

Whereas when I play Flames Of War I feel the loss of every unit and there are real consequences - towns are lost, vehicles are not replaced, and so on. A Tiger II is lost in WW2? That's a huge impact on the way. A Thunderhawk is lost at the start of the first Ultramarines Omnibus? No big deal, another one will be there in 4 minutes.
Going further, when I play Malifaux or Empire Of The Dead, using named characters, I always feel a bit guilty for letting one of them die. I've got no attachment to any AoS race. so far.

I also don't think the endlessness of everything makes a difference to scale - we have imaginations to get round that. Small warbands for small raids around villages, massed armies representing actions by entire cities. There's nothing in the fluff (I assume) to indicate how many Stormcast there are - so what's stopping us assuming it's like humans or Space Marines and they are found in any sized group from 1 to 1,000,000,000? I mean, we've all seen Lord Of The Rings, we can visualize actions anywhere between the Orc raid at the river crossing at the end of Fellowship, up to the defence of Minas Tirith.

Have you done any AoS fluff yet? Is there anything in particular you can point me to that'll give me a better idea of how incorrect my view is?

This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2015/11/03 14:03:54


 
   
Made in us
Tough Treekin




 Lithlandis Stormcrow wrote:

This reasoning can be applied to every faction... and kinda makes the fluff even worse.

The current Dwarf range warscrolls have the keyword 'Dispossessed', indicating a different faction.
I would imagine that 'New' Duardin stuff won't have this. The Dark Elves have Exiles, the Wood Elves have Wanderer, etc. So it's reasonable to assume that these racial factions will remain.

However, similarly to Dwarfs/Duardin, I don't expect to see new Aelf stuff having these keywords.

The Seraphon have a discrete mechanic based around their fluff (summoning), but nothing indicates the AoS era Aelf & Duardin forces are anything other than residents of the realms.

I mean, even in WFB if you go back far enough in the timeline, there were no Wood, Dark or High Elves - it was just Elves. I'm expecting to see similar logic in reverse for AoS - Aelves united as a single race once more, but still with remnant 'separatist' factions still doing the rounds.

It's not like GW don't have previous for mini-dexes for individual factions in 40K, or the Old appendix lists from 5th/6th Ed WFB.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Herzlos wrote:
The demons exist only to bloodlust their way through the enemy for the gods, the cultists are mindless drones following the will of the gods, the Stormcast are soulless and only existed at the will of a god to fight the bad guys, the Seraphim are hollow beings of energy created by their gods to fight chaos.
...
Have you done any AoS fluff yet? Is there anything in particular you can point me to that'll give me a better idea of how incorrect my view is?

Within the Bloodbound for example, the first novel indicates that the bloodreavers are more subjugated rather than willing.
Khorne is pretty much ascendant in most of the realms because everything else has been crushed underfoot.
The Stormcast arent 'soulless' to begin with, it's just that each successive reforging removes aspects of their humanity.

Overall, the while narrative direction for AoS is the flip of WFB. In WFB, the forces of order fought a battle against Chaos for their own survival.
In AoS, Chaos has already 'won', but now the forces of order are fighting to retake the realms.
To use 40k tropes, Marines are the first ones in to establish a beachhead. The skinny, very mortal guardsmen follow in their wake to do the real work.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2015/11/03 14:08:44


 
   
Made in ie
Calculating Commissar




Frostgrave

RoperPG wrote:

The Stormcast arent 'soulless' to begin with, it's just that each successive reforging removes aspects of their humanity.


How long does it take for them to become soulless enough that there's no reason to care about them? 5 deaths? 500?

Assuming a 40K style eternal war, how many of the Stormcast in the fluff have already crossed that point? I get the impression none of them have names or any clear memories? They don't even have their own forms.
   
Made in se
Executing Exarch






The Stormcast and Bloodbound are indeed "endless" insomuch as they're never described in lacking a fresh supply of soldiers. But caught between those two super powers we have the dwarves, elves, men and other races who have been hunted close to extinction, and almost every time we have gained insight into one of the Stormcast's earlier lives it has been in the context of their communities fighting the last desperate battle before being swallowed by chaos. AoS is a post-post-apocalyptic setting and all that could be lost has already been lost, with the exception of Sigmar and the realm of Azyr. The fact that the Stormcast are immortal won't matter if they can't gain a foothold in the realms and prevent them from merging with the realm of Chaos, which was what would've happened had Sigmar waited even a few more days to launch his campaign. Those are the stakes right now in the fluff. After the Stormcast succeed in their reconquest, that's when we'll see communities of mortals returning to their realms, building new cities on the ruins of their former kingdoms.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Herzlos wrote:
RoperPG wrote:

The Stormcast arent 'soulless' to begin with, it's just that each successive reforging removes aspects of their humanity.


