New Aelves

[Ollie Grimwood]

21 minutes ago, stratigo said:

 

Except all the gods all act the same as they did before. They are all motivated by the same things. They are all the same people.

Malkieth/Malerion certainly isn’t he achieved his World that Was motivation of becoming the true Pheonix king what he wants now remains to be seen. The reverse is true for Tyrion and Teclis in that they totally failed in their tasks of protecting Ulthan and stopping the End Times. We know very little what they want now. The Twins have definitely gained loftier goals seeing as they’ve taken to fightin the Chaos Gods in person.  

 

[Beardbattered]

I don't remember this image being confirmed yet.  Morathi belly?

[darkspear]

 

My suspicion is that Malekith/Malerion will be part of the shadowblades faction.  The shadowblades are the only faction that was mentioned in the AoS fluff (see GA: Order) to serve Malekith directly.

 

[someone2040]

3 hours ago, Beardbattered said:

I don't remember this image being confirmed yet.  Morathi belly?

Yeah I'm thinking it could be related to this release.

Certainly feels like it could be the belly of some kinda snake-form Morathi.

[Envyus]

4 hours ago, Ollie Grimwood said:

Malkieth/Malerion certainly isn’t he achieved his World that Was motivation of becoming the true Pheonix king what he wants now remains to be seen. The reverse is true for Tyrion and Teclis in that they totally failed in their tasks of protecting Ulthan and stopping the End Times. We know very little what they want now. The Twins have definitely gained loftier goals seeing as they’ve taken to fightin the Chaos Gods in person.  

 

Tyrion and Malekith are still stated to hate each other. But put aside their diffrences to help originally build the world up and trap Slaanesh before Malekith abandoned them all. With him being stated as killing anything that enters into his Realm, Chaos having yet to get a foothold there. Likely he is plotting something. 

[Killax]

5 hours ago, stratigo said:

 

Except all the gods all act the same as they did before. They are all motivated by the same things. They are all the same people.

Not completely in most cases. As before, the easiest way to see it is that AoS is a WFB rebooted. Models from WFB also appear in AoS.
However most characters most certainly changed. Some for good, some for worse. To me it's quite clear Sigmar changed massively and so did Archaon. The powers and objectives they had in WFB arn't even close to what they have now. For sure in really broad strokes you can still compair them but their motivations are really different if you look into the details.

Same really with the MP videos and why we can't predict completely where this story is going. It isn't a Storm of Chaos reboot, this isn't Morathi doing the same old same old again. This is still using WFB named characters but using them for whole different purposes. The characters from WFB are the gods now, which is quite the difference.
 

7 hours ago, Elmir said:

I'm not saying it'll happen exactly like that again (let's hope they have learned their lesson) with the next AoS summer campaign however, before  you start assuming that I am... 

Just come back on this line of thought in a couple of months. I think your assumption is incorrect.

[WoollyMammoth]

@AverageBoss
TK was widely unpopular due to them having terrible rules in WHFB. When their rules got much better in AoS, they were rapidly gaining popularity. The plastic kits like Necrosphinx and Necropolis Knights were extremely popular. GW has had to trash them again and again in the rules to try and get rid of them.  I could name at least 6 different people who really wanted to buy them, bought them and made an army, or are trying to buy them now...that's more people than  I could name for most armies (at least that aren't new and shiny).  They could have easily re-branded the plastic kits as deathrattle and continued to sell them. Their cancellation really makes no sense other than they wanted to re-brand them.

I have heard rumors that Settra is coming back, my theory is he will free the people of Shadespire (the Katophranes) and lead the first Death faction which is not loyal to Nagash.  This will be desert people who live forever as skeletons and hold vast riches from an ancient age, but a completely new IP with nothing 'Egyptian' about them. 

Everything you mention has been re-branded to new IPs which don't resemble any classical theme, or simply ignored - yeah there are lingering models from the decades that they were doing High Fantasy, but 100% of the stuff they are promoting, and especially new models, are completely new IPs which don't resemble any classic theme. They are only supporting completely new IP's. If they release new models which look like classic Greek stuff, it would be contradictory to everything else they have done so far. I'm not saying that this stuff wont have any greek theme, I'm just saying that its not going to be like any classical Greek stuff, it will all be new IP's with many themes, unlike anything we have seen before. 

