The "mortals redesign" Discussion

[zilberfrid]

1 hour ago, Mungrun said:

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).

I'm not really taking the game anywhere. That's just where GW wrote it. First in a punkish satire, now as something they paint as the protagonist. I can understand this in a 40k place, where their desire to have protagonists without the will to change the lore, but making a new faction that's the same is a conscious choice.

It's no longer Paul Verhoeven's Starship Troopers, it's closer to Heinlein's, and probably past it.

Edited May 6, 2022 by zilberfrid

[Wordy9th]

Human representation in the setting is the most grounded and popular method of offering an every-man perspective, and works to put the mythological and grand scale of the setting in context, much like in painting where too many eye catching colours make none eye catching at all.

CoS is a mess both gameplay and story wise. It's a wastebin of dead Fantasy factions that operates in the same way as those empty areas in Total War: Warhammer do before they're filled with the 'proper' DLC factions. Giving some much needed AoS flavour and continuity to the faction is high up on GWs list and rightfully so. 

I am 1000% into the idea of a spanish inquisisiton / conquistador element to them. Where before the Empire was 17th Century German, now it seems to be Spanish, or at least drawing from those cultural elements as touch stones much like most factions do in this game. I'm excited for it and hope it'll knock it out of the park as a nice contrast to the riotous high fantasy that occupies much of the setting.

The debate on what constitutes a good guy, the return of grimdark and all of that seems a bit silly to me, principally because ideas on morality good and evil and so on are relative and it's a never-ending forest of discussion that isn't super interesting. The game is set in an apocalyptic wasteland where 90% of the territories are controlled by possibly the worst things to exist in any setting ever. The idea that in such a setting, with the forces of order's backs perpetually against the wall, that there'd be harmonious settlements of different fantasy races working in tandem (except races that are non-human) seems to me purely a result of GW needing to slap all the models together in one book rather than a coherent background setting.

Edited May 6, 2022 by Wordy9th

[Flippy]

1 hour ago, Nuriel said:

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 ....

 

They have removed a lot of stuff and they will inevitably remove more. The business logic is rather simple – CoS were made to keep the old kits (well, some of them) alive and selling, but it was never a “proper” AoS army (i.e. a one with a strong theme and visual identity, which is true for virtually every other Order army). These things will not happen overnight, but in the long run… why would GW support the High Elves if they can pump the Lumineth? Why keep the generic Dwarves if they can focus on Fyreslayers (less likely) or Kharadron, who have the narrative potential to become the main Dwarf force? Sooner or later the same will be true for the Dark Elves. Wanderers? Who are these guys? Just go buy Sylvaneth, the proper protectors of the forest.

I miss some of this stuff as much as every other WFB player, but in time it will simply become obsolete.

Now we know that the "human" side will be refreshed, but it would be, well, naive, to expect that the rest of the CoS stuff will get anything new, aside from new rules to keep them in play - for a time being.

[Marcvs]

19 minutes ago, Wordy9th said:

The idea that in such a setting, with the forces of order's backs perpetually against the wall, that there'd be harmonious settlements of different fantasy races working in tandem (except races that are non-human) seems to me purely a result of GW needing to slap all the models together in one book rather than a coherent background setting.

It's interesting, because to me cooperation seems to make a lot of sense (both personaly and historically) for these peoples and factions when the alternative is extermination. This can go from harmonious friendship to an uneasy alliance of convenience ofc.

[Wordy9th]

1 minute ago, Marcvs said:

It's interesting, because to me cooperation seems to make a lot of sense (both personaly and historically) for these peoples and factions when the alternative is extermination. This can go from harmonious friendship to an uneasy alliance of convenience ofc.

Sure, and that's a great idea in concept. But that doesn't really stand when Lumineth, Daughters, Karadron, Fyreslayers and so on all seem to be able to go out on their own yet humans are stuck in the post apocalyptic fantasy race melting pot - all the while depriving the setting of the 'average' perspective (and probably more importantly, a cool range of models) in doing so. 

[Kadeton]

4 minutes ago, Marcvs said:

It's interesting, because to me cooperation seems to make a lot of sense (both personaly and historically) for these peoples and factions when the alternative is extermination. This can go from harmonious friendship to an uneasy alliance of convenience ofc.

That's more or less the fundamental theme that separates "noble" from "grim". In extreme circumstances, do your characters band together to help one another, or do they turn on each other? AoS has tended more towards noble, so far, though there's always grim elements seeded throughout to keep the door open for narratives to go either way.

I don't think it would be a good idea to have the premier "mortal" faction be xenophobic fundamentalist human-supremacists. But I'm also not convinced that's what GW is saying they plan to do.

