Rate the transformation of old WHFB armies into AoS factions

[Turgol]

The topic of this post is quite simple: how well do you think GW has handled the reboot old armies? Let's use a simple rating system: Major success, minor success, neutral, minor ****** up, total ****** up. Major success implies that the new faction is both gamewise and fluffwise superior in pretty much all accounts to the old faction; minor success implies an overall boost; neutral means no change or changes that do not make the army more or less interesting; minor ****** up means overall degradation and major ****** up, well, everything went wrong! I will do it by rating them from the WHFB side of things. Please do the same and add a short justification for each rating! 

Squatted armies do not count.

1) The Empire - - - Devotees of Sigmar, Free Guild, Collegium, Arsenal

So far neutral for me. I really like the idea of all the factions, specially the devotees, but at the same time think the overall very solid and complete feeling of a german renaissance army might not be compensated. Will have to wait and see.

2) HE-DE-WE - - - - all kinds of small factions

Not enough information to judge so far, although I'am inclined to rate it as a minor ****** up. The elven factions were incredibly well done and I'am not sure most of the new factions really round up. Still, we have to wait and see. Do take into account that I'am talking here about the factions that represent the "old elfs"; Shadowkin and Lightkin (o whatever their name is) can turn up to be a major success, but we really have no clue at this point.

3) Dwarfs - - - Dispossessed, Fyreslayers, Steamdhead Duardin

Neutral so far. Dispossessed are really just the old dwarfs, so nothing to rate here, except that their fluff is rather out of place. 

The Fyreslayer idea is quite good and they could be a major addition to the WH world, but execution has been lacking so far. I hope they come back to them later.

Steamhead Duardin could of course be a major success, but we have no info so far.

4) Lizardmen - Seraphon

Minor success. Gamewise the change to summoning units is good enough to make them more interesting IMO.

Fluffwise the change is major and although I do think that the main idea behind the new fluff is far more interesting than the old aztec dinosaurs, execution was not perfect to rate it as a major success. The idea of Slann as some kind of anti-chaos crusaders playing a chess game against the chaos gods and teleporting themselves to important events is great. The idea of them battling by summoning memories is not. A small retcon (which would not necesarily be one, as it was never really well explained), making them real, living somewhere in Azyr (and still sumonable), would make them much more likable. 

5) Vampire Counts - multiple factions, including Flesh Eater court

Minor success to neutral. I think the gamewise reorganization of death, expressed by FEC, could be great. But it is still incomplete to judge it.

Fluffwise FEC are a very good idea, but the old medieval vampire counts were also very interesting. Hard to make a judgement. 

6) Chaos Warriors - mortal armies of each chaos god

Judging by Bloodbound, major success, although gameplay is an issue. Fluffwise the feeling of having an army dedicated to a god was something most players craved for and GW has achieved this with Khorne and should do it with Nurgle and Tzeentch. No major changes, that is true, but focusing on gods instead than on barbarian culture centred on vikings seems successful to me.

7) Orc and Goblins - - - -  Bonesplitters, Ironjaws, multiple minor factions

Minor success to neutral. I would rate Ironjaw as a minor success – they are just old orcs but with a very well achieved focus on humour (that means: losing the boring side of old black orcs) and powering up with each battle; Bonesplitters are neutral to me. Monster hunting seem interesting enough, but a little too narrow. Old savage culture was nothing special though, so no major lose. 

The rest is pretty much the same or undervdeveloped to judge.

8) Skaven - multiple clans

Minor success so far. Pestilens was well adapted and the toys they got during ET fit very well with the ratmaster and skyre theme. Nothing too original though (except for reality holes, which are a good idea), just using the old potential of WHFB.

9) Ogres - Beastclaw riders

Major success. Now THIS is the potential of AoS to make things so much more interesting. Old ogres that eat anything? Hmm boring. A barbarian army, always marching out of winter and therefore living off spoils? Yes, please! 

So, what do you guys think?

[Ollie Grimwood]

Background wise all the factions that have had a Battletome have been a Major success with me. They've all been given a distinct character and relevance to the narative. 

The rest are just too incomplete for me to draw any concrete judgments although I have been liking what I've seen in the novels.  I'd go with neutral but interested to hear more. 

[MrCharisma]

@Turgol i'm a 4th edition Empire player and I have to admit AoS has been hard on us. We've lost a lot of the synergies in the split (eg War Priests have no effect on Free People) and sub-factions need more fleshing out. 

[BloodBeast]

Everything that's been AoS'ified is a HUGE win for me. I can't wait to see the other Chaos Gods get the same level of love as the Bloodbound and I'm super excited to see new Aelfs.

[BrAiKo]

I'd have to agree that all released factions so far have been successes in terms of re-orienting them strongly in the new setting (Seraphon being the one I'm less convinced of).  As for the specifics; I'm going to copy your formatting.

 

1) Mortals - - - Devotees of Sigmar, Free Guild, Collegium, Arsenal

Neutral to minor failure.  Nothing yet, for the moment Stormcast has taken on this role.

2) HE-DE-WE - - - - all kinds of small factions

Neutral.  Surprised at how small the subfactions of HE and DE were divided.  Will they release each one eventually, adding unique fluff and new models?  Unsure.  Will the priority be new factions such as Shadowkin? ... more likely.   Sylvaneth though, arguably AoS's flagship success so far.  Near perfect balance of retaining quality old miniatures, adding great new kits, great fluff and complete battletome with incentives for playing in-faction.

