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 LunarSol wrote:
Apparently Slaneesh gets to double their depravity generation now? Not really following but is it as bad as it sounds?

It is an option in October WD that will be immediately disallowed/banned, so not really anything to be concerned about.

So christmas boxes wandered by from the French rumormonger over in the psychic awakening thread.

There will be 10 different Battelforce.
145 euros / piece
4 for AOS: Nighthaunt / Skaven / Stormcast / Goblins

Sounds like the typical 100 pounds/170 dollars boxes.

Two predictable picks, if a tad unexciting since they're in the current starter box.

Goblins are potentially interesting, since it _might_ mean a return of the elusive Looncurse boss, and in any case might be good value for the bulk of a Gloomspite army.

And... skaven. Which are still entirely old WFB models widely available in droves, except for that one character model from the other boxed set earlier this year.

Most armies from the original line are still almost all "old" models. Gloomspite are one of the few to get a near full revamp of their line; whilst demon armies are the more typical with a few added units but still rocking the same core plastics.

Skaven are messy, the other problem is that the getting started set and the previous carrion empire sets basically used most of the current age and decent plastic kits that they've got

Doomwheel
Clanrats
Stormfiends
Hellpit Abomination
Clawlord
Grey Seer
Warplighting Cannon/Plague Catapult
Stormvermin
Screaming Bell/Plague Furnace
Verminlord
Plague Monks
Rat Ogres/rats/packmasters (very old kit)

plastic warlock bombardier could appear too.


With those plastics I could see the hellpit, clawlord and perhaps stormvermin along with some clan rats being a good box on its own. That would give them things that haven't been in the previous sets but are still mostly decent plastics. Throw in a cannon or doomwheel as they are always popular models and you've got yourself a set. They might even thrown in the stormfiends.

I can't see the rat ogres kit appearing, oh its a good value kit in terms of what you get model wise, its just all very old and the ogres themselves really show their age (esp as Island of Blood rat ogres are still kicking around in decentish numbers on ebay - even though they command a high price)

The rat ogres kit makes the razorgor look decent.

A shame because Island of Blood ratogres are amazing. Imagine a kit with that quality.

 Galas wrote:
A shame because Island of Blood ratogres are amazing. Imagine a kit with that quality.

We all did. GW went with the End Times Ogre Marine gun teams instead. With added tiny brain rat.

I will be watching the contents of the goblin box closely. I've been mulling over expanding my Looncurse and depending on what that box pushes it might be just what I've been waiting for.... or not I suppose.

 LunarSol wrote:
I will be watching the contents of the goblin box closely. I've been mulling over expanding my Looncurse and depending on what that box pushes it might be just what I've been waiting for.... or not I suppose.

It wouldn't surprise me in the least if the plastic Loonboss on Giant Cave Squig (which still isn't available separately) shows up in a Start Collecting: Gloomspite Gitz box first...

Well, I already have one so I'd be super happy if it wasn't in the Christmas box.

 LunarSol wrote:
Well, I already have one so I'd be super happy if it wasn't in the Christmas box.

Just one? Slacker!

Note: it's a real easy swap to give it the head and loony sword from the Mangler Squig riding boss.

The WarCom article on the Boneheads is very... odd.

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2019/10/19/what-is-the-tithegw-homepage-post-3/

First up, except for Boss One and Boss Two, all of Boneheads have mishmash minds from dozens or hundreds of people. That doesn't seem sane or useful in any way at all- like building in an Achilles Heel for the sole purpose of having a narrative weakness (that will likely never come up in game)

Second, the tithe itself is wacky. Its described as diplomatic and sustainable, but cruel. While apparently some 'Stalliarchs' are jerks about it, 'Give us bone and we'll go away' isn't cruel at all. In fact its far kinder than most demands of tribute by armies in the entire scope of human history. No one is going to starve, be unable to build homes, or even lose money. Its a 'resource' that's really important to the Ossiarchs and literally no one else. And frankly if you're living in Shyish and keeping your dead around, you're kind of stupid to begin with.

They also unfortunately bring up an allusion to cattle, which raises the quest of...well, why not animal bones rather than human ones? They've already stated that option one is diplomacy, so why not be reasonable. Its all 'melted down' and reformed anyway, so why not?

