The "mortals redesign" Discussion

[CommissarRotke]

I'd like to open a new topic to discuss the inevitable changes and possible retcons of existing COS lore and the new 3.0 Dawnbringers lore, from the newly announced "human redesign." My thoughts aren't 100% collected so apologies if this is all over the place.

I'll repost my blurb from the Rumour Thread that made me start this one:

The follow up article for Dawnbringers https://www.warhammer-community.com/2022/05/05/revealed-the-massive-project-to-put-mortals-back-into-mortal-realms/

Again they say this is "new concepts and miniatures grounded in the lore… but also quite unlike anything you’ve seen before" ...and yet the description on the CAD renders is "These are some of the insignia, emblems, and symbols that will come with your models to demonstrate their rather macabre dedication to the God-King" which sounds EXACTLY like things we've seen before in both WHFB and 40k...

 

So I don't think I'm alone in thinking that AOS does best when it relies on a nobledark setting, as opposed to the straight grimdarkness of 40k. The announcement that this is a human-centric redesign for Cities was worrying enough, but the small CAD renders we were given as a teaser left me with a bad taste enough taste to make the entire reveal extremely bittersweet.

I'm worried that GW is going to make AOS into the fully-grimdark mess that 40k and WHFB are; where they try to make everyone Dark Grey/Black and leave zero room for actual heroics and hope. Are they doing this to try and court 40k fans? To grab more of the WHFB holdouts that haven't jumped to AOS? Will a human-centric redesign, and thus a human-centric Crusade, mean that yet another human-supremacist faction like the Imperium is inevitable for AOS?

**editing this into main post: My main concern stems from the fact that GW established metropolitan cities where humans, elves, and dwarves (among even others!) coexist with each other. So why is this huge redesign NOT a combination of human, elf, and dwarven aesthetics to make a truly unique AOS mortals faction? Why does it look like fantasy-Imperium with the TINY amount of bitz they've shown us??

My purpose for this thread is to collect any questions, concerns, rumours, and existing lore to discuss what a complete human redesign means for AOS as a game and as a setting. 

Optimally, I'd also like to organize some sort of letter-writing to GW from those of us who like AOS as the nobledark alternative to GW's other settings.

 

Edited May 5, 2022 by CommissarRotke

[JackStreicher]

I am hyped! (And a little sad that those freeguild units won’t be mixed race units)

 

[Rachmani]

I think we‘ll get epitome noble dark, as you put it.

To be precise, I expect a weird but potentially wonderful combination of the old empire look combined with a very breton noblehood.

Heroes with squires, Crusading houses, knighthood, chivalry in the face of monstrous death. But also logistics, an advance that doesn’t want to raze & raid but conquer & pacify an otherwise harmful, hostile & chaotic world.

Edit: I‘ll claim one character name just for fun: The Liegelord, a sort of high commander of a new settlement/outpost.

Edited May 5, 2022 by Rachmani

[Snorri Nelriksson]

2 minutes ago, CommissarRotke said:

I'd like to open a new topic to discuss the inevitable changes and possible retcons of existing COS lore and the new 3.0 Dawnbringers lore, from the newly announced "human redesign." My thoughts aren't 100% collected so apologies if this is all over the place.

I'll repost my blurb from the Rumour Thread that made me start this one:

The follow up article for Dawnbringers https://www.warhammer-community.com/2022/05/05/revealed-the-massive-project-to-put-mortals-back-into-mortal-realms/

Again they say this is "new concepts and miniatures grounded in the lore… but also quite unlike anything you’ve seen before" ...and yet the description on the CAD renders is "These are some of the insignia, emblems, and symbols that will come with your models to demonstrate their rather macabre dedication to the God-King" which sounds EXACTLY like things we've seen before in both WHFB and 40k...

 

So I don't think I'm alone in thinking that AOS does best when it relies on a nobledark setting, as opposed to the straight grimdarkness of 40k. The announcement that this is a human-centric redesign for Cities was worrying enough, but the small CAD renders we were given as a teaser left me with a bad taste enough taste to make the entire reveal extremely bittersweet.

I'm worried that GW is going to make AOS into the fully-grimdark mess that 40k and WHFB are; where they try to make everyone Dark Grey/Black and leave zero room for actual heroics and hope. Are they doing this to try and court 40k fans? To grab more of the WHFB holdouts that haven't jumped to AOS? Will a human-centric redesign, and thus a human-centric Crusade, mean that yet another human-supremacist faction like the Imperium is inevitable for AOS?

My purpose for this thread is to collect any questions, concerns, rumours, and existing lore to discuss what a complete human redesign means for AOS as a game and as a setting. 

