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 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
I remember similar debates ages ago when the Brettonians got Pegasus Knights, that GW was going all magic-rich high fantasy rather than magic-poor low fantasy. It only got worse as baby Griffion Knights and other stuff showed up.

No matter, no one's tearing up your old books or setting fire to your old armies, but it's been clear for a while GW wanted a more distinct Olde Worlde rather than historical armies with a stray wizard or dragon.

Even before the Chapter House suit and IPR madness.

Nonsense!

I played a game of 4th Ed during 8th Ed, and the GW Thought Police burst in, burnt my old books, any models over six months old, then nailed my buttocks to my face!

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
I remember similar debates ages ago when the Brettonians got Pegasus Knights, that GW was going all magic-rich high fantasy rather than magic-poor low fantasy. It only got worse as baby Griffion Knights and other stuff showed up.

No matter, no one's tearing up your old books or setting fire to your old armies, but it's been clear for a while GW wanted a more distinct Olde Worlde rather than historical armies with a stray wizard or dragon.

Even before the Chapter House suit and IPR madness.

Nonsense!

I played a game of 4th Ed during 8th Ed, and the GW Thought Police burst in, burnt my old books, any models over six months old, then nailed my buttocks to my face!

We've spoken about this before, do we have to get the chart out again?

Fortunately, the RPG book on Kislev was available through Humble Bundle. This thread has made me eager to read it.

Other good Kislev material includes the Ambassador Cheonicles (an omnibus or The Ambassador and Ursun’s Teeth), the third and fifth Gotrek books, and, to a lesser degree, Riders of the Dead. Now’s a great time to read up on the frozen kingdom.

I guess its a good time for me to work on my Kislev units as well.

5 Gryphon Legion
5 Winged Lancers
19 Kossars (Full command)
1 Boyar on foot
1 Boyar mounted (Which is just the Ostland Elector Count I use as a mounted Boyar)

Might finally have an excuse to paint all these guys.

 gorgon wrote:
Well, I'd say those passages definitely keep underlining how organized and powerful the witches are, no matter what people's headcanons may be. So the idea of some kind of bodyguard unit/militarized unit of lower level witches doesn't seem worth the pages of anguish we've seen here.

It always describe them as either leading directly, or influencing behind the scene. That's totally at odds with a militarized unit.

 gorgon wrote:
But I have a hard time seeing how any neutral observer would think this new unit is some kind of major fluff betrayal.

It's not breaking the lore, it's just not fitting the previous tone and aesthetics of the setting.
Again, see my point about how such a unit is really a new thing for WFB.

Am I the weird one here for seeing both extremes of the fanbase as a bit mental right now?

Jesus! For what it's worth yeah I had a huge fit when they blew up WHFB but it's coming back and we're getting rank and file. Honestly that's about all I need aside from bringing most of the old armies back.

I always imagined Kislev as more of a Russian force than an east Asian force but this is what we're getting so far. It's just concept art you guys. At least GW might be willing to hear us out. I mean maybe they're not super great but I dunno that they're as bad as they used to be. Maybe let them know the themes aren't to your liking.

For me I started WHFB late 7th edition and i thought magical elf cavalry was bs but more due to shooting not being that great and magic resist boosting invulnerable saves (need i remind you mat ward wrote probably all of the elves). Anyway i don't mind magical units but that's just me. I mind how rules can stack together to make something insanely broken. Also this isn't really like AoS so much as the end of 8th edition WHFB.

Even if WHFB gets AoS'ified to a degree that's not fully the worst thing as long as they keep some of the complexity and movement. Let's also be real here. End Times and to a lesser extent the elf armies (most dark elves and wood elves as well as BotWD) were really dumb. They weren't top tier faction of 7th ed 40k dumb (looking at you tau every time i fought you with dark eldar) but they were still really dumb.

Anyone genuinely saying Wood Elves were anywhere near broken at the tail end of WHFB is a loon.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 gorgon wrote:
Well, I'd say those passages definitely keep underlining how organized and powerful the witches are, no matter what people's headcanons may be. So the idea of some kind of bodyguard unit/militarized unit of lower level witches doesn't seem worth the pages of anguish we've seen here.

It always describe them as either leading directly, or influencing behind the scene. That's totally at odds with a militarized unit.

 gorgon wrote:
But I have a hard time seeing how any neutral observer would think this new unit is some kind of major fluff betrayal.

