New AOS fluff-to much? To little? Just right?

[Greyshadow]

Really enjoying the lore in the core book. Love how they present the Age of Myth with shorter snippets of text over that gorgeous artwork. I am up to the Season of Hope section in the Age of Sigmar. I was hoping for detailed maps of Ghur but oddly when I found out they weren’t in the book I wasn’t disappointed. Just means there is so much room for GW to go in the future.

Really interesting to read your thoughts @chord. It wasn’t until about a year after Silver Tower did I finally ‘get’ Age of Sigmar. Yes, I was a disgruntled Warhammer Fantasy Battles player. Full credit to those who fought in the Realm Gate Wars - I now appreciate how awesome it was.

[Overread]

Grey is better than pure good/evil because grey gives you so much more room to develop realistic feeling characters; character with flaws, mistakes, intentions, motivations etc....

 

Also the idea of Stormcast starting to crack and fall leaves the lore well open for Chaos Corrupted Stormcast or "Dark stormcast" elements to creep in. Already the Order Grand Alliance has the Dark Elves kicking up a mess. Daughters of Khaine are really not very nice (in fact one snippet that is in the main book is a story of how they came to battle to aid allies and then stabbed the ally through the heart). 

And considering that there's another Dark Elf god kicking around I think that we'll likely see at least one of the other core DE groups fleshed out or even the introduction of a totally new DE based force. 

[Baron Klatz]

5 minutes ago, Overread said:

Chaos Corrupted Stormcast or "Dark stormcast"

I personally don't see a point of that as that just equals chaos chosen. Besides,  with Sigmar's power making up their beings from what they reforged from I don't think a "willing" conversion to another god is possible. (Exception being Nagash who had full power over his captured stormcast.)

We will probably get more darker themes as the Excelsiors set with being unto merciless wardens or Stormcast going hollowed golems ala Dark Souls.

On the brighter note this will make the virtuous and charismatic Stormcast shine all the brighter as was with Bretonnians whose callous tyrants made the impeccable Grail knights truly high fantasy heroes.

[Nos]

I think it's clear that AOS has found it's voice with this iteration of fluff, and for the most part it's pretty compelling. The mythic-grandeur-gone-to-ruin aesthetic, although far from original (even within GW itself let alone elsewhere), is confidently articulated and appropriately enormous in it's ambition of scale, but it also manages to communicate a crucial verisimilitude within that, which isn't easy to do. I always found 40k to be a particular offender in this respect, in that the scale of it's events was just so ludicrous as to become farcical, like billions of people routinely being killed from orbit etc . Age of Sigmar has managed to couch it's more incomprehensible events in a language associated with  myth and legend, so that it is engaging without seeming literal.

As a resut, the Age of Myth isn't about what *exactly* happened, so much as it is about what the belief in that legend tells us about the Mortal Realms and it's deities ( I sense some cribbing off Dark Souls, but that's a great place to do it). I think the real value in it is that it really clarifies that AOS is not about the armies themselves, but that as a war between deities, the armies act as an analogue for and reflection of  their respective patron, and *that* is where their narrative colour comes from; Gorkamorka killed the biggest dragon ever as his first act of freedom, so orcs just live to smash things irrespective of challenge or size.  Sigmar is essentially a giant, apparently fairly stupid and probably quite boring man who really works out,  so naturally he didn't do anything more creative than make an army based entirely on himself. Nagash is a sort of Death Communist, etc. Unlike 40k and Warhammer, where great individual personalities and personal drama tend to direct the tone,  the detai in AOS is far more meta, and the main personalities are those of the Gods themselves, whose ultimate manifestation is in their armies. I think more than anything else, this is a mechanic/aesthetic thing that 2nd Edition has absolutely nailed. 

