The Rumour Thread

[zilberfrid]

9 minutes ago, Beastmaster said:

It’s a discussion that is going on in the whole fantasy community in the last years. I think it came with the clashing of the massively stylized manga weapon/armor style with the HEMA trend of looking at actual history for design ideas. I understand both sides and find it always refreshing and interesting to see those discussions. Difficult for a designer to please everyone, though. The Lumineth are interesting in that regard since they seem to be split between those two camps. 
 

Maybe it’s the right time to split between AoS and Oldworld. Can’t please them both.

And then, with the Warcraft/J-rpg style of ice weapons in the only design we have, the Old World seems to go the way of AoS as well.

[michu]

5 minutes ago, zilberfrid said:

And then, with the Warcraft/J-rpg style of ice weapons in the only design we have, the Old World seems to go the way of AoS as well.

As I said earlier, look at the Yhetees. That was always how ice weapons looked like in Warhammer. Regularly shaped ice weapon in this scale is just a normal weapon painted blue.

[Kadeton]

1 hour ago, Beastmaster said:

I can fully see the bull, aurochs etc as a symbol for raw power and mass, steadfastness and resolve. Not exactly the traits that I associate with elves.

And yes, they were stylized to make them more elegant looking. Which actually empathizes the initial mismatch between the associative framework that I feel, and that the designers seem to have felt too, regarding that they tried to mitigate it.

Why, I might ask myself, make cows more catlike when  they could have chosen a more catlike animal as a design basis  in the first place?

I think this is quite a clever compromise of design, personally. To me, it suggests that the Hyshian Aelves were trying to broaden their horizons.

Aelves are traditionally lithe, graceful, elegant, skilful... but they're also delicate, fragile. Some of them no doubt chose to focus on their strengths, but the Mountain aelves tried to shore up their weaknesses instead. Of course, being aelves, they still couldn't stop themselves from bringing some of that elegant grace to the forms they made for their mountain spirits, but in return they incorporated some of the mountain's robustness into themselves. I like that their aesthetic suggests a cultural history of adaptation and overcoming their weaknesses, rather than "choosing a more catlike animal" as their totem.

You could punch one of these aelves right in their smug face, and break your hand on their perfect nose.

[sandlemad]

1 hour ago, Beastmaster said:

I can fully see the bull, aurochs etc as a symbol for raw power and mass, steadfastness and resolve. Not exactly the traits that I associate with elves.

And yes, they were stylized to make them more elegant looking. Which actually empathizes the initial mismatch between the associative framework that I feel, and that the designers seem to have felt too, regarding that they tried to mitigate it.

Those traits were already there with elves, as with the White Lions, Phoenix Guard, Black Guard, Eternal Guard... All of them full of resolve and with a strong emphasis on mass and steadfastness, weighty armour (particularly for the halberd-wielders, it's the main part of their silhouette), resolve, not moving. I don't think there's a mismatch, particularly as the idea here was to blend themes associated with the mountains/the earth. 

If it doesn't work with your specific vision of elves, that's fine and that's you but I don't think the designers were trying to mitigate some error or mismatch so much as do something that builds on what has gone before, draws inspiration from RL cultures, and tries to add something fresh.

I really don't see anything here that couldn't have been brought up decades ago about the White Lions in particular, i.e. elves don't use axes, elves aren't strong, lions aren't as elvish as birds, high elves aren't fur-wearing savages, the designers are trying to cover a bad design.  If we're going to stick to a very narrow, Flanderised idea of what constitutes traits associated with elves, all we're going to get is increasingly inwards-looking iterations on the same shrinking set of visual cues.

[Deepkin]

9 minutes ago, michu said:

As I said earlier, look at the Yhetees. That was always how ice weapons looked like in Warhammer. Regularly shaped ice weapon in this scale is just a normal weapon painted blue.

Or, and heres a thought, they could just have regular bardiches or something. Wacky anime weapons are lame. Functional weapons are sexy.

[zilberfrid]

7 minutes ago, michu said:

As I said earlier, look at the Yhetees. That was always how ice weapons looked like in Warhammer. Regularly shaped ice weapon in this scale is just a normal weapon painted blue.

Yhetees simply use ice clubs. They are also not human.

With the Old World, GW could have made the split between way over the top high fantasy (AoS), and low fantasy (Old World). They seem not to do that.

And maybe GW simply won't make models that I like except for D&D monsters. All fair, but then I'll just bow out.

