The Rumour Thread

[Jagged Red Lines]

I mean, is it just because we're not kids anymore?

Like others here I used to read and reread every word in every army book and White Dwarf. Those characters like Eltharion, Malus Darkblade, Wulfric, were the titans of my childhood - and I'm sure yours too. 

I know the narrative is now more child-friendly, as you don't get the swearing or shagging you used to find in WFB fiction.

But I think perhaps the reason why the new characters are more forgettable is because we didn't grow up with them.

It's possible that a kid now getting into the hobby will be as enthusiastic about Kragnos and Katakros as we once were about Nagash and Tyrion.

[KingBrodd]

13 minutes ago, Jagged Red Lines said:

I mean, is it just because we're not kids anymore?

Like others here I used to read and reread every word in every army book and White Dwarf. Those characters like Eltharion, Malus Darkblade, Wulfric, were the titans of my childhood - and I'm sure yours too. 

I know the narrative is now more child-friendly, as you don't get the swearing or shagging you used to find in WFB fiction.

But I think perhaps the reason why the new characters are more forgettable is because we didn't grow up with them.

It's possible that a kid now getting into the hobby will be as enthusiastic about Kragnos and Katakros as we once were about Nagash and Tyrion.

 

[Goatforce]

6 minutes ago, Jagged Red Lines said:

I mean, is it just because we're not kids anymore?

Like others here I used to read and reread every word in every army book and White Dwarf. Those characters like Eltharion, Malus Darkblade, Wulfric, were the titans of my childhood - and I'm sure yours too. 

I know the narrative is now more child-friendly, as you don't get the swearing or shagging you used to find in WFB fiction.

But I think perhaps the reason why the new characters are more forgettable is because we didn't grow up with them.

It's possible that a kid now getting into the hobby will be as enthusiastic about Kragnos and Katakros as we once were about Nagash and Tyrion.

I can see what you mean, but I would say there are also exceptions. Lady Olynder for example I personally love as a character and from what I have seen she is a fairly iconic character. May be projecting my love for her though!

In general I would say that the setting still needs to grow though, I would hazard a guess that WH:FB 3rd edition likely had a similar issue. Characters have yet to make their names, and I feel the way AoS is being developed - with an advancing timeline rather than a constantly updating "present" - does lend itself to developing a really good foundation of character lore organically so long as it is given time and GW give everyone enough attention rather than focus on 1 army to the exclusion of all others (though that is possible unfortunately).

For example I can go back to Olynder, who is not just a badass character but is also seemingly developing a rivalry with Belakor, which could fuel really interesting lore in the form of novels, supplement stuff or both, and her apparent allegiance with Katakross is also interesting and a counterpoint to the other Mortarchs who seem very fractious (god I hope we see another book which advances the Wrath of the Everchosen stuff at some point, I want to know more about Death's invasion of the 8-Points!).

 

But yeah, a long winded way of saying the foundation is there, but I think the lore just needs more time to develop for there to be instantly recognisable  "classic characters", especially given the organic style of AoS' lore-building.

[Overread]

12 minutes ago, Jagged Red Lines said:

I mean, is it just because we're not kids anymore?

Like others here I used to read and reread every word in every army book and White Dwarf. Those characters like Eltharion, Malus Darkblade, Wulfric, were the titans of my childhood - and I'm sure yours too. 

I know the narrative is now more child-friendly, as you don't get the swearing or shagging you used to find in WFB fiction.

But I think perhaps the reason why the new characters are more forgettable is because we didn't grow up with them.

It's possible that a kid now getting into the hobby will be as enthusiastic about Kragnos and Katakros as we once were about Nagash and Tyrion.

 

Yes and no. 
I didn't read any Old World books until AoS came on the scene. The first one I read was Gotrek and I devoured them just so I could read the Gotrek books in AoS whilst having an understanding of the character and his history. 

Age does come into play in so much as a more mature reader is going to have read a wider variety of stories and the style that hey desire often changes. 

For me the difference is that Old World was more structured which meant you could see and understand impacts nad settings. Even if the characters never impacted the greater narrative, they felt part of their world and setting. It also helped that Old World ran on real world physics and logic and Tolkien style fantasy. So alongside your wizards and witches you had common orcs and peasants and all. You could easily imagine in your minds eye a LOT of the missing details because they'd be pretty common normal things - horses ploughing fields, crops grown, etc...