Given how fresh all that  mythic stuff feels though, the Chaos stuff feels a bit beige. Like seriously, Sigmar didn't see it coming a second time? Sake Sigmar. You big golden idiot. Obviously chaos is GW's thing, and they're good at that stuff too, but I dunno. A slightly more novel spin would have been welcome. Nothing revolutionary-I like the Skaven induction into the pantheon and think that makes complete sense, for example- but Khorne doing what he always does, Nurgle fiinding his foothold in the same manner and so on, I dunno. The Coming of Chaos section basically reads like any of the Coming of Chaos sections from any GW publication I've ever read. Idiots, b****s or helpless people give the Chaos Gods a call via some means or other and voila. It definitely feels forced, "One day there was no chaos. Then the next day CHAOS". It's fine, I'm glad chaos is in there etc, but they could have thought up a more original way of getting it in there. This a basic copy paste thing.

I'm torn on Sigmar himself. As a convert to the new Stormcast Chamber and their aesthetic in general, he's a really uninspiring deity I have to say. Clearly based on the more hubristic and sulky mythological beings like Zeus and Thor, and his broken nature in that sense is very appealing in a literary sense. But gosh is he dull. I think my concern is that the more illuminated his failures become, the more the Stormcast might just become Space Marines, an army of ideologues and fascists unfailingly and uncreativley dedicated to a self obsessed autocratic moron.  If they continue down that line ala 40K and all the Mortal Realms is is a sort of relativist limbo where everyone is bad and you just have to pick your favoutie kind of worst, then Sigmar is just too much of a tedious bro to have anything going for him at that point. They need to watch that. Myths, legends and religions tend to have fairly defined moral spectrums for a reason.  A less charitable person might also point out the uncanny similarity between Sigmar's reign and drawing together of the Pantheon and the Emperor of Mankind's reign and the drawing together of the Primarchs. But not me!

As a context for painting and playing with incredible toy soldiers though I think the compendium of fluff in the Core Book is a very solid addition to the GW canon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Baron Klatz]

Great points all round!

On the Sigmar part though I think he should get a pass because he's had such good development in AoS. He begins as he always was with ideals and a dream of uniting everyone together for a better future, which went quite well, then everything went to pot and we see him struggle again and again as his world falls apart and his once trusted allies abandon him. All alone he had to save what was left of the realm's peoples and then shatter his own ideals by performing the purge which was the only way to safeguard the last bastion against chaos' overwhelming victory.

After this he more and more had to cope with the change that he could no longer be the traveling warrior god but a true god-king that had to oversee his forces and civilizations from the rear. What's more he's nowhere near omniscient as his gaze has been distracted multiple times that foes like Archaon had used to their advantage even with spiteful acts like slaughtering a noble warrior tribe Sigmar planned to reforge.

He's among the most youngest gods and still has human perceptions. Despite finding his pantheon allies again the weight of the realms is still upon his shoulders and he has to safeguard them the best he can as he tries to predict the evils that constantly assail the realms while also adjusting to a new station of being a leader from the back that has to watch as plans are undone and past choices reveal new consequences even though they were necessary at the time.

He's a hero king with many burdens upon his shoulders that's just trying to do the best he can to help everyone.

[AaronWilson]

I'm yet to get my hands on the core rulebook (finally get mine tomorrow!) but I'm really excited to read all the lore, ordering my Soul Wars copy today as well

[Attackmack]

The more fluff the better, the new book does it all right! Big and think and packed with setting and lore!

On how the lore has changed I cant comment, I have the original corebook but none of the realmgate wars books. It does feel like they attempt to put a bit more "logic" into this new book, trying to explain things in a perceivable way which makes it slightly different from the myth-like batshat crazy descriptions from the first one. Though I dont think theres a lack of insanities in this new one either

 

I enjoyed the new book a great deal (as I did the first one) and it still feels like a mythical setting to me, though im not overly  happy about putting a human aspect and personality on the stormcast. I always wanted them to be souls enclosed within their armor.., not actually reincarnations.

[Baron Klatz]

Mind, that does happen to them in the lore. It's even stated on GW's site in their background explanations that there's some cases where Stormcasts were reforged to the point they were energy beings of celestial power beneath their armor and had greater power than other Stormcasts but at the price of their humanity.

 

I've yet to read it but the new story "The Lightning Golem" kinda hints this might be the fate of the protagonist.

[EccentricCircle]

I'm really enjoying it!