Optimally, I'd also like to organize some sort of letter-writing to GW from those of us who like AOS as the nobledark alternative to GW's other settings.

Imho Aos has always some grimdarkness in it as the old whfb...i don't think cities will become the imperium of 40k as the empire was a different thing(for example the dwarvish alliance and collaboration with people like Teclis).
Human supremacists doesn't makes senses in an army like CoS (but in the lore there are Azyr supremacists that looks down reclaimed people or sigmar's priest resenting Grungni for his supposed abandon of Sigmar tbh).
The things that worries me is that the new designs will be just empire 2.0 without differences from WHFB making it just the same things all over again(judging by the bits).
They should makes more unified designs for the various races off COS like Sigmarites elves and dwarves as crossing their designs into a new idea.
They could blend renaissance with purely-medieval aesthetics, bizzarre high magic uniforms and so on.
By Grungni's beard the should make "Mortals of the mortal realms" new bizzarre designs and ideas, rightfully so as TOW is coming back with three empire factions!

[Clan's Cynic]

I wouldn't read too much into the macabre statement. 'Skulls, skulls, skulls' has always been a Warhammer staple, even more so than war-hammers. I don't think we'll see anymore of them than we did on the old Empire kits, which is to say they'll be prominent but they won't be mistaken for Death models.

What I do find surprising is that from the Skaven Deathmaster trailer, they've actually fallen into a more 'generic fantasy city guard' aesthetic than the Landsknecht-knockoff Empire ever were.

Edited May 5, 2022 by Clan's Cynic

[yukishiro1]

I don't mind them redoing the humans as long as it doesn't coincide with the squatting of the rest of CoS. That they weren't willing to answer all the questions on that front with a clear answer bothers me a lot. My CoS army is 100% elf - if that entire army gets squatted I think I would seriously consider whether I wanted to keep playing AOS, even though it isn't my main army. It would just be such a kick in the balls. 

The renders they put up were seriously underwhelming but the fact that they are so underwhelming means they can't possibly be going to be what stuff actually looks like so I'm not too worried about that. 

Edited May 5, 2022 by yukishiro1

[CommissarRotke]

Forgot to include this in the original post: My main concern stems from the fact that GW established metropolitan cities where humans, elves, and dwarves (among even others!) coexist with each other. So why is this huge redesign NOT a combination of human, elf, and dwarven aesthetics to make a truly unique AOS mortals faction? Why does it look like fantasy-Imperium with the TINY amount of bitz they've shown us.

I do think that Freeguild/Cities in general need a redesign to place them firmly within AOS. I just don't really trust them when they say it'll be completely different, especially when they seem to be leaving the rest of COS in the dust for revamped Empire.

33 minutes ago, Clan's Cynic said:

I wouldn't read too much into the macabre statement. 'Skulls, skulls, skulls' has always been a Warhammer staple, even more so than war-hammers.

I hope you're right in that sense, if those bitz are the only ones that look like the old Empire.

[CommissarRotke]

37 minutes ago, Snorri Nelriksson said:

Imho Aos has always some grimdarkness in it as the old whfb

Not saying it doesn't, moreso that the darkness is balanced by actual hope and heroism--hence "nobledark" as opposed to the corners of noblebright and grimdark. Biggest example would be how (most) Stormcast treat mortals vs how Space Marines do. having that juxtaposition between the settings makes BOTH of them more interesting IMHO. I never went back to 40k because I'm tired of "everyone is actually evil, no good guys!!!"

[RyantheFett]

As someone who just jumped into Age of Sigmar in December I have mixed feelings on this. While a tease is good and fun what they gave us was somewhat troubling (which easily could just me being paranoid lol). I understood that the units were old, but the idea of a faction of all the mixed races working together was so cool I could not pass it up. Even started to read the books a few weeks back since the lore was so cool. Felt like we may be loosing all of that just to set up Old World armies...........

What they presented felt like a redo of the entire faction with a focus on just humans. The way they sort of dodged a question about other races sort of really spooked me. Of course they could easily keep all the other units and just didn't feel like talking about them for obvious reasons.

Not sure what are the chances that they will remove models from the game? Humans I would be okay with since they are being updated and people could just proxy/kitbash. Non humans  have close to 30 units and would destroy me. I also see others point out here that other factions have some models even older and still using metal?

I know I am in the bargaining phase, but maybe they could just combine the non human race units? Like Hammers/Longbeards, Eternal Guard/Rangers, Sisters of the Watch/Shadow Warriors, etc. into becoming dwarfs warriors, Wanderers warriors, and scouts. Would allow players to keep using their models, GW to keep on selling, and would make the faction easier to balance!

