Warhammer - The Old World

[michu]

5 minutes ago, zilberfrid said:

Note that I am not adverse to things like demigryphs, mages, griffins and giant birds, but that seems to become more the default than the exception.

They were never an exception (except demigryphs as they were introduced in the 8th ed). That's how Warhammer always looked like. In old editions (4th and 5th) your army (every army IIRC) could even use tamed beasts like dragons, giant spiders, griffons... WFB being low fantasy is a common myth, WFRP could make some people think that but wargame always had wilder elements.

[zilberfrid]

3 hours ago, michu said:

They were never an exception (except demigryphs as they were introduced in the 8th ed). That's how Warhammer always looked like. In old editions (4th and 5th) your army (every army IIRC) could even use tamed beasts like dragons, giant spiders, griffons... WFB being low fantasy is a common myth, WFRP could make some people think that but wargame always had wilder elements.

Oh, I do get that now. I'm rather new at this, just coming up to a year next week.

Should have taken a bit more care choosing a miniature game.

Or not, I do like most of the models I have, but will take it down a few notches from here.

[Carnelian]

6 hours ago, zilberfrid said:

Oh, I do get that now. I'm rather new at this, just coming up to a year next week.

Should have taken a bit more care choosing a miniature game.

Or not, I do like most of the models I have, but will take it down a few notches from here.

We'll don't worry you have plenty of time to take more care when deciding whether to embark on The Old World as it's not gonna be out for years!

[Beliman]

15 hours ago, zilberfrid said:

Oh, I do get that now. I'm rather new at this, just coming up to a year next week.

Should have taken a bit more care choosing a miniature game.

Or not, I do like most of the models I have, but will take it down a few notches from here.

It's a bit of both worlds. I didn't play a lot (my friends were the ones playing 2 games per week in that time), but big scary monsters were just a big magnet for canons and a centerpiece for your army. If you liked to play without any monster, you could, and I think that should be the case for TOW too.

 

Edited May 20, 2020 by Beliman

[Nezzhil]

The low fantasy of Warhammer was only a thing during the 6th&7th edition, all the others editions created crazy things like demons with a cannon in his ass, the female Skaven being giant incubators, dwarf zeppelins, giant tanks, machineguns, sniper rifles like today or other crazy things...

[sandlemad]

Saying "Warhammer was always OTT zany and nothing but" is just as wrong and ahistorical as saying that it was always historical fiction with a thin layer of fantasy. 6th and 7th edition were indeed pretty 'low' when it came to the old world and managed to keep that tone despite the presence of magical stuff like Ulthuan, some aspects of Bretonnia, etc.

I'd also point to WFRP 1st edition from the late 80's. That was very low and grubby, more so again than 6th/7th ed. fantasy battles. That was the early modern tone they were going for with an RPG - rat-catchers and corrupt burghers - and not all of it translated to armies and massed battles, but it was where a lot of what we consider foundational to WHFB background first came from. And here's the thing: that era/aspect is not inherently better because it's old or was formative... but it was there. It was an important aesthetic/tonal thread that was visible and actively pursued in a lot of material and people are allowed to have a fondness for it over some of the other tones or aesthetics that WH had in its nearly three decades.

It's like with Batman; he's variously been wacky and camp, grim and hard-edged, sometimes a prominent universe-spanning hero, sometimes a loner detective in a world which nevertheless had insane fantastical stuff 'out there'. Pretending like there wasn't a multiplicity of tones and subject matters at various times is foolish. Pretending like people who have particular preferences for some of those tones and subject matters are wrong, or not real fans, or need to play a different game (all stuff I've seen from posters on TGA I'd otherwise respected, disappointingly) is messed up, unwelcoming, and comes from a historically uninformed place.

In a similar fashion, it is entirely possible for someone to look at e.g. magical ice weapons and recognise that whatever Thermian arguments are used, it is not necessarily quite in keeping with the form of WH that they are most fond of and/or it is not something they find an interesting development or extrapolation from what was already there in Kislev's background. 

