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Windmage is something veeeeeeeeery different. It was in the "New Year, New Models" video alongside the Lord-Regent. There's a sceptre/mace streaming clouds out from it that it is standing upon.

I'm surprised they didn't make a unit of three wind riders, like an aelf version of Enlightened Tzaangors on discs. I mean, they could, but at this point, given everything else we've seen teased, it looks like only the mage will be riding wind (for now)

I really want to see both the huge bow person and the massive standard bearer. The latter seems too big to look good, but it's long overdue that we get some army standard bearers back in AOS (only the stormcast got models for them, right?)

A lot more Lumineth coming than I thought! Looks like this campaign book will be a 'second half' for Lumineth players to get access to their full army, as others have previously estimated. Sucks, but better than not having it I suppose. Definitely going to see the allegiance abilities for wind and river, maybe even zenith if they get any. Vanari allegiance abilities do lack artifacts & command traits, though a generic set for any type of Lumineth would fill that gap. Interested to see.

Not super surprised that DoK are getting a battletome given its age, but I don't think they really need it. It has aged very well and there are others both newer and older which need an update much more. Oh well.

With the soulblight warband being composed of nothing but vampires, I'm sort of hoping we get an entire vampire army. Maybe a bit smaller, but elite. Blood knights, zombie dragons, a small unit of winged vampires like what DoK have, Varghulf and Varghiest, etc. In the Old World, it probably wouldn't be feasible. But in AOS, we have an entire realm full of the undead, and seven more for them to have infilitrated. Give us a solely Vampire (and thrall) army!

I expect that is exactly what Soulblight will be. It is what they are now, after all.

Sidenote: You know the rules for all-vampire allegiance is in Legions of Nagash, right? I assume you mean a *full* allegiance rather than a mini one.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
I expect that is exactly what Soulblight will be. It is what they are now, after all.

I don't think so. I think the stuff we're seeing in Cursed City is going to be the trappings of the Gravelords. Maybe I'm hyper-focusing on that name too much, but the Zombies are clearly GW's OCDonutSteal take on them, so it stands to reason they'd become the 'norm' going forward in the same way Ossiarchs probably will be for 'Deathrattle'. The one gravekeeper model looks to be digging up another of them (with the gnarled roots both the shadowed picture, the trailer and that model has) and Grave-Lords certainly sounds more like the Soulblight themselves are the commanding figures.

 AngryAngel80 wrote:
The second vampire is worlds better but still I don't know, I'm not really digging their art direction. It feels passionless and dull am I the only one feeling that way ?

I find this interesting.

For me, I ADORE this direction. It doesn't look like some sort of weird Anime-American Comic Book hybrid design like the rest of the AoS line looks, these models look like proper, old school fantasy. For me, seeing stuff like normal looking shields and maces, morning stars and rapiers just makes me happy as a clam. For so long I've had to sit here and wait with every new army release for something to catch my eye. This is the first.

I'm actually still stressed and waiting for the other shoe to drop. When they showed of Lumineth, it was amazing. Then came the stupid mountain cows and kangaroo Cavalry...big stupid hats and elves wielding Hammers??? And now there is a foxfolk archer with a quiver that just frankly looks dumb. It just broke everything for me. If this army is simple, down to earth and keeps things restrained at least a little, then I'm finally ready to buy into this game. If they show off Half-Wearbats that ride flying cave lobsters then...well, I'll lose interest fast.

Well considering the current zombie kit is... old I would not be suprised if it does finally get replaced with something much more approriate.

Although I don't think that Ossiarchs are going to replace Deathrattle (I could see them getting thrown into Gravelords) considering that fluff wise both are very different.

 Togusa wrote:

 AngryAngel80 wrote:
The second vampire is worlds better but still I don't know, I'm not really digging their art direction. It feels passionless and dull am I the only one feeling that way ?

I find this interesting.

For me, I ADORE this direction. It doesn't look like some sort of weird Anime-American Comic Book hybrid design like the rest of the AoS line looks, these models look like proper, old school fantasy. For me, seeing stuff like normal looking shields and maces, morning stars and rapiers just makes me happy as a clam. For so long I've had to sit here and wait with every new army release for something to catch my eye. This is the first.