3) Dwarfs - - - Dispossessed, Fyreslayers, Steamdhead Duardin

Fyreslayers are a minor success although small for an entirely new release not incorporating old models. The rest neutral.

4) Lizardmen - Seraphon

Minor failure.   Fluff was not presented well in the battletome.  I agree that the army being summoned memories is a bit off, if only that the race is just a few leaders without anyone else around.  So does the army turn up for battle and its just a Slann or two sitting there at the beginning?  A new spell lore would likely give this faction a new lease on life.  As it was not broken up, already has a fantastically well rounded force gameplay wise.    Oh and the name... I don't mind them switching from Lizardmen, but Seraphon would have been a brilliant name for the Stormcast, given they are essentially the angelic army.  How bout we go with #StarToadsandImaginaryFriends (you heard it here first).

5) Vampire Counts - multiple factions, including Flesh Eater court

Major success for FEC, great example of freshening up a faction without really any new kits.  Major failure for the rest.  Death needs serious attention.

6) Chaos Warriors - mortal armies of each chaos god

If Bloodbound are the template they're basing all their Chaos releases on, I will be very happy.  Major success.  Everchosen... minor failure even with the nice minis.

7) Orc and Goblins - - - -  Bonesplitters, Ironjaws, multiple minor factions

Two orruk releases in close proximity and yet both at least minor successes in my book.  Nice new Ironjawz models, not as good battletome.  Vice versa for the Bonesplitterz.  Impressed with how they made the orc subfactions into complete (or thereabouts) factions with decent-to-great new fluff.  Decent potential with future goblin releases as well, not to mention the incoming fimir (will we get Forgeworld battletomes?????)

8) Skaven - multiple clans

Neutral.  Pestilens release doesn't seem to be wowing people, just rather went by-the-book. Kind of need more if no new models are coming.  Eagerly awaiting a Verminus release whose battalions allow the hiring of other clans without breaking faction.

9) Ogres - Beastclaw riders

Major success. Great reimagining.

10) Beastmen

Only release so far are Tzaangors which are going into Tzeentch Arcanites with the mortals...?  Doesn't bode well for this faction.

 

[polarbear]

All of the new battletome armies are great except the Seraphon and Everchosen. Seraphon feel rushed and like their place wasn't established, and Everchosen could have been really cool but I think they spread that small amount of butter a bit too thin.

The elves got destroyed basically. I've never been an elf player but to me neither the lore nor the models fit in AoS. It's surprising to see such a popular range with many new models pushed to the back shelf like that.

Dispossessed and humans, I'm glad they're around for people who play them but Devoted of Sigmar is the only new faction I can see being expanded upon. However, I'd hope the Irondrakes type of look could be battletome'd. I think they could still have some life in the Steamheads, but rumours seem to point to that being an all-new faction.

Generic orcs and goblins, generic everything basically, has been more or less left behind. That's probably a good thing in the long run but they bloat the model range now and don't fit the look of the game too well.

I think they got a little out of control factionizing armies in the grand alliance books. Why firebellies are their own thing and warherds/brayherds were split up makes no sense to me, especially with the importance of allegiances now. I think this will change in the future.

[Ratatatata]

No idea about most of them, but I seem to be the only one around that just loves the Seraphon fluff, stuff made up of memories and dreams, oh wow. 

I'd rate both Ironjaws and Bonesplitters as major successes. Cool, well executed, nice models, good to very good in the game.

I know you said "squatted" armies doesn't count, but I have to say that the TK transformation is a major success for me. Love all those warscrolls, they play like they always should have, love them!

[ElectricPaladin]

I think the Flesh Eaters are a major success. They went from the red headed stepchild of the vampire counts to a great faction of their own. They are fun to play, fun to paint, and characterful.

[Bjarni St.]

7 hours ago, polarbear said:

All of the new battletome armies are great except the Seraphon and Everchosen. Seraphon feel rushed and like their place wasn't established, and Everchosen could have been really cool but I think they spread that small amount of butter a bit too thin.

I think they got a little out of control factionizing armies in the grand alliance books. Why firebellies are their own thing and warherds/brayherds were split up makes no sense to me, especially with the importance of allegiances now. I think this will change in the future.

These are more or less my feelings on it as well. The biggest sticking point with AoS for me at the moment is the huge range of armies that are just gathering dust (without even including Bretts and TK). With the current pace of releases it could be years before mainstream armies have something resembling a modern ruleset for AoS (complete with the ever-important battalions).

Besides that, I do think the released Battletomes are too narrow. Sylvaneth have the most breadth but even they are let down by Revenants having bad rules (out-of-faction Battalions help with that slightly) so Sylvaneth tend to end up as 30 Dryads, Characters and Kurnoth Hunters for whatever's left.

They were laying groundwork with the microfactions in the GA books but it just seems premature. Don't leave these armies/subfactions just hanging there with useless rules until you MIGHT get around to them in however many years.

 

[KhaosZand3r]

The only thing I disagree with is your take on Chaos, though maybe it's just because they really haven't fleshed out anything other than Khorne. I always liked the nonspecific chaos models (minus marauders) and outside of Varanguard they seem to be greatly moving away from that. I am hopeful that Tzeentch, Nurgle, and perhaps even Slaanesh will get the bloodbound treatment. Downside, that would be a lot more for me to buy!