Warhammer - The Old World

[Beliman]

@Greybeard86 I agree but still, I don't have any problem if we see new  over-the-top units like riding bears or ice witches (they are a good call back to Boris and Katarin).
IMO, the game is a call back to the Old World: a new product to take on people that love/loved that world. 

Btw, you got me on one line:

11 minutes ago, Greybeard86 said:

traditional dawi and true slayers, pharaons and babylonian evil dawi

Yep, I'm in!!

[Greybeard86]

4 minutes ago, Beliman said:

@Greybeard86 I agree but still, I don't have any problem if we see new  over-the-top units like riding bears or ice witches (they are a good call back to Boris and Katarin).
IMO, the game is a call back to the Old World: a new product to take on people that love/loved that world. 

Btw, you got me on one line:

Yep, I'm in!!

It might be me, but I do like seeing real world historical references in the game. Yes, I get that sometimes it bordered the offensive (and I do hope they tame that down, make more female characters, racially sensitive and historically less euro-centric), but the references in themselves made me smile. I understand that there will be some "new GW" influences, and some of us traditionalists will have to stomach them. Hey, some of the things in WHFB seemed over the top at the time and now they are iconic. I got a Boris in storage somewhere, and some Kislev mobs from Mordheim. So, unleash the bears, I am ready!

[Lord of the Isle]

More deeply random and obsessive Bret thoughts -

Louen Orc Slayer is of the House of Bastonne, descended from Gilles le Breton and his son Louis the Rash, first crowned king of Bretonnia (Altho some newer stuff may make Gilles king too, I forget) and ancestor of Duke Bohemond Beastslayer of Bastonne in End Times setting we all know.

Note the names. Louis the Rash - Louen Orc Slayer - Louen Leoncoeur. I currently infer from this that Bretonnia actually only had two strictly hereditary royal dynasties, the Bastonnes and the Couronnes, and that the latter inherited through the female line (hence recurrence of family forename Louen). This further contextualises and explains at least three attempts at usurpation by the proud, bitter rulers of Mousillon (Merovech, Maldred, Mallobaude).

Also, Jules the Just hasn’t done his honourable jousting reforms yet so Bret nobles are all psychos who duel and kill each other for fun. The Border Princes have been colonised by Bret crusaders and there are loads of bloodthirsty land hungry knights errant spoiling for trouble.

[Beliman]

@Greybeard86 Don't get me wrong, I agree with you! 

Warhammer Fantasy was a mix of historical references and a low&high Fantasy World. A really good mix between all this worlds ( I would say a perfect mix). That's why I don't have any problem with Arthurian-like cavalry charging a pack of Goatmen, Ice Withces fighting alongside Landsknecht nor High Elfs flying chariots breaking a Tercios regiment.

[Greybeard86]

7 minutes ago, Lord of the Isle said:

More deeply random and obsessive Bret thoughts -

Louen Orc Slayer is of the House of Bastonne, descended from Gilles le Breton and his son Louis the Rash, first crowned king of Bretonnia (Altho some newer stuff may make Gilles king too, I forget) and ancestor of Duke Bohemond Beastslayer of Bastonne in End Times setting we all know.

Note the names. Louis the Rash - Louen Orc Slayer - Louen Leoncoeur. I currently infer from this that Bretonnia actually only had two strictly hereditary royal dynasties, the Bastonnes and the Couronnes, and that the latter inherited through the female line (hence recurrence of family forename Louen). This further contextualises and explains at least three attempts at usurpation by the proud, bitter rulers of Mousillon (Merovech, Maldred, Mallobaude).

Also, Jules the Just hasn’t done his honourable jousting reforms yet so Bret nobles are all psychos who duel and kill each other for fun. The Border Princes have been colonised by Bret crusaders and there are loads of bloodthirsty land hungry knights errant spoiling for trouble.

I would love for them to expand on duke sculpts. I have a couple, but some of the older ones I don't like (while I love the bret metal squires and pilgrims).

I would also love to see "upgrade packs" and new releases of old minis to be compatible with them.  They have experience with it from HH.

1 minute ago, Beliman said:

@Greybeard86 Don't get me wrong, I agree with you! 

