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 Kilkrazy wrote:

 Manchu wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Wouldn't it be better for GW to do something new?

Or keep doing something old? Only time will tell. I would bet you a dollar that more people will play Warhammer Total War than AoS in 2016.

If the reports about Specialist Games coming back are true, they are going to return to doing something old.

However I hope they will produce some new titles as well.

I wonder what will the excuse be if old games like Bloodbowl, Necromunda, Mordheim, etc, get a better reception and sell better than AoS.

It's not difficult to publish 10 books in a month, but there's no point in GW doing so because they have a limited range of things to talk about, and a restricted market to sell into.

 Manchu wrote:

Herzlos wrote:
GW is the biggest company in the market

And it's still very small. I could not tell you whether GW has capacity to publish 10 army books a month. Before 2012-2013, I would have had trouble believing they could do one a month or every other month which is pretty much what they do these days. But I will say, I could imagine some reasons not to do publish 10 army books per month, or similar.


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 Lithlandis Stormcrow wrote:
So wait... you're actually saying that the death of a character like Tarik Torgaddon (keeping to the HH thingie) has the same storytelling impact as the "death" of a named SCE, when you know he'll be right back in a few moments, if necessary.

Didn't I just tell you to knock it off with the straman fallacy?

Hm... what?

 Manchu wrote:
I am not saying SM don't die. I'm saying that it is pretty meaningless most of the time from the perspective of a storyteller.

So, can you answer my question, or are you going to keep evading it? Is the death of a character like Torgaddon of the same impact as the pseudo-death of a SCE? Because, you know... that's what you're saying when you say a SM's death is "pretty meaningless most of the time from the perspective of a storyteller."

Wait, wait, I know! I am SURE we'll be seeing Torgaddon back later - because a SM death has the same meaningless impact as that of a SCE. I mean, SM are immortal, right? Gosh I wish I knew that already!

I already answered you by the way. To extrapolate, Tarik was a main character. Most dead SM are statistics. That is what I meant when I typed "most of the time" in the post you quoted without reading.

 Manchu wrote:
I am not saying SM don't die. I'm saying that it is pretty meaningless most of the time from the perspective of a storyteller. As a rule, storytellers have exactly as many Space Marines as are required to tell the story. SM being mortal is certainly meaningless when we're talking about playing with the models.

From the perspective of a storyteller, it's not meaningless. How do you manage to make your readers feel empathy for your characters if death isn't such a big deal for them? Where is the sacrifice in battle when you just get reforged to get into it as soon as possible (and kill your previous "murderer")? It's like raising skeletons with necromancy and throw them at the spears of your enemies. If they get crushed, well you just raise them another time. That's why people usually don't get attached too much to skeletons.

From the perspective of a gamer, yeah, it doesn't look that important. Especially if you don't give names and stories to your miniatures.

Until now, out of the three books we have for AoS armies, only Chaos has mortality. Stormcast get reforged, Lizardmen are "dreams". And it's a bit hard to feel something for a Khorne butcher, yet he still has his life to lose in the end.

Hmm. Unless he becomes a demon or has a mutation that makes him immortal in a way or another. Or if Khorne decides to resurrect him (also happens in the fluff) because reasons.

Yeah, for now, it's hard to feel something for AoS "heroes".

 Manchu wrote:
I already answered you by the way. To extrapolate, Tarik was a main character. Most dead SM are statistics. That is what I meant when I typed "most of the time" in the post you quoted without reading.

Yes yes, insinuating I don't read comments, bla bla bla.

The thing is, even the precious main character SCE's will come back too, making even those main characters "deaths" meaningless - unless they're really unlucky, as stated above. Get what we're getting at yet?

But talking about nameless marines - is the death of the Whatever marines' 5thcompany while defending world Blaargh from Waagh Smellyfeetz same as the "death" of a hundred SCE defending the equivalent from an Orc attack?
Are we going to see those marines again? Because I guarantee you we'll be seeint those SCE again, but maybe a tad blander.

You are utterly disregarding the fact that a SCE's life (or ability to function in the longterm for the more automaton-y of them) is never really in any danger even if they get a sword through their gut or an axe to the face, while a SM's life will. be. forfeit. Forever. Period. Comparing one to the other is... well, I don't even know how to qualify it.