@mhsellwood
"A demigoddes in exile, twisted into the form of her tormentor. I who was once devoured yet slithered from the throat of the dark prince"

So she has been twisted into the form of Slaanesh....that seems pretty clear. Her followers would therefore be worshiping an avatar of Slaanesh. 

Later she goes on to say she helped build the mortal realms, and during this time they show images of elves fighting slaanesh. But this is a time period which is now passed - 

Next she says she has been gorging herself on blood and shadow in order to claim her rightful place in the pantheon (greek for hall of the gods). She has apparently been shunned (for too long) and she is pretty passionate about the fact that she will no longer be denied.

Given that she is now an avatar of Slaanesh, she might be talking about the pantheon of chaos gods. This could easily be a Slaanesh cult betraying Sigmar and worshiping Slaanesh., or more specifically that Mortahi has become the new Slaanesh. She might be the special character in a new Keeper of Secrets kit. 

The only thing that contradicts this is that we see elves fighting slaanesh and we hear her say that she "stood first against the corruption of chaos". But then immediately she talks about feeding on offerings of blood and shadow and starts freaking the hell out so, this is hard to say.

Whatever it is, its interesting as hell. 


 

[WoollyMammoth]

6 hours ago, Envyus said:

Which made no sense as he was the one who pretty much ruined everything for the Elves in the first place.  Even if he was a rightful king, the guys who did not pick him were right for doing so. 

Malekith was the most amazing ruler that the Elves ever had. He was 100% supposed to be the next Phoenix King. His ceremony was poisoned, so that the flames that were supposed to cleanse him burnt his body and soul and left the greatest warrior the elves have ever known as a corrupted shell, filled with hate. This event that was supposed to bring the elves to their greatest height instead fractured them into a civil war that nearly destroyed all elves and the entire planet itself. In the 3rd End Times book, Malekith finally goes though the proper ritual and unites all elves together, marrying the Alarielle & taking his place as the king of all Elves.

Understandably a lot of people who have taken sides during the elf civil war don't like the idea of them all holding hands and singing kum-by-yah, but the reality is Malekith only "ruined things for the elves" as a consequence of the fact that his destiny was taken from him. The guys who "did not pick him" were actually the ones who ruined the ceremony and in fact they are the real perpetrators of all the troubles the elves would have, and were certainly not right for doing so.

[stratigo]

6 minutes ago, WoollyMammoth said:

Malekith was the most amazing ruler that the Elves ever had. He was 100% supposed to be the next Phoenix King. His ceremony was poisoned, so that the flames that were supposed to cleanse him burnt his body and soul and left the greatest warrior the elves have ever known as a corrupted shell, filled with hate. This event that was supposed to bring the elves to their greatest height instead fractured them into a civil war that nearly destroyed all elves and the entire planet itself. In the 3rd End Times book, Malekith finally goes though the proper ritual and unites all elves together, marrying the Alarielle & taking his place as the king of all Elves.

Understandably a lot of people who have taken sides during the elf civil war don't like the idea of them all holding hands and singing kum-by-yah, but the reality is Malekith only "ruined things for the elves" as a consequence of the fact that his destiny was taken from him. The guys who "did not pick him" were actually the ones who ruined the ceremony and in fact they are the real perpetrators of all the troubles the elves would have, and were certainly not right for doing so.

This was a retcon. Malekith was a monster. Even if you want to hold to the idea that he was robbed and the elections were rigged, thousands of years of murder, hatred, malice, and slaving have proven him unfit 

 

it’s okay to dig the bad guy. It gets worrisome when one denies his villainy entirely

 

 

[AverageBoss]

The thing is those armies have been rebranded, but they and their themes are still present and being produced. And I would argue most of them are more generic than TKs were (regular undead is certainly more generic and would be more difficult to protect on the IP front). I could agree if they completely stopped producing everything with real world mythological or historical connections, but that did not happen at all. Even some of the AoS era releases are not free from this influence. Living trees and nature spirits are not really new. Bigger orks at the end of the day are just bigger orks.