How long does it take for them to become soulless enough that there's no reason to care about them? 5 deaths? 500?

Assuming a 40K style eternal war, how many of the Stormcast in the fluff have already crossed that point? I get the impression none of them have names or any clear memories? They don't even have their own forms.


Even one death is enough for the change to be very noticeable, as seen in one of the novels. The ones who haven't died offer retain quite clear memories of parts of their past, sometimes enough to cause them to doubt who they are; a warrior of sigmar or the blacksmith king of Whateverville? They do have forms, they basically look like beefy dudes, presumably beefier versions of their former selves.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2015/11/03 14:43:31


 
   
Made in ie
Calculating Commissar




Frostgrave

Sorry, by own forms I meant that whatever their existing form (elf, dwarf, human) their new form was presumably a replica of Sigmar. There was outrage about it at the time.

So are the Stormcast making progress?
   
Made in se
Executing Exarch






So far they are in the process of conquering Aqshy (Fire), Ghyran (Life) and Chamon (metal). I haven't read the latest book though.

Also I think the Stormcast were all human.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2015/11/03 15:14:14


 
   
Made in ie
Calculating Commissar




Frostgrave

My bad then, I thought they were warriors from all races.
   
Made in gb
Secretive Dark Angels Veteran





 Lithlandis Stormcrow wrote:

You really are tireless in your defense, aren't you? :p


I know, I apologise. What am I thinking by bringing facts into a discussion?

 Lithlandis Stormcrow wrote:
I think you give way, way too much credit to the GW writing team if you think they can actually conjure up more than "X warriors attack and kill Y warriors"


Well, here is the thing, and you can't really get round this: they have already done it. They did it in the Old World, they have done it in 40k.

Now, you might disagree with this but then I have to ask... why are you playing these games if you don't like the background? That would make you very, very unusual...

It really is okay to withhold judgement until you know more - there is no requirement to make any decision and it is probably better if you don't, as it will invariably be wrong.

 Lithlandis Stormcrow wrote:

because already the M.O for AoS fludd is coming to the fore.


I am sorry, I don't know what that means.

 Bottle wrote:
If they start adding cities and towns into the setting I will be thrilled. Did you say there are cities in the novels? That sounds interesting. I can't wait to hear more :-)


Off the top of my head, there is the city with the Gnawing Gate in the Klaxus stories, a massive (really massive) Khorne complex in Hammers of Sigmar (doesn't give much of a look beyond the big battle outside its walls though), a sorceress who came from an old civilisation in the same story andm, if you like the 'little' people, the Knight of Corruption has, for want of a better word, a pre-Sigmarite monastery.

Herzlos wrote:

So are the Stormcast making progress?


Yes, but it is really early days. Think of them as having been successful in the D-Day landings, and they are now just making their way into Normandy.

Herzlos wrote:
There's nothing in that that makes me feel like I should care about which minions are crashing against a horde of enemy minions,


You monster

Herzlos wrote:
Is there anything in particular you can point me to that'll give me a better idea of how incorrect my view is?


Well, that is quite a big question. I'll start by going back a little bit...

Herzlos wrote:

All the fluff I've seen (not much, I haven't gone out of my way to read it)


If you have taken a quick snapshot of things, how correct do you think you will be? Not just in AoS, but anything. It is not my intention to call you out here, but I imagine you can guess things will be missed if you just take a quick look at things - which is one reason these forums are useful!

You asked about how many Stormcasts there are - this is a little mutable, as they obviously need to leave players room to create their own Stormhosts. However, there is some quite solid info in the Stormcasts' Battletome about how large a Stormhost is. Chaos forces are going to be a lot more variable but, again, the Bloodbound Battletome gives a good picture at how a warband is typically arranged, with proportions of Reavers, Blood Warriors, Skullcrushers, etc, plus the people who lead them.

You mentioned how the Stormcasts seem to be locked into an infinite war - it may very well end up that way (GW need to be selling models in 20 years time!), but that is not how it is being pitched. Sigmar has had enough of Chaos strutting about, and is now launching the counter attack, a grand crusade. Again, the D-Day landings are a good analogy.

