Fyreslayers: discussing their design

[Saturmorn Carvilli]

Okay, I wanted to try a rough visual experiment by adding beards to the mob miniatures.  I'll have to admit that some of the dynamism still shows through. I also stretched the picture a bit as I think the posing of the mob miniatures may still have something to do with it where the stubby limbs of the Fyreslayers often prevent it.  In any even, the picture is kinda funny.

[Aelfric]

44 minutes ago, Saturmorn Carvilli said:

Okay, I wanted to try a rough visual experiment by adding beards to the mob miniatures.  I'll have to admit that some of the dynamism still shows through. I also stretched the picture a bit as I think the posing of the mob miniatures may still have something to do with it where the stubby limbs of the Fyreslayers often prevent it.  In any even, the picture is kinda funny.

Perhaps a unit of little jolly Leprechauns is what's needed in Fyreslayers - I just didn't know it until now.

[Greybeard86]

1 hour ago, Saturmorn Carvilli said:

Okay, I wanted to try a rough visual experiment by adding beards to the mob miniatures.  I'll have to admit that some of the dynamism still shows through. I also stretched the picture a bit as I think the posing of the mob miniatures may still have something to do with it where the stubby limbs of the Fyreslayers often prevent it.  In any even, the picture is kinda funny.

I am telling you, it is not technology, it is not realism, it is not beards making it harder; it is a design choice.

Maybe they wanted to make them easier to paint, or perhaps it was the same person who re-did the 8th edition dawi units (current disposessed), who HATES faces and loves iron.

PS - I have the mob waiting in storage for when I paint up my Bretonnian small band of metal sculpts. I think they make for very good peasant mobs, or to mixed them with other units as "camp followers" in human armies.

[Vasshpit]

I dont play fiery  merc stunties but it would be nice to see some of your woman 😎 represented across the table. 😉.

[NinthMusketeer]

I am OK with basic infantry having shorter beards as it gives more room for elite units to have bigger ones, and hero units bigger still. I wish that was seen more in the miniatures.

[zilberfrid]

I must say I did vote yes, because I like the lore and the promise.

[Public Universal Duardin]

I ended up voting no, after careful thinking. On one hand, I really like the Fyreslayers lore, but on the other the miniatures just aren't doing it for me. I don't have issues differentiating units of different armies but those of the Fyreslayers - the sculpts (and naming schemes) blend together into an orange and skin coloured mess. As armies I collect are often chosen from lore rather than rules perspective, it didn't help that at one point the lore painted female Fyreslayers as exceedingly rare, as it disincentived any conversion projects. But I've understood newer content such as Soulbound has rectified that partly.

Fyreslayers are one of those armies that with a little fixing would become a "must have" army for myself. More diversity in sculpts, more diversity in general (for real, what's it with this lack of female duardin in any media in general? Is it the lack of beards?) and give Fyreslayers a bit more...oomph. The KO are a good example of GW taking a concept, running with it and doing it well. From imho really unique miniatures to lore that inspires the imagination (seriously, if I'd be a bit more into steampunk I'd have a skypirate fleet already), they  make me wish Fyreslayers would get a second wave. Maybe lean a bit more on the faux-Norse feel? Make a bit more "Nordic" duardin, taking inspiration from Norse myths?

[leadfoot352]

I love Fyreslayers. I love the models, I love the kits. I love the stoic ranks of models that share a uniformity. I don't want every army to be a massive collection of totally unique characters, because when they are it looks weird when you have lots of units of the same sculpt. They are designed to look like they go together, and they do. 

 

The biggest strength in AoS design is, in my opinion, the fact that most AoS factions at their launch have exactly what they need. As someone who has played war games for a long time, and in a lot of systems, I can't tell you how not exciting the 4th version of the same core unit is for me. I've played space marines, and let me tell you that 5 different infantry choices with medium range shooting, supporting by a mix of close range special weapons and long range heavy weapons, isn't really interest. Give me one unit that does that job, and make them do it well, so I don't have to buy a bunch of different versions of it. The real problem is not factions like Fyreslayers having too few options, it's the fact that they've souped too many options into larger books. I can tell you honestly that a lot of the time when I look across a table at any Chaos army, it doesn't look like they're playing one faction. The worst for this are Skaven, whose only unifying theme is that they are all ratmen, and Cities of Sigmar, who don't look like a single army because really they aren't one. 

