Unpopular opinion thread

[yukishiro1]

1 hour ago, Noserenda said:

I think people view old Warhammer through very rose tinted specs, there may not have been gods but there were definitely A-tier characters who filled the same roles, whether through good stories, OP rules or models you saw some characters constantly while dozens of others just got ignored and forgotten.

Essentially nothing has changed, well, except every character gets a mini these days.

I'm not sure this really holds up to scrutiny. Although it's true that obviously some characters in WHFB were more important than others, there was also a vastly larger cast of significant characters with meaningful backstories. Bretonnia had at least 3-4 meaningful characters; the AOS equivalent in FEC has zero. High Elves alone had a dozen meaningful characters (or at least half a dozen even if you are super picky about who qualifies); Lumineth have none that don't come from WHFB (it's theoretically possible that some of the new special characters could become significant, but right now they're just another warscroll with maybe half a page of backstory, they haven't actually done anything). You can go down practically all the old WHFB factions and see the same pattern - the AOS equivalents have at best 1, maybe two new characters that are significantly developed (e.x. Volturnos for Deepkin, Skraggrot for Gitz), and many factions don't even have that. 

Part of that is the relative age of the games, but it doesn't begin to fully explain it. AOS has been around for 6 years now. It's not a new game. And yet with a tiny handful of exceptions, its cast of meaningful characters is still overwhelmingly from WHFB. It's hard not to think that the overwhelming focus on Gods has contributed to this lack of significant new characters, because it tends to relegate new characters to simply pawns rather than protagonists. I don't think it's a coincidence that the few new meaningful characters they have created tend to come from factions without a God; it's because the lack of a God frees them to actually be the heroes of the story, not just bag-carriers. 

 

I think you have hit on something with the "every character gets a mini" thing, though. This is also part of it IMO: characters are now attachments to a miniature, rather than the miniature representing the character that's already been fleshed out in the story. In WHFB, characters generally preexisted their models, and they got a model once they became important enough to merit one. In AOS, it's the opposite - models get characters designed to go along with them, so the characters tend to have an interchangeable "tacked on" feel to them unless and until the story writers spend a lot of time and energy imbuing them with a level of depth that doesn't exist initially. 

Edited October 18, 2021 by yukishiro1

[NinthMusketeer]

8 hours ago, Zeblasky said:

I really like elves and I want way more of them in the game. Yep, let the Aelvetide sweep away the Stormcast.

 

But seriously, if aelves (as in 3-4 different factions) would take the flagship role from stormcast, this would be so much better for the game health.

 

Move over Slaanesh, your depravity is merely second fiddle.

[NinthMusketeer]

3 hours ago, chosen_of_khaine said:

Here's mine: The Venn diagram of people who hate double turns and people who are bad at the game is almost a circle.

Extra unpopular opinion: you have it backwards. It isn't that unskilled players can't beat a double, it is that skilled players don't lose with one. If one loses after a double, then broudly speaking the game was already decided, some crazy luck happened, or they screwed up. The opponent only has a chance to come back from a double if the door was left open for them. I can say from ample experience that taking a round 1-2 double and doing it right, it doesn't matter if the opponent is a newbie or tourney veteran they will not have the tools to win.

What's said here in this quote, that's what unskilled players tell themselves after losing with a double. They say 'oh my opponent outplayed me because skilled players can overcome' instead of admitting they were the ones who screwed up to create that opening in the first place.

[amysrevenge]

2 hours ago, amysrevenge said:

Unpopular opinion:

You don't have to constantly improve at hobbying, or at playing the game.  It's a hobby: it's perfectly fine to make art for the sake of the art, not just as a stepping stone to make better art next time.  Or to play a game to have fun, not only to get better at playing the game.

It feels like there is a lot of implied pressure to practice and improve and do better.  That's not the point, or at least it's not the only valid point.  The experience itself can be the point.

(This isn't limited to AoS - culturally we seem to be in a place where the only point of *any* hobby is to get better at doing the hobby, not just to do the hobby.)

I guess it struck a bit of a chord - I should update to say that it's not necessarily an unpopular opinion to *have*, but it seems like an unpopular opinion to say out loud. 