The very best source material at the moment is probably the fiction. The best (in my opinion) are the War Storm and Ghal Maraz stories (all linked), though they are concentrating on the 'D-Day landings' and how everyone fights rather than the back story behind them all. Others have little snippets that are interesting. If you accept that some will be better than others, you cannot really go wrong with some of the eshorts - they are both cheap and don't require a huge investment in time.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2015/11/03 15:51:22


40k and Age of Sigmar Blog - A Tabletop Gamer's Diary: https://ttgamingdiary.wordpress.com/

Mongoose Publishing: http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/ 
   
Made in ie
Calculating Commissar




Frostgrave

Thanks. I'll give them a try.

For the record I enjoy many games without being too bothered about the fluff. My games of 40K feel nothing like the fluff, for instance (read Gaunts Ghosts and then watch your guardsmen get creamed by pretty much anything).
   
Made in bg
Dakka Veteran





Seriously, I can't understand why people continue to demand exact answers about the setting - there have been only 6 hardback "rulebooks" and 4 hardback novels printed so far . Surely we can wait a couple of years - the game is still young...

On to the topic at hand - while browsing the Seraphon new bundles I found a sentence mentioning that the seraphon's battles will be remembered for eons in many mythologies. It's only a single sentence but from all I've seen things are forming the way MongooseMatt described them - nothing exact and in stone - everyone is fighting everyone forever everywhere so anything goes. I expect short paragraphs, like in the book's timelines, to give players a little inspiration and nothing concrete. It will be a vast universe with many mysterious places, defined by a single sentence somewhere, and a central epic story told in broad strokes - like 40k. I expect Seraphon to be presented in the exact same manner, but I guess I'll see next week.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2015/11/03 16:45:22


 
   
Made in us
Pyromaniac Hellhound Pilot





Herzlos wrote:
My bad then, I thought they were warriors from all races.


They were, as far as I know. Some of them were even orcs! Sigmar's a very equal-opportunity employer, so long as you don't mind looking exactly the same as all his other Stormcast after he gets ahold of you. Such a missed modeling opportunity...imagine a jawplate done in Stormcast gold with an orc mask!

The setting is pretty blatantly designed to be an all-out, eternal war sort of thing like 40k has going for it. So far, the fleshed-out factions can either respawn or have all but endless hordes of troops to draw from. They've gone out of their way to avoid detailing major areas of civilization or important areas beyond quick mentions along the line of 'this is the landmark of AdjectiveNoun, they had a huge battle here and lots of people died', but Josh Reynolds has referenced both that the Mortal Realms are basically infinite and that there are supposedly areas uncorrupted by Chaos (despite their victory). It's a deliberate decision to try and get the players to do the background detailing themselves; handled differently, it might even be interesting (GW should absolutely run a 'design a Mortal Realms ruined kingdom' contest!). As it is - and this is no judgment on the authors, rather, it's aimed at the people telling them what to write - it feels like a very lazy, very hands-off design choice.

Back on topic, the Seraphon feed right into that from the snippets I've seen. Obviously the book's still up for preorder, and I'm not going to run out and buy it when it IS released, but we've gotten enough to tell us the general direction of the faction. They have the same adjective-overuse problem as the Stormcast and Khornates, the rank and file are 'summoned memories' or crystallized magic or something rather than actual living, breathing beings that have a life outside fighting Chaos (except the Slaan? Maybe?), and they seem to be wholly focused on war. They fit right in with the other reworked factions and the setting for Age of Sigmar, I'll give them that, but they aren't my cup of tea.
   
Made in gb
Painting Within the Lines






 Lithlandis Stormcrow wrote:
 jonolikespie wrote:
 Kilkrazy wrote:
If I'm honest, I just don't like the new celestial realms fluff. It doesn't give me anything to care about or connect with.
I have to agree with that. The whole idea of 'good demons' I find very unimaginative and just lacking, the same way I feel the immortal superhumans created by a god to fight his wars are. It's just... boring.


"But they're Seraphs.. Good demons... They're Angels! Get it!

Aren't we so creative!"

-GW


Said the Lizardmen fan
   
Made in gb
Insect-Infested Nurgle Chaos Lord






So, what is an appropriate name for a anthropomorphic lizard?


Games Workshop Delenda Est.

Users on ignore- 53.

If you break apart my or anyone else's posts line by line I will not read them. 
   
Made in us
Powerful Spawning Champion





There is not this idea.

The fact that the rank and file might not be living, thinking creatures is really what might be the final nail in the coffin for me, and I know that's strange. But I really, really dislike that direction.

