What Do You Like About the Setting

[Grim Beasties]

Just wanted to make a thread about what you enjoy about the Age of Sigmar setting and lore. Feel free to make your answer as long or short as possible.

[Enoby]

This may seem odd, but I love that you can ignore large parts of the setting while have it still feel cohesive.

That's not a knock against AoS - I think it's great that nearly everyone can create their own army and story without feeling dragged down by one of GW's named characters or random bits of lore. But at the same time most armies have enough base lore holding them together that they're recognisable. 

For example, you could have one Khorne army who reveres the Blood God and another Khorne army who was forced into his service due to a blood pact generations ago and neither would feel out of the setting. In other settings you may feel as if you have to justify why one of these armies hasn't disrupted x city or why their leader is an aelf when the lore clearly states that aelves are severely allergic to blood. Yeah sure you can houserule it in other settings, but at that point you're not using the full setting and it feels somehow more fake.

The setting is full enough for a good basework but not so full that the setting dictates your army. It might not be the best to read an official story in, but it is the best Warhammer setting to build your own homebrew faction in. 

 

[Neverchosen]

I agree with @Enoby, I am a huge fan of the freedom that AOS provides players. People can fashion their armies to represent various aesthetics, stories and compositions. I have always enjoyed the hobby giving us the ability to make our own lore and soldiers but AoS has made this potential an inherent part of the game. My friend and I have been developing a setting for our upcoming post COVID campaign and we will use realm rules to represent different territories to give them more flavour. Despite this campaign being a unique setting taking liberal inspiration from the game's lore with only minor tweaking it could happily exist within one of the realms. 

I also feel like the ascendent nature of epic heroes makes the use of them feel less strained than in WHFB or 40k. If I kill Nagash on the battlefield I can hand wave it away as an aspect of a god an avatar or simply a temporary defeat. When the Celestant Prime dies it gets reforged or when Gordrakk is defeated GorkaMorka may bless him by rescuing him from the field... but when Karl Franz is felled by some goblins it felt more like it had created a massive continuity problem. I am still wary of using named heroes but it now feels more like part of the game and setting.

Edited March 11, 2021 by Neverchosen

[Lord of the Isle]

Weirdly I am much more allergic to named heroes in AoS than I was in fantasy. May just be the difference between childhood excitement and adult desire for creative freedom / control / consistency - but I also think there is a problem with much more epic scale god heroes accompanying much numerically smaller more rag tag looking retinues. For me in your example above, KF was leading a proper army and probably retired wounded from the field.

I completely agree about AoS background flexibility and originality, though I do miss the camp, nerdy, silly, historically allusive, outrageously jingoistic jokes a lot still.

I think Morathi showed the setting at its dynamic best. Rich characters doing intriguing  stuff that mattered...

[KingBrodd]

Everything. Honestly it's the freedom that the setting let's players play in. I've never been a competitive gamer and more just enjoyed the hobby and lore side of things. So for me being able to create an Ogor Tribe alongside my Sons of Behemat works thematically and isnt intrusive or wouldnt be against the norm. In WHFB you would have to justify saying that the Gargants enslaved the Ogors or something where is in AOS they literally can just work together.

[Popisdead]

While I grew up reading Tolkein and Morcock I'm also a fan of AoS lore not being strictly based or rooted in those with geographical limitations for size.  You never hear the comment "why are wood elves fighting in the desert" in AoS.  or "the Empire is one step away from MGs and yet magically every Empire city is besieged by forests choking with Beastmen on the verge of destroying it",.. and yet not.

 

I think what GW created over the years was great as it was this growing evolution of what was around and going on through the 1970s and 1980s.  As the new century hit it became obvious the Fantasy game and setting was dying and becoming irrelevant to support.  The Time of Legends were great but hampered and would make way more sense to do now and actually exist in a long forgotten age.  

 

Another thing I love is take the Slaanesh short story about the Branchwraith.  That story could have never exists in pre-AoS.  

There was also a little bit about a massive caravan in the old Guy Haley Snikrot novel.  In Fantasy that really struggled to exist.  Where did it happen?  how did it get around?  Sure AoS is high fantasy but you can strip it down to a brutal more gritty setting with smaller fantastical elements such as this.  And we are seeing it match with teh new kits and sizes.  