I'm actually still stressed and waiting for the other shoe to drop. When they showed of Lumineth, it was amazing. Then came the stupid mountain cows and kangaroo Cavalry...big stupid hats and elves wielding Hammers??? And now there is a foxfolk archer with a quiver that just frankly looks dumb. It just broke everything for me. If this army is simple, down to earth and keeps things restrained at least a little, then I'm finally ready to buy into this game. If they show off Half-Wearbats that ride flying cave lobsters then...well, I'll lose interest fast.

I feel exactly the same. Both about relatability of these designs, and what was effectively a bait and switch on Lumenith. The first couple kits looked like they were reimagining the high elves just slightly. Turned out those were just the greek cosplay elfs, followed by the cow cosplayers, the avatar the last airbender cosplayers, the Crocodile Dundee cosplayers and now the fox cosplayers. Just a horrid grab-bag of incoherent nonsense replacing the army theme.

I am slightly worried that the zombies/thralls in Cursed City (and thus for soulblight) well be overdone with 'stuff' (coffins and tree-stumps nailed to their backs), so it really depends on the execution.

Right, we don't want a mishmash of themes what with High Elves having been such a coherent concept of:
-Dragon motif Elves(Caledor)
-Monastic Elves(Swordmasters of Hoeth)
-Silent guardian Elves(Phoenix Guard)
-Angry not-Dark Elves(Shadow Warriors)
-Chariot Elves(Tiranoc)
-Horse archer Elves(Ellyrion)
-Lion Elves
-Sea Elves(Lothern)
-Amazonian Elves(Everqueen)
-"Generic" Elves(Silver Helms, Archers, and Spearmen)


It strikes me as strange that people do not seem to remember that out of everything in the High Elves book even preceding the introduction of the Lion Chariots, Loremasters, Phoenix Mounts and Skycutters...High Elves were far from just knights and stuff. We had battlemages, we had weird totemic warriors, we had oathsworn guardians and more.

 Kanluwen wrote:
Right, we don't want a mishmash of themes what with High Elves having been such a coherent concept of:
-Dragon motif Elves(Caledor)
-Monastic Elves(Swordmasters of Hoeth)
-Silent guardian Elves(Phoenix Guard)
-Angry not-Dark Elves(Shadow Warriors)
-Chariot Elves(Tiranoc)
-Horse archer Elves(Ellyrion)
-Lion Elves
-Sea Elves(Lothern)
-Amazonian Elves(Everqueen)
-"Generic" Elves(Silver Helms, Archers, and Spearmen)


It strikes me as strange that people do not seem to remember that out of everything in the High Elves book even preceding the introduction of the Lion Chariots, Loremasters, Phoenix Mounts and Skycutters...High Elves were far from just knights and stuff. We had battlemages, we had weird totemic warriors, we had oathsworn guardians and more.

This is what I don't get about AOS. When the armies were broken up, certain models got their own armies. Stonehorn, yhetees, sabretusks, etc became the Beastclaw raiders. Savage orcs and all their ilk became the Bonespittaz. But they didn't give Chrace, Lothern, or any high elves distinct factions, at least not ones that stuck around longer than a year or two.

Chrace: White lions with axes, Korhil, and lion chariot
Lothern: Seaguard, skycutter chariot with options for a BSB on foot or lord on foot
Phoenix guard: Phoenix guard, Phoenixes, Calydrn(?).

The elves had a lot of potential to stick around for awhile and allow people to create armies based around which aspects of high elves they liked the best. I love the idea of having an army of savage orcs, but I'd also have loved a Lothern or Chrace themed army for AOS

Because they weren't really distinct factions. They had different weapons and a few had signature pieces (like lion cloaks or more Phoenix helms or more dragon helms) but they still had the overall unifying aesthetic of the high elves.

That's a huge difference.

Voss wrote:
Because they weren't really distinct factions. They had different weapons and a few had signature pieces (like lion cloaks or more Phoenix helms or more dragon helms) but they still had the overall unifying aesthetic of the high elves.