Then we move on to the forging part, and it turns out some of them are animal bones. And that makes for 'horrific animal rage,' (which in game is probably good) even though most animals don't actually do that. Goats and cows aren't wolverines or badgers, and most villages will have far more of the former types of animal bones on hand.

The best bit,though is the Petrifex Elite, which are 'forged from fossils.' Which... aren't bone. So it turns out all of this works just fine with stone and there isn't any point to the tithe at all.


Finally, we learn that 'inevitably' anyone who accepts the Tithe is doomed to get screwed over, and be destroyed anyway. So... all the diplomacy is pointless, and anyone paying attention to what happens shouldn't ever give in and agree and have no motivation to do so, because they're simply strengthening the enemies that will kill them later. Exciting!
Seems a wasted opportunity- having an actual political landscape attached to AoS where people actually do interact (even with the 'Evil' factions) would give it a depth it still needs.

Yeah. While I am happy and respect that they are trying, AoS fluff is still something I tend to ignore while.ysing the models for my own (often RPG based) purposes.

Which is why I impatiently await new lizardmen and slaanesh/generic new chaos release. I have a soft spot.for Hyboriana.

I'm wondering if all these different groups they bring up, the Null Myriad, the Ivory Host, the Petrifex- are they going to be the chapter equivalents of the Bonereapers, or different types of units?

Voss wrote:
First up, except for Boss One and Boss Two, all of Boneheads have mishmash minds from dozens or hundreds of people. That doesn't seem sane or useful in any way at all- like building in an Achilles Heel for the sole purpose of having a narrative weakness (that will likely never come up in game)

You're assuming that they use the entire mind and not just the parts that suit their needs.

Voss wrote:
Second, the tithe itself is wacky. Its described as diplomatic and sustainable, but cruel. While apparently some 'Stalliarchs' are jerks about it, 'Give us bone and we'll go away' isn't cruel at all. In fact its far kinder than most demands of tribute by armies in the entire scope of human history. No one is going to starve, be unable to build homes, or even lose money. Its a 'resource' that's really important to the Ossiarchs and literally no one else. And frankly if you're living in Shyish and keeping your dead around, you're kind of stupid to begin with.

Well, when undead are the enemy you'd want to keep them dead instead of giving them the ability to make more soldiers. Plus most religions do have customs with dealing with the dead other than just tossing them to the enemy.

Voss wrote:
They also unfortunately bring up an allusion to cattle, which raises the quest of...well, why not animal bones rather than human ones? They've already stated that option one is diplomacy, so why not be reasonable. Its all 'melted down' and reformed anyway, so why not?

Then we move on to the forging part, and it turns out some of them are animal bones. And that makes for 'horrific animal rage,' (which in game is probably good) even though most animals don't actually do that. Goats and cows aren't wolverines or badgers, and most villages will have far more of the former types of animal bones on hand.

Again, you're making assumptions especially in light of AoS having an entire Realm of Beasts and each species has a 'Godbeast' as well.

Voss wrote:
The best bit,though is the Petrifex Elite, which are 'forged from fossils.' Which... aren't bone. So it turns out all of this works just fine with stone and there isn't any point to the tithe at all.

From Wikipedia (emphasis added):

A fossil (from Classical Latin fossilis; literally, "obtained by digging") is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones...

Fossilized bones are still bones.

Voss wrote:
Finally, we learn that 'inevitably' anyone who accepts the Tithe is doomed to get screwed over, and be destroyed anyway. So... all the diplomacy is pointless, and anyone paying attention to what happens shouldn't ever give in and agree and have no motivation to do so, because they're simply strengthening the enemies that will kill them later. Exciting!
Seems a wasted opportunity- having an actual political landscape attached to AoS where people actually do interact (even with the 'Evil' factions) would give it a depth it still needs.

You do realize that AoS is a wargame? An army that never fights and you spend the entire game bargaining and working out a peace treaty with your opponent would make for a very poor game (and a poor selling army to boot).

 Ghaz wrote:

Voss wrote:
First up, except for Boss One and Boss Two, all of Boneheads have mishmash minds from dozens or hundreds of people. That doesn't seem sane or useful in any way at all- like building in an Achilles Heel for the sole purpose of having a narrative weakness (that will likely never come up in game)

You're assuming that they use the entire mind and not just the parts that suit their needs.