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

I am honestly surprised by the hyperbole in this thread.

What we got was just an announcement of a refresh of the human models of the Cities of Sigmar. Realistically, judging by the renders, not even one that seems super ambitious. Still a bunch of vanitas imagery, just with "SIGMAR" banderoles instead of "KARL FRANZ". The hosts and website talk it up like "this ain't your grandpa's empire", but really we have not seen any indication to the contrary yet.

I also find it pretty questionable to conclude from the trailers we got that Dawnbringer humans will have a conquistador theme or be human supremacists. The first just comes from that one guy in the skaven trailer having a morion helmet. If that's our standard then let's not forget the Kruleboyz teaser:

The humans shown here are also Dawnbringers (most likely) and have a much more diverse aesthetic than just spanish conquistadors.

The idea that they will be human supremacists, extreme religious zealots or that the other races will be kicked out of the next Cities book seem to rest on even more shaky ground, in my opinion. The only moment I can point to is that the hosts said "this update will focus on humans, not the other races", which certainly is not confirmation that the other races will be out by any stretch of the imagination. Lore wise, it has so far been established that the Dawnbringers are not exclusively human. So I don't know why one would conclude from Dawnbringer being worked on that elves and dwarves will be removed from cities. Certainly, the hosts make it sound like the goal of the project is to have an "everyman" faction for AoS. I think the writers at GW must realize that religious zealots and human supremacists would not be a way to cash that idea out.

I really feel like some people in this thread are setting an impossible standard. GW wants to update the human models of Cities of Sigmar to be more grounded in the mortal realms, rather than to feel like Old World leftovers. If that is their ambition, that means replacing pretty much the entire Empire/Freeguild range. That is a huge project, especially if they actually want it to live up to their own hype by really making the faction more than just "AoS Empire". So why is it surpising to so many in this thread that they are not also working on the other Cities subfactions at the same time?

If your goal was to keep the theme of Cities as a coalition of all the "ordinary" people of the different races of Order working together, but want to keep the subfactions more or less distinct, how would you expect updating those sculpts to work? It seems to me that the only way to do it is to focus on one subfaction at a time. They are all composed of entire army ranges from Fantasy after all.

I get the apprehension that the identity of the current Cities of Sigmar could strongly change in the future. I also would not love that. But the current status of the cities is pretty definitively written into the lore. I would honestly be surprised to see them divided along racial lines again in the future. At the same time, a "normal human" faction has been an element that has been missing from AoS for a while now. I really think that GW making a big deal out of the  fact that they finally intend to tackle that deficiency in the way that it deserves is a huge positive and I hope they manage to do the project justice.

 

[Marcvs]

14 minutes ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

If your goal was to keep the theme of Cities as a coalition of all the "ordinary" people of the different races of Order working together, but want to keep the subfactions more or less distinct, how would you expect updating those sculpts to work? It seems to me that the only way to do it is to focus on one subfaction at a time. They are all composed of entire army ranges from Fantasy after all.

 

When it comes to actual predictions/hopes, I completely agree: I think we'll just see a resculpt (+ new stuff) of the Freeguild side. The rest will stay as is, also because the minis from those ranges are holding up much better than the Freeguild units

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

Just now, Marcvs said:

When it comes to actual predictions/hopes, I completely agree: I think we'll just see a resculpt (+ new stuff) of the Freeguild side. The rest will stay as is, also because the minis from those ranges are holding up much better than the Freeguild units

My hope is that we see some distinct people of the realms. Right now, even though I love the Freeguild models, I have to agree that it's super weird that by and large the humans of the sprawling, culturally diverse (according to the lore) mortal realms all look like they are from 17th century southern Germany.

I would love to see the cool concepts that are hinted at in, for example, the Soulbound books. Like those daring rough riders of Aqshi that follow tribes of Beastclaw Raiders around to harvest the ice created by their Everwinter (which is obviously highly valuable in the Realm of Fire). Or even the Cogforts and lightning shield generators which seem to have been part of the lore in forever, but are still conspicuously missing from the tabletop. An honestly, in a world that is ruled by gods, there probably needs to be representation of a Church of Sigmar.

I really feel like this is the real goal of this update: To have models for the humans of AoS that finally realize all the cool stuff the lore says they should have.

[Jymmy]

What I love about the non human races in the Cities of Sigmar is that they feel a lot more grounded. The aelves and duardin from the cities are not super natural beings with the power of the gods running in its veins and I would miss the oportunity to watch them as more mundane people…

[Rachmani]

What I would love is elves, dwarves and other races sprinkled across ab otherwise human faction. To show the other races are there, they‘re just way less common. 
A bit like the *really* old empire books worked. If they could translate that spirit into a better themed book (aka Dawnbringer Crusades) it would be aces!