[Beliman]

14 minutes ago, zilberfrid said:

And then, with the Warcraft/J-rpg style of ice weapons in the only design we have, the Old World seems to go the way of AoS as well.

Btw, I suggest to wait until more things are revealed. Remember that we had cartoon armies (Old Chaos dwarfs) next to other history-based ones (Empire). 

If you have the oportunity to play a demo of ASOIAF, go for it. I think that you will like their models.

[michu]

18 minutes ago, zilberfrid said:

Yhetees simply use ice clubs. They are also not human.

So what? Humans can't use ice weapons? If you think magical weapons (on elite unit, serving someone called literally "Ice Queen") make High Fantasy then almost everything must be too high fantasy for you. Even GoT. Do you know that Bretonnians use trebuchets that toss blessed rocks, and use dead Grail Knights as artefacts granting unnatural protection to their followers? Celestial Wizards can cast meteors on the enemies. And the most important - Chaos! Chaos makes all arguments that WFB was low fantasy invalid. I will say it again - Kislev is close to Norsca, at the time of W:Old World it was ruled by Ice Queen, leader of the coven of ice witches. Do you think her personal guard would use mundane weapons?

And @Deepkin then why are you playing AoS? We have many non-realistic weapons here. And WFB had also its share.

Edited March 31, 2020 by michu

[zilberfrid]

5 minutes ago, michu said:

So what? Humans can't use ice weapons? If you think magical weapons (on elite unit, serving someone called literally "Ice Queen") make High Fantasy then almost everything must be too high fantasy for you. Even GoT. Do you know that Bretonnians use trebuchets that toss blessed rocks, and use dead Grail Knights as artefacts granting unnatural protection to their followers? Celestial Wizards can cast meteors on the enemies. And the most important - Chaos! Chaos makes all arguments that WFB was low fantasy invalid. I will say it again - Kislev is close to Norsca, at the time of W:Old World it was ruled by Ice Queen, leader of the coven of ice witches. Do you think her personal guard would use mundane weapons?

And @Deepkin then why are you playing AoS? We have many non-realistic weapons here. And WFB had also its share.

There were more words in the post. You seem to have missed them all.

[michu]

2 minutes ago, zilberfrid said:

There were more words in the post. You seem to have missed them all.

I've read them all. I just think that ice weapons (on one elite unit)  don't make Old World that much closer to AoS than WFB.

[zilberfrid]

22 minutes ago, Beliman said:

Btw, I suggest to wait until more things are revealed. Remember that we had cartoon armies (Old Chaos dwarfs) next to other history-based ones (Empire). 

If you have the oportunity to play a demo of ASOIAF, go for it. I think that you will like their models.

Yeah, I didn't go into Warhammer earlier because I did not like the design. There is a lot of nonsense in the Old World as well, which is why I started with Freeguild last year when I was researching the Italian Wars for a LARP and was talked into starting Warhammer.

I have a bit of Frostgrave, which seems about the right size and style for me.

[zilberfrid]

1 minute ago, michu said:

I've read them all. I just think that ice weapons (on one elite unit)  don't make Old World that much closer to AoS than WFB.

They could have made an Old World with toned down ridiculousness, because it's quite clear AoS goes off the charts the other way.

Not quite keeping WHFB as a middle ground, because then you'd be limited to historical, but making the first reveal already high fantasy (close to the highest fantasy humans of WHFB) disappointed me. It makes the chances of them making a lineup that I like quite slim.

[JPjr]

****** hell, for the first time ever in the miserable history of my posting on this forum I actually want some officious jobsworth to pipe up with the usual 'ERr PeOPLe YoU KnOw THiS is ThE RUmoUR THreaD' post

[sandlemad]

1 hour ago, Beliman said:

Warcry or Underworlds Bonereapers maybe?

It's definitely Ossiarch, got their particular faceted gem, their moulded bone-stuff and a cartouche that's a little like that of the Emisarian caste, a stylised mouth for the messengers of the Ossiarch empire.

They probably won't be announcing the next season of Underworlds until the end of the summer but as a prominent faction the Ossiarchs are conspicuous by the absence so far. I'd love a warband based around an emissary or ambassador lost in Shadespire/Beastgrave/whatever next.

[Ravinsild]

If you want realistic Warhammer is not for you. The Doomdiver catapult from the old world literally flung GOBLINS with HANG GLIDERS into suicide missions into the enemy. In 40k Warhammer they have a GUN that SHOOTS goblins ON PURPOSE. Not to mention everything squigs. Literally, they take a goblin. Put him with a pair of hang-glider wings. Put him in a catapult. Shoot him into the enemy. For fun. 

