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Ragnar Blackmane remembered the people he loved and his clan when he was a Space Marine so that's not a huge difference there. And all Stormcast are former heroes Sigmar nicked so the whole "mothers, wives etc" thing doesn't really ring that true imo.

pm713 wrote:
It's not. The Empire was a single nation and everyone was under a single military. Not five different armies that work together which is really dumb.

Things like Ironweld shouldn't really exist as a faction. It makes no sense to have an army just for war machines. The sane thing was to not split all the armies up but that ship sailed.

The Empire really wasn't - it was a collection of semi-independent states that had their own armies as well as the militias, Knightly Orders, Engineers and Wizards guilds - all with their own internal ad external politics, command structures and rivalries - it was very complicated and that's without the Dwarf, Bretonian and Kislev and even Elvish allies.

A state army would normally only fight under their own leaders / Elector Counts and even fought each other. The Empire never had a standing army as such.

The current set up for the armies of Azyr represents a similar situation - there are a massively desperate series of races and nations that will fight for Sigmar, to expand their own territory, gather slaves, mining resources etc along with the new Stormcast.

Re the Stormcast - I don't mind them, the idea that they are sacrificing their humanity as they fight and die is not bad and they are more personalities now, especially with female Stormcast finally being acknowledged in mins.

Indeed.

And though Stormcast need to sit on the backburner for a while I do hope the Daughters of Draconis get a model line someday.

Stormcast are former heroes Sigmar nicked so the whole "mothers, wives etc" thing doesn't really ring that true imo.

Haha, except if you read the books and come across everything from a paladin who was a baker, a Stormcast saving a soldier because he reminded her of her grandson or just Gardus who was a mere docter that tried fighting off chaos invaders with a candle to save his sick patients.

Ironweld is not a faction with just war machines. They invent new technology and make clockwork machines. There was even a clockwork horse in "Auction of Blood". They also built clockwork walking fortresses that help expand the city of Hammerhal Aqsha.

The Ironweld exist so GW can expand it in the future.

Valius Maliti is from the Ironweld. The Ironweld built the Greywater Fastness.

http://whfb.lexicanum.com/wiki/Ironweld_Arsenal
http://whfb.lexicanum.com/wiki/Greywater_Fastness
http://whfb.lexicanum.com/wiki/Valius_Maliti
http://whfb.lexicanum.com/wiki/Hammerhal

They also built clockwork walking fortresses that help expand the city of Hammerhal Aqsha. 

THANK YOU!

I've been wondering for so long what those "mobile fortresses in the fire realm" were and what made them move when they got hinted at in the end of the realm gate wars.

Baron Klatz wrote:
Indeed.

And though Stormcast need to sit on the backburner for a while I do hope the Daughters of Draconis get a model line someday.

Stormcast are former heroes Sigmar nicked so the whole "mothers, wives etc" thing doesn't really ring that true imo.

Haha, except if you read the books and come across everything from a paladin who was a baker, a Stormcast saving a soldier because he reminded her of her grandson or just Gardus who was a mere docter that tried fighting off chaos invaders with a candle to save his sick patients.

The Daughters of Draconis are not a sotrmhost. Their an Extremis Chamber of Hammers of Sigmar (from one of blurbs in the battletome). The only reason for their name is that all of the Stardrakes and Dracoths are female. Not the stormcast.

xking wrote:
Ironweld is not a faction with just war machines. They invent new technology and make clockwork machines. There was even a clockwork horse in "Auction of Blood". They also built clockwork walking fortresses that help expand the city of Hammerhal Aqsha.

The Ironweld exist so GW can expand it in the future.

They could just be put in Freeguild and Dispossessed but I suppose that veers to close to acknowledging Fantasy. Which must be buried at all costs.

pm713 wrote:

xking wrote:
Ironweld is not a faction with just war machines. They invent new technology and make clockwork machines. There was even a clockwork horse in "Auction of Blood". They also built clockwork walking fortresses that help expand the city of Hammerhal Aqsha.

The Ironweld exist so GW can expand it in the future.

They could just be put in Freeguild and Dispossessed but I suppose that veers to close to acknowledging Fantasy. Which must be buried at all costs.

