Fyreslayers: discussing their design

[novakai]

14 minutes ago, Baron Klatz said:

No that was 100% new.

Also isn't this the poll we're talking about?

FEC are next to the Lumineth & Hedonites which you can't tell me don't do well.

Yeah I really dislike these simplistic polls. Way too easy to point to the graph and spin a false narrative of why something isn't doing well while ignoring that half the NO guys aren't actually against it but had no better choice.

Also no Fyreslayers flair? They should get a say with their favorite army I should think.

i guess we are talking about different polls

the one i was referring to was this one , i don't see this particular table on this video

Warhammer Weekly 03182020 - Age of Sigmar Aesthetics - YouTube

 

 

Edited January 6, 2021 by novakai

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

36 minutes ago, Baron Klatz said:

On Facebook they came close to Kharadron in votes and are a common sight in both tourneys and  on forums with people getting into AoS and loving their fiery design.

 

Fyreslayers showing up in tournaments frequently is probably more indicative of their mechanical strength than their popularity, though. They are a very strong army in that regard. Probably the best defensive army in the game.

 

4 minutes ago, Baron Klatz said:

No that was 100% new.

Also isn't this the poll we're talking about?

FEC are next to the Lumineth & Hedonites which you can't me didn't do well.

Yeah I really dislike these simplistic polls. Way too easy to point to graph and spin a false narrative of why something isn't doing well while ignoring that half the NO guys aren't actually against it but had no better choice.

This is the gameplay poll, isn't it? We should pull up a screenshot from the aesthetics poll.

Anyway, the poll in this tread has only yes/no because you are supposed to comment with your reasoning. Looking through the thread, you get to see what exactly people like and dislike about FS, so that's there if you want the details.

I wish the opening poll was a rating from 1 to 5, though. Because that would allow us to get another interesting statistic: How many people really love or really hate the army. For those of you that don't know: Many designers consider a design more successful if it get lots of  very high and very low scores, and less successful if it has a lot of middling scores. It's fine if some people really dislike something if there are also people who really like it. I think Lumineth are lke that, where they are really polarizing. However, looking through this thread, I see a lot of "I don't hate them" posts.

[Baron Klatz]

Oh hey, I heard that design philosophy from the designer of the God of War games. Your game needs to either make everyone happy or angry, it's only a failure if it's "meh".

Edit: So I guess that rekindles hope for the Fyreslayers.

They really just need more "Fyre" and less slayer in their next update. That's the biggest thing fans love about them as the Aqshy faction.

Also agreed on their appealing mechanics. Another factor is how great their Start Collecting is. People that magnetize the leaders can swap them around with the Magmadroth to try out different strategies.

12 minutes ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

Looking through the thread, you get to see what exactly people like and dislike about FS, so that's there if you want the details.

Yeah I just know there's people who don't bother with the details when making their point. I couldn't find the aesthetics one but Novakai came in for us.

15 minutes ago, novakai said:

i guess we are talking about different polls

the one i was referring to was this one , i don't see this particular table on this video

Thanks! I could only find their bigger poll.

Crazy Slaanesh were so low in aesthetics too. I think that goes to show how wildly these things can shift because most people I know could swear by how much they love them and the other daemon armies (especially Maggotkin, I'd hate for the heroic nurgling to see what that one poll showed).

Edited January 6, 2021 by Baron Klatz

[Greybeard86]

2 hours ago, Kramer said:

Just realised. If you read the stories with the bezerkers in them. You’d learn they have a different take. 

the hearthguard bezerkers do not act like your description at all. They fight with their wits about them in the lore. They don’t have a death wish. [...]
maybe bezerkers is more how the outside world sees them. Ignoring wounds that would fell a man. Always looking for battle. Thinking about it bezerker is a bit of a misnomer  

 

If they do not want to evoke reckless abandon, they should not name them "slayers", adopt the aesthetic of the old slayers (which they clearly are inspired by), and call them freaking berzerkers! I mean, c'mon! I read the lore in the battletome, which I had to go back to because your description sounded odd to me. They constantly refer to them as "hot tempered and impulsive", and about how the "dive into hordes of enemies".

The whole mercenary thing sounds shoe-horned to me, honestly.

14 minutes ago, Baron Klatz said:

They really just need more "Fyre" and less slayer in their next update. That's the biggest thing fans love about them as the Aqshy faction.

Nooooo! Oh dear, this is the exact opposite of what I hoped for, which is ideas to rescue a concept that is cool but executed poorly in the eyes of many (if we are to believe the polls). They picked the "slayer" theme because it had a big fanbase; just because they didn't execute it well it doesn't mean it is not still loved!

Oh dear, you want to just make they fyre dwarves and give them crazy high fantasy fyre weapons and mounts? I mean, I get that AoS is a bit about that, but leave us some of us more "austere-loving" guys some room to breath. The amount of grudges in this book...

