The "mortals redesign" Discussion

[Arathorn185]

So just to mention all those “Love Mixed Race!” Well cities has imho several core almost unsolvable problem:

Few Direct Cross Faction Synergies. Subfactions are super xenophobic to each other. And multiple redundant units. We have:

Dreadspears, Dreadblade, Eternal Gaurd, and Freeguild Gaurd. Then lesser extent Executioners, Black Gaurd, GreatSwords and Pheonix Gaurd. And list goes on, on units that serve fundamentally same roles. Further all the heroes only buff or work on certain subfactions. So in this way I am hoping Neo New Cities. Reworks the core design for “Sub” Factions Factions. Like units or armies shouldn’t be so painfully xenophobic.

Big Aelf heroes do best buffs on Aelves but also buff or affect other mortals

[elescapo]

41 minutes ago, Gemzo said:

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.

This is also the way that I see it.  I'm sensitive to the apprehension felt by players who are genuinely fans of the "confederation of survivors" theme of the current CoS, but the result on the tabletop is an army that isn't visually or thematically coherent.

The other problem is that if you are into the human story and human themes, there aren't many offerings in AoS.  There are 4 different Elf factions, and some day a 5th.  There are 2 Dwarf factions, and I would be surprised if we don't get more (especially if CoS focuses only on humans).  If you want an army of humans, you have Stormcast Eternals, a host of different chaos armies, and Cities of Sigmar.  But even then, in CoS it's only a handful of units with shallow themes.  Guys with swords, guys with guns, guys with even bigger swords.  I think this is why they are focusing on humans.  The entire range needs to be replaced, even though most of them are plastic kits, and some of them are "modern" designs.

Edited May 5, 2022 by elescapo

[zilberfrid]

So it's a 40k imperium knockoff.

With more god in it.

Without other races like ogroids and ratlings.

I can't come up with a worse idea at the moment.

[yukishiro1]

35 minutes ago, elescapo said:

This is also the way that I see it.  I'm sensitive to the apprehension felt by players who are genuinely fans of the "confederation of survivors" theme of the current CoS, but the result on the tabletop is an army that isn't visually or thematically coherent.

That's exactly what many of us love about it. You can build a coherent army if you want from the subfactions, or you can play the last alliance of dwarves, humans and elves if that's your jam, or you can do anywhere on that spectrum. I don't care if they want to vastly flesh out the human side, and I'm all for it - just as long as it doesn't involve removing support for all those other fun models in their nice rag-tag army.

I.e. if they want to do an orruk warclans style tome that has both Dawnbringer Crusade as one allegiance and Cities as another, that's totally fine with me. But if they cut out Cities or otherwise squat my elves and dwarves I and many others are going to be extremely unhappy campers. GW having released a Cities tome for AOS (in 2019 no less, only 3 years ago), we were entitled to think the faction concept would stay supported, and GW shouldn't renege on that expectation. 

Edited May 5, 2022 by yukishiro1

[RyantheFett]

From a "make as much money as possible without pissing the fanbase off" point of view removing the non human units from the faction seems like a big mistake.

Instead I hope they are remaking each race one by one and making them major sub faction under the banner of Cities of Sigmar. Dawnbringer replaces all the human and then the next wave will be a new name dwarf sub faction that replaces all the dwarfs, then elves, pirates, etc. Would explain so much with what happened in the stream and certain parts from the article, like using the line "biggest undertakings".

This would allow Cities to keep its diversity theme, build new sub faction identities, rework the rules from scratch, phase out the older models without pissing off anybody, allow players to still use the old stuff, AND (this is the real reason I think) allow players to slowly build their armies for The Old World.

Really think they are hedging their bet with The Old World and most of the units we will see do double duty for the new Cities of Sigmar faction. Or I am high on copium lol!

[Overread]

Cities of Sigmar has always been a very odd Battletome and army as within it are several full armies and several parts of fragmented armies. Dark Elves are basically all there barring two units taken out for Morathi (the cauldron and Witch Aelf kit) and a few hero models and the Reaper bolt thrower. Basically the Dark Elf part didn't "need" anything else, it was a full and fairly diverse armed force.