It's not breaking the lore, it's just not fitting the previous tone and aesthetics of the setting.
Again, see my point about how such a unit is really a new thing for WFB.

Except people have given you multiple examples of how it isn't. Elite magical units existed, and were increasing in number in 7th and 8th.

 Kanluwen wrote:
Anyone genuinely saying Wood Elves were anywhere near broken at the tail end of WHFB is a loon.

Did you play 8th edition army book Wood Elves? They were broken and no i won't apologize. Up until their 8th edition army book wood elves were like the absolute bottom tier in power but in 8th ed army book you could see noobs beat pros. The could jump from forest to forest, shoot with lots of bs arrows and outflank basically and just move all around you. If you couldn't shoot them off the board with a gun-line army it was hard esp. if you lacked movement. I played skaven and we were slow and all the negative to hit modifiers to shooting meant we had issues fighting them unless we used lots of warp lightning spells or something and even then in 2,000-2,500 pts games you needed two level 4 wizards and lots of level 2 warlocks weren't really ideal.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Fortunately, the RPG book on Kislev was available through Humble Bundle. This thread has made me eager to read it.

Other good Kislev material includes the Ambassador Cheonicles (an omnibus or The Ambassador and Ursun’s Teeth), the third and fifth Gotrek books, and, to a lesser degree, Riders of the Dead. Now’s a great time to read up on the frozen kingdom.

Also Ulrika - cos Ulrika - human and

Oh, right. I forgot about Ulrika! Thanks for the reminder.

Voss wrote:
Except people have given you multiple examples of how it isn't. Elite magical units existed, and were increasing in number in 7th and 8th.

Yeah we found like, 3 units with magical weapons, none of them of the flashy variety .

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

Voss wrote:
Except people have given you multiple examples of how it isn't. Elite magical units existed, and were increasing in number in 7th and 8th.

Yeah we found like, 3 units with magical weapons, none of them of the flashy variety .

No, people listed a lot more than three, you just decreed that some didn't count for nonsense reasons.

Voss wrote:

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

Voss wrote:
Except people have given you multiple examples of how it isn't. Elite magical units existed, and were increasing in number in 7th and 8th.

Yeah we found like, 3 units with magical weapons, none of them of the flashy variety .

No, people listed a lot more than three, you just decreed that some didn't count for nonsense reasons.

Some of which gained flashy variety in later media.

flamingkillamajig wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
Anyone genuinely saying Wood Elves were anywhere near broken at the tail end of WHFB is a loon.

Did you play 8th edition army book Wood Elves? They were broken and no i won't apologize. Up until their 8th edition army book wood elves were like the absolute bottom tier in power but in 8th ed army book you could see noobs beat pros. The could jump from forest to forest, shoot with lots of bs arrows and outflank basically and just move all around you. If you couldn't shoot them off the board with a gun-line army it was hard esp. if you lacked movement. I played skaven and we were slow and all the negative to hit modifiers to shooting meant we had issues fighting them unless we used lots of warp lightning spells or something and even then in 2,000-2,500 pts games you needed two level 4 wizards and lots of level 2 warlocks weren't really ideal.

Hell, when the 6th Ed. book dropped the Wood Elves were top tier and stayed that way through most of 7th.

Inquisitor Gideon wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:

BroodSpawn wrote:So here's my question - if you want the Old World back, and you want it 'exactly' how it was with no additional content in any for (no new sculpts, no new books, no rules updates).. aren't you wishing for a failed game to once more fail?

So you're assuming that everyone wants a return to the bloated trainwreck of 8th Ed. with Kirby's incompetent helming. Nice try. Me personally I'd like a swing back to 6th, when sales were healthy, the barrier to entry was low, and all it would have taken was some effort in advertising to move the game (and 40K at the time) off of High Street and into the public mainstream.

Mentlegen324 wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:


All in all this is simply a thematic retcon, it makes no sense with established lore and serves to do nothing except acclimate WTOW players to AOS and potentially have a playable faction for AOS players. I can see it now, the army formed to fight for the 9th wind of magic, the wind of Ice, also known as the Realm of Brrrrrrrrrrr.

Wait, that name isn't copyright friendly enough. Throw in some random "h"s.

