The Rumour Thread

[Twisted Firaun]

14 minutes ago, Nos said:

The cow angle is weird.

I liked how new Slaanesh incorporated a lot of Aelf, given the genesis of that whole arc.

But Aelf incorporating Slaanesh the other way round seems a weird choice.  

Cool model though.

Looking  back at the last east Slaanesh models I see your point, this is messed up.

[Icarion]

Something I found interesting from the video, in the lore that Phil Kelly detailed about the Mountain spirit, is that the mountain spirit is still just a mountain, sentient and magical but still a mountain. It's the aelves that crafted an avatar for the Mountain spirit to inhabit and march to war "They wear these sacred masks that enable them to take form". and "transfer their mountain spirits into a host body"

 Phil kelly  also named the  creature that the mountain aleves revere, calling it an "Emetricon Longhorn" which is a creature on the slopes of mountains in hysh, that is effectively immortal.  It can only be killed by another, not of natural causes. He says to the elves, these creatures embody endurance, Imortality and stoicism and that  is why the elves of the mountain path take them as their sacred beast.

So from this it seems like the bull motif was a choice by the elves, that they themselves imprinted bull aestetic onto the mountain spirit avatar on the mountains. 

That's all to say it has nothing directly to do with Slanesh impacting the design of aelves in age of sigmar. However, that said, Slaanesh impacting the appearence of the new aelves is already well established. The serpentine form of Morathi, and by extension her melusai are stated to be artifacts of their internment within slaanesh. The lack of eyes on nemarti in the idoneth range as well is a design choice meant to "taint" the appearance of new aelves by association with slaanesh.  The new aleves incorporating slaanesh is nothing new.

[KingBrodd]

1 hour ago, Clan's Cynic said:

My guess is two boxes for the Sons in a similar vain to Chaos Knights. Brodd/Hero/Priest and a more standard Giant with a few weapon options. 

Then in a few years we might see an expansion to the range if they're a success. 

I'm expecting 2 kits but fingers crossed for a 3rd. Just to get out ahead of themselves with the inevitable money about to be thrown at them.

[Nos]

1 hour ago, Athrawes said:

Something I found interesting from the video, in the lore that Phil Kelly detailed about the Mountain spirit, is that the mountain spirit is still just a mountain, sentient and magical but still a mountain. It's the aelves that crafted an avatar for the Mountain spirit to inhabit and march to war "They wear these sacred masks that enable them to take form". and "transfer their mountain spirits into a host body"

 Phil kelly  also named the  creature that the mountain aleves revere, calling it an "Emetricon Longhorn" which is a creature on the slopes of mountains in hysh, that is effectively immortal.  It can only be killed by another, not of natural causes. He says to the elves, these creatures embody endurance, Imortality and stoicism and that  is why the elves of the mountain path take them as their sacred beast.

So from this it seems like the bull motif was a choice by the elves, that they themselves imprinted bull aestetic onto the mountain spirit avatar on the mountains. 

That's all to say it has nothing directly to do with Slanesh impacting the design of aelves in age of sigmar. However, that said, Slaanesh impacting the appearence of the new aelves is already well established. The serpentine form of Morathi, and by extension her melusai are stated to be artifacts of their internment within slaanesh. The lack of eyes on nemarti in the idoneth range as well is a design choice meant to "taint" the appearance of new aelves by association with slaanesh.  The new aleves incorporating slaanesh is nothing new.

I think theres a difference between an easy verbal retcon and a deliberate aesthetic choice.

DOK existing models had a Gorgonesque theme before AOS even existed and the Dark Elf range from which they came also had a strong serpent aspect. Especially given their release date  I personally dont believe for a second that Morathi and Melussai were snakey because Slaanesh. They were snakey because Medusa and Gorgons and related mythology and Dark Elf/Drukhari influence (see also Warpfire Warlocks). But it's easy to go back and explain it as a Slaaneshi taint. Cool, even. But theres not been much of snakeishnes to Slaanesh. A tail to a hero here or there, but nothing prevalent. 

Namarti again are clearly aborted/corrupted as befitting their lineage but again they're not incorporating anything exclusively Slaaneshi in their make up.

But the bovine thing has been synonymous with the Keeper of Secrets and Slaanesh basically since Slaanesh has existed. The only other cows in AOS  are actual cows and people and monsters formed from cows.  I just find it a stretch that despite Cow basically being shorthand for chaos in the whole of AOS the Lumineth see them as being great. I mean the cow thing certainly fits very well with the more East Asian cultural influence in the range but as someone who has done Warhammer for 20 years it's weird to be told that cows are now something different.  Not least because one if the reasons Slaanesh has the whole cow thing was because it too was very influenced by East Asian cultural archetypes. 

