What is up with the Stormcast's mounts?

[robinlvalentine]

The new heroes have really brought this home to me: what on earth is the design philosophy behind the mounts for the Stormcast Eternals?

They don't necessarily all look bad, but they do all look totally random.

Every other faction's mounts fit the style/theme of the faction. For example:

-Ironjawz get big, burly, thick-jawed creatures with bad tempers

-Idoneth Deepkin ride blinded sea creatures

-Maggotkin ride disgusting, bloated, often insectile monsters

Meanwhile, the Stormcast ride... a bunch of different animal parts stuck together, and some really stocky dragons? They don't fit the Stormcast aesthetic, and there's no internal logic to their design, beyond a bit of 'what if mythological creature but different'. 

At this point, riding weird nightmare-beasts seems to be hard-baked into the Stormcast concept, and I can't figure out why. Wanting the knights in shining armour to have cool mounts, I totally get that - but who decided that that meant 'a pegasus with a snake's head and ram horns'?! 

As I say, I'm not saying I hate the look of all of them, just that the don't feel cohesive. The new Dracolines, for example, are pretty cool in my eyes. But nothing about the way they look says 'noble heaven beast' or 'shoots lightning from its claws' or... anything, really. If that was introduced as a new Chaos mount, or even an Orruk beast, I don't think anyone would bat an eye. 

What do you mean I shouldn't take little plastic models this seriously? Hmm... 

[Enoby]

This is kinda guesswork, but I'd imagine that there may be a philosophy of "we want a cool beast/mount but don't want to have a release for a faction that would take time to develop, so we'll stick some Stormcast on them". It's a bit of a shame because a lot of these creatures would look much more at home in other factions. 

[michu]

It's not that incoherent: theme of ScE mounts are children of Dracothion (Dracoths and Stardrakes and possibly Dracoline) and other creatures of Azyr e.g. Tauralon is similar to mountain goats and Azyr is often described as land of mountains. 

[Brad Gamma]

Consider the scope of Azyr and all the interesting fauna that may inhabit it. There are probably loads of crazy and cool animals that you can hop on and ride to war.

Also consider that the stormcast miniatures, as more chambers are released, will be one of the largest and varied armies in the game, so they don't really have to be as cohesive. The way I see it, as the stormcast expand, if you like a particular aesthetic you can craft your army around that. If you want to just take the best units available, then there will always be some clash with design (heavy converting aside).

I do hope they release a few more models featuring these two new beasts though

[NemoVonUtopia]

I think part of the reason they don't feel cohesive is that there is more variety than other factions. Ironjaw's mounts are basically bigger hogs and wyvern that the greenskins ride, chaos has horses and a few monsters. Stormcast have 5 very distinct mounts stardrakes, dracoths, gryph-chargers, and now dracolines and tauralons.

[sandlemad]

Overall they might not be particularly consistent but they fit the themes of their individual chambers... sort of.

Dracoths and star-drakes for the extremis chamber: heavy on the lightning and the star-stuff, regal, armoured and scaly, big, stately poses.

Gryph-chargers for the vanguard chamber: fast, dynamic poses, 'wild', soft surfaces like feathers and fur, more travelling gear.

For the sacrosanct chamber, yeah, it does fall apart a little. Strange obscure Azyrite beasts can be an aesthetic of sorts though, particularly when the chamber's theme is 'magic' and ritual.

[Vasshpit]

Since opinions are being thrown around here's my take.

Was very intrigued from the bits of previews we saw from the art on the tauralon but after seeing it, it's a no go for this consumer. The head is just too silly for me to take seriously and the overall feel of the beast is just too... off.

They could of done a horse/pegasus theme (turned up to eleven) and I would of been more pleased. 

I understand it's a fantasy setting but I do appreciate designs grounded in reality,  if that makes sense. 

The Dracoline on the other hand, props to the sculptor(s). It feels like a real animal. Sold on that one. 

Just my opinion.

(Post from rumor thread)

 

I'd really like to see the return of the horse. (AoSified of course) 

This noble beast fought with mankind against chaos and has bled just as much so why not pay homage? 

[Wraith01]

I love them all! They look really cool!

 

[Requete]

I like them all actually.

I'm pretty stoked for that Tauralon.

[Gaz Taylor]

I think they are quite cool. Way I see it is that all the realms have been touched by Chaos and whilst Azyr is classed as the realm that resists it, there are still elements there. I think these creatures are the ones who are less tainted.

