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Can't speak for anybody else, but I've been using ToW as an excuse to get back to working on my High Elf army that I started a couple years back. If they work for ToW, great, if they don't, I can always schedule a game against my buddies' Dwarf army and play 6th ed WHFB.

I'm hoping that ToW means a re-release of discontinued kits so I can finish my High Elves without paying collectors prices, but I'd also love a 15MM WHFB game to go with my Deamonworld and Joan of Arc 15mm stuff, but we just don't have any real info on what the game will be


***edit***
Nevermind, deleted this whole thing. I'm done with arguing with people that want to claim green is red, and green isn't always green if you use my definition of green. If somebody wants to play word games and cherry pick or ignore elements to make it fit their vision of the setting then fine, WHFB can be low fantasy for you. Have at.
***/edit***

 Coenus Scaldingus wrote:

 Kalamadea wrote:

Spoiler:

Excuse me? Weren't in the foreground? What game were YOU playing? It certainly wasn't Warhammer Fantasy Battles.

Warhammer has pretty much slapped you in the face with High Fantasy concepts from the outset. It's always had Steamtanks and Gyrocopters.

Spoiler:

Magic weapons and magic armor and magic banners, common enough to give to unit champions. Wizards that could summon literal meteors from bare sky come to almost every battle. Hordes of rat-men riding magical belltowers, giant eagles and griffons and giants and giant skeletons are commonly seen on any battlefield. Nobody blinks an eye at Pegasus riding knights and gigantic chaos demons, or half-dragon half-ogres and frog demigods floating into battle on levitating stone thrones. Dragons are so common that they have a dedicated breath attack named after them in the core section of the rules. That's not even getting into the crazyness that came out in 8th edition, all that stuff has around going back to 5th edition or before. High levels of magic and fantastical creatures have ALWAYS been at the forefront in Warhammer. Not just buried in the fluff, but in the game as played out on the tabletop. It wasn't something that "occasionally crept in", it was literally every single army that was lead by some general with 100 points of magic items. Often chosen from a "standard magic items list" Every army has a Battle Standard Bearer with a magical banner. Every army that DOESN'T have a meteor-wielding wizard still took a lowbie wizard with at least one dispel scroll, because if you didn't then the enemy wizard got to wipe a unit off the table each turn. With magic. Which was an entire phase of the game.

The "soul of Warhammer" is definitively NOT a landsknecht with a halberd any more than the "soul" of Star Wars is a smuggler with a good blaster at his side. Defining either setting like that is actively ignoring everything else going on around you.

Tanks and helicopters? Oh my, those are far-fetched indeed!

As has become more than clear in recent years, part of the difference isn't what exists, but what's visible and focussed on. WHFB had beings with god-like power, but you rarely saw them. Depending on what edition you look at, the strongest figures in a faction's background often had no rules and models, or they had rules (and possibly an accompanying model) that required your opponent's permission to use (right? I remember that being a thing). And even then, very few people used them. Never saw anyone use Kroq-gar or Lord Kroak in 6th, those figures were just used converted or used as proxies for an Oldblood on carnosaur and a Slann. Skarloc and Ariel may have been important in the lore, but I wasn't expected to use them in my Wood Elf army. Meanwhile, AoS is supposed to, somewhere, contain vaguely ordinary humans going about their daily lives, but in this case those are the ones that are unseen. The fact that they live in realms in which ordinary life can be difficult to imagine and comprehend doesn't help.

Thing is, the shift to focus more on the immensely powerful beings didn't just happen with AoS; before that we already saw people becoming more powerful and just physically bigger. During the End Times, Archaon changed from a guy on horse to a guy on a massive chimaera. Little ratman Thanquol's rat ogre bodyguard Boneripper had to become a much larger rat-monster bodyguard. Guy on foot or horse Mannfred became guy on big flying creature Mannfred. Before the End Times, Vampire Counts got massive centrepieces like the Mortis Engine, the Empire got a new, larger griffon expected to be ridden by many characters besides the Emperor, as well as demigryph knights etcetera etcetera. I don't have the rules nearby, but I think even those changed from "roll a D6, the nearby forest may be magical" to "roll a D6 to see what kind of magical this forest is", between 6th and 8th.

In summary, there were three trends: an emphasized focus on powerful named characters (quite a few veterans lament the loss of highly customizable characters the player was expected to name and create a backstory for), a focus on creating and selling large centrepiece models (already diminishing the rank and flank look of the game) and the increased existence/visibility of more fantastical elements on the table. This has continued in AoS and is partially also visible in 40k (Ghazghkull is bigger than ever, the Sisters got two new large special characters in the form of Junith Eruita and the Triumph procession). Big personalities (apparently) need to be on the tabletop and need to have suitably big models. All of which then leads to the simple question that brings us back to the actual topic: how much of that will we see in W:TOW? As discussed previously, are bear cavalry and ice witches a rare feature, or a staple of the Kislevite forces? (The question isn't if they exist - they always have - but how common they are supposed to be.) Is for instance King Louen Orc-Slayer going to be portrayed as a character on the tabletop, and if so, are he and his knights allowed to look like relatively ordinary human medieval knights? So, how much of what GW wants to make will resemble what people actually liked about Warhammer Fantasy, that is lacking for them in AoS? Because if you like both WHFB and AoS, that's great, but GW already has you as a customer. This project clearly needs to reach people who enjoyed the former and not the latter, otherwise it has very little reason to exist.

I think you've summed it up quite nicely really. The high VS low fantasy argument is something that really depends on what definition of the terms you use, it looks like people might be using different standards for what counts as what. There are all sorts of conflicting definitions of the terms.To me it's down to the stakes of things and the prevalence of magic that completely changes the style of fantasy, from whatever WHF counted as to something with a much more exaggerated magic-focused mytholical scale setting with more of a focus on Gods and supermen - the grounded sense of things has been replaced by a ceiling so high that the tone is overall vastly different in a way that I find less interesting. It's that while WHF was obviously still a setting with high fantasy elements, Things like Dragons, Trolls, Skaven, Elves, Dwarves, Beastmen, airships, gyrocopters etc, they were put in the setting in a way that were just a natural part of the world. They were just as ordinary within the world as the humans were, and when the more supernatural and power fantasy elements were there, they were relatively rare or the result of dark forces. It was for the most part just a gritty, grim setting that felt like a believable world with a few more eleborate magical things occasionally making an appearance, where the underlaying core of it was still a relatively normal place. Not so much with Age of Sigmar, where the setting was created by a divine being, where it's split into magical realms, where there's Magic-imbued Dwarves who seek Magic Gold, Sky Dwarves making airships and power armour using magical gas, a faction of soul-forged magical supermen, Godbeasts, Gods wandering around the setting etc. The stakes of it are no so much closer to Mythic fantasy and the prevalence of those magical entities are so, so far above what WHF was that there isn't a semblance of it being a believable, grounded fantasy setting in the same way as WHF, the overall tone and importance of things is entirely different. It's entirely down to what the focus is and what's at the forefront of the setting, even if those more mundane things still exist in AoS and the more fantastical things exist in WHF, the problem is to what degree they're emblematic of the setting overall.

