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 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

 skullking wrote:
These Deepkin look excellent! I'm really happy at how GW has spun AoS into something very different from a LotR/D&D style fantasy game, to something very much it's own new(ish) take on fantasy.

It's almost as though they looked at what things they'd made for the previous WaFaBa armies which sort of broke those stereotypes, and expanded them into their own armies.

AoS has certainly widened the possibilities. In the Old World, a mish-mash of fantasy tropes and historical aesthetics, things were arguably too defined.

My general inclination is that the bolded bit is more important than we might initially think: this may be one of the long lasting effects of the GW/Chapterhouse lawsuit. One of the limitations of a 'realistic' fantasy or a fantasy setting with a very widely shared aesthetic is that it's very difficult to establish defensible IP.

A similar reason is why there (seems) to have been a move to more and more outlandish names and titles; 'Sea Elves' is all but un-protectable, while "Idoneth Deepkin" is a clearly fanciful name that is far more distinctive and a stronger IP.

Which I still don't fully understand. I thought the courts ruled "compatible with Idoneth Deepkin" was fine?

"Sea Elves" would certainly have been a boring name. "Sky Dwarves" is also a lot less interesting than "Kharadron Overlords"


...but did 'Elfs' really need to become 'Aelfs'? 'Dwarves' into 'Duardin'? Orks to orruks, giants to gargants, ogres to ogors, zombies to deadwalkers. Because none of those changes make the IP defenisble.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
"Sea Elves" would certainly have been a boring name. "Sky Dwarves" is also a lot less interesting than "Kharadron Overlords"


...but did 'Elfs' really need to become 'Aelfs'? 'Dwarves' into 'Duardin'? Orks to orruks, giants to gargants, ogres to ogors, zombies to deadwalkers. Because none of those changes make the IP defenisble.

I kinda agree, these names just made the game seem more juvenile and goofy. Some flawed thinking on their part when it comes to some of these names.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
"Sea Elves" would certainly have been a boring name. "Sky Dwarves" is also a lot less interesting than "Kharadron Overlords"


...but did 'Elfs' really need to become 'Aelfs'? 'Dwarves' into 'Duardin'? Orks to orruks, giants to gargants, ogres to ogors, zombies to deadwalkers. Because none of those changes make the IP defenisble.

Apologies, as it's late and I was going from memory, but (IIRC) one of the prongs of the trademark test is distinctiveness, and a 'fanciful' name (as opposed to a descriptive one) better satisfies this. If anything, 'Aelfs' is probably not as fanciful as it might be (given that "Aelf" is a historical alternate spelling of 'Elf').

I believe the following (from ABERCROMBIE & FITCH COMPANY v HUNTING WORLD, INCORPORATED) represents current law;

The cases, and in some instances the Lanham Act, identify four different categories of terms with respect to trademark protection. Arrayed in an ascending order which roughly reflects their eligibility to trademark status and the degree of protection accorded, these classes are (1) generic, (2) descriptive, (3) suggestive, and (4) arbitrary or fanciful.

Prosaically I think there is the Search Engine Optimization element. If you go and search ORCS you will get hits from everything under the sun, even if you add in wargaming, 28mm or what have you short of Games Workshop.

On the other hand search for Idoneth Deepkin and try to find something other than GW stuff...

 AegisGrimm wrote:
The turtle reminds me of the Chitaurii Leviathans from Avengers, and no one has a problem with those flying.

exactly what I first thought of

I have to admit, they are starting to grow on me...especially the Atlantean looking elves (I liked them from the start but was put off with the pale infantry who I strongly dislike). I'm thinking that changing the heads on the pale infantry and doing a different colour might make them work for me.

That's basically how I saw it besides IP protection. Easier to find their products online.

Not that I ever minded the changes, tons of fantasies do it and some even do it to "humans" as well. It's easy enough to get used to and makes them feel like they belong to the setting rather than copy-pasted Tolkien races, IMO.(Aelf alone works well since it has Nordic origins and the setting is Norse and Greek inspired.)