 

I guess it comes down to freedom, expression, creativity and enjoyment.  

[Akylas]

The scale and freedom are big draws for me as well. It's easy to come up with a background for your army without struggling to fit it into the background.

Right now I'm working on Shyish themed Ironjawz (riding "ghost gruntas" so eerily silent that their riders tie chains to them to make some noise) to fight my wife's nighthaunts. It's really fun coming up with my own little corner of Shyish.

[Beliman]

I think the setting is awesome, but the focus that GW uses is bit meh for me. When I begin to talk about AoS to somebody, I always start with the same two things:

1. Gods from the past: Sigmar forged some golden dudes, Nagash then fought Archaon, Nurgle invaded Ghur, Malekith changed his name...
2. There are planes floating around with some type of stargates to travel between them. Every plane has a Lore of Magic...

That's nice and all, but that's just not what we see on the table. You see conflicts between a City-state vs a Band of cannibals. A raiding party of pirate-dwarfs plundering a caravan of elven dudes. A military group trying to stop a cult of sorcerers. 

In other words, Cities of Sigmar,  Lethis, Fyreslayers Lodges, Skyports, etc... and all the threats that they need to surpass every day is what makes AoS interesting for me. Their interactions are what makes the game "alive", that Mad Max meet Dark Souls with some Stargate elements around Warhammer Civiliations/Races/Societies is the AoS strongest point.

Let's be honest, the fall of Anvilgard was awesome (even if Morathi didn't accomplish godhood). That's what I'm talking about,

Edited March 12, 2021 by Beliman

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

What I personally like about the setting is that it is designed from the ground up to have enough space for people to carve out their own niche. I have played games in fantasy settings that were just suffocatingly well detailed, both geographically and historically. And I just find that exhausting at this point, always having to check if what you come up with is compatible with the setting. So I enjoy the freedom of the mortal realms in that regard, because it seems the writers are trying to leave open as many possibilities as possible for players.

Deathrattle are a good example for me. In another setting I have played in, what undead skeletons were was completely explained: They are always under the control of a necromancer, they are always mindless, and they are always evil. In AoS, even something as basic as a skeleton has a lot to offer: Sure, some of them are evil, mindless undead under the control of a necromancer. But there are also Deathrattle kingdoms, where sentient skeletons do their own thing. And even cities in Shyish, where skeletons and humans live together. And then there the Ossiarch Bonereapers, whose relationship to a Deathrattle kingdom could really go a lot of different ways. There are just so many possibilities there if you want to be creative in the setting.

On the topic of Bonereapers: Their book contains my favourite piece of fluff. Basic Mortek know they are expendable cannon fodder, so two of them will sometimes promise each other that, if one of them should be destroyed in battle, the other will collect their parts and put them back together. For me, that shifted my whole perception of them. They could easily just have been the Grand Necromancers evil minions who live only for war. But this little humanizing touch completely changes that for me.

I also appreciate that the setting seems to be designed with the possibility of change in mind. We have seen this with BR: Morathi, with her ascension to godhood and the fall of Anvilgard. I hope the writers really keep pushing this. Being largely static was always a problem both Warhammer Fantasy and 40k had, in my opinion. And I appreciate that AoS is trying to not fall into the same traps.

Edited March 12, 2021 by Neil Arthur Hotep

[dekay]

It's probably the most 'your dudes' friendly setting I've ever seen. The factions, realms, variation within the realms and the factions, based on this you can create basically any army concept and it will fit if you write a bit of background for them. Hell, even time in the realms is not strictly linear so 'they're from the FUTURE!' is not a completely ridiculous army concept. There are so many blank spaces on the maps, so many places completely unmapped, whole races and nations mentioned only by name.

Compare it to WFB where every bit of empire was mapped and described, including the elector count, heraldry and uniforms of every single province. Generic elector in an empire army while painted in colors of a province that has a named character? Not lore friendly. Your own color scheme for uniforms? Who are these guys, even?

Or even 40k, where possibilities are more open but there are still too many things set in stone that cause people to implode if you think outside of them (female marines, reeeeee).

