Dawnbringer Crusade: Harbingers Lore Discussion. SPOILERS.

[Marius au]

Interesting that the manticore character revealed for cities has weapons/relics named after some of the highlords that are mentioned in Harbingers, for example hammer of fate from Pontifex Fente (chief priest page 21), heavy mace from Venalis treasurer (page 9).  Might be the 2nd book needs to wait for Cities Box at least to avoid spoilers and the blurb for Hammerhal's lioness indicates that she ends up killing them.

Callis and Toll also look to be investigating corruption so would tie in with that.   

[CommissarRotke]

On 7/14/2023 at 12:19 PM, Clan's Cynic said:

Overall I'm pretty disappointed, but mainly due to the price:content ratio being pretty awful even for a GW product. What's there is good, but not enough to justify the price of admission unless you're in a community which will actively make use of the Path To Glory Battlepack. Unless it comes with good chunk of Fyreslayer-related content (which seems doubtful) I'll probably be skipping the next one.

thanks for confirming I should hold off, even if I want to read everything.

is this available digitally? IDR if Broken Realms was. It would be nice to be able to read these lore books without needing to have space for all the physical copies!

[Clan's Cynic]

2 hours ago, CommissarRotke said:

thanks for confirming I should hold off, even if I want to read everything.

is this available digitally? IDR if Broken Realms was. It would be nice to be able to read these lore books without needing to have space for all the physical copies!

Not yet. I would assume they'll end up on the Warhammer Vault eventually, but probably not until they go out of print (so the launch of 4.0 I imagine).

[Greyshadow]

Concur with what was said earlier. Too short, needed another act. The first section was great though. Loved the Nurgle vs Flesh Eater Courts story, gripping stuff. Second section in Hammerhal Aqsha was good but didn’t quite hit the same heights as the first. Presentation is terrific throughout with glorious art and photographs. Was a fairly pricey book though, not sure if the value is quite there. Did enjoy it and it did set things up for an exciting series. Hopefully book 2 is more substantial.

[The Brotherhood of Necros]

Book 1 — I enjoyed the read but personally I don’t feel it was worth the money. The content just felt too light. I enjoyed and collected all the Broken Realms tomes but times being what they are, I don’t think I’ll be picking up any more from this series.  

[Rachmani]

I like the prospect of miniatures to come. And oh boy do i want Arika Zenthe in there as well.

Give me all of them!

Story so far is good. Smaller in scope than Broken Realms - but I prefer it that way!

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

12 hours ago, Rachmani said:

I like the prospect of miniatures to come. And oh boy do i want Arika Zenthe in there as well.

A named Dark Elf and Dwarf character in Cities would go a long way towards making those subfactions feel like real parts of the army. Using Harbingers for that would be a great idea, like with the Ven Densts in Broken Realms.

[Rachmani]

6 hours ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

A named Dark Elf and Dwarf character in Cities would go a long way towards making those subfactions feel like real parts of the army. Using Harbingers for that would be a great idea, like with the Ven Densts in Broken Realms.

Exactly my idea. I have the Ulfenkarn dudes waiting for the new Cities Stuff & will certainly use some of them as heroes in my army. But neither of those are from the dark elf or dwarf factions that are still in the book. And while I can always field the wood elf lady (she's an outcast after all) I'd be even more excited for some "City elves" or "city dwarves".
I can acknowledge that the cities needed a good human base first. So if the corsair types get their makeover with AoS 4.0 (or the dwarves) I'm fine. 
Really, the only thing that may not happen is that the elves & dwarves faction(s) get squatted. I love CoS precisely for other races being present. Heck, I'd be down for mixed races regiments as well. Anything that keeps the flavor of a melting pot of cultures, races and ideas.

[novakai]

I am assuming with the release happening soon, Cities are not likely to get model in the Dawnbringer series as it wouldn’t make sense given the timelining the release.

then again the dwarf and dark elves just seem to be in cities as a hold over for right now, I don’t think their future is as clear cut as people on this form thinks they are.

[Chikout]

11 minutes ago, novakai said:

I am assuming with the release happening soon, Cities are not likely to get model in the Dawnbringer series as it wouldn’t make sense given the timelining the release.

then again the dwarf and dark elves just seem to be in cities as a hold over for right now, I don’t think their future is as clear cut as people on this form thinks they are.