That's a huge difference.

True, but dark elves stuck around, with their units being divided up (until recently).

I dunno. Maybe I'm just mad I didn't get to pick up a few of the units before they were wiped out (especially the newer plastic kits)

And thank you for making my point for me, Voss.

The Aelementari Temples have "signature pieces". The signature though is that they're Teclian Nation pieces. The Teclian school of thought tends to have artisans, so is it really a shocker that their wargear(which incidentally is supposed to actually be crafted by the temples themselves not mass produced) would look different than the standing armies of the Vanari, who are both Teclian and Tyrionic?

And really, the constant "but whut about horses!!!" and whatnot is tiresome at this point. Read the lore. The army book was packed full of stuff. The Dawn Riders use horses as they can train horses and the horses are from the central continent of Hysh, where they're bred by not just the Elves there but also the humans who dwell there too. The Treerunners that the new Windchargers are on? Dollars to donuts it's going to be fluffed as similar to the Gryph-Chargers for Stormcast or the Cold Ones of Dark Elves or Dragons or whatever--a mount choosing its rider.

Also as a final note, we've seen one Tyrionic item at this point. The Lord-Regent. We still have no idea where that aesthetic might lead to. We don't know what kind of crazy warbeasts might show up there either.

Voss wrote:
Because they weren't really distinct factions. They had different weapons and a few had signature pieces (like lion cloaks or more Phoenix helms or more dragon helms) but they still had the overall unifying aesthetic of the high elves.

That's a huge difference.

Ork with armour. Orc without armour. How is that distinct with different elves? Orc is an orc

 Kanluwen wrote:
And thank you for making my point for me, Voss.

The Aelementari Temples have "signature pieces". The signature though is that they're Teclian Nation pieces. The Teclian school of thought tends to have artisans, so is it really a shocker that their wargear(which incidentally is supposed to actually be crafted by the temples themselves not mass produced) would look different than the standing armies of the Vanari, who are both Teclian and Tyrionic?

And really, the constant "but whut about horses!!!" and whatnot is tiresome at this point. Read the lore. The army book was packed full of stuff. The Dawn Riders use horses as they can train horses and the horses are from the central continent of Hysh, where they're bred by not just the Elves there but also the humans who dwell there too. The Treerunners that the new Windchargers are on? Dollars to donuts it's going to be fluffed as similar to the Gryph-Chargers for Stormcast or the Cold Ones of Dark Elves or Dragons or whatever--a mount choosing its rider.

Also as a final note, we've seen one Tyrionic item at this point. The Lord-Regent. We still have no idea where that aesthetic might lead to. We don't know what kind of crazy warbeasts might show up there either.

Unsurprisingly, you've lost me.
I didn't make your point. The high elves had a distinct theme, with add ons that didn't disrupt the unifying aesthetic of the army.
The cosplay elves have themes scattered across half-a-dozen cultures and several animated shows. Unlike the high elves, they look like a mish-mash of 7-8 different armies, not a unified one. And _most_ of them look like gag armies, not something to take seriously. Apart from the first couple kits, nothing looks 'elf' or even 'warhammer.'

No idea what your horse thing is even about.

---
@tneva82-
I can't tell if you're agreeing with me or not. Savage orcs are very distinct from the AoS iron..mongerers? They look different and play differently. Same as Wood elves had a distinct look from high elves (but not, unfortunately, distinct units). Lumenith are just... random things without rhyme or reason. They look like they got sculpted and just... shoved out the door without thought. 'Why not one army?'

 Arbitrator wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
I expect that is exactly what Soulblight will be. It is what they are now, after all.

I don't think so. I think the stuff we're seeing in Cursed City is going to be the trappings of the Gravelords. Maybe I'm hyper-focusing on that name too much, but the Zombies are clearly GW's OCDonutSteal take on them, so it stands to reason they'd become the 'norm' going forward in the same way Ossiarchs probably will be for 'Deathrattle'. The one gravekeeper model looks to be digging up another of them (with the gnarled roots both the shadowed picture, the trailer and that model has) and Grave-Lords certainly sounds more like the Soulblight themselves are the commanding figures.