 

Fyreslayers are an epitome of this design philosophy. They have 3 units, that's it. One is a horde like swarm of decent models, one is an unmoving anvil that breaks everyone that crashes into it, and one is a ranged support unit. That's all you need to make an army. You could maybe add in a cavalry unit for forward objective grabbing, but you already have that in the Runesmiter's teleportation ability. From there you have a single monster that fills its role, get in and beat stuff up, with a couple different characters on its back to push it into other roles. Really the only things that don't fit super well into this design is the Doomseeker and Grimwrath having basically the same core function in the army, beat stick hero, and even then the Doomseeker falls more into an assassin role than the Grimwrath, who's more of a blender. 

[Greybeard86]

6 hours ago, leadfoot352 said:

They have 3 units, that's it. One is a horde like swarm of decent models, one is an unmoving anvil that breaks everyone that crashes into it, and one is a ranged support unit. That's all you need to make an army. You could maybe add in a cavalry unit for forward objective grabbing, but you already have that in the Runesmiter's teleportation ability. From there you have a single monster that fills its role, get in and beat stuff up, with a couple different characters on its back to push it into other roles. Really the only things that don't fit super well into this design is the Doomseeker and Grimwrath having basically the same core function in the army, beat stick hero, and even then the Doomseeker falls more into an assassin role than the Grimwrath, who's more of a blender. 

That surprises me. Why would anyone NOT want variety? Is it worse to be able to choose between multiple sculpts / units for the same role than to be forced to take the one option? It is not like you must buy all the different "troop" options, just because they are out there. Maybe you can expand on why it hurts to have more options.

I thought maybe you meant that this is because then there are no meta shifts, but surprisingly fyreslayers seem to have experienced that too.

[Beliman]

4 hours ago, Greybeard86 said:

That surprises me. Why would anyone NOT want variety? Is it worse to be able to choose between multiple sculpts / units for the same role than to be forced to take the one option? It is not like you must buy all the different "troop" options, just because they are out there. Maybe you can expand on why it hurts to have more options.

I thought maybe you meant that this is because then there are no meta shifts, but surprisingly fyreslayers seem to have experienced that too.

I can't answer that question, but maybe there are a lot of personal filters that we just ignore.

For example in the link that you provided before (http://toyarmies.com/wiki/index.php/Dwarfs), the dwarfs that I like the most are the ones that you depicted as "worse design". 

Don't get me wrong, I like the old ones too, but I prefer troops to be a bit  homogeneous and I don't want heroes to pass as normal troops like Garagrim or any Giantslayer-Dragonslayer-Demonslayers. Expression-less dwarfs seems to accomplish this and even if they have a lot of details, the whole pack has less "noise" than other old units.

Btw, I want new units too, and I don't mind if the new ones have exaggerated expressions; I just wanted to point that everyone likes diferent (toy soldier) things and all of them are right. 

Edited January 10, 2021 by Beliman

[Lavieth]

I think the designs are rather interesting and I feel like it is the paint jobs that kinda limit the range.  Sure there is not a ton of variety in the sculpts, but neither are the Lumineth Sentinels nor Wardens all that different from each other. 

 

I really do think a different take on the paint can really make the range stand out.  Here are some examples I found that are sorta how I plan to paint mine.  Here is the link if you want to look at more.

http://oscarlars.com/project/fyreslayers-of-ghyran/

Edited January 10, 2021 by Lavieth

[Fulkes]

I really struggled on this thread topic for a few days, and I'm really lukewarm on them and it bothers me. I love the lore, and the art is fantastic, but the rules and the models leave me a bit lukewarm.

The big rules issue for me is that it's an army of barely clothed berserkers hopped up on magic runes but they move the same as a normal Duardin wearing plate armour. Like at least give them a 5" movement. I get they have short legs, but they should at least be able to jog faster than a normal Duardin for crying out loud.

