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That Kislev roster looks so amazing! Looking forwards to the miniatures

It doesn't look like this will be the low fantasy rank and flank focused game that I hoped it would be tbh. In a way it's good for my wallet!

I don't understand their marketing either;
- They show the fantastic older models which I would expect anyone with a fondness for Warhammer Fantasy has dreamed about collecting at one time or another
- Then they cut a promo burying the older models and anyone who likes them.
- Then they show a magic ice slay or bear cart and insist that this is what the people really want XD

 Kroem wrote:
It doesn't look like this will be the low fantasy rank and flank focused game that I hoped it would be tbh. In a way it's good for my wallet!

I don't understand their marketing either;
- They show the fantastic older models which I would expect anyone with a fondness for Warhammer Fantasy has dreamed about collecting at one time or another
- Then they cut a promo burying the older models and anyone who likes them.
- Then they show a magic ice slay or bear cart and insist that this is what the people really want XD

What they've shown so far is still Warhammer Fantasy, Kislev has always had magic and bears as a big part of their culture to a larger extent than similar things are in the Empire

What do you mean with the promo burying the older models though?

 Mentlegen324 wrote:
What they've shown so far is still Warhammer Fantasy, Kislev has always had magic and bears as a big part of their culture to a larger extent than similar things are in the Empire

This discussion keeps being dredged up, but I think some of what people are reacting to are the gulf between older warhammer and newer warhammer (I'd argue post-6th edition, culminating in 8th edition), which ultimately arrived at a world where the empire had magical lasers and robot horses. It was the kitschification of the game, because everything was special and crazy, nothing was anymore.

Kislev having bears and ice as part of their culture is one thing, but taking an Oprah level of "you get a bear, you get a bear, EVERYONE GETS A BEAR!" undermines the setting. If they had left it with bear cavalry being the ultimate expression of bear-ness, it would be special. I could even accept the elemntal ice bear as having a place. However taking a cannon on a sled, which is already a unique idea, and then having the sled pulled by bears and sliding on magic ice, is pretty much the definition of kitsch.

It's background design to sell toys to 12 year olds.

Which warhammers has been since 5th edition at least. Its only goal, in fact, has always been to sell plastic and pewter toys to people, often kids. TOW is by all accounts looking to be aimed at the TW:WH customers that GW hopes will be attracted to the same aesthetic than it's aimed at the much smaller number of old fans that stuck around.

You're probably right about GW's intentions, but if that is their method, people can still criticise it as tacky.

Youtuber Logan Paul makes more money than I do being human-garbage. Does that mean his way of operating is "good" or "right" and that we should aspire to his methods?

I love that one of the key points of the Gryphon Legion is that they are "Not Riding Bears."

Yes, I want these miniatures to exist.

 jojo_monkey_boy wrote:
You're probably right about GW's intentions, but if that is their method, people can still criticise it as tacky.

Youtuber Logan Paul makes more money than I do being human-garbage. Does that mean his way of operating is "good" or "right" and that we should aspire to his methods?

I mean sure, but it's purely stylistic choice. Having bears on bears bearing bears is not more tacky than having lizards ride lizards which has been part of old warhammer since forever. They're going for more TW:WH style, you want more specifically 6th edition-only style.

 jojo_monkey_boy wrote:
You're probably right about GW's intentions, but if that is their method, people can still criticise it as tacky.

Youtuber Logan Paul makes more money than I do being human-garbage. Does that mean his way of operating is "good" or "right" and that we should aspire to his methods?

The moment you say is background designed to sell to 12 years old you are basically insulting anybody that likes it because older was better and for more mature people.

Giant chaos dragons and heavy metal album-like background and knights fighting trolls was peak mature hobby time oh yeah.

I would put here C.S Lewis quote but I'm too lazy for that.

 jojo_monkey_boy wrote:

 Mentlegen324 wrote:
What they've shown so far is still Warhammer Fantasy, Kislev has always had magic and bears as a big part of their culture to a larger extent than similar things are in the Empire

This discussion keeps being dredged up, but I think some of what people are reacting to are the gulf between older warhammer and newer warhammer (I'd argue post-6th edition, culminating in 8th edition), which ultimately arrived at a world where the empire had magical lasers and robot horses. It was the kitschification of the game, because everything was special and crazy, nothing was anymore.