The first units of Kislev, and the first units we even saw from this, both being shown as being more outlandish stuff really does give a bit of a worrying first impression as to what their focus might be on. If they'd have shown the standard units and then shown those It wouldn't really be a problem, and while both were already somewhat estabslished within Kislev lore, when they haven't even suggested anything about the more common baseline troops and gone straight to showing a magical ice-witch elite guard and a giant bear cavalry then it's really something that suggests they might have a bit of a strange priority. If that's the direction they're taking things, with more eleborate fantastical setpiece units and a focus on those aspects that were previously done in a more niche reserved way, then I think that will somewhat defeat the point of bringing the setting back in the first place.Hopefully it's just something that happens with Kislev as it was already part of their lore and isn't indicative of what they want to do with the rest. If they flanderize Kislev to have them focus on those types of things then that will be very worrying.

It's absolutely fine to have high-fantasy stuff as they're obviously a part of the setting, it just needs to include them in a way that feels relatively ordinary like before where they're just a natural part of the world and not jump to absurd levels when it comes to the more extra-ordinary aspects.

See edit above, only going to post that I'm really, REALLY tired of arguing minutia and instead I'm just looking forward to WHFB occupying space in my brain again. If it eventually hits the table in a recognizable fashion that would be nice as well.

I think the problem here is that people are missing the forest for the trees (or maybe its the opposite). People are seeing gyrocopters, steam tanks, dragons and going "look we haz high fantasy". The reality is that you have to look at the setting in aggregate - big picture, look at the generalized portrayal of the setting and what the underlying and overarching themes of the setting are. In aggregate WHFB was a low fantasy setting, in aggregate AoS is a high fantasy setting. That does not preclude the possibility for one to have the elements of the other.

But honestly, what the feth does it even matter? High fantasy isn't inherently superior to low fantasy nor vice versa, what does it even matter if WHFB was low fantasy to AoS high fantasy? What difference does it make to you on an individual level? This goes right back to a previous comment I made where anything that some people seem to interpret as portraying WHFB as being in any way "lesser" than Age of Sigmar triggers an instinctual "no you're wrong" response from WHFB fans.

Being a low fantasy vs high fantasy setting is ultimately meaningless - ffs we can't even all agree on what those two terms even mean. The ultimately undeniable and simple truth of the matter is that AoS and WHFB are two very different settings that aren't comparable to eachother. They have very different themes, inspirations, styles, and all the other elements that taken in aggregate define them as being distinct and separate entities from one another.

Thats it. Thats all it has to be. Stop seeing value judgements where none exist and insisting that your fav is better than someone elses. Its honestly embarrassing and childish. WHFB has been dead for what, 3 years now? Get over it already. GW is giving us some sort of a new rank n file game that will be drawing inspiration from the old one and no doubt doing a lot of new things too. Be excited for it and stop being curmudgeonly whenever someone draws distinctions between the two games and IPs.

/rant

People are seeing gyrocopters, steam tanks, dragons and going "look we haz high fantasy". The reality is that you have to look at the setting in aggregate - big picture, look at the generalized portrayal of the setting and what the underlying and overarching themes of the setting are. In aggregate WHFB was a low fantasy setting

I mean going by the definitions of the low arching themes.. Only if you count specific parts of it. You'd have to cut the new world and it's jungles made of Dinosaurs, giant monsters, and overall hell beasts along with the cities of Dark Elves that run red with blood that are absorbed into gigantic statues of Khaine every year or so, you'd be ignoring the hellcaps of the north and south that are populated by daemons and mutated beasts, you'd be ignoring the High Elves cities, the Wood Elves mystical forests, the daemon forges of the Dark Dwarves to the east... In general, you'd be localized around parts of the Old World, and Brettonia. It's why I'm not even sure how by what peoples current definitions are the world is somehow low fantasy.

Being a low fantasy vs high fantasy setting is ultimately meaningless - ffs we can't even all agree on what those two terms even mean.

There's been actual places to go to on what they mean. It's typically what I use.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_fantasy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_fantasy

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

People are seeing gyrocopters, steam tanks, dragons and going "look we haz high fantasy". The reality is that you have to look at the setting in aggregate - big picture, look at the generalized portrayal of the setting and what the underlying and overarching themes of the setting are. In aggregate WHFB was a low fantasy setting

I mean going by the definitions of the low arching themes.. Only if you count specific parts of it. You'd have to cut the new world and it's jungles made of Dinosaurs, giant monsters, and overall hell beasts along with the cities of Dark Elves that run red with blood that are absorbed into gigantic statues of Khaine every year or so, you'd be ignoring the hellcaps of the north and south that are populated by daemons and mutated beasts, you'd be ignoring the High Elves cities, the Wood Elves mystical forests, the daemon forges of the Dark Dwarves to the east... In general, you'd be localized around parts of the Old World, and Brettonia. It's why I'm not even sure how by what peoples current definitions are the world is somehow low fantasy.

Agreed - some areas of the human realms were quite low magic but only some and only if you ignored many many aspects to look at it through this narrow focus. The same as in any other world including the Mortal Realms.

Even the Empire has the Colleges of Magic - hell Middenheim has the Black Pool Illumiantions, flying wizard display teams etc. Bretonnia has Pegasus Knights and the powers of the Grail, the Lady etc.

In aggregate WHFB was a low fantasy setting

See above And I like both AOS and the Old World perfectly fine.

Warhammer fantasy is definitely not low fantasy as I understand it... Low fantasy would be something like dark materials or Harry potter, set in the actual world. Whilst you could argue that the world of Warhammer fantasy is an alternative earth, I don't think that would make it into low fantasy...

I mean going by the definitions of the low arching themes.. Only if you count specific parts of it. You'd have to cut the new world and it's jungles made of Dinosaurs, giant monsters, and overall hell beasts along with the cities of Dark Elves that run red with blood that are absorbed into gigantic statues of Khaine every year or so, you'd be ignoring the hellcaps of the north and south that are populated by daemons and mutated beasts, you'd be ignoring the High Elves cities, the Wood Elves mystical forests, the daemon forges of the Dark Dwarves to the east... In general, you'd be localized around parts of the Old World, and Brettonia. It's why I'm not even sure how by what peoples current definitions are the world is somehow low fantasy.

Again, you have to look at in aggregate. Yes, all those things exist, but the majority of the fluff, novels, books, roleplaying games, etc. are pretty squarely centered on The Empire and a landsknecht with a halberd as someone else said. People can disagree all they want, but thats the truth and thats what most people casually familiar with the setting think of first, and indeed its how GW largely marketed the setting - the landsknecht with the halberd is the everyman that people connect to and opens the door towards acceptance of the more fantastical in other parts of the setting. Much the same way, 40k is a dystopian gothic horror scifantasy setting centered on the plight of humanity and its post-human protectors standing alone against a cruel galaxy. Yeah, lots of other gak exists too, but for every novel written from the perspective of someone other than a human or space marine theres 100 more that are focused squarely on the Imperium. Saying the setting is about aliens and extradimensional demonspawn would be rather missing the point and focusing on peripheral information rather than the core.

