Will humans continue existing in AOS

[Icegoat]

I keep getting the feeling that soon humanity as a species will entirely fall to chaos in the aos lore. It's been 5 years and we havent had a single order human model released. Outside that one war priest who was 8 foot tall and discontinued.  The empire was the most popular faction in old warhammer they were the protagonists of the entire 25 year story. Aos humans are a footnote.  Used to create stormcast and nothing else. 

Three new aelf factions two dwarvish. I mean the lizards got a terrain piece. It seems the time of order aligned humans are limited within aos and will soon be completely discontinued. Especially as all the new human models are going to be found instead in warhammer the old world.

[Clan's Cynic]

I wouldn't read too much into the Warpriest going OOP. He pops up on almost every piece of promotional art for Soulbound, which needs to go through an approval process by GW. The Skaven Deathrunner also went OOP and we know they're not going anywhere.  Based on absolutely nothing I can only guess the moulds broke and they weren't selling well enough to justify fixing it (this happens with Forge World sometimes).

Cities of Sigmar is one of the most popular AoS armies out there at present and not just because of WHFB holdovers considering how often their stuff - including humans - goes Temporarily Sold Out Online on the website. GW are probably pretty happy with that considering those moulds will have earned their costs years ago. 

I DO think that when AoS started, GW might very well have gone in with designs of keeping 'normal' humans to the background and giving almost all their human focus to the Stormcast, but they've been dialling back that focus for some time now and Cities of Sigmar coming relatively recently might not be a coincidence in that regard.

Also, humanity can't be wiped out because Sigmar's purpose and planning will have amounted to nought. Even when Chaos 'won', non-corrupted humanity endured both in and outside of Azyur. It's worth keeping in mind that lorewise humans who worship Sigmar and side with Order are the EXCEPTION unlike in Fantasy and most of them at least pay lipservice to the Chaos Gods, even if it doesn't feel that way when so much of the fiction is from Order's POV.

Edited June 21, 2020 by Clan's Cynic

[amysrevenge]

Yes

[Beastmaster]

Without humans to protect, there is no Sigmar story. 
But as a fighting force, they are still a footnote. And I fear they will stay that way until Oldworld comes. Unfortunately.

[Overread]

Eh Skaven only got 1 new model; Orks didn't get anything; Vampires haven't had a new model; dwarves have lost more than they've gained. 

Meanwhile there are several armies that are only a handful of kits in size. Daughters of Khine, Flesheaters and more have only a tiny number of models, perhaps less than Necrons are about to get as an addition to their army. 

 

Simply put AoS has many armies in need of additions and revisions and updates its an issue that "humans" are by no means unique in suffering from. There's only a smaller number of well rounded, well featured armies in AoS at present. It's simply a result of having Old World ignored for a long while prior to its demise followed by a very bumpy start for AoS and then a VERY fast release of Battletomes that was far too fast for GW to ever mass produce lots of models for each launch for. 

So yeah human's aren't doing great, but heck so are many other armies in the very same position. So its not a unique position. Patience and time are the only things you can do if you wish to remain part of AoS; otherwise you might want to glance over at Warmachine, Mantic or any one of a number of other fantasy strategy games where humans feature more so. 

[Still-young]

🙄

[Icegoat]

By and large every over race has had something new though. I mean death is now multiple factions and that was just vampire counts and tomb kings in fantasy. Dwarves have multiple options, orcs have two armies to choose from. Chaos has a million. Night Goblins became there own whole army. Three types of unique elf plus all the stuff still in CoS Yet humans, by far the most repsented race in the aos literature have had one single model release since long before the end times.

In the gotrek books he interacts amongst many human empires huge variety of places and peoples. and yet army and model wise we get zero representation. I mean loads of aos books refer to human cannons and human knights and yet they have actually stopped selling them. They arent even rule legal anymore. I think the chances of them ever releasing a human faction gets less with every new release. 

[HollowHills]

Troll more.

[Neverchosen]

I feel that the lack of new Human models is an indicator of the amount of work being put into whatever their forthcoming models will be. If I had to guess it would be a Devouted of Sigmar army. I feel that the legacy models from Empire in Cities of Sigmar will have to wait some time before getting a proper update but Warcry and Underworlds will bring them small incremental updates until that day. I mean how old are some of the Imperial Guard minis in 40K?

