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So it kinda seems like it shaping out sort of like I had imagined. Each Chaos god is going to be pitted against one of the factions.

Kislev vs Khorne
Cathay vs Tzeentch
Ogre Kingdoms vs Nurgle or Slaanesh
Chaos Dwarfs vs Nurgle or Slaanesh

I mean I know we haven't gotten confirmation about Chaos Dwarfs at least but it seems like that's what its building up to be.

That was a very cool trailer. I wonder how much of Cathay and the ideas of the army existed before now. Its interesting to see Elven styles within the army design as well as stuff which the Skaven would happily count among their armies as well. Looks set to be an awesome game.

 Commodus Leitdorf wrote:
Kislev vs Khorne
Cathay vs Tzeentch
Ogre Kingdoms vs Nurgle or Slaanesh
Chaos Dwarfs vs Nurgle or Slaanesh

Not enough slots for that in base game.

It's 5 Chaos Legendary Lords (one for each Chaos God, and then everyone assumes Be'lakor), 2 for Cathay, 2 for Kislev and then likely two for the pre-order race (99% Ogre Kingdoms). Chaos Dwarfs won't be part of this at launch.

Cathay is basically exactly what I think everyone expected, which somehow makes it kinda boring IMO.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Commodus Leitdorf wrote:
Kislev vs Khorne
Cathay vs Tzeentch
Ogre Kingdoms vs Nurgle or Slaanesh
Chaos Dwarfs vs Nurgle or Slaanesh

Not enough slots for that in base game.

It's 5 Chaos Legendary Lords (one for each Chaos God, and then everyone assumes Be'lakor), 2 for Cathay, 2 for Kislev and then likely two for the pre-order race (99% Ogre Kingdoms). Chaos Dwarfs won't be part of this at launch.

8 base factions seems like a fine way to start. I dont think it will be based on the Legendary Lords, but the factions. And yes, one will be a pre-order race (ugg, how I hate that). But they will all be in the base game when launched.

Whether or not they will be playable is a different matter.

chaos0xomega wrote:
Cathay is basically exactly what I think everyone expected, which somehow makes it kinda boring IMO.

I didn't expect them to have dragons ripped straight out of WoW or silly flying lamps, but the revealed units are very much in-line with modern GW.

 Commodus Leitdorf wrote:
So it kinda seems like it shaping out sort of like I had imagined. Each Chaos god is going to be pitted against one of the factions.

Kislev vs Khorne
Cathay vs Tzeentch
Ogre Kingdoms vs Nurgle or Slaanesh
Chaos Dwarfs vs Nurgle or Slaanesh

I mean I know we haven't gotten confirmation about Chaos Dwarfs at least but it seems like that's what its building up to be.

Nope. That's not how CA does things.
Next/Last base game trailer will be Nurgle/Slaanesh.

Ogres (or whoever the preorder race is, on the really unlikely off chance it isn't ogres) will have their own solo trailer. Chaos Dwarfs (in the likely case that they aren't the pre-order race) will likely have filler enemies in their spots on the map, same way Tomb Kings did for TW2.

---

Trailer was... fine. I look forward to Final Fantasy Total War in the future.

trexmeyer wrote:I didn't expect them to have dragons ripped straight out of WoW or silly flying lamps, but the revealed units are very much in-line with modern GW.

Eh. That's been the stock 'Asian Dragon' (though usually called something else) since the AD&D days.

chaso0xomega wrote:Cathay is basically exactly what I think everyone expected, which somehow makes it kinda boring IMO.

Yeah. I think I expected crossbows more than the grenade launchers, and didn't expect actual wings on the Kirin air cavalry, but that's about it. Even the floating mountains are a bit of cliche at this point.

I honestly think they played it overly safe. The air cav might as well be the models for the dark elf regiment of renown (flying dark riders), and the bull pulled cannons look like a reskin of the Kislev bear cannon.
A lot of the rest seem like reused Three Kingdom assets.

So... the Celestial Dragon Emperor predating the Old Ones. Thats... quite the retcon. But then I remember the Jack Yeovil novels, and a Cathayan Tzeentchian agent that painted an already chaos-corrupted Empire of Cathay.