Kislev having bears and ice as part of their culture is one thing, but taking an Oprah level of "you get a bear, you get a bear, EVERYONE GETS A BEAR!" undermines the setting. If they had left it with bear cavalry being the ultimate expression of bear-ness, it would be special. I could even accept the elemntal ice bear as having a place. However taking a cannon on a sled, which is already a unique idea, and then having the sled pulled by bears and sliding on magic ice, is pretty much the definition of kitsch.

It's background design to sell toys to 12 year olds.

TLDR; things should be boring or it's not as l337 pwnzors as it was in the 90s. Yunno, back when the models ACTUALLY looked like little kids toys. I mean, who could look at the old Nagash model and possibly think anyhing BUT 'yes, this is clearly designed by mature, sophisticated adults for mature, sophisticated adults.'

Get off your high horse. WHFB was over the top and stupid then, just like it is now. Pretending it was ever 'serious business TM' is lying to yourself.

Thinking back to third edition with Orcs riding irate pigs, mesoamerican toad people in jaguar skins and warrior priests being carried by lobotomized slaves because if their feet touched the ground they lost magic power, high elves riding dragons as a unit(not just heroes!), undead riding vultures.
Not to mention that wizards could summon illusory towns that would hide say, a unit of 5 high elf dragonkin until the enemy got in charging range. Or summon an elemental with 10s across their entire stat-line!
But yes, it's the bear-ice-cannon that does puts it over the top.

People confuse the gritty low-magic RPG with the epic extremely high magic wargame. Kislev's most elite cavalry being bear riders is extremely in line with what WHFB has been since its inception; GW even sold a bear-riding Kislev character for a time.

Giant Ice Bear breaking the setting? Tell that to the gigantic daemon literally MADE OF MAGIC that it's duelling.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Galas wrote:

 jojo_monkey_boy wrote:
You're probably right about GW's intentions, but if that is their method, people can still criticise it as tacky.

Youtuber Logan Paul makes more money than I do being human-garbage. Does that mean his way of operating is "good" or "right" and that we should aspire to his methods?

The moment you say is background designed to sell to 12 years old you are basically insulting anybody that likes it because older was better and for more mature people.

Giant chaos dragons and heavy metal album-like background and knights fighting trolls was peak mature hobby time oh yeah.

I would put here C.S Lewis quote but I'm too lazy for that.

It's a very late-teenager criticism to make, I agree. That's the main demographic for wanting to distance themselves from childhood. Unfortunately some people take a bit of extra time to get past that, somewhat ashamed to admit I know that from experience.

Rihgu wrote:
Thinking back to third edition with Orcs riding irate pigs, mesoamerican toad people in jaguar skins and warrior priests being carried by lobotomized slaves because if their feet touched the ground they lost magic power, high elves riding dragons as a unit(not just heroes!), undead riding vultures.
Not to mention that wizards could summon illusory towns that would hide say, a unit of 5 high elf dragonkin until the enemy got in charging range. Or summon an elemental with 10s across their entire stat-line!
But yes, it's the bear-ice-cannon that does puts it over the top.

You don't understand that only 6th edition murder hobbo grimdark turn to 11 bretonnian designed by Donatien Alphonse François is proper warhammer fantasy.

But I won't keep beating this dead horse, specially because 6th edition is my favourite flavour of warhammer but I'm so tired of people taking crap in everything else because theres no true kislevitemen.

I think the disconnect is always that the RPG and also the tabletop often appeared fairly low magic. Plus a lot of the sculpts in the past were more modest in terms of bling and style and how magical they were. A bear or such was mostly just a bear, now its a bigger bear with big shiny armour and other things.


It's like the old vs new greater demons - they were both greater demons, but the new outshine the old. Just like the old outshone the first generation ones that came way before.



