Of Stormcasts and Space Marines

[Killax]

2 hours ago, xking said:

Will the Hammers of Sigmar are the first stormhost to be assembled. They are the Stormcast ultramarines and there always other Stormhost. see

http://whfb.lexicanum.com/wiki/Stormhost

I know but whats the point of making other strikings if GW never really promotes them? Now my guess is that it will come.

I think some Empire elements still are cool, especially the Collegiate Arcane and Devoted of Sigmar.

For the Free Guilds/People I really think Id prefer a duelist/navy like design over the more historical German designs. Aspects are allready in it but what would make a fleet more interesting is that it resembles more of Imperial Guard this way. 

Long coats, pistol and rapier would be something Id fore for if we could. It would then also stop Empire from basically "being lvl 1 and Stormcast being lvl 100".

 

[Killax]

7 minutes ago, xking said:

They  promotes them in books and art. 

Not nearly as much as they do promote Blood Angels, Space Wolves, Dark Angels etc. Id like to see more.

Plus the artwork isnt whats clearly displayed in stores or the website. The golden models are.

Imagne for a second that all space marines would suddenly be painted in Ultra Marine style, would have made them a lot more boring as a faction too. Now they arn't because visually they are red, blue, green, grey, yellow etc. models.

Visual diversification is what creates a point of interest. Most players for example arnt drawn to Chaos Undivided but Khorne, Nurgle, Tzeentch or Slaanesh. 

I believe Stormcast would become a bigger succes if theyd continue to promote them as Celestial Warbringers, Knights Exelsior, Tempest Lords next to the Hammers of Sigmar. The moment GW would do that the first step of additional character would be added to the first impression of the line.

Youd be suprised how much visual design differences as simple as colour attract different kinds of people.

[Mikester1487]

1 hour ago, xking said:

I think down the line they are going to give the individual stormhost there own battletomes. Thats when we will see them promote the other stormhost more. 

I kind of hope they don't do that.  There's a lot of angst about stormcast releases in general.  If they do get their own battle tomes I'd prefer they do it at a much later time after more armies have been released.

[Tailessine]

At least stormcast are very common in the background, numbering so many that Sigmar alone knows their true strength, and they more or less single handedly turned the tide in the realms and are active in them all. Contrast to space marines, where the fluff states there are only one million across the entire galaxy and so should really not be of any importance. 

[Elmir]

As a 40k player, it gets really annoying to have to try coming up (narrative wise) with new ways to explain all the intra Imperium fighting time after time again... AoS isn't just going in the same direct with order, it's sprinting in that direction. 

GW are doing their survey right now, but I do wonder how many people filled in the "release of a new army" as a reason to buy new models.  If that's a common attitude, the constant release of Space marines/Stormcasts leading to  them being the most popular would be circular logic at it's finest. 

[Uveron]

1 minute ago, Elmir said:

As a 40k player, it gets really annoying to have to try coming up (narrative wise) with new ways to explain all the intra Imperium fighting time after time again... AoS isn't just going in the same direct with order, it's sprinting in that direction. 
 

I disagree, apart from the stormcasts you read any of the books and quickly you see openings on why internal fights happen.  In that respect AOS is in a much better space than 40K. 

[Elmir]

I'm not saying there isn't a reason for imperial on imperial violence... But so many players play Imperium by  now, that almost half of the games have to start with one guy calling the other a heretic. It's become a meme for a reason. 

Order armies will have their reasons for infighting as well, but it just looks quite silly in a campaign group when half of the armies belong to the same GA... And given the release schedule, it's not really a mystery as to why we got there when you check which armies are completely new in the last 2 years. 

[Uveron]

45 minutes ago, Elmir said:

I'm not saying there isn't a reason for imperial on imperial violence... But so many players play Imperium by  now, that almost half of the games have to start with one guy calling the other a heretic. It's become a meme for a reason. 

In quite a few of the books it is very apparent that there is not peace between the order factions, and its way beyond one calling the other  heretic. There is no single government controlling everyone, clashes over resources, places of power are all easy to cause conflict. In a current campaign I am running  I have twice the number of Order players as the other factions combined. 

I broke the groups up into teams each representing an ideology one half of the order groups are trying to secure the area to build a new kingdom, the other half are about destroying the chaos  influence. Conflict occurs over them when they find locations of power, the one faction wants to secure it and the other group want to destroy it, and unless sigmar himself appears to settle the issue they will fight.  

Now this type of device is possible in 40K but harder..  Thanks to the semi-anarchy of the AOS setting it is easy todo. 

[Elmir]

1 hour ago, Uveron said:

 In a current campaign I am running  I have twice the number of Order players as the other factions combined. 