No, I mean dragons that turn into humans.

 trexmeyer wrote:
No, I mean dragons that turn into humans.

Yeah? That's an even older AD&D staple (creepy side-show romance in Dragonlance for one thing), that has older roots non-D&D roots, iirc (Lots of chinese and japanese myths about dragons are about people or animals becoming dragons, at least the western version of those stories are).
It would honestly be weirder (and refreshing, IMO) if they didn't.

Voss wrote:
Yeah. I think I expected crossbows more than the grenade launchers...

They have both.

Voss wrote:
So... the Celestial Dragon Emperor predating the Old Ones. Thats... quite the retcon.

Is it? There are tons of things in Warhammer that pre-date the Old Ones.

Voss wrote:

Yeah. I think I expected crossbows more than the grenade launchers

They're hand cannons. And the Chinese really did use them, starting in the thirteenth or possibly fourteenth centuries. I expect that we'll see crossbowmen as well, though, and hand cannons will just be another missile weapon option - albeit one better suited to knocking down the really big nasties that frequently turn up in Chaos armies.

No, I mean dragons that turn into humans.

This is normal in Chinese mythology. For example, in the famous Chinese novel 'The Journey to the West', one of the dragon kings disguises himself as a human scholar in order to test a local fortune-teller. One of his sons spends most of the novel shape-shifted into a horse to serve as a mount for the monk who is making the titular journey. There's nothing unusual about dragons in Chinese stories shape-shifting to pass as humans or other creatures.

Nor are dragons the only creatures that do so. Chinese beliefs about fox spirits (Huli Jing, or Kyubi) are very similar to those of the Japanese (Kitsune). The Koreans also have similar legends (Kumiho), except that their fox spirits are *always* malevolent. 'The Legend of the White Snake' is an old story about an actual snake that attains human intelligence, changes her shape into a human woman, and falls in love with a human healer. And there are more.

What is unusual is the idea of a dragon personally ruling over the humans, as appears to be the case here. The historical emperors were metaphorically linked to dragons, but there was no claim that they were actually dragons. Dragons ruled their own domains, and served the Jade Emperor, who ruled the heavens.

chaos0xomega wrote:Cathay is basically exactly what I think everyone expected, which somehow makes it kinda boring IMO.

Yeah when I order food from a nice restaurant and it turns out exactly as I expected that is just the worst. Hate that. Would much prefer random ingredients and hair in my food instead.

trexmeyer wrote:No, I mean dragons that turn into humans.

Most dragon folklore from across the world revolves around dragons shapeshifting. It's one of the biggest things about about them?

I don't know how other creatures come into, but if it that aspect of dragons stems from Chinese mythology, then I stand corrected.

 Olthannon wrote:
Most dragon folklore from across the world revolves around dragons shapeshifting. It's one of the biggest things about about them?

Western dragons don't. They act pretty much exclusively as greedy, intelligent, forces of destruction. They exist to cause problems that are surmounted when the hero defeats them.

Asian dragons, on the other hand, are very much the opposite, and are part of the celestial order.

The only western story (excluding WoW) that I can think of that involves a dragon shapechanging is Eustace being turned into on in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

 trexmeyer wrote:
The only western story (excluding WoW) that I can think of that involves a dragon shapechanging is Eustace being turned into on in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

Dragons in D+D do it ALOT. The novels are full of Silver Dragon ladies falling in lover with their...Riders....

 Mr Morden wrote:

 trexmeyer wrote:
The only western story (excluding WoW) that I can think of that involves a dragon shapechanging is Eustace being turned into on in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

Dragons in D+D do it ALOT. The novels are full of Silver Dragon ladies falling in lover with their...Riders....

I only know Neverwinter and Ravenloft. Which setting is that occurring in? Dragonlance?

Edit: Is it Neverwinter or Forgotten Realms?

Then you're both ignoring examples:
Dragonlance- Silvara the Silver Dragon, circa 1985 (introduded in Dragons of Winter Night). She refers to a vague 'sister' who was in love with a legendary hero (Huma) in much the same way.

Gold and Silver dragons in D&D have had shapeshifting as a basic listed ability since at least 2nd edition (1989 Monstrous Compendium), if not earlier (so regardless of setting, just a universal trait of dragons). Other dragons can simply learn polymorph and do it anyway.