 Sarouan wrote:
How do you manage to make your readers feel empathy for your characters if death isn't such a big deal for them?

Why is death required for empathy? There are tons of stories where no one dies and yet the audience still sympathizes with the protagonists. In the case of the Stormcast, there is an interesting angle precisely in the fact that they do not die. Thay have already died, which is interesting in itself, and now they are "doomed" to fight forever for Sigmar, knowing that with each fresh "death" on the battlefield a little more of who they were in life will slip away.

 Lithlandis Stormcrow wrote:
insinuating I don't read comments

I was giving you the benefit of the doubt. The other option is you don't understand them.

 Manchu wrote:

Herzlos wrote:
GW is the biggest company in the market

And it's still very small. I could not tell you whether GW has capacity to publish 10 army/campaign books a month. Before 2012-2013, I would have had trouble believing they could do one a month or every other month which is pretty much what they do these days. But I will say, I could imagine some reasons not to publish 10 army/campaign books per month, or similar.

They have their own publishing division and a small army of freelancers. If they wanted to, they could fire out 10 books a month (with a suitable latency). How quickly are Black Library putting out full length novels? At least 1 full paperback a month?

Like I said, much smaller companies can produce much more (take the Warhammer RPGs for example), so it's not a case of scale, it's a case of effort. They haven't provided comprehensive (or even decent) fluff yet simply because they don't want to.

Why would anyone want to put out 10 books a month for any one setting? Talk about oversaturation... they are doing around one a month with quick reads in between, which seems like a sensible pace.

Stormcast don't return instantaneously. Reforging takes anything from days to centuries. The example in the fluff is a specific action by a relictor to resurrect the Stormcast exactly as he was by using the wind of death to prevent his actual death. Not the same thing, and effectively a fantastical reworking of apothecary measures in 40k.

It's also referred to in the Quest for Ghal Maraz that the SCE that get reforged are aware they aren't the same as they were before, and aren't exactly happy about it, but they accept that duty has to come first.

You're persistently arguing from a basis of incorrect information.

Oh, and Khorgos Khul is a named Khornate character in the starter set.
Pretty glaring miss.

Having an opinion is fine, but it helps if you have your facts straight to begin with.

I think they should have had more books available at the beginning, but after that one per month sounds a reasonable rate without saturating the market.

It's not difficult to pay to write and print novels, but getting them into distribution and then sold is another thing.

 Mymearan wrote:
Why would anyone want to put out 10 books a month for any one setting? Talk about oversaturation... they are doing around one a month with quick reads in between, which seems like a sensible pace.

The point is not that they should do 10 books a month, it's that they *could*. In direct response the argument that the reason there is no real depth to AoS after only 3 months (plus however long it was in planning). There's literally nothing stopping GW having released AoS with at least as much depth as WHFB did when it went away. Or at least had some information on each of the factions. I still don't know what's happened to my 300 dwarfs.

 Manchu wrote:

Why is death required for empathy? There are tons of stories where no one dies and yet the audience still sympathizes with the protagonists. In the case of the Stormcast, there is an interesting angle precisely in the fact that they do not die. Thay have already died, which is interesting in itself, and now they are "doomed" to fight forever for Sigmar, knowing that with each fresh "death" on the battlefield a little more of who they were in life will slip away.

 Lithlandis Stormcrow wrote:
insinuating I don't read comments

I was giving you the benefit of the doubt. The other option is you don't understand them.

Because you don't make a hero out of a zombie or a skeleton.

Like you said, Stormcast don't exist anymore for their previous families/relatives. They are like "dead" and only fight for the glory of Sigmar. It's very similar to Space Marines, but it adds the "immortality" to their character.

And that small change change in fact everything. Space Marines, no matter how superhuman they may look, are still human in their mortality. They may fail and die. They may die in action, sacrificing their life for the good of their mission.

Here for Stormcast? Nothing of that. If they "die", they just come back, sometimes fast enough so that they can go back in the battle where they were "killed". There is no consequence to their "failure", it's just a matter of time. It's like swarming your opponents with endless skeletons/zombies raised from the dead. How can you make something heroic from a war machine that just can attack "en masse" in waves until the enemy runs out of troops and get overwhelmed? It just doesn't feel that way - wel, IMHO, of course.