What the feth are you talking about? A new warhammer Fantasy rpg just got released. Then there is blood bowl and vermintide 2. Ironweld is not in Freeguild and Dispossessed because these three factions will not and do not have the same themes. Did I not just say the Ironweld exist so GW can expand it in the future? New factions, new lore. And GW said they are probably going to remake the Free peoples models.

Get over it, It's been two years.

Haha, don't let him get to you. Some people just want to remain salty no matter what.

Remaking the Freeguild models is interesting news to hear. I hope it matches up with Shinros' info that they want to be realm specific and we get a variety based on that.

The Daughters of Draconis are not a sotrmhost. Their an Extremis Chamber of Hammers of Sigmar (from one of blurbs in the battletome). The only reason for their name is that all of the Stardrakes and Dracoths are female. Not the stormcast.

Now that's an interesting twist to what little I heard about them.

Regardless, as much as I want female knights(even if not an entire order's worth) and they technically are not a stormhost they still will be called out as one by the fans so I don't mind waiting for that particular focus for quite a while.

Baron Klatz wrote:
Haha, don't let him get to you. Some people just want to remain salty no matter what.

Wierdly he does not even seem to know basic facts about the Empire and its military

So, anyone seen the new Stormcast hero?

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2017/12/17/new-champion-storm-rises/

I'll freely admit, I really like this model, which is odd since I'm not a fan of most Stormcasts; maybe it's because he looks like a mirror-verse Sigvald the Magnificent?

Also, slightly off topic, but this quote, "rounding out their growing roster" really annoys me; of all the factions the SEs are the last that need "rounding out". Can 2018 get here already so that Death can have a new release?

Boy that looks like a generic hero guy. More than anything that model makes me feel plain bored.

 Mangod wrote:
So, anyone seen the new Stormcast hero?

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2017/12/17/new-champion-storm-rises/

I'll freely admit, I really like this model, which is odd since I'm not a fan of most Stormcasts; maybe it's because he looks like a mirror-verse Sigvald the Magnificent?

Also, slightly off topic, but this quote, "rounding out their growing roster" really annoys me; of all the factions the SEs are the last that need "rounding out". Can 2018 get here already so that Death can have a new release?

Death got several new releases.
They just came with End Times: Nagash instead of now.

Say what you want about Stormcast having "too many models", but at least acknowledge that they have very few named characters. You have the Celestant-Prime, Naeve Blacktalon, and now the Shadespire guys and this Trueheart.

Coming out for a previous game makes them new releases how exactly?

That's like saying that Order got new models with the new Irondrake/Ironbreaker kit.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Mangod wrote:
So, anyone seen the new Stormcast hero?

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2017/12/17/new-champion-storm-rises/

I'll freely admit, I really like this model, which is odd since I'm not a fan of most Stormcasts; maybe it's because he looks like a mirror-verse Sigvald the Magnificent?

Also, slightly off topic, but this quote, "rounding out their growing roster" really annoys me; of all the factions the SEs are the last that need "rounding out". Can 2018 get here already so that Death can have a new release?

Death got several new releases.
They just came with End Times: Nagash instead of now.

Say what you want about Stormcast having "too many models", but at least acknowledge that they have very few named characters. You have the Celestant-Prime, Naeve Blacktalon, and now the Shadespire guys and this Trueheart.

End Times: Nagash was how many years ago? Anyone who claims that new, non re-releases for AoS havn't skeewed heavily in favor of Order, and SEs in particular, is talking silly.

And even if we include End Times, you've still only got four different kits total: Nagash, Mortarchs, Morghasts and Spirit Hosts. If we include the Abhorrant Ghoul King, it's five. Stormcast have closer to 30.

 Mangod wrote:

End Times: Nagash was how many years ago? Anyone who claims that new, non re-releases for AoS havn't skeewed heavily in favor of Order, and SEs in particular, is talking silly.

Now you're moving goal-posts again.

Are you really that surprised an army being built up from scratch got more releases than armies which were planning on being kept through The End Times?

And even if we include End Times, you've still only got four different kits total: Nagash, Mortarchs, Morghasts and Spirit Hosts. If we include the Abhorrant Ghoul King, it's five.

Four different kits that bring you how many different units?
There's two different types of Morghasts(Archai and Harbingers).
There's three different Mortarchs.
Nagash.
Ghoul King doesn't count since he's been able to be built on foot since day one.

Stormcast have closer to 30.