No, I'm taking what they wrote. Each mind is made up of pieces of others. Maybe even hundreds of others. That... isn't useful or cohesive. Imagine a soldier mentally constructed from six orcs, two goblins, seven elves and a dozen humans, all from different realms and cultures. Now- how exactly is it going to respond to any given stimuli, and how is the soldier next to it (constructed entirely differently) going to react?
Its a bizarre take on multiple personality disorder turned up to eleven for no apparent reason.

Well, when undead are the enemy you'd want to keep them dead instead of giving them the ability to make more soldiers. Plus most religions do have customs with dealing with the dead other than just tossing them to the enemy.

Yep. Both are absolutely true. So they need to be capable of neutrality or no one would ever bother with diplomacy.

Again, you're making assumptions especially in light of AoS having an entire Realm of Beasts and each species has a 'Godbeast' as well.

Yes, I'm assuming that species are different. Weird, right?
Not sure what the 'godbeasts' have to do with anything. Does the godbeast of cattle demand they stampede over human settlements on a regular basis?

Fossilized bones are still bones.

Nope. They're minerals in the shape of bones- all the 'bone' material has leached out over the years and been replaced with minerals. If you have a fossilized toe from a tyrannosaurus, exactly nothing of the object was actually inside a living tyrannosaur at any point. That's the only reason they're still around. Outside of fossilization or specific environmental conditions (which are incompatible with fossilization) bone doesn't last that long. It is, as the that specific definition says, an _impression_ of an once-living thing, but it isn't currently bone, and hasn't been for hundreds or thousands of years.

Voss wrote:
Finally, we learn that 'inevitably' anyone who accepts the Tithe is doomed to get screwed over, and be destroyed anyway. So... all the diplomacy is pointless, and anyone paying attention to what happens shouldn't ever give in and agree and have no motivation to do so, because they're simply strengthening the enemies that will kill them later. Exciting!
Seems a wasted opportunity- having an actual political landscape attached to AoS where people actually do interact (even with the 'Evil' factions) would give it a depth it still needs.

You do realize that AoS is a wargame? An army that never fights and you spend the entire game bargaining and working out a peace treaty with your opponent would make for a very poor game (and a poor selling army to boot).

That wasn't even vaguely my point. I don't know where you pulled bargaining at the table from. I was talking about having some detail on these 'empires' they deal with (and betray). Basic worldbuilding.
They aren't army factions in any case, but the setting would have more detail and depth if we had more than vague nameless 'empires' that inevitably get destroyed because the Boneheads are just so Evil (mwa ha ha, twirl the mustache).
The bonereapers are superficially presented as interacting with the setting in a meaningful way, diplomacy, deals, and so forth. But the entities they deal with are nameless, shapeless things, and we're told flat out that they just destroy them anyway, negating the whole point of the bonereapers as a complex fashion. They're just another mindless force of death in a setting that's full of exactly the same thing.

It's quite probable that we will see a lot more detail on their interactions with named cities in the tome itself. This article is a teaser, after all. They want to give us some details - the names of the subfactions, for example - but hold stuff back for further reveals and the eventual release.

Things being nebulous I feel comes from an attempt to avoid the problems caused by locking down locations too much. We got into some fairly torturous rationales for why (and how) Army A got to fight Army B. Stuff like realmgates and this slightly fuzzy geography is I believe, meant to offset that.

Last point I will address is that of diplomacy. If a city faced with imminent destruction has a chance to hand over some bones and potentially escape further trouble for centuries...the classic 'well our ancestors can deal with that...' move , why not?

In that time maybe the city may be able to bolster its defences, make alliances, or pray the the OBR run into a bunch of Ironjawz who grind them back into dust. Or they will forget about it and pat themselves on the back for being so clever...until years later they realise they aren't. None of those outcomes matter at the time...it's getting that army of Death to go away that matters.

It isn't sustainable, of course, but it hopefully means surviving to the next day.

Meanwhile the OBR get to wander about enacting Nagash's plan...itself a mockery of Sigmar's shepherding of people.