There you go, that was my point. It'd be nice if GW would try to avoid that for the future with less one sided releases...

[Uveron]

1 minute ago, Elmir said:

There you go, that was my point. It'd be nice if GW would try to avoid that for the future with less one sided releases...

But that has nothing to do with the release schedule, It is a historic problem based on the age of the range.  And you initially said your issue was that it was getting worse!  I dont think that is the case. AND! they are doing well at keeping the idea of war within an alliance possible. If that it is your problem it is the same whining that has hounded Age of Sigmar from the word Go. The order faction is just bigger because of WFB kits. If you look at which Grand Alliance has had more since AOS Dropped the Chaos/Order split is fairly equal.

But to finally put this argument to rest, back to my campaign, which you said supported your agument. I may have more order players than other factions combined, but the armies are this: Order: Seaphone x2, Wanders, High Elves, Overlords and Fireslayers.  Chaos: Khorne Bloodbound x2, Disciples of Tzeentch, Death: Deathrattle, Destruction: Ironjawz x2. 

I count 2 new armies on the order side, and 5 on the other side. The Imbalance predates AOS. 

[Uveron]

Additionally, to run this out to the semi-logical conclusion..  

If you look at the number of Battle tomes Published.  (18 in total) , And compare it to the percent breakdown of the range (569 items in total) 

• 41% of the range belongs to Order. 
• 32% of the range belongs to Chaos.
• 10% of range belongs to Death
• 17% of the range belongs to Destruction. 

But the Battle tome split is: 38% Order, 38% Chaos, 18 Destruction, 6% Death.  and then you compare it to the split of battletomes that have also brought in new models is is: 37% Order, 45% Chaos, 18% Destruction.  Now this does take some liberty's to treat the dreadhold book as a Chaos Battletome, So I could accept the argument that its closer to even. 

What you can say,  and there is no argument to say Death has been forgotten and Destruction as well, but no way is Order getting all the goodies as a good argument can be made that the chaos forces are the more regular product that is brought to market. But its hard to see because of the lead Order had at the time of the 'reforging' 

EDIT: Please note I am a Geologist not a Mathematician, so my numbers should be mostly correct.  

[Elmir]

True, Chaos did get a hefty amount of releases as well. However, GW did play it a lot smarter with chaos.... They consolidated chaos factions per chaos God (although Skaven are still a bit of a mess.)

Meanwhile, they created 2 new (small) Dwarven factions in Order GA. They  made the Sylvaneth a seperate subfaction from the wanderers while I feel they could have kept those together,... Order is being very splintered in the new releases while I feel the game would be slightly better with more consolidation.  I don't exactly call that splintering on order side as "making an already imbalance better". 

BTW, just wondering: did you count SEC as a single battletome in your calculations? Or did you take into account that they got 3 in the span of less than 3 years?

[Uveron]

3 minutes ago, Elmir said:

BTW, just wondering: did you count SEC as a single battletome in your calculations? Or did you take into account that they got 3 in the span of less than 3 years?

Kinda... I counted the SEC book and the SEC EC book. I didn't count the second SEC book, or the Khorne Bloodbound book (As I forgot they existed!) So that pushes the numbers for Death and Destruction down a bit, but keeps the balance between Chaos and Order. 

As for you point about the consolidation of Chaos. I get the feeling that the Overlords book was written before Disciples of Tzeentch.. which was the first book that started to drag the factions together.  I think the Citys Idea in firestorm was an attempt to do the same for order, and it would not shock me to see a Hammerhal battletome within the next year. 

[Thiagoma]

On 27/11/2017 at 12:17 PM, Mr. White said:

1) Every setting needs one, over exposed faction to drive the narrative and provide cohesion and drama.

I strongly disagree with this point.

 

I have been collecting Gws Lizardman for many years but never played the game. My first wargaming experience was Malifaux , and on that game all the factions are balanced in both releases AND lore. You could argue that the Guild is the "main" faction, but in the end of the day, you would have a ton of lore, tales and miniatures for any faction and master you chose, no exceptions.

 

With that context i decided to play AoS and got me a Pestilens Start collecting. I tought it would have the same variety that Lizardman had, but nope.  Only half a dozen models and that is it. 

 

Why? Why with an infinite universe in their hands do they have to tell the story by a single point of view? On the current business structure, me (who do not enjoy Khorne nor Stormcasts) am alienated from most of the releases.

There is no way but to feel a second class consumer. Heck it is even worse if you play Destruction or Death.

 

They argue that Stormcast sells more. Well, it is in the starting box, some people actually like then, and a lot play it because it is the only army 100% sure GW will give suport.  Why play high elves like me where most models can only be purchase on the official website AND are out of print?