As a purely hypothetical army, I think it would be cool if they did an army of human Witches for Destruction.

[Beastmaster]

12 hours ago, Overread said:

Eh Skaven only got 1 new model; Orks didn't get anything; Vampires haven't had a new model; dwarves have lost more than they've gained. 

Meanwhile there are several armies that are only a handful of kits in size. Daughters of Khine, Flesheaters and more have only a tiny number of models, perhaps less than Necrons are about to get as an addition to their army. 

 

Simply put AoS has many armies in need of additions and revisions and updates its an issue that "humans" are by no means unique in suffering from. There's only a smaller number of well rounded, well featured armies in AoS at present. It's simply a result of having Old World ignored for a long while prior to its demise followed by a very bumpy start for AoS and then a VERY fast release of Battletomes that was far too fast for GW to ever mass produce lots of models for each launch for. 

So yeah human's aren't doing great, but heck so are many other armies in the very same position. So its not a unique position. Patience and time are the only things you can do if you wish to remain part of AoS; otherwise you might want to glance over at Warmachine, Mantic or any one of a number of other fantasy strategy games where humans feature more so. 

You’re right, there are a lot of armies that have still a lot of room for new models. 
I think humans are important in any game. They are literally our point of view: If I want to get a feel for how massive or tiny my Gargants or Magmadroths or Gnoblars are, I have to relate them to „the average human“, because that’s my point of view in the real world. That’s why it’s not enough to just have them in the fluff (where they are arguably even more important): You have to see them on the table every now and then to really enjoy your non-human armies. Surely GW knows and understands this, as they did so in 40k. Thus, it’s more a matter of „when“ than „if“ that there are new humans. 
But, as you say, there is still a lot of work to do with many armies. That’s why I think that it will still take a long time. Maybe until the old world returns, which would have quite some synergy opportunities.

No trolling. Just a guess. 😊

[Aeryenn]

There is a huge demand for human factions other than Stormcasts according to this forum. Even if GW didn't have any designed before, now I believe they are working on it. They've already proved to be listening to their customers. It might take a few years but eventually they will introduce new human faction. 

[Gaz Taylor]

30 minutes ago, Aryann said:

It might take a few years but eventually they will introduce new human faction. 

I think it’s this. They’ve got to the stage where all the old ranges have books now and they can now work on new stuff. I’m fully expecting them to revisit some ranges and expand on them but I think we will see new stuff now.

Im expecting next set of human models will be very different to what we’ve seen before. With the way the story line has shifted, it would be cool to see them expand on the witch hunter idea

[El Syf]

We could always welcome back Gilles Le Breton and companions...

[Tiger]

48 minutes ago, El Syf said:

We could always welcome back Gilles Le Breton and companions...

Let them sleep and hope The Old World will deliver.

[BrocknerTheBear]

We also have to consider that humans in the realms come in many forms and varieties. The white dwarf realm articles had artwork to represent some of the humans from each realm and they are vastly different to each other. When compared to fyreslayers or daughter of khaine this becomes far more difficult to represent in miniatures. 

They could produce humans from the realm of fire, but that doesn't help me make a realm of life army for instance. 

They are in a very different design space then any race in the game.

 

[Kamose]

Humans (and horses!!) aren't going anywhere in AoS.  Like others have said, in order for a world to relevant, most people need characters that look, think, and act like they do.  A completely alien world becomes frustrating and unpleasant for most people to have to constantly struggle to understand and that's not conducive to an enjoyable game or engaging lore.

Speaking of lore, Stormcast Eternals are derived from humans and there's no evidence that Sigmar's done making more of them.  In fact, there's ample evidence that, as the reforging process is repeated, 'the flaw' in the process slowly destroys the Stormcast sometimes making them completely insane, violent, and unstable lightning gheists (I think that's what they're called).  Even if only a small percentage of Stormcast degrade this way after each reforging...well, no humans means eventual extinction for the Stormcast.

As others have also said, no humans means there's nothing for the Stormcast to fight for and protect.  It becomes an endless, pointless war of attrition, fighting and dying for nothing in a battle they will never win.  Its very grimdark, I know, but also its not very deep or interesting.