Warhammer Fantasy was a mix of historical references and a low&high Fantasy World. A really good mix between all this worlds ( I would say a perfect mix). That's why I don't have any problem with Arthurian-like cavalry charging a pack of Goatmen, Ice Withces fighting alongside Landsknecht nor High Elfs flying chariots breaking a Tercios regiment.

I think we are a wet dream for GW's marketing team, when it comes TOW.

[Clan's Cynic]

10 hours ago, Baron Klatz said:

The old angry fans have that excuse and I don't think anyone is really blaming that minority. The worst portion is the toxic Total War players who have no reason to be mad but jump in anyway to earn points with the old crowd when they're not at war with the Total War history crowd.

I get the vibe that crowd are mostly Warhammer 40,000 players there purely because it's got the Warhammer logo on the box,  as almost every Fantasy player I ever met was big into history and most played/liked historical Total Wars. It's definitely very eyebrow raising when somebody talks about which historical era they'd like to see next and a thread becomes nothing but "THEY NEED TO MAKE A 40k GAME!" and "Warhammer saved Total War, none was playing it before Warhammer!" 

Edited December 30, 2020 by Clan's Cynic

[Lord of the Isle]

Would so love Tilea and Estalia to get love too!

[ian0delond]

11 hours ago, amysrevenge said:

Maybe I'm the Debbie Downer here, but I am expecting an initial release of two armies (Kislev and something Chaos-y but not simple Warriors or Marauders - something as different from those as Kislev is from Empire), each with 1-2 heroes and 2-4 units.  A single box game with one printed book with rules for the game and for both armies, slightly smaller in model count than the recent AoS starter sets.  And then light releases over several months for those two armies, maybe branch out to a third and fourth army within a year or two.

Since it's the same studio doing Necomunda and Blood Bowl it's reasonable. I wish there will be a third army available at launch or not long after because only two armies is so limiting so fast.

Kislev-Norsca sounds like a natural setup because making the game about historical battles in the Old World is geographically limiting. But I think they should have a classic army in the mix in the beginning they don't really support in AoS like classic Ork or Dwarves. It is a game made because of nostalgia after all.

[EccentricCircle]

In some ways, seeing the weird stuff that never got proper support before would be cooler than just another take on the Empire, Chaos etc.

The important thing to remember about the warhammer setting, isn't so much that its supposed to be historical, but rather that its a historical parody.

The setting's charm is really that it is satirising 16th century europe, but adding fantasy tropes until it becomes ridiculous. That gives it quite a unique flavour among fantasy settings, most of which either do their own thing, or aren't creative enough with the historical elements they do borrow.

[amysrevenge]

4 hours ago, ian0delond said:

Since it's the same studio doing Necomunda and Blood Bowl it's reasonable. I wish there will be a third army available at launch or not long after because only two armies is so limiting so fast.

Kislev-Norsca sounds like a natural setup because making the game about historical battles in the Old World is geographically limiting. But I think they should have a classic army in the mix in the beginning they don't really support in AoS like classic Ork or Dwarves. It is a game made because of nostalgia after all.

Yeah I think we're mostly on the same page.  But my guess is they will choose to go off-the-board with most (all?) of the armies.  It won't be normal Dwarfs, it will be those northern ones that Thorgrimm reconnected with on his "make me your High King" questing, as mentioned in the 8th Ed Dwarf book (check out Garagehammer episode 95 for a great Lore rundown of that book).  And it won't be normal Orc Boys, it will be some other variant of Orcs that are aesthetically distinct from WFB Orcs.

 

Like I've said before, I'll be surprised (as in I'd bet against it, not that I think it's impossible) if you could Day One play a game with your existing old WFB models or current AoS models.  There might be some ability to proxy (I mean, depending on your proxy tolerance, you can proxy anything as anything if they are the same size), and there might be a spot of overlap here or there, but by and large you'll need to get the new models to play.