[Pyrescribe]

Hex Bases > Triangles > Square > Round

Lumineth aren't overtooled and need the Hyshian Twinstones restored to their former efficacy (at a higher points value)

Non-BoC Chaos is in fact Lawful Evil

 

[EccentricCircle]

I don't know how unpopular this one actually is, but here goes:

They should have brought back Felix instead of Gotrek.

Gotrek, while not a completely uninteresting character, isn't the focus of the old stories. He is a belligerent force of nature and exists as the catalyst of adventure. He drags Felix into whatever ridiculous scenario they are going to be mixed up in, and then gets them out of it by brute force and determination. 

As the Narrator of those stories, its Felix's voice that you hear, not Gotreks. The point of those books is for him to go and experience a bit of Warhammer lore, comment wryly upon it , and somehow escape with his life. He has most of the more meaningful relationships, and the more interesting character development. Gotrek gets relatively little of either which wasn't set in stone before he became a slayer.

So why would Felix be a better fit for AoS? Well, simply because he is the worse fit for AoS. As a nigh indestructable demi god with issues Gotrek isn't really special in the new setting. He's just one of a whole pantheon of powered up WFB characters, who have become forces of nature in the new setting and are now wandering around dictating the narrative. Bringing him back doesn't add anything new to the Realms, and his perspective on them isn't very interesting to read about, because a) its completely predictable knowing what we do about him, and b) he is never a viewpoint character anyway.

If you brought back Felix, you would get that perspective on the Realms from the Old World view point which they like to claim Gotrek brings. You can pair him up with any other crazy character, or maybe more than one, and send him off on over the top adventures. Then he can comment wryly on them, and you get to see the realms through his eyes, and explore all those weird little corners of the setting like they did with WFB. You can have a rotating cast of characters as his companion to highlight and feature different factions. Since everyone in the Realms is over the top, they will all work pretty well as a catalyst for adventure. (And despite his protestations Felix never actually needed that much convincing, his being more happened upon than happening is pretty much an affectation by the middle of the series at least.)

[Lucky Snake Eyes]

14 minutes ago, EccentricCircle said:

I don't know how unpopular this one actually is, but here goes:

They should have brought back Felix instead of Gotrek.

Gotrek, while not a completely uninteresting character, isn't the focus of the old stories. He is a belligerent force of nature and exists as the catalyst of adventure. He drags Felix into whatever ridiculous scenario they are going to be mixed up in, and then gets them out of it by brute force and determination. 

As the Narrator of those stories, its Felix's voice that you hear, not Gotreks. The point of those books is for him to go and experience a bit of Warhammer lore, comment wryly upon it , and somehow escape with his life. He has most of the more meaningful relationships, and the more interesting character development. Gotrek gets relatively little of either which wasn't set in stone before he became a slayer.

So why would Felix be a better fit for AoS? Well, simply because he is the worse fit for AoS. As a nigh indestructable demi god with issues Gotrek isn't really special in the new setting. He's just one of a whole pantheon of powered up WFB characters, who have become forces of nature in the new setting and are now wandering around dictating the narrative. Bringing him back doesn't add anything new to the Realms, and his perspective on them isn't very interesting to read about, because a) its completely predictable knowing what we do about him, and b) he is never a viewpoint character anyway.

If you brought back Felix, you would get that perspective on the Realms from the Old World view point which they like to claim Gotrek brings. You can pair him up with any other crazy character, or maybe more than one, and send him off on over the top adventures. Then he can comment wryly on them, and you get to see the realms through his eyes, and explore all those weird little corners of the setting like they did with WFB. You can have a rotating cast of characters as his companion to highlight and feature different factions. Since everyone in the Realms is over the top, they will all work pretty well as a catalyst for adventure. (And despite his protestations Felix never actually needed that much convincing, his being more happened upon than happening is pretty much an affectation by the middle of the series at least.)

Gotta admit Felix running around with the new lumineth twins or some new character would be pretty interesting. I can't think of any other characters that would casually travel the realms without a) killing felix or b) running off in a bolt of lightning unless felix was also made a stormcast. Eve something like Felix encountering a mega gargant would be hilarious "The giants are bigger than I remember..." right before running for cover while his glory seeking party go for the kill.