[Overread]

Don't forget Fantasy on the tabletop was somewhat different to Fantasy in writing. The tabletop had some limitations on big beasties (the old Greater Demons are tiny compared to their new models which are closer to the kinds of size the old lore described them as); and similarly on things like magic. When you've mages of vast power who can wipe out dozens of troops in a single blast in the lore that translates to only a few infantry in the tabletop because you've only got a handful of models on the table. 

Writing could always go further whenever it wanted too, though at the same time it was nothing like as high fantasy as AoS. 

[michu]

4 minutes ago, sandlemad said:

Saying "Warhammer was always OTT zany and nothing but

I never said that - and I don't think anyone did. What I said is that WFB always had high fantasy elements and thinking that it was only low fantasy world is wrong. All factions had bits of both kinds of fantasy. Even magical elves used regular spearmen but at the same time they had Phoenix Guard protected from harm by their god. Oh, and Knights of the Order of the Blazing Sun could set their weapons on fire by Myrmidia's blessing (at least in the lore) so they could be modelled with fire on their lances and it would still fit. Basically WFB had elements of both low and high fantasy. There is a difference between saying "I don't like it" and "it's lore breaking" (with added "and it ruined everything") and I've read much more of the latter.

[Beliman]

It seems that warhammer is just an ongoing produt that can change from one swing to another (and everything in between) based on the way that their own company wants to follow 😲

Of course, if they change previously established background without giving any rason would be a total miss too, but for that, we just need to see the whole product and not just two concept arts from an underdeveloped old faction... 

[sandlemad]

7 minutes ago, michu said:

 There is a difference between saying "I don't like it" and "it's lore breaking" (with added "and it ruined everything") and I've read much more of the latter.

We may be looking at different things or in different places then because I've seen a lot more unbecoming snideness, unsubtle in-universe argumentation, and gatekeeping (which I think is a term that's nearly been washed out by overuse but applies here) from one 'side' than the other.

[zilberfrid]

27 minutes ago, michu said:

I never said that - and I don't think anyone did. What I said is that WFB always had high fantasy elements and thinking that it was only low fantasy world is wrong. All factions had bits of both kinds of fantasy. Even magical elves used regular spearmen but at the same time they had Phoenix Guard protected from harm by their god. Oh, and Knights of the Order of the Blazing Sun could set their weapons on fire by Myrmidia's blessing (at least in the lore) so they could be modelled with fire on their lances and it would still fit. Basically WFB had elements of both low and high fantasy. There is a difference between saying "I don't like it" and "it's lore breaking" (with added "and it ruined everything") and I've read much more of the latter.

If I ever implied something would be lore breaking, I'm sorry, I am not well versed in the lore, so am absolutely no authority about it.

For me it's mostly the "not liking it" part, with added blinders to some of the elements of the old world I did not like.

I also had hopes that, to contrast the WAY over the top direction of AoS, they'd tone down the Old World to give a place for people that like their fantasy less loud.

Edited May 20, 2020 by zilberfrid

[Beliman]

9 minutes ago, sandlemad said:

We may be looking at different things or in different places then because I've seen a lot more unbecoming snideness, unsubtle in-universe argumentation, and gatekeeping (which I think is a term that's nearly been washed out by overuse but applies here) from one 'side' than the other.

Can i ask what type of complain do you usually read? I only saw 1 complain (and I mean..the one repeated in a lot of diferent forums):
-Frozen weapons shoudn't be part of a more grounded setting (TOW).

Then I saw people supporting both arguments and bla bla bla... but the point is that I never read someone saying something like:
"-only frost weapons and bears? kislev should have werebears riding bears with frost bear-weapons! and bear-dragons!!"

[michu]

4 minutes ago, sandlemad said:

We may be looking at different things or in different places then because I've seen a lot more unbecoming snideness, unsubtle in-universe argumentation, and gatekeeping (which I think is a term that's nearly been washed out by overuse but applies here) from one 'side' than the other.

