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Likewise, I'm pretty sure the Empires own development/use of gunpowder predates The Old Worlds setting, unless GW changes things up the Engineering school in Nuln and the Steam Tanks were constructed some few hundred years before the timeframe of the game.

The Dwarfs started using gunpowder around -420 [[IC]] - not sure when the Empire first used them but they had them prior to 2000 as they are used in Mordheim including sppecialist weapons such as the Hochland Long Rifle and warships on the river have batteries of cannons and swivel guns.

 Mentlegen324 wrote:
If Cathay is for TOW as well as TW:W3, and assuming they have gunpowder and such, then wouldn't those TW:W3 units be out of place with the TOW setting due to the hundreds of years between them? I've read that the Empire and Dwarves gunpowder units wouldn't really fit too well because of when those were invented, but I can't really see the team designing both an earlier and a later period version of units, but designing presumably large parts of the army just for TW:W3 would also be a bit strange.

The Imperial College of Engineering has been around for 500 years (according to the 6th or 7th edition Empire army book) and that army book pegged the 'current year' at 2522. Presumably guns were in play even before the college was founded.

Based on the Bretonnian map, the TOW estimate is 2200s (Louen Orc Slayer helps narrow things down- his errantry war against orcs started 2201 by the Imperial Calander).

So maybe not steam tanks or Helstorms, but cannons and handgunners seem absolutely fine.

Around Mordheim era the Empire were already using matchlock guns they made themselves, and no doubt Dwarf-made mechanisms were available if you had the dosh. By the time of TOW they're probably along to snaplocks.

In game terms, that's sufficient justification for "handguns" as we saw them in the time of Karl Franz, since Warhammer games don't have anywhere near the level of granularity required to represent the differences between various generations of muzzle-loaded firearms.

The Steam Tanks are old, built around 500 years before current time by Leonardo of Miragliano so around 2000.

My understanding is that TOW is set during the great war against chaos, which was in 2301.

And the end times was what? 2527? That's only ~220 year difference. Teclis was at the great war and founded the colleges of magic (so they're only 200 years old themselves).

Most elf and dwarf characters would still be around back then - Thorgrim for example.

I imagine most of the Lizardmen characters also are still kicking.

Humans and Skaven are the ones that come to mind with shorter lifespans.

 Yodhrin wrote:
Around Mordheim era the Empire were already using matchlock guns they made themselves, and no doubt Dwarf-made mechanisms were available if you had the dosh. By the time of TOW they're probably along to snaplocks.

In game terms, that's sufficient justification for "handguns" as we saw them in the time of Karl Franz, since Warhammer games don't have anywhere near the level of granularity required to represent the differences between various generations of muzzle-loaded firearms.

There were also artisan produced duelling pistols, which suggests whilst perhaps not industrialised as yet, The Empire had some folk with real experience of making black powder weapons.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
I imagine most of the Lizardmen characters also are still kicking.

Humans and Skaven are the ones that come to mind with shorter lifespans.

Many of the Skaven Lords tend to be long lived.

 Mr Morden wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
I imagine most of the Lizardmen characters also are still kicking.

Humans and Skaven are the ones that come to mind with shorter lifespans.

Many of the Skaven Lords tend to be long lived.

Yeah, some have extended their lifespans, though I think in general a lot of them are only a few years old.

 Hellebore wrote:
The most detailed version of the map ever produced is this one afaik:

Mine is similar to that one, but it also has the major trade roads marked, as well as a few other things like the Ruined Giant City (a little way west into the mountains from the Warpstone Desert, on the main trade road to and from Cathay) and the city of Weijin being noted as the "Seat of the Dragon Throne" rather than just a generic city. It has a lot more locations in the Dark Lands, and the territories of the major Chaos Marauder tribes are marked (Hung, Kurgan etc).

I just noticed the copyright date on my map is 2004, which is a little later than I'd thought it was.

 Mentlegen324 wrote:
If Cathay is for TOW as well as TW:W3, and assuming they have gunpowder and such, then wouldn't those TW:W3 units be out of place with the TOW setting due to the hundreds of years between them? I've read that the Empire and Dwarves gunpowder units wouldn't really fit too well because of when those were invented, but I can't really see the team designing both an earlier and a later period version of units, but designing presumably large parts of the army just for TW:W3 would also be a bit strange.

Honestly, the level of overall technology in W:TOW I imagine is going to depend more on which old models they want to reuse (if any), or indeed to what extent they want to stop players with existing collections to use those for the new game, than whether the technology would logically be very different.

As said, Mordheim is set several centuries before the "present" of WHFB (conflicts would take place between the comet in 1999 and the cleansing in 2302). The game did have optional rules to make the "modern" blackpowder weapons of the time less reliable, but effectively the pistols and handguns were as you would see them on the tabletop in WHFB. There were already some anachronisms there actually, with Kislev warbands having streltsi for example (armed with halberds and handguns), while handguns were only introduced into the Kislevite armies in 2359 according to the one source I'm aware of.

