The Rumour Thread

[elfhead]

Loving this discussion about the lore, good points are made in both sides. 
 

I really really loved the world of WFB, but I do whine it would be fair to point out that the lore didn’t progress much, if at all. There was a lot of backstory but there weren’t many events that really changed anything and the main characters almost never died. 
 

 

[novakai]

I don’t think it’s the lore that causing the lack of interest of AoS games. Studios are the ones who have express interest into doing Warhammer games and they would naturally want to do a 40K games since it the most notable IP out there and easier/ less risky to sell to wider audience. 
 

Granted even though GW brag about the Nexon AoS game I have a feeling it an easy cash grab game, the Frontier RTS must not be far along in development and they want to focus on Daemonhunter since it be well received so far.

[pnkdth]

57 minutes ago, Bosskelot said:

I think that's why a faction like Lumineth have actually landed pretty well, despite some of the model designs being hit-or-miss, there's actually been work put into what Lumineth society is like and how they live and organize themselves, socially and politically. That kind of stuff can give real weight to a faction and make the world and the setting that much more lived-in and alive.

This.

What we've gotten so far is macro-perspective yet we're lacking characters who drive the will of the gods (or who act in spite of them). This makes it quite hard to ground yourself and create something in this world. To some it might seem like a paradox but it is easier, and often way more fun, to create something within an established setting than when given near complete freedom. The world of WHFB wasn't just compelling because it had lots of time to develop but because it was densely packed and had lots of personality. Each place had history or a purpose.

To be more concrete, let's have a campaign about armies and their commanders and their struggles/goals and let the gods squabble and further their own ends. Build from the ground up, let us experience and see the world. You can't just tell people to be invested or feel awe. I might even start to take notice and remember characters as more than their role in an army list. Wouldn't that be something, eh?

[CommissarRotke]

1 hour ago, W1tchhunter said:

Is there any stories you would recommend? I'll be honest other than Gotreks side I only read the books that have stuff to do with the armies I'm currently painting/collecting. I did enjoy the stormcast in Dominion though. 

Soul Wars is a great start (and it has cats!!!), and it continues in other Hallowed Knights novels. the HK are more of your noble paladins, generally with actual personalities and willing to cooperate with Reclaimed. "Ghosts of Demesnus" and "Black Pyramid" are solid picks after Soul Wars.

Hamilcar series I haven't read yet, but heard a lot of positive reviews on both his characterization and the variety of other Stormcast in his novels.

For Shorts: Lightning Golem includes some Stormcast romance and Imprecations of Daemons involves a Stormcast meeting her mortal family again.

[Ragest]

Aw... Lumineth, what a blast.

They are something like rebellion, taking down al possible tropes to rebirth as something new, with tons of personality, with a own space inside a fatasy setting, with respect on their society and work on their worldbuilding.

For me is so disheartening when someone comes there to just hate them, not just funny or fluffy hate, like a dwarf player that knows he must hate them, but inside he knows they are cool, but pure and irrational hate.

[CommissarRotke]

1 hour ago, Bosskelot said:

I think that's why a faction like Lumineth have actually landed pretty well, despite some of the model designs being hit-or-miss, there's actually been work put into what Lumineth society is like and how they live and organize themselves, socially and politically. That kind of stuff can give real weight to a faction and make the world and the setting that much more lived-in and alive.

This is exactly why I think GW still isn't going "all in" for AOS. Yes, comparing 35 years of lore to 7 is a huge gap. Yes AOS still needs time to breathe because we still don't have all the major players (Malerion) out yet. Yes 40k gets the majority of money, and Yes the resurgence of WHF is mostly due to Total Warhammer and Vermintide.

But! 7 years is still enough time to putting in the effort to flesh out more factions. It's enough time to develop a healthy amount of secondary media. It's enough time to decide whether they're truly sticking to AOS or not. It's enough time that Cubicle 7's *quite new* RPG is blowing you out of the water in terms of establishing the Mortal Realms and its inhabitants as a fully-realized fantasy world. 

[xking]

57 minutes ago, W1tchhunter said:

Is there any stories you would recommend? I'll be honest other than Gotreks side I only read the books that have stuff to do with the armies I'm currently painting/collecting. I did enjoy the stormcast in Dominion though. 

