Cogforts, mobile bastions, who has been drawing on dreaming of them?

[Oath Stoned]

[Cèsar de Quart]

I have drawn what I think a cogfort may look like. From inside another cogfort.

I tried to convey a steelworks gothic feel with a spritz of Renaissance. Sorry for the image being sideways.

[Guest]

18 minutes ago, Cèsar de Quart said:

I have drawn what I think a cogfort may look like. From inside another cogfort.

I tried to convey a steelworks gothic feel with a spritz of Renaissance. Sorry for the image being sideways.

 

This is amazing! I wish I had a 'reaction' left today to give you! Do you have any more AoS concepts? You should consider sending your portfolio to GW's careers department.

[Cèsar de Quart]

Thanks, this is the first drawing of this kind that I've done. I was inspired by your discussion about cogforts, really. The Freeguild faction seem to be the one which is getting the most background development -- in the backstage. No army book, no red book with lore... but they're building a ton of traction for them and there are a lot of crazy ideas out there for them.

[Cèsar de Quart]

The Iron Cohorts of Ursberg , the Defiant, the blackened heart of civilization in Ghur. Led by Archmarshal Teumalleus Mann, called Tedy, the Cohorts are formed by a Cogfort and its accompanying walking towers and mobile fastnesses, as well as its regiments of handgunners, skyhopers and companies of artillery. A fearsome sight to behold, as the ground trembles and the sky darkens. This is the Steel Faithful, the oldest of the Ursberger cogforts, in which the mighty ubercannon Ulric's Laughter was baptised with oil and fire.

 

[Kaleb Daark]

they've been mentioned in the soul wars novel

hopefully GW might make them a thing one day - years ago we had the marienberg class landship from forgeworld

 

from 1984 the citadel dwarf juggernaut

 

[Oath Stoned]

WiP since The Offer short story. 

We caught that grot trying to break in through the waste pipes. A suitable punishment.

 

Edited July 2, 2018 by Oath Stoned

[StoneMonk]

Loving this WIP @Oath Stoned, and all the inspiration here.

Had some great conversations on Twitter with a few others (some on here some not) about building a Cog fort army. Eager to toss around some ideas and get feedback, see what others are doing. I put together some test models some weeks back and got around to some test paint this last week. Really excited by the results and where the ideas are coming from.

Put together a blog post on my start and where i'm going next. https://www.themortalrealms.com/stonemonkgamer/2018/7/2/starting-a-cog-fort-free-peoples-army

And some pics

[Oath Stoned]

I like them. I like the sniper guy alot. He has just the right look.

Im finding the industrial theme very tricky for AoS. Its hard to walk that line of high fantasy industry without it becoming 40k. It has to look more advanced than the Old World but less than 40k.

I cut or covered things such as lightbulbs, monitors, and power signs with tons of dwarf bits. I hope more bits, with a real paintjob, is enough to make my cogfort look less like an aircraft carrier. I think im at my limit to maintain fuctional space.

If anyone hasnt seen, there is  a mention of "mechanical automations" in one of the nighthaunt community pages. W/e army this may be it will set the standard for how advanced aos tech really is. 

[Cèsar de Quart]

Man, that's such a nice looking mini!

I'm loving the color scheme as well. Teal and orange but with a solid reason: rust. Very nice thinking. 

I agree with Oath Stoned, though, in that it seems complicated to ride the fine line between 40k's retro-futurism and AoS' realmpunk.  One step too much and they'll look like Ventrillians:

One step too little and they'll look just like Adeptus Mechanicus.

I'd swap their legs with Imperial legs, and maybe use Imperial Archer bodies more profusely. Maybe even get some of these:

 

ANVIL industries have very, very nice bits (including these Gothic void armour and Medieval armor torsos) that you can use in an army of this capacity. I'd stick to Imperial heads though. Imperial knights, greatswords, etc.

[StoneMonk]

I think the conversation of 'what is too far' is exactly where the fun of this particular army build sits. A lot of the 40k stuff is sci-fantasy. It's not high-tech. Where it gets high-tech or even modern - weapons, vehicles (tanks) - it starts breaking the believability of this build. Kharadron Overlords has done a lot to push this boundary. But I'm less worried about it looking 40k as opposed to other sci fi or modern. Also, this line will be subjective to the builder, but perhaps we can discuss bits that go too far or not far enough as we see them.
 

That brings me to my show and tell for today. My first sketch of a cogfort idea.  per the conversation above, there'd be a mix of newer materials like sheet metal and rivets where mechanical functionality is required, but stone, timber and stucco where it's not. Magical elements, black powder elements, scientific elements...all blending together.