[Clan's Cynic]

I don't necessarily have an issue with WHFB characters being dragged kicking and screaming into AoS, but the issue I have is that they largely went with the 'brand recognisable' names rather than any already existing gods. So all of the elven gods went out with the bathwater, but now we have Teclis, Tyrion, NOTMALEKITHIGNORETHATNAMEPEOPLEKNOWITFROMMYTHOLOGYANDMARVEL Malerion, Morathi because... uhhhhh... they're the most recognisable elven characters?

Sure we kept Grungni and Grimnir, but those were pretty well recognised names anyway. Everyone knows Sigmar was the Empire's patron god, but the rest were pretty lowkey unless you dug into the lore (even a bit), so out they go. Nagash got a model for the End Times, so of course he's a god now, etc. Even Gotrek's a demi-god/Avatar of Grimnir because "wayhey kids, LOOK! It's Gotrek(tm) from The World That Was, you remember him and would love to own his model right???" rather than coming up with an OC Fyreslayer who could act as conduit for his power whilst he takes his power nap.

"But Clan's Cynic, you uncharacteristically unoptimistic person, there's references to Morrda, Gazul and even Myrmidia!" Sure, but those mostly stem from Black Library works because the individual authors remembered them, rather than odds being high that Morr will be making a reappearance anytime soon in the 'mainline' lore. 

Edited October 18, 2021 by Clan's Cynic

[zilberfrid]

2 hours ago, Noserenda said:

I think people view old Warhammer through very rose tinted specs, there may not have been gods but there were definitely A-tier characters who filled the same roles, whether through good stories, OP rules or models you saw some characters constantly while dozens of others just got ignored and forgotten.

Essentially nothing has changed, well, except every character gets a mini these days.

Not every character gets a mini, still waiting for the female Kharadron protagenists.

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

7 minutes ago, Clan's Cynic said:

I don't necessarily have an issue with WHFB characters being dragged kicking and screaming into AoS, but the issue I have is that they went with the 'brand recognisable' names rather than the ones who actually make sense, by which I mean the already existing gods. So all of the elven gods went out with the bathwater, but now we have Teclis, Tyrion, NOTMALEKITHIGNORETHATNAMEPEOPLEKNOWITFROMMYTHOLOGYANDMARVEL Malerion, Morathi. Sure we kept Grungni and Grimnir, but those were pretty well recognised names anyway. Everyone knows Sigmar was the Empire's patron god, but the rest were pretty lowkey unless you dug into the lore (even a bit), so out they go. Nagash got a model for the End Times, so of course he's a god now, etc.

"But Clan's Cynic, you uncharacteristically unoptimistic person, there's references to Morrda, Gazul and even Myrmidia!" Sure, but those mostly stem from Black Library works because the individual authors remembered them, rather than Morr making a reappearance anytime soon in the 'mainline' lore. 

Don't forget the most important recurring character from Fantasy: Lunaghast, the moon of Shyish, who is the ghost of the moon Morrslieb from the Old World which was destroyed during the End Times.

Edited October 18, 2021 by Neil Arthur Hotep

[Kamose]

6 hours ago, chosen_of_khaine said:

Here's mine: The Venn diagram of people who hate double turns and people who are bad at the game is almost a circle.

[Deepkin]

6 hours ago, Noserenda said:

I think people view old Warhammer through very rose tinted specs, there may not have been gods but there were definitely A-tier characters who filled the same roles, whether through good stories, OP rules or models you saw some characters constantly while dozens of others just got ignored and forgotten.

Essentially nothing has changed, well, except every character gets a mini these days.

I think despite the Old World being drastically smaller in scale and limited in scope, it felt larger because a good deal of the fiction dealt with either very small scale characters (Brunner the Bounty Hunter, Mathias Thulman, Goetz of the Blazing Sun, etc) or one-offs who died by the end of the book or something. We got a much more street level view of things and it made the world feel more lived in and larger. We also saw a good number of stories that embraced the length of time evident in the background: series on Sigmar, the black plague, the war of the beard, the red duke, etc. The fiction was written to expand a setting, not necessarily advance  a storyline.

AoS by contrast, and 40k now too, lean very hard into the larger storylines of the setting, which means that the same characters keep popping up. Makes everything feel smaller because, despite the infinite size of the realms, the same people show up everywhere.

[Enoby]

While this wasn't an unpopular opinion in 2015, I think it may be unpopular now - or at least on this forum.