[xking]

11 minutes ago, Greybeard86 said:

If they do not want to evoke reckless abandon, they should not name them "slayers", adopt the aesthetic of the old slayers (which they clearly are inspired by), and call them freaking berzerkers! I mean, c'mon! I read the lore in the battletome, which I had to go back to because your description sounded odd to me. They constantly refer to them as "hot tempered and impulsive", and about how the "dive into hordes of enemies".

The whole mercenary thing sounds shoe-horned to me, honestly.

Nooooo! Oh dear, this is the exact opposite of what I hoped for, which is ideas to rescue a concept that is cool but executed poorly in the eyes of many (if we are to believe the polls). They picked the "slayer" theme because it had a big fanbase; just because they didn't execute it well it doesn't mean it is not still loved!

Oh dear, you want to just make they fyre dwarves and give them crazy high fantasy fyre weapons and mounts? I mean, I get that AoS is a bit about that, but leave us some of us more "austere-loving" guys some room to breath. The amount of grudges in this book...

You are looking for https://ageofsigmar.lexicanum.com/wiki/Fyreslayer_Doomseeker

[Baron Klatz]

From people's complaints with the army it's just that it's already loaded with the Slayer aesthetic. No one's looking at Fyreslayers and saying they need more Doomseekers.

Going by how many people keep pushing for more Fyre elements like Magmadroth cavalry, lava golems and literal fire duardin it's pretty clear that's the untapped potential they want.

They need to take that sweet Yggdrasil aesthetic of the Mortal Realms and make them fit with fire titans.

 

[Greybeard86]

38 minutes ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

Fyreslayers showing up in tournaments frequently is probably more indicative of their mechanical strength than their popularity, though. They are a very strong army in that regard. Probably the best defensive army in the game.

It was crazy to see the difference between the tournament meta and the general survey. For example, gitz collected 5x more than fyreslayers, yet in the tourney meta aprox. the same %.

[Greybeard86]

3 minutes ago, Baron Klatz said:

From people's complaints with the army it's just that it's already loaded with the Slayer aesthetic.

I have yet to read a complaint about the "slayer aesthetic". The most repeated complaint is about them being samey.

But oh dear, I think we want very different things

[Baron Klatz]

We definitely do.

 

 

[novakai]

I actual like the 300 Spartan look Fyreslayer  have going, on, maybe pants and capes can improve them, but i think the core design of shirtless berzerker dwarfs has its appeal. when people are drawn to collect this army it  that certain that fiery slayer aesthetics 

like other have said they are definitely held back by lack of unit, lack of variety and being very samey,

Vulkites look like they where design to be rank and file infantry in WHF to Karak Kardrin before the end time happen, Hearthguards look to similar  Vulkites, their plefera of foot heroes don't really stand out amongst the army either.

i also think they are not that fun to  play as either, they don't really have any flashy mechanics or that many different ways to play them. Magnadroth have always been that 200pt range monster and have never risen to anything stronger then that

[MarkK]

I really thought that the fyreslayers initial release should have included the remaining dispossessed units. The fyreslayers been the religious leaders of the hold and the dispossessed representing the lowly commoners forced to fight in plate armour rather than the armour of God. Would have given more balance to the aesthetics of the army. The dispossessed units could then be replaced with newer AoS versions if required. And it has been done before with the ironjawz and bonesplitters.

I don't hate the look of the fyreslayers, just wouldn't want to paint an entire army of them. An all dispossessed army suffers the same problem, not enough variety of units to stand on it's own. 

[Saturmorn Carvilli]

I like the Fyreslayer design aesthetic.  I have even flirted with the idea of starting a small army of them down the road in that mythical future when I have my current armies largely complete.

What would hold me back is, as mentioned, is they seem to be too niche a concept for the kind of game that Age of Sigmar is. They'd be fine in Warcry.  In some respects they feel to me as if Scions of the Flame into a full-fledged faction.  I get the concept, but where do they go from there.   Not to say there isn't more design space.  I just don't know where Fyreslayers are going without a second wave of models or even becoming a subfaction with in a larger duardin faction not yet created.  And without it or an insanely cheap boxed set, I don't see me truly entertaining the idea of actually starting an army of them not knowing.

[Clan's Cynic]

4 hours ago, Baron Klatz said:

Despite people pointing to that one poll graph(which is silly since they're right next to the still extremely loved DoK & FEC) Fyreslayers Are popular.  On Facebook they came close to Kharadron in votes and are a common sight in both tourneys and  on forums with people getting into AoS and loving their fiery design.

I would absolutely not read too much into tournament stats as a basis of popularity, being a very small subset of the fandom who can and do ditch armies at the drop of a hat based on powerlevel.