Perhaps one difference is that Old World had high magic battles and wars, but was also fully capable of a group of orks and humans bashing each other with swords. It could do low magic pretty often and indeed a lot of the time magical elements were more things like a Rune Blade - ergo its enchanted but its not firing lighting and glowing and stuff.


In the end even all the fantastical stuff in AoS could easily have appeared in Old World. If the Dwarven Smith Guild had abandoned its dogma of restraining Dwarven technology they would have easily arrived at the Khadoran level very quickly. And just like with most technologies, once it was out there humans could have captured, stolen and found remains enough to adapt into their own arms race with the dwarves. Perhaps something like a cog-fort would have taken longer to arrive at, but its all potentially possible.

GW' sculpting really sucked back in the day which made the illusion of everything being mundane and low magic.

I mean, yes, warhammer fantasy RPG where one of your career pats was literally imperial prostitute or imperial pimp it was very low fantasy. But as a Ogre Kingdom fan and player, a faction that nearly became exting because a dragon emperor summoned a meteorite and then destroyed a civilization of giants in sky-castles on top of mountains, I have always been kite sceptic about old-world Empire poorporn adicts.

"Your ogres are crap! The good ogres were the humans with mental problems! that were the best ones!" Bah.

I guarantee most people have never heard of whatever low fantasy RPG your'e talking about it, including me.

I'd say the majority of people who don't like the direction this is going were fans primarily during 6th edition. And yes, we all know Lizardmen and magic existed.

Demons are horrifying monsters from the warp, hardly comparable to the Santa Claus magic ice sled pulled by bears...

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
People confuse the gritty low-magic RPG with the epic extremely high magic wargame. Kislev's most elite cavalry being bear riders is extremely in line with what WHFB has been since its inception; GW even sold a bear-riding Kislev character for a time.

Giant Ice Bear breaking the setting? Tell that to the gigantic daemon literally MADE OF MAGIC that it's duelling.

I think the key difference is that the human factions are generally depicted as a lot more grounded. People don't have an issue with Daemons being over the top, same with Lizardmen and even the various flavours of Elves, but the stark contrast of Empire/Bretonnia/Kislev in most peoples minds has always been much more grounded. Sure, you got stuff like the mechanical horse and the Pegasus, but those were the exception, not the norm. I think just about everybody expected some sort of bear cavalry unit, but as has been said, them to be the absolute top tier rare unit rather than the faction being the Fantasy equivalents of Space Wolves Wolf Guard with Wolf Claws riding Wolves for the Wolf Time. Instead just about every Tom, Dick and Harry who isn't a chaff pleb seems to be getting one. That the Gryphon Legion are remarkable BECAUSE they're riding common garden horses says a lot.

I mean... theres only three bear units outside character mounts:

Elite bear cavalry
Sleds with bears
A relic cannon that in the whole kislev you have less than 12.

And the magic elemental one. Thats seem a restrained number of bears for the bear faction.

By contrast you have... 4 different horse riding cavalry units.

 Arbitrator wrote:

I think the key difference is that the human factions are generally depicted as a lot more grounded.

they were not, not even in 6th
https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/warhammerfb/images/3/39/Warhammer_Thunderball.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20210317185207
https://i.redd.it/808mhi9261s41.jpg

Difference is, those things were in background only, not the models on the table and even the big magic was "normal" in the game
The game itself looked more like a semi-historical game with magic rather than the big fantasy we saw later in 8th when finally the stuff from the background made it into the game

and this is the problem here, while those things can exist in the background, people don't want it with their 6th edition flair on the table, and the more likely those units get models in the game, the less likely is a 6th edition reboot and rather 8th or AoS like game

I imagine the game itself only looked grounded because well, GW couldn't sculpt as they do now with AoS.

Is the same reason why greater demons never really become bigger, they were always the same size in the background, they just didnt had the technology back them to make them bigger.

Exactly - a Greater Demon in the stories was huge and monstrous and oozing magic - on the tabletop it was honestly very small in comparison. GW just didn't have the tech to do huge things and the few that they did do were only in Forgeworld resin - so far more limited (esp in the past) in when they appeared on the tables.