And that's the other thing; the shared Aelf aesthetic has usually been reserved for, well, the Aelves, it's been primarily a racial tweak among the Aelvish members eg Namarti. Whereas Slaanesh has an armoured warrior cow headed monster which is an incarnation of an aspect of their religion. And the Lumineth have an armoured warrior cow headed monster which is an incarnation of their religion.

I like the idea behind the shared heritage as I said, and I'm willing to wager now there will be some sort of "their symmetry and zeal and belief in their own beauty and superiority belies the dreadful belief to those who can seee it that there is perhaps not so much that separates them from their hated kin" type plot going on. But to have literally the same kind of avatar feels clumsy to me.

 

Edited March 28, 2020 by Nos

[ShadowSwordmaster]

Keep in mind that animal imagery or themes is nothing new in both the Old World and in AoS and there is overlapping with different factions.  Also, Slaanesh should not have a monopoly on bovine related stuff for the most part as there is different kinds of bovines like Yaks, Bison, and so on.

EDIT

Edited March 28, 2020 by ShadowSwordmaster

[Nos]

10 minutes ago, ShadowSwordmaster said:

Keep in mind that animal imagery or themes is nothing new in both the Old World and in AoS and there is overlapping with different factions.  Also, Slaanesh doesn't have and should not have a monopoly on bovine related stuff for the most part as there is different kinds of bovines like Yaks, Bison, and so on.

No but they do have a monopoly on the very specific  2 storey Anthropomorphic Warrior Monster with Cow Head. It's a pretty specific thing to replicate. 

And it's not even like a stocky muscular oxen. It's a lithe androgyneous cow. If it had been released last year as the actual KOS no-one would have thought it out of place.

Edited March 28, 2020 by Nos

[swarmofseals]

1 minute ago, Nos said:

No but they do have a monopoly on the very specific  2 storey Anthropomorphic Warrior Monster with Cow Head. It's a pretty specific thing to replicate. 

Ghorghon and Cygor beg to differ!

[Nos]

1 minute ago, swarmofseals said:

Ghorghon and Cygor beg to differ!

As I said in my earlier post- Cow people or Slaanesh.

Both pretty removed from Aelves. Or indeed the powerful, muscular redoubtable cattle of the mountains that supposedly are the aspect that the Aelves are imprinting here. A more noble and stoic form of Great Beast could totally work.

But not another athletic statuesque human form with cow head.

[Icarion]

1 minute ago, swarmofseals said:

Ghorghon and Cygor beg to differ!

This!

 

Also don’t leave out the kadaii destroyer from chaos dwarves or the bale Taurus. 
 

There is nothing overtly slaaneshii in the choice of a bull or oxen as an animal spirit.

 

@Nos just because you choose to discount the slaaneshi design influences in the new daughters of Khaine doesn’t mean they aren’t there. Morathi wasn’t a snake monster before slaanesh swallowed her, that’s just how she looks after eons of torture inside slaanesh. And slaanesh has more of a serpentine inspiration than a bovine one which has only ever been seen on the keeper of secrets and then, only on one of several head options. 

[Dirtnaps]

Everything I've seen of these new aelves I've loved and these cows and aelven hammerers (never thought I'd type that) have pretty much sold me on starting an army. Especially if this is only the beginning and they will be having all the other elements on release and even then I'd be ok if they went the stormcast route instead and staggered the release. The Sons of Behemat might be awesome but I'm pretty sure they'll have to wait, I've got beef to paint.

[KingBrodd]

1 hour ago, Nos said:

As I said in my earlier post- Cow people or Slaanesh.

Both pretty removed from Aelves. Or indeed the powerful, muscular redoubtable cattle of the mountains that supposedly are the aspect that the Aelves are imprinting here. A more noble and stoic form of Great Beast could totally work.

But not another athletic statuesque human form with cow head.

I'm thinking that the Sons of Behemat are going to be far more stocky than the Aleguzzlar and perhaps went with a different aesthetic as to not clash. Clutching at strings I know.

[Nos]

1 hour ago, Athrawes said:

This!

 

Also don’t leave out the kadaii destroyer from chaos dwarves or the bale Taurus. 
 

There is nothing overtly slaaneshii in the choice of a bull or oxen as an animal spirit.

 

@Nos just because you choose to discount the slaaneshi design influences in the new daughters of Khaine doesn’t mean they aren’t there. Morathi wasn’t a snake monster before slaanesh swallowed her, that’s just how she looks after eons of torture inside slaanesh. And slaanesh has more of a serpentine inspiration than a bovine one which has only ever been seen on the keeper of secrets and then, only on one of several head options. 