Hm, good point. Though if that does end up being the case it will still be possible to run a straight vampire army, almost certainly with more effectiveness than right now.

The problem Orks had in AoS was when they were fragmented it wasn't just that they shared similar body shapes, it was that each force was basically using the same tricks. Orks with choppas; orks in armour with choppas; orks on boars; orks on boars etc...

They were basically like Primaris and Space Marines are now in piggy backing the very same roster construction; only orks did it 3 times over.

It was a mish-mash and honestly I'd welcome orks without and orks with armour as separate concepts; so long as they had more differences than just that within their system. If one had shaman and the other had blood warlocks or such etc...

That said Destruction Orruks need a lot of attention from GW. Ogors got some and got rebuilt into their old army; Gloomspite got a lot of attention evne if they lost the wolfside of the army. Orruks were a rescue battletome like Cities of Sigmar.

Orruks were a rescue battletome like Cities of Sigmar.

Definitely. AoS still has a lot of 'rescues'

And the new stuff tends to be really hit or miss.
While I don't personally like Ossiarchs or fish elves, at least they look like there was a unifying vision behind them.

I think some of the "miss" is that armies like Ossiarchs are very small in model range. There aren't many actual "choices" within them and many are just "spam this model and this model" to get to a full army. It's nothing like the variety of choices for say Skaven, Stormcast etc...

That said I think its more just that those armies need time in the wild to build up a fanbase and also to have room for more releases. Just look how many were all "I don't like Lumineth" and are now starting to look at them with fresh eyes with the recent previews that have been put on show. A big second wave that allows more design elements to rise to the fore makes a huge difference.

I'm betting that the same will happen to Slaanesh as well this year with the big mortals update.



Heck 40K side I wasn't all that interested in Genestealer cults because they were basically a few slap-dash mining vehicles repurposed for war alongside an Imperial Guard army with tanks and such. When the second wave hit and they got more troops, more vehicles and the IG element was toned down, suddenly they became a much more unified and complete and diverse army.


I'm sure we'll see armies like Ossiarchs, Idoneth and such grow in popularity as GW gets time to make additions to their armies.

Well if going by model count Ossiarchs had a decent chunk of units to toy around compared to Lumineth. But again I could see somethings they would want (like some form of shooting units).

And now I am wondering if (big if) I would go for Lumineth, would I spend time on converting the upcoming Treerunner on horses if I ever go for all mounted force.

 Kanluwen wrote:
Right, we don't want a mishmash of themes what with High Elves having been such a coherent concept of:
-Dragon motif Elves(Caledor)
-Monastic Elves(Swordmasters of Hoeth)
-Silent guardian Elves(Phoenix Guard)
-Angry not-Dark Elves(Shadow Warriors)
-Chariot Elves(Tiranoc)
-Horse archer Elves(Ellyrion)
-Lion Elves
-Sea Elves(Lothern)
-Amazonian Elves(Everqueen)
-"Generic" Elves(Silver Helms, Archers, and Spearmen)


It strikes me as strange that people do not seem to remember that out of everything in the High Elves book even preceding the introduction of the Lion Chariots, Loremasters, Phoenix Mounts and Skycutters...High Elves were far from just knights and stuff. We had battlemages, we had weird totemic warriors, we had oathsworn guardians and more.

Cool. They (a lot of AOS models/Factions) still look like someone was reading the latest issue of Captain Marvel, while the newest episode of Naruto was on in the background as they casually browsed the Avatar subtreddit. I guess I would say I'm looking for something closer to Tolkien than Phantasy Star Online.

If you haven't noticed by now that AoS is *not* "closer to Tolkien" in design, then uh...I don't know what to say. But it's not, and complaining that it's not when it's never been seems kind of counterproductive?

Voss wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
And thank you for making my point for me, Voss.

The Aelementari Temples have "signature pieces". The signature though is that they're Teclian Nation pieces. The Teclian school of thought tends to have artisans, so is it really a shocker that their wargear(which incidentally is supposed to actually be crafted by the temples themselves not mass produced) would look different than the standing armies of the Vanari, who are both Teclian and Tyrionic?