 

Why turn this into WH40K where you play SPECHH MERINNZ, or well, wait a decade for a new model?

 

[stratigo]

My problem with Stormcast ar ethat they are the chicken before the egg. GW decided Stormcast should be the stars without having a reason beyond "Well, they're fantasy space marines".

 

Also Stormcast have an oversized impact on AoS even compared to space marines. Space marines at least are themselves varied enough to be interesting to play regardless of other factions. Indeed 30k is built of this premise. Stormcast are not. All stormcast are one army, and they aren't super duper varied.

 

In any case, I'd love to see the sales figures of SM compared to, say, kharadrons.

[Uveron]

4 minutes ago, Thiagoma said:

I strongly disagree with this point.

Why turn this into WH40K where you play SPECHH MERINNZ, or well, wait a decade for a new model?

 

I understand your desire to disagree with this point, but please keep this debate away from 1d4chan style GW hate.  Its just not cool, (I would advise you to read this post). 

Now back to the points of your argument. " I agree if GW was building from a Blank slate they I would say they they have made a bad choice with a business model, But they are not starting from a blank slate,  in your post you referenced high elves.  Yes its a faction that hasn't been supported at all since the reforging.  My Bet its on the way to die off, as the vision for AOS has developed the place for them has become more limited. 

This is specifically true when you consider that Black Library still sells  148 books from the old world, some of which have been published recently and tie into events in AOS.  The Game may be new but the Lore is more than lousily tied.  

 

[AverageBoss]

It would be nice if GW did take a note for other minis companies and at least gave a small splash release for each GA every now and then, between the big army releases.

Say for example, in one month they could release a new elf kit, new zombie or vampire models, an ironjaw shooting unit of some kind, and replace one of the metal skaven kits with plastic. Something small for every GA instead of having to wait for enough stuff to pile up to warrant a whole book of releases for one group.

[Uveron]

12 minutes ago, AverageBoss said:

It would be nice if GW did take a note for other minis companies and at least gave a small splash release for each GA every now and then, between the big army releases.

It would be nice if they had any release for AOS! 

We have had 29 months of Age of Sigmar so far.  27% of the time of this has passed since the last battle tome. 

or to put another way, in the latest third of the history of age of sigmar we have had no new kits, for any faction. 

 

(Edit; presuming you don't count shade spire, which I don't) 

[AverageBoss]

I also don't count SS releases. Their AoS rules seem like a complete afterthought anyways. The Sepulchral Guard might be one of the worst units in AoS for starters.

I also don't count skirmish as a valid AoS release, and think it is one of the laziest supplements I have ever seen GW release for any of its games. Path of Glory was much better, but was also pretty small.

[Uveron]

27 minutes ago, AverageBoss said:

I also don't count SS releases. Their AoS rules seem like a complete afterthought anyways. The Sepulchral Guard might be one of the worst units in AoS for starters.

I also don't count skirmish as a valid AoS release, and think it is one of the laziest supplements I have ever seen GW release for any of its games. Path of Glory was much better, but was also pretty small.

Yep, which puts you back to April for the Blades of Khorne book. 

[Thiagoma]

3 hours ago, Uveron said:

I understand your desire to disagree with this point, but please keep this debate away from 1d4chan style GW hate.  Its just not cool, (I would advise you to read this post). 

 

The OP made a point, i said i disagreed and gave an example of narrative beeing done in another fashion (Malifaux).

 

It is no way a bash post on GW, but i cannot figure why in blazing ****** they do a release schedule the way they do, and questioned the necessity of a "poster boy faction".  I do not find this odd decision on any other company and i really wish GW wouldnt pull this stunt on AoS, but unfortunelly the company decided to do it so.

 

I criticize GW without "bashing it" or hating it, and showed not only my point but the context i came from.

 

 

 

[Mr. White]

8 hours ago, Thiagoma said:

I strongly disagree with this point.

 

I have been collecting Gws Lizardman for many years but never played the game. My first wargaming experience was Malifaux , and on that game all the factions are balanced in both releases AND lore. You could argue that the Guild is the "main" faction, but in the end of the day, you would have a ton of lore, tales and miniatures for any faction and master you chose, no exceptions.

 

With that context i decided to play AoS and got me a Pestilens Start collecting. I tought it would have the same variety that Lizardman had, but nope.  Only half a dozen models and that is it. 

 

Why? Why with an infinite universe in their hands do they have to tell the story by a single point of view? On the current business structure, me (who do not enjoy Khorne nor Stormcasts) am alienated from most of the releases.