I liked that the skinks were kind of the citizen soldiers of the lizardmen; that they were individuals with their own personalities, because even in the old setting, a lot of armies didn't have much of that.

And for all the supposed openness of the new setting, everything with the new armies seems to really restrict what kind of people they can actually be.

   
Made in us
Pyromaniac Hellhound Pilot





 Grimtuff wrote:
So, what is an appropriate name for a anthropomorphic lizard?


Steve.

You can't just label him by his species, dude. He HAS a name.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2015/11/03 17:19:01


 
   
Made in gb
Secretive Dark Angels Veteran





 CoreCommander wrote:
I found a sentence mentioning that the seraphon's battles will be remembered for eons in many mythologies.


Speaking of this, the preview of the book mentions a Battleplan where the Seraphon are fighting Slaaneshi daemons. Could be interesting...


40k and Age of Sigmar Blog - A Tabletop Gamer's Diary: https://ttgamingdiary.wordpress.com/

Mongoose Publishing: http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/ 
   
Made in gb
Insect-Infested Nurgle Chaos Lord






MongooseMatt wrote:
 CoreCommander wrote:
I found a sentence mentioning that the seraphon's battles will be remembered for eons in many mythologies.


Speaking of this, the preview of the book mentions a Battleplan where the Seraphon are fighting Slaaneshi daemons. Could be interesting...



Is it because they're tickling one another....?


Games Workshop Delenda Est.

Users on ignore- 53.

If you break apart my or anyone else's posts line by line I will not read them. 
   
Made in gb
Ghastly Grave Guard





UK

I think its ok. No new models isn't really an issue grey knights were ok and necrons only got one. I imagine rebranding existing forces getting them a book and getting them out asap is gw's end goal. Once that's done then we may start seeing new updated models which I think is a good way to do it
   
Made in gb
Eternally-Stimulated Slaanesh Dreadnought





A stormcast carries a huge price for dying and reading the novels Vandus(The gold guy riding the Dracoth) is quite scared about dying scared enough to ask his Relicator Ionus who is from the realm of death on whats going on. The same Relicator is pretty much still serving nagash in a capacity. Essentially each time they die a part of their spirit is slashed away because death does not really like the stormcast and sigmar defying it. Or it might be nagash trying to grab their souls going by the audiobook. Anyway dying once or twice is not a big deal but the third time? That's when you start turning into a robot a lord celestant from the celestial vindicators has died about 3-4 times and now he cannot even remember Vandus. The same guy who Lamented about the chaos warrior he killed because instead of finding a mutated monstrosity under the helmet he just saw a young man and this is the stormhost obsessed with vengeance mind you.

He essentially is turning into sigmar's robot and he only cares about the defeat of chaos. The question is yeah you fight and die for what you believe in but what happens if you have a form of immortality that strips away everything that you are? You will no longer remember your comrades, your family and those you cared for and it does not help the reforging messes with their memories as well. All you will be is sigmar's little warrior.

Funny enough so far sigmar has shown no inclination in trying to fix this.

It seems the only god that "cares" about their followers is nagash shockingly but you don't annoy him or stuff happens bad stuff and its noted by a mortal pilgrim that largely undead keep to their word apart from "that" vampire no one seems to like him for obvious reasons. Now with the bloodbound their lives suck how they get new people is essetinally joins us ooor we eat you alive choose. In the call of Archeon series a Khornate character named skull gets bloody philosophical about why someone would join chaos as all instead of fighting it and the crux of it is simply pure survival until the dark gods take your mind and you end up us one of their followers. Essetinally the stormcast are killing people that had no choice in the matter and once they become a warrior? Its too late that's the sad thing about it.

Now Seraphon fighting slaaneshi daemons? I need to get this book.... is there any confirmation on this battleplan?

This message was edited 4 times. Last update was at 2015/11/03 19:38:20


 
   
Made in gb
Tough Treekin




 toasteroven wrote:
The fact that the rank and file might not be living, thinking creatures is really what might be the final nail in the coffin for me, and I know that's strange. But I really, really dislike that direction.
I liked that the skinks were kind of the citizen soldiers of the lizardmen; that they were individuals with their own personalities, because even in the old setting, a lot of armies didn't have much of that.

People appear to have misread a lot.
I thought I must have missed something, so I've gone back over all the GW blog posts and reread White Dwarf.
Seraphon exist elsewhere, referred to as 'High Azyr, amongst the stars'.
They definitely exist separately from the battlefield, and it's not a daemonic summoning, it's a stormcast-esque teleportation.
It refers to them 'bleeding the stuff of the celestial realm', which might have a deeper meaning.
But nowhere am I getting a lot of what people have been saying.
   