In what way does this not fit the lore we already have for Kislev, though? Kislev is a culture with quite a heavy focus on Ice Magic where only Women are allowed/trained to use the Ice Magic. Ice Witches operate as a group that tries to influence Kislev culture and politics as well them defending Kislev itself. Ice Mages have the ability to do things like create swords and weapons made out of Ice, so enchanting something with ice seems within their abilities. While we haven't seen a unit of Kislev Ice Magic users quite like this before, it doesn't seem that out of place to think some might be better using their powers in other ways, or just might not develop their powers enough to be a full Ice Witch.

You're already exaggerating the scale. Heavily focused on Ice Magic is not accurate. Having female Ice Shamans influencing politicians is a DRASTIC difference from a mass number of Elsas flinging Ice Avalanches down on armies, or somehow having Ice Magic as interwoven into their society as to affect everyday tools. High Elves, who incorporate magic on a much higher scale, don't even have that. So now we assume that these Ice Shamans are also elite warriors on par with Swordmasters, Executions, Greatswords, Templeguard, and the like, who also have such a mastery of their powers as to create mystical ice weaponry. Oh, AND these Ice Shamans, who are so critical to the everyday function of Kislev Proper, are marched in a regiment in the middle of battlefields to potentially be picked off by Skinks with Blowpipes.

Every angle you look at this from your assumptions fall apart. Furthermore, I'd love to see ACTUAL PRINTED LORE that states ANYTHING you're claiming. Not a wiki where someone is paraphrasing, not some 3P garbage fluff piece, ACTUAL PRINTED GW MATERIAL that backs up your outlandish claim.

Well, you'll have it when the new book eventually comes out. Does it make it acceptable then?

If GW retcons their material, all the wailing in the world won't change it.

What ALSO won't change is if something is thematically inaccurate. Think back to Malekith being the true Phoenix King, but he just didn't cook long enough. (I have to admit I picture him with one of those temp buttons like on a turkey except it's the Phoenix Crown. Suddenly in End Times... POP!!!! "Cockadoodle doo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!") That's pretty massive and breaks a TON of established lore. When he tried to escape the Flames in every other version of that event, the flames wouldn't let him go ANYWHERE except the exact way he came in. Is it the way things are now? Yup. Did it go against theme and lore? MASSIVELY, and no amount of GW yes manning will change that.

Mr Morden wrote:Multiple quotes and sources

You did a massive amount of leg work and I greatly appreciate it. However, nothing in there lends itself to a unit of Ice Mage elite combat warriors. If anything, you may see an Ice Witch pop up to defend Kislev or to affect policy somewhere in one of the courts of Kislev. All things we've already discussed, and nothing new to make this unit any more thematically accurate to Old World lore. I do appreciate you finding all this, though.

Voss wrote:
No, people listed a lot more than three, you just decreed that some didn't count for nonsense reasons.

Sure, Voss, sure!!

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
Some of which gained flashy variety in later media.

Other medias are other medias¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
Other medias are other medias¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

I think this is affecting a lot of the discussion in here, honestly, and it's kind of infuriating. Would a Tactical Squad that's half heavy weapons being introduced suddenly be okay because you could arm a squad like that in Dawn Of War?

 Just Tony wrote:

Mr Morden wrote:Multiple quotes and sources

You did a massive amount of leg work and I greatly appreciate it. However, nothing in there lends itself to a unit of Ice Mage elite combat warriors. If anything, you may see an Ice Witch pop up to defend Kislev or to affect policy somewhere in one of the courts of Kislev. All things we've already discussed, and nothing new to make this unit any more thematically accurate to Old World lore. I do appreciate you finding all this, though.

Seconded, I am hardly familiar with the RPG information beyond some snippets encountered over the years, so this was an interesting read. At the same time, it only reinforces that these are (openly or covertly) the very political elite. As if Lord Kroak would not be guarded by Temple Guard, but by an actual unit of other Slann. While such a gathering could take place under the most desparate circumstances to ward of cataclysmic threats, it would hardly be a common occurrence. Almost all the time, the nation would be better served by having these leaders influencing matters elsewhere.
Indeed, contrast this concept with that of the Gryphon Legion: originally the bodyguard of the Tzar, they now wander far and wide as mercenaries. They are still obliged to return to defend Kislev if necessary, but the lore expressly states that this is unusual as most threats can be dealt with by the Ungol cavalry and Winged Lancers. If slightly better cavalry are often deemed not be needed, there must be very few circumstances where the Ice Queen and half her coven of Ice Witches take to the field.

