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 Lithlandis Stormcrow wrote:

I think the appropriate reaction would be "oopsie"

I wasn't arguing for or against anything - just discussing what info had already been released. So it wasn't an "oopsie".
It's not like KK was actually stating anything either, other than being unusually vitriolic.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

That's because GW are making it up as they go along. All the speculation about GW taking over two years carefully planning AoS is bollocks. The game is clearly a rushed out product in a rather panicked response to the collapse of WHFB and 40K.

Please refrain from using bad language

 Mymearan wrote:
It's "clearly" a rushed out product despite there being no evidence of that, and in fact the rumors from ostensible insiders say that it has been planned for many years? Forgive me if I don't put much stock in that...

Oh, and 40k is not "collapsing". WHFB collapsed, 40k not so much.

Sales down 25% in three years?

I'm not prepared to put any credence in rumours fmor ostensible insiders.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

 Mymearan wrote:
It's "clearly" a rushed out product despite there being no evidence of that, and in fact the rumors from ostensible insiders say that it has been planned for many years? Forgive me if I don't put much stock in that...

Oh, and 40k is not "collapsing". WHFB collapsed, 40k not so much.

Sales down 25% in three years?

I'm not prepared to put any credence in rumours fmor ostensible insiders.

Sales of what? You specified 40k, have 40k sales dropped 25% in three years?

 Mymearan wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:

 Mymearan wrote:
It's "clearly" a rushed out product despite there being no evidence of that, and in fact the rumors from ostensible insiders say that it has been planned for many years? Forgive me if I don't put much stock in that...

Oh, and 40k is not "collapsing". WHFB collapsed, 40k not so much.

Sales down 25% in three years?

I'm not prepared to put any credence in rumours fmor ostensible insiders.

Sales of what? You specified 40k, have 40k sales dropped 25% in three years?

To repeat:

As is quite clear from GW's financials, their year on year profits are dropping. So, we can come to one of two conclusions here- Either the same amount of people are buying less product or lower amounts of product are being shifted due to there being less people playing GW's games.

The financials do not lie. One of the above is true.

GW sales have dropped 25% in three years. We all know that the majority of sales were 40K, so that fall must be mostly 40K and cannot be pinned on WHFB, especially if people want to claim that GW started preparing AoS over two years ago to cope with the fall off of WHFB sales.

So it's all conjecture. That's what I thought. Hardly enough evidence to talk about a "collapse". GW have three main products, and we have no idea which of them is responsible for which percent of the sales drop. We have no idea what GWs cutoff point for Fantasy was. We have no idea how well 40k sells now compared to three years ago, other then that it's probably selling less. How much less? We have no idea. Again, hardly enough evidence to use such strong language.

 Mymearan wrote:
So it's all conjecture. That's what I thought. Hardly enough evidence to talk about a "collapse". GW have three main products, and we have no idea which of them is responsible for which percent of the sales drop. We have no idea what GWs cutoff point for Fantasy was. We have no idea how well 40k sells now compared to three years ago, other then that it's probably selling less. How much less? We have no idea. Again, hardly enough evidence to use such strong language.

What's the third, paint? I know you're not talking about Hobbit because they released like 4 finecast blisters with the last movie (after stopping finecast) and never did two of the three starter sets they had initially planned. Plus you can still find the 'limited edition' starters gather dust everywhere. It is a dead game and has been before any of the financials being talked about where relevant.


But lets look at this though, if GW's Fantasy sales were so bad that they decided to nuke the setting some time in of before 2013 then we can assume the impact Fantasy had on the 2013 forward financials was negligible.

 Mymearan wrote:
So it's all conjecture. That's what I thought. Hardly enough evidence to talk about a "collapse". GW have three main products, and we have no idea which of them is responsible for which percent of the sales drop. We have no idea what GWs cutoff point for Fantasy was. We have no idea how well 40k sells now compared to three years ago, other then that it's probably selling less. How much less? We have no idea. Again, hardly enough evidence to use such strong language.

Well, not speculation, it's based on GW's facts including new releases, new prices, player reaction, and the financial performance over the past decade.

How much less is 40K selling? Up to 25% less.

If we take the 7% sales figure for WHFB that has been quoted by AoS supporters as a reason for canning of the game, then 40K is selling 18% less than three years ago.

We should probably get back to saying what we think of the Seraphon now in here?

I think part of my disappointment with the seraphon is... I just don't really have interest in the Slann. And now they're the only alive ones?

Whatever, skinks 4 life.

Maybe I'm big on the nostalgia of years past, but I much preferred Lustrian Lizardmen over Lizard space-memories.

