The "mortals redesign" Discussion

[Snorri Nelriksson]

8 hours ago, CommissarRotke said:

Dang I thought they were farther apart  so it's really more of a geographic difference than time...

My first thought tbh,i like expanding in the historical inspirations but still i want something fresh.

Is not even that much of geographical difference considering HRE for some time contained many other european territories like Spain and Netherlands.

Probably the army will be more "techy" than old empire but i still i hope some original designs.

The late medieval\renaissance\early modern period is not bad but cities needs to be more than that, considering also the non-human members.

 

[Baron Klatz]

17 hours ago, Snorri Nelriksson said:

The late medieval\renaissance\early modern period is not bad but cities needs to be more than that, considering also the non-human members.

Indeed. I imagine they’ll still lean heavily on painters and kitbashers to truly encompass the big diversity of freeguilders but there’s a lot of stuff in the books to explore like the isolated Ghur cities such as the marble city of Jercho having to wear all leather armor and use monster-bone weapons, Excelsis with it’s spider steel-silk plantations for soldiers to wear instead of chainmail to continue the theme of Ghur’s lack of precious minerals or Ghyranites wearing armor made from living wood and Chamonites with flowing metal clothes that harden on impact.

There’s a wide swathe of design potential for them to make all kinds of new looks and armor diversity.

But I suspect that’s why the teasers showed skulls, bones and leaves. They’ll work as Empire callbacks but they’ll crank it up to 11 so you can cover your troops in them and then paint them up to have the more exotic armors. Wood armor paint + mass of leaf icons = Ghyranite, leather armor + mass of bones = Ghurian, black armor and coats + skulls = Shyishian, blue & gold armor + comets & royal insignias= Azyrite, etc.

I hope for much more but I could see them taking that economical route with it.

Edited August 16, 2022 by Baron Klatz

[Baron Klatz]

Surprised no one mentioned the Freeguild armored warrior in the animation.

Her big pauldrons match up with the Cursed City heroine and gives off a mini-Stormcast vibe:

(Which I strongly suspect since we haven’t seen either with helms we got some elaborate Freeguild face-helms on the way to match like a certain Hexbaner)

Also Soulbound news today, we got Greywater fastness humans:

[Asbestress]

Oh, those are nice!

I only hope that the more armoured designs are reserved for more elite units, like Greatswords, and regular soldiery, like Freeguild Guard and Handgunners look more like the Greywater art.

Also, does anyone have any hopes for Nova?
Perhaps a new skull render?

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

34 minutes ago, Asbestress said:

Also, does anyone have any hopes for Nova?
Perhaps a new skull render?

Perhaps even a picture of a comet with an S on it.

Although enough time might have passed for them to show us a Freeguild Handgunner or something. The new art of that Greywater gunner makes me hopeful. It's a cool look that is recognizably derived from the old empire aesthetic while still being a new thing. If the new Freeguild ends up with a modernized appearance while keeping some iconic design cues such as puffy sleeves, huge hats, ridiculous mustaches and giant codpieces, I will be happy.

[Asbestress]

1 minute ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

Perhaps even a picture of a comet with an S on it.

Although enough time might have passed for them to show us a Freeguild Handgunner or something. The new art of that Greywater gunner makes me hopeful. It's a cool look that is recognizably derived from the old empire aesthetic while still being a new thing. If the new Freeguild ends up with a modernized appearance while keeping some iconic design cues such as puffy sleeves, huge hats, ridiculous mustaches and giant codpieces, I will be happy.

Puffy sleevey, huge hat-ed, ridiculously mustachioed Freeguild Handgunner sounds good, but I think I would be just fine if they decided not to have giant codpieces 😛 

But just in case, I'm keeping my optimism low for this one, they might just reveal some Lumineth and Tzeentch Battletomes and be done with it...

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

14 minutes ago, Asbestress said:

Puffy sleevey, huge hat-ed, ridiculously mustachioed Freeguild Handgunner sounds good, but I think I would be just fine if they decided not to have giant codpieces 😛 

But just in case, I'm keeping my optimism low for this one, they might just reveal some Lumineth and Tzeentch Battletomes and be done with it...

Giant codpieces are mandatory in the Freeguild. Especially for women.

Also, in the spirit of brotherhood, all Idoneth will receive giant pieces of cod.

[CommissarRotke]

26 minutes ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

Also, in the spirit of brotherhood, all Idoneth will receive giant pieces of cod.

Boned or Deboned?  

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

10 minutes ago, CommissarRotke said:

Boned or Deboned?  

In your heart you already know the answer.