The models bother me for a different reason. The units feel so identical that it's hard to tell them apart. If there was at least a little extra on the models (like different helm designs) that made them stand out from each other beyond what weapon they're carrying it'd help, but the silhouettes are so identical it just all blurs together. They don't really have the amount of dynamic movement you'd expect for something with the "slayer" name.

So basically there is a rules thing that bothers me, and a model design thing that bothers me (beyond some of the perfectly symmetrical models) that just makes the army come up a bit short.

[Kramer]

21 hours ago, Greybeard86 said:

That surprises me. Why would anyone NOT want variety? Is it worse to be able to choose between multiple sculpts / units for the same role than to be forced to take the one option? It is not like you must buy all the different "troop" options, just because they are out there. Maybe you can expand on why it hurts to have more options.

Is it worse to want your army to be uniform?  It’s not like you. must build and paint the fyreslayers as they come out of the box. 

Sorry, couldn’t resist. Don’t know why it bothers me when people write keywords in bold to make a point 😅

for what it’s worth. I like the old stoic chaos warriors more than the new dynamic ones. 
on release I was sold but when I actually saw them on the table I lost my enthusiasm. 
instead of the unrelenting horde of ironclad and impervious raiders marching from the desolate wastes in lockstep... they looked like, wel, basically a Warcry warband with better armour. 

On a slightly separate note, and I might do a different topic on this, how many units and how versatile do people want a faction to be? 
I like the faction to be specialists. It annoys me that stormcast got a magic chamber for example. All factions Imo should lean into two or three strengths and be weak at the rest.

So a faction like KO which has amazing shooting but no good and survivable combat unit works best for me. So it’s logical that they don’t have many kits. 

If you add 2 maybe three more units to the current lumineth realm lords range they could have separated them into the mountain and the old skool parts. And made them two armies. 

[zilberfrid]

1 hour ago, Kramer said:

Is it worse to want your army to be uniform?  It’s not like you. must build and paint the fyreslayers as they come out of the box. 

Sorry, couldn’t resist. Don’t know why it bothers me when people write keywords in bold to make a point 😅

for what it’s worth. I like the old stoic chaos warriors more than the new dynamic ones. 
on release I was sold but when I actually saw them on the table I lost my enthusiasm. 
instead of the unrelenting horde of ironclad and impervious raiders marching from the desolate wastes in lockstep... they looked like, wel, basically a Warcry warband with better armour. 

On a slightly separate note, and I might do a different topic on this, how many units and how versatile do people want a faction to be? 
I like the faction to be specialists. It annoys me that stormcast got a magic chamber for example. All factions Imo should lean into two or three strengths and be weak at the rest.

So a faction like KO which has amazing shooting but no good and survivable combat unit works best for me. So it’s logical that they don’t have many kits. 

If you add 2 maybe three more units to the current lumineth realm lords range they could have separated them into the mountain and the old skool parts. And made them two armies. 

I don't use Warhammer models for wargaming, but here's my take:

I like diversity. Cities gives lots of sculpts that may be harder to pull together, but when they do, it's brilliant.

Monopose models or very similar models do not have the versatility that warrants GW prices, while something like Arkanauts and Escher gang does.

Kharadron are a good example. There is about as much variety in the Arkanauts box as there is in all infantry Fyreslayers combined. But then we also have heavier Thunderers with 6 weapon options, Balloon boys with two, five distinct heroes, and of course, the ships.

If you'd strip KO down to the Frigate and the Arkanauts, I think you have about as much model variety as the entire Fyreslayers range.

As for the question: I would like a unit of melee marines in the Kharadron, as well as a melee ship. And make Skywardens useful. Also, a box of just a few female bodies and heads would be brilliant, we'd be able to put remaining weapons on them.

Cities is about right in variety, though could use more dwarfs.

If Cities does fall, thematically the Iron Drakes and Longbeards could fit in Fyreslayers, with the Ironweld, Hammerers and Ironbreakers going to Kharadron.

Fyreslayers need a lot.

Female characters, with a bonus of actual facial expressions is a start.

More fire creatures.

Heavily armoured dwarfs with an option of either big gouts of flame or harpoons for dangerous creatures, or even pikes.

Flame cannons. Maybe even get some ideas from the previous firedwarfs.

I'm not sure how to save that faction, but it'll need quite a bit.