And really, the constant "but whut about horses!!!" and whatnot is tiresome at this point. Read the lore. The army book was packed full of stuff. The Dawn Riders use horses as they can train horses and the horses are from the central continent of Hysh, where they're bred by not just the Elves there but also the humans who dwell there too. The Treerunners that the new Windchargers are on? Dollars to donuts it's going to be fluffed as similar to the Gryph-Chargers for Stormcast or the Cold Ones of Dark Elves or Dragons or whatever--a mount choosing its rider.

Also as a final note, we've seen one Tyrionic item at this point. The Lord-Regent. We still have no idea where that aesthetic might lead to. We don't know what kind of crazy warbeasts might show up there either.

Unsurprisingly, you've lost me.
I didn't make your point. The high elves had a distinct theme, with add ons that didn't disrupt the unifying aesthetic of the army.
The cosplay elves have themes scattered across half-a-dozen cultures and several animated shows. Unlike the high elves, they look like a mish-mash of 7-8 different armies, not a unified one. And _most_ of them look like gag armies, not something to take seriously. Apart from the first couple kits, nothing looks 'elf' or even 'warhammer.'

No idea what your horse thing is even about.

---
@tneva82-
I can't tell if you're agreeing with me or not. Savage orcs are very distinct from the AoS iron..mongerers? They look different and play differently. Same as Wood elves had a distinct look from high elves (but not, unfortunately, distinct units). Lumenith are just... random things without rhyme or reason. They look like they got sculpted and just... shoved out the door without thought. 'Why not one army?'

I think it's worse than that.

The Lumineth just feel like a bunch of people in a room all did their own thing and then management said "sounds good, when can we start shipping?" The Spearmen and Bowmen look incredible and the Horse Calvary really look great. But then there is a piece of animated armor, mountain cows with mario style mallets (would you like a big one, or two medium ones?) A kitsune Naruto archer, a fairly normal looking battlemage on a mount, a weird Zen monk on an upside down floating rock, outback kangaroo riders with more bows, elves in Kimonos with more large Mario mallets.

It just doesn't make me think of elves. It make literally makes me think of bad fanfiction some 16 year old dreamed up while reading LoTR and watching Anime.

So far, the Vampires are killing it and if they're going to get a unified army, then I'm finally ready to play this game. If they end up with Zombies that carry huge coffins with ballistae in them and half-wearbat cosplayers using lightsabers, count me out.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

Cronch wrote:
If you haven't noticed by now that AoS is *not* "closer to Tolkien" in design, then uh...I don't know what to say. But it's not, and complaining that it's not when it's never been seems kind of counterproductive?

I understand that it's not. I'm saying that's what I want it to be.

Right now, the Vamps are leaning in that direction, which for me personally as a singular person, is a good thing and might entice me to part with some cash.

If you don't like it, just say you don't like it and then stop posting about it. Because frankly? You crapping all over it constantly just makes you look petty.

 Kanluwen wrote:
If you don't like it, just say you don't like it and then stop posting about it. Because frankly? You crapping all over it constantly just makes you look petty.

If you don't agree with my opinion, just say so and stop posting about it. Because frankly? You crapping all over it just makes you look petty.

Yeah first lumineth units were great. But each new ones are getting worse and worse. Now, it's just a total mess of a faction

I don’t have an issue with a few different themes within an elf army, that’s always been the way for elves in Warhammer. To me it’s staying true to how they were. They’re just using creatures that are common to the Sigmar setting instead of the old world, which seems fine to me. Sigmar has always been about unique, uncommon weirdness.

I just want them to show off the silhouetted models sooner rather than later plez!

Never mind. I'll just throw 'em on ignore.

Anyways:
New Lumineth are fantastic. Can't wait for them. I'm glad we're actually getting to see more fauna from the Mortal Realms.

 streetsamurai wrote:
Yeah first lumineth units were great. But each new ones are getting worse and worse. Now, it's just a total mess of a faction

What a weird opinion. They fit into their temple descriptions perfectly.