GW is a slow and ponderous entity. White Dwarves are printed months in advance. Books and model releases get underway 3+ years out. The decision to get rid of TKs would have probably been made sometime during mid 8th edition, the height of their unpopularity. Their resurgence in AoS simply came too late. And the popularity of the construct kits alone was not enough to save the whole range as it was.

[Jamopower]

I wouldn't go too far on tha whole IP thing. There are a lot of companies doing different kinds of Not- Space marines, and that should be quite unique IP as it goes. I don't think big knights with lighting motifs and hammers would be any different from that. The old models are hardly the key sales item at GW and the new stuff is protected quite well just by the fact that we get the first rumours at earlies few months before the release. Thus there aren't missig pieces to fill for the other producers. The new themes just ensure that there is no competition. And even this doesn't apply to everything. The witch elves are an old theme, with influences from history and you can already buy harpies, witch elves, medusas, etc. From various manufacturers.

 

Edit. Different but related thing that surely is in works is the fleshing up of the 'Age of Sigmar' brand and universe, which they seem to want to make distinctively different to old generic fantasy (but in mny ways similar to "new" fantasy like Warcraft and Magic the Gathering. 

[DantePQ]

Come On Morathi isn't avatar of Slaanesh, being tormented and changed by him doesn't mean that , she is anti-Slaanesh as seen during the video. Also she obviously want to be Khaine successor. Why people are so desperate for Chaos Elves/Eldar ? 

[BURF1]

2 hours ago, WoollyMammoth said:

@AverageBoss
TK was widely unpopular due to them having terrible rules in WHFB. When their rules got much better in AoS, they were rapidly gaining popularity. The plastic kits like Necrosphinx and Necropolis Knights were extremely popular. GW has had to trash them again and again in the rules to try and get rid of them.  I could name at least 6 different people who really wanted to buy them, bought them and made an army, or are trying to buy them now...that's more people than  I could name for most armies (at least that aren't new and shiny).  They could have easily re-branded the plastic kits as deathrattle and continued to sell them. Their cancellation really makes no sense other than they wanted to re-brand them.

I have heard rumors that Settra is coming back, my theory is he will free the people of Shadespire (the Katophranes) and lead the first Death faction which is not loyal to Nagash.  This will be desert people who live forever as skeletons and hold vast riches from an ancient age, but a completely new IP with nothing 'Egyptian' about them. 

Everything you mention has been re-branded to new IPs which don't resemble any classical theme, or simply ignored - yeah there are lingering models from the decades that they were doing High Fantasy, but 100% of the stuff they are promoting, and especially new models, are completely new IPs which don't resemble any classic theme. They are only supporting completely new IP's. If they release new models which look like classic Greek stuff, it would be contradictory to everything else they have done so far. I'm not saying that this stuff wont have any greek theme, I'm just saying that its not going to be like any classical Greek stuff, it will all be new IP's with many themes, unlike anything we have seen before. 

@mhsellwood
"A demigoddes in exile, twisted into the form of her tormentor. I who was once devoured yet slithered from the throat of the dark prince"

So she has been twisted into the form of Slaanesh....that seems pretty clear. Her followers would therefore be worshiping an avatar of Slaanesh. 

Later she goes on to say she helped build the mortal realms, and during this time they show images of elves fighting slaanesh. But this is a time period which is now passed - 

Next she says she has been gorging herself on blood and shadow in order to claim her rightful place in the pantheon (greek for hall of the gods). She has apparently been shunned (for too long) and she is pretty passionate about the fact that she will no longer be denied.

Given that she is now an avatar of Slaanesh, she might be talking about the pantheon of chaos gods. This could easily be a Slaanesh cult betraying Sigmar and worshiping Slaanesh., or more specifically that Mortahi has become the new Slaanesh. She might be the special character in a new Keeper of Secrets kit. 