I don't think that AoS, without a major retuning of its lore and theme, will ever be as popular as 40k or Fantasy outside of the Wargaming sphere. That is to say, the world of AoS will not hold as much appeal as the other Warhammers to the general audience not willing to put in time to look deeper into the setting on their own accord. The reason for this, in my opinion, is because on the outside AoS's lore looks very generic and bland epic fantasy - something you'd find in concept art or on the cover of a metal album. 

AoS is a lot more than that, but it doesn't have the immediate theme of 40k and Fantasy. When you look at 40k, it has character - the world leaks grimdark without needing to read the setting any more than the opening paragraph. When you look at Fantasy, it has a lot of charm in its dirty artwork - the charm is often cruel, but it feels very British in its own way. But AoS, on the surface, still seems like something that wouldn't be out of place in a Magic the Gathering set; it's not bad, but it's so epic it feels bland.

Now, when you look closer at the lore, I think AoS beats out Fantasy handily as a Wargaming setting, being both better for adding in your own characters and armies as well as being a constantly evolving world. I think AoS is much better than current 40k lore, but to be fair I think current 40k lore is absolutely terrible and misses the best parts of 40k's setting. 

I say this as someone who started in AoS with very very little previous exposure to Warhammer. This isn't nostalgia speaking. I find myself much more easily drawn into the background of 40k and Fantasy because they seem to have much more character than AoS does on the surface. Of course reading a 40k book or trying to add my own lore into Fantasy, I'm glad I'm with AoS - but I imagine for the average person who doesn't play Warhammer, the AoS setting doesn't hold much appeal and so there's a much smaller chance of video games or transformative fan content being created for it.

I do hope this changes, but I think AoS would need quite a considerable reinvestment in its theme and lore.  

That said, as others have stated, GW aren't exactly helping themselves by having the majority of major AoS characters just being more epic Fantasy characters. 

[Noserenda]

5 hours ago, yukishiro1 said:

I'm not sure this really holds up to scrutiny. Although it's true that obviously some characters in WHFB were more important than others, there was also a vastly larger cast of significant characters with meaningful backstories. Bretonnia had at least 3-4 meaningful characters; the AOS equivalent in FEC has zero. High Elves alone had a dozen meaningful characters (or at least half a dozen even if you are super picky about who qualifies); Lumineth have none that don't come from WHFB (it's theoretically possible that some of the new special characters could become significant, but right now they're just another warscroll with maybe half a page of backstory, they haven't actually done anything). You can go down practically all the old WHFB factions and see the same pattern - the AOS equivalents have at best 1, maybe two new characters that are significantly developed (e.x. Volturnos for Deepkin, Skraggrot for Gitz), and many factions don't even have that. 

Part of that is the relative age of the games, but it doesn't begin to fully explain it. AOS has been around for 6 years now. It's not a new game. And yet with a tiny handful of exceptions, its cast of meaningful characters is still overwhelmingly from WHFB. It's hard not to think that the overwhelming focus on Gods has contributed to this lack of significant new characters, because it tends to relegate new characters to simply pawns rather than protagonists. I don't think it's a coincidence that the few new meaningful characters they have created tend to come from factions without a God; it's because the lack of a God frees them to actually be the heroes of the story, not just bag-carriers. 

 

I think you have hit on something with the "every character gets a mini" thing, though. This is also part of it IMO: characters are now attachments to a miniature, rather than the miniature representing the character that's already been fleshed out in the story. In WHFB, characters generally preexisted their models, and they got a model once they became important enough to merit one. In AOS, it's the opposite - models get characters designed to go along with them, so the characters tend to have an interchangeable "tacked on" feel to them unless and until the story writers spend a lot of time and energy imbuing them with a level of depth that doesn't exist initially. 

I mean, thats deliberately missing my point right? Or did i forget the time Valnir fought Itzi Bitzi to near death, only to be saved by Valmir von Raukov (The Elector count plot forgot) in a dramatic twist. There adozens of old Warhammer special characters who never got a mention past their armylist entries or maybe a "This guy was here too" mention. its always been the case, and id argue it was more common in WArhammer simply because they went through a phase of adding a dozen special characters in the army books with no real intent to do anything with them (Albeit more so in 40k i think).