There's been actual places to go to on what they mean. It's typically what I use.

Right, but we (and by we I mostly mean the gestalt dakka collective consciousness) established 10 or 20 pages ago that high and low fantasy means different things to different people in different places in spacetime because its constantly changing. I think we established our own custom definition, though feth me if I have any idea what it is at this point.

Even by the "popular" definition of low fantasy and high fantasy, Warhammer Fantasy was high fantasy.

That doesnt mean AoS and Fantasy are at the same scale of "high fantasy".

Heck, look at Warcraft. It is high fantasy, but theres a difference between Warcraft 1-2-3 and Vanilla WoW high fantasy vs WoW:Legion high fantasy when the Demons invade with their space ships and you end up fighting a god with the power of other words in a destroyed planet.

Yes, all those things exist, but the majority of the fluff, novels, books, roleplaying games, etc. are pretty squarely centered on The Empire and a landsknecht with a halberd as someone else said.

No they are not. The Empire Halberdier is a single unit of the army and actually not that many of the novels contain even one. There are more with Vampires, Slayers, Elf Sorcerers or Dark Elves possessed by Daemons as central characters.

The warhammer novel that was selected as the one (including me) that people wanted to see back in print was Drachenfels -the one with the 600+ year old vampire as its main character fighting the more than 10,000 year old Sorcerer / Dark Lord style villain in the prologue which as the author himself says was the standard high fantasy quest - and he then wanted to tell you what happens next in the same world. Although a few do actually have short cameos in Drachenfels but no more than that.

The front covers of WFRP simply don't feature the Halberdier and WFB features the legendary magical Rune Hammer than a god wields as its symbol.

Here are the RPG covers for immediate reference Note that all four have Wizards, three have Slayers and several have magic swords, Rat Ogres etc.


Look through all the books here and how many do even have a Halberdier on them ?

https://whfb.lexicanum.com/wiki/List_of_Warhammer:_Fantasy_Battles_Books

Now the Halberdier has his place as does Teclis, Neferata, Nagash, Sigmar and Malekith all of whom have their own novels of course. We cna choose to explore the Old World and the Mortal Realms and which aspects as we like - thats the joy of them surely?

Again, you have to look at in aggregate. Yes, all those things exist, but the majority of the fluff, novels, books, roleplaying games, etc. are pretty squarely centered on The Empire and a landsknecht with a halberd as someone else said. People can disagree all they want, but thats the truth and thats what most people casually familiar with the setting think of first, and indeed its how GW largely marketed the setting - the landsknecht with the halberd is the everyman that people connect to and opens the door towards acceptance of the more fantastical in other parts of the setting. Much the same way, 40k is a dystopian gothic horror scifantasy setting centered on the plight of humanity and its post-human protectors standing alone against a cruel galaxy. Yeah, lots of other gak exists too, but for every novel written from the perspective of someone other than a human or space marine theres 100 more that are focused squarely on the Imperium. Saying the setting is about aliens and extradimensional demonspawn would be rather missing the point and focusing on peripheral information rather than the core.

One of the most popular book series was Gotrex and Felix.. a wisecracking man disowned by his family and a slayer. That Slayer has killed a Bloodthirster, has fought one of the Council of Thirteen Grey Seer Thanquol, has fought Throgg the Troll King, has battled the Champion of Khorne turned Undead servant Krell... And many, many more incredible things.

There's a lot of books, and a lot of books are certainly not about the common man fighting on the field in the mud against a bunch of orcs or beastmen to defend some hamlet out in the woods.

The RPG games I believe are what pushed people to believe there's a lot of information about the game being that sort of thing.

One of my favourite warhammer fantasy books was Riders of Death by Dan Abnett's and what made me love that book is that it felt like a historical novel with the attention to the little detail and with how... "realistic" the chaos culture was portrayed in that book.

But that kind of narrative was not the most common way to show Warhammer Fantasy, quite the opposite.

I doubt anybody is defending that as a whole Age of Sigmar is the same as Warhammer Fantasy. It clearly isnt, but theres a clear intention of painting some kind of fantasy perceived as "low", more realistic and mature, as the superior version compared with "modern" and "pop" "high fantasy" with super heroes and vorpal blades and whatever. At the end of the day each work of fantasy has his own quality to be measured, you can't measure something as broad as a "genre" as superior to another , and then each person will have his own tastes.

The RPG games I believe are what pushed people to believe there's a lot of information about the game being that sort of thing.

And even then there is as much or more information on the fanastical than the mundane - so you can use either or both in your games.

Looking at the WFB books - almost without exception the covers are full of "high fantasy" elements - and there are dozens of them like this!

 Mr Morden wrote:

Yes, all those things exist, but the majority of the fluff, novels, books, roleplaying games, etc. are pretty squarely centered on The Empire and a landsknecht with a halberd as someone else said.

No they are not. The Empire Halberdier is a single unit of the army and actually not that many of the novels contain even one.

Paging Dr. Literal. Dr. Literal, you're wanted in the thread.

 Galas wrote:
Even by the "popular" definition of low fantasy and high fantasy, Warhammer Fantasy was high fantasy.

That doesnt mean AoS and Fantasy are at the same scale of "high fantasy".

Heck, look at Warcraft. It is high fantasy, but theres a difference between Warcraft 1-2-3 and Vanilla WoW high fantasy vs WoW:Legion high fantasy when the Demons invade with their space ships and you end up fighting a god with the power of other words in a destroyed planet.

Warhammer Fantasy VS Age of Sigmar.
Dark Sun VS Spelljammer.
Cyberpunk VS Shadowrun.

I wonder if the "Core Tax" and fluff had a much bigger impact on perception? An Empire army isn't just Demigryph Knights and Steam Tanks; those are the Rare units that only occasionally show up when the situation is dire, while the Greatswords, who are just dudes in chestplate wielding zweihanders are far more common than the Demigryphs, and even then they're much more Special than the common Core of massed guys with halberds and handguns. So while all armies in WHFB had fantastical elements (Hydras, Giants, Dragons, Pegasus, Minotaurs, Golems, etc, etc), they were mostly things that felt far more mundane. Take away the goat head and -legs, and a Beastman Gor would just be a hirsute Celt.

But in AoS we have entire armies where everything feels like it should have been in that Special/Rare category with no common Core, if that makes sense?

I think one way to think about it is: What does the majority of the killing in the setting?

It feels like for WHFB it would be steel weapons and arrows and crossbow bolts that largely wouldn't look out of place in a medieval history museum. Most of the things killed would have organs and would bleed. Humans, Orcs, Beastmen, Dwarves, Skaven, Elves, Lizardmen, even Chaos Warriors to some extent, the majority of the deaths of the above list would be caused by something sharp made of steel.

In AOS the majority of the deaths are caused by something magical and many of those killed wouldn't even bleed. Magical storm hammers and exploding turkey basters fired out of crossbows and weapons made of magical bone and bolts of lightning and hungry spells, etc. etc. Almost none of the weapons of the new setting could ever be seen in a medieval history museum.