Every WFB forum I've looked into, twitter, reddit, and Old World FB groups. After each preview some former WFB players show up and say things that can be reduced to "I don't like it therefore it's sh***", "GW ruined everything again", "#not my WFB". 

And the worst offender ( but it's a given) - Archwarhammer.

1 minute ago, zilberfrid said:

If I ever implied something would be lore breaking, I'm sorry, I am not well versed in the lore, so am absolutely no authority about it.

For me it's mostly the "not liking it" part, with added blinders to some of the elements of the old world I did not like.

No, it's not you. I don't think anyone here were that radical.

[michu]

16 minutes ago, zilberfrid said:

I also had hopes that, to contrast the WAY over the top direction of AoS, they'd tone down the Old World to give a place for people that like their fantasy less loud.

That would be hard to do, as we still would have Skaven with their weird contraptions and elvish phoenixes and other things like that...For me making Old World even more grounded than it really was would  strip it of it's flavour. They're not taking away old Kislev units like winged hussars and Ungol riders, they just add new units. It will still be possible to build an army without them...

[sandlemad]

Same places as you. Even holes like Dakka have handled it better than I expected.

By and large I’ve seen responses that do meaningfully engage with older Kislev background and make a distinction between magic in the game, magical stuff on elite units, magical stuff on elite human units, magical stuff on elite human units with a (questionable, to my mind) different cultural attitude to magic vs the empire, and where personal preference comes in there. I’ve often seen that shut down with contextless lists of supernatural units presented as though they’re an argument and sometimes even “lol it’s all fantasy anyway, why do you care”. Generally I’ve seen more absolutist gleeful “WH was like this, gtfo if you don’t like it” from folks speaking in favour of the new designs and more specificity and awareness of WH’s changing tone/history from folks who liked the designs with reservations or were indifferent.

In all honesty in a handful of cases it has smacked of a nasty AoS-fan triumphalism anticipating the WHFB snobbery on the scale of a few years ago.  It’s the sort of hair-trigger smugness of a former underdog that keeps me away from this forum on occasion.

And yeah, Archwarhammer is a truly garbage human being even apart from his lack of knowledge and no one should value his opinion on anything. I go out of my way to avoid anyone who cites or pays attention to him so I’m open to the idea I’m missing the worst of old school WHFB snobbery (or in his case purported old school but really recent and meant to drum up clicks/right wing outrage).

[Beliman]

14 minutes ago, sandlemad said:

Same places as you. Even holes like Dakka have handled it better than I expected.

By and large I’ve seen responses that do meaningfully engage with older Kislev background and make a distinction between magic in the game, magical stuff on elite units, magical stuff on elite human units, magical stuff on elite human units with a (questionable, to my mind) different cultural attitude to magic vs the empire, and where personal preference comes in there. I’ve often seen that shut down with contextless lists of supernatural units presented as though they’re an argument and sometimes even “lol it’s all fantasy anyway, why do you care”. Generally I’ve seen more absolutist gleeful “WH was like this, gtfo if you don’t like it” from folks speaking in favour of the new designs and more specificity and awareness of WH’s changing tone/history from folks who liked the designs with reservations or were indifferent.

In conclusion:
People Trash talk and get a trash-answer. 

Not going to lie, that will happen everytime that someone answers or throws their opinion in a negative way. If you just develop a good criticism, sometimes you will recieve a good answer, but sometimes it will be a trash-fest that mods will close the thread.

And I completely disagree with the bold part. From my point of view, nobody answers about that bad if people don't start trash-talking. And I must say that Dakka is a "moderate",  don't even start with old schools forums...

[michu]

20 minutes ago, sandlemad said:

Same places as you. Even holes like Dakka have handled it better than I expected.

I haven't looked on dakkadakka in months. But I'm surprised of your opninion on other places because I haven't seen anything like "meaningfully engage with older Kislev background". What I've seen could be reduced to "Too high fantasy". "Bear cavalry? Ridiculous!" (Tzar Boris says hello), "Women in Kislev army ? Again that SJW propaganda". Maybe later more reasonable responses show up but those are mostly the first that come up. Especially on official WFB forum of my country.