That bit about some taking the limbs of there citizens to fill there tithe is darker than I was expecting It certainly opens the door to some settlements actively culling there population instead of relying on natural deaths. I could even see some civilizations deep in Nagash's sphere of influence, seeing it as an honour to be tithed.

A few thoughts:
1) They are made up of many souls not minds. Souls in the AoS realm are quite a fluid concept. We've seen that souls can indeed retain memories of their past life. Both the souls harvested by Sigmar direct from the nearly and actually dead as well as the souls ripped from Slaanesh's belly. However with both the reforging into a new body often strips the soul of its memories.
Indeed the Khinerai and Melusai have no references made what so ever (thus far) to them ever remembering their past life; though there are strong references to them harbouring an inherent hatred of Slaanesh. Even though one of the Malign Portents stories shows a soul displaying some memories during the harvesting process.
Meanwhile Stormcast vary a lot, some recall everything, others recall hardly anything. And each time they are reforged they forget more and more.

Nagash likely combines the souls and preserves their skills through memories, but strips them of much of their past history. For the average warrior in his legion I would imagine that they've got the skills of many, but the mind of one. The difference might be the elite warriors with rotating heads which might have unique personalities for each "head" reflecting very different schools of thought on how to fight and work.

Remember souls and memories are linked but are not bound to each other perfectly. However it does leave some very interesting potential story plots for the Reapers with perhaps some of their number getting confused or maddened by jumbled past memories that don't link up well.

Note that the two leaders mentioned thus far are one soul in one body so that's also an aspect of them. Not all are hundreds of souls and the article makes general sweeping statements so it might not be true for all.



As for tithes of bones don't forget this is AoS, gods aren't a philosophical point and afterlife isn't a question - both are FACTS. Even for nations without a visibly active god there's enough magic flying around to make it far more certain. So offering over the bones of your ancestors is a BIG thing. Just imagine rolling up and demanding of the Dwarves that you want their dead from their carefully constructed tombs. You aren't just asking for a waste resource, that's something your society protects.
Also its likely that the Reapers don't march on each settlement in full numbers. A smaller army outside a city with thick walls might well not bow to the bullying demands of some undead warriors from the wastes.
Passing the buck to future generations also leaves things open to loads of potential traps and problems, though this does also leave us with another hazy view of the AoS timeline.


Voss you mention the cattle and rendering down the bone, however the article also mentions that the bone carries memories of its past and influences that which is made from it. If Nagash is pushing basically humanoid souls into bodies then we can see that he generally sticks to a humanoid source of bones.
They do very much use beasts for their beasts and mounts. So clearly there is a sorting process and a quota of specific species that the bones must come from not just any old bones. Otherwise the Reapers would just farm their own livestock and not even have to bother with the living. Not forgetting that Nagash also wants souls so the reaping happens twice - only one part happens in the Realm of Death (according to a short story in Inferno 4 only Skaven don't go a place within Nagash's realms when they die, though he is fighting skaven like mad to try and steal their Dead Realm of Ruin)
Plus as you say most villages won't have wolvarines, they've got cattle. However come to the Realm of Beasts and there's far more predators out there. If he comes to a roaming settlment of Untamed Beasts (Warcry Warband peoples) then they predate on predators alone (their weapons are forged from the bones of the dead predators). So a tithe from them would contain many more predator bones. In addition regular settlements in that realm likely have an abundance of them - esp if they know the Reapers are coming and the Reapers want a specific tithe.


Fossils might be more of a stretch, however we also have to remember that mineralisation might work differently in some of the realms. God Beasts, for example, might not "break down" like regular creatures and the term fossil might be being used creatively as a bit of a stretch. Though it is one bit of the writing which might have been erroneously put in by someone not familiar with the nature of fossils.



Overall much of it does work (esp accepting that its a very simple article). Especially once you start putting it in context of the Realms and not the world we live in.

And from The Old World, we know Skellingtons work as soldiers, because they retain some fighting instinct.

Ossiarch’s seem to be a refinement of that.

Voss wrote:

Seems a wasted opportunity- having an actual political landscape attached to AoS where people actually do interact (even with the 'Evil' factions) would give it a depth it still needs.

They never did that in WFB or 40k, why start now?