[Asbestress]

Getting a bit off the "cod" topic  

I like where they are going with this (this should have been in my first comment today but I kinda got caught up in the excitement.)
It seems, based on these, the Ven Densts and now Hexbane's Hunters, that they are aiming to keep the roots of the Empire aesthetic, but make it a little tiny bit more practical (not AS puffy sleeves for example), and move the inspiration timeline forward from 16th-17th century Europe to something more akin to 1900s Britain (which is basically Empire x not-quite-Kharadron-levels of Steampunk awesomeness). Also, more armour/advanced weaponry, but that would be agiven for the Mortal Realms I reckon.

It seems I have been both blessed and cursed by Whitefang.
May have gone a bit overboard on my steampunky speculation...

Edited August 23, 2022 by Asbestress

[CommissarRotke]

48 minutes ago, Asbestress said:

Also, more armour/advanced weaponry, but that would be agiven for the Mortal Realms I reckon

Yeah I can understand wanting to keep more of the older Emp aesthetic, however GW has said for 3.0 they want to reiterate the original idea that Chaos still holds most of the Realms, so our mortal buddies are definitely going to need some extra... protection... to unintentionally keep the joke going 😅

[Baron Klatz]

19 hours ago, Asbestress said:

It seems I have been both blessed and cursed by Whitefang.
May have gone a bit overboard on my steampunky speculation...

Haha, on the bright side they also liked your armored elite and Greywater hand gunners theory.

if we get Anything from Soulbound for the faction reboot then that’s a solid win.(especially the Ironweld equipment like the steam-powered armor)

Otherwise yeah, let’s keep expectations level. We could one day get super steampunk mortals on par with Kharadron and really shows off the crazy ideas the Ironweld & Greywater can do but definitely not soon.

[Achoobert]

I hope they switch from making warcry bands for Chaos to churning them out for DBC. --Saying this as a devout chaos collector, we have enough warycry kits!--

This could provide the broad flavor and fluff people seem to be craving. Especially since you can continue to mix up the races (species?) that are in the box -a la beastmen/dwarfs showing up in chaos warbands

The only issue I can see is how to justify the infighting: of course Chaos dudes fight each other, why would squads of Order dudes from the same faction brawl?

Unless they were 'underworld' operators. I would love to see fantasy underground mafia style thugs, who sometimes get hired as mercenaries for DBC battles?
 

[CommissarRotke]

6 hours ago, Achoobert said:

The only issue I can see is how to justify the infighting: of course Chaos dudes fight each other, why would squads of Order dudes from the same faction brawl?

I believe GW said the non-Chaos warbands were sneaking into Eight Points for recon and sabotage; they weren't really there to fight each other. So lore-wise we could have these human bands working together overall, and on the tabletop it could be training sessions, a betrayal, city feud, etc!

[Twisted Firaun]

7 hours ago, Achoobert said:

I hope they switch from making warcry bands for Chaos to churning them out for DBC. --Saying this as a devout chaos collector, we have enough warycry kits!--

This could provide the broad flavor and fluff people seem to be craving. Especially since you can continue to mix up the races (species?) that are in the box -a la beastmen/dwarfs showing up in chaos warbands

The only issue I can see is how to justify the infighting: of course Chaos dudes fight each other, why would squads of Order dudes from the same faction brawl?

Unless they were 'underworld' operators. I would love to see fantasy underground mafia style thugs, who sometimes get hired as mercenaries for DBC battles?
 

Personally, all I really want/need from war cry now is some kind of Tzeentch-themed cult, and a death war band. Odds are we're going to get some kind of updated Grave guard, but I wouldn't mind an "assassin-mortician" war band like the one mentioned in the Ossiarch Bonereapers battle tome. If that warband worshipped a scorpion or snake Godbeast and had a vaguely Egyptian theme to them, then I'd be all over them.

TLDR: I need some evil bird bois and mortal tomb kings.

Edited August 25, 2022 by Twisted Firaun

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

8 hours ago, Achoobert said:

The only issue I can see is how to justify the infighting: of course Chaos dudes fight each other, why would squads of Order dudes from the same faction brawl?

Personally I have always been pretty comfortable with the idea of Cities vs Cities infighting. Just because I figure the Cities of Sigmar are the closest thing in the Mortal Realms to the countries and city states of earth. So they can fight each other for all the reasons people have historically gone to war with each other in the real world.

[Cambot1231]

3 hours ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

Personally I have always been pretty comfortable with the idea of Cities vs Cities infighting. Just because I figure the Cities of Sigmar are the closest thing in the Mortal Realms to the countries and city states of earth. So they can fight each other for all the reasons people have historically gone to war with each other in the real world.