Stormcast have (not counting variants within the boxes or easy to build stuff):
12 Heroes(15 when you count variants and the starter set hero, Vandus Hammerhand--and these were staggered releases that took quite some time, along with many Stormcast players feeling like it's been too much in this category when some stuff could have been condensed into single releases like the Lord-Veritant and Lord-Castellan)
9 Units(which gets brought up to 17 because the Paladins box builds 3 different units, the Dracoths build 3 different units--and technically a Hero option is in it as well--and the Vanguard Raptors build two different units)

So sure, Stormcast got a lot of releases...but when you actually sit and pare them down to the components that were released? Remember that Stormcast were going to, at first glance, be broken up into 3 books. We got the Stormcast Eternals book and then the Extremis book(Dracoths and Stardrakes) but then they got a new army book issued that combined the Extremis, Vanguard, and Eternals into one book.

When broken up like that?
They'd have been more in line with some of the smaller factions that we have seen released. Stuff like Flesh-Eater Courts.


But hey, I'm sure you'd rather just complain that they tried to make a new army have releases instead of just padding out existing armies.

Yeah, they're a popular flagship army that needed to match the massive variety their Khorne starter box counterparts had. They needed the releases.

That said it's pretty likely this is their last hurrah for a while from all the darker setting and faction focus shift from Order we've been getting.

As for the hero, I very much like him. His stance and abilities make an image of Order charging against the encroaching darkness as the age of hope meets it's sunset.

(Also like his stout appearance, it's a pet peeve of mine that games overly prefer fit and tall characters where as you only have games like Fable and Dark Souls that let you make a stout/ large character)

Reason number 1 why i will never play AoS = stormcaste eternals
GW hammers their sales as they executed the old world to make way for these sigmarines and are afraid to lose face if they let up on the enthusiasm. But truth for me is that sigmarines suk. Hate everything about them.

Thing is, the Old World was ended for trademarks and a new direction for Epic fantasy. Stormcasts weren't the reason it got killed off and early sketches by Blanche even made them akin to chaos knights of Order in the Old World.

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/33/c9/21/33c921e41fc733322c1df84d20a3d362.jpg

There's nothing really that would've stopped GW from just putting them in the old lore as Sigmar's warriors (it's even hinted at with 8th Empire fluff that Karl Franz had a eccentric idea for a knight order of all 8ft tall warriors, subtle foreshadowing there). Though it's easy to blame them since theirs was the first face to be seen when the Old World was confirmed over.

As for hammering (ha) the sales with them, that's due to their popularity and the fact they're a starter box faction that was barebones compared to the Khorne side. Having a huge new fanbase go to waste because the army they started with got sidelined and left unfinished would be a really bad move.

Baron Klatz wrote:
Thing is, the Old World was ended for trademarks and a new direction for Epic fantasy. Stormcasts weren't the reason it got killed off and early sketches by Blanche even made them akin to chaos knights of Order in the Old World.

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/33/c9/21/33c921e41fc733322c1df84d20a3d362.jpg

There's nothing really that would've stopped GW from just putting them in the old lore as Sigmar's warriors (it's even hinted at with 8th Empire fluff that Karl Franz had a eccentric idea for a knight order of all 8ft tall warriors, subtle foreshadowing there). Though it's easy to blame them since theirs was the first face to be seen when the Old World was confirmed over.

As for hammering (ha) the sales with them, that's due to their popularity and the fact they're a starter box faction that was barebones compared to the Khorne side. Having a huge new fanbase go to waste because the army they started with got sidelined and left unfinished would be a really bad move.

its a catch 22 though really (while i dispute the "popular" part, thats for another thread/rant) as they completely gave us a new world, it would have been IMO better (especially if they wanted to keep the older players) to give a bit of new for every faction that is staying. currently the stormcast (right or wrong) appear to be getting all the love while other factions wither and die or are left in the wild. Sylvaneth, Fyreslayer, Khardaron are for me what makes AoS "Special' and that kind of force should be expounded on, and those ideas.

Medium to large playerbase in most communities, largest numbers of facebook likes on releases and most common Reddit AoS paint projects. That seems pretty popular to me but I digress.

I agree with you though, a perfect start-up would have been 3 models per faction that were updated versions of the armies ported over and the grand alliance books at the beginning so people knew how they were being integrated into the new setting.