The only thing that contradicts this is that we see elves fighting slaanesh and we hear her say that she "stood first against the corruption of chaos". But then immediately she talks about feeding on offerings of blood and shadow and starts freaking the hell out so, this is hard to say.

Whatever it is, its interesting as hell. 
 

She's not an Avatar of Slaanesh anymore than a person is an 'Avatar' of monkeys looking vaguely similar doesn't make you an Avatar. And anyone who tried to worship her as an Avatar of Slaanesh would be murdered brutally. From the incandescent rage she displayed in the trailer, she's not any happier with being twisted into a form similar to Slaanesh than she is with anything else people have put her through. That whole line of thought is pure reaching.

The implication of her speech, along side the Slaanesh murdering imagery lean towards her STILL standing against chaos, using the offerings of blood and shadow to power herself. She seems to be annoyed at being left out of Sigmar's boyz club but no part of that speech is indicative of any desire to stop murdering chaos followers.

She is again, SUPER not an avatar of Slaanesh. Looking similar to something doesn't make you an Avatar of that thing. Not every blonde fat guy is an Avatar of Chris Farley. The only evidence the trailers have given to her current loyalties is that she DEFINITELY isn't on Slaanesh's side and has been killing Slaaneshy daemons. The likelyhood of her being chaos is very, very small. The KoS thing is pure wishlisting. 

It's not hard to say. It's 99% that she hates Chaos and is planning on killing the ****** out of anyone even vaguely Slaaneshy. Her popping in the Elias video while he was watching Shyish is more evidence of her loyalty being to (well, herself honestly but at least lip service to) Nagash. Based on the very little we know now shes 60% going to order 30% death 8% Destruction 1.5% a new GA and .5% Chaos.

 

++ Mod Edit ++

Just think a bit more about posting when it comes to swearing. There is a swear filter but try not to swear as this is a forum for everybody  

[BURF1]

24 minutes ago, DantePQ said:

Come On Morathi isn't avatar of Slaanesh, being tormented and changed by him doesn't mean that , she is anti-Slaanesh as seen during the video. Also she obviously want to be Khaine successor. Why people are so desperate for Chaos Elves/Eldar ? 

Because Chaos players can't imagine a world where they don't get a new army release every 4 hours anymore.

[Jamopower]

The daemon prince conversion potential from this rumoured part snake part woman kit will surely please the chaos players anyways.

[Kirjava13]

Tuomas Pirinen (sp?) did an AMA on the Warhammer subreddit the other weekend where he said multiple times that if anything ultimately guaranteed the Tomb Kings' and Bretonnians' demise, it was poor sales, as shelf space in GW stores is very limited and ranges have to justify their existence through moving units. If TK had made money for GW, they wouldn't have been squatted, simple as that.

[Kyriakin]

13 minutes ago, Kirjava13 said:

Tuomas Pirinen (sp?) did an AMA on the Warhammer subreddit the other weekend where he said multiple times that if anything ultimately guaranteed the Tomb Kings' and Bretonnians' demise, it was poor sales, as shelf space in GW stores is very limited and ranges have to justify their existence through moving units. If TK had made money for GW, they wouldn't have been squatted, simple as that.

A cycle of bad rules and models leading to poor sales, which leads to less attention and continued low sales.

I still believe that many people like the concept of the TK, and the desert biome is a very strong one from a aesthetic/hobby point of view. However, you were hamstrung into taking terrible core models and having a poor in-game experience.

Either way, producing a faction in AoS would be far less of a financial commitment compared with making a new army in WHFB, as far fewer models are required in general (i.e. look how many warscrolls Seraphon have compared to new AoS factions, and that's with Oxyotl and a few others removed). Therefore, the tipping point in terms of "there's enough interest to pull the trigger" will be lower.

Furthermore, undead stuff is the easy to explain/justify coming back to life, as it was dead anyway. Only daemons are easier.

One thing I will say, though, is that the existence of Deathrattle means that a new TK couldn't really be skeletal in nature, and may end up being more embalmed (i.e. "mummies"). In fact, EMBALMED is already is already a keyword for some of them.