Of course, many armies will be unaffected anyway: Elves don't exactly have much regression possible, nor Undead, nor Greenskins, nor Lizardmen, nor... well, most factions really. Given that we don't know what Cathay used to have (although they certainly used blackpowder early), I'm not sure if chronological consistency between the video game and the new tabletop game is too important, same as with Kislev by the way. After all, nobody seems to bat an eyelid at the fact that all those miniatures that were ported over from WHFB to AoS, where countless years are supposed to have passed when godlike creatures were fighting and civilisations rose and fell, have just casually arrived at exactly the same levels of technology, as well as general military structure and indeed fashion etcetera, as in the before times. So as above, I imagine the decisions will be based more on what they want to produce or reuse, and what they want players to buy and not reuse, than it will on any in-universe logic, though the latter will no doubt be used to defend their commercial decisions.

 Hellebore wrote:
My understanding is that TOW is set during the great war against chaos, which was in 2301.

No its set farther back then that. The only character we know/have a hard date for (barring a major retcon on GWs end) so far is King Louen Orc-Slayer, who was kicking around in 2201 (so about 100 years prior to the great war against chaos). The problem is the other 4 Empire characters that they have announced are all tied to the Age of Three Emperors, but for the most part weren't contemporaries and cover a period of history of about 500 years - Magirtta of Marienburg for example was born in 1979, Ludwig and Wilhelm were kicking around about 100 years later in 2051, and Sigismund was kicking around in 1745 - so either GW is recycling names (easy enough to do, just change the number after their name) or retconning history a bit to condense the timeline.

After all, nobody seems to bat an eyelid at the fact that all those miniatures that were ported over from WHFB to AoS, where countless years are supposed to have passed when godlike creatures were fighting and civilisations rose and fell, have just casually arrived at exactly the same levels of technology, as well as general military structure and indeed fashion etcetera, as in the before times.

I mean, most people are of the opinion that those legacy minis are going to be gradually phased out, and in any case the Age of Sigmar setting is big and wide open enough to allow for black powder renaissance types to be contemporaries with Neolithic barbarians with stone-tipped spears, whereas there was a general sense of greater technological parity amongst the factions of the World-That-Was (for the most part, those who didn't use black powder weapons chose not to, as was the case with the Bretonnians who considered it unchivalrous, and the Lizardmen who considered it primitive compared to their magic, etc.).

Regarding black powder in AoS.

With Magic in the mix, the need for greater technological innovation is somewhat stymied.

Real gates for example provide instantaneous long distance travel. And whichever Age, those major and or stable had cities grow up around them.

In the real world, a lot of innovation is driven by war, typically war between parties of roughly equal technological ability. That’s not something we really see in Warhammer as noted.

Orks and Beastmen (to use two relatable examples) largely eschew technology beyond hand to hand combat weapons.

With them not being a position to “one-up” their foes in that regard, the same pressures just aren’t there.

It’d also a typical Fantasy trope. LotR for instance barely has Black Powder, and even then it’s only Saruman making use of it. And that’s despite many hundreds of years.

Why are we assuming TOW has a rigidly fixed timeframe?

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Regarding black powder in AoS.

With Magic in the mix, the need for greater technological innovation is somewhat stymied.

Real gates for example provide instantaneous long distance travel. And whichever Age, those major and or stable had cities grow up around them.

In the real world, a lot of innovation is driven by war, typically war between parties of roughly equal technological ability. That’s not something we really see in Warhammer as noted.

Orks and Beastmen (to use two relatable examples) largely eschew technology beyond hand to hand combat weapons.

With them not being a position to “one-up” their foes in that regard, the same pressures just aren’t there.

It’d also a typical Fantasy trope. LotR for instance barely has Black Powder, and even then it’s only Saruman making use of it. And that’s despite many hundreds of years.

Sorry but no

technological advancement is present and key in several factions

* The Empire as they move from the "standard" medievil world to the Renaisance
* The Skaven - who are always trying new stuff out,
* The Chaos Dwarfs - similar but safer and mixing more Daemons than warpstone.
* Dwarfs slow and steady advancement.

The High Elves do usually use magic but their ships are state of the art sailing ships having the equivalent of fast large Schooners

The Skaven and Chaos Dwarfs keep an wary but acquisitive eye on the each others advances.

 His Master's Voice wrote:
Why are we assuming TOW has a rigidly fixed timeframe?

Because the presence of a map with fairly clear territorial breakdowns under specific groups of leadership implies the requirement for a fairly rigidly fixed timeframe.

 catbarf wrote:

 Esmer wrote:
The choice of Kislev and Cathay basically also confirms Ogres, representing the Eurasian inbetween.

I agree, but the real question is whether they'll be playable on release or if they'll just be an NPC faction until a DLC makes them playable.