So I always had this feeling that when attention came to Cities again we were going to see some changes which could be the stripping out of more models. My personal hope is that GW does this by replacement of themes rather than wholesale removal. 

 

 

As for the whole human VS allied races angle there's good arguments on both sides.

One side is that focusing on humans is fair as at present the only human faction is Slaves to Darkness. So having a Cities release that focuses on the human side is good as it expands a pretty important race that are, right now, exceptionally under-represented on the non-chaos side of things.

On the other is that losing the allied element is kind of returning to fantasy tropes of one-kingdom-one-race; which flies in the face of quite a lot of modern fantasy developments and the history of the Cities of Sigmar. Of course you can still have allied races in lore. Heck lets not forget in some realms and regions there's justification for most races to be allied together. Orruks can trade and settle in human cities; trolls work the docks; morathi invaded and took over a whole major cities of sigmar settlement. Those elements aren't lost save in standard armies on the tabletop; they remain strong in the lore. 

 

Personally I'd welcome Cities of Sigmar splitting. One side a combined-races Cities of Sigmar that preserves a core of each of the component armies, perhaps with new models; but ultimately which provides a single armed force with some unified aesthetics and designs. 

The other is a fully human force which perhaps reflects newer cities being more heavily populated with humans as most of the other races steadily have good reason to join other major forces.

The third is a split for the Dwarves with the Dispossessed returning as an army of their own. 

I'd also welcome the Dark Elves part splitting to its own force; its basically all there anyway and whilst it might not seem neat, its a very nice thing for fans of that army to not be thrown to the dogs after so long (not that dwarves, the remains of high and wood elves are any different ,but those armies have been crippled for a long time and the writing was on the wall from day 1 of AoS and Day 1 of AoS 2.0

[Ravinsild]

Hm. I hope they don't remove regular dwarves. That would leave me with only 2 armies: Ironjawz and Slaves to Darkness. OTOH what if they added Chaos Dwarves? Then I could have 4 armies

[Vomikron]

A fanatical crusade to civilize the mortal realms is much more narratively interesting then a city of beaten down survivors making their way in the world. There’s no momentum there. The Dawnbringers have a goal and that goes a long way to cement an army’s personality and visual coherency. It will give the faction an influence on the narrative, and hopefully future novels, where they aren’t just a setting where things happen.
 

[yukishiro1]

2 minutes ago, Vomikron said:

A fanatical crusade to civilize the mortal realms is much more narratively interesting then a city of beaten down survivors making their way in the world. There’s no momentum there. The Dawnbringers have a goal and that goes a long way to cement an army’s personality and visual coherency. It will give the faction an influence on the narrative, and hopefully future novels, where they aren’t just a setting where things happen.
 

And that's all fine and good for people who think the way you do; those of us who play Cities obviously feel differently about the interest of the concept or, well, we wouldn't play it now would we? Nobody's saying they're against Dawnbringers in addition, it's the instead of that people are rightly afraid of.

 

[Mungrun]

I just love how GW seems to present this "new" faction, very "Spanish" theme with the Inquisition, the morion helmet, the conquistadors exploring unknown lands and founding new colonies in savages and mysterious lands for God & Gold.

 

 

Spoiler

 

Edited May 6, 2022 by Mungrun

[xking]

2 minutes ago, Mungrun said:

I just love how GW seems to present this "new" faction, very "Spanish" theme with the Inquisition, the morion helmet, the conquistadors exploring unknown lands and founding new colonies in savages and mysterious lands for God & Gold.

 

They did not. They said everything is in early stages and that what was shown was baroque. 

[Zharrat]

3 minutes ago, xking said:

They did not. They said everything is in early stages and that what was shown was baroque. 

You are right, we didn't see "nothing" yet. But it is clear that they were inspired by the theme of the European conquest of America, especially the Spanish conquest since it was the first.

In any case, I will be very sad if in the end it is confirmed that dwarves and elves disappear in the new Batttletome.