Gw is a reactionary company, just one that reacts slowly as minis are designed two years ahead of time. Sisters of Battle, Necromunda, bloodbowl, squats, epic and Warhammer fantasy have all been brought back because of players requests. AoS has points now because the playerbase demanded it. The community has almost universally said they'd like to see more Aelves and Duardin in Cities.  I suspect this has surprised gw a bit. For ages people have been asking for the ordinary people of the realms. I don't think it occurred to gw until quite recently that ordinary people now includes Aelves and Duardin. I have literally zero doubt that we will see new Aelf and Duardin sculpts for cities eventually. Of course what form that will take is definitely a matter of debate. 

[CDM]

49 minutes ago, Chikout said:

Gw is a reactionary company, just one that reacts slowly as minis are designed two years ahead of time. Sisters of Battle, Necromunda, bloodbowl, squats, epic and Warhammer fantasy have all been brought back because of players requests. AoS has points now because the playerbase demanded it. The community has almost universally said they'd like to see more Aelves and Duardin in Cities.  I suspect this has surprised gw a bit. For ages people have been asking for the ordinary people of the realms. I don't think it occurred to gw until quite recently that ordinary people now includes Aelves and Duardin. I have literally zero doubt that we will see new Aelf and Duardin sculpts for cities eventually. Of course what form that will take is definitely a matter of debate. 

I'm annoyed at their surprise if they are. We all wanted  brand new humans to coexist in the cities and take their place in the lore. We needed the grounded human as a baseline to the wierd and whacky and the dawnbringer crusade's are a great idea!

However the first Cities battletome received  overwhelmingly positive feedback and it's been such a unique twist having these mixed race cities in AoS and a for me a big selling point of the setting.  Why on earth wouldn't they know we want the dwarves and Aelves to be represented still!

It's been fascinating to know how all the different factions fit into these cities. I still hope for wanderers lore when through they've left the cities.

[novakai]

1 hour ago, Chikout said:

Gw is a reactionary company, just one that reacts slowly as minis are designed two years ahead of time. Sisters of Battle, Necromunda, bloodbowl, squats, epic and Warhammer fantasy have all been brought back because of players requests. AoS has points now because the playerbase demanded it. The community has almost universally said they'd like to see more Aelves and Duardin in Cities.  I suspect this has surprised gw a bit. For ages people have been asking for the ordinary people of the realms. I don't think it occurred to gw until quite recently that ordinary people now includes Aelves and Duardin. I have literally zero doubt that we will see new Aelf and Duardin sculpts for cities eventually. Of course what form that will take is definitely a matter of debate. 

But then it the question of design space and release finitity, it possible City won’t anything more outside of freeguild wave 2, and that probably it for the next decade. If Grungni and Malekith get a release I don’t see the point of keeping or refreshing aelves and dwarfs in cities. 
It just be bloating the range for no reason

it can still be a melting pot with coalition rules and using other order armies to fill in the missing diversity

they are also not adverse to keep chunking models out of the range to be replace elsewhere if Kurnothi is comming out soon.

edit: also I think Eddie and Warcom stated they where making city more human centric anyway.

Edited July 27, 2023 by novakai

[Rachmani]

Human centric is also totally fine. I - and I think I'm not alone in this - just don't want the other races removed. Heck, I'm satisfied with some conversion sprues so I can add the odd elf or dwarf (or halfling etc.) to my army. 
Imo that's also more of a testament on how good the new cities stuff is.

[CommissarRotke]

Both 40k and WHF have/had human-only Empires as protagonists. AOS should stand out from their other IPs by really committing to the multiracial protagonist that Cities basically already is. I also don't understand why they're surprised after how many years... a lot of the energy I consistently see for AOS is players enjoying the multiracial cosmopolity of Order/Cities and the fact that actual heroes and hope have a sliver of room in the setting.

[novakai]

34 minutes ago, CommissarRotke said:

Both 40k and WHF have/had human-only Empires as protagonists. AOS should stand out from their other IPs by really committing to the multiracial protagonist that Cities basically already is. I also don't understand why they're surprised after how many years... a lot of the energy I consistently see for AOS is players enjoying the multiracial cosmopolity of Order/Cities and the fact that actual heroes and hope have a sliver of room in the setting.

Yet the whole release seems to be just copy imperial guard (even the whole order things seems to be similar to their mechanics)

you could argue it was just playing your old army, I only thing the pure non maxing comp player where the ones mixing stuff together. But even GW have gone away with that.