There were deaths in WHFB caused by magic or non historical means, but the death and the method of dealing it remained majorly medieval (with a little Renaissance for flavor).

The same just cannot be said for AOS. This is why there were such strong reactions to the "magical ice weapon Kislev" previews. It wasn't characteristic of the setting.

As someone looking from the outside, having never played Fantasy and only dipped my toe into Sigmar, I think part of the issue is in communication and perception. Fantasy is High Fantasy, but when compared to Sigmar it looks far lower. Like if Sigmar is an 8/10 on the High Fantasy Scale, Fantasy would be a 3.

Along with this is that the most basic descriptor I have heard of Fantasy over the years, and I'm sure many others have as well, is "Its like the Holy Roman Empire, but in a fantasy setting." That combined with the fact that humans were the baseline, as opposed to say 40k where Marines are the baseline and Sigmar where Stormcast are set as the baseline for the most part, gives it a feel of being low fantasy. When the baseline is blocks of landsknechte backed up by musketeers or bowmen, fighting basic skeletons or orcs, it feels like low fantasy when compared to respawning demigods fighting bone constructs, and them being merely the baseline infantry of both factions.

So wait.

WHFB= A setting where I can use affordable historical miniatures for the bulk of my army
AOS=No historical miniatures

That’s the key difference..?

 Gallahad wrote:
I think one way to think about it is: What does the majority of the killing in the setting?

It feels like for WHFB it would be steel weapons and arrows and crossbow bolts that largely wouldn't look out of place in a medieval history museum. Most of the things killed would have organs and would bleed. Humans, Orcs, Beastmen, Dwarves, Skaven, Elves, Lizardmen, even Chaos Warriors to some extent, the majority of the deaths of the above list would be caused by something sharp made of steel.

In AOS the majority of the deaths are caused by something magical and many of those killed wouldn't even bleed. Magical storm hammers and exploding turkey basters fired out of crossbows and weapons made of magical bone and bolts of lightning and hungry spells, etc. etc. Almost none of the weapons of the new setting could ever be seen in a medieval history museum.

There were deaths in WHFB caused by magic or non historical means, but the death and the method of dealing it remained majorly medieval (with a little Renaissance for flavor).

The same just cannot be said for AOS. This is why there were such strong reactions to the "magical ice weapon Kislev" previews. It wasn't characteristic of the setting.

Most of the deaths in Age of Sigmar are accomplished with clubs and knives. Everyone seems to forget that Chaos's influence still controls most of the Mortal Realms except Azyr, Shyish and Hysh possibly Ulgu which are Sigmar and Nagash respectively. Because in many ways the Age of Sigmar is just a kind of 'Mission Accomplished' statement. It is still very much the Age of Chaos.

The most common fighters are mortal tribes that really have no choice in not worshiping the Chaos gods if they wish to survive. Most tribes likely don't even know the true Chaos gods names call and pray to them by the many others they possess. Because of Chaos's influence, many tribes have regressed to iron or even earlier levels of technology and live barely better than animals. Sometimes they organize groups of warriors is Chaos Marauders under a power and charismatic war chief, which haven't changed all that much (not at all model-wise) from their WHFB days. They still roam taking from the weak and fleeing from the strong they don't or won't bend the knee to. This is Age of Sigmar's Empire Halberder. Just like the Chaos Knight really is Age of Sigmar's Bretonian. Almost none who held their honor above their life survived when the Gates to Azyr closed and remained that way for centuries.

Age of Sigmar is very much a Conan the Barabarian setting (to me) when you move beyond the resplendent armor of the Stormcast Enternals and many of the other high magic revealed the playable factions. As well as keep to the center of most Realms. It is like the Chaos Wastes of the World-That-Was. Outside the tiny holdings of Grand Alliance: Order which can resemble the Old World Empire in its spring days, the lands of the Mortal Realms are vast in their grim darkness. So much so that Sigmar has to align himself with allies that most certainly will stab him in the back, hold grudges, sway to the highest bidder or just don't seem to care. Just to make the little gains he has, and in the process forced the return of a former ally turned enemy who sees Sigmar as a liar and cheat robbing him of the souls he believes are his property. His own soldiers, only immortal in the strictest sense, slowing devolving into madmen, golems of slaves to his divine edicts. Some of their souls are mutilated by the re-forging process, some torn asunder by the god of Death himself.

Age of Sigmar doesn't really concern itself with the mundane. This is true. Much like 40kwhich will likely never make available a strictly Planetary Defense Force faction. Age of Sigmar is not just high fantasy which Warhammer Fantasy was as well. Age of Sigmar is Mythic fantasy much like the tales of Gilgamesh, Beowolf, Iliad and the Odyssey for a more modern audience. A setting where heroes of legend lead fantastic armies of great power both martial and arcane. Yet that isn't always enough to secure victory. Sometimes the gods themselves must walk the battlefields in divine flesh.

Age of Sigmar isn't very fleshed out with dates and maps (yet). Almost as if the bulk of people haven't advanced to keeping accurate calendars yet and can only use major events that defy their primitive understanding as reference. The lands beyond the ones tribes of mortal survive on are far too dangerous and deadly to venture and map out. The few that do, don't return. Only the power of the playable factions and armies they wield have the strength and daring to venture into these hinterlands and beyond. I suspect that has the forces of Order consolidate more power more accurate cartography and history will be recorded.

Age of Sigmar isn't going to appeal to everyone. And the death of WHFB that allowed its genesis as well as its infancy party-game like rules and sunset-ed factions is more than enough to deserve a stern tongue clucking and peer down of a nose. Age of Sigmar does ask its players to be the general of mighty armies where even moon-worshipping, mushroom addicted goblins are still very powerful warriors. Though in the context of the game they seem rather green (pun intended). Much like 40k, where the humble lasgun of the setting is actually a devastating weapon just not in the context of the playable factions. Age of Sigmar still allows for classic rank and file maneuvering along with the option to field epic monsters, fantastical technological air ships and even mythic gods.

It isn't so much that Age of Sigmar doesn't have more grounded elements. It is that the grounded world is some of the more concentrated awful of the Chaos Shadowlands best left to the imaginations of the players. Especially with the company GW has become and the market they wish to court. Age of Sigmar focuses on the more mythological world-shaping aspects of martial power instead.

I have a mild interest in seeing what the Old World turns out to be. I hope those who don't want a home in Age of Sigmar, they can find joy in the Old World when it arrives. I would prefer if fans of WHFB would stop acting the part of historical war gamer curmudgeons of yester-decades who did exactly the same thing to many a fantasy war gamer all those decades ago. I am sure at least a few of the posters here encountered them who saw your adding of wizards and dragons (no matter how very little and optional) saw your game as lesser and silly for doing so compared to their meticulously researched games of historical eras. I ask you, "Do you really want to take over what they did?"

Thank you, and good night (I will still keep following this tread, its just bedtime for me)

 Saturmorn Carvilli wrote:

 Gallahad wrote:
I think one way to think about it is: What does the majority of the killing in the setting?