So, yeah, the freedom of AoS is incomparable to any other mainstream wargame setting I've ever seen.

[Overread]

I'm less enthralled with the freedom in so much as I like a good story and for me one foundation of a good story is a structure to it. The deeper the story goes the greater that foundation has to be. I loved the Old World for its foundation because with that foundation you could craft stories within it very nicely. Cities could rise and fall; nations come and go - you can see the impact of shifting politics and events very easily.

 

I think the difference between AoS and Old World is not the freedom that AoS brings in terms of not having set regions and maps and timescales. If anything I see that as a distinct weakness that I hope is improved over time. The difference is that in the Old World the setting was mostly focused on a very small period of time with named human heroes and such which binds it to a 60-80ish year block of history within the setting. Sure they also did stories before and after the main period, but in general the ebb and flow of events was constrained not by the size of the landmass, but by the period of time you could play with. 40K suffers the very same issue, especially as GW has advanced the time line right up toward the end of the 41st mellenium. If anything it shows that ultimate freedom of setting and scale doesn't actually breed freedom to tell stories within the setting.

 

What I think AoS has in a difference is the ability - sort of - to have stories that span hundreds of years and generations of characters. Already the lore of the setting has gone several hundred years from the Realmwars through to the Black Pyramid and all. If anything I'd welcome GW creating a formal timeline iwth dated events and formal maps of at least the core interior regions. Through that hte big freedom isn't the land its the timespan. Having stories and the ebb and flow of nations and factions over generations. Shifting the view from mortals to gods allows that because gods and god-like-creatures can exist for generations. There's basically time for cities to change hands; for nations to rise and fall; for factions to at one moment dominate the setting, sweeping all before them, to then hit a barrier; to crumble and weaken and lose territories. THAT is the power of AoS. IT's not infinite land or a lack of structure, those are weak points (in my view); the strength is in a grander sense of storytelling. 

 

 

It's basically like a shift between playing something like Red Alert or Warcraft or Starcraft where the story takes place in a generation; to something like Endless Legends, Stellaris or heck Crusader Kings 2 - where you're playing more of a Dynasty and a nation over many generations 

[Gaukler]

As others have already mentioned, the freedom to create your own ideas, places, races and go crazy within this setting and be able to bring them alive anywhere in the mortal realms, this is what I really like about AoS. Having this living community that shares it's ideas and having all the great content makes this setting even more fascinating. This freedom might be too much for some hobbyist's, but I prefer it in comparison to other game systems. I even like the general lore and the new things gw comes up with, but some more than others.

[MitGas]

What I like most is the promise it shows.... we don't know all that much about it yet! 

Personally, I'd like them to flesh out a couple of integral regions per realm so  people get a better picture of them (to be fair, they're already doing that, often with big, confident steps) and also because it would make "the world smaller" (cause with size limitations comes drama). That's my biggest wish next to more grimdark and some more I'd say "grown-up" themes (I miss the bleakness at times). And then have the overall story revolve around those points of interest... endless realms mean endless possibilities (and that is a bit too abstract of a concept cause if e.g. Beastmen are a danger nearby, well, then just settle somewhere else if the realms are almost limitless....), which is good for your own backstory but they already invented a reason to downsize and explain why armies would clash in trying to control the stable regions - with the borders of the realms being chaotic, dangerous places and all...
so yeah, find a cool spot in the middle of the rather limited world of Warhammer Fantasy and AoS's realms, where everything seems to hang in suspension due to not enough definition.

What I really LOVE is the new spin on ghouls. As much as I hope Bretonnia fans will find something they like in AoS, the whole delusion of the FEC is funny as hell! I also hope to see more stuff like Ulfenkarn, where they really focus on one particular spot and give it lots of backstory. Already loved Mordheim way back when...

[AnarchMage]

I like the more mythic scale of it. Don’t get me wrong: I love the lore of Fantasy. This isn’t better to me, just different. But I like that you have gods wandering among their people, tales straight out of old mythos of betrayal, tragic flaws, and epic flawed heroes, and arcs about the origins and development of entire races and cultures.

I also like that the world is open ended. Yes, chaos is a threat, but it’s far from assured of victory in the end. There’s no doom clock counting down the seconds to the inevitable demise of the setting.