 Coenus Scaldingus wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:

Mr Morden wrote:Multiple quotes and sources

You did a massive amount of leg work and I greatly appreciate it. However, nothing in there lends itself to a unit of Ice Mage elite combat warriors. If anything, you may see an Ice Witch pop up to defend Kislev or to affect policy somewhere in one of the courts of Kislev. All things we've already discussed, and nothing new to make this unit any more thematically accurate to Old World lore. I do appreciate you finding all this, though.

Seconded, I am hardly familiar with the RPG information beyond some snippets encountered over the years, so this was an interesting read. At the same time, it only reinforces that these are (openly or covertly) the very political elite. As if Lord Kroak would not be guarded by Temple Guard, but by an actual unit of other Slann. While such a gathering could take place under the most desparate circumstances to ward of cataclysmic threats, it would hardly be a common occurrence. Almost all the time, the nation would be better served by having these leaders influencing matters elsewhere.
Indeed, contrast this concept with that of the Gryphon Legion: originally the bodyguard of the Tzar, they now wander far and wide as mercenaries. They are still obliged to return to defend Kislev if necessary, but the lore expressly states that this is unusual as most threats can be dealt with by the Ungol cavalry and Winged Lancers. If slightly better cavalry are often deemed not be needed, there must be very few circumstances where the Ice Queen and half her coven of Ice Witches take to the field.

That’s would be rare, yes.
What wasn’t rare though was mazdamundi riding his steggadon into battle being supported by a host of slaan.
Also, it had to be a pretty big event for any slaan to get involved as they were generally too valuable to risk harm.

 Just Tony wrote:

flamingkillamajig wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
Anyone genuinely saying Wood Elves were anywhere near broken at the tail end of WHFB is a loon.

Did you play 8th edition army book Wood Elves? They were broken and no i won't apologize. Up until their 8th edition army book wood elves were like the absolute bottom tier in power but in 8th ed army book you could see noobs beat pros. The could jump from forest to forest, shoot with lots of bs arrows and outflank basically and just move all around you. If you couldn't shoot them off the board with a gun-line army it was hard esp. if you lacked movement. I played skaven and we were slow and all the negative to hit modifiers to shooting meant we had issues fighting them unless we used lots of warp lightning spells or something and even then in 2,000-2,500 pts games you needed two level 4 wizards and lots of level 2 warlocks weren't really ideal.

Hell, when the 6th Ed. book dropped the Wood Elves were top tier and stayed that way through most of 7th.

Inquisitor Gideon wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:

BroodSpawn wrote:So here's my question - if you want the Old World back, and you want it 'exactly' how it was with no additional content in any for (no new sculpts, no new books, no rules updates).. aren't you wishing for a failed game to once more fail?

So you're assuming that everyone wants a return to the bloated trainwreck of 8th Ed. with Kirby's incompetent helming. Nice try. Me personally I'd like a swing back to 6th, when sales were healthy, the barrier to entry was low, and all it would have taken was some effort in advertising to move the game (and 40K at the time) off of High Street and into the public mainstream.

Mentlegen324 wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:


All in all this is simply a thematic retcon, it makes no sense with established lore and serves to do nothing except acclimate WTOW players to AOS and potentially have a playable faction for AOS players. I can see it now, the army formed to fight for the 9th wind of magic, the wind of Ice, also known as the Realm of Brrrrrrrrrrr.

Wait, that name isn't copyright friendly enough. Throw in some random "h"s.

In what way does this not fit the lore we already have for Kislev, though? Kislev is a culture with quite a heavy focus on Ice Magic where only Women are allowed/trained to use the Ice Magic. Ice Witches operate as a group that tries to influence Kislev culture and politics as well them defending Kislev itself. Ice Mages have the ability to do things like create swords and weapons made out of Ice, so enchanting something with ice seems within their abilities. While we haven't seen a unit of Kislev Ice Magic users quite like this before, it doesn't seem that out of place to think some might be better using their powers in other ways, or just might not develop their powers enough to be a full Ice Witch.