It feels like for WHFB it would be steel weapons and arrows and crossbow bolts that largely wouldn't look out of place in a medieval history museum. Most of the things killed would have organs and would bleed. Humans, Orcs, Beastmen, Dwarves, Skaven, Elves, Lizardmen, even Chaos Warriors to some extent, the majority of the deaths of the above list would be caused by something sharp made of steel.

In AOS the majority of the deaths are caused by something magical and many of those killed wouldn't even bleed. Magical storm hammers and exploding turkey basters fired out of crossbows and weapons made of magical bone and bolts of lightning and hungry spells, etc. etc. Almost none of the weapons of the new setting could ever be seen in a medieval history museum.

There were deaths in WHFB caused by magic or non historical means, but the death and the method of dealing it remained majorly medieval (with a little Renaissance for flavor).

The same just cannot be said for AOS. This is why there were such strong reactions to the "magical ice weapon Kislev" previews. It wasn't characteristic of the setting.

Most of the deaths in Age of Sigmar are accomplished with clubs and knives. Everyone seems to forget that Chaos's influence still controls most of the Mortal Realms except Azyr, Shyish and Hysh possibly Ulgu which are Sigmar and Nagash respectively. Because in many ways the Age of Sigmar is just a kind of 'Mission Accomplished' statement. It is still very much the Age of Chaos.

The most common fighters are mortal tribes that really have no choice in not worshiping the Chaos gods if they wish to survive. Most tribes likely don't even know the true Chaos gods names call and pray to them by the many others they possess. Because of Chaos's influence, many tribes have regressed to iron or even earlier levels of technology and live barely better than animals.

...

None of the iron age tribes you mention are playable factions or even have models. Death by steel is barely even a possibility in the game. If the majority of troops were the tribesmen you mention you'd have a point, but instead they are flying turtles, sci-fi dwarves, bone constructs, demigod lightning warriors riding around on Griffons, and elves from the ministry of silly hats weilding magical croquet mallets.

I really wish that instead of AOS we'd gotten iron age old world...Sigmar the Barbarian uniting the tribes against the savage orcs, defying the predictions of the sneering elves, etc. etc.

Too much AoS talk, back to Warhammer Fantasy. I tried to paint with some background inspiration, but didn't get much done as I was too distracted watching old Warhammer videogame videos instead. Started with my absolute favorite, good old Warhammer Online:Age of Reckoning from 2008:




Man, look at this game, focusing on what's important: the regular human soldier. Try to ignore all the mages and monsters and orcs and goblins and mutated chaos warriors and giants and siege towers and more giants and more mages, Warhammer isn't really about any of those things and they're supposed to be incredibly rare and not commonly seen. In fact there's gotta be some regular human rank&file troops in there somewhere...Ah HAH! In the background at 1:47 and...oops, they're gone already. Oh nvm there they are at 1:55 again! See? They're behind the huge flaming squig being burned to death by the Bright Wizard. Ignore that wizard, BTW, he's rare in the setting and that squig rider would have been a special at best, so you should ignore that too. Just look past all the magical fire and focus on the mundane figures in the background! They're the important thing to focus on in this game! Indeed, the CORE of the setting! heh, get it? I SAID IGNORE THE MAGE AND HIS 25 SECONDS OF SCREENTIME AND PAY ATTENTION TO THE MOMENTARY BLURRY NORMAL HUMANS IN THE BACKGROUND! THEY'RE THE CORE OF THE SETTING! Y'know what, just skip ahead to 3:11 and you can really see just how important and truly BADASS regular humans are in Warhammer! There's another one at 3:22 doing The Lord's work. In fact, of the 7 minute video, you should really only watch those exact timestamps, the rest is a waste and not representative of the Warhammer setting at all. Again, I must be clear that you should NOT be imagining ANY of the rest of the video while playing with your toy models making stabby-stabby-clash-stab-blaaaarg! sounds. Warhammer is about masses of boring and mundane soldiers doing boring and mundane soldier-y stuff, anything magical or exciting or heroic is just artists lying to you, and you need to learn to ignore the joy you feel in your heart when you see it.

In fact, those 4 seconds got me really inspired to go look at all the other Warhammer cinematics over the years, it started with portraying true Warhammer spirit by basic humans fighting each other in Shadow of the Horned Rat




Ok, well actually that started out on a dark and stormy night with a human mage in his mage tower being attacked by skaven assassins stealing magic glowing rocks, but we're not supposed to concentrate on them, none of those are Core troops! That didn't even represent the first mission properly! I guess we should move on to the REAL spirit of Warhammer: Dark Omen!




Huh, more human mages in a clockwork planetarium. At least this time is a clear night beneath the moon...and crap the rest of it is just legions of undead rising, no blocks of rank & file soldiers. Bad Dark Omen, BAD! Stop misrepresenting the Old World! Mark of Chaos will surely deliver what the setting is TRULY about!




YES! HUMAN SOLDIERS! IN RANKS! GLORIOUS! It's now time for you nerds to view some tried and true, dyed in blue, absolutely new Warhammer fantasy block-on-block formation action! THIS is the way you're SUPPOSED to care about hot Warhammer action! That's right just rank & file nobodies against rank & file nobodies...in a dark forest...or, well OK rank&file nobodies against skirmishing Chaos Warriors...SCREW IT! NUMBERS WIN THE DAY! CHARGE!...uh...man, they sure don't look like they're doing much against those Chaos Warriors. Oh what the hell, they CLEARLY have 3 ranks+outnumber over those chaos and...were those goblins?...why aren't the superior numbers and morale bonuses winning the day? How dare you, Mark of Chaos?...Oh, oooh..OOOH! It must be a Challenge and Baldy just got a kill! Score one for the normies, SURELY THE wARRIORS WILL BREAK AND GET RUN DOWN....and nope Baldy is out like a light. Oh, arrows, comeback time! Surely more rank&flank humans will now save the day! No, it's just a boring elven ninja Waywatcher soloing all the Chaos Warriors. Nothing interesting or fun. I guess it's time for these Chaos Warriors to show the Waywatcher what true faceless nobodies can do by...by summoning a greater demon!? damnit! Better respond with rank & file...nvm, looks like Baldy is just gonna go Super Saiyan. That's disappointing, we're supposed to be enjoying the regular rank and file nobodies! The HEART and SOUL of the setting! All these super monsters and mages the videos are focusing on are really ruining my immersion! These video games just aren't representing the Soul of Warhammer at all! Lets move on to Warhammer Online...oh wait, no skip that one, too much magic. MAGIC IS RARE DAGNABBIT!

Y'know what, lets try some smaller settings, like Warhammer Quest. Just some regular dudes, going treasure hunting...




...by casting magic and getting magic items and fighting orcs and spiders and trolls and **checks notes** "becoming Legends". Nevermind, Warhammer Quest isn't supposed to represent Warhammer anyways, that was silly, but Mordheim sure doesl! Nothing says Warhammer more than warbands of humans leading only humans fighting against other humans in the middle of the human Empire in ruined human buildings over **checks notes** "magical glowing Warp-stones, remnants of the city-destroying supernatural meteor that the Skaven summoned to power their arcane machines". At least there's only gonna be humans in pajamas with halberds right?