I'm not against the fluff and I'm saying Stormcast are actually different from Space Marines, it's just that...well, they don't seem to lose that much when they "die". Sure, some books may imply it actually is, but well...they are already dead for eveyrone they cared about and are just a tool to Sigmar's ambitions in the end.

It's funny that sometimes, Chaos actually looks like the "heroic" side when fluff describes how overwhelmed they are under the tides of Stormcast keeping coming at them again and again. Because their grunts will not be reforged or summoned again (unless if they're demons, of course).

It's starting to sound like you've never actually read a novel about SM. They don't really do much other than fight for the glory of the Emperor. I mean, calling Stormcast a bunch of Sigmarines is really not much of an exaggeration. Also you didn't explain why the only way to empathize with characters is that they be killed or at least threatened with death. The ability to die does not really make a character more human. Mold dies. Bacteria die.

 Manchu wrote:

.

 Lithlandis Stormcrow wrote:
insinuating I don't read comments

I was giving you the benefit of the doubt. The other option is you don't understand them.

Yes, I clearly didn't understand it... Just like you clearly aren't wriggling your way from the points brought up and aren't moving goalposts...

RoperPG wrote:
Oh, and Khorgos Khul is a named Khornate character in the starter set.
Pretty glaring miss.

Having an opinion is fine, but it helps if you have your facts straight to begin with.

Hm...

 Lithlandis Stormcrow wrote:
Also, out of curiosity, is there any new named character for the Khorne dudes?

How is asking for clarification regarding something now considered trying to validate something entirely different? That's a big assumption...

Still thank you for the clarification on that


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Manchu wrote:
They don't really do much other than fight for the glory of the Emperor. I mean, calling Stormcast a bunch of Sigmarines is really not much of an exaggeration.

This is correct. Regarding your other point.

 Manchu wrote:
Also you didn't explain why the only way to empathize with characters is that they be killed or at least threatened with death. The ability to die does not really make a character more human. Mold dies. Bacteria die.

Indeed it does not, but making a character immortal makes it the most inhuman it can be, since in a way we are defined by our sense of mortality - YMMV, ofc. The more inhuman a character is, the more detached, the hard it'll be for a player to empathize with.

But, and again out of curiosity, do SCE fear things at all? I know that tey are feeling apprehensive regarding their slow loss of personality and memories, but can we relate to them as truly humane individuals, or do they too go into SM mindset the moment they are forged the first time?

 Manchu wrote:
It's starting to sound like you've never actually read a novel about SM. They don't really do much other than fight for the glory of the Emperor. I mean, calling Stormcast a bunch of Sigmarines is really not much of an exaggeration. Also you didn't explain why the only way to empathize with characters is that they be killed or at least threatened with death. The ability to die does not really make a character more human. Mold dies. Bacteria die.

I haven't read any of the fluff on Sigmarines, but I've read a few of the Space Marines books (and listened to a few audio books) and they come across as human. They have interactions with normal people, they have & make friends, feel sympathy, mourn fallen comrades. They have human qualities. They also have risk and generate emotional investment.

I get the impression none of that happens in AoS: everything is either essentially immortal or innumerable and there's nothing but war.

It's not the fact that things can die that causes the reader to get involved; it's the emotional attachment and risk. Once you start feeling for a character you don't want them to end up dead and gone, or suffer terrible things. Sigmarines fail on both counts there - there's nothing to get attached to in the first place and there's essentially no consequence to them dying. Especially, if as said, they can be resurrected so quickly they can return to the battlefield and kill the foe that killed them the first time.

It's like going to a casino knowing that you can never make money or lose money, you can go through the motions but there's no investment or sense of risk or excitement.

 Manchu wrote:
It's starting to sound like you've never actually read a novel about SM. They don't really do much other than fight for the glory of the Emperor. I mean, calling Stormcast a bunch of Sigmarines is really not much of an exaggeration. Also you didn't explain why the only way to empathize with characters is that they be killed or at least threatened with death. The ability to die does not really make a character more human. Mold dies. Bacteria die.

Yeah, that's because GW novels only focus on that kind of thing. That's why I don't like their novels about Space Marines, because they can't describe them in another way. So it's obviously difficult to feel for them - be it grunts or even heroes.

