The Rumour Thread

[ShadowSwordmaster]

10 minutes ago, KingBrodd said:

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

Same.

[Arzalyn]

9 hours ago, Chikout said:

Another Wizard

Its Just my eyes or she has a lizardlike animal coming from her back/sitting on her shoulder? It could be the animal for the river to match the runes on her dress 

[Whitefang]

59 minutes ago, xking said:

And at this is going to be a massive release if this is going to be released all at once.

Thus it won’t 

[azdimy]

Not surprised by some of the negative reactions of the new Aelves reveals considering previous articles including designer commentaries had emphasized on the classic esthetic of the Lumineth for weeks. I think the expectation was set for something renewed similar to the new units already revealed.  This reveal today has surprised everyone 

[Kronos]

- Man I’m not loving the cow. Well not at least for it’s intended purpose as a monster unit for an Aelf army. Remember a few years back when there was rumours of Treeman potentially joining High Elves, simpler times. I can imagine that the success of treemen in Wood Elf/wanderer/Sylvaneth armies brought by the idea that High Elves could have their own version of an anthropomorphic Elemental. I’d have rather a Pile of stone, tall armoured an elegant, much in the way of te cows main build, but withouth the cow/beastmen features.  

-The Hammer Elfs look cool, definitely reminiscent enough of High Elf elite, but enough of a different take to not be a copy paste job. I am however struggling to like this release.  

-Scions of the flame are even better than I imagined they would be, needed me some devotees/Flagellants for my Galrauch. Looking forward to next weeks reveal. 

[Thiagoma]

52 minutes ago, azdimy said:

Not surprised by some of the negative reactions of the new Aelves reveals considering previous articles including designer commentaries had emphasized on the classic esthetic of the Lumineth for weeks. I think the expectation was set for something renewed similar to the new units already revealed.  This reveal today has surprised everyone 

To me the frustration comes from the fact that High Elves were sold and played for years, then removed. 

Months later GW makes a trailer about " Pointy Elves" with pictures of classic models and artwork.  It said we had fish elves, tree elves and snake elves now it was time for Pointy ones.

 

Aaaand we get Cow Elves. You bet i am frustrated in exchanging Lions, Phoenix, Eagles, Dragons and Griffons for cattle and giant horned hats.

[LuminethMage]

38 minutes ago, Thiagoma said:

To me the frustration comes from the fact that High Elves were sold and played for years, then removed. 

Months later GW makes a trailer about " Pointy Elves" with pictures of classic models and artwork.  It said we had fish elves, tree elves and snake elves now it was time for Pointy ones.

 

Aaaand we get Cow Elves. You bet i am frustrated in exchanging Lions, Phoenix, Eagles, Dragons and Griffons for cattle and giant horned hats.

Really sad to see that I high elf fan doesn’t like them (although it looks like you are not alone there). 

I like what they did. The Hammers are reminiscent of the White Lions, the helmet faces, if not for the horns could even be those of great cats. 

The have taken a lot of the cultural aspects of the former HE into the Lumineth, the whole concept of singing to wake the mountain spirit to help them fight, is very similar to the Dragons of Celador before. And elves being very close to or almost in symbiosis with their realm is also reminiscent of Ulthuan and Athel Loren. As of course is the whole “great at magic, have a huge fuckup but still think they are the best and come-in as cavalry to sort everything out” thing.

I agree that the helmets are over the top, but HE also were one of the factions with the most ridiculous helmets in WH fantasy. In AOS half the factions have goofy helmets, so they had to do something to stay on top : ). 

I understand that the Pointy Aelves video hinted at even more traditional elves, I always just understood that as them not being half elf/half something, but I also didn’t think Lumineth would get huge bull horned helmets and cow spirits as their defining feature. So that can feel like a let-down.

I still think that the wind or zenith faction will feature more traditional HE monsters like phoenixes (they have so much phoenix symbols on them it would be weird if we don’t get something like that) and some signed helmets. But we might not see them with this release. 

Hopefully they’ll feature units you’ll like in the end. I’ve also waited 5 years for the new HE and can imagine how you feel now. : (

[Aelfric]

Don't think cow, think Aurochs.

[Twisted Firaun]

9 hours 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 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

You’re right, only Hashut should hold the right to such a monopoly*laughs in chaos dwarf*.

[overtninja]

I do hope there are a few more unit types going on for the light elves, since a great deal was made for their elemental affinities, but so far most of the units we've seen are earth-element aligned (all the dudes with water buffalo horns). Hopefully there will be a few more heroes to go into the mix - I envision something like what the Idoneth have, with lots of heroes. With that said, I should also hope that those heroes will be more functional and useful than the Idoneth infantry heroes ended up being.