Lustria inherently gave them a tongue in cheek reason for all the Aztec imagery, much like Tileans being Italian, Brettonians being French, Empire being Austrian, etc. It was part of what I thought was the charm of the Old World, in that it was a fun "Uchronia" of comparisons with Earth.

Now, the whole "memory" angle is a Star Trek "hand-wavium" to ignore the fact that the Aztec imagery has no place in the AoS world/s, which are really not fleshed out at all, giving them a super vanilla feel where the player should not be worrying about such things, only bloody combat between what is right now essentially a war of angels and deamons where normal people are ignored.

It's like mortals are sitting on the sidelines watching as the legendary celestial warriors of all the religions of Earth clash.

Thats a good point- the stormcast really are reminiscent of renaissance christian imagery, and the seraphon not only are named after christian angels but also still have all those aztec sacred imagery. Maybe its my ocd or maybe im looking too much into this, but is this fine, un-p.c. or just lazy design?

 Mymearan wrote:
It's "clearly" a rushed out product despite there being no evidence of that, and in fact the rumors from ostensible insiders say that it has been planned for many years? Forgive me if I don't put much stock in that...

You mean beyond the quality and depth of it?

I really doubt that if GW had actually spend the suggested 2 years on AoS, they'd manage to come out with anything so blatantly incomplete. 2 Days? Definitely. 2 Weeks? Maybe. 2 years? Not a chance.

Tailessine wrote:
Thats a good point- the stormcast really are reminiscent of renaissance christian imagery, and the seraphon not only are named after christian angels but also still have all those aztec sacred imagery. Maybe its my ocd or maybe im looking too much into this, but is this fine, un-p.c. or just lazy design?

There's nothing at all inherently wrong with drawing from Christian imagery. GW has been doing it in both 40k and Fantasy for... most of their existance? How they approach it defines the quality.

Tailessine wrote:
Thats a good point- the stormcast really are reminiscent of renaissance christian imagery, and the seraphon not only are named after christian angels but also still have all those aztec sacred imagery. Maybe its my ocd or maybe im looking too much into this, but is this fine, un-p.c. or just lazy design?

First, the Stormcast are obviously based on Greek mythology, right down to Zeus/Sigmar's lightning bolt. Since nobody actively practices Greek or Aztec religions anymore, it's pretty much open season. At least it's not more Tolkien.

Second, political correctness is... a discussion probably best left to other, more progressive forums. Needless to say, not everybody agrees. Personally, I think that if Warhammer had a hero named Jesusmar who turned people's blood into wine and bludgeoned others with an infinite number of fish, I'd think most people who play the game would be fine with that as the majority of fundamentalists, who would be the type to take offense, would have already avoided Warhammer due to devil worshiping, witchcraft, and necromancy. Also, Slaanesh. There's a reason why Sunday mornings are when my FLGS hosts GW games.

 toasteroven wrote:
I think part of my disappointment with the seraphon is... I just don't really have interest in the Slann. And now they're the only ones?

Whatever, skinks 4 life.

Haha, that's a fair point.

Tailessine wrote:
Thats a good point- the stormcast really are reminiscent of renaissance christian imagery, and the seraphon not only are named after christian angels but also still have all those aztec sacred imagery. Maybe its my ocd or maybe im looking too much into this, but is this fine, un-p.c. or just lazy design?

Also take into account the lovecraft nature of the Seraphon that the lizardmen played off of due to their service to the old ones. A species of creatures that travel the cosmos through strange crafts and eldritch powers while creating creatures from pure thought that not only act on their own accord, defying the logic "I think therefore I am", but also evolve and change.

It's very interesting.

Also, not sure why they can't be Aztec anymore. Where did the aesthetic come from in the first place? A number of extremely intelligent beings that traveled through dimensions. Have the servants become the masters in that case?

 AegisGrimm wrote:


only bloody combat between what is right now essentially a war of angels and deamons where normal people are ignored.

It's like mortals are sitting on the sidelines watching as the legendary celestial warriors of all the religions of Earth clash.

Not much the mortals can do right now. Chaos controls all the paths between the realms and have corrupted some to just lead to their own realm. Once the Stormcast have gained back most of the realms then we will probably see more mortal activity.

I think the memories thing is neat. But I'm not quite as fussed about having the official fluff be a certain way. I get most of my fluff/feelings on that front from looking at the models and to an extent how they play. I kind of dig the "fever dream" setting of Age of Sigmar.

I view it the same way I view all of AoS. I will ignore it completely because I find it terrible.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't the sigmarines pretty vague in their fluff too? No one's sure exactly where they come from, blah blah, heroes from beyond, blah blah, save the day?