[Kirjava13]

Oh definitely. Not questioning why they ultimately didn't sell well, but one way or another they didn't shift enough units, and so they went to the great bitz box in the sky.

[Bloodmaster]

3 hours ago, DantePQ said:

Come On Morathi isn't avatar of Slaanesh, being tormented and changed by him doesn't mean that , she is anti-Slaanesh as seen during the video. Also she obviously want to be Khaine successor. Why people are so desperate for Chaos Elves/Eldar ? 

Well, Chaos Elves/Eldar once were a thing. And they might offer a nice little twist on both races, if done right. Seeing them as tormented twisted (not neccessarily in physical form) things, far beyond Dark Elves/Eldar, is an intersting concept. Same as Morathi and her new kin might - and probably will - be. But as you said, the girl won't be a follower of Chaos, let alone Slaanesh.

 

2 hours ago, BURF1 said:

Because Chaos players can't imagine a world where they don't get a new army release every 4 hours anymore.

More like, they hunger for a release of s/he who hungers. And the new Elves and Morathis connection to that little Pervert serve as a nice tease of this fetish. But seriously, before we see Slaaneshy elves, ther should be a proper Slaanesh and at least 2-3 "pure" Elfe releases.

[Twitch of Izalith]

15 hours ago, Kyriakin said:

I actually love the way the uniform and upright Darkling Covens look on rounds. They almost look like ornate chess pieces, or something.

In fact, I have even gone so far as to reject the Sorceress on Foot miniature, and bought Lhamaean in her place to maintain that kind of upright and disciplined robed look. 

Yeah the dreadspears look particularly good, I think. Its quite easy to re-pose the right arm to present the spears accross the  top of the shield - if you do want to add a bit of a dynamic touch- but you're right, dynamic posing is not always a good thing. I have the same view with chaos warriors. I like the mono-pose, implacable look of them. The finecast Chaos lord on demonic mount is another good example.

I just don't think GW share that opinion at the moment!

[Ollie Grimwood]

TK and Brets never sold well even when they got new models or in the case of Brets when they were in the starter set. Both were given plenty of chance in terms of plastic model releases and rules throughout their life. Just look at those great big Sphinxes the TK got they were big expansive to produce kits.  Judging them on the last few years of WFB doesn’t paint the correct picture that’s the result not the cause.  Given GWs lead times and how they were dealt with in the Endtimes its very likely the descison to remove them was made when the End Times was being written.  In both cases the driving concept was destroyed.  The whole driver behind AoS was basically ‘it’s time to stop flogging the dead horse time for something new’.

Still it’s a done deal time for some AoS Aleves I’ve missed the taste of Aelf Flesh 

 

[HorticulusTGA]

Just to summarize what people said in this thread : 

- Morathi was the favorite of Khaine in WFB (cf. the "Hellbron" entry, 8th ed. Dark elves armybook). Seeing female aelves, i.e. Daughters of Khaine, worshipping an Avatar of Khaine in the video,  Morathi probably see herself as the successor of a dead god*, i.e. Khaine (and not a missing god, i.e. Slaanesh),

*cf. End Times : Khaine, when Khaine "dies" and the Grand Alliance : Order fluff page about the Daughters of Khaine faction. 

- Morahti will be Order-alligned, because as stated in the Age of Sigmar main book, she joined Sigmar's pantheon in the Age of Myth, and as she says in the video, she helped bring civilization to the Mortal Realms (and as seen in the video, she fights Chaos) - she just wants more power inside the Order pantheon, and revenge.

- Morathi is still flesh and blood, but changed ; with the snake and greek mythology Ghorgon theme coming from the video and the existing Daughter of Khaine range, we can bet that when she talks about being "twisted in the shape of her tormentor", she means her appearance is now one of a Slaaneshi creature (ala Dechala / Fulgrim). She just talks about her "new look", not allegiance.

- Morathi is also from Ulgu (like Malerion), hence the offering of "Blood (cf. Khaine) and Shadow". 