Also, as others pointed out, they're made of many souls, if you put ten fruit in a blender you don't get ten separate chunks floating around, you get a blend.

Voss wrote:
Nope. They're minerals in the shape of bones- all the 'bone' material has leached out over the years and been replaced with minerals. If you have a fossilized toe from a tyrannosaurus, exactly nothing of the object was actually inside a living tyrannosaur at any point. That's the only reason they're still around. Outside of fossilization or specific environmental conditions (which are incompatible with fossilization) bone doesn't last that long. It is, as the that specific definition says, an _impression_ of an once-living thing, but it isn't currently bone, and hasn't been for hundreds or thousands of years.

This is a highly magical setting. There probably aren't minerals, molecules or anything like that. And there probably hasn't been enough time for a fossilisation process as we understand it. Fossils in AOS are bones turned into stone by some (probably magical) process that exists in that setting. And conceptually fossils are things that were once alive (even though materially this is not true in the real world), and having once been alive seems to be important for Necromancy. You're literally trying to apply modern science to purely magical concepts in a magical setting.

Uh, no. The timeline for age of sigmar is very long. Literally ages have passed, thousands of years in each stage. Just because there is magic doesn't mean all normal processes are replaced with magic.

@Cronk- you don't end up with either, You ge thousands of tiny chunks, nothing like the cohesive wholes you started out with.

Voss wrote:
Uh, no. The timeline for age of sigmar is very long. Literally ages have passed, thousands of years in each stage. Just because there is magic doesn't mean all normal processes are replaced with magic.

Yes it does. It is a setting with magically aspected disc worlds where souls and crystallised magic are hot commodities. Trying to science it is idiotic.

Voss wrote:
The WarCom article on the Boneheads is very... odd.

I strongly dislike posts like this; you went into this article wanting to dislike it. I say that because it seems like you were looking for justification that the fluff is bad.

First up, except for Boss One and Boss Two, all of Boneheads have mishmash minds from dozens or hundreds of people. That doesn't seem sane or useful in any way at all- like building in an Achilles Heel for the sole purpose of having a narrative weakness (that will likely never come up in game)

Only if you assume they are bad at it. First off, memories are out the window. Next they take the the muscle memory of an Orc and seamlessly fuse it with the anatomical memory of a human to give a human-shaped body with orc combat skills as a baseline. They take the skills of a freeguild spearman and the skills from a freeguild swordsman and layer those on top for the spear & shield equipment experience. A butcher, a surgeon, and a black ark beastmaster provide anatomical knowledge on how to attack the bodies of different foes, while an ironbreaker provides the proper instincts for tunnel fighting. Any elements that compete with each other are discarded or simply suppressed by the greater consciousness when they aren't needed. Just like your computer does not run all of its programs simultaneously.

Second, the tithe itself is wacky. Its described as diplomatic and sustainable, but cruel. While apparently some 'Stalliarchs' are jerks about it, 'Give us bone and we'll go away' isn't cruel at all. In fact its far kinder than most demands of tribute by armies in the entire scope of human history. No one is going to starve, be unable to build homes, or even lose money. Its a 'resource' that's really important to the Ossiarchs and literally no one else. And frankly if you're living in Shyish and keeping your dead around, you're kind of stupid to begin with.

You notably ignored the sentence about civilizations taking limbs in order to supplement the remains that they have. Other reasoning aside that alone tells me you wanted to dislike this fluff and were looking for justification. But to go further, most real life cultures would consider a hostile power showing up and saying 'give us all your dead or we kill you' pretty dam cruel. You completely ignore the emotional attachment we have for the remains of our loved ones, not to mention the sheer amount of labor involved to exhume huge numbers of bodies.

They also unfortunately bring up an allusion to cattle, which raises the quest of...well, why not animal bones rather than human ones? They've already stated that option one is diplomacy, so why not be reasonable. Its all 'melted down' and reformed anyway, so why not?

Then we move on to the forging part, and it turns out some of them are animal bones. And that makes for 'horrific animal rage,' (which in game is probably good) even though most animals don't actually do that. Goats and cows aren't wolverines or badgers, and most villages will have far more of the former types of animal bones on hand.