Yeah, where are those free guild guys? You'd think they would be one of the first factions to be released, considering how in the old world they were the Empire, a major faction.

Making human models unique is gonna take some time so it's not surprising they aren't out yet in a new army. Besides that the Freeguild are everywhere in the lore in the major cities colonized by Azyrheim and they gave a good reason to them not appearing until the end of the Age of Chaos as only Stormcasts could leave the realm of heaven without opening it's gates to invasion by the endless chaos hordes.

Only Stormcasts and Devoted tribes hiding among the realms could do anything.

Now we're seeing them taking ground and patrolling cities as the Age of Hope let civilization grow again.

We'll likely see a independent battletome first as the Empire dressed Freeguild act as Sigmar's colonial armies while later rising independent realm armies like Lantic empire, life realm knight orders and numerous kingdoms and tribes get new models while incorporating some of the Freeguilders.

Now.. bringing back Bretonnia has ghostly Grail guardians with forest themes... that might be just enough.

I do hope we see Gilles one day, he has the best chance of making it to the mortal realms. Though I think he'll be in the realm of light rather than life as Teclis rules there and Lileath was both their goddess.

The life realm does have numerous knight orders and even a Order of the Bretons but they're all either Sigmar worshippers or Alarielle followers(the new Lady)that ally with the Sylvaneth. Nothing there for Gilles really.

 Eldarain wrote:
Which I still don't fully understand. I thought the courts ruled "compatible with Idoneth Deepkin" was fine?

It is. As are "alternatives to X" or any language that states association without implying official endorsement by the TM owner. Also...

mhsellwood wrote:
Prosaically I think there is the Search Engine Optimization element. If you go and search ORCS you will get hits from everything under the sun, even if you add in wargaming, 28mm or what have you short of Games Workshop.

On the other hand search for Idoneth Deepkin and try to find something other than GW stuff...

That doesn't have anything to do with trademarks, you can use them in SEO as well providing the page the SEO takes someone to uses the aforementioned appropriate language. Idoneth are brand new and not even out yet so it's little wonder googling them only has GW results, and AoS generally hasn't lit the third party market on fire, presumably because they're already doing fine out of 40K and the residual WHF fanbase. Give it another couple of years of AoS bedding in and growing its playerbase and there will be just as many not-Idoneth and not-Kharadron and not-Stormcast as there were not-High Elves and Fantasy Landsknecht, all being sold by websites perfectly legally making use of GW's new "more defensible" trademarks - all the AoS switch bought them was a couple of years of breathing space while third parties waited to see whether AoS would stick around, now they know it is you'll soon find searching for an AoS name will pop up websites that are selling more trad-fantasy Dwarf models and so on. In fact if they do their SEO properly, those third party alternatives should now be even more obvious relative to GW product, since they'd no longer be competing with all the other fantasy and folklore results, searching for those lovely unique names would show just them and GW.

Further, while the older situation may have brought up non-GW results when people went searching for GW, the same was also true in reverse, searching for common fantasy races often had GW-related results right up on the first page, and that will likely never be true for AoS stuff because of the intentional disassociation.

In the end it doesn't matter of course, AoS is doing fine now, but I maintain the whole "enforceable IP" thing is just security theatre, and I'd wager any benefits gained from the switch have been soundly balanced out by the various downsides.

Meh, a rose by any other name as far as I'm concerned.

Edit: GW will never truly escape the parasites but as long as they keep proper support of AoS and use the breathing room they have for superior advertising and media outlets (as they've been doing in spades) then the quality of their product has nothing to fear.

 bullyboy wrote:

 AegisGrimm wrote:
The turtle reminds me of the Chitaurii Leviathans from Avengers, and no one has a problem with those flying.

exactly what I first thought of

I have to admit, they are starting to grow on me...especially the Atlantean looking elves (I liked them from the start but was put off with the pale infantry who I strongly dislike). I'm thinking that changing the heads on the pale infantry and doing a different colour might make them work for me.