Edited December 30, 2020 by amysrevenge

[ian0delond]

I mean classic in spirit. I think they can easily mess up with people wanting to proxy by tweaking the standard equipment. Like Dwarves still have a classic armor, but with trademarked Karaz Wateva runes (not a problem for proxy), but that lost dwarf army also use swords, or war pipe-wrenches (don't roll your eyes I am no army designer!), gun infantry has shields to hide behind, a catapult throwing explosive kegs... There will be intersections, but if the greybeards still feel they have to buy half of an army again it's a win.

It's a tough balance to find between adding what was missing, and removing without feeling like something is missing on the table. Like making what the Mandalorian is to old Star Wars movies. Something different, but still feel like the classic stuff on some level.

[Candlelight]

The setting is very likely years away but it gets me thinking, are we going to see old Fantasy novels reprinted? I feel that would be a bit strange since they are still releasing Warhammer Chronicles. Or maybe we're going to get new novels?

I just hope they've learned from the previous settings and if they are going to start publishing new novels, it's not going to be the garbage the Realmgate War novels were.

[elfhead]

The Horus heresy is a rally extensive set of books right? So could be they’re will be new novels for the old world. 
 

gotta say I’m really happy that high elves are mentioned on the map. Curious to see where this is going. For now I’d be a lot more happy just knowing what scale it will be. 

[Ggom]

8 hours ago, amysrevenge said:

Yeah I think we're mostly on the same page.  But my guess is they will choose to go off-the-board with most (all?) of the armies.  It won't be normal Dwarfs, it will be those northern ones that Thorgrimm reconnected with on his "make me your High King" questing, as mentioned in the 8th Ed Dwarf book (check out Garagehammer episode 95 for a great Lore rundown of that book).  And it won't be normal Orc Boys, it will be some other variant of Orcs that are aesthetically distinct from WFB Orcs.

 

Like I've said before, I'll be surprised (as in I'd bet against it, not that I think it's impossible) if you could Day One play a game with your existing old WFB models or current AoS models.  There might be some ability to proxy (I mean, depending on your proxy tolerance, you can proxy anything as anything if they are the same size), and there might be a spot of overlap here or there, but by and large you'll need to get the new models to play.

Actually, if you look at Heresy, FW (unlike GW) often writes rules for models they never make, or only intend to make in the future. Before the Heresy was an officially supported game, people were kitbashing the old armor marks. When Heresy came out (and even today) there was no community expectation that everyone start using the new sculpts. In fact, there are a ton of units in the Heresy that have dedicated rules and story but no official representation.

What I would anticipate is that, if the initial sales take off, FW will start releasing rules and story faster than models (a la Heresy) and people will be encouraged to kitbash/use existing models. Then they will release their own sculpts, and people will buy them anyway, because they will generally look amazing.

Certainly, some people still play with their rogue trader era tanks and speeders in Heresy, and it is often a point of great pride 😊

It doesn’t stop FW from making sales because their official new sculpts are really good. The target audience for FW is also typically more niche/boutique/modelling oriented, so if the quality of the sculpt is the main factor.

(disclaimer - this is just my opinion as an avid Horus Heresy guy who participates in that community)

[Overread]

GW used to do that too  for a time. Until the infamous Chapter-House Court case GW was actually getting rather bad at adding rules for models they never made in several editions. Tyranids, for example, had several specialist monsters that appeared in at least two codex editions which never got a model. Thing is they did get releases over that period of time and gamers were eager to get those models they'd seen in the book but couldn't play; or could only play if they converted or used "counts as". 

They also started doing it with weapons too - gaunts had several weapons that there were no parts for on an old kit that made people think "ooh new kit coming at some stage". 

 

 

It ended with Chapterhouse and GW brought in the general "no models no rules" policy. Which honestly is a good thing. Converting is great fun, but it shouldn't be mandatory to play with certain options.

[Noserenda]

Its also worth noting that sometimes Forgeworld intends to do models but then they get scrapped/delayed behind the scenes, like the rest of the Sisters of Silence and the Consuls, lord knows what else. So its not so much a glorious conversion encouraging plan as much as things not always going to plan, at least not these days!

I do wish the whole community was so open minded about old models and conversions too, got some real stanky attitude over some of mine  

[Greybeard86]

Duh wrong thread. 