They lay out rather obviously that what the bone is from matters. This answers your first question, and creates the logical assumption that goat & cow bones aren't used in the animal rage types. That you avoided making the basic assumption ties back to my original point.

The best bit,though is the Petrifex Elite, which are 'forged from fossils.' Which... aren't bone. So it turns out all of this works just fine with stone and there isn't any point to the tithe at all.

Magic cares more about symbolism in Warhammer, and the overwhelming majority of settings. And I would bet money you know that.

Finally, we learn that 'inevitably' anyone who accepts the Tithe is doomed to get screwed over, and be destroyed anyway. So... all the diplomacy is pointless, and anyone paying attention to what happens shouldn't ever give in and agree and have no motivation to do so, because they're simply strengthening the enemies that will kill them later.

100% the most realistic part of the whole article. People do not pay attention to historical trends, and we absolutely default to short-term thinking.

Seems a wasted opportunity

Yes, a wasted opportunity for you to have an open mind.

It's not a matter of scienc, or at least that isn't the problem. The problem is world building, which has dogged AOS from the start.. When you're doing fantasy world building, the audience is going to assume things are the same unless there is an important reason for them to be different. Change too much and you lose audience buy in. (Which why most fantasy settings default to 24hour days and 30ish day months despite it not making any real sense. It just isn't worth the fight with reader expectations, even unconscious ones)

There isn't a point to a whole new process to create magic fossils. Trying to mind caulk every real world process to magic versions 'for reasons' is just an endless pile of wasted words that only serves to turn off potential audiences.


More importantly, GW isn't claiming there is a magic process. That's just your explanation. I'm not clear what purpose that serves? Why do you think they need to be magic fossils rather than the same magic just working on stone?
Your initial assumption was 'there just isn't time' but even i know enough about AoS to know that isn't true- multiple ages gives eons, plenty of time for fossilization. There isn't any point in spending 'world building credits' on magic fossilization when it works just fine the normal way.

Or perhaps just perhaps enjoy learning about how things are different in this world and how it doesn't always match up to our own? Not every reader wants things to be a 1-2-1 match with our world. Seriously Voss, you were this damn nitpicky over at Warseer and it made the threads tiresome to read and you're dragging it over here.

Feel free to ignore AoS threads if you don't like discussions about AoS world building and current articles.

Calling me out because I like to have discussions is a weird thing to do on a discussion forum, even without dragging a completely different forum into it.

From page 11 of the Malign Sorcery rulebook:

BONES OF AMBER

Bone piles are common throughout Ghur, heaped outside the dens of the realm’s countless predators. It is no wonder then that so many pass over Ghur’s realmstone, for it appears as nothing more than the fossilised remains of well-gnawed and cracked-open bones. Closer inspection reveals a subtle amber glow and an unusual heaviness to these objects, as if they truly were made of stone. Deposits range in size from tiny osseous matter no larger than the smallest shard of a mouse’s skeleton, to larger caches on the Realm’s Edge that look like the enormous bones of some longdead godbeast. In addition to the usual properties of realmstone, that from Ghur is especially potent at fuelling spells that transform the caster into a beast or unleashes inner savagery. The most powerful of Wurrgog Prophets and Maniak Weirdnobs carry staves of amber bone, or use the substance for unusual piercings.

So there is a strong connection between bone (and fossilised bone) and the realmstone of Ghur, so even outside of Ghur some magic can be assumed to be found in the bones (and fossilised bones) of animals.

I think the guy that wrote the article just doesn't know fossils aren't actual bones but minerals in the shape of a previous bone.
I don't think it is worth to read too much into it.

I don't mind getting deeper into the lore of the setting and I really wish GW was stricter in some sense iwth how they've built AoS. Timeline wise things are a bit sketchy since Nagash has clearly had this army in the making for a LONG time but the legions of Stormcast are not "that" old at present. The Age of Chaos was only 500 years a - blip compared to the Age of Myth that came before; yet already many AoS stories suggest that several hundred years have passed already. The Bonereapers suggest that we are nearing a thousand or more years though I've a feeling that whils they have appeared after stormcast and in retaliation to them I think that they were clearly started a lot further back.

The timeline is VERY hazy at present for AoS and it does hamper some storytelling and world building.