Assuming the writers aren't talent-less hacks rushing out expensive garbage... I can see how having mysterious things in your lore is great. It captures fans imagination. It creates discussion, theories, arguments. It helps to draw people into your lore, looking for clues, and lapping up the slightest scrap of information.

However, people actually have to give a damn about your universe first. If people don't like your lore, they'll look at your vague handwaving and think you're a talent-less hack rushing out expensive garbage...

Stormcasts have been pretty fleshed out so far.

*They are great warriors killed by chaos whose souls have been gathered by Sigmar and reforged into new bodies and given armor forged from Sigmarite. The substance from the core of the old world itself.

* The great warrior souls can be from any race or gender.

* They are sent by Sigmar's power to strike as a destructive lightning bolt that allows them to hit at the heart of the enemy.

* Once killed, their souls make their way back to Sigmar's realm to be restored to a new body. The Relictors are important for helping them find their way or the daemons of chaos can devour the wayward souls.

* Upon being reforged they find they have lost some of their memories, emotions and humanity. This stacks with every time they are killed until they are emotionless killing machines.

* This has been revealed to be Nagash's doing for he has been cheated of those souls that rightfully belonged to him, yhe god of death. Only the Relictors are immune as they have come from the realm of death.

I think that sums up everything.

Baron Klatz wrote:
Stormcasts have been pretty fleshed out so far.

*They are great warriors killed by chaos whose souls have been gathered by Sigmar and reforged into new bodies and given armor forged from Sigmarite. The substance from the core of the old world itself.

* The great warrior souls can be from any race or gender.

* They are sent by Sigmar's power to strike as a destructive lightning bolt that allows them to hit at the heart of the enemy.

* Once killed, their souls make their way back to Sigmar's realm to be restored to a new body. The Relictors are important for helping them find their way or the daemons of chaos can devour the wayward souls.

* Upon being reforged they find they have lost some of their memories, emotions and humanity. This stacks with every time they are killed until they are emotionless killing machines.

* This has been revealed to be Nagash's doing for he has been cheated of those souls that rightfully belonged to him, yhe god of death. Only the Relictors are immune as they have come from the realm of death.

I think that sums up everything.

To me that doesn't sound very well fleshed out at all, it sounds like we know about how they were created, fight, and 'die'. Nothing else. Unless there is nothing else in which case they are as fleshed out as they are going to get but are very 2 dimensional and uninteresting.

Do we know if they ever take off their armour and walk around sigmaheim, chatting with the refugees there? There is the trumpet model that has exposed lips so presumably we know they actually are flesh inside the armour, does that mean they eat? What is sigmarine cuisine like? Do they have art? Culture of any sort at all?

 jonolikespie wrote:

Baron Klatz wrote:
Stormcasts have been pretty fleshed out so far.

*They are great warriors killed by chaos whose souls have been gathered by Sigmar and reforged into new bodies and given armor forged from Sigmarite. The substance from the core of the old world itself.

* The great warrior souls can be from any race or gender.

* They are sent by Sigmar's power to strike as a destructive lightning bolt that allows them to hit at the heart of the enemy.

* Once killed, their souls make their way back to Sigmar's realm to be restored to a new body. The Relictors are important for helping them find their way or the daemons of chaos can devour the wayward souls.

* Upon being reforged they find they have lost some of their memories, emotions and humanity. This stacks with every time they are killed until they are emotionless killing machines.

* This has been revealed to be Nagash's doing for he has been cheated of those souls that rightfully belonged to him, yhe god of death. Only the Relictors are immune as they have come from the realm of death.

I think that sums up everything.

To me that doesn't sound very well fleshed out at all, it sounds like we know about how they were created, fight, and 'die'. Nothing else. Unless there is nothing else in which case they are as fleshed out as they are going to get but are very 2 dimensional and uninteresting.

Do we know if they ever take off their armour and walk around sigmaheim, chatting with the refugees there? There is the trumpet model that has exposed lips so presumably we know they actually are flesh inside the armour, does that mean they eat? What is sigmarine cuisine like? Do they have art? Culture of any sort at all?

Actually, here's a thought - how do dwarf and elf Stormcast get along? Or dwarf and orc Stormcast, for that matter? THAT could provide some interesting storytelling. I know they're supposed to have their memories locked away or something, but it took them all of one novel to show that that can be broken for dramatic effect, so...

I think the problem for me with AoS being 'fleshed out' right now is that I enjoy P&P RPGs, and if I were GMing such an RPG I could not drop a group into the AoS setting right now and have any idea what to do. There is not an established map, with established cities or even established races.