As others have said, there’s a lot of freedom to mold your armies to what you want them to be. The setting is open enough that your “counts as” isn’t unusual in the slightest.

Plus my main man Nagash is a god just like he always wanted

[Cronotekk]

I like how it's a post-post-apocalyptic setting where the vast majority of the world worships are chaos barbarians. I also like that instead of just good guys vs evil guys death and destruction also exist, it's like a massive brawl between everyone (but now in the grimtarded way 40k does it)

[Saturmorn Carvilli]

For a frame of reference I am an old hand when it comes to D&D type 'generic' fantasy.  To very much include the 1990s regular D&D world but _________ is different where blank could be elves act like dwarves and dwarves act like elves or everything is Norse, Roman or whatever fills dozens upon dozens of spiral bound notebooks of lore penned by the DM that no player is going to ever bother reading.

One) The cosmology of the Mortal Realms.  Right off the bat the setting informs the audience this isn't a planet that basically functions like Earth except where fantasy usually breaks the laws of physics that everyone has basically agreed don't matter in fantasy (square/cube law, super materials, geology makes no sense, etc.).  My preference for fantasy is like my preference for giant robot mecha; it's all outlandish, so we might as well make it crazy outlandish. 

Two) Evil is in control.  I really do like the idea that the Mortal Realms really could be argued to still be in the Age of Chaos and calling it the Age of Sigmar is much like posting a 'Mission Accomplished' banner on an aircraft carrier.  Certainly Chaos' influence has declined since the first Stormcast Enternals rode lightning down to the Mortal Realms, but it is a long ways from being secured by the forces of Order let alone Sigmar.  In fact, it isn't certain at all that Order will come out on top at all.  It could be the beginning of the Age of Nagash or Gorkamorka for anyone knows for certain.  At the presence Chaos still holds the most sway.

Three) As a fan of Conan the Barbarian I like the idea that much of the Mortal Realms are a savage place where the Age of Chaos has been so hard on humanity (all mortals really) that many societies have been beaten back to a primitive state.  This is me reading into and interrupting some elements largely from Warcry and the Slaves to Darkness battletome, but I get the feeling that it is rather common for whole areas of the Realms to find themselves Pre-Iron and even Pre-Bronze Age in terms of development living in superstition of the Dark gods or under the thumb of some Chaos Lord.   Sure, Cities of Sigmar show their peoples have returned to a period of medieval or early Renaissance showing what Order can accomplish furthering society, but the chaotic lands of Chaos are much less developed.  

Four) The terrain ranges from regular mundane terrestrial stuff found anywhere on earth, to images of the highest fantasy, to heavy metal album covers to literally anything one could imagine at the landscape in the Mortal Realms.  Me, I typically like the idea of my armies battling on some epic heavy metal album cover type battlefield.  While challenging, I do relish the idea of some visual media such as movies/misc. video or video games providing greater context to what the Mortal Realms can look like as the more fantastical elements can sometimes be more difficult to visualize without such a primer or previous experience with the more out there media some may not have.

Five) Age of Sigmar takes a step away from the cliché vanilla, generic fantasy world.  For me, sometimes the step isn't all that far from those clichés, but it is more than I saw much of the time when I was more active in D&D (which has also made strides since then with some of their newest settings).  I know that WHFB is much beloved, in no small part, probably solidified some vanilla, generic fantasy clichés, but I really don't think it stands out all that much from all the other vanilla, generic fantasy worlds.  Don't get me wrong, WHFB's setting is just as unique as the Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, Dragon Age, Elder Scrolls, and a whole host of others that do kinda blend all together to me after three times as many D&D campaigns in worlds pretty close to them all.  I mean they are all unique in each one of their own ways, but they also felt pretty constrained to certain tropes and elements (mostly Lord of the Rings type stuff) that I never felt they had to either.

Six) This is more of a hope than an actual, but I would like Age of Sigmar to be more cosmopolitan of a setting than typical of generic fantasy.  What I mean is, I would actually like more factions based on ideology than on race.  I really like how the Warcry cults are often composed of various races instead of the usuall evil dwarf cult, evil elf cult, evil human cult, beastman cult, etc.  Part me would really like to see some Duardin Stormcast Enternals or Chaos Dwarves as just an addition to Slaves to Darkness and all the other Dark god battletomes. 