What do you like? I will always recommend. Hamilcar: Champion of the Gods for a fun story ( He even punches sigmar in the face if you are into that )

https://www.blacklibrary.com/warhammer-age-of-sigmar/novels/champion-of-chaos-ebook-cs-2018.html

 

There's soul wars if you want to see some anvils of the heldenhammer vs ghost. Staring Lord-Arcanum Balthas Arum ( Baltasar gelt ). It also explorers the city of Glymmsforge. 

https://www.blacklibrary.com/warhammer-age-of-sigmar/novels/ebook-soul-wars.html

 

If you are looking for adventure and want to see what Grungni is like. Then Eight Lamentations: Spear of Shadows is for you ( unfortunately the trilogy was discontinued when josh reynolds left black Library, but it's still a good book )

https://www.blacklibrary.com/warhammer-age-of-sigmar/novels/spear-of-shadows-ebook.html

 

If want to read stories of vampiric intrigue, then you got "Neferata Mortarch Of Blood" and it's sequel "Neferata: The Dominion of Bones"

https://www.blacklibrary.com/warhammer-age-of-sigmar/novels/ebook-neferata-mortarch-of-blood.html

https://www.blacklibrary.com/warhammer-age-of-sigmar/novels/neferata-the-dominion-of-bones-ebook-2019.html

 

If you want lean want the Kharadron Overlords are like you got "Overlords of the Iron Dragon" and and it's sequel "Profit's Ruin"

https://www.blacklibrary.com/warhammer-age-of-sigmar/novels/overlords-of-the-iron-dragon-ebook.html

https://www.blacklibrary.com/warhammer-age-of-sigmar/novels/profits-ruin-ebook-2020.html

 

Finally if you are interested in witch hunters and intrigue there's "City of Secrets" and and it's sequel "Callis and Toll: The Silver Shard"

https://www.blacklibrary.com/warhammer-age-of-sigmar/novels/city-of-secrets.html

https://www.blacklibrary.com/warhammer-age-of-sigmar/novels/callis-and-toll-the-silver-shard-ebook.html

 

Also there is  Cursed City

https://www.blacklibrary.com/warhammer-age-of-sigmar/novels/cursed-city-ebook-2021.html

[novakai]

A well made game goes a long way to make a setting work if the studio can pull  it off, like the background of Divinity and Warcraft are not exactly well flesh or the pinnacle of relatability setting.  You don’t really need the actual AoS setting to progress and become flesh out on GW part for better a game to happen. 
 

like Daemongate they did a good job fleshing out the Grey Knights and the NPC, they put some effort in the voice work and even got The Andy Serkis to do voice work for them.

rather, there probably need to be more interest by studio to want to make AoS game or GW promoting that IP to game developer more, the problem is the way GW handle their the IP to studio and often time to Indy studio that don’t have the resource to create polish games.

[CommissarRotke]

1 hour ago, novakai said:

A well made game goes a long way to make a setting work if the studio can pull  it off, like the background of Divinity and Warcraft are not exactly well flesh or the pinnacle of relatability setting.  You don’t really need the actual AoS setting to progress and become flesh out on GW part for better a game to happen. 
 

like Daemongate they did a good job fleshing out the Grey Knights and the NPC, they put some effort in the voice work and even got The Andy Serkis to do voice work for them.

rather, there probably need to be more interest by studio to want to make AoS game or GW promoting that IP to game developer more, the problem is the way GW handle their the IP to studio and often time to Indy studio that don’t have the resource to create polish games.

this too yeah. The Underworlds game and Stormground feel more like fan-made titles than full games, though they suffer from the same lack of an art director that most indie Warhammer titles do. They're both WORTH playing and Underworlds especially is like a 1:1 love-letter to the tabletop version, but the lack of someone to design proper UI/UX is glaring.

[silverstu]

4 hours ago, Beliman said:

It seems that I'm the Black Sheep of this forum, but I just love the KOs Lore.