Edited May 5, 2022 by RyantheFett

[Fellman]

is this the new design

[yukishiro1]

13 minutes ago, RyantheFett said:

 

Not sure what are the chances that they will remove models from the game? Humans I would be okay with since they are being updated and people could just proxy/kitbash. Non humans  have close to 30 units and would destroy me. I also see others point out here that other factions have some models even older and still using metal?

 

They wouldn't be totally removed, they'd be put into Legends - but that's effectively the same thing for practical purposes. 

IIRC(someone who knows more about early AOS can correct me if I'm wrong) if they do squat CoS as part of the revamp it'd be the first time in AOS' 6 year history that they'd be squatting an army that had battletome support. Brets and Tomb Kings and a bunch of old WHFB units from various factions got squatted in the long, messy transition from WHFB to AOS as a game with actual developed rules, but they never had a tome. 

That doesn't mean it won't happen, but it'd be a major kick in the teeth of the sort that even GW would surely think very carefully before doing. 

[Snorri Nelriksson]

@Fellmanthe historical feeling is still present in some parts.....liking the morion helmet.

[EntMan]

2 minutes ago, yukishiro1 said:

if they do squat CoS as part of the revamp it'd be the first time in AOS' 6 year history that they'd be squatting an army that had battletome support.

They seem to be referring to the new thing as Cities of Sigmar still, so technically they'll be removing units (and maybe whole races) from an army rather than squatting the army though.

[yukishiro1]

Seems a bit like tomato tomato TBH, but that'd be new too, wouldn't it? I'm pretty sure there have been a few units here and there that got cut out of subsequent tomes, but again to my knowledge they've never done anything like what it'd be to cut out all (or most) of the units currently in the CoS book. 

[CommissarRotke]

47 minutes ago, RyantheFett said:

What they presented felt like a redo of the entire faction with a focus on just humans. The way they sort of dodged a question about other races sort of really spooked me. Of course they could easily keep all the other units and just didn't feel like talking about them for obvious reasons.

 

Part of this problem is that the Warhammer show hosts, as far as we know, are only told what GW wants them to say on air. So their lack of an answer could be that they legitimately do not know. 

27 minutes ago, EntMan said:

They seem to be referring to the new thing as Cities of Sigmar still, so technically they'll be removing units (and maybe whole races) from an army rather than squatting the army though.

I'd be more surprised if Dawnbringer Crusades replaced COS, than DBC being a new faction unto itself. I could also see them being a major subfaction of COS itself if that range is staying.

[Sunshine]

28 minutes ago, CommissarRotke said:

Part of this problem is that the Warhammer show hosts, as far as we know, are only told what GW wants them to say on air. So their lack of an answer could be that they legitimately do not know. 

I'd be more surprised if Dawnbringer Crusades replaced COS, than DBC being a new faction unto itself. I could also see them being a major subfaction of COS itself if that range is staying.

Being multi race is what makes Cities of Sigmar so great. I do hope Dawnbringer Crusades is a subfraction.

[RyantheFett]

18 minutes ago, CommissarRotke said:

47 minutes ago, EntMan said:

They seem to be referring to the new thing as Cities of Sigmar still, so technically they'll be removing units (and maybe whole races) from an army rather than squatting the army though.

I'd be more surprised if Dawnbringer Crusades replaced COS, than DBC being a new faction unto itself. I could also see them being a major subfaction of COS itself if that range is staying.

It would make a lot more sense that this is just a major sub faction and have a lot of mix and match with other order factions. Would just be so weird if they really just forsake all the other mini races and city identities just to turn it into a single culture human faction? Of course the lines "reimagine the forces of common humanity and the Cities of Sigmar", "Organising the fractious Free Cities", and "Cities of Sigmar project" sort of seem like red flags??

Hopefully they release an article soon so we can at least get an answer on what is going on either way. Would be just my luck that the third mini wargame I try starts to redo the faction I started off with lol.

[CommissarRotke]

Exactly why I'm hoping we get more clarification by the end of May... 

If you can, pick one of the AOS social media pages and/or the AOS FAQ email to ask about this. I'm also considering emailing the warcom inbox to ask when they'll clarify the new COS reveal. https://www.games-workshop.com/en-US/Contact-Us

[Vongolo]

By the way the sounded it, this is very much a "work in progress" we won't have anything about it for a couple of months at least. 