Genestealer Cults are a good example. They were very prominent at tournaments around mid-2019, but in a casual setting they are pretty damn rare. Fyreslayers are in the same boat, being pretty strong competitively but casually you almost never see them. The fact the Fyreslayer thread on TGA isn't even 50 pages in almost three years when Lumineth were three times that before they even got a dedicated forum says a lot. 

People can like the aesthetics and design of something but still not touch them for whatever reason. Fyreslayers are a horde army of nigh-identical models who are one of, if not the, most expensive things to collect in the entire game. That could very easily change - and I suspect will - when/if GW afford them more support, but I've almost never seen Fyreslayer players around my neck of the woods and I say this as a Fyreslayer player/collector who was partly motivated by their lack of popularity.

They're a lot like Chaos Dwarfs and Krieg  - people absolutely love the concept of them, but won't commit to them for whatever reason, be that price and/or lack of support from GW but none can really doubt how beloved Krieg-Guard actually are despite almost never being put down on the tabletop.

Edited January 7, 2021 by Clan's Cynic

[Kronos]

As others have said, I’d like Fyreslayers to be if anything more influenced by fire and Magmadroths. Some more cavalry units, Golems or golem suits, smiths and caster entirely covered by flame and lava. I want them to unreservedly embrace their volcanic life style, not just flirt with a flame.

 

I’d also like to see an Avatar of Grimnir. If Eldar and DoK can have Khaine pieces  walking around the place I want a big old fiery Dwarf swishing an axe or two. 

[someone2040]

I feel like the thing stopping them from becoming an interesting army is mainly the lack of diversity in their troops.

If the Vulkites didn't have helmets (or different style helmets), this would go some way in diversifying how the infantry look.

Then they really need something that sits between the infantry and the magmadroths. Mini-magma cavalry, fire elementals, something to break up the monotony of just painting 100 dudes that all look the same on foot. It's also not a very interesting play experience to have essentially dudes that all move at the same speed and are either just tougher, shooty or killy.

Basically I feel, they just need a second wave of models that gives them interesting alternatives to fill out the army. 

 

That being said, I definitely do agree that the models do lack the character the old slayers have. But some of that is just part of the conversion into plastic and trying to make multiple builds out of a single kit. It forces the bodies into certain poses, and leaves less room on the sprues for alternative faces/heads/etc as they end up being taken up by weapon options. Some of the Vulkite poses just don't look very good either.

 

Overall though, I do want to see what Games Workshop can do to refresh the army. I think the Fyreslayers are really one of the armies most in need of a 2nd wave with a new book to go with it.

[Kramer]

9 hours ago, Greybeard86 said:

If they do not want to evoke reckless abandon, they should not name them "slayers", adopt the aesthetic of the old slayers (which they clearly are inspired by), and call them freaking berzerkers! I mean, c'mon! I read the lore in the battletome, which I had to go back to because your description sounded odd to me. They constantly refer to them as "hot tempered and impulsive", and about how the "dive into hordes of enemies".

The whole mercenary thing sounds shoe-horned to me, honestly.

Yeah I agree. They shouldn’t have named them slayers. Or made the a true slayers as in the old world. But that only works if they have an society to escape from. Which wasn’t there yet. 
 

I like the mercenary bit if I’m honest. It’s a good way for them to interact with the world. Very pragmatic. If your whole society is build around war, then that’s the skill you have to trade. 

but I disagree that being hot tempered, impulsive and diving into hordes of enemies clashes with how they treat them in the books. They can be all of those things and not have a death wish. 

[mojojojo101]

I wonder if some of the sameness of the models couldn't in part, be addressed by how the models are posed.

They are al kinda similar, walking forward with a weapon or 2.

Say if they had a unit that was modelled to be leaping off rocks (as they clearly love to do with 40k characters)  as they dive into combat or something. Just something to give the army a bit of variety in  height and dynamism. Coupled with a maybe a monstrous unit or a cavalry option your already approaching a much more varied and pleasing profile/silhouette (can't really think of the right word here) to the army.

[Baron Klatz]

27 minutes ago, Kramer said:

but I disagree that being hot tempered, impulsive and diving into hordes of enemies clashes with how they treat them in the books. They can be all of those things and not have a death wish. 