I must say that our backstory still has some holes, but our current stories are awesome!! We just ended the second conference of Madralta, we fought side by side with our allies and we even see Grombrindal in action!
We have our Pirate Nation (Bark Mhornar), our classic nemesis (Skavens/Grotbag Skuttlers/Tzeentch), classic stories (find the Lost Barak, raid a temple/City, etc...) and our Soulbound hooks are awesome (our Path of Glory is not bad btw).

Imho, KOs only miss two things:

1. Second wave of models (and that is not a Lore issue)
2. More named characters (coff-coff Drekki Flynt)

I'm not going to lie, I hope to see more about  civilizations growing enough to confront and even kill gods than just Gods playing 4D chess. Btw, so sad that Josh Reynolds don't write for Black Library anymore, his books were really fun to read and understand the world (realms?).

 

Yeah I agree- KO are an excellent faction- the 2nd Ed book gave them a really good feel and there are some cracking stories with them- Code of the skies is a really good short story for example. Plus there are some really good character models like Bugmansson and Dagnai . I think they could do with a wee wave of more models [and female Kharadron!]. The Old World benefited from years and years of development and some really good writers. AoS might be a bit patchy but I think its improving. 

[Chikout]

A lot of this reads like "tell me you haven't read the lore without telling me you haven't read the lore." There is a lot of fantastic stuff in AoS. As someone said a lot of the foundational lore of Warhammer was developed in the RPG. Well AoS has its own RPG which is doing a lot of foundational work in developing the setting. I really recommend the two city guides. They offer a great look at what living in an AoS city is like. 

As for black library. Everyone should read City of Secrets,  the Old Ways, The Silver shard, Heart of winter and Thieves paradise all by Nick Horth. These are three novellas, a short story and a novel all set in the the same part of the mortal realms with the same characters. I actually think City of Secrets is the weakest story of the set. It's still fun but Nick's work gets better with every story. I really hope he writes more black library fiction soo. He also wrote Broken Realms Morathi, which has the most enjoyable narrative of any campaign book gw has ever done, and I've read most of them.

I'm listening to Blood of the Everchosen right now which is also surprisingly good, especially for a tie in book. I haven't read Hallowed Ground yet but I'm looking forward to it even more now. Richard Strachan is very good. 

 

[novakai]

well we also forget about Tempestfall existing but being VR game and also being more of a not really polish experiment i see why people forget it exist.

again it not the AoS lore that the problem its just game studio need to be interested and GW haphazard way of using their IP to created video games (probably has a lot to do with their experience with EA and Relic). but you can't expect much from a newly created small studio like Gasket to create a polish game that draw people into the setting.

Edited June 3, 2022 by novakai

[Vomikron]

6 hours ago, elfhead said:

Loving this discussion about the lore, good points are made in both sides. 
 

I really really loved the world of WFB, but I do whine it would be fair to point out that the lore didn’t progress much, if at all. There was a lot of backstory but there weren’t many events that really changed anything and the main characters almost never died. 
 

 

Good point, and I can see why the lore progressing is important to some players. Personally, I feel that WHFB and 40K are better as Settings than they are as evolving narratives. I would prefer it if the lore didn’t progress at all really. We all know that nothing completely earth shattering will happen to any of the factions because they generally have to go ahead unchanged for the sake of the player base. 
 

There’s a big risk, in my estimation, of lore exhaustion and campaign bloat on the horizon. Broken Realms, Psychic Awakenig, Thondia and the new seasons of war scheme, the War Zones in 40K. It all seems like an endless March toward nothing in particular. I love narrative gameplay but I like to create my own self contained stories and I don’t like them to be reliant on some grander scheme of realm shaping importance. If that makes sense.

[Jetlife]

I believe AOS is an idea that was started as a rebrand that they weren’t sure what to do with it. GW is a games company at heart and the game leads the way. WHFB was a complex game and I think their intial agenda was to evolve the world into something different but mainly make an easier game to attract a modern audience (unfortunately, new players don’t have the patience for WHFB) GW has already admitted AOS has done better than they thought it would at first.
 