[Wordy9th]

It’s incredibly ambitious to make a human faction that comprises of every facet of diversity in the realms, and the more you talk about warrior poets of hyish and death priests of shyish the less focus you get on the Everyman perspective. Potentially will be limited to single models, warcry warbands and soul bound id assume.
 

I think what you’ll get from dawnbringers is a rugged steppe / conquistador aesthetic which unites under the theme of desperation and expansion. Probably with an inquisitorial / religious tone because hey that’s cool and warhammer. I think this will be distinct from cities both range wise and lore wise, but essentially be the new human faction that you will see represented on the tabletop, with cities themselves being a primarily lore device.

[zilberfrid]

20 minutes ago, Jymmy said:

What I love about the non human races in the Cities of Sigmar is that they feel a lot more grounded. The aelves and duardin from the cities are not super natural beings with the power of the gods running in its veins and I would miss the oportunity to watch them as more mundane people…

Yeah! That's what I love doing as well.

Replace the Flagellants, Guard, Helstorm/Hellblaster and Crossbowmen and arguably the Pistoleers. Add some priests, add some melee cavalry and some more machinated stuff, and that's nice.

Don't make the humans into colonial religious fantasy fascists.

Them coming out at the end of the edition also neatly clears the way to dump the rest of Cities in AoS 4.

Edited May 6, 2022 by zilberfrid

[xking]

We're more likely to get new flagellants, as through their blood, sacrifice and faith are the lands purified of chaos corruption.( literally )

Maybe add some Elves and dwarves to the devoted, Sigmar is worshipped by many different races. 

[Beliman]

1 hour ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

What we got was just an announcement of a refresh of the human models of the Cities of Sigmar. Realistically, judging by the renders, not even one that seems super ambitious. Still a bunch of vanitas imagery, just with "SIGMAR" banderoles instead of "KARL FRANZ". The hosts and website talk it up like "this ain't your grandpa's empire", but really we have not seen any indication to the contrary yet.

I partly agree

The design seems to be based on Spanish Conquistadores than the Germanic Empire with Landsknechts. That's a plus, but I hope that they retain a bit of the old Empire too (maybe in some bits and iconic units).

Of course the Morion helmet is a classic emblem that should be there, but how many armor are they going ot wear? With bloomers or metal-skirts? Armor with attached weapons or something more historic? Mask under the helmet? Half-mask? Skulls? Holyseals? Feathers?

Spoiler

I'm not saying that they are going to be Alarith for humans, I'm just saying that a concept can be turned in to something really unique, and that's what I expect.

I can see a mix of full-armored non-historic Conquistadores, a lot of halberds with crazy stuff (feathers or even fire weapons mounted on the same weapons), maybe a bit of steampunk in some units, and then something crazy for zealots and Sigmarnatics.

Time will tell, and even if I never collect humans, I'm really curious how they are going to be.

 

Edited May 6, 2022 by Beliman

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

5 minutes ago, Beliman said:

The design seems to be based on Spanish Conquistadores than the Germanic Empire with Landsknechts. That's a plus, but I hope that they retain a bit of the old Empire too (maybe in some bits and iconic units).

I think it's a good choice, too. It's a way to expand on the Freeguild without completely losing sight of their historical roots. The old Empire was very strongly based on the Landsknecht troops of the 30 Years War, but the Spanish also had a major role in that conflict:

I hope some of the current Freeguild aesthetic is preserved. I always found it a fairly unique choice for a fantasy human army and would love it to stick around to a degree.

But it's not like we don't have any indication of what the humans of the Mortal Realms might look like. Cursed City and the ven Densts were after all specifically called out as part of the stream, and there is a good amount of variation between them:
 

Spoiler

Fairly traditional knightly attire:

Vaguely eastern european duellist:

More or less grimey witch hunter:

Church of Sigmar:

Weirdo mage:

If those models are any indication of what they are planning for Dawnbringers, I am excited. I think bringing up the Freeguild to this level of uniqueness would mean a lot. Currently, they are just way too close to 30 Years War Landsknecht models from a historical tabletop game.

[pnkdth]

In some cases, I think 'what is' is being confused with how we'd wish it to be.

AoS has always had a smattering of the grimdark to it. Morathi, for example, used to rule one of the single most sadistic and twisted civilisations in GW's portfolio. I would say even more evil than Drukhari since there is not a single element of desperate survival in their actions. Morathi was the one who orchestrated and corrupted the aelves. In AoS, she continues to work only for herself and yet is a part of "Order" because she is the lesser evil in a world of even more unthinkable evil. Then there's Malerion...