And I disagree with "contextless list of supernatural units". You can't say that something doesn't fit because it's "too weird" if there are examples of weirder stuff. I've said once that Yhetees are using ice weapons - if barely sapient beast can make them why do you think actual Ice Magic users would not be able?

29 minutes ago, sandlemad said:

By and large I’ve seen responses that do meaningfully engage with older Kislev background and make a distinction between magic in the game, magical stuff on elite units, magical stuff on elite human units, magical stuff on elite human units with a (questionable, to my mind) different cultural attitude to magic vs the empire, 

Nothing questionable about it -do you think Elector Counts would elect as a ruler someone that is openly a wizard?  In Kislev many Tzarinas were Ice Witches b( I know they weren't elected but still).  And shamans are big part of Kislev culture and are not frowned upon like mages in Empire. Before Magnus the Pious, Empire didn't even have official wizards. I feel it's could be like that - Kislevites can consider magic dangerous but they use more natural and restrained kind and are not superstitiously afraid of it.

[sandlemad]

13 minutes ago, Beliman said:

From my point of view, nobody answers about that bad if people don't start trash-talking.

Gotta be honest here, this has never been my experience on any subject, wargaming or anything else. Hostility can breed hostility, true, but just as often thoughtful critiques or commentaries that can be taken as even faintly negative receive flareups in response. Particularly in nerd spaces.

This is getting into a referendum about The Discourse though, so I'm going to cut it off here.

Edited May 20, 2020 by sandlemad

[Beliman]

3 minutes ago, sandlemad said:

Gotta be honest here, this has never been my experience on any subject, wargaming or anything else. Hostility can breed hostility, true, but just as often thoughtful critiques or commentaries that can be taken as even faintly negative receive flareups in response. Particularly in nerd spaces.

This is getting into a referendum about The Discourse though, so I'm going to cut it off here.

I'm only talking about internet here, and if that's right, you are the luckest person alive.

And I'm not joking, even a good argument will start a flame war if there is just one dude that hate that argument.

[michu]

3 minutes ago, Beliman said:

I'm only talking about internet here, and if that's right, you are the luckest person alive.

And I'm not joking, even a good argument will start a flame war if there is just one dude that hate that argument.

But.., I think that's what he said.

[sandlemad]

3 minutes ago, Beliman said:

I'm only talking about internet here, and if that's right, you are the luckest person alive.

And I'm not joking, even a good argument will start a flame war if there is just one dude that hate that argument.

Wait, I think we're in agreement here, i.e. even putting forward a reasonable, thoughtful argument about, I dunno, Batman vs Superman will get you a flame-y response from the #ReleaseTheSnyderCut crowd if it's anything less than complimentary.

[Beliman]

Oops, I misunderstood your post (english is not my language)!!

[Deepkin]

1 hour ago, sandlemad said:

Same places as you. Even holes like Dakka have handled it better than I expected.

By and large I’ve seen responses that do meaningfully engage with older Kislev background and make a distinction between magic in the game, magical stuff on elite units, magical stuff on elite human units, magical stuff on elite human units with a (questionable, to my mind) different cultural attitude to magic vs the empire, and where personal preference comes in there. I’ve often seen that shut down with contextless lists of supernatural units presented as though they’re an argument and sometimes even “lol it’s all fantasy anyway, why do you care”. Generally I’ve seen more absolutist gleeful “WH was like this, gtfo if you don’t like it” from folks speaking in favour of the new designs and more specificity and awareness of WH’s changing tone/history from folks who liked the designs with reservations or were indifferent.

In all honesty in a handful of cases it has smacked of a nasty AoS-fan triumphalism anticipating the WHFB snobbery on the scale of a few years ago.  It’s the sort of hair-trigger smugness of a former underdog that keeps me away from this forum on occasion.