This means, IMO, that Morathi will be part of the Daughters of Khaine faction (maybe renamed), because the video show Witch aelves, and more importantly, ends with the rune of Khaine.

 

 

[Killax]

3 hours ago, DantePQ said:

Come On Morathi isn't avatar of Slaanesh, being tormented and changed by him doesn't mean that , she is anti-Slaanesh as seen during the video. Also she obviously want to be Khaine successor. Why people are so desperate for Chaos Elves/Eldar ? 

The only reason why I think this is still adopted by some is because in 6th edition Storm of Chaos there was indeed a Dark Elves Cult of Slaanesh.
Narrative: http://warhammerfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Cult_of_Pleasure
6th ed WFB rules: http://rosters.mysteria.cz/ostatni/download/SoC - Cult of Slaanesh.pdf

Like you I don't think it will return.... By large because unlike then GW should by now also realize that the key to selling stuff well is to have characters bound to specific armies and basically turn up that character to 11 in order to make it a logical characterful-looking Allegiance. If Khaine is a mix of Slaanesh and Khorne then it might aswell not excist because of how AoS narrative doesn't really confirm this can ever be the case.

Instead what I do think is that after this, at the end of this year Slaanesh will escape due to the several distractions Morathi will get herself in. This is cool for Slaanesh fans and only highlights the hate between them. Unlike WFB I also think that AoS will clearly devide the differences between Khorne and Khaine where especially in WFB the difference was very unclear.

So if anything, Cults of Khaine, YES! Cults of Slaanesh, also YES but for Mortals and Daemons of the Grand Allegiance Chaos  
 

2 hours ago, Kyriakin said:

A cycle of bad rules and models leading to poor sales, which leads to less attention and continued low sales.

I still believe that many people like the concept of the TK, and the desert biome is a very strong one from a aesthetic/hobby point of view. However, you were hamstrung into taking terrible core models and having a poor in-game experience.

Either way, producing a faction in AoS would be far less of a financial commitment compared with making a new army in WHFB, as far fewer models are required in general (i.e. look how many warscrolls Seraphon have compared to new AoS factions, and that's with Oxyotl and a few others removed). Therefore, the tipping point in terms of "there's enough interest to pull the trigger" will be lower.

Furthermore, undead stuff is the easy to explain/justify coming back to life, as it was dead anyway. Only daemons are easier.

One thing I will say, though, is that the existence of Deathrattle means that a new TK couldn't really be skeletal in nature, and may end up being more embalmed (i.e. "mummies"). In fact, EMBALMED is already is already a keyword for some of them.

Probably true. I think more lines suffer from this though due to cross selling options I also believe that some lines where easier to save.

Beasts of Chaos (Warherds, Brayherds, Monsters of Chaos) being such an example also. As I usually don't find players who solely play that and don't have any Chaos Warrior model. Though in many aspects I also think they are somewhat at odds with the other beastmen, Skaven... Skaven in particular are fleshed out much better, have that clear clan vibe and to many extends are just fleshed out as great as the four original Chaos gods are.

What I believe is that we will see aspects of Brettonia and Tomb Kings return but very differently. It would benifit Death a lot to have an army that isn't completely following Nagash (just like not all forces in Chaos follow Archaon). At the same time I think Tomb Kings would even be more epic to return as humans that are part of the Grand Allegiance Death.

[Jamopower]

Good indication for what sells from the older stuff is to check which units have been repackaged to the white boxes with rounds. At least duardin, undead and wood elf wanderers have bwen repackaged.

 

 

Edit. And as a long time Dwarf player, I can say that being particularly good in the game or interesting to play, doesn't have any part in their success

[Twitch of Izalith]

I just remembered that one of the Darkling Covens command traits is - If you are a wizard you get +1 to cast, if you are NOT a wizard you can cast Arcane Bolt, Mystic Shield and gain the Wizard keyword. Roughly - I don't have the book in front of me.

Now that's pretty standard except that Darkling Covens only have 2 leader options and they are both wizards already.

This could just be an example of GW's occasionally lazy rules writing OR it could mean that some of the anticpated new warscrolls will have a Darkling Covens keyword?