Made in us
Pyromaniac Hellhound Pilot





There's a reference to the skinks and saurus being 'memories' of the former Lizardmen, I believe, brought into being by the Slaan for the purpose of killing Chaos followers. Maybe that's been misinterpreted, or maybe it's another victim of GW's refusal to flesh out their AoS fluff until Battletomes are released. Given the track record, though, I'd bet on them being more war robots.

Metaphorically, I mean. Maybe the Duardin will fill that gap. :p
   
Made in us
Powerful Spawning Champion





There is not this idea.

RoperPG wrote:

People appear to have misread a lot.
I thought I must have missed something, so I've gone back over all the GW blog posts and reread White Dwarf.
Seraphon exist elsewhere, referred to as 'High Azyr, amongst the stars'.
They definitely exist separately from the battlefield, and it's not a daemonic summoning, it's a stormcast-esque teleportation.
It refers to them 'bleeding the stuff of the celestial realm', which might have a deeper meaning.
But nowhere am I getting a lot of what people have been saying.


I certainly hope it's a misreading! I guess I should just hold on and wait.

I'm still heck of confused about trying to picture where anything is in these realms, though. But that's a different post.
   
Made in se
Sickening Carrion






My opinion on seraphon. If they are memories from the old world and like som good deamons I am done with lizardmen. If they are armies being teleported to the battlefield by the slann I find them still interesting.

They told me i was crazy, that i could not win with an army list like that. 2000 points later i found out that they were right

My painting log: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/662274.page#8093321
 
   
Made in pt
Skillful Swordmaster




The Shadowlands of Nagarythe

 Spinner wrote:
 Grimtuff wrote:
So, what is an appropriate name for a anthropomorphic lizard?


Steve.

You can't just label him by his species, dude. He HAS a name.


What about Bob the Kroxigor?

"Let them that are happy talk of piety; we that would work our adversary must take no account of laws." http://back2basing.blogspot.pt/

 
   
Made in be
Longtime Dakkanaut





Yes, the background of AoS is on a bigger scale than before; no longer are we limited to just one world. Here, open the gates of the Infinite Realms!

Honestly, I like that part in the fluff. It is quite different from the Old World, that's for sure, but it gives such a fantasy picture. And it's not just for Chaos now.

About the "our armies cannot truly die" part, I believe it's part of the game. It's natural to have our precious miniatures/characters painted with love/having a long and detailed background to be somewhat "immortal" - or at least not dying at your first game because he failed a save roll against a puny gob. Since AoS is quite deadly as a game, it's not a bad idea to try to find an explanation about how the hell our armies can still fight if they keep having such heavy losses.

The "infinite hordes" justification is a possible answer. The "we can't truly die" one is another.

That's what I would call "forging the narrative". But of course, you can also write your own stories and your own point of view. What about a Stormcast being truly corrupted (ie forsaking Sigmar)? What if something went wrong in his Forging and he can't ressurect like the others? What if these Seraphons met were actually not Seraphons, but lizardmen-like monsters raiding and pillaging the surrounding as mindless beasts?

Fluff is just here to help us giving a personnality to our collection. Some like to follow it to the letter others would rather change it to their own needs. There are enough "gaps" in AoS's fluff to allow your imagination to fly free.

At least, it's my humble opinion on the matter.
   
Made in us
Tough Treekin




 toasteroven wrote:

I certainly hope it's a misreading! I guess I should just hold on and wait.

I'm still heck of confused about trying to picture where anything is in these realms, though. But that's a different post.

My take on it is that the realm of Azyr is 'space'. Azyrheim is depicted as a dyson-sphere type arrangement around the remaining core of the Old World, so I guess space station/moon arrangement. The other realms are planetoid-ish - no idea if actual planets or discworlds - with the realm of death 'below', and the realm of Chaos 'off to one side'.
So the Seraphon coming from 'High Azyr' meens deep space.

As for the Aztec imagery, I'd always taken that as being a result of the Old Ones using that kind of imagery rather than anything distinct to old Lustria.
   
Made in gb
Arch Magos w/ 4 Meg of RAM





RoperPG wrote:
 toasteroven wrote:

I certainly hope it's a misreading! I guess I should just hold on and wait.

I'm still heck of confused about trying to picture where anything is in these realms, though. But that's a different post.