Edited December 31, 2020 by Greybeard86

[SunStorm]

12 hours ago, elfhead said:

The Horus heresy is a rally extensive set of books right? So could be they’re will be new novels for the old world. 
 

gotta say I’m really happy that high elves are mentioned on the map. Curious to see where this is going. For now I’d be a lot more happy just knowing what scale it will be. 

The Horus Heresy is currently at 9 main campaign black books, it's own rule book separate to 40k, plus a number of consolidated army list red books. That's not counting the 17,863 books from Black Library in that setting. They also had two starter sets produced by GW including brand new plastic sculpts. 

My personal opinion is that the Horus Heresy was a big driver of success for GW through it's side companies over the last 10 years. It's only my own story, but I got back into the hobby via the Horus Hersey novels and know of other people who drifted away fromm it as they got older but the HH books drew them back in.

Anyway to bring this back round to The Old World, I can see this as long term planning by GW to have something that fills that HHesque hole once the novel series and campaign books are wrapped up over the next couple of years. Like 30k was never meant to replace 40k, ToW will not replace AoS, but offer a different take for older nostalgic gamers 

 

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

Since we have been seeing a lot of maps for TOW up to now:

Do you think maps will play a bigger role in that game (maybe through some kind of territory control element), or are maps just the easiest type of art asset to produce and show off early?

[michu]

The latter I think.

[Golub87]

On 12/30/2020 at 2:54 AM, Baron Klatz said:

I've lost count of how many times I got hit by them on reddit on warhammer subs where i'm explaining the lore to curious people and they jump in with "that's f-ing stupid lore".

I ask them "how? Can you explain why it's bad?"

80% of the time I get: "You'd know if you read the good Fantasy books!"

This happens frequently with all types of media. All the time someone will tell me that the movie X is bad. When asked to elaborate, they reach for inconsequential stuff like "plot holes" and "this character did this and that was dumb" or "everyone was boring" etc.

Thing is, those people are right, most of the time, they just do not have an in depth understanding of cinematography to express themselves correctly. They are not going to say that movie did not engage them because of the too static shots, bad use of camera angles, bad pacing of the script, poor usage of music in key moments... They will just grab the surface level things that they can recognize.

Art is all about evoking a certain reaction and feeling in the audience and using various tricks to get that across. This goes for literature as well. You do not want to repeat sentences of the same length because that will sound monotonous. You want to use the right words to describe things to evoke certain emotion. You need, pacing, contrast... Those are the things that will draw the reader to the next page, not plot details.

 

All that said, I find AoS lore to be exceptionally poor. It makes me want to engage with the world less, not more. I love the models and painting. Hobby side is fantastic for me. Game is, eh OK, good excuse to roll some dice with friends. The background lore is just... incredibly bad. The only emotion it conveys to me is embarrassment. I feel insulted reading it. Any reminder that Mortal Realms exist make me want to paint and play less, not more.

The Old World had a very sardonic quality to it. The contrast between the high fantasy of Tolkien and the grim setting of the 30 year war. It was funny and witty and the writing was not half bad (notably because the writers had freedom to pull the dial back from 11).

The elements of AoS lore were clearly set in line with 40k which was more successful and popular than fantasy. Similar to movie industry, panicking in post production and cutting up a product that you have to conform with current trends tends to have bad outcomes.

40k has the Emprah, so you need a figure like that. Let's retcon Sigmar the God who was formed in the realm of chaos from all the need for protection by the citizens of the empire into actually being Sigmar the Dude that is most notable by being really good at smashing Orcs with a hammer. They are one and the same now.

He also has his own elite dudes in heavy armor because every Emprah needs his Spess Muhreens.

Also, like in 40k, no one is really good here, but some are clearly very very bad, so better be working for our bootleg Odin. He might be bad but he is the best we have and his mighty warriors coming from vaguely-nordic-sounding places will protect you from evil sexual deviants and people who hate law&order.

I do not want to go into the impact certain subsections of miss-aimed 40k fandom had on some corners of the web. I also do not think in any way that it was GW's intent, but at this point they are very much "Unfortunate Implications: The Game Company". To be fair, they have been very slowly moving away from that and I am really eager to see what will they do with the new Hedonites.