So now, they are trying to pour resources into it. 7 years for a platform that consists of game rules, models and books isn’t a long time especially with the pandemic affecting the last 3 years. I feel in last few years they have tried to improve the lore, with Broken realms and now there are new novels with side stories. AOS is also constrained by its actual model releases. The story can only grow as they release models and that has been hard the last three years, so technically the game has only had 4 clean years. Take into consideration that models take almost 2 years from design to shelves, Battletomes another 8-9 months and then novels well over a year. Even these warhammer plus shows are 3-4 years in the making. 
 

The future in AOS is bright. They are starting to get back to the individual character stories that people loved about WHFB. Belakor got a new model and was inserted into the story. Kragnos was just added. 
 

AOS actually uses its smaller games to tell stories too. Underworlds set the stage for Kragnos. But again it’s a game before it’s a story. 

[novakai]

39 minutes ago, Jetlife said:

AOS actually uses its smaller games to tell stories too. Underworlds set the stage for Kragnos. But again it’s a game before it’s a story. 

they were two different mountains, Beastgrave was underworld, Twinhorn peak was Kragnos's prison i believe. in fact both Shadespire and Beastgrave didn't really lead to much in terms of story line outside of finding Sigvalds soul in the mirror in Nightvault. the Katerphones and Silent people so far have been flavorful background beings.

[Beliman]

2 hours ago, Vomikron said:

Good point, and I can see why the lore progressing is important to some players. Personally, I feel that WHFB and 40K are better as Settings than they are as evolving narratives. I would prefer it if the lore didn’t progress at all really. We all know that nothing completely earth shattering will happen to any of the factions because they generally have to go ahead unchanged for the sake of the player base. 

Skirmish/Wargames can still have mindblowing events. I will give you an example:

Malifaux already killed some of their Masters, others changed factions and a new Grand Faction was created some years ago. To understand what I'm saying: Teclis, Malerion, etc... were killed (can still be played with "legends"), Morathi moved to Chaos and a new "Grand Alliance: Shadow Society" was build from scratch, with double-keyword Factions that can be played as part of other Grand Alliance or part of the "Shadow Society".

[Harioch]

3 hours ago, Vomikron said:

There’s a big risk, in my estimation, of lore exhaustion and campaign bloat on the horizon. Broken Realms, Psychic Awakenig, Thondia and the new seasons of war scheme, the War Zones in 40K. It all seems like an endless March toward nothing in particular.

"Endless march toward nothing in particular"...sounds a lot like our own History 😁.

I agree about bloating. Maybe GW should alternate between groundbreaking events affecting all realms (Belakor), and more targeted events (Kragnos attacking the big city in Ghur). There your own lore can live and thrive. Those events are important because they can give you a ground to make your own lore or tying it to those same events. Like a new "Cities of Sigmar" army that's just a company who had vowed to hunt Kragnos after their city was ransacked.

For me AoS lore is nothing iconic or great right now and it relies heavily on past WHB characters (Archaon, Teclis, Nagash) to be interesting. There isn't much non BL interesting new character (Katakros, Olynder). It's been 7 years and the setting still is shaky at best. Some good ideas there and there doesn't make it one of the best setting in fantasy wargame. It's average. The RPG does a fantastic work to make it groundable and improve what's been laid...

But that's a trend with GW quality writing (not talking about BL)...don't expect it to be good or anything. 40k has the same problem...but 40k has a huuuuge amount of lore to make up for it. AoS not so much. That does not mean AoS will become good with 30 years added. Just that there will be more stories, both good and badly written, and that you can pick from and maybe someday it will becomes a good storyline...

Edited June 3, 2022 by Harioch

[Still-young]

10 hours ago, elfhead said:

Loving this discussion about the lore, good points are made in both sides. 
 

I really really loved the world of WFB, but I do whine it would be fair to point out that the lore didn’t progress much, if at all. There was a lot of backstory but there weren’t many events that really changed anything and the main characters almost never died. 
 

 

But until The End Times, it didn’t really have things that moved the setting forward - it was a setting frozen in time, like 40k was until Primaris marines really. AoS is an evolving setting with a timeline moving forward, and a narrative campaign like Broken Realms which it sounds like the complaint is that it didn’t actually change the status quo at all. I think a frozen setting and an evolving story can each work well and people will prefer one or the other (arguably a frozen setting is the easier choice for a game where people spend literal hours building and painting models from the setting), but if you have an evolving story but nothing actually really happens, it’s just unsatisfying. 