My take on it is that the realm of Azyr is 'space'. Azyrheim is depicted as a dyson-sphere type arrangement around the remaining core of the Old World, so I guess space station/moon arrangement. The other realms are planetoid-ish - no idea if actual planets or discworlds - with the realm of death 'below', and the realm of Chaos 'off to one side'.
So the Seraphon coming from 'High Azyr' meens deep space.


I think you're getting confused with Azyrheim and Sigmaron (it is confusing, I'll admit!). Sigmaron is the space station around the Mallus (the remains of the old world). Azyrheim is a city on land. It is built onto a mountainside.

I don't deny that the highest climbs of Azyr are space, but the heart (Azyrheim) is on land.

With regards to Seraphon being conjuered memories or real creatures existing outside of the battle, in the OP I mentioned how confusing the fluff is so far. This is from the latest White Dwarf however:

White Dwarf 92 p.16 wrote:
"The Seraphon appear as reptilian warriors, creatures summoned from ancient memory - and indeed that is their origin"

"At a thought the Slann bring mighty war beasts forth from the deepest recesses of their slumbering memories."

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2015/11/04 16:10:57


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Wait, Sigi's place in the 'heavens' realm is in space but the realm of 'heavens' itself is actually mostly on the ground?

 Fafnir wrote:
Oh, I certainly vote with my dollar, but the problem is that that is not enough. The problem with the 'vote with your dollar' response is that it doesn't take into account why we're not buying the product. I want to enjoy 40k enough to buy back in. It was my introduction to traditional games, and there was a time when I enjoyed it very much. I want to buy 40k, but Gamesworkshop is doing their very best to push me away, and simply not buying their product won't tell them that.
 
   
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MongooseMatt wrote:


 Bottle wrote:
If they start adding cities and towns into the setting I will be thrilled. Did you say there are cities in the novels? That sounds interesting. I can't wait to hear more :-)


Off the top of my head, there is the city with the Gnawing Gate in the Klaxus stories, a massive (really massive) Khorne complex in Hammers of Sigmar (doesn't give much of a look beyond the big battle outside its walls though), a sorceress who came from an old civilisation in the same story andm, if you like the 'little' people, the Knight of Corruption has, for want of a better word, a pre-Sigmarite monastery.

*snip*

The very best source material at the moment is probably the fiction. The best (in my opinion) are the War Storm and Ghal Maraz stories (all linked), though they are concentrating on the 'D-Day landings' and how everyone fights rather than the back story behind them all. Others have little snippets that are interesting. If you accept that some will be better than others, you cannot really go wrong with some of the eshorts - they are both cheap and don't require a huge investment in time.


That all sounds very interesting! Unfortunately reading the fiction is something that has never been part of my hobby experience and likely never will. Do these cities feature in the main campaign books? Hopefully they will do soon if they don't already.

I totally understand GW's intent to make the setting one of infinite possiblities and it really excites me too. I am having fun with Azyrheim as it is, but I want more cities and towns (especially ruled by Order) to have to bounce ideas off. 40K gives us a great framework with the different types of planets (Forgeworlds, Hive Worlds etc) and then gives us thousands of example planets. I hope they start giving example towns and cities soon in the other Mortal Realms. And for me BL fiction doesn't count :p


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 jonolikespie wrote:
Wait, Sigi's place in the 'heavens' realm is in space but the realm of 'heavens' itself is actually mostly on the ground?


In the latest White Dwarf it talks about every sky in the Mortal Realms having a vast star scape, and the 'furthest climbs' of the Azyr realm seem to be in Space.

Azyrheim is the heart of the realm of Azyr, but it is spoken of as being built on a mountainside and under the light of Suns and moons (suggesting it is not in space). It is bathed in the golden light of Mallus (the old world) and we have seen Sigmaron (the space station) is built around Mallus.

Sigmaron is where Sigmarine equipment is forged. It's also where the Empire and Bretonnian reenactors hang out (according to the compediums - maybe GW are confused too lol).

I don't thing Sigmar lives in either though. Doesn't he live in Sigmarion? His giant palace?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I imagine the Azyr realm to look like a slice of pizza with Azyrheim being at the narrow tip and the Seraphon living in the cheesy crust of outer space.

Either that or for the Azyr realm to be a sphere of space with a planet at its centre and Azyrhiem being built on that planet.

This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2015/11/04 16:29:03


Bye bye Dakkadakka, happy hobbying! I really enjoyed my time on here. Opinions were always my own :-) 
   
 
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