[Asbestress]

On 7/27/2023 at 7:18 PM, novakai said:

But then it the question of design space and release finitity, it possible City won’t anything more outside of freeguild wave 2, and that probably it for the next decade. If Grungni and Malekith get a release I don’t see the point of keeping or refreshing aelves and dwarfs in cities. 
It just be bloating the range for no reason

it can still be a melting pot with coalition rules and using other order armies to fill in the missing diversity

they are also not adverse to keep chunking models out of the range to be replace elsewhere if Kurnothi is comming out soon.

edit: also I think Eddie and Warcom stated they where making city more human centric anyway.

I can see your point, but then why keep Dispossessed and the dark aelves around, especially with Old World using the dwarfs? Depending on how they update the lore (hints at Dispossessed exodus/Darkling Covens leaving OR still keeping the city integration around) I can fully see them getting CoS specific kits. Maybe in a wave 2, maybe for AoS 6th Edition, or Dispossessed get spun off into Grungni duardin and the daelves get removed when we get Malekith's faction and we get coalition rules.

And hey, maybe we will get a single surprise duardin/aelf character out of nowhere a few weeks from now 😛

[CommissarRotke]

2 hours ago, novakai said:

Yet the whole release seems to be just copy imperial guard (even the whole order things seems to be similar to their mechanics)

Right, we're talking about GW's expectations vs their audience's -- I get that they'd like their IPs to have a lot of crossover analogues. What I'm saying is it is weird if they're surprised that their audience(AOS fans) don't... want that... yet again from their newest IP. This wave does seem to be straight AOS Guard, but other waves don't need to be.

[novakai]

39 minutes ago, Asbestress said:

I can see your point, but then why keep Dispossessed and the dark aelves around, especially with Old World using the dwarfs? Depending on how they update the lore (hints at Dispossessed exodus/Darkling Covens leaving OR still keeping the city integration around) I can fully see them getting CoS specific kits. Maybe in a wave 2, maybe for AoS 6th Edition, or Dispossessed get spun off into Grungni duardin and the daelves get removed when we get Malekith's faction and we get coalition rules.

And hey, maybe we will get a single surprise duardin/aelf character out of nowhere a few weeks from now 😛

Because Malerion and Grugni are not coming out anytime soon, but I am guessing Kurnothi is closer so that why the Wanderers got booted from Cities.

but then considering the weirdness of Old world it just maybe that not everything will be available at launch to begin with.

 

Edited July 28, 2023 by novakai

[Snorri Nelriksson]

On 7/28/2023 at 8:15 PM, novakai said:

Because Malerion and Grugni are not coming out anytime soon, but I am guessing Kurnothi is closer so that why the Wanderers got booted from Cities.

but then considering the weirdness of Old world it just maybe that not everything will be available at launch to begin with.

 

Considering Ironweld i don't think we'll see the dwarves completely expunged from cos tbh in any case.
IDK the idea of a multi-species city army is neat and i like the lore about it....but seeing the dwarves go out to become something "autonomous" like Khazalid empire reborn or even a Lumineth-style-aos take on classic dawi would'nt make me sad either.
 

[Clan's Cynic]

16 minutes ago, Snorri Nelriksson said:

Considering Ironweld i don't think we'll see the dwarves completely expunged from cos tbh in any case.
IDK the idea of a multi-species city army is neat and i like the lore about it....but seeing the dwarves go out to become something "autonomous" like Khazalid empire reborn or even a Lumineth-style-aos take on classic dawi would'nt make me sad either.
 

I think it's possible they're still squatted and just have mention of Duardin being a major part of Ironweld either quietly retconned (like Wanderers in the Free Cities) or kept to a wholly background role. My money is on the former.

[EntMan]

2 hours ago, Clan's Cynic said:

I think it's possible they're still squatted and just have mention of Duardin being a major part of Ironweld either quietly retconned (like Wanderers in the Free Cities) or kept to a wholly background role. My money is on the former.

There will always be Duardin in my Ironweld!

[CommissarRotke]

19 hours ago, EntMan said:

There should always be Duardin in my Ironweld!

FTFY :')

[EntMan]

2 hours ago, CommissarRotke said:

FTFY :')

will

Even if I have to pretend they're short fat humans with beards.

[CommissarRotke]

now that the 2nd book is coming, does anyone want to put the full lore-lowdown under a spoiler in here to help catch up?