Plus it’s a fantasy game so I want my flying goat horse dog badger thingie ?

[Jamopower]

I'm in the Tauralon fan camp. In fact, it's my favourite Stormcast model to date. I also like the gryph chargers, but the drake themed mounts are not for me. Only thing that I don't like is how plastic the models still look. This is exaggeretaed with the super clean Eavy metal paintjob, but the problem with these digital sculpts is that they are far too perfect most of the time for natural texture such as feathers or fur.

It's fun to see beasts that are not direct ports from mythic monsters, but more of inspired by them. Hopefully we'll some day get other races riding these beasts as well. Would be very cool to see a Light aelf hero on Tarualon some day or something like that.

[Beliman]

I really like them too. Tauralon seems so promising!!!

[HorticulusTGA]

Eh, I really love the, well, draconic / reptilian features of the Taurlaon's head.

It's strange, fantasy-fantasy, but fitting. 

Aventis Firestrike himself and his mount's pose are also very good IMO ; he is in my top 3 best Stormcasts so far. 

[Bloodmaster]

Biggest problem with the Tauralon is the mouth, besides the comicly long mouth the jaw is either broken or will produde the upper jaw thus making it an unusable bodypart.

Concerning the overall concept, SCE utilise heavenly, mystical creatures. Draces and chimeras most of which based either around draces or griffon variations. There is a lose connecting theme, but I have to agree ist quite thin and more of a justification for "cool" concepts than based on a consistant background.

 

Edit: Dracoline appears to be a clever play on draco and feline, fitting for the model - but what is Taralon based on?

[flemingmma]

The flying goat thing is going for the "thunder god" aspect of sigmar. Thor rode giant goats.

[Tenshi]

What baffles me is that the Stormcast, specially the first wave, had very prominent lion heads on their armor.  But no beast of theirs follows the lion (or even Chimera) theme.

[Vanger]

Even tough I may not like them visually, I love the fact that they are riding fantastic looking beasts most of which are hybrids. They did not waste the opportunity to create something new and fresh.

Horses, gryphons, etc have been done countless times.

[Overread]

I think there is sometimes a risk with establishing the visual identity of a faction in a wargame which can end up with the army playing the "matchy matchy" game. Ergo the style becomes so strong that everything follows the style without deviation. Mounts are an ideal example of this.

Visually speaking it looks good an the army retains an overall similar appearance; but in a real fantasy world if you could tame a beast to be a mount you'd probably use it even if it didn't fit the "visual aesthetic" of the rest of the army. 

 

My only issue is that I really want to see other factions get these cool mounted models! My worry is that some armies like Seraphon and Stormcast are basically one force; whilst a good few others (Aelves specifically) got broken down a lot. I'm never sure if Order Draconis is going to end up with a huge wave of dragon models or be a small group of units that is forever an alliance to another Aelf group. One can but hope that this next year becomes a Sigmar Year and a lot of this gets cleaned up pretty quick. 

And if GW is going to bulk up all the subfactions into full armies is that going to mean that seeing anything new for existing armies is going to be a very long time off. 

[Jamopower]

17 minutes ago, Overread said:

And if GW is going to bulk up all the subfactions into full armies is that going to mean that seeing anything new for existing armies is going to be a very long time off. 

Wasn't it talked about quite alot when AoS was released that this allows them to have a "living" model range with new armies coming and eventually older dropped. Having small subfactions under the grand alliance fits this perfectly. However I believe that lack of initial success, which came later when they started releasing more focused forces such as Ironjawz and Sylvaneth (who both came before the points and were sold out a lot of the time) in the fashion of older WHFB releases, I think the release strategy has changed along the lifetime of the game. Especially with the changes in the management of the company. In any case, I don't believe we will see the WHFB style release pattern anymore where the armies are updated in cycles, but this kind of releases that they currently have. For people who like Dwarfs, there is going to be new Duardin faction every now and then with enough models that you can buy "a complete set" and be happy about it, but expansions to older factions (such as the Deepkin or Daughters of Khaine) will be much more rare, unless they sell very well. I think it's quite a good business strategy as it motivates the collectors to expand in to multiple factions. Also it encourages the players to make bigger investments when their faction hits the spotlight, when they don't just add the new army book and couple of new units on their existing army, but buy a whole new army of Dwarfs with steam powered armour or Elves who ride sharks.