A few of the Cities went to war with eachother in a big way in the AoS novel "God's Bane"

[Asbestress]

Trying to revive the conversation here.
The Greywater art got me thinking about handgunners. If this is sort of what they'll look like, would it be a stretch to imagine that they could be moved from Freeguild to Ironweld to get it to have some kind of infantry? (Assuming the subfactions and overall make up of the army stays relatively the same.)

Also, I'd like to gauge the community's stance on the "CoS vs Dawnbringer" issue I've been seeing since the initial announcement of the range refresh.

So, for anyone reading this, do you think that
A.) The range refresh will effect the CoS range, refreshing the Freeguild/Ironweld/Collegiate/Devoted ranges and either getting rid of or not touching the duardin and elves
or
B.) This will be a completely separate CoS subfaction/It's own faction

I'm personally in camp A, and although our Gracious High Lord and Saviour, the Benevolent Greyfang has expressed their opinion that CoS is the faction which the refresh was announced for, and that the Dawnbringer Crusades are a pan-Order narrative element, I've still seen opinions swaying towards B. Perhaps this will let us get a more clear view of what the good people here think.

Edited November 28, 2022 by Asbestress

[EccentricCircle]

5 hours ago, Asbestress said:

Trying to revive the conversation here.
The Greywater art got me thinking about handgunners. If this is sort of what they'll look like, would it be a stretch to imagine that they could be moved from Freeguild to Ironweld to get it to have some kind of infantry? (Assuming the subfactions and overall make up of the army stays relatively the same.)

I sketched some stuff during my breaks the last few days based on things we've seen (the two attached Soulbound images, and the armoured "knight" from the Warhammer+ animation), I hope the image quality is a bit better than last time 😛 

Also, I'd like to gauge the community's stance on the "CoS vs Dawnbringer" issue I've been seeing since the initial announcement of the range refresh.

So, for anyone reading this, do you think that
A.) The range refresh will effect the CoS range, refreshing the Freeguild/Ironweld/Collegiate/Devoted ranges and either getting rid of or not touching the duardin and elves
or
B.) This will be a completely separate CoS subfaction/It's own faction

I'm personally in camp A, and although our Gracious High Lord and Saviour, the Benevolent Greyfang has expressed their opinion that CoS is the faction which the refresh was announced for, and that the Dawnbringer Crusades are a pan-Order narrative element, I've still seen opinions swaying towards B. Perhaps this will let us get a more clear view of what the good people here think.

The whole Dawnbringer crusade thing is pretty clear cut, because the Dominion novel from Black Library gives us a complete account of how the crusades began, and details how they are formed, who is in them, and what their fate often is.

In short a freeguild soldier lady in Excelcis came into possession of a particularly powerful glimmering, which granted her visions of a new City of Sigmar. The book chronicles how a rag tag army of humans, duardin, aelves and stormcast set out to try to make the vision a reality. That prophet became known as the Dawnbringer, and all of the crusades now setting out are multi racial efforts named in her honour.

So its quite definitive that humans, of whatever updated form they take, are just one part of a Dawnbringer Crusade. The Dawnbringer herself is a human, but all the military forces of a City of Sigmar can participate, along with lots of civilian settlers in the form of a peasant's crusade. In short, Dawnbringer crusades aren't some new faction. They are something that a city of Sigmar can do, and feature all of its existing forces.

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

12 hours ago, EccentricCircle said:

The whole Dawnbringer crusade thing is pretty clear cut, because the Dominion novel from Black Library gives us a complete account of how the crusades began, and details how they are formed, who is in them, and what their fate often is.

In short a freeguild soldier lady in Excelcis came into possession of a particularly powerful glimmering, which granted her visions of a new City of Sigmar. The book chronicles how a rag tag army of humans, duardin, aelves and stormcast set out to try to make the vision a reality. That prophet became known as the Dawnbringer, and all of the crusades now setting out are multi racial efforts named in her honour.

So its quite definitive that humans, of whatever updated form they take, are just one part of a Dawnbringer Crusade. The Dawnbringer herself is a human, but all the military forces of a City of Sigmar can participate, along with lots of civilian settlers in the form of a peasant's crusade. In short, Dawnbringer crusades aren't some new faction. They are something that a city of Sigmar can do, and feature all of its existing forces.

I consider myself pretty plugged into the development of AoS, but this is the first time I have seen this info. I really wish GW was better at communicating these things. I would have never thought to look into a launch box tie-in novel for information on the Dawnbringers. We are reaching Kingdom Hearts or Nier level absurdity here. "What, you didn't watch the japanese-only stage play? No wonder you don't understand the ongoing plot."