[Zanzou]

I thought having these new aelves as the elemental masters was a good way to tie them into the zanier AoS world, while maintaining the pointy appearance that traditionalists loved. As such, I think bringing in elemental spirit manifestations is a reasonable addition.

But. Why. On. Earth.... When this faction is already known for their overly large, nonsensically pointy helmets, would you literally copy and paste the entire head of the elemental spirit, onto every single model of your aelf unit, and paste it BALANCED ON TOP OF THEIR ALREADY MASSIVE POINTY HELMETS.

2 hours ago, LuminethMage said:

I agree that the helmets are over the top, but HE also were one of the factions with the most ridiculous helmets in WH fantasy.

Right, the point is that their helmets are ALREADY iconically too massive and tall.  To paste the entire head of their cow elemental, balanced on top of their pointy heads just looks like an intern's joke that was accidentally passed through QA.  Reminds me of the summer intern who got blamed by KTVU when they accidentally aired highly inappropriate joke names instead of the actual names of the deceased pilots (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jtxds204ZMI)

16 hours ago, sandlemad said:

Those ham meters are cool. Having a whole bull’s head cresting their helm makes em a bit top heavy but they should be simple to snip off. The cowled armour and the poses are cool. 

Agreed.  This helmet is the first real issue I've had with any of the actual aelf units revealed so far.  I think you could get away with leaving it on maybe a banner carrier, but balancing on top of every helmet like that is too much.

[Baron Klatz]

Meh, I like the helms. They give off the Tibetan monk vibe who also wear really tall hats so fit the theme. It's to each their own of course and you can easily just use the bull head itself as a cool spirit helm but i'm keeping the awesome tall bull helm.

Just now, overtninja said:

I do hope there are a few more unit types going on for the light elves,

That's likely how the sub-factions will go, one of the 4 geomantric cultures of Mountain, River, Wind & Zenith having heroes, giant spirits and elites backed up by the vanilla lumineth while the aelven gods Teclis and Tyrion form their own sub-factions of moon and sun but can mix with the others as Teclis already shows he has bonded with the powerful Hysh realm spirit Celennar. (Not assuming Tyrion will be with this faction yet, it's possible he may end up a final release for the whole faction but I wouldn't be surprised if he just gets referenced as a powerful martial sun god sub-faction and he's saved for later down the line).

As is though I'm fully satisfied with how awesome the Mountain spirits look and the Tibetan vibe the sage & hammerers give that echoes the higher learning culture of the realm of light is a instant buy, awesome horned helms and all!

Today was my birthday and seeing this was the best gift I got.

 

 

Edited March 29, 2020 by Baron Klatz

[LuminethMage]

Happy Birthday! I’ll also use them as they are. 

@Zanzou It’s totally fine that you don’t like how the look, and yeah those helmets are not practical at all. But I don’t think the are that outrageous compared to many of the other factions. Metal top hats? The things Idoneth and OBR have on their heads (there is a guy who  wears a sarcophagus around)? Fyreslayers helmets are at least as big compared to their body height, some of the Chaos Warrior helmets etc. Its just part of AOS. Practicality and functionality of armour and weapons just play no role in AoS.  

As mentioned I do hope though we get at least one more of their subcultures with this release, which has a more traditional winged helmet theme (like Eltharion) because that would make many people happy (and I’d like to see that too). 

[Baron Klatz]

Hard to believe they won't get that with the Zenith sub-faction that's for sky spirits. (Though the caveat may be it's not just wings but whole bird arms coming out of the helmet to flap and carry the warriors skyward )

Also not sure if this was pointed out but there's this bit of lore with the Mountain connection.

"On top of the "spirit of the mountain" stuff other mentioned, they also mentioned that there's some kind of bovine creature that lives on the mountains in question that never die of old age, only if something kills them, so they're seen as symbols of toughness and durability and were taken as the sacred animals of the Aelves that worship the mountains"

That on top of the aetherquartz overdose civil war these guys had before the mountain spirit calmed them and channeled their magic strength to be better controlled has me Really excited for their tome.

Edited March 29, 2020 by Baron Klatz

[Still-young]

Maybe Zenith is the ruling class? The heroes and stuff. Would fit the name. 

[JackStreicher]

My biggest issue apart from cows totally not fitting to aelves no matter the explanation is:

the army looks incoherent. Riders and Eltharion have good looking elegant helmets. All of the rest took part in The “who wears the ugliest hat“ contest.

 

The army looks incoherent, only held together by the milky color scheme and the somewhat lookalike skirts.

Edited March 29, 2020 by JackStreicher

[Wobbly]

These Spirit of the Mountain miniatures sure looks to me to be the fantasy equivalent of the Eldar Wraithknights. Same rough proportions and build.