90% of all models have always been designed because the model designers think of something cool to do, and the story and rules have always been flexed around that. Which is also i suspect what causes this issue as the add more and more centrepiece models to armies to push GWs advantage in model making and in AoS that mostly means gods. The number of main release minis who exist because of background or stories is extremely small, (which is why the annual Black library releases have been so good) and a lot of them like Malekith changed considerably to fit the models in many cases, going from his special chariot to riding a dragon because they made a cool new Dragon riding character that should be important for example. 

The story has always been in service to the game, which is in turn in service to the models, not the other way around. The High elves are easy to pick as all being significant because authors and fluff writers got interested in them and wrote a whole load of plot around them, pushed on by significant mini sales of that range, which itself pushes sales ofc, in a whole snake eating its tail way

I think  the real problem is (from memory) most the AoS novels have been very stormcast focused, or somewhat away from the battlefields dealing with different types of characters, if AoS had series focusing more broadly on wars, or character focused pieces like Warhammer had, you would get the same effect. Meanwhile, the plot constantly moves on, people are not focused on the same conflict like Karak Eight peaks, or the Elven Civil war for a decade or more of real time, theyve seen twelves campaigns in seven realms in that time. :) 

4 hours ago, zilberfrid said:

Not every character gets a mini, still waiting for the female Kharadron protagenists.

Im referring to characters in the game sense, so unique characters. Otherwise if we included everyone from novels etc there would be a need for hundreds more minis. More female representation would be nice though!
 

30 minutes ago, Deepkin said:

I think despite the Old World being drastically smaller in scale and limited in scope, it felt larger because a good deal of the fiction dealt with either very small scale characters (Brunner the Bounty Hunter, Mathias Thulman, Goetz of the Blazing Sun, etc) or one-offs who died by the end of the book or something. We got a much more street level view of things and it made the world feel more lived in and larger. We also saw a good number of stories that embraced the length of time evident in the background: series on Sigmar, the black plague, the war of the beard, the red duke, etc. The fiction was written to expand a setting, not necessarily advance  a storyline.

AoS by contrast, and 40k now too, lean very hard into the larger storylines of the setting, which means that the same characters keep popping up. Makes everything feel smaller because, despite the infinite size of the realms, the same people show up everywhere.

Its actually a lot more plausible in AOS at least where teleportation is fairly commonplace for several forces and anyone can use a realmgate. The same thing happened in the Old world but there was no fast travel methods to try and explain it easily, its a mjor part of why AoS is built the way it is so any force can go anywhere and fight anyone so they dont have to explain why Tomb kings and Savage Orcs are fighting in Kislev for some reason.

[PJetski]

We're still posting unpopular opinions right?

Double turn is cool and good. From my (completely anecdotal) experience the casuals and hardcore players both like it; only the midwits seem to have any problems with it.

I genuinely don't understand how people feel no desire to get better at the game or building/painting if they spend any significant amount of time doing one or both of those aspects of the hobby. Learning and getting better at things is how I have fun - as soon as something is "solved" or "mastered" then the fun drops off drastically. I am not saying these are bad people or that they are spending their time wrong; it's a completely alien concept to me.

Maybe unrelated: Twitter and Reddit are garbage websites that should be deleted forever. Stop using these websites, they give you the sadbrains

Edited October 19, 2021 by PJetski

[zilberfrid]

3 hours ago, PJetski said:

Maybe unrelated: Twitter and Reddit are garbage websites that should be deleted forever. Stop using these websites, they give you the sadbrains

R/hardcoreaww r/tuckedinkitties r/larp r/howtobeamindreaver r/printedminis r/terrainbuilding and r/minipainting are quite wholesome, but I have drastically decreased the amount of reddits I frequent, and only Underworlds remained from the Warhammer related stuff.

Edited October 19, 2021 by zilberfrid

[JackStreicher]

4 hours ago, PJetski said:

We're still posting unpopular opinions right?

Double turn is cool and good. From my (completely anecdotal) experience the casuals and hardcore players both like it; only the midwits seem to have any problems with it.

I genuinely don't understand how people feel no desire to get better at the game or building/painting if they spend any significant amount of time doing one or both of those aspects of the hobby. Learning and getting better at things is how I have fun - as soon as something is "solved" or "mastered" then the fun drops off drastically. I am not saying these are bad people or that they are spending their time wrong; it's a completely alien concept to me.