 

But that's just me.

[Beastmaster]

9 hours ago, Saturmorn Carvilli said:

Five) Age of Sigmar takes a step away from the cliché vanilla, generic fantasy world.  For me, sometimes the step isn't all that far from those clichés, but it is more than I saw much of the time when I was more active in D&D (which has also made strides since then with some of their newest settings).  

Planescape already did this in 1994, just better. With more substance right from the start than AoS managed to accumulate in 6 years. 
But, granted, they didn’t do miniatures.

Edited March 13, 2021 by Beastmaster

[Saturmorn Carvilli]

8 hours ago, Beastmaster said:

Planescape already did this in 1994, just better. With more substance right from the start than AoS managed to accumulate in 6 years. 
But, granted, they didn’t do miniatures.

I can't comment too much on Planescape.  The little I played (never got around to the Torment video game) was focused too much on Sigil by the DM who also seemed to be goading us players in annoying the Lady of Pain's influence.  So he could show us how super overpowered she was and, 'rocks fall, everyone's dead'.

I would also state that D&D cosmology was pretty established before Planescape was a thing.  What Planescape did was largely solidified, categorized and codified (read: gave them concrete descriptors and rules).  Which honestly as both a D&D player and Dungeun Master spoiled much of the mystery and wonder of planar travel in D&D.  I still remember the first few times I read the description of Astral Projection, Plane Shift or the brief descriptions of the planes (in the DMG? I believe) way back in 1989 as a kid that hadn't really encountered mysticism/New Age type stuff before.  It was the final frontier in D&D.  I imagined powerful wizards and clerics traveling the planes like fantastical astronauts in a space beyond space with monsters and creatures beyond comprehension that dwelled there (very Lovecraftian like for someone that hadn't read Lovecraft yet).  However, when Planecape arrived, so too did the mapping of the planes.  It wasn't a blank space that said, "Thar Be Dragons Here" except maybe on the distant margins.  It also wasn't a place forbidden to non-double digit leveled characters.  For me, the introduction Planescape left me largely disinterested in planar exploration in D&D as your party weren't going to be the first explorers of that frontier any longer.  Or least, not without that one player that bellyaches that's not how it is in the books.

And for a person like me who has traveled and explored the worlds of fantasy going on 30 years I gladly welcome departure from vanilla, generic fantasy.  Becuase fantasy should not be generic.  And again, each setting's world is unique just like every city is unique.  Maybe it is a commentary on myself who doesn't have interest in really digging deep into many settings anymore, but just like traveling to various major cities and only spending a few days there at a time they all kinda blend together beyond a few of the more noticeable differences as a traveler largely does the same things they did in the last city and will do in the next one.  Just like many adventures are going to be kinda the same no matter the setting.  It takes something really different (like traveling to Asia) where the architecture, culture and food are far more different (compared to the West particularly the United States) to really stand out.

Even old D&D had that with Dark Sun and Spelljammer to some extent.  They just weren't all that popular. I saw very few campaigns in those settings take off.  Much of my D&D was Forgotten Realms often just nominally as the actual adventures could have been in taking place in any generic fantasy, Lord of the Rings-based world.  Which Age of Sigmar very much also has as the center of many Realms isn't much different (or at all different) from the World-That-Was. 

Which is fine.  I understand that there a those that haven't grown blasé about Lord of the Rings-based fantasy worlds like I have.  Fortunatly, Age of Sigmar offers both.  I can have my crazy physic destroying, heavy metal album cover world of insanity while others can have Middenhiem and the Middenlands with the serial numbers filed off.  The setting is big enough for both.  While I would like GW to make sure it is known that both levels of the fantastical exist in Age of Sigmar, I don't want them to detail things to the point of WHFB or even Planscape.  I like having large areas of, "Thar Be Dragons Here."

[Greyshadow]

I love the expansion of cultural references. The Stormcast Romans, the Far East Lumineth, the middle eastern influences in the Warhammer Quest games to name but a few. I like how the macro is so incredible but the micro can look quite relatable. I like the mobility, the world is much more vast but you can move around it quite quickly via the Realmgates and air travel. This place is my favourite fantasy setting.