The only time we saw some of it was in Man O War which is a really really old game now and something most never really encountered.


So yep they saw the art in the books, but on tabletop it was fairly low magic. Even though a lot of the big epic stuff was in the setting and was in the art and the lore; it just wasn't on the tabletop.

And heck near the End Times we got a TASTE of it - we got eagles pulling chariots and huge phoenix and FW sized greater demons

well they could make models bigger, but by that time the knew people were not willing to pay the price for such a large centerpiece/display model just for gaming

this was the time were the Steamtank was the most expensive single model in the game with ~40€, and the bigger upgraded one was 60-70€ and seen as already too much by some
a Greater Demon in 6th Edi for 110€, although a large plastic model, just would not have sold for gaming

I think the older WHFB models looked great. There are no doubt a ton of amazing sculpts in AOS, but to say that the modern sculpts are "cooler" than the older ones is untrue imo. If anything, imo, the older models are a more confident and pleasant because they're a bit more clever and self-effacing. It makes a joke on the absurd fun of playing a game!

I think a lot of the modern sculpts are bit too try-hard, which makes them open to mockery and teasing. This is a tabletop strategy game after all, the cosplay of it all is open to ridicule quite easily so its better to lean into the fun, rather than insisting "my Khorne Daemon is so scary!! GRRR!!!"

GW has consistently done a great job with skaven and orks for example, getting the balance of spooky and silly. Irony and wit are hard to write, let alone "sculpt". And when people talk about the "character" of old models - they're speaking to the cleverness. Definitely some sculpts have gotten way better as GW returned to them...but you have to take it on a model by model basis. There are some really (imo) timeless WHFB minis and if anyone thinks theirs are too goofy and out of style, ill happily take them off your hands!!

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
People confuse the gritty low-magic RPG with the epic extremely high magic wargame.

That's because most people didn't play 1st ed WHFRP campaigns long enough to get to higher levels where Bolter toting Chaos Lords were a possible common enemy. Seriously, dig out the original book and look at the Chaos Relics and other high level enemy gear/rewards. WHFRP was only "gritty low-magic" at the average levels or if your GM made it so, the system handled high fantasy just fine.

 Wha-Mu-077 wrote:
I imagine the game itself only looked grounded because well, GW couldn't sculpt as they do now with AoS.

I think this is a very important point. Much of the 'magic' was about in-game effects that were invisible on the tabletop. Now you have levitating models surrounded by swirls of power and such. It may be a more magical visual expression, but the conception (powerful wizards smiting stuff) hasn't really changed.

Having said that though, blinged out character models riding impossible monsters go way, way back. In some editions said mounted characters were dominant forces on the tabletop, so the gameplay didn't scream 'low fantasy, ranks and flanks' either. But of course, one COULD play grounded WHFB if one chose, so it's probably best to say the game has been different things to different people as opposed to this one single thing.

Also worth remembering that in the early days of WFB and WFRP - conversions were how many larger entities and technology were represented.

Even in 6th Edition they also had official army lists for such things as Dinosaur armies in Warhammer Chronicles (2004) and Dogs of War enabling armies to field Dragon Lords, Ogres, Maneating Dark Elves and so much more.

Warhammer has always been a world you can explore the mundane, the fantastic and everything in between.

I don't know about the rest of you but I'm really confused about this new take on the Old World. Yes, still early days, no solid information yet and all that. Still...

Where is this game going to fit in the current line-up? From what is known right now I don't see how the models are going to be any different from what is being released for AOS. Square bases sure, but two fantasy model lines with very similar themes and styles? How is that going to work? Cross compatibility maybe? All the minis get rules for both AOS and TOW?

Ohman wrote:
I don't know about the rest of you but I'm really confused about this new take on the Old World. Yes, still early days, no solid information yet and all that. Still...

Where is this game going to fit in the current line-up? From what is known right now I don't see how the models are going to be any different from what is being released for AOS. Square bases sure, but two fantasy model lines with very similar themes and styles? How is that going to work? Cross compatibility maybe? All the minis get rules for both AOS and TOW?

I assume it's going to work like 30k and 40k.