There is no way but to feel a second class consumer. Heck it is even worse if you play Destruction or Death.

 

They argue that Stormcast sells more. Well, it is in the starting box, some people actually like then, and a lot play it because it is the only army 100% sure GW will give suport.  Why play high elves like me where most models can only be purchase on the official website AND are out of print?

 

Why turn this into WH40K where you play SPECHH MERINNZ, or well, wait a decade for a new model?

 

Let me make sure I understand the situation...

One can collect, or have collected, Seraphon, Skaven, and High Elves, yet feel alienated? I understand I may think a bit different than most, but it doesn't seem like there's no lack for things to purchase here. There's plenty to buy among three factions. Or....if one just has too much money...buy a fourth!

Regarding Malifaux, I don't know much about it, but isn't that a lower model count skirmish game? Seems easy to roll out a lot of factions if the model count is fewer. Either way this is a bit apples to oranges. When Wyrd Games have the breadth of miniatures that GW does and is at the top of the market based on their current model, then I'll concede that perhaps their way is right. Until that day, I'm still going with having a dominate faction makes a setting easier to peddle to the larger, mainstream market.

And to the idea that some responses have been that it shouldn't be GW dictating the 'main' factions but fans should. Uh...no. This is the sort of entitled mindset that has risen in the current KS era where the consumers think they also should take part in the creation. Let the _artist_ of GW (sculptors, authors, game designers, etc) create the art and vision and let us decide if we want it or not. Not only should consumers not be able to dictate art, but non-paid consumers also don't have the time or resource to really, truly vet their ideas. Not to say every published game and setting is water proof, so consumers should feel free to house-rule to their hearts content (I sure do), but we should have a tempered voice at the create-to-publish table.

At the end of the day, I'm not saying that the Stormcasts (or Space Marines) are the best, only they should be produced, or that other factions should be ignored, but I stand by the argument that to stay as a top of mind game GW needs easily recognizable factions and marketable that are new player friendly. Naturally, these factions need to be easy to get into and almost always a part of the narrative. It's just the way it is.

Make peace with it my brothers.

[Thiagoma]

Greetings!

 

Let me go point by point on your quote :

10 minutes ago, Mr. White said:

You  collect, or have collected, Seraphon, Skaven, and High Elves, yet feel alienated? I understand I may think a bit different than most, but it doesn't seem like you have a lack for things to purchase. There's plenty to buy among three factions. Or....if you just have too much money...buy a fourth!

I have been painting miniatures for about 20 years. From Gw all i had was Lizardman because well... Dinossaurs, why not?

When i decided to actually play the game, i bought Clan Pestilens and my wife a Sylvaneth Box. So far so good, we didnt know any rules past what was in the 4 page booklet. So no army building or any other shenennigans. Once we decided to expand we got her the excelent Battleforce released last year, and for me...

 

Well ... there is like 6 units for Skaven Pestilens... 

My wife gave me the Spire of Dawn boxed set and the Skaven got an even worse mess.  Now i had every single clan mixed up and it sort of bummed out on the fluff of it. Got kinda frustrated, specially after painting all my Pestilens guys  and gave up after painting about half the Spire Skaven crew.

 

Long time passed, I decided to buy Shadespire and gave up because i cant stand both factions, and i cant simply buy the ones i want and play, so i turned my attention to the Spire of Dawn High Elves.  After painting a couple pieces i decide to check it out what i needed to build a SwiftHawk agents army. 

Well ******, the box GW sold me a Year ago contains a faction that has no suport whatsoever, have key pieces only sold on that specific (and sold out) box. Diferent units and heroes you can fit on it are sold only on GW website and are out of Stock (for 2 months now and counting). Good luck getting a SkyWarden on ebay...

Also the Allegiance vanished from the Warscroll Builder. Yaaay...

 

In the meantime there were about what? 4 starter sets with Stormcasts plus Shadespire?  Why not put Sylvaneth on the Nurgle one? There is about of lore about those two, and the Sylvaneth is a brand new faction. You keep adding the same faction on the starters over and over people will collect that because it is cheaper, diverse and easily avaiable.

Create more Stormcast and you will sell more Stormcast. Same goes for Space Marines. How many people will risk buying High Elf nowadays without avaiability and risking discontinuation on models.

 

36 minutes ago, Mr. White said:

Regarding Malifaux, I don't know much about it, but isn't that a lower model count skirmish game? Seems easy to roll out a lot of factions if the model count is fewer. Either way this is a bit apples to oranges. When Wyrd Games have the breadth of miniatures that GW does and is at the top of the market based on their current model, then I'll concede that perhaps their way is right. Until that day, I'm still going with having a dominate faction makes a setting easier to peddle to the larger, mainstream market.