That's just Orruks/Orks. There's so much other crazy and weird stuff. Chainswords/Chainaxes probably don't work, Powerfists are silly, Lighting Claws is because somebody liked Wolverine from X-Men plus Lightsabers from Star Wars. Etc.. 

FFS Warhammer 40k has Space Elf Murder Clowns  Also one of the Dwarven Kings rides a giant throne around. Like a car. Except it's a giant heavy stone chair. I don't even know how it floats or moves or whatever. 

[whispersofblood]

On 3/30/2020 at 8:03 AM, JackStreicher said:

I‘ve been thinking about why these aelves bother me so much. So I‘ll share my opinion one last time and then let the topic rest:

GW teases us with story bits of a new High Elf faction. Then we get to see 3 Units that actually look like really well re-imagined High Aelves (Spearmen, Riders, Eltharion).

And then we get more Lore about how the Lumineth tried to remake the culture of Ulthuan.

The next release is suddenly rather weird and very Arabic (Teclis).

Then the whole faction makes a 180 degree turn and suddenly is tibethan and Chinese.

And then they build giant Cow spirits!?

what was that part about Ulthuan? Why are these even called aelves!? Why were we teased with new high aelves just to be shown the middle finger with something that‘s totally not even their aesthetic anymore? Imo that was a pretty mean deception towards us as customers.

I‘d like the cow spirit in pretty much any other army, it‘s a good model. If they‘d just said: Well, here‘s a new faction and they‘re not even aelves but cow people so we can expand our business more towards the Asian market. That‘d be fine. But don‘t tease your customers with new somewhat high aelves just to show them the middle finger and Kick them out of the door with the final message „High Aelves are dead, fool, what were you thinking?“

 

that‘s my last word on this

The bolded is your issue. GW never teased anything about HE's, HE were their own coherent faction which died (literally the culture no longer exists) and LRL were always going to be Teclis and Tyrions interpretation of the High Elven culture which millennia after their creation have become their own culture with their own history. LRL pre-date the Age of Chaos and have had a crisis that has shaped the culture into what we are seeing in model form.

GW never marketed these as new "HE", they said pointy aelves which could mean any number of thing. Hell it could have been interpreted to mean DE. You were limited in you thinking and you set your expectations at X, GW had planned Y which was just as likely given we all had literally zero information before models started being released. Eltharion is a specific thing, a memory of a specific person it makes sense that it is more closely designed to the original culture that created the two progenitors.

If you remember your HE lore, Dragons and High Elves shared a similar relationship to that which the fluff is ascribing to LRL and the Realm spirits which will develop over the next 40 odd years that the relationship did in Warhammer through the decades. This might be the first Battletome that I read the fluff page by page to really figure out how I feel about the faction. And if you really don't like the Battle Cattle, proxy an elf on a dragon with the correct base. 

[Kadeton]

19 minutes ago, michu said:

Chaos makes all arguments that WFB was low fantasy invalid. I will say it again - Kislev is close to Norsca, at the time of W:Old World it was ruled by Ice Queen, leader of the coven of ice witches. Do you think her personal guard would use mundane weapons?

In fairness, Chaos provides the contrast. If someone's going to sell their soul and be eternally damned, they'd better hope they're getting some sick magical powers in exchange, otherwise it seems like a terrible idea. Chaos is in essence the "easy path" to greatness that comes at a terrible cost.

Any normal human who had some connection to magical power (however slight!) without having to sell out to Chaos for it was a Seriously Big Deal in the Old World, one in a million. The Ice Queen herself being an ice mage - yep, that's awesome and makes sense. There being enough ice mages available for her to recruit entire units of them, not to mention assuring their loyalty when their magical gifts would be worth a Queen's ransom? That... seems like a stretch. Doesn't mean it's impossible, but they're going to have to do a lot more work to make it believable versus just making them exceptionally hardy and well-trained but mundane humans.

[zilberfrid]

I'll refrain from reacting to keep the thread more about rumours.

[JackStreicher]

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2020/03/31/the-rumour-engine-march-31st-2020/

Nice! The Axe of a Vampire Knight? Even if not it‘ll at least be a Death unit for certain!

Edited March 31, 2020 by JackStreicher

[Aeryenn]

OBR Warband 100%. I'm currently painting an army of them. 

[michu]

29 minutes ago, zilberfrid said:

They could have made an Old World with toned down ridiculousness, because it's quite clear AoS goes off the charts the other way.