Duardin (or Dawi) then, in the past a noble yet stubborn faction. Yet even them, fell to greed and horrific acts just to find another way (or a way back to their past). In AoS, they are a fragmented faction who's actions will forever be a stain upon them and their reputation.

Point is, this setting is grimdark and Order is not good or just. Why do you even fight for a losing side? What is the purpose? Remember, how your god abandoned you last time? I see your strength, you would go far... Just one more step and you'll see what I see, and become more powerful and free to live the life you so richly deserve on your own terms.

 

 

[Dawi not Duardin]

Old-school dwarf player's perspective:

I think this is great and in fact much needed. The current CoS army lacks thematic depth and cohesion - in fact much more so than other armies that survived from WHFB, such as Lizardman or Skaven. There are good lore reasons for why they would look roughly the same as they did back then, as their civilizations actually didn't end with the world-that-was. But the human, elf and dwarf civilizations (mostly) did, so I think it is very odd that the same units would reappear in this new setting. For example, why would dwarfs form units of Hammerers as opposed to Axers or Macers in AoS? There was a lore reason back in WHFB - it was tradition that the royal guard of each hold would be armed with hammers - but that tradition was literally in another setting.

But with a revamp of this army, we see important opportunities, not just for the humans but also for the dwarfs. (Elf players will have to forgive me for focusing on them here, but I presume similar considerations apply for them!). IMO The Disposessed is probably the most boring Dwarf concept GW ever has used.. They're boring lore-wise as they're more than anything else sheltering survivors, and Sigmar is too human a God for them when Grungni and Grombrindal are active in the setting. And they're boring model-wise as the last update of WHFB dwarfs lacked a lot of the character of the earlier metal models. If you compare the 6th edition metal Longbeards to the plastic ones that still are used, there is not much competition.

But a revamp could give us all kinds of opportunities. Perhaps they get their own army. Or they get their own Grudgebringer Crusade as part of an Orruk Warclans-style book. Or they get combined with some other Dwarf army, somehow. Either way, they'd start to have some reason to go out and retake the realms, Thorgrim-style. That's so much more interesting than whatever they are doing now. 

Of course, this does not say that there shouldn't be any Sigmar-worshipping dwarfs or that they couldn't live in the cities too. As some others have mentioned, if you go back to really old-school WHFB Empire army books, there were dwarfs living there too, and sometimes they would fight for The Empire. Nothing wrong with that, but I think I speak for many when I would want that to be the exception rather than the rule: much like the Lumineth are the new High Elves or SBGL are the new Vampire Counts, etc, I want a traditional Dawi force that can stand for itself.

[Nuriel]

2 hours ago, Flippy said:

Now we know that the "human" side will be refreshed, but it would be, well, naive, to expect that the rest of the CoS stuff will get anything new, aside from new rules to keep them in play - for a time being.

Then perhaps I am naive. They were honest about Bretonnia and Tomb Kings: you may play them, but they will never ever become real faction and get any new models. It was harsh, but fair. 

It wasn't like that with the other aforementioned factions ie: High Elves, Greenskinz and now (probably or possibly) Wanderers, Dwarves, Dark Elves and other leftovers. They were properly introducted into setting, they were part of the ongoing narrative.

It isn't cheap hobby. And you invest not only financially but also temporarily (not native speaker, so I'm not sure if I use that word correctly: I mean your time as you assembling and painting) and more importantly: emotionally. 

I know that GW exist to bring money to their shareholders. And they do that by selling us books and small plastic figurines.  

But is it really so impossible standard to demand that you can still play with the minis you have bought in a good faith?

[Deepkin]

5 hours 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.

Edit: too aggressive in tone, my apologies. Nonetheless, I disagree 40k constitutes fascist propaganda.

Edited May 6, 2022 by Deepkin

[zilberfrid]

16 minutes ago, Deepkin said:

The idea that GW is rehashing fascist propaganda via 40k is laughable. Touch some grass, dude.

I can't, I have cat paralysis. I can touch cat, is that okay?

I'm not saying they use 40k to do fascist propaganda, but the combination of a fascist Imperium and 40k protagonists being mostly from said Imperium doesn't give the writers much room to do anything else.

[Deepkin]

12 minutes ago, zilberfrid said:

I can't, I have cat paralysis. I can touch cat, is that okay?

I'm not saying they use 40k to do fascist propaganda, but the combination of a fascist Imperium and 40k protagonists being mostly from said Imperium doesn't give the writers much room to do anything else.