Maybe unrelated: Twitter and Reddit are garbage websites that should be deleted forever. Stop using these websites, they give you the sadbrains

Hobby as stress relief. Once you start putting pressure on yourself to get better you insert stress again

[xking]

I think Lumineth suck. Not because of the aesthetic,  but because how they view humans.  3rd Edition core rulebook  really soured them for me, some real high-tier racism.   

[RexHavoc]

6 hours ago, PJetski said:

I genuinely don't understand how people feel no desire to get better at the game or building/painting if they spend any significant amount of time doing one or both of those aspects of the hobby. Learning and getting better at things is how I have fun - as soon as something is "solved" or "mastered" then the fun drops off drastically. I am not saying these are bad people or that they are spending their time wrong; it's a completely alien concept to me.

I've zero desire to actively get 'better' at painting or gaming. I actually put some posts up a few years back on a huge painting forum about learning to paint 'worse', as I was totally sick of being bogged down with this idea that you have to paint to improve, painting anything less than the GW box art is wrong, or start throwing a gaming studio logo on everything you post online as if you were trying to outdo actual commission painters.

This isn't a job or something I'm competing in.

I actually watch an awful lot more of the RPG crafting videos than I do warhammer videos now. I'm not into RPGs in the slightest but they have a far more laid back approach to the painting & building side of the hobby.

Improving does come as a by-product of just the act of painting itself, but there is no desire there for me any more. Also after two years stuck at home due to lockdowns has pushed the desire away even more- I've hurt my eye badly from being home so much and can't paint without getting terrible migraines most weeks, so I've even less desire to paint to the level I am capable of. I'm happy out just getting something finished and placed alongside the rest of its unit.

I spend so much of my time 'improving' in other fields, I'm quite happy being mediocre at my hobby.

 

[Gitzdee]

The old O&G army had way more character than any army in AoS.

Gobbos shooting gobbos with wings.
Squigs running wild around the table.
Animosity / Stupidity.
Orcs being tough like chaos warriors.
Gobbos and Snotlings being silly yet frightening in their own way.
All kinds of artillery.
Foot of gork stomping friend and foe.

It was pure madness and i loved it. I miss the feels of that army.

[EntMan]

11 minutes ago, Iksdee said:

The old O&G army had way more character than any army in AoS.

Gobbos shooting gobbos with wings.
Squigs running wild around the table.
Animosity / Stupidity.
Orcs being tough like chaos warriors.
Gobbos and Snotlings being silly yet frightening in their own way.
All kinds of artillery.
Foot of gork stomping friend and foe.

It was pure madness and i loved it. I miss the feels of that army.

Don't forget Snotling Pump Wagons!

[Zappgrot]

You have only truely won if the opponnent cries. 

 

It's not enought for me to win others must lose. 

[Maogrim]

4 hours ago, xking said:

I think Lumineth suck. Not because of the aesthetic,  but because how they view humans.  3rd Edition core rulebook  really soured them for me, some real high-tier racism.   

I think that basically every faction in Age of Sigmar is racist. Even in the Cities of Sigmar there are such tendencies as recent events in BR: Morathi and BR: Kragnos have shown. But if you think that low-key 'benevolent' racism á la Lumineth is worse than outright genocide I'll have to disagree, though it is certainly a bad look for Lumineth.

Edited October 19, 2021 by Maogrim

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

8 minutes ago, Maogrim said:

You do realize that basically every faction in Age of Sigmar is racist, right? Even in the Cities of Sigmar there are such tendencies as recent events in BR: Morathi and BR: Kragnos have shown. But if you think that low-key 'benevolent' racism á la Lumineth is worse than outright genocide...

Grand Alliance: Death seems to be strictly equal opportunity, though, making them the most open-minded faction. They even have a path towards integration for you in case you are not dead yet! So considerate!

[Orbei]

8 minutes ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

Grand Alliance: Death seems to be strictly equal opportunity, though, making them the most open-minded faction. They even have a path towards integration for you in case you are not dead yet! So considerate!

In a fantasy setting where humans represent maybe 10% of the population they seem to represent 99% of death models. I've never noticed any skaven skeletons or zombies and they're supposed to be the most populous race. Almost seems as if Death goes out of its way not to raise any skaven! Or dwarves, lizardmen, ogres... hmmm...

Death MOST racist alliance, perhaps?