Not quite keeping WHFB as a middle ground, because then you'd be limited to historical, but making the first reveal already high fantasy (close to the highest fantasy humans of WHFB) disappointed me. It makes the chances of them making a lineup that I like quite slim.

See. That's where lies the problem. You mistakenly assumed  that warhammer is low fantasy. In comparison to AoS sure, but not to many low fantasy settings. We have in WFB: 

Giant toad wizards (that can shape continents) and their scaly servants,

Barbaric warriors mutated by their gods,

Rat-men with machine guns, laser cannons and giant hamster wheels of death,

Wizards casting meteors and using giant Hysh lasers (they were just jealous of the rats)

Demigryph riders,

Blessed knights that can withhold a cannonball strike

Dwarfs with zeppelins and trains (yes, they had them in ancient times)

Does these say low fantasy to you?

@Kadetonthat's not that unusual. WFB lore says that there is a whole coven of ice witches in Kislev and Tzarinas belonging to the coven were always trying to not let any religion gain too much popularity in Kislev because that could result in witch hunters. Magic in Kislev is not that frowned upon like in the Empire. Maybe Ice Guard is made of  members of that coven?

Ok, that was my last post about that.

Edited March 31, 2020 by michu

[Overread]

Warhammer straddled low and elements of high fantasy. 

The setting was such that many areas could be and were presented as very low fantasy. It was a design and ethos that crept in through many elements. From both the range of fanastical creatures on offer, but also in the designs and style of many of the models. A Bretonnian army could be quite at home for the majority of its units on a regular battlefield of the middleages. The majority of the troops and even up to knights were pretty much standard real world weapons and designs. 

Of course as time went by more high fantasy crept in. One pegasus rider became a group; one griffin became demigryphs. These were gradual and steady additions so that the game retained its original feel, just with a few added elements here and there. People basically didn't notice the shift.

 

 

AoS is a broad stroke shift into epic high fantasy with a very different design ethos and approach. It's far more flamboyant in the styles and designs; more extreme; more "out there" and less rooted in reality. The armies don't even try to make proper real world analogies. Sure you can draw contrasts and comparisons, but often the larger armies with more diverse model ranges can show a huge variety in different potential racial and mythological backgrounds. 

 

 

Also in Old World one other major element was that art and stories were slightly different to game presentation. Greater Demons in art and stories were huge monstrosities; but on the table they were not much bigger than gothizar harvesters back then. So whilst the lore and background (which remember not everyone read into); might have had more high fantasy elements; the game presented itself more low-magic and low end. 

[michu]

And to go back to rumours. As Katakros invaded All-points maybe it's not WHU warband but a Warcry one?

 

 

Edited March 31, 2020 by michu

[novakai]

9 minutes ago, whispersofblood said:

The bolded is your issue. GW never teased anything about HE's, HE were their own coherent faction which died (literally the culture no longer exists) and LRL were always going to be Teclis and Tyrions interpretation of the High Elven culture which millennia after their creation have become their own culture with their own history. LRL pre-date the Age of Chaos and have had a crisis that has shaped the culture into what we are seeing in model form.

GW never marketed these as new "HE", they said pointy aelves which could mean any number of thing. Hell it could have been interpreted to mean DE. You were limited in you thinking and you set your expectations at X, GW had planned Y which was just as likely given we all had literally zero information before models started being released. Eltharion is a specific thing, a memory of a specific person it makes sense that it is more closely designed to the original culture that created the two progenitors.

If you remember your HE lore, Dragons and High Elves shared a similar relationship to that which the fluff is ascribing to LRL and the Realm spirits which will develop over the next 40 odd years that the relationship did in Warhammer through the decades. This might be the first Battletome that I read the fluff page by page to really figure out how I feel about the faction. And if you really don't like the Battle Cattle, proxy an elf on a dragon with the correct base. 

Well I mean to be fair GW marketed the army with old WHF art of high elf, and calling back to nostalgia of the old. So it not like blame people for believing it so. 
 

granted Realmlords are what I would called a spiritual successor to High elves.
so I would called them New high elves

 Now if people where hoping 1 to 1 conversion of them into Sigmar that was probably a bit unrealistic considering what they did for OBR and other releases

[Thiagoma]

1 minute ago, novakai said:

Well I mean to be fair GW marketed the army with old WHF art of high elf, and calling back to nostalgia of the old. So it not like blame people for believing it so. 

This. Cant stress this enough.