Not to mention it suits elves to take mountain spirits and stuff them into a body that aint built like a mountain and instead be built like a big and tall elf instead with a few pieces added for mountain flavour! 😆

[michu]

Yak elementals! And I thought this faction couldn't get any better!

Oh, and for people that think those doesn't work - Lumineth were described as monk-like. Tibetan stylistic for a mountain sub-faction was a given. (I don't know if someone already said it, I didn't read most of the earlier discussion).

 

Edited March 29, 2020 by michu

[Nos]

50 minutes ago, Wobbly said:

These Spirit of the Mountain miniatures sure looks to me to be the fantasy equivalent of the Eldar Wraithknights. Same rough proportions and build.

Not to mention it suits elves to take mountain spirits and stuff them into a body that aint built like a mountain and instead be built like a big and tall elf instead with a few pieces added for mountain flavour! 😆

I thought similar re Wraithknights. Similar to how Durthu is Eldar Avatar of Khaine in tree form.

[Beliman]

28 minutes ago, JackStreicher said:

My biggest issue apart from cows totally not fitting to aelves no matter the explanation is:

the army looks incoherent. Riders and Eltharion have good looking elegant helmets. All of the rest took part in The “who wears the ugliest hat“ contest.

 

The army looks incoherent, only held together by the milky color scheme and the somewhat lookalike skirts.

All their armor looks the same (it seems that they were made by the same fashion designer), only the helmets are diferent.

So, why the helmets are diferent? Because they are the modular design that change between the spirits where the unit/regiment/sub-faction belongs (that's the whole thing about this army). Some of them have a tibetan-monk style (the mountain dudes), other seems to follow a greco-roman style with an asian touch.

I think that their deisng is coherent enough for what they want to accomplish, and that's their selling point.

About the cows not fitting aelves, imho, having an Ox/Bull/Yak for a  tibetan-monk look is somethign that is already used in a lot of other settings, so I don't have any problem with that. 

[alghero81]

While not personally interested in this army would be nice they would concentrate only on two sub-nations and increase a bit the size of each like with heavy cavalry aurochs for the mountain and so on. Something that would allow you to field in time 4 different armies with only few common elements like Skaven behave now 

[KingBrodd]

The Stone Spirits if anything have just made me all the more excited for the Sons of Behemat. Huge stocky brutes, I'm leaning almost in a way to the aesthetic of the Giants of Game of Thrones. Covered in furs with very thick limbs. If they're even taller than the Stone Spirits all the better.

[Still-young]

Someone on Facebook pointed out that the veiled Mage or whatever she is looks like she’s holding the goblet of smoke we saw with her veiled face (the goblet has a hand holding it with a robed sleeve that matches her, and the very end of the smoke looks like it matches the group photo of her). 

[silverstu]

11 hours ago, Arzalyn said:

Its Just my eyes or she has a lizardlike animal coming from her back/sitting on her shoulder? It could be the animal for the river to match the runes on her dress 

Good catch- I like the look of that model- very calm- looks like river with a water dragon/creature- might pick her up as a painting project.

 

Very surprised by the mountain bull creatures - I like how they have developed them, the bull helmets remind me of a empire/bretonian knight that had a tall helmet crest topped with a bull. They definitely have that high culture/zen Tibetan/ Chinese feel. Be interesting see the other aspects- they aren't my particular thing but I like where they are taking the faction.

 

Really pleased that they decided to split the reveal over 2 weekends - nice to have something to look forward to next week rather than have everything at once and I thought it was quite nice the personal nature of it all how they where all in their different homes contributing.  Felt like community which is much needed in the current climate- I've been in self quarantine for the last 5 days feeling ill with something so I appreciate the distraction [thankfully im feeling a bit better and hoping it keeps to this upward curve].    

[Clan's Cynic]

If I'm bitter about something it's that I absolutely adored the White Lions models, both back when they were a single metal unit, then the 'totally-not-a-White-Lion' prince model released for Lustria and my being toppled out of my seat when the plastics, chariot and special character were revealed. I loved them, both the fluff and the look. They had a more hardy, rugged look (covered in pets naturally leads to that), but maintained the elegance and pristine state of elves.

I would much rather they'd continued down that route than 'Bulls'. I'm usually the first person who's all for more grounded AoS kits and as much as I think the Not!Hammerers look good, I do think they would've been far more interesting as a continuation of the White Lions. Something tells me that one of the designers made a joke about "Haha get it, elves with WARHAMMERS? And the game is Warhammer?" but they got taken way too seriously and none had the heart to stop them before it went too far. An axe isn't really a weapon commonly associated with elves if their thinking was to do something different.

 

Edited March 29, 2020 by Clan's Cynic