I also wonder what CA's plans are for Chaos Dwarfs, seeing as they also occupy the East and are one of the few WHFB factions remaining that hasn't been realized in a TW. I hope they're not just gone forever.

I see one big issue with Chaos Dwarfs: You'd have a camp who wants them to have their iconic "big hats, big noses, Babylonian beards" look, and another camp who want them to have a more up-dated and organic "Hordes of Chaos" look.

Picking one aesthetic would inevitably alienate the other camp.

Great thing about the legion of azgorh was they combined both. The infantry had a concealed heavily armored look not all that different from a chaos warrior. But the sorcerers and some leaders had the hats and flamboyant headwear. It's a terrible shame to see that line of models discontinued. And I doubt they could make another line as aesthetically pleasing in plastic.

I personally liked the look of the old hellcannon crew. And on the other hand I find both the warcry chorfs (the spire tyrant and iron golem ones) to be kinda lame.

I suspect that any new Chorfs will be taking design cues from the warcry dwarves.

Carlovonsexron wrote:
I suspect that any new Chorfs will be taking design cues from the warcry dwarves.

The Warcry ones are very much in the style of the warbands they’re with, so I don’t think they’re particularly indicative of what Chaos Dwaves as their own faction would look like.

They are, but they both have certain interesting notes that bring to mind chaos dwarves, too

There's no reason they can't do both, as Thargrim said that's the whole point of the Legion of Azgorh; to provide a place for the non-bighat style without having to *replace* the bighat style.

I very much hope CA(and GW) will do both, but if they don't I'm no longer worried, 3D printing will come to the rescue.

By fluff the Legion of Azgorh are a special penal legion, thats why they have those helmets.

Chaos Dwarves don't have a ton of units so I don't doubt we'll see both types of styles, probably the legion for more elite heavy units and the hats for basic chorf warriors , characters, etc...

 Galas wrote:
By fluff the Legion of Azgorh are a special penal legion, thats why they have those helmets.

Chaos Dwarves don't have a ton of units so I don't doubt we'll see both types of styles, probably the legion for more elite heavy units and the hats for basic chorf warriors , characters, etc...

Maybe that's something they can fix this time around. Give some more actual Chaos Dwarf units, not more slave units. Hell, I'd love to see a frenzied two hand weapon unit myself.

 Mr Morden wrote:
There has been bits and pieces of Cathay lore drip fed to us - great to see more

* They sold gunpowder weapons to Lahmia before Neferata became queen, Neferata went there later with her favourite handmaiden and they had to flee.
* They had magic based on the five elements (including wood),
* Geneiveve went there and learnt some magic and martial arts
* They explored much of the world in large fleets
* Several worshippers of Tzeentch came from there - he is known as (IIRC) Tsein-Tsien.

1st edition WFRP -- so around late 3rd edtion WFB gave us :

https://warhammerfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Hong_Fu_Chu

and : https://warhammerfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Dien_Ch%27ing

5th edition had the big cathay/lizardman meeting :

https://warhammerfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Yin-Tuan

and current ( 4th edition ) WFRP introduces :

https://warhammerfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Lin_Li_Chun

which one suspects may well be a tip o' the hat to twoflower of Discworld fame.

FWIW Josh reynolds did an AMA about the fate of Cathay, Ind etc in the End Times saga -- obviously it's all speculation ad not official as such : see :

https://www.windsofchaos.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=160 -- summary below the list of links etc

Thanks Aware of some but some new

Also one of the recurring characters in 4th ed WFRP was brought up in Cathay.

https://whfb.lexicanum.com/wiki/Emmanuelle_Nacht

A few new things shown with the Total War Warhammer 3 gameplay reveal:

Little Grom


Elemental bear


And a map of Kislev as it it at the time of TOW



Along with confirmation that the new Kislev stuff is for TOW rather than being made for TW:W3:

As you’ll have gathered by now, the Kislev units appearing in Total War: Warhammer III are being designed for Warhammer The Old World by our very own creative team.

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2021/05/13/a-giant-bear-beats-up-daemons-in-total-war-warhammer-iiis-new-gameplay-trailer/

Interesting that the map has a Kislev faction east of the World's Edge Mountain. A nod to the old Wheatlands fluff maybe? Although the location seems to be a little too northerly for that and oddly right by where the Chaos Dwarves have their big port. Looks like there are five Kislev settlements in that region, including one right on the borderlands of the Hobgobla Khan. Looks like Kislev controls both the northerly routes through the Dark Lands.

Makes sense from a TWW/tabbletop perspective as it gives the Kislevites a reason to fight Chaos Dwarves and Hobgoblins, as well as Chaos, Empire, Orcs and Dwarves.

Also worth noting the article credits Little Grom to the design studio, rather than the game devs.

Seems a solid chance we’ll see it in WHFB TOW too.