[willange]

I got the sense (from their wording) that we can expect most if not all the current freeguild/human/collegiate-arcane/ironwel-arsenal models to get replaced by new ones, but that dispossessed/scourge-privateers/darkling-covens/order-serpentis/wanderers/phoenix-temple will all stick around. If not I'm gonna be seriously sad as a major CoS collector, but I'm not too concerned by the way they said it today.  I do hope for some positive confirmations in the future though. Also, I just recently painted 9 demigryphs and a general on griffon, so I'll be slightly annoyed if a fancy new version of those pops up (just because I'll NEED it and then I'll be painting them all over again lol). 

Aside from their somewhat ambiguous phrasing though, this is EXACTLY the kind of thing I've been hoping for.  Most Freeguild models look like butt, and I'm so glad they're not just squatting humans, but rather giving them a proper update.  The Ven Densts were awesome and I'm glad to have more!  Basically, if your models NEVER get refreshed then one decade or another they're going to get removed.  So the fact that these models ARE getting updated is to me an indication that those concepts will be sticking around and getting refreshed, not necessarily that we're going to see a mass "Khemri-ing" for CoS.

[RyantheFett]

2 minutes ago, willange said:

I got the sense (from their wording) that we can expect most if not all the current freeguild/human/collegiate-arcane/ironwel-arsenal models to get replaced by new ones, but that dispossessed/scourge-privateers/darkling-covens/order-serpentis/wanderers/phoenix-temple will all stick around. If not I'm gonna be seriously sad as a major CoS collector, but I'm not too concerned by the way they said it today.  I do hope for some positive confirmations in the future though

 

[Baron Klatz]

I’m in full agreement with wanting them to keeps Cities a mix of races(especially human, duardin and druchii) and really hope they go for mixed units that count as human/mortals but include the other races. The same way Warcry/StD does it by having multiple races and keyworded Mortal despite the Ogor, beastkin, aelf or duardin in their ranks.

 

That said I could imagine this is them more wanting to finally stamp out the old models and factions(in part to force players to have to go with only Forge World’s new line) to keep with AoS’ out with the old and in with the new. That’s if this isn’t just a human update we sorely need for Mortal Realms ones.

If Neo-Cities/Dawncrusades are all humans but can coalition with every Order faction that could be how they plan to make them heavily mixed race. Similar to how Soulbound keeps showing off all the new races banded together with humans.

 

So we’ll have to see how they handle it all.(I won’t lie. Kinda want a big refresh for the sake of not dragging AoS down with old factions that they obviously don’t want to expand on like Wanderers when it’s clear Sylvaneth and even Lumineth replace them as nature aelves)

 

As for the skull teases. That’s been a thing since AoS started and has been built on since the Realm of Heaven and the Realm of Death have a connection, that’s why the underworlds main colonizers are Azyrites(Heaven and Hades) and has been a thing since the Lord-Relictors strode the field as reforged necromancers to help protect souls with that combined magic of Azyr & Death.

 

and now we have that same focus + skulls needed for the Shyishian Dawncrusades that honor Nagash and the various Death gods there.

 

 

2 hours ago, Fellman said:

is this the new design

I could imagine so. As “town guard generic” it may be I could easily see all new humans being armored up like beetles so even the average Freeguild soldier is fantasy Knight level to survive all the Mortal Realms horrors like commonplace daemons, grots that call down moon-strikes and rampaging living spells, elementals and god-beasts as natural disasters that happen way too often.

Just like with the new Witch Hunters and how they both have massive magic/holy weapons and beneath their cloaks they’re wearing heavy plate armor to just stand a chance out there.(compared to old hunters who usually just had leather on.)

 

 

 

Edited May 5, 2022 by Baron Klatz

[Gemzo]

I don't feel very invested in the "mash-up" Cities rules we have right now. They feel very much like what they are: a way to cobble together a whole bunch of different Warhammer Fantasy units into one Age of Sigmar battletome.  As an old-time Empire player, I'm really looking forward to a more unified approach to humans in AoS.

We already have ally rules for including units & characters from other armies.  In my best-case scenario, they'd get their own battletomes or supplements and Dawnbringer armies can ally them in.

Alternately, it'd be cool for them to fully embrace the diversity of "Cities" and allow mixed units of "City Guard" or something, to allow people to use whatever minis they want.  Like the Freeguild Guard, they could have a variety of weapon choices.  Eternal Guard, Phoenix Guard, and Dreadspears could all be "City Guard with Spears," for example.

I've already got my first unit ready!

[ChaosUndivided]

New flagellates plz.

[willange]

2 minutes ago, ChaosUndivided said:

New flagellates plz.

I'd bet good money they'll be one of the new kits.  They have lots of weird zealot looking dudes in the new art for them!