[PainfullyMediocre]

On 3/12/2021 at 1:06 AM, Akylas said:

The scale and freedom are big draws for me as well. It's easy to come up with a background for your army without struggling to fit it into the background.

Right now I'm working on Shyish themed Ironjawz (riding "ghost gruntas" so eerily silent that their riders tie chains to them to make some noise) to fight my wife's nighthaunts. It's really fun coming up with my own little corner of Shyish.

Ghost Gruntas sound amazing, do you have any pictures of them?

The looseness of the setting is a blessing and a curse. Its nice having wriggle room for your own ideas, but so much of it feels wishy washy. I've tried to get into the AoS lore, i'm working from AoS 1 to present day and its clear they didn't have a plan for the first year or so. GW got lucky when the community took a lazy oversight and rolled with it.

Its nice having a setting where you have Gods and Monsters brawling over ancient relics and sites of arcane power, but also where you get smaller stories that still feel impactful. There was a short story about the fall of Anvilguard, with a company of Freeguild being saved by Corsairs that don't trust Morathi, I bet none of those mentioned will turn up again, but thats what made it good. Its a relatable story about nobodies in a setting where literal Gods literally walk about and fight. 

[AaronWilson]

I'll be honest I'm not overly attached to the lore in a big way. I quite like the setting and the ever changing dynamics of the paragons of power however. 

[NinthMusketeer]

I really just have to echo what others have said. There is freedom to do generic fantasy all the way up to mega fantasy, and more importantly it is easy to slot in Your Dudes without breaking cannon. WHFB really suffered when it came to fitting in your own kingdom or region, or justifying why & where a given battle was taking place. AoS has designed itself to offer readily accessible explanations for those things. It is much more about creating the idea you want out of the threads the setting offers than trying to angle your puzzle piece so it doesn't overlap established cannon.

[NinthMusketeer]

On 3/13/2021 at 12:14 AM, Beastmaster said:

Planescape already did this in 1994, just better. With more substance right from the start than AoS managed to accumulate in 6 years. 

That is both subjective and not what this thread is about. With respect, if you want to talk about how your personal favorite is better take it to another thread.

[Gitzdee]

Tbh i am not invested in the AoS lore at all.
When they killed off the old world i kind of stopped caring (yeey for getting it back).
I dont get a sense of massive battles taking place to defend the last stronghold of a race.
Although they produce beautifully detailed models i still prefer most of the old armies over the new ones.
I think the Lumineth are an upgrade of the old high elves. But so many of the old armies feel really outdated now and it makes a collector of those armies feel bad for not getting anything at all. Especially when other armies get second or third wave of models. It is really hard to stay happy with playing an army thats put on the side lines for to long, also for the fluff. Everyone wants a new shiny toy once in a while.

Ofcourse the old world also had its flaws but i prefer it over AoS.

I get why they are doing things this way now. It is really easy (maybe a but to easy) to add new stories into a setting like this.
But it feels a bit to much like 40k for me. Like it is an universe with different planets etc.
I do think the setting fits Warcry a lot.

[Segersgia]

As AoS is starting to map out its worlds, I noticed that it really is starting to do what I always wanted the Elder Scrolls to do more; actually show its High Fantasy elements. 

The Elder Scrolls has so many interesting things that exists within its world, but we haven't seen much of that in a very long time.  Do you know that at one time, Skyrim had flying whales? Did you know that Morrowind is now a massive ashen deadzone? Did you know that the Argonians invaded the Deadlands during the Oblivion crisis. There are so many things that we never get the chance of seeing in those games. 

AoS does show us this. We get entire armies of this stuff. Flying ships, ghost armies, a wandering moon...  It actually dares to show this stuff to us. I'm not saying the lore of the Elder Scrolls is bad, but I severely want that they start giving us more of the stuff they hinted at in books, which ESO kind of does already.

One thing I do miss about Fantasy was its grounded nature in history. With AoS, I feel like everything just kind of exists, with no form of development or a sense about what was before.  Every race inside of the Mortal Realms just kind of always existed. No origin story outside of what we know about the Old World.