On the other hand, the "normal life" of a Space Marine is incredibly boring.

But it's still nothing in comparison with Stormcast Eternals. Unless playing on their feelings and the disturbance in front of a reforged friend "not looking the same anymore", there isn't much place left for empathy.

 Manchu wrote:
It's starting to sound like you've never actually read a novel about SM. They don't really do much other than fight for the glory of the Emperor.

It sounds like you've never actually read a good novel about SM.

Prospero Burns, my personal favourite, introduced a very deep, rich culture to space wolves beyond the whole 'wolf mcwolferson riding his wolf into battle with his wolf claws'.

We saw how they lived as humans before they became marines. We saw how storytelling was a very important part of their culture. We saw their battle tactics and how got a deep appreciation for their roles as the Emperors executioners. We saw their funeral rites. Their ship architecture. We saw Russ as a man with a sense of humor who really didn't want to have to kill his brother but was bound by duty and loyalty to his father.

Name me 1 piece of Sigmarine culture and I'll drop the issue.



Also, while we're on the topic of nameless, faceless, immortal armies in AoS, anyone wanna put money on the new fire-slayers bursting into flames when they die to be reborn like phoenixes, or being born of volcanoes and thus theoretically infinite numbers of them?

 jonolikespie wrote:

Also, while we're on the topic of nameless, faceless, immortal armies in AoS, anyone wanna put money on the new fire-slayers bursting into flames when they die to be reborn like phoenixes, or being born of volcanoes and thus theoretically infinite numbers of them?

No, they need Ur-Gold. If there are too many of them, that means less Ur-Gold for each. So it's better to keep low numbers.

But seriously, I wonder what they will write for them. It's obvious there will be a focus on the battles (hey, it's a wargame, after all!), but they could make something interesting with fire dwarves. Remember the Azer from D&D?

One of the interesting things about 40K is the large amount of fanfic including a strong strand of humour. There are various reasons for this; the fluff has been around a long time and has a lot of fans, but also I am sure because there has been a British type of dark humour, self-parody and irony in the fluff the early days.

I get the feeling that AoS does not have any comparable humourous element in its make-up.

What chance is there in 10 years time of there being AoS equivalents of the Angry Marines, Reasonable Marines, Chaos-chan, and so on?

 jonolikespie wrote:
Also, while we're on the topic of nameless, faceless, immortal armies in AoS, anyone wanna put money on the new fire-slayers bursting into flames when they die to be reborn like phoenixes, or being born of volcanoes and thus theoretically infinite numbers of them?

That thought has actually crossed my mind before.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

What chance is there in 10 years time of there being AoS equivalents of the Angry Marines, Reasonable Marines, Chaos-chan, and so on?

To be honest, we already have the Sigmarines.

 jonolikespie wrote:

Also, while we're on the topic of nameless, faceless, immortal armies in AoS, anyone wanna put money on the new fire-slayers bursting into flames when they die to be reborn like phoenixes, or being born of volcanoes and thus theoretically infinite numbers of them?

I reckon they'll be more like the Seraphim; Fire slayers are elementals created when a shamed dwarf dies, and can be summoned by some of the elders in an attempt to atone for their previous sins. When vanquished, their spirits return to purgatory in the mountain until they are called on again.

We know that Fyre Slayers will fight for whoever has the most Ur-gold.

What I am hoping that means, is they need Ur-gold to buy food and other necessities from nearby towns of other mortals as they have no economic infrastructure themselves.

If they just like collecting hordes of coins because "ooh shiny!" And are spawned out of Lava and live forever... It's going to be very hard for me to stomach.

But where do they spend Ur-gold? And is it the normal currency, or is it something special?

Also taking bets on if either of those questions get answered with the (presumably coming) fyre slayer battle tome!

 Bottle wrote:
We know that Fyre Slayers will fight for whoever has the most Ur-gold.

What I am hoping that means, is they need Ur-gold to buy food and other necessities from nearby towns of other mortals as they have no economic infrastructure themselves.

If they just like collecting hordes of coins because "ooh shiny!" And are spawned out of Lava and live forever... It's going to be very hard for me to stomach.