Oh, and GW can still sculpt expressive things with the Slayer theme:

 

 

Edited January 11, 2021 by zilberfrid

[Kramer]

15 minutes ago, zilberfrid said:

I don't use Warhammer models for wargaming, but here's my take:

I like diversity. Cities gives lots of sculpts that may be harder to pull together, but when they do, it's brilliant.

Monopose models or very similar models do not have the versatility that warrants GW prices, while something like Arkanauts and Escher gang does.

Kharadron are a good example. There is about as much variety in the Arkanauts box as there is in all infantry Fyreslayers combined. But then we also have heavier Thunderers with 6 weapon options, Balloon boys with two, five distinct heroes, and of course, the ships.

If you'd strip KO down to the Frigate and the Arkanauts, I think you have about as much model variety as the entire Fyreslayers range.

Fair play to you. Abd to each their own. 

but for some models I like that uniformity. 
the lumineth sentinels are a good example. Very samey, not much variation but it works for that army.

exact opposite of the other elven archers; idoneth reavers. Very individual, very dynamic and that fits the faction. 

both warrant the GW prices Imo abd the sentinels are pretty much monopose. Especially looking at them in profile. 

Its all down to how you envision the lore. And if you are using the models just for painting or skirmish I agree. Then Variety is better but for wargaming there is nothing wrong with a uniform look and pose if that fits the faction. 

EDIT: to also reply to your comparison. First off the arkanauts are deckhands and occasional pirates. No I don’t think they should be as monopose as for example the ironbreakers. But the other way around is also true. Don’t give me so dynamic (as far as their stubby legs allow) ironbreakers as the arkanauts are. 
in the comparison with the KO and fyreslayers is partly true. But if you field KO with so big units things get messy as well. 
The balloon boys are just a weapon swap, the. Arkanauts and thunderers do differ but during my last warcry game my opponent admired the only difference he looked for was the weapon itself abd don’t get me started on the different thunderer special weapons   the little foot heroes are about as recogniseable in both factions. 
but you are right on the boats... so wo more fyre monsters please GW 😁

Edited January 11, 2021 by Kramer

[zilberfrid]

7 minutes ago, Kramer said:

Fair play to you. Abd to each their own. 

but for some models I like that uniformity. 
the lumineth sentinels are a good example. Very samey, not much variation but it works for that army.

exact opposite of the other elven archers; idoneth reavers. Very individual, very dynamic and that fits the faction. 

both warrant the GW prices Imo abd the sentinels are pretty much monopose. Especially looking at them in profile. 

Its all down to how you envision the lore. And if you are using the models just for painting or skirmish I agree. Then Variety is better but for wargaming there is nothing wrong with a uniform look and pose if that fits the faction. 

Sorry for typing half my post past the first click on the post button.

I like the Sentinels and Chaos warriors as plodding blocks of infantry, but don't think it makes much sense for berserkers.

Arm up the Blood Bowl team, and that image fits much better.

On the other hand, Irondrakes/ironbreakers and Longbeards/hammerers do make sense in blocks.

[sandlemad]

2 hours ago, Kramer said:

for what it’s worth. I like the old stoic chaos warriors more than the new dynamic ones. 
on release I was sold but when I actually saw them on the table I lost my enthusiasm. 
instead of the unrelenting horde of ironclad and impervious raiders marching from the desolate wastes in lockstep... they looked like, wel, basically a Warcry warband with better armour. 

I agree with the charm of the older chaos warriors, that whole serried ranks of ironclad killers thing, but that's at the level of a single unit. Those chaos warriors would still, in an average WHFB or AoS force, be visually offset by a unit of heavily armoured cavalry, half-naked marauders, low-to-the-ground war beasts, hulking trolls or ogres, and towering monsters. There's visual variety.

Fyrerslayers have none of that. They're just those 99% homogenous models with a single monster. Even if there was a greater range of poses within the vulkite berzerkers/hearthguard kit - the vulkite kit has some variation, it's just that many of the poses are bad - it wouldn't solve the issue because the problem is almost total homogeneity at the army scale. Whatever about rules (which to my mind are irrelevant here) it's not that the models are uniform, it's that they're all practically identical; same helmets, same hair, same beards, same apparel, different weapons. It might as well be an army of one unit with different loadouts, a monster and some heroes.