You're already exaggerating the scale. Heavily focused on Ice Magic is not accurate. Having female Ice Shamans influencing politicians is a DRASTIC difference from a mass number of Elsas flinging Ice Avalanches down on armies, or somehow having Ice Magic as interwoven into their society as to affect everyday tools. High Elves, who incorporate magic on a much higher scale, don't even have that. So now we assume that these Ice Shamans are also elite warriors on par with Swordmasters, Executions, Greatswords, Templeguard, and the like, who also have such a mastery of their powers as to create mystical ice weaponry. Oh, AND these Ice Shamans, who are so critical to the everyday function of Kislev Proper, are marched in a regiment in the middle of battlefields to potentially be picked off by Skinks with Blowpipes.

Every angle you look at this from your assumptions fall apart. Furthermore, I'd love to see ACTUAL PRINTED LORE that states ANYTHING you're claiming. Not a wiki where someone is paraphrasing, not some 3P garbage fluff piece, ACTUAL PRINTED GW MATERIAL that backs up your outlandish claim.

Well, you'll have it when the new book eventually comes out. Does it make it acceptable then?

If GW retcons their material, all the wailing in the world won't change it.

What ALSO won't change is if something is thematically inaccurate. Think back to Malekith being the true Phoenix King, but he just didn't cook long enough. (I have to admit I picture him with one of those temp buttons like on a turkey except it's the Phoenix Crown. Suddenly in End Times... POP!!!! "Cockadoodle doo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!") That's pretty massive and breaks a TON of established lore. When he tried to escape the Flames in every other version of that event, the flames wouldn't let him go ANYWHERE except the exact way he came in. Is it the way things are now? Yup. Did it go against theme and lore? MASSIVELY, and no amount of GW yes manning will change that.

Mr Morden wrote:Multiple quotes and sources

You did a massive amount of leg work and I greatly appreciate it. However, nothing in there lends itself to a unit of Ice Mage elite combat warriors. If anything, you may see an Ice Witch pop up to defend Kislev or to affect policy somewhere in one of the courts of Kislev. All things we've already discussed, and nothing new to make this unit any more thematically accurate to Old World lore. I do appreciate you finding all this, though.

So this is a case of unless it's exactly how "I" want and it and how "I" see it, it's wrong and will always be wrong. Fair enough

 Just Tony wrote:

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
Other medias are other medias¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

I think this is affecting a lot of the discussion in here, honestly, and it's kind of infuriating. Would a Tactical Squad that's half heavy weapons being introduced suddenly be okay because you could arm a squad like that in Dawn Of War?

The thing is, Warhammer is much more than just the tabletop. It has grow a ton, and we can say with things like Blood Ravens being canoniced and having miniatures, how the feedback between different forms of the universe happen all the time. I wouldn't be surprised to see some total war units become miniatures in this version of The Old World. (And as others have pointed out, miniature limitations were the primary reason for many of the design choices back then. Should I remember how, no matter how many people try to arguee the contrary, Greater Demons were always as big as they are now in the fluff? Just look at any drawing of them. The metal dwarves were just what they could do at the time, not the "proper" representation of them)


And BTW I know we are making so much noise about this because we have literally nothing else to speak about the old world and is the first tangible piece of information GW has given us. But all of this reminds me a little about the Kelemorph. How a random guy having 3 pistols that were better than most pistols out there was extremely anti-canon and would ruin everything and it was horrible. And then everybody forgott about his existence because at the end of the day it was irrelevant.

But I have to be honest. Normally I despise a little bit the fantasy "Purists" out there after what many of them did with the release of the Ogre Kingdoms. One of the coolest races of Fantasy, introduced in one of the best background expansions of the whole life of fantasy, labeled as "They don't fit in", or unneccesary, etc...
From that point onwards I realized that many fantasy fans are like Heroes of Might and Magic Russian fans. They just want the same game (Heroes 3) done again and again and again, and revere little minutiate as keystones of the feeling of the universe, losing the forest for the threes. They would have the game dead than let them evolve, improve, try new things, some good, some bad, but growing. I was like that once with Warcraft but I grow out of it.

 Mr Morden wrote:

To this day, male hedge wizards are tracked down and killed by the state.

Huh, I don't suppose there's a warhammer Rasputin lurking around, who survived getting sorcerer hunted and is now mad as hell?
Also, don't Bretonnians do the same thing?

In the case of bretonnians, the elves just take girls and boys with magic affinity. The girls come back as Damsels, the boys didn't . It was rumored about a magic unit of wizards or something like that but as we all know bretonnia died before the end times even happened.