This on top of a light setting book set in the Age of Myth and a proper build up to the Age of Sigmar and the Stormcast saving the things people were able to get attached to would've been aces.

I know I've mentioned this before, but I think their would be less salt if more factions were handled to way Sylvaneth were: mixing old models (Dryads and Treemen) with new ones (Revenants and Kurnoths). It really helps to ground them in the Old World, shows what the forest spirit portion of the Wood Elves has been doing since the apocalypse, and lets Wood Elf players know that at least part of their old army is still being supported.

 EnTyme wrote:
I know I've mentioned this before, but I think their would be less salt if more factions were handled to way Sylvaneth were: mixing old models (Dryads and Treemen) with new ones (Revenants and Kurnoths). It really helps to ground them in the Old World, shows what the forest spirit portion of the Wood Elves has been doing since the apocalypse, and lets Wood Elf players know that at least part of their old army is still being supported.

You mean other than the whole "Wanderers" range basically being everything else?

If we're going to be brutally honest? No, the "mixing old models with new ones" wouldn't have done anything to alleviate the saltiness. Good riddance to those who left over the destruction of the Old World.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 EnTyme wrote:
I know I've mentioned this before, but I think their would be less salt if more factions were handled to way Sylvaneth were: mixing old models (Dryads and Treemen) with new ones (Revenants and Kurnoths). It really helps to ground them in the Old World, shows what the forest spirit portion of the Wood Elves has been doing since the apocalypse, and lets Wood Elf players know that at least part of their old army is still being supported.

You mean other than the whole "Wanderers" range basically being everything else?

If we're going to be brutally honest? No, the "mixing old models with new ones" wouldn't have done anything to alleviate the saltiness. Good riddance to those who left over the destruction of the Old World.

Damn that's a good example of what's wrong with GW.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 EnTyme wrote:
I know I've mentioned this before, but I think their would be less salt if more factions were handled to way Sylvaneth were: mixing old models (Dryads and Treemen) with new ones (Revenants and Kurnoths). It really helps to ground them in the Old World, shows what the forest spirit portion of the Wood Elves has been doing since the apocalypse, and lets Wood Elf players know that at least part of their old army is still being supported.

You mean other than the whole "Wanderers" range basically being everything else?

If we're going to be brutally honest? No, the "mixing old models with new ones" wouldn't have done anything to alleviate the saltiness. Good riddance to those who left over the destruction of the Old World.

I'm hoping Wanderers are given the same treatment with the Aelves release, or that they get expanded with new AoS models themselves. I assumed that it was implied I would like other legacy faction to get the Sylvaneth treatment.

 EnTyme wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 EnTyme wrote:
I know I've mentioned this before, but I think their would be less salt if more factions were handled to way Sylvaneth were: mixing old models (Dryads and Treemen) with new ones (Revenants and Kurnoths). It really helps to ground them in the Old World, shows what the forest spirit portion of the Wood Elves has been doing since the apocalypse, and lets Wood Elf players know that at least part of their old army is still being supported.

You mean other than the whole "Wanderers" range basically being everything else?

If we're going to be brutally honest? No, the "mixing old models with new ones" wouldn't have done anything to alleviate the saltiness. Good riddance to those who left over the destruction of the Old World.

I'm hoping Wanderers are given the same treatment with the Aelves release, or that they get expanded with new AoS models themselves. I assumed that it was implied I would like other legacy faction to get the Sylvaneth treatment.

Do we have any actual confirmation of all this elf stuff I keep hearing about?

 EnTyme wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 EnTyme wrote:
I know I've mentioned this before, but I think their would be less salt if more factions were handled to way Sylvaneth were: mixing old models (Dryads and Treemen) with new ones (Revenants and Kurnoths). It really helps to ground them in the Old World, shows what the forest spirit portion of the Wood Elves has been doing since the apocalypse, and lets Wood Elf players know that at least part of their old army is still being supported.

You mean other than the whole "Wanderers" range basically being everything else?

If we're going to be brutally honest? No, the "mixing old models with new ones" wouldn't have done anything to alleviate the saltiness. Good riddance to those who left over the destruction of the Old World.

I'm hoping Wanderers are given the same treatment with the Aelves release, or that they get expanded with new AoS models themselves. I assumed that it was implied I would like other legacy faction to get the Sylvaneth treatment.