Well there is no other wargame miniature with IPs and history, so we got no one to compare it with.

I used the example of Malifaux simply to show that the Story can be told by multiple points of view at the same time., and that was your initial point.

On 27/11/2017 at 12:17 PM, Mr. White said:

1) Every setting needs one, over exposed faction to drive the narrative and provide cohesion and drama.

As wyrd have showed, no you dont.  Their narrative is always moving foward and you keep seeing the plot tru the vision of several diferent factions and masters. It is so good i keep buying the books to read about it even when after i stoped playing (lack of players in my region mind you).

 

Wyrd may not be the biggest company but think about it. In few years they went from metalic miniatures to a couple hundred top quality plastic ones. It tells me they are doing something right.

1 hour ago, Mr. White said:

And to the idea that some response have been that it shouldn't be GW dictating the 'main' factions but fans should. Uh...no. This is the sort of entitled mindset that has risen in the current KS era where the consumers think they also should take part in the creation. Let the _artist_ of GW (sculptors, authors, game designers, etc) create the art and vision and let us decide if we want it or not. Not only should consumers not be able to dictate art, but non-paid consumers also don't have the time or resource to really, truly vet their ideas. Not to say every published game and setting is water proof, so consumers should feel free to house-rule to their hearts content (I sure do), but we should have a tempered voice at the create-to-publish table.

I bought Spire of Dawn a year ago, and as i said, one year later it was pretty much invalidated. So i kinda voted with my money and was let down, dont you agree?

 

 

My conclusion:  I Have no problem with Space Marines or Sigmarines, or the people that play and collect then, but i do belive their superexposition impovirsh both games as a whole.  40k has the whole issue of Imperium X Imperium fights on most tables because well, that is what people have, and AoS apears on a smaller degree to be going on the same way.

Wouldnt it be cool to see the Seraphon lore and where\how is their existance? Or the life of the Wanderers once Allariel turned away from then?

Think about it: The starter box with Stormcast X Nurgle added little to nothing on SE lore. Now replace it with Sylvaneth and add a new Wanderer hero and an existing Wanderer unit X Nurgle and a new Skaven Pestilens hero+ plague monk ally unit.

Make this hero be an ambassador with information about a new plague to wreck the Sylvaneth. Make this the first step on reconciliation on both races. BAAMM you created new lore and new players for four factions with only 2 new models (plus the Nurgle gardner guy).

 

 

 

 

 

[AverageBoss]

Yep, Wyrd has been pretty successful all things considered. When they moved to plastic they made the (insane) decision to resculpt their entire line from scratch in roughly 2 1/2, releasing new stuff throughout that time. They are doing well enough that they are launching their 2nd minis game next year, which will be more on a platoon scale ala warmachine.

Speaking of which Warmachine is another successful game (until some very bad decisions with the new edition), that has no main faction, and sprinkles out releases between everyone. Infinity is another one. And there are many more.

GW is at the top, largely because they were the first to make it to the top years before their competition existed. They have an engine going that is largely perpetual at this point. GW games are the most popular, so new players are more likely to be introduced to a GW game before anything else. Similarly, picking a faction to get more support and lore than any other perpetuates an interest in that faction over any other. People are more likely to play a faction that gets more support and exposure. I remember when Dark Eldar went almost a decade without an update. Nobody played them, and people justified their lack of an update with "nobody plays them, so who cares?" When they eventually did get their model line updated, it was one of GWs all time best releases at the time.

[Thiagoma]

2 hours ago, AverageBoss said:

Yep, Wyrd has been pretty successful all things considered. When they moved to plastic they made the (insane) decision to resculpt their entire line from scratch in roughly 2 1/2, releasing new stuff throughout that time. They are doing well enough that they are launching their 2nd minis game next year, which will be more on a platoon scale ala warmachine.

Speaking of which Warmachine is another successful game (until some very bad decisions with the new edition), that has no main faction, and sprinkles out releases between everyone. Infinity is another one. And there are many more.

GW is at the top, largely because they were the first to make it to the top years before their competition existed. They have an engine going that is largely perpetual at this point. GW games are the most popular, so new players are more likely to be introduced to a GW game before anything else. Similarly, picking a faction to get more support and lore than any other perpetuates an interest in that faction over any other. People are more likely to play a faction that gets more support and exposure. I remember when Dark Eldar went almost a decade without an update. Nobody played them, and people justified their lack of an update with "nobody plays them, so who cares?" When they eventually did get their model line updated, it was one of GWs all time best releases at the time.

My point exactly!