[EccentricCircle]

1 hour ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

I consider myself pretty plugged into the development of AoS, but this is the first time I have seen this info. I really wish GW was better at communicating these things. I would have never thought to look into a launch box tie-in novel for information on the Dawnbringers. We are reaching Kingdom Hearts or Nier level absurdity here. "What, you didn't watch the japanese-only stage play? No wonder you don't understand the ongoing plot."

Yeah, Its ridiculously inaccessible. I would have expected it to be in the core book, or at least referenced in soulbound somewhere. But like you say, if I hadn't happened to read that novel (I had an audible credit spare, and lots of models to paint that weekend!) I wouldn't be any more informed than anyone else. Its a decent novel, as it mainly focuses on the Dawnbringer's low life brother, and his misadventures as he joins up to escape criminal debts, and gets in way over his head once the crusade starts running into trouble. So its more entertaining than the "Stormcast Smash" genre you often get in the BL novels with a strong sigmarite focus. Still it would hardly be considered essential reading, if it weren't the only place with the full lowdown on the Dawnbringers. Unlike Soul Wars it  barely seems to have made a dent in the consciousness of those of us who do read and discuss the BL novels.

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

On 9/3/2022 at 4:21 PM, Asbestress said:

So, for anyone reading this, do you think that
A.) The range refresh will effect the CoS range, refreshing the Freeguild/Ironweld/Collegiate/Devoted ranges and either getting rid of or not touching the duardin and elves
or
B.) This will be a completely separate CoS subfaction/It's own faction

My current belief is that we will see a first update that focuses on the Freeguild and Ironweld. The Freeguild definitely needs the update the most out of all of cities. Even the best Freeguild kits are notably worse in quality than the current GW standard and the worst ones are straight up terrible.

The Ironweld will probably be expanded more than refreshed. The promotional materials have pushed the idea that steam machines are one of the exciting things about Cities for a while. I would say we can expect at least a Cogfort model.

There is a good chance that we will see new Devoted units as well. There has certainly been a renewed focus on witch hunters since cursed city. A religious troop kit and a new sigmarite priest character would not be out of the question.

For the collegiate arcane, I see the least reason to put major work into them. The Hurricanum kit is still good and fits the AoS style. The Battlemage kit is fine. And I suspect we won't see the old Karl Franz/Battlemage on Griffon kit retired yet (although that depends on how much GW wants to purge Old World references from their range).

I don't think Dawnbringer Crusades will become a faction of their own. I can imagine them making it into the Cities book as a create-your-own-city option, though.

[Baron Klatz]

On 9/3/2022 at 7:21 AM, Asbestress said:

The Greywater art got me thinking about handgunners. If this is sort of what they'll look like, would it be a stretch to imagine that they could be moved from Freeguild to Ironweld to get it to have some kind of infantry?

I’m thinking they might use the new Sylvaneth style of Glades + Seasons for CoS’ future Cities + Sub-factions. The recent AoS3 tomes have been big on getting rid of as many restrictions as possible to army building, afterall.(even allies dropped the “Cities of Sigmar But only their Duardin keyword units” so now there’s Fyreslayer armies using cheaper Dark Spear units to hold objectives or Stormdrakes & Phoenixes to give their Magmadroths air cover)

So I’m thinking you choose one of the 7 Realms cities and then:

Freeguild: buffs melee and command points generation through their martial prowess.

Ironweld: Handgun and War Machine buffs with their tech. 
Edit: though thinking along this line buffing “Ironweld keywords” with hand gunners having one could happen.

Order of Azyr: Hero and elite buffs to hunt down daemons, sorcerers and Endless Spells.

Collegiate Arcanum: Wizard warrior time with more casting and empowered Endless Spells like they had before.

Edited September 5, 2022 by Baron Klatz

[Lich King]

They said specifically it is focused on humans .

[Pariah7echo]

13 hours ago, Lich King said:

They said specifically it is focused on humans .

They said the update was focused on humans. Nothing about the faction as a whole. And honestly of the models in Cities, the humans are probably the oldest and worst looking of the bunch, so them getting an update first is fine.

Kinda hoping Cities stays multi-racial. Its fairly unique in fantasy that way. Would love them to embrace that idea as a way to reduce the redundancy COS currently has. Why have irondrakes and handgunners when they can be one mixed unit? I've always kinda like the idea of the ironweld being a mix of dwarven and human engineers. They need to seriously embrace the mixed race idea on more than a token level.