AOS leans into a setting thats insanely open, insanely free and very much runs on its own physics. Reading the first books you have armies of stormcast climbing mountains to reach lakes of quicksilver whilst fighting in realms where there are storms of rust and living normal flora and fauna with have pistons as much as they have flesh. 

IT's wild, is amazing, its highly fantastical, but BL don't have Tolkien style authors. So the reader has to fill in the gaps, but its hard when you've such a wild setting. And not just one but multiple realms that are each wild and obeying their own laws. I read the Mother of Monsters book recently and its set in Ghur and one of the hard things to imagine is a setting with farmers, travelling caravans, horses, livestock and all in a realm where the ground moves daily. Where in a few moments you can go from a flat floodplane to a mountainous region. And this is normal. 
How do you build in that environment? How do you farm, or travel roads, how does a wheel caravan move over terrain where the road might become a mountainside or a valley or a river in moments? How do you tame horses to not bolt as soon as the land moves; how do you achieve any sense of living in such a setting?

These were big questions I was asking and the stories don't really answer or try to answer them. They don't go deep enough and that makes immersion a bit harder because I've got ot fill in that huge gap. Furthermore how I fill it in might be different ot the author and other readers so when that setting gets looked at closer and deeper its easier to have a divergence and the author takes things X way which is way different to how others have envisioned it. 

[xking]

Remember to always read the lexi, lot's of good stuff

https://ageofsigmar.lexicanum.com/wiki/Freeguild

[novakai]

51 minutes ago, sandlemad said:

I think there’s a distinction between characters like Gobsprakk who are released with some genuinely good and interesting background, defined personalities, etc but who get no real development… and narratively empty characters without personality (like most stormcast characters) who also get no development.

It’s unfortunate because the former type are basically waiting as good ideas to be used interestingly, while the latter could maybe be made worthwhile with a bit of development, as with Vandus. But either way, there doesn’t seem to be much appetite for it.

i think it is because their marketing hasn't been great recently during COVID.I argue they did a good job with Skargrott, Katakros, and Lady Oylinder when they were release. Skragrott and Gloomspite Gitz had probably one of the best marketing and trailer releases in AoS follow by some minor involvments in the narrative here and there, Katakros had also a nice intro trailer and had good follow up during the Wriath of the Everchosen (though he been kind push to the background in recent times), and Olyinder play a consistent role in the whole Soul War narrative being in every death story.

but now they just release very short trailers and model showcases and that's about it with little follow-up afterward. like Awlrach the Drowner, Lady of Vines (TBF she has done stuff in past) Eternus, King Brodd, Larka Vai, etc. they release them, and they hit the shelves, and that about it.

[Greyshadow]

2 hours ago, Overread said:

I read the Mother of Monsters book recently and its set in Ghur and one of the hard things to imagine is a setting with farmers, travelling caravans, horses, livestock and all in a realm where the ground moves daily. Where in a few moments you can go from a flat floodplane to a mountainous region. And this is normal.

Haven't come across this story? Is it set closer to the Perimeter Inimical? The lore for the Ghurish Heartlands has developed to be far more 'normal'. The land masses do move but the time scale is more like centuries rather than days. There are frequent earthquakes but the people live with them much like the people who live on the rim of fire do in our world today. There are indeed farms, hunting villages, fishing hamlets, caravans, townships, trade roots and toll roads.

Recommend reading Hallowed Ground to get a good sense of the surrounds of Excelsis in recent times. A careful reading even puts a scale to the Heartlands map. (For example, you can work out that Salzagor's Hope is just over 100 miles from Excelsis by road).

Edited December 3, 2022 by Greyshadow

[Overread]

2 minutes ago, Greyshadow said:

Haven't come across this story? Is it set closer to the Perimeter Inimical? The lore for the Ghurish Heartlands has developed to be far more 'normal'. The land masses do move but the time scale is more like centuries rather than days. There are frequent earthquakes but the people live with them much like the people who live on the rim of fire do in our world today. There are indeed farms, hunting villages, fishing hamlets, caravans, townships, trade roots and toll roads.