No that's how she looks because her designer made her that way, white clearly riffing on the existing Gorgon aesthetic established with the new Khainites before AOS even existed. Models come first with GW, always. 

Wheres this Slaaneshi serpentine inspiration then, besides a few snake tails?

There is nothing remotely bull or oxen about the model besides its head. As you correctly bring up yet another chaos association with bovines to somehow disprove that they arent monopolized by chaos (?) , something I had already pointed out, you can nonetheless differentiate a different take on the bull with Chaos dwarves. They having had their design influenced by the tapestries of Assyrian and Bayblonian Empires have quite a different representation of bull forms-stocky, powerful, muscular, stout.

The Lumineth monster is a complete replica of a Slaaneshi cow-form though.  If it was something different , a differnt interpretation of a mythological cow beast, I wouldnt care. But it's not. Its exactly the same. I mean even just put it on 4 legs, you know, like a cow, not another twisted cow human creature (as befits Slaanesh or beastmen). 

But no. Apparently the Lumineth are so in awe of this beast and its character that the only part they're interested in is the head? Yeah, that's compelling .

Edited March 28, 2020 by Nos

[Overread]

3 minutes ago, Nos said:

Wheres this Slaaneshi serpentine inspiration then, besides a few snake tails. 

It's mutation of her body, just like the Melusai and Khinari are not supposed to have tails or wings or snake bodies. They are corruptions seated deep in their souls which are made manifest on their bodies. A sign of how deeply Slaanesh has corrupted them. Even the Idoneth bare these mutations and twisted natures after many generations they persist - a lasting impact on their bodies. 

 

As for serpentine being a specific "Slaanesh" theme you can look at Fulgrim, a Primarch from 40K who fell to Slaanesh - he's got the full serpents body, wings and such going on; though he also got extra arms from the deal - eg this random photo from googling (there's loads along the same general designs)

 

Slaanesh fiends have had scorpion tails for a long while; meanwhile if I crack open the cursed pages of the Libre Chaotica there's even more including some fantastic at like this 

https://twitter.com/rictus40k/status/1135317106008961024

Click there and you can see some of the art including the awsome snake demon women creature. 

 

Now of course alongside this its clear that they went for a bit of a gorgon and medusa them with the Daughters of Khaine as well. 

[Overread]

9 minutes ago, xking said:

People do nothing but b*itch and moan over on dakkadakka.   

Slow steady breaths - in - and out. 

in and now. 

Now put some music on and forget about the negativity (esp since on Dakka its typically only a small handful who are generally overly negative anyway)

[ShadowSwordmaster]

Overall, the Realm Lords are a interesting mixture of something familiar and something new when it comes to the aelves and their kin. There are not weird like the Deepkin or twisted like the Daughters of Khaine. But more of adaption of a new environment and also AoS direction of making new units.

[Gecktron]

13 minutes ago, Nos said:

No that's how she looks because her designer made her that way, white clearly riffing on the existing Gorgon aesthetic established with the new Khainites before AOS even existed. Models come first with GW, always. 

Wheres this Slaaneshi serpentine inspiration then, besides a few snake tails. 

You are mixing lore and meta perspectives here. 

The only beast thing that existed before the DoK release was the Bloodwrack Medusa, which could have easily stayed a one-off, but GW wanted to show some kind of chaos corruption, so they decided to expand on the greek theme. 
(Also, b-word on worms is very slaanesh-y). 

Edited March 28, 2020 by Gecktron

[Nos]

13 minutes ago, Gecktron said:

You are mixing lore and meta perspectives here. 

The only beast thing that existed before the DoK release was the Bloodwrack Medusa, which could have easily stayed a one-off, but GW wanted to show some kind of chaos corruption, so they decided to expand on the greek theme. 
(Also, ****** and worms is very slaanesh-y). 

Precisley, they created an interesting fusion of real world cultural inspiration to provide a narrative which allows them to tell a visual story of corruption. I completely get that. I really enjoy the Slaaneshi shorthand in all the Aelf models. Heck I've been painting some Revenants and even they have that sort of angelic/demonic androgynous thing going on, especially without hair (see below). It's one of my favourite bits of new Warhammer lore, even if it's borrowed wholesale from 40k and the Eldar.

Which is why I dont like the Bizzaro Aelf Keeper of Secrets. It's not subtle in the slightest. It feels like a clumsy attempt to communicate the whole thing for people who didnt get it up to this point.

I've said my piece so not interested in arguing for the sake of it with anyone. 

Edited March 28, 2020 by Nos

[Icarion]

12 minutes ago, Nos said:

No that's how she looks because her designer made her that way, white clearly riffing on the existing Gorgon aesthetic established with the new Khainites before AOS even existed. Models come first with GW, always. 