The Malign portents stories got me invested in the setting in a way which none of the army books i'd read before really had. I'm still working my way through all the new material. I've read Malign sorcery, and the smaller books from the core set, got halfway through the soul wars novel and done a quick skim of the art in the core book. Hopefully I'll have some time over the weekend to sit down and read it thoroughly!

I think with Sigmar they are definitely trying to go down the Conan route. He is god by his own hand, struggling to be a king on a cosmic scale. But he will never sit comfortably on the throne, as he will always be the barbarian warrior at heart.

I do hope that they make a proper time line with dates at some point. Until they do we won't be able to answer the essential question hidden in the title of "Age of Sigmar"... Just how old is he anyway?

[Mr. White]

I'm not sure a defined timeline works in this setting as it's entirely possible each realm has its own calendar a age. 

We're they all created at exactly the same time? Each have the same number of hours in the day? Etc.

 

[Overread]

14 minutes ago, Mr. White said:

I'm not sure a defined timeline works in this setting as it's entirely possible each realm has its own calendar a age. 

We're they all created at exactly the same time? Each have the same number of hours in the day? Etc.

 

They are certainly quite individual to themselves; heck at least one worships a giant dragon that lights the world akin to a sun. That said the major events clearly flow in a linear time-line one after the other. They can at least be put into a time-line structure evne if there isn't a single date system (though one would think that when Sigmar unified and brought all the worlds under his rule the first time there would have been some kind of "standard time" or time zone conversion system in use to allow trade and such between the realms). 

 

It's more about just keeping an easy reference as several of the stories overlap or are put out of order with each other (eg we read of Dracoliths (sp) death and then in a story that appears after he's alive again tackling some great quest with Sigmar)

[Aginor]

I also like the new book and how the fluff is evolving.

If I had to name one gripe I'd say it is that some of the factions have barely any lore at all, except that one page.

I'd like to read more about what everyone was doing in every realm. We have a decent view on what some factions have been doing from their battletomes, but not much more. Some factions get one mention in the core book and that's it.

I admit I haven't read all the texts completely yet, checking for every army, but it seems some are hardly mentioned at all.

As for specific armies: I think the Death and SCE, Kharadron and Sylvaneth stuff is well done. What I miss a bit about my Seraphon: Fluff is very vague. Some fluff pieces in AoS1 have told us they are in Azyr, and others mention space ships, but... where on the map are they? Did I miss something? Are the space ships flying around between the realms, like that weird place Slaanesh is in?

I admit I was a bit sad when except one quote from a Slann and the double page for the faction summary I wasn't able to spot anything mentioning them in the whole book yet. I kinda expected to see more of the Seraphon in Malign Sorcery because, you know, Slann are among the most powerful wizards in the universe.

And I know some armies have it even worse. As a Seraphon player I can at least say "well, we are mysterious" and make up everything myself, but others feel like they hardly got any place at all in the realms.

So what I would love to see is a list, map, or something, of settlements for each faction, or battles and where they took place and who fought in it and who won. Doesn't have to be fleshed out a lot but I think that could give all of the armies a place.

[Attackmack]

3 hours ago, Baron Klatz said:

Mind, that does happen to them in the lore. It's even stated on GW's site in their background explanations that there's some cases where Stormcasts were reforged to the point they were energy beings of celestial power beneath their armor and had greater power than other Stormcasts but at the price of their humanity.

 

I've yet to read it but the new story "The Lightning Golem" kinda hints this might be the fate of the protagonist.

I did not know this and it makes me happy to hear!

 

There is a segment in either the first core book, or was it perhaps the rulebook that came with the first box. But it depicts one of the Khorn champions first encounter with a stormcast and during their battle he kept trying to get an answer, ANY answer, from his foe but the stormcast was completely silent behind the anonymous golden mask, not giving away even the slightest hint of who or what was behind it. And for the first time the Khorn champion felt fear.

That part just made me giggle with excitement

[Baron Klatz]

5 hours ago, Aginor said:

What I miss a bit about my Seraphon: Fluff is very vague. Some fluff pieces in AoS1 have told us they are in Azyr, and others mention space ships, but... where on the map are they? Did I miss something? Are the space ships flying around between the realms, like that weird place Slaanesh is in? 