It may be that "ur-gold" has special qualities that they need for religious/whatever purposes (it may even be the source of a possible immortality...).

In that line they could have a contract with some greedy god that can withdraw something he/she/it desires from ur-gold and demands offerings from them in order to keep them immortal.

Do note, however, that this would only work if there was "regular" gold and ur-gold was somewhat special.

The economy is based on Ur-gold because during development, the design team were asked what was the currency of the Mortal Realms and they hadn't thought about that yet and they replied, "Err... gold."

Back on topic, the reason for Fyre Slayer Dwarves to fight for whoever pays the most is so they can appear in Chaos and Undead armies as well as Order.

This lets anyone buy a set of the models because they are cool. (That's the wrong adjective for Fire Dwarves but you get my point.)

coldgaming wrote:

 Vermis wrote:

MongooseMatt wrote:
Umm, spears quite important in AoS.

Yeah, not in the 4-page AoS rules though, but hidden behind £30 'battletomes'.

All of the army/model rules are free. The only rules you can't get on the website (and I believe they are available for a few bucks in the app, but I don't really look there) are some of the scenarios and formations.

LOL not in the 4-page rules, and not even hidden in 'battletomes'. Written on the warscrolls. 2". I guess FREE is still not good enough for some people


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 Manchu wrote:
"Fifteen space marines died taking that fortress."

"Fifteen stormcast fell taking that fortress."

You don't understand, Manchu. Every space marine's life is precious. GW has a list of all thousand chapters and every space marine named, and when some die in a novel, they mark them off the list. THAT'S WHAT HE'S TALKING ABOUT jeez

 jonolikespie wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
It's starting to sound like you've never actually read a novel about SM. They don't really do much other than fight for the glory of the Emperor.

It sounds like you've never actually read a good novel about SM.

Prospero Burns, my personal favourite, introduced a very deep, rich culture to space wolves beyond the whole 'wolf mcwolferson riding his wolf into battle with his wolf claws'.

The problem with this was that they came off as insanely hypocritical jerkwads, trying entirely too hard to be mutually exclusive things ("the crazy berzerker act is just a clever ruse...but wait actually we still are crazy berzerkers"), and displayed a tremendous level of mysticism entirely incompatible with their role in spreading the otherwise secular Imperial ideals, and largely just made the SW's appear even more inconsistent as a general faction, particularly when then compared to their 40k counterparts



I think in general GW's fluff and background writing in general have decline markedly over the last decade or so in most areas unforutnately, AoS is just probably the most stellar example, but it's hit everything.

I haven't read any of the fluff on Sigmarines, but I've read a few of the Space Marines books (and listened to a few audio books) and they come across as human. They have interactions with normal people, they have & make friends, feel sympathy, mourn fallen comrades. They have human qualities. They also have risk and generate emotional investment.

I get the impression none of that happens in AoS: everything is either essentially immortal or innumerable and there's nothing but war.

I normally don't bother with GW novels, but all the debate about the AOS fluff made me go out and read the first novel (or I think the first) war storm. Hardly going to win a literary prize, but reading it I found the following:

They come across as human.
They have interactions with others (I'm not sure what you meant by 'normal people' in a fantasy type setting).
They have/make friends.
feel sympathy.
mourn fallen comrades.
Have human qualities.
Have risk and generate emotional attachment.

They are not immortal. They can be 'killed' permanently. Even without permanent death they suffer what for many would be a fate worse than death. As characters they are absolutely not immortal, they lose part of themselves each time they are re-forged (which means they are not really the same character).

Clearly we all have different things which give us attachment to characters, we all have different ideas of what is tragic or risk etc. But the arguments being made above do not appear to me as a matter of fact but simply personal opinion on how one perceives 'character', 'mortality' or 'human'. The models and little snippets I have picked up prior to that might have left me with the sort of impressions as you are saying, but they come across quite different in the novel.

[edit]
I'd add that having never read any 40k novels the space marines appeared not much different for a long time to me - hyper indoctrinated killing machines with no character made for war. They die but there are always more. I always thought of the film Soldier with Kirt Russell when I thought space marine, 99% of them will never say anything beyond 'yes sir'. Over time you pick up on extra stuff beyond that, but that was my impression for quite a while.