Edited January 11, 2021 by sandlemad

[Kramer]

57 minutes ago, sandlemad said:

I agree with the charm of the older chaos warriors, that whole serried ranks of ironclad killers thing, but that's at the level of a single unit. Those chaos warriors would still, in an average WHFB or AoS force, be visually offset by a unit of heavily armoured cavalry, half-naked marauders, low-to-the-ground war beasts, hulking trolls or ogres, and towering monsters. There's visual variety.

 

like you say. Two different things. I agree with you regarding fyrslayers btw. But I was just showing support for a poster who said he prefered unity. I do as well. 

But even on army level I get it. It's a show of taste. I hate to play it, but I love to bring only clanrats with some heroes to a game. It looks awesome. A wave of rats with 3 to 5 stand out heroes in there. It's great.  Never for games bigger than 1k though 😂

Again I don't think it works for Fyreslayers. But if someone likes it. Fair play. 

Thinking about it. Double the points of all the fireslayer, so the units are halved and it already looks so much better. Make the hearthguard all mini gotreks so you never bring more than 15 in a unit and already it will look good i feel.  

 

Edited January 11, 2021 by Kramer

[sandlemad]

If someone likes it, cool, but the unfortunate thing is that a homogenous monotone force of identical nude infantry and the odd monster is currently the only way to play fyreslayers. The handful of folks who have a preference for that* are catered for while anyone who wants a slightly more diverse or aesthetically varied force (even on the level of, say, Stormcast or FEC; still all big gold dudes/wretched cannibals, still has variation and can nonetheless be taken in different ways) is left out entirely. 

I like your idea of a force built around mini-Gotreks though. Glowing, super-Saiyan dwarves laughing as they leap into the fray, like in the Bonereapers novella. It would shift tack to a sort of elite CC army, which has potential and is more my jam anyway.

* which I get on one level, it's good to see a force with solid core/infantry/troops at the centre, though not to the complete exclusion of everything else.

Edited January 11, 2021 by sandlemad

[Kramer]

20 minutes ago, sandlemad said:

If someone likes it, cool, but the unfortunate thing is that a homogenous monotone force of identical nude infantry and the odd monster is currently the only way to play fyreslayers. The handful of folks who have a preference for that* are catered for while anyone who wants a slightly more diverse or aesthetically varied force (even on the level of, say, Stormcast or FEC; still all big gold dudes/wretched cannibals, still has variation and can nonetheless be taken in different ways) is left out entirely. 

I like your idea of a force built around mini-Gotreks though. Glowing, super-Saiyan dwarves laughing as they leap into the fray, like in the Bonereapers novella. It would shift tack to a sort of elite CC army, which has potential and is more my jam anyway.

* which I get on one level, it's good to see a force with solid core/infantry/troops at the centre, though not to the complete exclusion of everything else.

agreed. 

What I always wondered about though as a Fyreslayer player, and maybe I haven't looked for enough, why wouldn't you differentiate units by colour of the crest?

And can we talk about skin tone. Caucasian/bronzed skin tone with orange hair is too similar on tabletop distance. Yeah, you can make it work on an individual level but not army white. Ohh and also paint some runes gold, and gold weapons. just to add to the one colour look.

Edited January 11, 2021 by Kramer

[Fulkes]

Colorwise I'd argue for Fyreslayer Flesh which is a ruddier color for skin, and bronze for the helms, but then you're pushing the entire model into the orange spectrum which is a problem in and of itself. Monochromatic schemes can work but it's a real pain to make an army of them easilly readable.

As for unity on the table top, I can respect that, but it really depends on the army. If the army is a traditional military force (like the Lumineth, or Chaos Warriors) then similar arms and armour just make sense. But the Fyreslayers are continuing the traditions of the Old World Slayers, at least visually, which moves them from being a purely identical force in my book.