The armored Deepkin I loved immediately, definitely will be my focus on using one day.

As for thrall conversions, maybe the elf-like Sylvaneth heads and say that they're kidnapped soulpod thralls from the realm of life whose souls are bound to your army's command?

Loots of cool stuff in this release. But I'm a bit disappointed that they, just like Mantic, went with the sea-elves/merman aesthetic instead of something more monstrous like deep ones or murlocs.

Always a chance for that with a Destruction focused faction. (Probably something to update the troggoths if not actual fishmen)

Also, probably me reading too much into it, but it's interesting we got airships the middle of last year and now a naval focused faction towards the middle of this year. If next year gives us something like those greenskin scrapfleets at nearlyvthecsame time then I'm going to hype myself up for a possible Man o' War (Realm o' War) naval game.

I doubt that Idoneth were impossible in WHFB, but whatever, they blew up the world and made a new universe with a crazy god at the helm that names everything Sigmar-xyz


I just want to add my voice to those wishing for more regular humans. We got one human withhout Chaos or Sigmar steroids so far for AoS, right? That's crazy. And zero horses.

I want some humans and heroic knights in my Fantasy setting.

I don't think we even have one? If you're talking about the Silver Tower priest, he's supposedly a giant among men.

But yes, I also miss horses! Nothing wrong with a good ol' horse.

 Buzzsaw wrote:
I believe the following (from ABERCROMBIE & FITCH COMPANY v HUNTING WORLD, INCORPORATED) represents current law;

The cases, and in some instances the Lanham Act, identify four different categories of terms with respect to trademark protection. Arrayed in an ascending order which roughly reflects their eligibility to trademark status and the degree of protection accorded, these classes are (1) generic, (2) descriptive, (3) suggestive, and (4) arbitrary or fanciful.

Yes, Age of Sigmar is Trademark: The Game. But they couldn't call it that because it's too generic and thus not protected.

Baron Klatz wrote:
Always a chance for that with a Destruction focused faction. (Probably something to update the troggoths if not actual fishmen)

What do you mean, Destruction? Is that a new Order sub-faction or something? Would be cool if Order got some new models for a change. It's been a while.

 Mymearan wrote:
I don't think we even have one? If you're talking about the Silver Tower priest, he's supposedly a giant among men.

But yes, I also miss horses! Nothing wrong with a good ol' horse.

I don't like horses. I want camel cavalry.

I doubt we will ever see regular horses in AoS. They are too ”ordinary” for the setting. Maybe we’ll get some kind of ”Equiline Destriers” or something similar. With claws.

 Oguhmek wrote:
I doubt we will ever see regular horses in AoS. They are too ”ordinary” for the setting. Maybe we’ll get some kind of ”Equiline Destriers” or something similar. With claws.

Order Draconis, Freeguild Outriders, Dark Riders, and Swifthawk Agent Reavers all off the top of my head have "normal" horses.

But they’re old models, right?

Daughters of Khain have the Doomfire Warlocks. And while they are older models, they are part of the new list... Though the horses on the Warlocks don't look like normal horses. More like Vampire horses or demon horses.

I should have specified ”...for new models...”.

Smokestack wrote:Daughters of Khain have the Doomfire Warlocks. And while they are older models, they are part of the new list... Though the horses on the Warlocks don't look like normal horses. More like Vampire horses or demon horses.

That has to do with the fluff on the Dark Riders. Their horses used to be stolen from Ellyrion herds on Ulthuan, then 'corrupted' by the sorceresses with magic and beaten/tormented by the Beastmasters of the Dark Elves until they were vicious tempered warmounts compared to the normal Elven Steeds.

Oguhmek wrote:But they’re old models, right?

Oguhmek wrote:I should have specified ”...for new models...”.

Dark Riders/Doomfire Warlocks came out at the same time as the Witch Elves and Bloodwrack Shrines. They have been confirmed as being designed with AoS in mind.

They are still not ordinary horses though, according to your own description. Buy yeah, I get your point.