Recommend reading Hallowed Ground to get a good sense of the surrounds of Excelsis in recent times. A careful reading even puts a scale to the Heartlands map. (For example, you can work out that Salzagor's Hope is just over 100 miles from Excelsis by road).

Ahh I remembered the title wrong its - A Dynasty of Monsters. 
But yeah the land in that book very much rises and falls within hours to a day. Some elements of it move slow and some move insanely fast. You see a land movement within the opening pages and it remains a very strong theme. Heck the major settlement in the book survives by being built upon huge stilts so that it's raised up from the land around it to persist through the changes. 

The tricky thing is that the reader gets little sense of the rules of how the land moves, why it moves, what governs it and what limits there are which allows the people to live, move, trade, hunt, settle and overall exist within this region. 

[Baron Klatz]

4 hours ago, Greyshadow said:

The land masses do move but the time scale is more like centuries rather than days.

Decades to be more precise.

”even as the frost-locked land of Bjarl inveigles fjords into its underside and chokes Andtor’s southern coast with ice floes. If a scholar was to somehow map the Heartlands, he would find his document hopelessly out of date within a matter of decades.”

Thondia tome has a neat note on that how it’s caused Ghurian map makers to basically become orders of warrior monks with how dangerous the surveys are and how rigorously they have to go and redo their works over and over to keep up-to-date on the hungry continents biting & slashing tectonically at eachother.

 

on the little details they’re doing pretty well and I can gush about recent works(even outside Soulbound) like “Arkanaut’s Oath” but man do I miss Josh Reynold’s stuff on fleshing out the alien worlds of the Mortal Realms.

The Blackmarsh Barony having giant land-eating turtles they build castles on the backs of who “seperate” the indigestible precious minerals that become the provinces currency to everything about the Crawling City:

https://ageofsigmar.lexicanum.com/wiki/Shu'gohl
 

like how fun is that to detail that among all the giant worm hairs they hollow out into buildings that they need a source of light amidst the follicle skyscrapers?

“Bristle-Towers: The Bristle-Towers, or Setae Towers, of the Crawling City are structures carved into and made from the hair-like setae that grows from the worm's back. These towers rise above the squirming, clustered streets found on the worm's backs. They are connected connected to one another and the streets by walkways and bridges made from warm-scale and setae. Mirror plates hanging from the towers are used to reflect lantern light down onto the city streets, ensuring the city is as bright as day even at night, these lights are part of a defense system to keep watch for the Skaven who still lurk deep within the worm.”

But it’s another reason I’m looking forward to the pace of the AoS videogames picking up in the future. Nothing beats visual media on getting the cool stuff across to newcomers and how they can work.

like with Tempestfall exploring the Shyish city or Stormground showing trees so massive whole cities are built in the branches and in desperate measures they have a number of magic defenses from weaponized life wells to ward off spirits to even the Freeguild setting up enchanted weapons as an imprompt electrified barricade the Stormcasts power.

(that mission is crazy hard, btw. We both lost all our forces and me and the enemy commander played death tag running around the map using abilities.)

Also I love little details videogames can do like show even the Vanguard bear-traps have faces on the triggers.(also nice the game gives us another Lord-Arcanum Redeemed character that was formerly a chaos champion turned Stormcast hero)

A solid videogame Rpg would help a lot.(even if average the info it can give and funnel fans toward Soulbound would help opinions overall)

[EonChao]

6 hours ago, Greyshadow said:

Haven't come across this story? Is it set closer to the Perimeter Inimical? The lore for the Ghurish Heartlands has developed to be far more 'normal'. The land masses do move but the time scale is more like centuries rather than days. There are frequent earthquakes but the people live with them much like the people who live on the rim of fire do in our world today. There are indeed farms, hunting villages, fishing hamlets, caravans, townships, trade roots and toll roads.

Recommend reading Hallowed Ground to get a good sense of the surrounds of Excelsis in recent times. A careful reading even puts a scale to the Heartlands map. (For example, you can work out that Salzagor's Hope is just over 100 miles from Excelsis by road).

If I remember rightly they have ways of tracking the movement of the land, which is why the event the caravan experiences at the start of the book is such a problem as it’s not one they were expecting.