Aside from clear import of 40k elements into fantasy, AoS has problems all of its own. The themes and the mood are reminiscent of 80's and 90's power metal comics. Classical myths re-imagined for the xtreme and radical metal teens and it is not a flattering look, especially given that it is played with 100% straight face. Everything is the biggest, baddest,  strongest, most awesomest thing ever! If everyone who has any agency is larger than life then there is not much life to talk about now, is there? Human life is just a grain of sand on the boot of Sigmar. And if there is no life than what is the point of the story? 40k with all its faults, at least embraces the way the setting overshadows the individuals as one of its central themes and that connects back to the individual. AoS has no such connection.

Even the Greek myths and Nordic sagas that AoS supposedly emulates (lol no) had surprisingly down to earth problems and plots like infidelity, grief, estrangement from family, infidelity, friendship, envy, infidelity, loss and many others. Big monsters and wars were mostly a backdrop for this.

Art is only as relevant as it relates to human life. Mortal Realms presumably have plenty of dung collectors and rat catchers, but it is not about them. When you have this art direction that everything has to be as bombastic as possible it drowns out the human experience.

This need for metal epicness also produces some of the most silly literary moments I have ever seen. Opening narration of Soulbound is especially bad in this regard with so much cringe packed into each paragraph. What really takes the cake as the most embarrassing thing committed to paper is the word "Necroquake". It is just amazing how bad writing can be pulled off in a single word, I genuinely did not think it possible.

Shout out to Flesh Eater Courts who are one of the most amazing things to come out of GW. They are hurt a little bit by the mythic scope of the setting. More details on personalities and courts involved would do wonders for them, but they are great. That good old dry humor that works on multiple levels.

And with that to circle back to Old World (because that is what the topic is about and I did not just totally realized that I wrote a damn essay about something else entirely) - I am not thrilled that the old world is happening. I was hoping for a more fleshed out Mortal Realms, a change of tone to something less ridiculous and a change of protagonists from boring entities like Sigmar and Morathi and those types to people who are actually relatable in some way.

My fear is that the Old World will not be a success and that it will prompt GW to drop the idea of down to earth witty settings and just continue to roll with... this...

[shinros]

I'm going to say it bluntly, I said this in the rumour thread. No one cares about the human experience, at least in my opinion and  all human experience that you're aware of in WHFB was explored in the rpg games, just like AOS Soulbound. Fantasy like AOS, still largely focused on the large characters doing stuff in a largely static setting. This is the opposite in AOS, large characters doing stuff in more malleable setting. 

The proof is in what people pay for, none of the warhammer fantasy books save times of legend sigmar and some of the gotrek books earned back their money. While it's the opposite for AOS, also when a novel was specifically written to explore the normal human experience in the realms the series was canned because it did not earn enough money. This book series was spear of shadows. This book fell into a similar situation like the older fantasy books. 

Just because a character is large and bombastic, doesn't mean they can't be compelling. The question is whether they are well-written or not, so far, overall the newer AOS supplements, Malign Portents, Wrath of the Everchosen, Stormvault and Broken Realms Morathi is far more better than any whfb supplement I've read. Most of the older whfb army books actually doesn't have much information in them. Again, leading into the RPG game to fill in the blanks, just like AOS, it answers the questions on economy, main settlements, what do they trade and so on. Since it's an RPG game you need to answer those questions. 

In the end Baron is right, in my experience most people do exactly that, they say it's bad without actually reading anything. Anyway, I can't do much to change your opinion, you think AOS lore is poor, fine, that's okay, in my mind I find AOS to be far more compelling considering it's been out for only five years. 

In the end we have to wait and see what GW does with old world, I recall certain voices being upset at the ice weapons of kislev. That doesn't bother me in the slightest considering Kislev's history with their ice witches.  

Edited December 31, 2020 by shinros

[Beliman]

@Golub87 Hey, it's fine if you don't like AoS lore!! 