[EccentricCircle]

I think part of the problem isn't just having good lore or not. Rather its how well coupled that lore is to the game. BL novels have always introduced a lot of great characters because they are character driven. That's how stories work. But the war game doesn't reflect that. This was true in WFB to an extent, but you at least had Gotrek and Felix in the dwarf books and some rpg material front and centre in the codexes (lizardmen had maps of cities, info on the glyphs etc other books had poems and flavourful little bits of background. They still try to do that, but haven't been as good at it since 7e)

Soulbound is great, but it's off as its ow n little side thing which gw don't acknowledge or promote. I  think they barely give it more attention than their mobile games.

[Marcvs]

1 hour ago, Still-young said:

I think a frozen setting and an evolving story can each work well and people will prefer one or the other (arguably a frozen setting is the easier choice for a game where people spend literal hours building and painting models from the setting), but if you have an evolving story but nothing actually really happens, it’s just unsatisfying. 

I think this points out to an important tension, namely: how do you kill characters* without making people's expensive and beloved models unusable (no, being usable as Legends is not a good substitute). I think a solution might be to have more named characters releases linked to narrative events, with the understanding that once their story arc finishes (they die, they ascend, they retire...) they will be officially usable as the non-named version or similar thing.

 

*using this as a proxy for "stuff happening", could also be bigger like "destroy a faction" and so on

[Gitzdee]

39 minutes ago, Marcvs said:

I think this points out to an important tension, namely: how do you kill characters* without making people's expensive and beloved models unusable (no, being usable as Legends is not a good substitute). I think a solution might be to have more named characters releases linked to narrative events, with the understanding that once their story arc finishes (they die, they ascend, they retire...) they will be officially usable as the non-named version or similar thing.

 

*using this as a proxy for "stuff happening", could also be bigger like "destroy a faction" and so on

They could easily do this with new tome releases. Just to give an example. They could have Kragnos kill Gordrakk and remove his warscroll and just keep the non named version. This makes room for a new character orruk to start something new.

To be honest, i dont really care if my huge center piece models get legends status. They look great on the shelf and wouldnt have a problem if pieces like that only get played in open and narrative games. Dont like 400+ points models in matched play at all in the first place. Dont think its good for balance and list building at all if u have to take the overpowered favourite new big model of the month.

[Kadeton]

I don't think we should have named characters (in the game rules) at all, just generic options - and then have sidebar advice like "If you want to represent <special character> in your games, take this character with this command trait and this artefact" or similar customisation options. Characters need to be able to come and go in the fiction without it affecting model releases or game rules - you could even represent characters at different points in their story using different choices.

[EonChao]

Swung by the GW stand at the Expo to buy the event minis, some nice AoS minis on display (Stormcast, Seraphon, Thorns of the Briar Queen, and some centrepiece models) but no unreleased stuff sadly 

[novakai]

FYI killing character just for the sake of killing character doesn’t make the lore anymore compelling. In the end of the day Warhammer is a war game with a setting that compelled you to use cool models and cool immortal  characters on the tabletop, there not trying to win a Pulitzer award for amazing writing. It not like WHF did this any better, back when Age of Reckoning  happen most people only though of the fantasy being very inferior to 40K and probably still is. Maybe if your setting can produce a 53 plus novel series like Horus heresy (plenty of deaths in that series) can then we can start talking

and again the AoS lore is not the thing preventing video games from being developed. Rather GW doesn’t put much effort in that whole sector is the problem.

[Lengthster]

2 hours ago, Kadeton said:

I don't think we should have named characters (in the game rules) at all, just generic options - and then have sidebar advice like "If you want to represent <special character> in your games, take this character with this command trait and this artefact" or similar customisation options. Characters need to be able to come and go in the fiction without it affecting model releases or game rules - you could even represent characters at different points in their story using different choices.

I don't think that is nearly enough to represent named characters. If it uses the same artifacts and command traits (especially if they're not your general) as normal units, it's boring, if it uses unique stuff, you might as well just write a new warscroll.