The thing is, Warhammer is much more than just the tabletop. It has grow a ton, and we can say with things like Blood Ravens being canoniced and having miniatures, how the feedback between different forms of the universe happen all the time. I wouldn't be surprised to see some total war units become miniatures in this version of The Old World. (And as others have pointed out, miniature limitations were the primary reason for many of the design choices back then. Should I remember how, no matter how many people try to arguee the contrary, Greater Demons were always as big as they are now in the fluff? Just look at any drawing of them. The metal dwarves were just what they could do at the time, not the "proper" representation of them)

Indeed, how far back should we constrain model restraints? Should Magnus have remained in his epic form and not been updated at all?

I think this is affecting a lot of the discussion in here, honestly, and it's kind of infuriating. Would a Tactical Squad that's half heavy weapons being introduced suddenly be okay because you could arm a squad like that in Dawn Of War?

Some things have clearly been updated because of Dawn of War. Two Handed Daemon Hammers for example didn't exist at the time and it fit the universe enough that it existed afterwords.

Jumping Terminator Armor not so much.

Also we are talking about aesthetics and not even a change to units in general.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:

To this day, male hedge wizards are tracked down and killed by the state.

Huh, I don't suppose there's a warhammer Rasputin lurking around, who survived getting sorcerer hunted and is now mad as hell?
Also, don't Bretonnians do the same thing?

Dark Elves have pretty much the same prophercy policy so no-one can threaten Malakaith


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Coenus Scaldingus wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:

Mr Morden wrote:Multiple quotes and sources

You did a massive amount of leg work and I greatly appreciate it. However, nothing in there lends itself to a unit of Ice Mage elite combat warriors. If anything, you may see an Ice Witch pop up to defend Kislev or to affect policy somewhere in one of the courts of Kislev. All things we've already discussed, and nothing new to make this unit any more thematically accurate to Old World lore. I do appreciate you finding all this, though.

Seconded, I am hardly familiar with the RPG information beyond some snippets encountered over the years, so this was an interesting read. At the same time, it only reinforces that these are (openly or covertly) the very political elite. As if Lord Kroak would not be guarded by Temple Guard, but by an actual unit of other Slann. While such a gathering could take place under the most desparate circumstances to ward of cataclysmic threats, it would hardly be a common occurrence. Almost all the time, the nation would be better served by having these leaders influencing matters elsewhere.
Indeed, contrast this concept with that of the Gryphon Legion: originally the bodyguard of the Tzar, they now wander far and wide as mercenaries. They are still obliged to return to defend Kislev if necessary, but the lore expressly states that this is unusual as most threats can be dealt with by the Ungol cavalry and Winged Lancers. If slightly better cavalry are often deemed not be needed, there must be very few circumstances where the Ice Queen and half her coven of Ice Witches take to the field.

I was more looking at answering (if possible) the specific questions that were raised about what Ice Witches definately are.

So there is lore support for them being an incredably powerful and overt element of Kislev society, with the head of their Sisterhood ruling the nation.
The look to ensure that no men wield magic and enlist the aid of the state in this.
They are capable of etremely powerful magic and often use this in the defence of the nation and/or for their own needs.
They are also not a small organisation I can quote if needed but they are widespread and quite numerous.

This leads me to think that an elite guard element could have existed, or could be introduced into Kislev society with no real issue, especially with younger witches who then have the support of their sisters in battle or perhaps they have more limited powers so are nofull witches but have enough power to be useful.
Perhaps its from the early days when the Tzarina wanted those she could trust, or maybe its around the time of the Great War against Chaos or perhaps following the Storm of Chaos.....lots of interesting possibbilities for me anyway.

 Mr Morden wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:

To this day, male hedge wizards are tracked down and killed by the state.

Huh, I don't suppose there's a warhammer Rasputin lurking around, who survived getting sorcerer hunted and is now mad as hell?
Also, don't Bretonnians do the same thing?

Dark Elves have pretty much the same prophercy policy so no-one can threaten Malakaith


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Coenus Scaldingus wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:

Mr Morden wrote:Multiple quotes and sources

You did a massive amount of leg work and I greatly appreciate it. However, nothing in there lends itself to a unit of Ice Mage elite combat warriors. If anything, you may see an Ice Witch pop up to defend Kislev or to affect policy somewhere in one of the courts of Kislev. All things we've already discussed, and nothing new to make this unit any more thematically accurate to Old World lore. I do appreciate you finding all this, though.