An interesting idea about forts, back in the "old west" of the US. You might have fortifications and guns etc, but did you have enough ammo, or black powder, or food, or aether materials, or runes etc. So this drawing might have 4 arcane spires, but not enough wizards to work them all. There may be repairs in progress on two of the side cannon lifts...so we can use those for this battle. 

 

[Cèsar de Quart]

I like the concept very much. But just like the Kharadron Overlords have a great design marred by one giant round big ball of a flaw (those metal bubbles look god-darn awful. Matter of taste, I know, but they look terrible to me; I'd rather had the ships have some measure of sails to catch the aetheric winds, or maybe aetheric engines, but just not metallic bubbles), cogforts made of wood and stucco... I don't know, I imagine the stucco crumbling at the first step.

I also prefer irregularity when it comes to the general shape of the fort. Or maybe not "irregularity", just not having i as a square. This is a world with a lot of projectiles (cannonball, magic, etc), so looking at what was done to defend against cannonfire makes sense. Vauban starforts:

[StoneMonk]

Those are some great ideas @Cèsar de Quart I like the aggressive nature of that castle design. Are you going to give it a go? 

What I like about stucco and rock in some places is that it makes the whole thing feel impossible. Perhaps it requires magic to keep the stucco from cracking. Or there's realmstone in the grout that keeps the rocks from breaking. Or some aether chemical from Azyr that makes everything a bit lighter than normal so the legs can support it. 

This is another line your personally have to make. How much do you rely on believability and how much do you embrace impossibility. 

 

[EccentricCircle]

22 hours ago, StoneMonk said:

I think the conversation of 'what is too far' is exactly where the fun of this particular army build sits. A lot of the 40k stuff is sci-fantasy. It's not high-tech. Where it gets high-tech or even modern - weapons, vehicles (tanks) - it starts breaking the believability of this build. Kharadron Overlords has done a lot to push this boundary. But I'm less worried about it looking 40k as opposed to other sci fi or modern. Also, this line will be subjective to the builder, but perhaps we can discuss bits that go too far or not far enough as we see them.
 

That brings me to my show and tell for today. My first sketch of a cogfort idea.  per the conversation above, there'd be a mix of newer materials like sheet metal and rivets where mechanical functionality is required, but stone, timber and stucco where it's not. Magical elements, black powder elements, scientific elements...all blending together.

An interesting idea about forts, back in the "old west" of the US. You might have fortifications and guns etc, but did you have enough ammo, or black powder, or food, or aether materials, or runes etc. So this drawing might have 4 arcane spires, but not enough wizards to work them all. There may be repairs in progress on two of the side cannon lifts...so we can use those for this battle. 

 

I love this sketch. Very Phillip Reeve-esque!

[Oath Stoned]

On 7/3/2018 at 8:55 AM, StoneMonk said:

I think the conversation of 'what is too far' is exactly where the fun of this particular army build sits. A lot of the 40k stuff is sci-fantasy. It's not high-tech. Where it gets high-tech or even modern - weapos, vehicles (tanks) - it starts breaking the believability of this build. Kharadron Overlords has done a lot to push this boundary. But I'm less worried about it looking 40k as opposed to other sci fi or modern. Also, this line will be subjective to the builder, but perhaps we can discuss bits that go too far or not far enough as we see them.
 

That brings me to my show and tell for today. My first sketch of a cogfort idea.  per the conversation above, there'd be a mix of newer materials like sheet metal and rivets where mechanical functionality is required, but stone, timber and stucco where it's not. Magical elements, black powder elements, scientific elements...all blending together.

An interesting idea about forts, back in the "old west" of the US. You might have fortifications and guns etc, but did you have enough ammo, or black powder, or food, or aether materials, or runes etc. So this drawing might have 4 arcane spires, but not enough wizards to work them all. There may be repairs in progress on two of the side cannon lifts...so we can use those for this battle. 

 

Im sry i didnt mean to quote this entire post again but....

I love this sketch. I might steal your idea for the drop/draw bridge. I was thinking of putting a traditional draw bridge but i like you elevator much more. It will utililize the space under the cogfort without takung up more table space.

I also love all the towers and the multiple layers of your fortress. Its almost exactly what i want for mine but anymore additions need to be very well planned for space.

Edited July 4, 2018 by Oath Stoned

[Cèsar de Quart]

There you go, two for the price of one:

I've got to say, I'm a bit opposed to implausibility, even if a design is outlandish at ita core, dress it up with plausible elements and it becomes easy to accept. Age of Sigmar is stretching a bit too much my suspension of disbelief... so for me, cogforts are made of different metals and shaped to look like actual buildings of fortresses because that's what they know how to do.