The imperium isn't fascist, it's a theocratic feudal society in space. Still a monstrous society, but not fascist. 

That there are protagonists from this society doesn't make it propaganda. Or is Game of Thrones propaganda for pseudo-medieval feudalism as well? Is Gideon the Ninth propaganda for interstellar necromantic theocracy? Etc. 

Depiction isn't endorsement. The Imperium is widely depicted (still) as the worst regime imaginable. It's so terribly conservative and dogmatic, it's starships use slave gangs to load weapons instead of autoloaders (a technology we have now). It stacks person on person into cancer-ridden, horror-mountains and calls them "hive cities." It works planets to death and then uses their corpses as mulch for farming. It births children, kills them and resurrects their corpses as flying servitors for...aesthetic reasons? It takes little boys, pumps them full of hormones and literal hypnotic indoctrination, tells them they're gods Angels of death and then unleashes them upon the galaxy...who then routinely go mad and betray their Imperium and become it's direst foes. Even when they don't, they routinely genocide their own populations, etc. 

All this stuff is still in the background. Foregrounded, even. If you think any of that is meant to make you identify with the faction, then I don't know what to say. I think the background still does what it always did: takes the hellish results of absolute conservatism and faith to their obvious, awful conclusions. That there are still sympathetic characters heightens the irony and tragedy. Their individual morality changes nothing: they work within a doomed system, doomed from it's inception by the hubris of it's founder.

Edited May 6, 2022 by Deepkin

[Enoby]

++ Mod Hat++

Just a quick reminder to keep it civil. Also, I totally understand why there's a discussion about the Imperium, but please make sure to keep it on topic about the new humans (I understand it's a fine line with the worry/hope that the new CoS will be Imperium 2, but just be aware)

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

45 minutes ago, Nuriel said:

Then perhaps I am naive. They were honest about Bretonnia and Tomb Kings: you may play them, but they will never ever become real faction and get any new models. It was harsh, but fair. 

It wasn't like that with the other aforementioned factions ie: High Elves, Greenskinz and now (probably or possibly) Wanderers, Dwarves, Dark Elves and other leftovers. They were properly introducted into setting, they were part of the ongoing narrative.

It isn't cheap hobby. And you invest not only financially but also temporarily (not native speaker, so I'm not sure if I use that word correctly: I mean your time as you assembling and painting) and more importantly: emotionally. 

I know that GW exist to bring money to their shareholders. And they do that by selling us books and small plastic figurines.  

But is it really so impossible standard to demand that you can still play with the minis you have bought in a good faith?

I wonder about the other Cities subfactions. At some point, my prediction was that Cities would be handled like Legions of Nagash. What I mean by that is that I believed the individual subfactions would become armies of their own or reintegrated like they were in Fantasy: Dispossessed into a new mixed dwarf faction, Wanderers into Sylvaneth, Dark Elves into DoK/Malerion...

But it does not seem like that has happend. The Fyreslayers book is out, and it's not Dwarf Soup. There is no indication that DoK or Sylvaneth will be reintegrating Dark Elves and Wanderers. At the same time, these subfactions are now pretty strongly established as part of Cities. Wanderers in Living City, Dark Elves in Anvilgard, Dwarves in Greywater Fastness... It would be hard to imagine GW just hitting the reset button on that and going "Cities are inexplicably only humans now".

I would sooner buy the idea that Dawnbringer Crusades become a sub-allegiance of Cities, like Stormcast get the option to play Stormkeeps or Scions. But even then, the current fluff has not established the Dawnbringers to be pure human or be motivated by xenophobia towards the elves and dwarves of the Cities. They are not venturing out to found racially pure human cities or anything like that, and it is established that they are frequently supported by the Kharadron Overlords and Ironweld Arsenal.

In my opinion, it's not at all unlikely that Dawnbringer Crusades will do exactly what they said on the stream: Refresh and expand the human component of Cities in order to get away from the Empire of old to have a real human faction for the Mortal Realms. And that definitely does not imply that everyone else will get kicked out of Cities.

[RyantheFett]

A xenophobic army of just humans led by a God figure fighting against untold horrors in order to expand and protect their lands. The army is full of skulls and Gothic style as the humans get slaughtered in large numbers making a very dark story. In order to even the odds the God made super soldiers............ feel like I have seen this story somewhere lol.

The idea of them removing the many races from cities just seem so strange, but from a cutthroat business perspective I guess it makes sense. The faction was just a place holder and with The Old World coming out fans of classic factions will have to go play them there. The name change allows past lore to stay canon, but still redo everything of the faction.

I am hopeful that I am 100% wrong here and that they will tell us soon one way or another.