Seconded, I am hardly familiar with the RPG information beyond some snippets encountered over the years, so this was an interesting read. At the same time, it only reinforces that these are (openly or covertly) the very political elite. As if Lord Kroak would not be guarded by Temple Guard, but by an actual unit of other Slann. While such a gathering could take place under the most desparate circumstances to ward of cataclysmic threats, it would hardly be a common occurrence. Almost all the time, the nation would be better served by having these leaders influencing matters elsewhere.
Indeed, contrast this concept with that of the Gryphon Legion: originally the bodyguard of the Tzar, they now wander far and wide as mercenaries. They are still obliged to return to defend Kislev if necessary, but the lore expressly states that this is unusual as most threats can be dealt with by the Ungol cavalry and Winged Lancers. If slightly better cavalry are often deemed not be needed, there must be very few circumstances where the Ice Queen and half her coven of Ice Witches take to the field.

I was more looking at answering (if possible) the specific questions that were raised about what Ice Witches definately are.

So there is lore support for them being an incredably powerful and overt element of Kislev society, with the head of their Sisterhood ruling the nation.
The look to ensure that no men wield magic and enlist the aid of the state in this.
They are capable of etremely powerful magic and often use this in the defence of the nation and/or for their own needs.
They are also not a small organisation I can quote if needed but they are widespread and quite numerous.

This leads me to think that an elite guard element could have existed, or could be introduced into Kislev society with no real issue, especially with younger witches who then have the support of their sisters in battle or perhaps they have more limited powers so are nofull witches but have enough power to be useful.
Perhaps its from the early days when the Tzarina wanted those she could trust, or maybe its around the time of the Great War against Chaos or perhaps following the Storm of Chaos.....lots of interesting possibbilities for me anyway.

This is what I was trying to get at, really. Sure, we haven't got lore to directly support the existence of this new unit, but to me there aren't really any specific aspects of them that are extremely out of place with the already existing Kislev Lore - we already have a group of Kislev women who are Ice Magic users that are close to the Ice Court, who seek to defend Kislev physically and influence events, with manifesting ice weapons being a potential ability they already have. All the individual lore elements of them already seem to be supported to some extent, the only thing that's a divergence from what we have already know is that this is a unit of them (that we don't know the size of) and they're trained as elite guards, neither of which seem that much of a stretch.

We don't know the specifics yet - perhaps they're not able to achieve enough magical power to reach full Ice Witch status or perhaps this is just an alternate path they can take - but the existence of something like this already has the foundations needed within the Kislev lore to be a possibility.

If each new release continues a trend of over the top things that we can argue "could have existed" will the final product look like the old world at all?

I think this is affecting a lot of the discussion in here, honestly, and it's kind of infuriating. Would a Tactical Squad that's half heavy weapons being introduced suddenly be okay because you could arm a squad like that in Dawn Of War?

Some things have clearly been updated because of Dawn of War. Two Handed Daemon Hammers for example didn't exist at the time and it fit the universe enough that it existed afterwords.

I actually think that they should've introduced the Ork wartrakks from Dawn of war; those things looked awesome.

 Chamberlain wrote:
If each new release continues a trend of over the top things that we can argue "could have existed" will the final product look like the old world at all?

The problem with this line of reasoning is that it suggests that anything 'new' is a detriment to the design and feel of the Old World.
Let's use Bretonnian's for example. Hadn't been updated (models or mechanics) since 2003/2004. Adding something like flying Grail Knights on Hippogryphs would be pretty awesome, however it would be 'new' and 'over the top' compared to there classic design (which again, hadn't been touched in near 2 decades).
Should the decision then be that you 'can't' add something 'new' and just reskin/re-release/re-make (in the same style) the original range then... we both know it'll get panned on sites like this one for just being a re-release. But if they do add something 'new' then they also get ripped into for not respecting the setting (or variations on this line).

Someone mentioned it earlier, the old range was in the state it was partly because of the technology at the time. GW have advanced since then, allowing them now to go and do things like these Kislev models/designs that still fit into the faction as well as giving hope for suitable range updates to other factions that warrant that kind of expansion.

I'm hoping they release unit after unit of schmoes in slighty different leather jerkins. Then people can paint them brown...or DARK brown even.