I also wanted a Renaissance feel, so I went with fluted armour as a reference for what the metal plates should look like.

Also, I always imagine these forts as built around a central pillar or structure, in my mind housing the generator (be it mechanical or magical), but there's no reason why there couldn't be wolf-shaped cogforts, griffin-shaped air fortresses with lighter-than-air compartments separated to minimise risk forming the feathers of the wings... some could be snake-like (as in John Carter). I like that the possibilites be endless as they are.

Edited July 4, 2018 by Cèsar de Quart

[Thundercake]

wanted to like everything on this thread page but ran out of damn likes for today.

[Ragnar Alpaca]

On 7/4/2018 at 12:32 PM, Cèsar de Quart said:

There you go, two for the price of one:

I've got to say, I'm a bit opposed to implausibility, even if a design is outlandish at ita core, dress it up with plausible elements and it becomes easy to accept. Age of Sigmar is stretching a bit too much my suspension of disbelief... so for me, cogforts are made of different metals and shaped to look like actual buildings of fortresses because that's what they know how to do.

I also wanted a Renaissance feel, so I went with fluted armour as a reference for what the metal plates should look like.

Also, I always imagine these forts as built around a central pillar or structure, in my mind housing the generator (be it mechanical or magical), but there's no reason why there couldn't be wolf-shaped cogforts, griffin-shaped air fortresses with lighter-than-air compartments separated to minimise risk forming the feathers of the wings... some could be snake-like (as in John Carter). I like that the possibilites be endless as they are.

Those are absolutely fantastic, your drawing skills are quite high. I do like your design the most as it is closest to what I imagined as well, however I did imagine a bit more dwarf and free guild in design, not Sigmar or stormcast. As in the story it’s the daurdin and free guild who man cogforts, not stormcast, they’re too important to just set in a moving fort.

[Cèsar de Quart]

Thanks for the praise!

As for the "freeguild" influence, in theory, freeguild can be anything we want. Arab-like freecities may build "genie cuisers", giant landships powered by the might and mystics of bottled genies. Slavic-themed civs may build giant golems. In this case, I did go with a very Empire-like structure and architecture for the Heart Perseverant, but the Pyrophrast had a bit more of an Azyrite flair to it.

Also, there's a giant Stormcast face on one of the forts, the Pyrophrast, yes. But it's also what's on the flag of Hammerhal, the greatest free city and probably the biggest source of freeguild soldiers around. It's not far-fetched.

You're right on the count of dwarves being the ones who are doing a great deal of the working on these forts, but... I'm first and foremost an Empire player, so I'll always be biased towards them.

[Ragnar Alpaca]

I guess you do have a good point on this, I guess I’m just kinda biased against stormcast, as they’re not really what I like. Also I guess that’s why I do like the Heart Perseverant more than the other. This entire discussion on cog forts just really grabs my attention, I love this stuff. I may try to draw my interpretation of a cog fort later on, but with a heavy dwarf influence, as you might be able to tell is my force.

[Cèsar de Quart]

53 minutes ago, Ragnar Alpaca said:

I guess you do have a good point on this, I guess I’m just kinda biased against stormcast, as they’re not really what I like. Also I guess that’s why I do like the Heart Perseverant more than the other. This entire discussion on cog forts just really grabs my attention, I love this stuff. I may try to draw my interpretation of a cog fort later on, but with a heavy dwarf influence, as you might be able to tell is my force.

That would be neat. This is what's cool about AoS; there's so much room for imagination.

[Necroshadow]

Be interesting to see if they ever decided to expand the cog forts into a proper army, that or as an expansion to the ironweld faction. They’d probably use small cog forts (maybe scout towers) with rules like non flying kharadon  skyvessels presumably. 

[Ragnar Alpaca]

This is what I came up with in about 40 minutes. My art skills aren’t the greatest but this is kinda what I came up with, much more dwarfy. Ideally I would have drawn it larger to add more detail. This thing would have loads of cannons and organ guns pointing in all directions, and the top could be a landing pad for gyros. Other than that the legs/feet I have a great idea for I just couldn’t draw them that small, so instead I improvised lol.

[Cèsar de Quart]

It does convey the idea of a dwarf fotress. With something so stut I'm curious to see how you've designed the feet. That's, to me, the most difficult part of the whole cogfort idea. Wheels won't cut it, and spider legs seem too goofy and incapable of sustaining the enourmous weight of the fort.

[Ragnar Alpaca]

I have drawn some up and will post some soon, basically a couple large leg designs, and then tracks, like a sandcrawler from Star Wars.