If a player asks to be an Elf what would I tell him?

How am I expected to know what a dwarf town looks like these days?

Or, as Spinner touched on, how would a dwarf town react to an elf walking in their gates?

Having areas to insert your own ideas is great, it's the most fun part of running an RPG in my opinion, but the absolute best settings are the well established ones that still allow you to do that, and also give you a baseline of how X interacts with Y. AoS is far too open with far too much unknowns and 'make it up, the possibilities are endless' kind of talk. At this point I see no reason for me to use AoS as a setting over inventing my own from scratch, and this mentality really carries back over into the wargame too.

Why invent something for AoS when I can invent it for WHFB or KoW if I have to do the creative work myself?

Hmm, well the only thing I can say is to give it time. More time for more fluff to be added and new backgrounds to be revealed.

Until then, just go with what you're familiar with. Be it in the old world or making a land/town/kingdom in the current setting that's very basic and can grow with the added fluff.

How much time is 'more time' going to be? We're...what, three months in? Four?

Doing things in stages can work sometimes. With a brand new game with ambitions toward giant, expansive background trying to cover a large number of (very expensive!) factions, replacing an older, well-established game with a fairly attached fanbase, dragging things out with 'wait and see' can do far more harm than good. There's too many unanswered questions, and the ones that get answered...tend not to have very popular answers.

Yeah I have to agree there, I think this far into the release of a new game it is perfectly reasonable for people to stop considering 'wait and see' a legitimate answer.

We don't know how long we are supposed to wait for answers, we can't even be sure answers are coming (the lizardmen book sure as hell didn't answer as much as most of us hoped, or even really expected).

 Spinner wrote:
How much time is 'more time' going to be? We're...what, three months in? Four?

Doing things in stages can work sometimes. With a brand new game with ambitions toward giant, expansive background trying to cover a large number of (very expensive!) factions, replacing an older, well-established game with a fairly attached fanbase, dragging things out with 'wait and see' can do far more harm than good. There's too many unanswered questions, and the ones that get answered...tend not to have very popular answers.

- We're four months into a game that GW intends to support for years to come. So while it isn't too early to form opinions on what is there, it's a bit early to form opinions on what isn't there. Patience is an endangered species on the internet, I know, but come on! Four months! It'll take longer than that for the backlash against the new Star Wars movie to start.

- People complained when GW released two giant $70 campaign guides too closely together. They aren't dragging things out. They are giving people a chance to catch up. I don't intend to buy every AoS release by a long shot, but I'm still catching up on the releases I want from the first few months. And they just released the Seraphon, which I'm very interested in, but can't afford right now. You need time to buy things, assemble and paint them, and play with them before you worry about your next purchases. Flooding the market with new releases when people aren't ready to buy them would negatively affect their sales potential. They have literally released THOUSANDS of dollars worth of stuff in the past four months.

- All the rumors point to a second AoS release window in December and running through early 2016. What's in this window, nobody really knows (other than that sweet looking Archaon model), but GW's secrecy shouldn't be taken as laziness or complacency. Even if the models were done months ago, the models need to be painted and photographed, the lore needs to be finalized, the boxes need to be designed, the novels need to be written, the battletomes need to be laid out, the White Dwarfs need to copywritten. The releases are coordinated across multiple products in multiple mediums. Logistically, it's actually quite impressive and well beyond the capabilities of most other game companies (miniature or otherwise). The fact is, problems happen during this stuff (I'm sure they have back up releases that they specifically hold for these occasions), and by only announcing the stuff when it is literally ready to ship out the door, they avoid the backlash when little Timmy has to wait six months to get his Tau models but was promised them in October - the secrecy issue is a low grumble, but missed promises are a "slap in the face to fans" and one more excuse to insult GW on the internet.

- Why spread the lore out so much? Because they chose to make AoS a campaign orientated game. The campaigns are written for the available models. It could also be that they haven't finished writing the fluff yet, or that they are deliberately building up the mystery to drum up support for new releases. I mean, I don't know what a fyre slayer is, but I'll be glued to rumors section when the model leaks start coming out. I can't tell you their reasons, but I can say, it will all come out eventually. Probably in the next two years or so. And after it is all out, then nobody will be in the dark again. So this is a temporary problem that is best served with patience.

 Sqorgar wrote:
- We're four months into a game that GW intends to support for years to come. So while it isn't too early to form opinions on what is there, it's a bit early to form opinions on what isn't there. Patience is an endangered species on the internet, I know, but come on! Four months! It'll take longer than that for the backlash against the new Star Wars movie to start.