Dangit, why are there so many rat people glowing with magical energy in my human city?! ARRG?! DON'T THEY KNOW THAT THE SOUL OF WARHAMMER IS REGULAR MUNDANE RANK & FILE SOLDIERS! USE NORMAL SWORDS AND STOP SHOWING OFF SO MUCH MAGIC! GET OUT OF HERE RAT OGRE, YOU TOO NORMAL OGRE! CHAOS? AND CHAOS SORCERERS?! YOU'RE RUINING MAH IMMERZIONZ!

Screw this, I'm ending it all, lets do some End Times! Virmintide. The End of Days, the ultimate showing of mundane rank&file armies meeting against other mundane rank&file armies where magic and monsters are MINOR and INSGNIFICANT! YOU HEAR ME GAME?!




Or not, I guess the End Times was really just a cinematic of my high school D&D game on random Saturday night. I guess I may as well grab some Cheetos and a case of Mountain Dew if this is how you gonna play me :(

OK, y'know what, screw this! Hard reset. Lets move on to what re-kindled the craze to begin with: Warhammer Total War! It's based on Rome Total War, so clearly it's going to show off rank & flank at it's absolute finest!




Weird, that sure is a lot of griffons and meteors and magical transformations for a rank&flank. Damnit, I guess this is why they made a sequel, to fix this misrepresentation ONCE AND FOR ALL!




STOP IT! STOP SHOWING COOL STUFF! STOP IT WITH ALL THAT AWESOME MAGIC AND AMAZING HEROES AND FANTASTICAL BEASTS! IT'S NOT HOW GW INTENDED YOU TO IMAGINE WARHAMMER! I KNOW THIS BECAUSE I PLAYED THE RPG WHEN I WAS TOO YOUNG AND POOR TO AFFORD THE ACTUAL MODELS SO THAT'S ALL I CAN FOCUS ON!

None of these cinematics represent how you're supposed to view the game in your mind's eye! HOW DARE THEY!

/s

 Kalamadea wrote:
Too much AoS talk, back to Warhammer Fantasy. I tried to paint with some background inspiration, but didn't get much done as I was too distracted watching old Warhammer videogame videos instead. Started with my absolute favorite, good old Warhammer Online:Age of Reckoning from 2008:<snip>

None of these cinematics represent how you're supposed to view the game in your mind's eye! HOW DARE THEY!

/s

You're kinda proving the point even though you're trying to be sarcastic.

The thing that makes those special things cool is that they are "special". When you put together a trailer, however, you don't focus on the mundane parts between the special, you only focus on the special. When you have a 2 hour movie with 15 minutes worth of action, you make a 2 minute trailer summarising the action parts, not a 2 minute trailer with only 15 seconds worth of action.

The trailer for Total War may prominently feature the heroes, but play an actual campaign and most of your time will be spent sending basic warriors into the fray with the heroes holding the line. When you finally get your first Dragon or you first Dread Saurian, it's something special. Once you're so far into the campaign that you can have a doomstack of Dragons, that's when the game starts to get boring.

Age of Reckoning suffered (like most MMORPG's) that everyone wants to be a hero, so you get the absurdity of a battle with nothing but heroes. But that's inherent in the genre (I actually quite enjoyed WAR back in the day, but it is all a bit silly).

Obviously WHFB varied over the years, but the best times were when the game was focused on outmanoeuvring and outthinking your opponent to stack the combat resolution in your favour, not just throwing the biggest dumbest model into the fray and hoping the dice go your way.

Saturmorn Carvilli wrote: I would prefer if fans of WHFB would stop acting the part of historical war gamer curmudgeons of yester-decades who did exactly the same thing to many a fantasy war gamer all those decades ago. I am sure at least a few of the posters here encountered them who saw your adding of wizards and dragons (no matter how very little and optional) saw your game as lesser and silly for doing so compared to their meticulously researched games of historical eras. I ask you, "Do you really want to take over what they did?"

I'd like to know how any of us were acting like that? If anything, this thread shows the divide between WFB and AOS players where one group absolutely wants the other group to have no way to play but THEIR way. I'll give you a hint as to which is which...

chaos0xomega wrote:WHFB has been dead for what, 3 years now? Get over it already.

Essentially "Play the newest modern hotness or GTFO!", which is essentially the message here. I won't bog it down with that poster's incessant attempts to basically crap on every aspect of expectation for the new game going so far as to flat out ADMITTING they were trolling the thread., this right here pretty much sums up their viewpoint.

Kalamadea wrote:Too much AoS talk, back to Warhammer Fantasy. I tried to paint with some background inspiration, but didn't get much done as I was too distracted watching old Warhammer videogame videos instead. Started with my absolute favorite, good old Warhammer Online:Age of Reckoning from 2008:




Man, look at this game, focusing on what's important: the regular human soldier. Try to ignore all the mages and monsters and orcs and goblins and mutated chaos warriors and giants and siege towers and more giants and more mages, Warhammer isn't really about any of those things and they're supposed to be incredibly rare and not commonly seen. In fact there's gotta be some regular human rank&file troops in there somewhere...Ah HAH! In the background at 1:47 and...oops, they're gone already. Oh nvm there they are at 1:55 again! See? They're behind the huge flaming squig being burned to death by the Bright Wizard. Ignore that wizard, BTW, he's rare in the setting and that squig rider would have been a special at best, so you should ignore that too. Just look past all the magical fire and focus on the mundane figures in the background! They're the important thing to focus on in this game! Indeed, the CORE of the setting! heh, get it? I SAID IGNORE THE MAGE AND HIS 25 SECONDS OF SCREENTIME AND PAY ATTENTION TO THE MOMENTARY BLURRY NORMAL HUMANS IN THE BACKGROUND! THEY'RE THE CORE OF THE SETTING! Y'know what, just skip ahead to 3:11 and you can really see just how important and truly BADASS regular humans are in Warhammer! There's another one at 3:22 doing The Lord's work. In fact, of the 7 minute video, you should really only watch those exact timestamps, the rest is a waste and not representative of the Warhammer setting at all. Again, I must be clear that you should NOT be imagining ANY of the rest of the video while playing with your toy models making stabby-stabby-clash-stab-blaaaarg! sounds. Warhammer is about masses of boring and mundane soldiers doing boring and mundane soldier-y stuff, anything magical or exciting or heroic is just artists lying to you, and you need to learn to ignore the joy you feel in your heart when you see it.

In fact, those 4 seconds got me really inspired to go look at all the other Warhammer cinematics over the years, it started with portraying true Warhammer spirit by basic humans fighting each other in Shadow of the Horned Rat




Ok, well actually that started out on a dark and stormy night with a human mage in his mage tower being attacked by skaven assassins stealing magic glowing rocks, but we're not supposed to concentrate on them, none of those are Core troops! That didn't even represent the first mission properly! I guess we should move on to the REAL spirit of Warhammer: Dark Omen!




Huh, more human mages in a clockwork planetarium. At least this time is a clear night beneath the moon...and crap the rest of it is just legions of undead rising, no blocks of rank & file soldiers. Bad Dark Omen, BAD! Stop misrepresenting the Old World! Mark of Chaos will surely deliver what the setting is TRULY about!