Some more variety in axe designs, some different manners in how they braid beards, proper running, leaping and attacking poses, as well as different styled helms with various plumes would have done a lot for the army. As it stands though they're very same-same and not very high energy, which feels counter to the Slayer name. It just feels like they made only a small handful of resources for the army and were then forced to use them for the entire army without making anything new, which is honestly where I think most of us hit a wall with the faction: it doesn't feel like a lodge of hundreds of unique dwarves who get hopped up on magic runes and booze before blitzing into battle, it's a slow methodical brick army that is one guy and his hundred near identical cousins, plus maybe a big lizard.

Of course that's not touch on the goofier poses like the two axe guy balanced on the balls feet like he just nearly tripped but caught himself.

Edited January 11, 2021 by Fulkes

[Greybeard86]

6 hours ago, sandlemad said:

If someone likes it, cool, but the unfortunate thing is that a homogenous monotone force of identical nude infantry and the odd monster is currently the only way to play fyreslayers. The handful of folks who have a preference for that* are catered for while anyone who wants a slightly more diverse or aesthetically varied force (even on the level of, say, Stormcast or FEC; still all big gold dudes/wretched cannibals, still has variation and can nonetheless be taken in different ways) is left out entirely. 

I like your idea of a force built around mini-Gotreks though. Glowing, super-Saiyan dwarves laughing as they leap into the fray, like in the Bonereapers novella. It would shift tack to a sort of elite CC army, which has potential and is more my jam anyway.

* which I get on one level, it's good to see a force with solid core/infantry/troops at the centre, though not to the complete exclusion of everything else.

I sincerily cannot comprehend why someone would hate on options. If you prefer only 1 batteline and one elite, then just paint one of the options. How is the availability of alternatives hurting you?

In any case, I think Fyreslayers is not a complete project. I wonder if they'll retake it or simply merge them into the Valhallan dwarves. I'd be happy either way, but they certainly need something.

 

[sandlemad]

1 hour ago, Greybeard86 said:

I sincerily cannot comprehend why someone would hate on options. If you prefer only 1 batteline and one elite, then just paint one of the options. How is the availability of alternatives hurting you?

There's some cases where I agree with the sentiment. When we have primaris intercessors for 40k, the addition of heavy intercessors, reivers with carbines, incursors, infiltrators... all power armoured space marines with bolters filling the same function and with almost interchangeable names (as well as butting up against the role of veteran intercessors, tactical marines, sternguard veterans), it feels like it's just padding. The illusion of options, minimal creativity, lots of units doing almost the same thing.

It'd be a stretch to say it hurts but when you think of all the design effort and resources that went into that that could have gone into, I dunno, fyreslayers (😉), it's rather irritating. That's a 40k issue in general though and it's pretty wild to turn that into "actually it's good that fyreslayers have only one kind of unit instead of being fleshed out to even the level of ironjawz or FEC".

[Fulkes]

16 minutes ago, sandlemad said:

There's some cases where I agree with the sentiment. When we have primaris intercessors for 40k, the addition of heavy intercessors, reivers with carbines, incursors, infiltrators... all power armoured space marines with bolters filling the same function and with almost interchangeable names (as well as butting up against the role of veteran intercessors, tactical marines, sternguard veterans), it feels like it's just padding. The illusion of options, minimal creativity, lots of units doing almost the same thing.

It'd be a stretch to say it hurts but when you think of all the design effort and resources that went into that that could have gone into, I dunno, fyreslayers (😉), it's rather irritating. That's a 40k issue in general though and it's pretty wild to turn that into "actually it's good that fyreslayers have only one kind of unit instead of being fleshed out to even the level of ironjawz or FEC".

I'd argue the things bumping into the Firstborn is because they're eventually going to replace the Firstborn. They at least give some playstyle differences, but that's not really completely relevant to the AoS.

I do feel like Fyreslayers were rushed out and made on a much too limited resource pool, but that's just my assumption.

[sandlemad]

1 minute ago, Fulkes said:

I'd argue the things bumping into the Firstborn is because they're eventually going to replace the Firstborn. They at least give some playstyle differences, but that's not really completely relevant to the AoS.

Oh definitely. Primaris offered something like a clean slate in that regard, it's just when GW keeps putting out new variations on Malibu Stacey with a new hat "primaris infantryman with bolter" it makes me wish they'd put some of that energy into something fresher, you know? In fairness most 2019/20 AoS stuff was a lot fresher than what was coming out for 40k so it's not the worst.