Wheres this Slaaneshi serpentine inspiration then, besides a few snake tails. 

 

 

So you've never seen a seeker of slaanesh? What about a fiend of slaanesh, or the demonic mount for a slaaneshi lord,  In a lot of old world stories slaanesh daemons take the form of snakes to tempt mortals (with obvious christian overtones, but still slaanesh has used it more than other chaos gods).

How about this old chestnut? The classic slaaneshi champion. 

The lore of slaanesh consuming all aelf souls predates the designs of the new aelf ranges. I simply cannot imagine how you can have such a visceral disconnect and deny that that lore had any influenced on the serpentine theme of dok.

Totally silly.

 

[Nos]

14 minutes ago, Athrawes said:

So you've never seen a seeker of slaanesh? What about a fiend of slaanesh, or the demonic mount for a slaaneshi lord,  In a lot of old world stories slaanesh daemons take the form of snakes to tempt mortals (with obvious christian overtones, but still slaanesh has used it more than other chaos gods).

How about this old chestnut? The classic slaaneshi champion. 

The lore of slaanesh consuming all aelf souls predates the designs of the new aelf ranges. I simply cannot imagine how you can have such a visceral disconnect and deny that that lore had any influenced on the serpentine theme of dok.

Totally silly.

 

Yes I've seen reptile tails, as I said. I've seen them on Seraphon and Dragons and drakes and Cold Ones too. Is Slaanesh in their backstory somewhere? 

I haven't denied that the lore had influence. I just know that from what GW designers have said elsewhere in interviews, including John Blanche who heads up the entire team,  that like most concept artists they begin with real world inspirations around themes then Warhammer-ify them. 

I simply cannot imagine how someone can see lore tidbits as being more central to the visual language of a Warhammer race than the existing cultural influences on which they are manifestly based. But thats opinions eh. You think you're right, I think I'm right. I have the grace not to call you silly though. 

Edited March 28, 2020 by Nos

[Nightseer2012]

Funny that you keep bringing up the KoS “cow” face.  I always thought it was more “goat” like, to play into the more baphomet style.  Difference in opinion I suppose.

In any case, if the argument is that no one can use cows because one army has cows, then CoS can’t have pheonixes because Tzeentch already called dibs on fire and birds.  Nasgash, Sigmar, and Gorkamorka have to get rid of all their skull iconography because Khorne was here first.  Nurgle and Nagash have to go into a custody hearing over who zombies will visit on weekends.

Sounds a bit silly to me.

[Nos]

8 minutes ago, Nightseer2012 said:

Funny that you keep bringing up the KoS “cow” face.  I always thought it was more “goat” like, to play into the more baphomet style.  Difference in opinion I suppose.

In any case, if the argument is that no one can use cows because one army has cows, then CoS can’t have pheonixes because Tzeentch already called dibs on fire and birds.  Nasgash, Sigmar, and Gorkamorka have to get rid of all their skull iconography because Khorne was here first.  Nurgle and Nagash have to go into a custody hearing over who zombies will visit on weekends.

Sounds a bit silly to me.

If that were my argument fair play, but it's not.

My argument is that after Chaos having had the monopoly on bovines, they should have done something to differentiate between an Order Faction utilising the form. Not make a more kid friendly KOS. Note that I've said nothing about the cow helmet dudes, no issues there.

The Baphomet inspiration is a great point by the way, think you're correct there. But in which case all the more reason to come out with something completely different for a "Light" faction.

Edited March 28, 2020 by Nos

[Fairbanks]

Teclis tried to bulls*** his way out of The End Times. Glad to learn he hasn’t changed at all.

[Whitefang]

Cow is just the avatar of mountain, the spirit of mountain is not even a living creature but a grand statue possessed by the natural spirits. 
It has no connection with Slannesh except shared elements of the same animal

Other paths such as wind and river will also have their own animal avatar of the natural power, just like the god beast in princess mononoke.

[Sance]

Quote

he Realm Lords are a interesting mixture of something familiar and something new when it comes to the aelves and their kin. There are not weird like the Deepkin or twisted like the Daughters of Khaine.

Deepkins are not weird, they are amazing !

Besides, I wonder what the units of the river clan will look like. And if they are a fighting caste like the Mountain Clan...

[KingBrodd]

21 minutes ago, Whitefang said:

Cow is just the avatar of mountain, the spirit of mountain is not even a living creature but a grand statue possessed by the natural spirits. 
It has no connection with Slannesh except shared elements of the same animal

Other paths such as wind and river will also have their own animal avatar of the natural power, just like the god beast in princess mononoke.

I cant wait to see the Avatar of the other Spirits of Hysh. Especially River.