Making new models takes time and the Cities of Sigmar book has 50+ warscrolls in it, each requiring its own model.  Some of the current models are fine (Demigryphs, Steam Tanks) and some really need a refresh (Freeguild Guard, Crossbowmen).  Making those new kits takes time, money and effort.  My money's on a slow refresh/retirement of models as the Cities book is updated and changed in the future.  GW might simply not have the time or incentive to update the human ranges just yet.  Which brings me to my last point...

Prior to the release of AoS and the change in GW's corporate mindset, accessible data concerning of sales numbers, the actual purchase of individual model lines, and the breakdown of each army's relative popularity was almost nonexistent.  Any claims from back then to know which armies were 'the most popular' are essentially baseless and anecdotal.

What I'm trying to say is... 'grabbing anti-troll shield' 😰

...maybe the Empire and Bretonnia... 'backing away slowly' 😨

...just weren't as popular as people want to believe! 'runrunrunrun' 🏃‍♂️🏃‍♂️🏃‍♂️

 

Edited June 22, 2020 by Kamose

[EccentricCircle]

Yeah, humans, or more specifically order humans, aren't going anywhere. Not everyone will like the form they take, but they are a central element of the setting, and after stormcast have the second highest proportion of "leading roles" in the fiction.

Will Cities of Sigmar continue in its present form? Will we get a new faction to represent order humans?

We just don't know. We have absolutely no way to addressing those questions, because GW just don't tell us their plans. If more humans appear we won't know whether that was always part of the plan, or whether they saw the demand and developed them. We just don't have enough of a window into the design process to know.

I'd also dispute the idea that, on the tabletop at least, the human factions were the most popular. They were central to the lore and background for sure. They were the focus of a great many novels, and the default setting for the RPG was the Empire. However I think that was just because they formed an accessible point of view. You can see the same thing in AoS, where the Order of Azyr get lots of novels despite not having a single model. They are great characters to tell stories about, so many stories get told about them.

However warhammer fantasy has never fallen into the 40K trap of just becoming humans (or superhumans) vs everything else. The Old World didn't really have a default faction in that sense. The focus on the Empire in the lore never meant that they got more support on the tabletop. AoS continues that diversity, and takes it up to eleven. I think that gives us a more interesting game as a result. The humans will always be there in one form or another, but we don't need to focus on them to the exclusion of all else.

 

[Chikout]

I'm pretty sure icegoat is a troll account but to give a serious answer I believe that gw admitted a previous preview seminar that they were finding it difficult to come up with a good concept for regular humans in AoS. I wouldn't be surprised if this experimentation with what makes a regular human in AoS led to warcry. The truth of the lore is that the majority of humans did fall to chaos. 

The fun part of AOS though is that this is a game of growth and expansion rather than the stagnation and decline of 40k. 

Personally I would love to see a devoted of Sigmar army that borrows a bit of the triumph of st Katherine aesthetic from 40k. It is already an established part of the lore that devoted of Sigmar armies have been marching out from the free cities purifying the land with their blood.  I could see some interesting mechanics built around that concept. 

[NkfPanda]

38 minutes ago, Chikout said:

I'm pretty sure icegoat is a troll account but to give a serious answer I believe that gw admitted a previous preview seminar that they were finding it difficult to come up with a good concept for regular humans in AoS. I wouldn't be surprised if this experimentation with what makes a regular human in AoS led to warcry. The truth of the lore is that the majority of humans did fall to chaos. 

The fun part of AOS though is that this is a game of growth and expansion rather than the stagnation and decline of 40k. 

Personally I would love to see a devoted of Sigmar army that borrows a bit of the triumph of st Katherine aesthetic from 40k. It is already an established part of the lore that devoted of Sigmar armies have been marching out from the free cities purifying the land with their blood.  I could see some interesting mechanics built around that concept. 

Hey I was reading through the post and was just wondering what you meant by "stagnation and decline of 40k"?

[JPjr]

Pretty sure it will come, just the nature of this hobby that it takes for absolute ever to work their way through each faction whilst bringing out new stuff and, of course, at the same time servicing all the deeply, deeply unhappy people who play 40K and keeping them in a permanent state of feeling aggrieved.

I realise for a lot of people a CoS update that essentially just refreshed that line is exactly what they want but god, personally, if they went to all the time, effort & money of doing a human (not Chaos) army with enough new models to satisfy people and we just got a load of Holy Roman Empire looking motherf***ers but now with even puffier pants and a couple of people standing on rocks I'd be a bit gutted.