Basically yes but they mostly hang out in Sigmar's realm of Azyr and make up some constellations (in Hammerhal Herald there's a horoscope of heavenly omens and one week is free because the constellation is apparently too busy fighting chaos itself. )

They've been evolving since their first battletome.  First it was just Slann and a few ships that had to use memories to recreate more Seraphon for their battles, then centuries pass by the time of the Age of Hope and by 2017 we get the White Dwarf confirmation why they're in the city builder is because there's Seraphon who've evolved flesh and blood while prowling the forests and jungles of the realms and "gone native"(the evolution itself was actually mentioned in their battletome as something occurring despite their celestial nature) and now from Malign Portents we see that they've expanded and evolved further with new ships housing entire jungles and with their own spawning pools to create more of their kind.

5 hours ago, Aginor said:

but others feel like they hardly got any place at all in the realms. 

I imagine you mean the Aelven factions like the Eldritch Council, Skyhawk Agents, Wanderers and Dispossessed Duardin?

If so they've been more and more ingrained into the realms since the Seeds of Hope campaign that saw the major Aelven cities appear like the Living City and Phoenicium that namely housed the Council who use the Skyhawks as their scouts and mobile armed force (which had a nice tie-in to the Spires of Dawn boxset), then the Hammerhal DM book gives a good look at how cities have a mix of humans, Aelves and Duardin in them between noble and working classes, the Firestorm campaign built further upon this with more cities, then the Malign Portents gave us more from Duardin being still vital in building permanent fortifications and cities to some appreciated aelf focus and finally the core book delves in deeper with more mentions of those peoples in the realms ranging from the Age of Myth to now.

More expansion is always welcomed but I think they've done a alright job of bringing the older races into the setting and giving them a place.

[Mohawk_Monkey]

On 7/5/2018 at 7:30 PM, chord said:

I enjoyed the Earlier Lore with crazy high fantasy, unrealistic maps, etc.  Bought it all.

Not happy with the turn of the lore back to a more detailed aspect.  As such I won't be buying the core book.  

So I'm in an odd spot,  I used to love the lore but now don't.  The reverse of some who didn't care about it prior.  The difference being I can't get the core rules without buying it. 

Edit: just had a look - actually the core rules bit has been updated too. The PDf's are a good 20 pages with all the new wording and rules  

 

 

https://www.games-workshop.com/en-GB/AoSSW-Core-Rules-PDF-2018-ENG The link here is to the new free core rules. whilst in the purchasing section the price is £0 and the download is free. This is different to the core rules section. I found it the other day and after reading your comment thought that it might solve your issue.

Hope this helps  

 

[chord]

4 minutes ago, Mohawk_Monkey said:

https://www.games-workshop.com/en-GB/AoSSW-Core-Rules-PDF-2018-ENG The link here is to the new free core rules. whilst in the purchasing section the price is £0 and the download is free. This is different to the core rules section. I found it the other day and after reading your comment thought that it might solve your issue.

Hope this helps  

 

Thanks but I already have a copy.  Much appreciated!

[SuperHappyTime]

On 7/5/2018 at 4:51 PM, Baron Klatz said:

Oh I know what you mean. The first realm of life map was what really made me fall for AoS and get behind it 100% with it's fantastical potential.

This is basically everything I've ever wanted from a fantasy setting rolled into one map.

That said, we're still getting amazing landscapes. The current focus is on the innerlands and their inhabitants though so it makes sense we're getting a more mundane look at things. The realm gate wars took the battles to every location from the safer innerlands to the fantastically outer territories of more wild magic and surreal landscapes.

Once they're done with the current set-up of properly laying the foundation of the realms we should likely see the mind-blowing maps again as the forces of the mortal realms expand again to battling from cities on the backs of monsters to strewn floating landscapes held aloft by portals of wandering magic.

There’s plenty of room to make these. Change of perspective from aerial to near ground and match it with the maps.

We got a lot of what I wanted. Factions were fleshed out in a larger summary, and we have a few locations that we can go scope out.