YES! HUMAN SOLDIERS! IN RANKS! GLORIOUS! It's now time for you nerds to view some tried and true, dyed in blue, absolutely new Warhammer fantasy block-on-block formation action! THIS is the way you're SUPPOSED to care about hot Warhammer action! That's right just rank & file nobodies against rank & file nobodies...in a dark forest...or, well OK rank&file nobodies against skirmishing Chaos Warriors...SCREW IT! NUMBERS WIN THE DAY! CHARGE!...uh...man, they sure don't look like they're doing much against those Chaos Warriors. Oh what the hell, they CLEARLY have 3 ranks+outnumber over those chaos and...were those goblins?...why aren't the superior numbers and morale bonuses winning the day? How dare you, Mark of Chaos?...Oh, oooh..OOOH! It must be a Challenge and Baldy just got a kill! Score one for the normies, SURELY THE wARRIORS WILL BREAK AND GET RUN DOWN....and nope Baldy is out like a light. Oh, arrows, comeback time! Surely more rank&flank humans will now save the day! No, it's just a boring elven ninja Waywatcher soloing all the Chaos Warriors. Nothing interesting or fun. I guess it's time for these Chaos Warriors to show the Waywatcher what true faceless nobodies can do by...by summoning a greater demon!? damnit! Better respond with rank & file...nvm, looks like Baldy is just gonna go Super Saiyan. That's disappointing, we're supposed to be enjoying the regular rank and file nobodies! The HEART and SOUL of the setting! All these super monsters and mages the videos are focusing on are really ruining my immersion! These video games just aren't representing the Soul of Warhammer at all! Lets move on to Warhammer Online...oh wait, no skip that one, too much magic. MAGIC IS RARE DAGNABBIT!

Y'know what, lets try some smaller settings, like Warhammer Quest. Just some regular dudes, going treasure hunting...




...by casting magic and getting magic items and fighting orcs and spiders and trolls and **checks notes** "becoming Legends". Nevermind, Warhammer Quest isn't supposed to represent Warhammer anyways, that was silly, but Mordheim sure doesl! Nothing says Warhammer more than warbands of humans leading only humans fighting against other humans in the middle of the human Empire in ruined human buildings over **checks notes** "magical glowing Warp-stones, remnants of the city-destroying supernatural meteor that the Skaven summoned to power their arcane machines". At least there's only gonna be humans in pajamas with halberds right?




Dangit, why are there so many rat people glowing with magical energy in my human city?! ARRG?! DON'T THEY KNOW THAT THE SOUL OF WARHAMMER IS REGULAR MUNDANE RANK & FILE SOLDIERS! USE NORMAL SWORDS AND STOP SHOWING OFF SO MUCH MAGIC! GET OUT OF HERE RAT OGRE, YOU TOO NORMAL OGRE! CHAOS? AND CHAOS SORCERERS?! YOU'RE RUINING MAH IMMERZIONZ!

Screw this, I'm ending it all, lets do some End Times! Virmintide. The End of Days, the ultimate showing of mundane rank&file armies meeting against other mundane rank&file armies where magic and monsters are MINOR and INSGNIFICANT! YOU HEAR ME GAME?!




Or not, I guess the End Times was really just a cinematic of my high school D&D game on random Saturday night. I guess I may as well grab some Cheetos and a case of Mountain Dew if this is how you gonna play me :(

OK, y'know what, screw this! Hard reset. Lets move on to what re-kindled the craze to begin with: Warhammer Total War! It's based on Rome Total War, so clearly it's going to show off rank & flank at it's absolute finest!




Weird, that sure is a lot of griffons and meteors and magical transformations for a rank&flank. Damnit, I guess this is why they made a sequel, to fix this misrepresentation ONCE AND FOR ALL!




STOP IT! STOP SHOWING COOL STUFF! STOP IT WITH ALL THAT AWESOME MAGIC AND AMAZING HEROES AND FANTASTICAL BEASTS! IT'S NOT HOW GW INTENDED YOU TO IMAGINE WARHAMMER! I KNOW THIS BECAUSE I PLAYED THE RPG WHEN I WAS TOO YOUNG AND POOR TO AFFORD THE ACTUAL MODELS SO THAT'S ALL I CAN FOCUS ON!

None of these cinematics represent how you're supposed to view the game in your mind's eye! HOW DARE THEY!

/s

At first I thought about abbreviating your post, but that would detract from showing how disingenuous you were being with your argument. How many of those games' actual GAMEPLAY was on the level of the cinematics? I still play most of those games and can tell you it DOESN'T. The fastest way to get rid of your characters aside from hitting the delete button during game play is to send them solo at ranked anything.

Your point failed miserably.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

Obviously WHFB varied over the years, but the best times were when the game was focused on outmanoeuvring and outthinking your opponent to stack the combat resolution in your favour, not just throwing the biggest dumbest model into the fray and hoping the dice go your way.

It had a perverse consequence about the visuals of an army, though. When you ended up in WFB putting a 40 soldiers strong unit in a 5x8 rank formation with 5 in front, just so that you could minimize the numbers of attacks throwed on it while keeping the numbers of fixed rank bonus as long as possible, isn't as much representative of a true mass battle like in AoS when you are forced to maximize the numbers of models in contact so that you can deal damage to your enemies, since it's the only way to actually win the battle rather than being decided with artificial fixed bonuses.

This is actually important. Gameplay influence directly the visual of battles. To me, and I know it's not a popular point of view, the battles of the scale of Total War Warhammer look visually more like AoS games than truly WFB ones. There is no such thing as rank bonuses in the video game...it's all about making damage with as much models as you can.

And I think it wouldn't look as good if it was trying to copy the game system of WFB close combats, with its rank bonuses. We would have units of skaven slaves in this stupid 5 front and x ranks, or even worse (like the infamous 100 zombies deployed with a front of 5 or line of troll slayers with only one champion in front, so that you could only kill one at a time...).

I really don't regret that.

At first I thought about abbreviating your post, but that would detract from showing how disingenuous you were being with your argument. How many of those games' actual GAMEPLAY was on the level of the cinematics? I still play most of those games and can tell you it DOESN'T. The fastest way to get rid of your characters aside from hitting the delete button during game play is to send them solo at ranked anything.

Your point failed miserably.

How.. How does that even address anything of his post at all? It really doesn't do anything that you think it does, given that what he's showing is that the focus for most people isn't generally on the rank and file. The Books don't do it, the games don't do it.. It's one of those things that make me wonder how specific people have to be to get to where they get to that point.

Really none of what you say addresses anything, nor does his point fail at all.

Swing and a miss then, I guess, but I sure as heck enjoyed watching all those old vids again. I liken it to the cover art and the big sweeping 2-page illustrations: it's the showy side of the world. The side that stops people as they walk by and grabs their attention and the centerpiece models, especially back when a dragon was the biggest kit GW made.