The flip side of that is that a brand new game was released without adequate support (cos what's a game without fluff) and here we are four whole months later without the proper framework in place any game should have at release. Seriously, two pages of fluff about each faction in your core rulebook, minimum, we got a one or two paragraph blurb covering only the new larger alliances. I'm not sure there is even an official answer yet for if my Dark Elves even exist as a separate faction from elves in general, the only response I have gotten from GW representatives is that I can make up a reason for Dark Elves to be there. This is blatantly insufficient support for a new game.

 Sqorgar wrote:
- People complained when GW released two giant $70 campaign guides too closely together. They aren't dragging things out. They are giving people a chance to catch up. I don't intend to buy every AoS release by a long shot, but I'm still catching up on the releases I want from the first few months. And they just released the Seraphon, which I'm very interested in, but can't afford right now. You need time to buy things, assemble and paint them, and play with them before you worry about your next purchases. Flooding the market with new releases when people aren't ready to buy them would negatively affect their sales potential. They have literally released THOUSANDS of dollars worth of stuff in the past four months.

If that is indeed their plan, then it is a flawed one, simple as that. Seriously, think about it, someone who does not play any of the 2 armies (or the two half armies) currently featured in the campaign books has 2 choices, spend a ton of money to keep up with a progressing story that does not cover anything they are actually interested in but they need to read to know anything about the setting, or they can sit here in the dark only knowing what little comes up here on the forums and have no bloody clue what's going on until something is released for their faction (if it ever is). Your entire basis for the point of GW allowing people to catch up is built upon the idea that people want to buy every book for AoS, given the prices of those books I daresay it isn't just giving them time to get the money together but a lot of people who might have been interested are just writing it off as too expensive.

 Sqorgar wrote:
- All the rumors point to a second AoS release window in December and running through early 2016. What's in this window, nobody really knows (other than that sweet looking Archaon model), but GW's secrecy shouldn't be taken as laziness or complacency. Even if the models were done months ago, the models need to be painted and photographed, the lore needs to be finalized, the boxes need to be designed, the novels need to be written, the battletomes need to be laid out, the White Dwarfs need to copywritten. The releases are coordinated across multiple products in multiple mediums. Logistically, it's actually quite impressive and well beyond the capabilities of most other game companies (miniature or otherwise). The fact is, problems happen during this stuff (I'm sure they have back up releases that they specifically hold for these occasions), and by only announcing the stuff when it is literally ready to ship out the door, they avoid the backlash when little Timmy has to wait six months to get his Tau models but was promised them in October - the secrecy issue is a low grumble, but missed promises are a "slap in the face to fans" and one more excuse to insult GW on the internet.

GW's secrecy isn't being taken as laziness or complacency, it is being taken as a policy that is bad for the consumer. No one is questioning their production capacity and speed, we just don't like how long it is taking to get how little we have. Ultimately if the customer deems it unacceptable and doesn't buy the product when it is finally released that's GW's problem and one they might need to address.

 Sqorgar wrote:
- Why spread the lore out so much? Because they chose to make AoS a campaign orientated game. The campaigns are written for the available models. It could also be that they haven't finished writing the fluff yet, or that they are deliberately building up the mystery to drum up support for new releases. I mean, I don't know what a fyre slayer is, but I'll be glued to rumors section when the model leaks start coming out. I can't tell you their reasons, but I can say, it will all come out eventually. Probably in the next two years or so. And after it is all out, then nobody will be in the dark again. So this is a temporary problem that is best served with patience.

Eventually. Probably. That really doesn't help anyone. This isn't building excitement, it is building frustration. It's funny actually, I think a lot of it could have been avoided if they just took a leaf out of Privateer Press' book and have the ongoing evolving story but make sure every new book release has something for every army in it. How much better would it be if between the two campaign books we have every single race got a little time in the limelight to show what they are doing, how they have changed, and even just prove they still exist?

I loved the lizardmen. They were the first and greatest of all lizard/draconian 28mm armies imho. I always liked their style, the sculpts, the storyline, etc.

I was sad to see the lizardmen end the way they did in the end times. The Seraphon 'reincarnation' works for me. I like the fact that I get the same style, models, more great art, etc. As for the storyline, GW has changed fluff around for years, the new fluff doesn't bother me.

I actually like the fluff in that my lizards are now immortal 'angels' (maybe we will see them in 40k then?). Now your opponent kills your favorite character and does a dance? You can rest well knowing that he was sent back to the heavenly realm only to be remade and summoned back to the mortal realms!

I am sad to see special characters go away. I am assuming this is a thing of the future, as the only army to have named characters still living is chaos (both demons and warriors). I did enjoy special characters...