I agree in some points, but if you come here to write why you don't like AoS setting, I suppose that it's because you want to like it. So here I go:

I'm not fond in over-the-top mythical AoS conflicts (that's your whole argument too, so we are at the same square), but there is a whole new level under the Gods. I'm talking about the normal toy soldiers that you play with, they have an story, but it's not really explained in most battletomes and they have a really small part in the Great Conflict (that is explained and repeated in every product GW release). That's why I will recommend to read books that talk about them, to see how they live, to know how they feel, and what problems the Great Conflict are causing to them. In the end. they are the focus of TT game (Nagash still counts as 1 model to capture objectives XDD).

• Dark Harvest is a book that explains a bit Sylvaneth and Cities of Sigmar, it has a strong feeling of Fantasy, and I love that. That is another feeling that you can find in AoS and it seems that you don't know. Btw, that's my favorite AoS book.
• Same with City of Secrets. An small adventure of normal people (a witchhunter and a freeguild captain). It's a bit more fantastic, but it has the feeling of a mix of old sword&magic adventures and accion/intrigue . Both characters have a second novel called Silver Shard that it has the same feeling.
• Code of the Skies is a a bit more High Fantasy, but with a touch of movies from '60s (Captain Simbad, jason and the Argonauts, etc...). It explains a lof of the KO society and it gives you an old school adventure.
• Spear of Shadows is a mix between normal people and high fantasy, wrapped by a classic adventure. The main stars embarc in really fun journey that visit exotic places as The Crawling City (a City build on the back of a giant worm) and met/ fight Skavens, Orruks, Vampires and Corrupted Dudes (freaking chaos!).

I would add that I really enjoy reading Soulbound and all it's expansions. Everything that you seems to like (normal people, their fears, goals, feelings, etc...) are the main part of it. And I hope to see more AoS development, because it's what I miss the most (and they are doing a good job). 

You can imagine what army I play (KOs), suspiciously, they are one of the armies that respect but don't follow any god (Barak-Thryng doesn't count, they don't even know how to make a good ale!).

Edited December 31, 2020 by Beliman
grammar

[Lord of the Isle]

4 hours ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

Since we have been seeing a lot of maps for TOW up to now:

Do you think maps will play a bigger role in that game (maybe through some kind of territory control element), or are maps just the easiest type of art asset to produce and show off early?

Would be cool if signalled lots of narrative campaign stuff (but I doubt it)

[RuneBrush]

On 12/29/2020 at 1:09 PM, SunStorm said:

One good thing is that GW/FWW have experience of managing two games systems before, such as 30k and 40K. 30k is even running on an older set of 40k rules. Now I'm not as much of a gamer as such, but I think those rules work ok. I could see TOW and AOS working the same way. Some stuff might be able to cross over, but I see no reason they can't be separate game systems and people play either, both or neither. 

I'm 99% sure TOW will have a brand new ruleset written from the ground up in the same way Specialist Games did on the current version of Necromunda.  A few "nods" towards the old system and maintaining the same "feel", but a new system implementing new ideas.

On 12/30/2020 at 8:20 AM, Greybeard86 said:

Hey, I haven’t seen any post crabbing on AoS here, or too much gloating over how the last bits ofWHFB crumble to dust under GW s cruel boot. So perhaps we should let the people who are fighting that way sort their issues on their own time

Some of that is because the excellent community here is very good at flagging those posts up to the mods to sort out 😉

On 12/31/2020 at 1:19 AM, Overread said:

GW used to do that too  for a time. Until the infamous Chapter-House Court case GW was actually getting rather bad at adding rules for models they never made in several editions. Tyranids, for example, had several specialist monsters that appeared in at least two codex editions which never got a model. Thing is they did get releases over that period of time and gamers were eager to get those models they'd seen in the book but couldn't play; or could only play if they converted or used "counts as". 

I'd agree on this, but I also think that it did encourage more hobby where it was easy to kitbash some units from left overs.

On 12/31/2020 at 2:57 AM, Noserenda said:

Its also worth noting that sometimes Forgeworld intends to do models but then they get scrapped/delayed behind the scenes, like the rest of the Sisters of Silence and the Consuls, lord knows what else. So its not so much a glorious conversion encouraging plan as much as things not always going to plan, at least not these days!

I've a feeling that some ideas have been moved down the line a bit.  I'm pretty sure we'll see more Sisters of Silence once we actually get to the Siege of Terra.