And yeah, Archwarhammer is a truly garbage human being even apart from his lack of knowledge and no one should value his opinion on anything. I go out of my way to avoid anyone who cites or pays attention to him so I’m open to the idea I’m missing the worst of old school WHFB snobbery (or in his case purported old school but really recent and meant to drum up clicks/right wing outrage).

This all jives well with my experience. I like the WFRP low-fantasy approach best, I admit. But people who like the more high fantasy stuff better are cool too. Thats the great part of Warhammer. You can have both. I know its human nature and all, but the balkanization of the fanbase into ridiculous camps based on which version of the background they prefer is tiresome. 

Its a game predicated on "Your Guys" (TM). People who want to wield lore like a cudgel to get rid of people having the wrong type of fun is silly. Let people have their things. 

[EccentricCircle]

I think part of the problem is that the further in the past something is, the less accurate people's perception of it is.

Those of us who've read plenty of WFB and WFRP books know what the setting was like, which parts are high fantasy, and which parts low. However, the more time goes by, the less people will have actually seen the primary sources. They've not played those games, or collected those models, or read those books. However it is still a part of the cultural heritage of the games which they are immersed in, and so they will still have an experience of that setting, even if its not from the primary sources.

That experience will though, be radically different to that of someone who was there.

Newcomers will know about the setting through word of mouth, through legends and warstories, retrospectives on WarCom and BoLS, or even memes. This means that their experience of the setting will be skewed by the authorial biases and editorial judgement that went into writing those secondary sources. Like any history, they will not be 100% reliable. They will tie into a specific narrative, which consciously or not, that author espouses.

For a long while the prevailing narrative has been the edition war between WFB and AoS. This thus frames the discourse about those two settings. When people are invited to pick a side, then its only natural that it will be the differences between the two settings that are highlighted, rather than their differences. It is often said that history is written by the victors, but in the case of edition wars I think that the underdog narrative is actually more important. People who feel that they are being pushed to defend the defunct edition against the popular newcomer are naturally going to gravitate towards a narrative of the setting that makes it seem appealing and different to its replacement.

Take for example the fact that being dark and gritty was a major part of Warhammer's early success. The fact that it was this anarchic, british, punk rock setting made it stand out when compared to the likes of Dragonlance, the Forgotten Realms, or every Tolkien rip off. The fact that in practice, there were a lot of cases where it wasn't nearly as different as many fans would like to think quietly gets ignored. It doesn't fit the narrative of this bold, different setting which we should all still be playing.

Advocates of the setting focus on the things that really set it apart, rather than the things that made it another "Tolkien ripoff" or the things that are more or less the same in AoS. Over time people start to believe the myth, because that's what they've heard time and time again, and they haven't got access to the primary sources. However that leaves the whole foundation of that myth open to attack by anyone who goes back and spots how high fantasy the Old World really was, and that it wasn't all impoverished rat catchers.

I hope that you have enjoyed this excerpt from: Barrett (2020) The historiography of fictional histories: How public perception of a fantasy work can influence its reinvention. Journal of Pointlessly Waffling on the Internet, Vol. 672

 

[VBS]

Well, whfb always offered the possibility to go very high/low fantasy and anything in-between. Varied from games and editions but it was varied enough for everyone to accommodate their own individual vision of the Old World. You could go from extremes of super-magic everywhere (storm of magic) to quasi-historical battles (that old WD article that explained how to recreate low fantasy lists by leaving out wizards, magic items, monsters, etc...).  I think it's safe to say that giving that liberty in a setting made it attractive and is still part of its great popularity.

From what I've read/heard, I think the concern for some people with TOW is if it ends up being 8th cracked up to 11. Basically: massive emphasis on the super magical aspects. Obviously, I consider it too early to jump to conclusions but for now we have only seen magic-weapon-guards and war-bears. Rather high-fantasy ended, but this can be addressed by kossars/winged lancers for Kislev, for example. What I basically mean is that a lot of people would be happy if TOW retained that balance and flexibility the old whfb offered, and not push a particular direction within the fantasy-themed spectrum. m2c of course.