Yeah that's just how Aqshyians are. Even in the first books that's why Khorne wanted the Realm of Fire, all it's people being hot-blooded and quick to fight and get their blood pumping fit his legions perfectly. (And now is a suitable target for Morathi-Khaine's bloody empire to grow in)

Some other neat avenues Fyreslayers need to explore is the oriental angles that Aqshy has in abundance, it's already in their lodge icons so the next step is to put it in their next wave and combine their fiery berserk Spartans with hot-tempered banzai samurai/oni*. (Credit to Gecktron for the comparison pic)

*(Oni's a fun one because that's just Ogors which lodges like Lofnir have already befriended)

There's other iterations they can focus on too to fit the other realms. Ghur kin with big axes for monster hunting and the lodges that make their homes in mountain-sized trees ("Spear of Shadows"), flying troops on levitating rocks from Ghyran as one large notable lodge fights Skaven there over sky islands that orbit the realm full of minerals and stuff like the Hysh Fyreslayers who made forges that concentrate moonlight to create heat to smith with which would make great lighter toned Fyreslayers that focus on refined heat and light instead of blazes.

 

[Lord of the Isle]

Fyreslayers don’t do it for me but are pretty popular in the two communities I’m aware of - Soulbound and the Animosity narrative AoS discord

[Greyshadow]

I freakin' love the Fyreslayers. I'd love to paint an army of them with lots of Magmadroths. One day, one day...

[SunStorm]

Not a fan of them. The original slayers had a good look, with the stronger guys having the more flamboyant pose/hair. I also liked the lore of the different grades of slayers, but the Fyreslayers just took everything and turned it right up and then removed the pants. 

I guess it's the same sort of thing done with Ironjawz, they took the basic Orcs and turned everything up, but those work to my eye (even if they could use more units/kits). 

 

[Kramer]

27 minutes ago, SunStorm said:

. 

I guess it's the same sort of thing done with Ironjawz, they took the basic Orcs and turned everything up, but those work to my eye (even if they could use more units/kits). 

 

Hadn’t thought about that. But maybe that’s also because they incorporated some of the old world models (black orcs). 
so you can see the clear progression. 

maybe if the basic fyreslayer troops were old worlds slayers (regardless of that they are metal) you’d see more progression. Unadorned -> a few runes and small weapons -> big weapons big runes. 

but that would make them the actual progression rather then the spiritual successor. 
 

[Malakithe]

From a models/faction point of view they do need more units overall.

Now I think most people are misunderstanding who the Fyreslayers are. Old world slayers vs Fyreslayers are like apples vs oranges. Old slayers were a single person who wanted to seek death to attone for their sins. Fyreslyers are a religious military faction. They dont just blindly seek death. They have purpose. Ive always said Fyreslayers were a mirror to Bonesplitterz. They are both over zealous in their worship and actions for their gods. The gathering of ur-gold isnt based on greed or wealth but its a crusade. And when they use the ur-gold it fills them with almost divine like power. Thats the part that drives them insane over time. They use the power, it goes away, they become almost catatonic until they get more then their righteous purpose flares up again. Its actually kind of a ****** up never ending cycle. All this has absolutely nothing to do with the Slayers of old. They have similar names and orange hair. Thats it. They look similar sure but they arent the same. Not even close.  

[Greybeard86]

4 hours ago, Kramer said:

Yeah I agree. They shouldn’t have named them slayers. Or made the a true slayers as in the old world.

 

1 hour ago, Malakithe said:

Now I think most people are misunderstanding who the Fyreslayers are. Old world slayers vs Fyreslayers are like apples vs oranges. [...] They have similar names and orange hair. Thats it. They look similar sure but they arent the same. Not even close.  

The problem with this is that FS are very obviously the AoS version of slayers, in the sense that they drew heavily from the slayer theme to make them. They appealed to the already established fanbase for slayers to launch FS. So it comes with baggage, not a clean slate; in the same way that lumineth have the HE baggage.

In terms of the design of the sculpt, they very obviously went with the 8th edition version of dwarves:

http://toyarmies.com/wiki/index.php/Dwarfs#February_2014.C2.A0.E2.80.94_8ed_ArmyBook

With Gotrek being an expansion of the 8th edition dragon slayer. The faces are similar (smaller noses, pointier, less extreme limbs, flatter beards), it is just the same version.

The issue with this is that 8th edition dawi were emotionless sculpts, far less expressive faces than in older editions. And to make things worse, old slayers were among the most expressive dwarf sculpts, all of them having detailed faces expressing rage. This makes for very disfavorable comparison with the current sculpts.

Now, some people have suggested other units. Certainly, the lack of variety hurts the hobby aspect. However, one may argue that they have not expanded on it precisely because the sculpts weren't selling. That's not to say there aren't fans, but large polls highlighted that it is a vast minority of players collecting them. So I thought it would be interesting to know what it is that is missing in the original sculpts to make them more appealing. Of course, others might feel that those are fine and that it is exclusively an issue of more sculpts. I am not attempting to control the discussion, mine is just another opinion.

[Noserenda]

Thinking about it last night, to clarify why i dislike their background so much, they took the imagery and names from Slayers and Grimnir and came out with something completely different. The Cult of Grimnir in Warhammer is almost completely different to the one in AoS aside from liking the colour orange and fighting.