The next step is to start fleshing out those locations. At this point, now everything needs only a paragraph to describe why the place has some significance

[MacDuff]

11 hours ago, Aginor said:

I also like the new book and how the fluff is evolving.

As for specific armies: I think the Death and SCE, Kharadron and Sylvaneth stuff is well done. What I miss a bit about my Seraphon: Fluff is very vague. Some fluff pieces in AoS1 have told us they are in Azyr, and others mention space ships, but... where on the map are they? Did I miss something? Are the space ships flying around between the realms, like that weird place Slaanesh is in?

I admit I was a bit sad when except one quote from a Slann and the double page for the faction summary I wasn't able to spot anything mentioning them in the whole book yet. I kinda expected to see more of the Seraphon in Malign Sorcery because, you know, Slann are among the most powerful wizards in the universe.

And I know some armies have it even worse. As a Seraphon player I can at least say "well, we are mysterious" and make up everything myself, but others feel like they hardly got any place at all in the realms.

It's not from the core book, but check out the Dying Star story on the Malign Portents site. The lizards are breeding in a star ship and being beamed down to Shyish. I get the feeling they're real, not imagined, this time, and they've gone agro. This foothold in the Realm of Death might just be the first step in them repopulating in the Realms - especially if Nagash is killing off the Salaan overlords in their star ships.

[Wraith01]

Haven't finished read it yet but I'm enjoying it.

[Aginor]

10 hours ago, MacDuff said:

It's not from the core book, but check out the Dying Star story on the Malign Portents site. The lizards are breeding in a star ship and being beamed down to Shyish. I get the feeling they're real, not imagined, this time, and they've gone agro. This foothold in the Realm of Death might just be the first step in them repopulating in the Realms - especially if Nagash is killing off the Salaan overlords in their star ships.

That's the story I was referring to.

That's what I would have liked to learn more about. Unfortunately there is nothing in the core book expanding on that.

But who knows, maybe there is more just around the corner.

[pseudonyme]

On 7/5/2018 at 8:41 PM, pseudonyme said:

Just right. Not very well written (or translated in french, but I would bet on the original content, or both).

But I am very happy so far (still reading the factions in the core book). 

I finished the fluff of the book and will pour some water in my wine (what an heretical expression by the way): I think the style of the core book is inconsistent, some part are really enjoyable and some seemed to have been written by a 12 years old.

In the end, I really enjoyed the ride. I am still missing the Malign portents short stories. I wish they continue in some way, like with the snippets / anecdotes you can read in the core book. I thought that they were really fun

[Mr. White]

On 7/6/2018 at 2:10 AM, AaronWIlson said:

I'm yet to get my hands on the core rulebook (finally get mine tomorrow!) but I'm really excited to read all the lore, ordering my Soul Wars copy today as well

Wait...isn't the corerules hardback in the Soul Wars box?

[Envyus]

On 7/5/2018 at 12:30 PM, chord said:

I enjoyed the Earlier Lore with crazy high fantasy, unrealistic maps, etc.  Bought it all.

Not happy with the turn of the lore back to a more detailed aspect.  As such I won't be buying the core book.  

So I'm in an odd spot,  I used to love the lore but now don't.  The reverse of some who didn't care about it prior.  The difference being I can't get the core rules without buying it. 

 

This makes no sense to me. You would rather have no details rather then  an actual setting. 

[KHHaunts]

On 7/5/2018 at 10:44 PM, chord said:

Fair Point!  I guess I prefer the old focus, and the living storyline.  Thank you @SirPergrin for making that more clear!

I do think some people in this community have a double standard (not you), that it was ok for people to dislike the Aos 1.0 lore/focus , but when people dislike the change in focus/lore for AoS 2.0 its blasphemy.

I do understand what you mean. I think because gw have finally implemented what alot of people have asked for for so long we are riding a wave of "gratitude" to which anyone naysaying it we treat like they are trying to bring us down (which is obviously not true or fair) the hype will subside soon and people will look at everything more objectivly.

As for any misgivings you may have you need to shout them from the roof tops because people like that is how we got this new edition in the first place.