I guess the problem with 'humans' in AoS (and indeed I think this cuts across a lot of fantasy universes) is that as patently dumb & ridiculous as it is we can just about train ourselves to ignore the fact that all the, say, Fyreslayers or Khardron or Idoneth across all the immeasurably large mortal realms style themselves in pretty much the same way. Give them a slightly different paint job and different basing materials and if you don't think about it too much it feels, just about, enough to reduce that homogeneity.

But humans... I feel like we're so used to the fact that we come in so many different shapes, sizes and colours and that you can take just 100 people from the same town and there'll be an almost baffling variety of fashion styles and dress that to have a one size fits all 'human' faction is a massive ask, though of course not as insane as just accepting that for, well, reasons everyone dresses like early modern Germans...

it's also much easier, though of course loaded with its own particular issues, to dip in and out of different real life cultures, mixing & matching diverse styles, for inspiration when it's then applied to something like skeletons or tree people or whatever.

It's fine if you're going to have half a dozen different human factions but that's obviously not happening so it's finding that sweet spot, something visually interesting but doesn't terrify the innately conservative Warhammer player, something that doesn't feel totally pinned down to one specific era/location but also it's just a bland mess.

Tricky one. Very tricky.

Personally if I was GW I'd just throw money at whoever does the styling for Fulu Miziki and get them to come up with concept sketches for an entire range, but then I think AoS needs to be bigger, wilder and more crazy and so far it's tilted towards that in a few models it's honestly still very, very trad. Then again that's possibly another something where I'm not exactly in line with the, at least most vocal, audience out there.

Edited June 22, 2020 by JPjr

[Beastmaster]

In 40k, it worked well. You have your basic Cadians, without anyone asking how there can be a standard soldiery dress in a whole (and seriously fractured) galaxy. And, as an addition for the individualists out there, over the years you had a lot of differently styled guardsmen from all over the place, too. 

[zilberfrid]

1 hour ago, NkfPanda said:

Hey I was reading through the post and was just wondering what you meant by "stagnation and decline of 40k"?

I've often heard that, in the lore, nothing really changes. There is no gravitas to chapter x being burned down by chaos/eaten by tyrannids etc, because it will never matter a few books later. The chapter is staying anyway.

Cadia being broken was a big thing, but the guardsmen are still called Cadians.

Even the one army that really was gone was lore'd away only as an afterthought. And the squats are now back anyway.

[EccentricCircle]

The comparison to guardsmen is an interesting one actually. As I understand it the variety within that faction was largely a result of a very wide range of unique looking metal sculpts, which could be produced pretty cheaply and didn't need to be sold in bulk for them to be profitable. This led to lots of variety in special characters, heroes etc.

However there don't seem to be nearly as many variant guard regiments on the market these days, and I suspect a large part of that is the shift to plastic. You can't be sure that enough people will buy Valhallans or Tallarn Desert Raiders to make it profitable to have a whole little sub range for each. So they stick with the more generic Cadians, even though the lore actually no longer supports them being the default guardsmen. By embracing very expensive, very detailed plastic as they're default they've kind of priced themselves out of the market for the less "iconic" things.

We're seeing them creeping back into AoS, but only in cases where they have literally hung a spin off game (warcry or underworlds) on those models, giving them more marketing reach.

[Beastmaster]

That’s why I think they will tie it to the old world. Lots of Designs that could be used in both.

Edited June 22, 2020 by Beastmaster

[NkfPanda]

1 hour ago, zilberfrid said:

I've often heard that, in the lore, nothing really changes. There is no gravitas to chapter x being burned down by chaos/eaten by tyrannids etc, because it will never matter a few books later. The chapter is staying anyway.

Cadia being broken was a big thing, but the guardsmen are still called Cadians.

Even the one army that really was gone was lore'd away only as an afterthought. And the squats are now back anyway.

Oh I gotcha. Ya playing both games and being into Lore like most AOS/40k players are to a degree I agree with that. The story for AOS seems to have been more progressive and 40k in the past has not been. 40k seems to be changing that. They alluded to some big models being released for 40k this Christmas so it looks like the story may be advancing more as another Primarch could be released (good and/or bad) not to mention the Silent King is coming and a large new novel range. In AOS I love that there are so many large and powerful character models for a centerpiece and 40k seems to be adopting that more. At least to me it seems that way :P.