3rd edition even had the fetish for half dragons and dragonblooded sorcerers (how'd you think that happens?)

Pathfinder has at least one green dragon that bops in and out in Queen of Thorns (though obviously that's D&D derived)

Slayers anime has shapeshifted dragons in a D&D-esque land (though obviously that straddles an eastern/western divide for all that its very clearly based on western RPGs)

I could dig for more, but... why bother?
Western dragons as shapeshifters has been part of the genre for nearly 40 years now.

I can't ignore something I don't know. That's an unknown unknown.

Julie Kagawa has a whole series about shapeshifting Dragons.

 trexmeyer wrote:
I can't ignore something I don't know. That's an unknown unknown.

You can when you repeatedly get told it exists, rather than insist you don't know and just auto-repeat 'Simpsons did it!'

Also in the list-
random guy protecting the dragon eggs in the Witcher (novels or Witcher 3)

Obviously Maleficent in the original Disney version of Sleeping Beauty.

Here's some more
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Weredragon
for western non-D&D, this includes both Dreseden Files and Earthsea (which makes it a contender for one of the classic western fantasy takes on the concept)

Voss wrote:

 trexmeyer wrote:
I can't ignore something I don't know. That's an unknown unknown.

You can when you repeatedly get told it exists, rather than insist you don't know and just auto-repeat 'Simpsons did it!'

Also in the list-
random guy protecting the dragon eggs in the Witcher (novels or Witcher 3)

Obviously Maleficent in the original Disney version of Sleeping Beauty.

Why are you so bloody combatitive over this? What exactly is wrong with you?

I said it was like WoW. I was corrected concerning Chinese Mythology. I admitted to being corrected. Then we ventured into strictly western works and I said the only one I knew of was X. Then D&D was brought up. I didn't know where it occurred and asked which setting it occurred in.

Where did I deny it multiple times?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Here, I quoted myself just for you.

trexmeyer wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:
Cathay is basically exactly what I think everyone expected, which somehow makes it kinda boring IMO.

I didn't expect them to have dragons ripped straight out of WoW or silly flying lamps, but the revealed units are very much in-line with modern GW.

trexmeyer wrote:I don't know how other creatures come into, but if it that aspect of dragons stems from Chinese mythology, then I stand corrected.

trexmeyer wrote:The only western story (excluding WoW) that I can think of that involves a dragon shapechanging is Eustace being turned into on in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

trexmeyer wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:

 trexmeyer wrote:
The only western story (excluding WoW) that I can think of that involves a dragon shapechanging is Eustace being turned into on in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

Dragons in D+D do it ALOT. The novels are full of Silver Dragon ladies falling in lover with their...Riders....

I only know Neverwinter and Ravenloft. Which setting is that occurring in? Dragonlance?

Edit: Is it Neverwinter or Forgotten Realms?

I guess I need to repeat/clarify what I posted above.

Dragons in Chinese myths and legends shapeshift.

Dragons in Western myths and legends do not.

Every single reference listed above to a western dragon shapeshifting is a contemporary story, and not something tied to a classical myth or story.

Also, just to throw it out there, the original AD&D gold dragon was based off of the Chinese version of the creature, based on the artwork found in the 1st Edition Monster Manual. Presumably that's where the writers got the idea of dragons shape-shifting into humans.


Famous appearances of dragons in historical western culture include -

Beowulf (fought in the third part of the epic)
The Tarasque (supposedly tamed by St. Martha - the one from the Bible - and then killed by peasants in a nearby village when she took the tarasque there to show that it was no longer a threat)
St. George's famous opponent (the only old story I'm aware of that involves the classic trope of the hero rescuing a princess from being sacrificed to a dragon)
The Revelation of St. John the Divine - Satan is repeatedly referred to as a (presumably metaphorical) dragon.
Fafnir - A dwarf cursed into becoming a dragon in the Volsung Cycle
Midgard Serpent - One of Loki's sons; a great dragon that encircles the world, and that will kill Odin and Thor (and be killed by the latter) during Ragnarok
Nidhog - A wyrm that lives at the base of the World Tree in Norse mythology, and gnaws its roots

And if you want to include sea serpents -

Perseus famously rescued Andromeda from being sacrificed to a sea serpent while returning home after killing Medusa (which makes this a second "save the princess from the dragon" story, again if you include sea serpents).