[MrZakalwe]

They want griffins and they want pegasi but they poo themselves at the idea of not being able to copyright every millimeter of the model so instead we get Dragolines and SkyPugs (or whatever the poor inbred creature the flame dude is riding is supposed to be).

 

Damned shame - they have now dedicated themselves to the cause of reinventing the wheel every time. 

[Overread]

Jamo I really hope GW doesn't go down that path. I can well see that being the Kirby era plan, short term armies with no long term view. But then that was basically the companies focus at that time; they were really going for that "lets just make boutique models" line and it was slowly killing the company. 

 

I think GW of today won't be the sort to retire whole armies from their second major game line. Esp those they've released new models into. I can see some of the Aelf groups either vanishing or being combined or being left as alliance only fodder (as opposed to being bulked up). However I can't see them just dropping and then releasing a "new dwarf" force every few years. It would seem a daft way to approach things when 40K has shown that loyalty from GW toward factions t ranslates into increased sales for that faction.

Dropping armies loses players* and lets not forget the only two armies ever dropped are Squats and TombKings; the latter of which was, again, under Kirby and at the lowest point for Fantasy popularity (and at that stage it was looking like dropping most of fantasy was likely on the cards). 

 

*and there's every chances that if a player collects more than one army even if only one of their forces is dropped it can well push them out of the GW model line totally so it can be more than just sales for one army lost.

[Jamopower]

I don't think they'll drop armies, but they probably go at some point of their life cycle to mail order only to free up shelf and storage space from the new stuff.

How I see Age of Sigmar is that there are basically 6 different "factions": Aelves, Duardin, Sigmar, Death, Destruction and Chaos, which all get a new release every now and then to keep the people interested in that general niche happy and buying new stuff.

[Overread]

I used to think that, but having seen how the alliances within the grand alliances play out I can't see that working. The Dark Elves are basically only allied with Dark Elves (and the new sea elves). The only faction in Order that covers all is Stormcast. Otherwise many of the old alliance blocks are still there. 

Plus if GW is going to invest in new sculpts like we've seen for Daughters of Khaine it seems short sighted for them to put all that money, resources, production and investment into a faction if they intend to drop it whilst Sigmar is still selling strong.  

[Jamopower]

It's not about the gaming properties. The new factions will be played as such, but the possibility that you can ally them lowers the urge to get the models. So for example, if you already have a Daughters army and they release new darkling covens, it's much more tempting to buy into them as you already have a full force of Daughters. People usually choose their armies based on the look and feel of the models so if you can sell 4 different "Dark elf" armies to the player who is interested on them instead of the one, it's better.

Concerning retiring the ranges, every separate article that thre is in the catalogue is a cost item and there is certain limit how many of them you can have available to keep the profits in sufficient level. It's much easier for small manufacturers that can just cast the stuff as they are needed and don't have to worry about warehouses around the world. For example Corvus Belli has made a lot of repackaging and even dropped some lines from the Infinity range as the game has gained popularity as there is a limit how much different articles the stores and the wholesalers can afford to keep available  as some of them are not going to sell as well as others and the shelf/storage space has limits and keeping stuff there costs money. I don't expect that Ironjawz or Daughters of Khaine are going to go Mail order only any time soon, but I believe that with the current pace of new releases that time will come eventually.

[Beliman]

3 minutes ago, MrZakalwe said:

They want griffins and they want pegasi but they poo themselves at the idea of not being able to copyright every millimeter of the model so instead we get Dragolines and SkyPugs (or whatever the poor inbred creature the flame dude is riding is supposed to be).

 

Damned shame - they have now dedicated themselves to the cause of reinventing the wheel every time. 

Imo, that seems a poor argument.

I mean, Age of sigmar give the oportunity to designers, concept artists and modelers to put their sign everytime a new model range is made/is going to be made. Because of that, making an unique looking beast/monster/design that everyone recognize is the final goal, and of course, it helps with the copyright (and not the other way around, like your comment suggest).

Just try to understand what happens when you see a dwarf. You know that's from a fantasy book/game/whatever. Now give him a red-mohawk and cover his body with tattoos, wow, that dwarf just become so iconic that you know the franchise where he belongs. That's the big jackpot (for designers)!!!

Btw, I'm not going to defend the Taurolon's, if you like it, ok; if no, that's ok too.