[xking]

Ultimately, we don't know what it's going to happen. 

The Lore of dawnbringer Crusades states that they are groups of the citizenry and soldiery sent out to establish strong points that will eventually grow into their own Cities of Sigmar. Either for personal gain or on behalf of the gods of order, either way Sigmar supports them.

So long as the new models have multiple races mixed in, I will be fine with it.

[RyantheFett]

I find it funny that they introduced and make a big deal about a human faction and a lot of talk in the community is if the non human races get to make it in the faction lol. 

Which I am not sure is a bad PR move or they know exactly what they are doing????

15 minutes ago, xking said:

So long as the new models have multiple races mixed in, I will be fine with it.

I would have loved that!!!!! From everything they talked about just seems like they went the other way lol.

[xking]

2 minutes ago, RyantheFett said:

I find it funny that they introduced and make a big deal about a human faction and a lot of talk in the community is if the non human races get to make it in the faction lol. 

Which I am not sure is a bad PR move or they know exactly what they are doing????

I would have loved that!!!!! From everything they talked about just seems like they went the other way lol.

Things are still early in development, I'm sure if enough people complain and say they want the new models to have multiple races like in the lore. They can change some things.

For me, one of sigmar's Virtues I like the most is that he fights for all the races of order. ( that aren't backstabbing traitors anyway ) and his cities reflect that, humans, elves and dwarves all live and fight together. This is what makes cities of Sigmar, the cities of Sigmar to me.

[Mungrun]

I would like to know how the lore is going to progress to supposedly justify this absence of non-human races in the army.

Perhaps the Cities of Sigmar and the Dawnbringer Crusades are two different things (and not just an update) and the non-human races have not felt the call of adventure and have not enlisted in the crusades, staying in the great metropolis already founded with their own agendas.

While I hope there is some way to include other races (Dwarves and Elves mainly) as some sort of "special allies", I'm glad that humans represent the majority of the army, because it opens the door to a future army of classic dwarves.

Edited May 6, 2022 by Mungrun

[Kadeton]

I certainly like the core concept of putting mortals back into the Mortal Realms. I'll be a bit disappointed if "mortals" somehow becomes exclusively synonymous with "humans" in the process, but I would definitely like to see more representation of the people who presumably make up 90% or more of the population but are mostly invisible in the game.

[yukishiro1]

1 hour ago, Mungrun said:

I would like to know how the lore is going to progress to supposedly justify this absence of non-human races in the army.

Perhaps the Cities of Sigmar and the Dawnbringer Crusades are two different things (and not just an update) and the non-human races have not felt the call of adventure and have not enlisted in the crusades, staying in the great metropolis already founded with their own agendas.

While I hope there is some way to include other races (Dwarves and Elves mainly) as some sort of "special allies", I'm glad that humans represent the majority of the army, because it opens the door to a future army of classic dwarves.

I guess it'd actually be kinda interesting if Dawnbringer Crusaders are a bunch of xenophobic jerks carving out a humans-only dominion for their God-Emperor while the Cities remain the integrated societies they are. You could even do a whole thing where the Dawnbringers end up destroying or crippling one of the major original Cities because the city-dwellers don't agree with their extremist methods and ideology. Seems a bit too ambitious and politically controversial for modern GW though and more like a 30k kind of story anyway. 

Edited May 6, 2022 by yukishiro1

[zilberfrid]

45 minutes ago, yukishiro1 said:

I guess it'd actually be kinda interesting if Dawnbringer Crusaders are a bunch of xenophobic jerks carving out a humans-only dominion for their God-Emperor while the Cities remain the integrated societies they are. You could even do a whole thing where the Dawnbringers end up destroying or crippling one of the major original Cities because the city-dwellers don't agree with their extremist methods and ideology. Seems a bit too ambitious and politically controversial for modern GW though and more like a 30k kind of story anyway. 

In the category "humans I want to relate to", religious fanatics based on conquistadors and crusaders are about on par with the literal SS.

[Mungrun]

23 minutes ago, zilberfrid said:

In the category "humans I want to relate to", religious fanatics based on conquistadors and crusaders are about on par with the literal SS.