 Oguhmek wrote:
They are still not ordinary horses though, according to your own description. Buy yeah, I get your point.

I mean, by that logic the Dragonblade steeds "aren't ordinary horses" since they ride Elven horses--which were always a special breed...

 Mymearan wrote:
I don't think we even have one? If you're talking about the Silver Tower priest, he's supposedly a giant among men.

Per his description in the novel, yes, but the model isn't really all that tall. He's about the same height as the Genestealer Neophytes that came out for 40k around the same time. Most of the character models we have for Age of Sigmar represent both a specific character in tie-in novels as well as a generic class of character in their respective army books.

Honestly considering some of the styles of miniature making we are seeing from the Sigmar range I think when they do horses they are going to look fantastic. Horses in the past were always rather - well - plain. The newer griffin riding knights and such are really showing powerful dynamic poses; plus with rank and file requirements gone they can go a bit more wild with the poses!


The only other way to do horses would be to scale them up to a proper size compared to riders; but honestly I don't think we'll see that.

Indeed, I think anything horse-like or just plain horses will go to aelves. Besides the Daughters of Khaine there's that Phoenicium city artwork that has an elven figure on horseback.

If they go for a name change or horse+ they might use those ghur-stryders mentioned to be used in the Hydonis empire before it fell.

Best bet is with a army focused around Tyrion and integrating the Order Draconis. Humans will likely focus on more mythical mounts like Demigryph knights.

What do you mean, Destruction? Is that a new Order sub-faction or something? Would be cool if Order got some new models for a change. It's been a while. 

Oh hardy har har.

That's the consequence between the Seeds of Hope campaign being Order dominated (despite 3 Destruction releases and Flesh-eaters release at the time) and GW announcing they have the next 5 years of productions ready afterwards.

Order sells best and so it got put to the forefront. Destruction is coming though, It's inevitable especially when you got mushroom headed goblin shaman running around.

made a new universe with a crazy god at the helm that names everything Sigmar-xyz  

Just a city and a mineral, hardly worse than Nagash. He's far more interested in naming everything and everyone after celestial events. :p

I have to admit, with flying ship dwarves, Ocean elves and Morathi's crew, I'm starting to really like AoS.

Some of the models that are emerging are really nice. Been a while since a derpy release too.

 skullking wrote:
These Deepkin look excellent! I'm really happy at how GW has spun AoS into something very different from a LotR/D&D style fantasy game, to something very much it's own new(ish) take on fantasy.

It's almost as though they looked at what things they'd made for the previous WaFaBa armies which sort of broke those stereotypes, and expanded them into their own armies.

honestly, just looks like WoW to me, not saying there is anything wrong with it, but it's not that unique

Nothing in fantasy's unique. Even Fyreslayers riding their fire dragons have some shared elements with heroes of might and magic with early red dwarves controlling machine dragons with the 5th installment giving the dwarves their own faction and making lava dragons as a elite unit.

All you can do is take the best elements from the fantasy genre as a whole and make it look cool with it's own unique twist on the idea. AoS accomplishes this in spades, you'll probably find a similarity somewhere but the lore and details make it it's own thing. (As do a lot of recent fantasy genres trying to distinguish themselves from Tolkien)

Baron Klatz wrote:
Nothing in fantasy's unique. Even Fyreslayers riding their fire dragons have some shared elements with heroes of might and magic with early red dwarves controlling machine dragons with the 5th installment giving the dwarves their own faction and making lava dragons as a elite unit.

All you can do is take the best elements from the fantasy genre as a whole and make it look cool with it's own unique twist on the idea. AoS accomplishes this in spades, you'll probably find a similarity somewhere but the lore and details make it it's own thing. (As do a lot of recent fantasy genres trying to distinguish themselves from Tolkien)

I completely agree. Further I would even say that if one did produce something entirely unique people wouldn't like it--a new development building on an older idea has more appeal. Of course one could go beyond that to note that it is literally impossible for a human to conceive anything that isn't made from already-known elements. Try to imagine a color you've never seen, for example.