[Marcvs]

Ironically (because "it's a miniatures company") AoS lore always feels to me like it's perfect for a miniature agnostic game. Everything is so vast and varied that you could find a justification for almost any creature (and therefore, fantasy miniature range).

- My lord, the enemy has brought a peacock so big it's tail obscures the two suns!

- Then we will fight in the shade

Edited December 4, 2022 by Marcvs

[Overread]

2 hours ago, Marcvs said:

Ironically (because "it's a miniatures company") AoS lore always feels to me like it's perfect for a miniature agnostic game. Everything is so vast and varied that you could find a justification for almost any creature (and therefore, fantasy miniature range).

- My lord, the enemy has brought a peacock so big it's tail obscures the two suns!

- Then we will fight in the shade

It's intentional because AoS at launch was basically aiming to be army agnostic. That's why GW created 4 themed Grand Alliances and shattered a lot of big armies into small components.

I'd wager if we could see the sales data GW have we might even have spotted that those components were based upon sales metrics. If you sold within a certain threshold of values you were split off into your own army (which would explain why some factions had only 1 model to their name). AoS was an accountants game design based on sales data. Those that fell below the line were dropped, those that were above a line survived and those in the middle got fragmented. 

I suspect if we'd stuck with that plan "armies"wouldn't have existed beyond a few. The majority would have been one to two release wonders. Small forces that would last a certain amount of time on the market before being rotated out once their sales dipped. The 4 Grand Alliances would preserve the structure of the game as you'd not collect an "army" but an "alliance". So it wouldn't matter if Fyreslayers vanished because you'd just pick up another Order faction to bolster your Alliance. 

Plus the game wasn't really a game, it was just a backdrop for a collection.

[Wraith]

35 minutes ago, Overread said:

It's intentional because AoS at launch was basically aiming to be army agnostic. That's why GW created 4 themed Grand Alliances and shattered a lot of big armies into small components.

I'd wager if we could see the sales data GW have we might even have spotted that those components were based upon sales metrics. If you sold within a certain threshold of values you were split off into your own army (which would explain why some factions had only 1 model to their name). AoS was an accountants game design based on sales data. Those that fell below the line were dropped, those that were above a line survived and those in the middle got fragmented. 

I suspect if we'd stuck with that plan "armies"wouldn't have existed beyond a few. The majority would have been one to two release wonders. Small forces that would last a certain amount of time on the market before being rotated out once their sales dipped. The 4 Grand Alliances would preserve the structure of the game as you'd not collect an "army" but an "alliance". So it wouldn't matter if Fyreslayers vanished because you'd just pick up another Order faction to bolster your Alliance. 

Plus the game wasn't really a game, it was just a backdrop for a collection.

To be fair, the business model for GW and other successful games companies is to sell miniatures. The rules are there to create demand for their models. Another example is Corvus Belli. There is nothing wrong with this in and of itself. If GW didn't make enough money, they would not be able to keep up the pace of rules support and background stuff like novels. In fact, now that I think about it, people like me who buy too many miniatures deserve affirmation for helping to create the wealth needed to further employ the lore creators.

 

If there is something that GW could be criticised for, it would be how their do their IP thing without any acknowledgement of the 1960's and 70's sources that inspired the Warhammer world in the first place. For example: Micheal Moorcock's Storm-bringer series, art by people like Frank Frazzetta, the Heavy Metal magazine and it's European forerunners, and many more. GW build on all these sources of then mainstream fantasy in the late 70's and 80's, but today seek to impose their own copyright on it. The Chaos symbol, for example, was a Michael Moorcock creation. It should be public IP. I think GW failed on their attempt to trademark "Space Marine". It had been used before 40K had even been launched.

 

Anyway, it is ok by me if GW takes a miniatures centric business model, as they have to remain profitable. I see no reason why they shouldn't trademark any IP that they really did come up with themselves. And it would be to their credit if they would be honest about the cultural sources that inspired Warhammer.

[zilberfrid]

45 minutes ago, Wraith said:

To be fair, the business model for GW and other successful games companies is to sell miniatures. The rules are there to create demand for their models. Another example is Corvus Belli. There is nothing wrong with this in and of itself. If GW didn't make enough money, they would not be able to keep up the pace of rules support and background stuff like novels. In fact, now that I think about it, people like me who buy too many miniatures deserve affirmation for helping to create the wealth needed to further employ the lore creators.