Well this is Warhammer, you should NOT feel identified with any faction because there is not a single faction that is objectively good.

 

[Marcvs]

6 minutes ago, Mungrun said:

Well this is Warhammer, you should NOT feel identified with any faction because there is not a single faction that is objectively good.

 

yeah, but (absolutely personal feeling) there's a difference between "not good because they steal the souls of innocent villagers" and "they look like actual historical genocidal guys"

[Mungrun]

14 minutes ago, Marcvs said:

yeah, but (absolutely personal feeling) there's a difference between "not good because they steal the souls of innocent villagers" and "they look like actual historical genocidal guys"

Yes i know what you mean and It's heartwarming that you think that way, but i guess for me they are just villains, and as villains of a fictional story I truly love them. I think it's a similar case to the Vikings, the Conquistadors are no better or worse than the Vikings, they plundered innocent people and imposed their gods, but for some reason everyone loves vikings stories. Idoneth are basically Vikings in that regard.

Although like the rest of the people who have commented, I would also like to have the option of being able to make a multiracial army. Hopefully GW will provide us with some way to satisfy both possibilities (Hopefully).

Edited May 6, 2022 by Mungrun

[Nuriel]

11 hours 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?

I'm afraid the chances are pretty high. They've already effectively removed High Elves, generic Orruks and Grots from the game. Yes, they are still in the Legends section, but you don't have any faction or subfaction rules (not even vanilla Alliance ones!). 

High Elves were part of Spire of Dawn starter set, Greenskinz has a start collecting box... 

In my opinion it doesn't matter that you have Greywater Fastness and Anvilguard boxes. They have squated those Old World factions from the game, they could do this again. 

I'm STILL really bitter about it all. And these new annoucment of new Cities of Sigmar doesn't seem to bring any dawn ....

[zilberfrid]

52 minutes ago, Mungrun said:

Well this is Warhammer, you should NOT feel identified with any faction because there is not a single faction that is objectively good.

Maybe Warhammer isn't for me. I generally like stories where I can understand the reasoning the protagonist as well as the antagonist, not stories where both protagonist and antagonists view are utterly incomparable to mine. I hate grimderp.

There is a difference between Adeptus Mechanicus, who view the flesh as weak and are weird with machines and taking the worst dregs of humanity and positioning them as the good guys.

Considering GW has lost its satire in most writing and is mostly rehashing fascist propaganda for the Imperium while still painting them as the good guys and thinks that's good to base their AoS humans on (except with added conquistador and crusade, as if fascists were not enough), as well as being poised to force a god onto Kharadron... At least Votann looks good.

[Mungrun]

22 minutes ago, zilberfrid said:

Maybe Warhammer isn't for me. I generally like stories where I can understand the reasoning the protagonist as well as the antagonist, not stories where both protagonist and antagonists view are utterly incomparable to mine. I hate grimderp.

There is a difference between Adeptus Mechanicus, who view the flesh as weak and are weird with machines and taking the worst dregs of humanity and positioning them as the good guys.

Considering GW has lost its satire in most writing and is mostly rehashing fascist propaganda for the Imperium while still painting them as the good guys and thinks that's good to base their AoS humans on (except with added conquistador and crusade, as if fascists were not enough), as well as being poised to force a god onto Kharadron... At least Votann looks good.

I think you take the game too far, it's just a game set in worlds full of pain, slaughter and injustice.
Warhammer is full of despicable races and cultures. In fact everyone is waiting for a race with a theme totally geared towards slave exploitation (the chaos duardin, who even enjoy abusing their slaves). Elves are arrogant and somehow racists, Dwarves are greedy ****** and Humans are intolerant zealots, every race has his own sins.

I don't think that a faction oriented to exploration, conquest and certainly plundering of new lands would be worse than many other Warhammer factions (I don't think this human faction has a slaver theme).

I guess we will always have the Tyranids for those who don't like playing with xenophobic factions (just a joke to try to lower the tension of the debate).

Edited May 6, 2022 by Mungrun