Speaking as a Wanderers player? I don't hope they get the "Sylvaneth treatment". What happened there is they invented new units that basically just replaced existing ones. Why did we get Branchwyches when we still had Branchwraiths? Why did we need the Spite-Revenants/Tree-Revenants when we had Dryads? Kurnoth Hunters when we had(and lost) the Tree-Kin?

Wanderers actually have a pretty solid core of things. All we really need is more characters converted over to plastic(only the Nomad Prince is plastic, two of the others are still metal, one is Finecast, and the Spellweaver has one in metal and one in Finecast) and a few mounted characters to go along with the Wild Riders and Sisters of the Thorn and I think we're golden.

Maybe a big centerpiece kit like Orion reborn(they're still the Wild Riders of Kurnous...and the old Orion was rebranded as "Avatar of the Hunt" a few months back with GHB2) and some spectral hounds and I'd say we're in a really good place.

And that's really the kind of thing I'm hoping for. Maybe throw in a new Forest Dragon and some Eagle cavalry. Wrap it all up in a shiny new Battletome: Wanderers, and explain exactly where they're wandering these days, how do they interact with the other AoS factions, etc. I feel like we're getting a little off topic here, though. I'd be glad to continue the discussion in this thread, though.

pm713 wrote:

Do we have any actual confirmation of all this elf stuff I keep hearing about?

Literally the only things we know about Aelves at this point:
1) There are 2 confirmed "new" factions(as in full-blown Age of Sigmar style things rather than just rebranding/rejigging existing stuff) of them. The Shadowkin are under Malerion and are based in the Realm of Shadow. There's another faction (we don't have a name on them) and they are based in the Realm of Light under a reborn Tyrion, who has Teclis as his High Priest(effectively).
2) The Shadowkin are something we don't know how exactly to classify. They're not Good, they're not Evil. They just are. We have two confirmed examples of them from Silver Tower in the form of the Tenebrael Shard and the Mistweaver Saih. The other faction hasn't really been discussed at all yet.
3) Slaanesh is, at this moment, held in the Realm of Shadow. The Shadowkin are engaged in a fight against them right now and some kind of daemonically infused Shadows that seem to be tied to Morathi.

It's been strongly implied/hinted at that we can expect Shadowkin to be the first of the Aelves to be released since the next series of campaign books is supposed to deal with Nurgle and Slaanesh instead of Tzeentch and Khorne.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 EnTyme wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 EnTyme wrote:
I know I've mentioned this before, but I think their would be less salt if more factions were handled to way Sylvaneth were: mixing old models (Dryads and Treemen) with new ones (Revenants and Kurnoths). It really helps to ground them in the Old World, shows what the forest spirit portion of the Wood Elves has been doing since the apocalypse, and lets Wood Elf players know that at least part of their old army is still being supported.

You mean other than the whole "Wanderers" range basically being everything else?

If we're going to be brutally honest? No, the "mixing old models with new ones" wouldn't have done anything to alleviate the saltiness. Good riddance to those who left over the destruction of the Old World.

I'm hoping Wanderers are given the same treatment with the Aelves release, or that they get expanded with new AoS models themselves. I assumed that it was implied I would like other legacy faction to get the Sylvaneth treatment.

Speaking as a Wanderers player? I don't hope they get the "Sylvaneth treatment". What happened there is they invented new units that basically just replaced existing ones. Why did we get Branchwyches when we still had Branchwraiths? Why did we need the Spite-Revenants/Tree-Revenants when we had Dryads? Kurnoth Hunters when we had(and lost) the Tree-Kin?

Wanderers actually have a pretty solid core of things. All we really need is more characters converted over to plastic(only the Nomad Prince is plastic, two of the others are still metal, one is Finecast, and the Spellweaver has one in metal and one in Finecast) and a few mounted characters to go along with the Wild Riders and Sisters of the Thorn and I think we're golden.

Maybe a big centerpiece kit like Orion reborn(they're still the Wild Riders of Kurnous...and the old Orion was rebranded as "Avatar of the Hunt" a few months back with GHB2) and some spectral hounds and I'd say we're in a really good place.

Tree Revenants and Dryads are pretty different units and they are in no way a replacement. The same applies for Hunters and Treekin. The only you could argue is a replacement is the Branchwych and even then if you really want a Branchwraith you can take them.