Of the bunch listed above, the only shape shifting involved is Fafnir. And in his case, it's an involuntary curse.

For those who know, how do dragons feature in Japanese mythology? I'm just wondering how they could be worked into Nippon (which, weirdly, has a real chance of being added to the game).

Eumerin wrote:

 Olthannon wrote:
Most dragon folklore from across the world revolves around dragons shapeshifting. It's one of the biggest things about about them?

Western dragons don't. They act pretty much exclusively as greedy, intelligent, forces of destruction. They exist to cause problems that are surmounted when the hero defeats them.

Asian dragons, on the other hand, are very much the opposite, and are part of the celestial order.

Not entirely the case, dragons in slavic culture shift in human or draconic forms.

Japanese and Chinese dragon mythology intertwines. Historically, Japanese dragon myth comes from China, Korea and India. So entirely possible to have some in Nippon.

 Olthannon wrote:


Japanese and Chinese dragon mythology intertwines. Historically, Japanese dragon myth comes from China, Korea and India. So entirely possible to have some in Nippon.

More accurately, China was the lone "super power" in its part of the world, and as a result the surrounding settled cultures such as Korea and Japan were heavily influenced by Chinese styles and customs. China itself picked up some influence from India due to the introduction of and influence from Buddhism, and that also flowed out to the surrounding settled cultures. The elite in surrounding nations sent their children to China to be educated, and those children brought back Chinese ways when they returned home.

Off the top of my head, I'm not familiar with any Japanese stories involving dragons. They also don't seem to be as prominent in Japanese art as they are in China. But dragons have been important enough in Japan that a couple of very famous and important warships (they were the first purpose-built fleet carriers anywhere in the world) - Soryu and Hiryu - were given names incorporating the Japanese word for dragon.

 Olthannon wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:Cathay is basically exactly what I think everyone expected, which somehow makes it kinda boring IMO.

Yeah when I order food from a nice restaurant and it turns out exactly as I expected that is just the worst. Hate that. Would much prefer random ingredients and hair in my food instead.

An Intellectually dishonest hot take if there ever was one. The proper analogy here would be "I order food from a nice restaurant and it turns out to be the same as what I can get at any local hole in the wall for half the price."

I expected there to be some unique spin on Cathay that might distinguish it from the at this point stereotypical depictions of fantasy China.

chaos0xomega wrote:

 Olthannon wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:Cathay is basically exactly what I think everyone expected, which somehow makes it kinda boring IMO.

Yeah when I order food from a nice restaurant and it turns out exactly as I expected that is just the worst. Hate that. Would much prefer random ingredients and hair in my food instead.

An Intellectually dishonest hot take if there ever was one. The proper analogy here would be "I order food from a nice restaurant and it turns out to be the same as what I can get at any local hole in the wall for half the price."

I expected there to be some unique spin on Cathay that might distinguish it from the at this point stereotypical depictions of fantasy China.

Except that almost all of Old World is built upon the 80-90s era of fantasy inspirations. It's very foundation is basically a dark gothic take on fantasy tropes and themes. Cathay is built upon that foundation so of course its going to be similar to established tropes and themes of their setting. It's just 20-30 years late in actually arriving to the setting outside of small tid bits in lore.

It's an old lore and old setting so its going to be old style in what you get rather than being fully "progressive".



It's like going to an Old English Pub and getting solid "Pub Grub". You know what you're getting into from the outside and whilst it might not be winning any originality awards in some fancy London setting, its doing a solid good job of giving you a satisfying meal.

chaos0xomega wrote:


I expected there to be some unique spin on Cathay that might distinguish it from the at this point stereotypical depictions of fantasy China.

WHFB is built on archetypes.
French/Arthurian Bretonnia
Holy Roman Empire, Empire
Araby
etc

Cathay and Nippon should be as it is a romanticised fantasy China and Japan.

The real question, imo, is what exactly did chaosxomega expect? It's fantasy China. It needs to look like fantasy China, and it does. It sounds as if chaosxomega was expecting something that didn't look anything like China, except for the visual ethnicity of the troops.