Maybe it was more tactically effective to load up on nothing but 30+ unit Death Stars, but everyone I always played against took at least a few fun monsters and kitted out heroes. Might have also been that nobody wanted to paint that many figs. I never liked the look of units larger than 20 unless they were goblins or skaven. Warhammer is all about a mix of small and medium units with a few heroes and cav and monsters/warmachines to me

 Kalamadea wrote:


STOP IT! STOP SHOWING COOL STUFF! STOP IT WITH ALL THAT AWESOME MAGIC AND AMAZING HEROES AND FANTASTICAL BEASTS! IT'S NOT HOW GW INTENDED YOU TO IMAGINE WARHAMMER! I KNOW THIS BECAUSE I PLAYED THE RPG WHEN I WAS TOO YOUNG AND POOR TO AFFORD THE ACTUAL MODELS SO THAT'S ALL I CAN FOCUS ON!

None of these cinematics represent how you're supposed to view the game in your mind's eye! HOW DARE THEY!

/s

First off, I would like to thank you for compiling that list. Very thorough and saved for later

Second, do you mind sharing one of your last army lists from WHFB that you used? I don´t mean exactly the points, just what units and from which edition? That might be a better representation of what some of the people in this thread expect to find in the new game.

Sarouan wrote: It had a perverse consequence about the visuals of an army, though. When you ended up in WFB putting a 40 soldiers strong unit in a 5x8 rank formation with 5 in front, just so that you could minimize the numbers of attacks throwed on it while keeping the numbers of fixed rank bonus as long as possible, isn't as much representative of a true mass battle like in AoS when you are forced to maximize the numbers of models in contact so that you can deal damage to your enemies, since it's the only way to actually win the battle rather than being decided with artificial fixed bonuses.

This is actually important. Gameplay influence directly the visual of battles. To me, and I know it's not a popular point of view, the battles of the scale of Total War Warhammer look visually more like AoS games than truly WFB ones. There is no such thing as rank bonuses in the video game...it's all about making damage with as much models as you can.

I guess it is rather important in which edition someone started, just as it is how old you are for your music taste. I liked 6th and 7th edition best, and 40 man units were by far the exception, barring skaven slaves and zombies. Everything else I encountered was usually between 16 and 30 in a regiment. But YMMV depending on your playgroup. I never ever want to see the hordes of 8th edition again, as those were really not fun for me, nor were they visually or monetarily attractive.
Problems with the game system existed for as long as I remember, which is why at least the TTT restrictions were rather extensive. I hope GW is smart enough to adress some of the problems the old system hat in their new game. But seeing the speed with which they update 40k and AoS gives me hope (in contrast to waiting 7 years for a new wood elf book, that is).

I feel like this whole discussion goes something like this:

Person W says they really enjoy fruit baskets with six apples, two oranges, and two pineapples. They really want to buy said fruit baskets again.

Person S then shows examples of the pineapples in the fruit basket that Person W says they enjoyed, and tries to convince Person W that the whole basket was actually pineapples.

Person W then points out that the fruit basket actually tended towards apples, with some oranges and pineapples thrown in that really perfected the mix.

Person S then shows video game cinematics that feature pineapples and says "see the basket was all pineapples!!" so that Person W will see the similarity between the fruit basket they enjoyed, and the basket of pineapples that Person S currently enjoys.

etc. etc.

Hopefully the confusion between "part" and "whole" can end at some point for the S type people. But if not, I wish all the people that enjoy baskets of 100% pineapples the best. I for my part, really prefer fruit baskets that include mostly apples, some oranges, and a couple pineapples.

To reassure myself that the baskets I preferred were not actually 100% pineapples, I flipped through a couple old White Dwarfs and looked at the armies featured there in battle reports. Mostly apples who killed their opponents with the business end of some variety of a medieval weapon. Definitely some oranges and a pineapple or two, but mostly apples.

Sarouan wrote:
This is actually important. Gameplay influence directly the visual of battles. To me, and I know it's not a popular point of view, the battles of the scale of Total War Warhammer look visually more like AoS games than truly WFB ones. There is no such thing as rank bonuses in the video game...it's all about making damage with as much models as you can.

And I think it wouldn't look as good if it was trying to copy the game system of WFB close combats, with its rank bonuses. We would have units of skaven slaves in this stupid 5 front and x ranks, or even worse (like the infamous 100 zombies deployed with a front of 5 or line of troll slayers with only one champion in front, so that you could only kill one at a time...).

I really don't regret that.

I don't know if TW has anything in the way of rank bonus, but I think you're looking at (or playing) overly simplistically if you think it's "all about making damage with as much models as you can".

Ranks are actually quite important. There's been a trend to just deploy units as wide as possible to get the most models engaged, but that only works if you're rocking the better melee fighters. If you have worse melee fighters but you want them to hang around as long as possible (so your missile troops can do more damage or so you can get a flank/rear charge in or you're waiting for you hammer unit to be freed up) then it actually makes more sense to deploy them in a deeper formation.

I used to think Eternal Guard sucked until I realised deploying them wide was just making them die faster, and deploying them deep let them hang around longer.

Units also have flanks and rears similar to WHFB (or maybe just rears? not sure) where you get psychology bonuses for flank and rear charges, units you might not normally charge in become viable if they can make a rear charge, and for many armies the psychology game is very important.

I think TWW is a really good translation of WHFB to a real time strategy game. It does start to suck a bit when you get further into a campaign and it only matters how many god tier units you can fit in an army, it's usually around that point that I start to get bored and just start a fresh campaign to try a different lord/faction.

The all-Stegadon doomstack starts to look a bit like a game of AoS

EDIT: Also things like the minimum width high ranks zombie/goblin/etc units might have been a thing, but I don't recall seeing too many people playing them (I remember one such army was featured in a WD once, but it didn't seem to filter down to my gaming group), and unbreakable conga lines were considered sufficiently cheesy that I never saw one on the table, only theorised on forums.

savemelmac wrote:

Second, do you mind sharing one of your last army lists from WHFB that you used? I don´t mean exactly the points, just what units and from which edition? That might be a better representation of what some of the people in this thread expect to find in the new game.

Played Chaos throughout 6th/7th and a small Wood Elf army in 6th, but mostly Chaos Mortals either Undivided or Mark of Khorne.

Army was often some variation of:
2-3 blocks of warriors, a block of foot Chosen, a big block of Marauders w/hand weapon &Shield would form the main line. Chaos Lord on horse leading Knights on one side, sometimes Chosen Knights, sometimes Chosen Knights of Khorne if I wanted to be mean, especially in 7th when Frenzy wasn't as crippling. Usually a couple chariots, 2-4 Spawn, unit of Furies to go after warmachines and some Beastmen to flank. Everything ellse was a sometimes-take: Sometimes take a demon prince, sometimes a Hellcannon. Loved my Archaon model but never did actually get to use him. I'd try out various Demon units or Beasts units, had a Shaggoth that I loved but could rarely afford, always wanted Dragon Ogres but hated the metal models, the plastics were amazing but came out too late

Wood elves were an eclectic mix of stuff I got secondhand: old plastic archers and plastic Blood Bowl "wardancers", a high elf lord on dragon painted in greens and browns, a treeman and some dryads and waywatchers. Nothing cohesive, it was only used for funsies games.