 

If there is something that GW could be criticised for, it would be how their do their IP thing without any acknowledgement of the 1960's and 70's sources that inspired the Warhammer world in the first place. For example: Micheal Moorcock's Storm-bringer series, art by people like Frank Frazzetta, the Heavy Metal magazine and it's European forerunners, and many more. GW build on all these sources of then mainstream fantasy in the late 70's and 80's, but today seek to impose their own copyright on it. The Chaos symbol, for example, was a Michael Moorcock creation. It should be public IP. I think GW failed on their attempt to trademark "Space Marine". It had been used before 40K had even been launched.

 

Anyway, it is ok by me if GW takes a miniatures centric business model, as they have to remain profitable. I see no reason why they shouldn't trademark any IP that they really did come up with themselves. And it would be to their credit if they would be honest about the cultural sources that inspired Warhammer.

I am also okay if GW is a miniatures based company. It's the one thing they do that I enjoy (except for things like the Goff Rokker animation).

But this just makes them ignoring AoS even more obvious.

[FireAbend]

What‘s expected for todays ‚preview/pre order‘?

 

[Aleser]

20 minutes ago, FireAbend said:

What‘s expected for todays ‚preview/pre order‘?

 

I am expecting Looncourt (New goblin warband for WU). Not sure what is left for other systems. AoS is done for this year most likely.

Edited December 4, 2022 by Aleser

[Wraith]

1 hour ago, zilberfrid said:

I am also okay if GW is a miniatures based company. It's the one thing they do that I enjoy (except for things like the Goff Rokker animation).

But this just makes them ignoring AoS even more obvious.

Yeah, I am totally not interested in the Goff Rocker. However, I would say a lack of model support for AoS is a good thing. If GW didn’t release another AoS model for about five years, I just might be able to clear my painting backlog. Except for Eterus. I need Eternus now. I must have Eternus!

 

7 minutes ago, Aleser said:

I am expecting Looncourt (New goblin warband for WU). Not sure what is left for other systems. AoS is done for this year most likely.

Where is Eternus? Nooooo….

[Matrindur]

We shouldn't expect any models except the Looncourt since they are the only ones left on the miniature of the year list but we could be seeing the first book for 40k Arks of Omens

[KarrWolves]

Edit: not sure what happened but wrong page ...

Edited December 4, 2022 by KarrWolves

[Aleser]

1 hour ago, Wraith said:

Yeah, I am totally not interested in the Goff Rocker. However, I would say a lack of model support for AoS is a good thing. If GW didn’t release another AoS model for about five years, I just might be able to clear my painting backlog. Except for Eterus. I need Eternus now. I must have Eternus!

 

Where is Eternus? Nooooo….

Next year for rest of STD range 😜

[KingBrodd]

Lets not forget the Black Library Online Preview is today!! And sometimes with a Preview comes minis associated to that book!!

Personally Im hoping for some good AOS novels not involving Stormcast and minis would be a cherry on top.

[Chikout]

30 minutes ago, KingBrodd said:

Lets not forget the Black Library Online Preview is today!! And sometimes with a Preview comes minis associated to that book!!

Personally Im hoping for some good AOS novels not involving Stormcast and minis would be a cherry on top.

Is the Stormcast thing still an issue? First Forged is the only Stormcast focused book that has been released this year. We've had three Duardin focused books this year. 

Edited December 4, 2022 by Chikout

[madmac]

4 minutes ago, Chikout said:

Is the Stormcast thing still an issue? First Forged is the only Stormcast focused book that has been released this year. We've had three Duardin focused books this year. 

True, since Reynolds left Stormcast novels haven't really been a thing. You get a one off novel once every year or so and that's about it.

[Clan's Cynic]

Releasing at the BL Celebration.

Worth noting that Andy Clark wrote Gloomspite.

 

Edited December 4, 2022 by Clan's Cynic

[Captaniser]

Awww yeah. Andy did a fantastic job on his last Gloomspite related book, i have some high hopes for this one. Also a great piece of art.