Fluff Problems

[Menkeroth]

22 minutes ago, Red said:

Except all those examples (except for City of Secrets, haven't read that) are grade A bolter ****** [or super high level and brief like GA: Death]. I don't want them to tell me about a battle. I want them to set the stage for the battle, not walk me through a battle report. They are doing less and less world building with every book that comes out. 

Well, I was expecting such a response, so have no need to continue. Especially because of the fluff for a wargame, which is the same for all games. And no, each book focuses more and more on the whole setting which they did from the start. 

24 minutes ago, Red said:

The old Lizardmen book had 30 pages that went into the history, the cities, even the ****** language and writing. Does it cover everything? No. Does it cover more than "tradition is sacred above all" without giving some example rites and ceremonies? Yes. There was even a section on how you can build your own temple city, and work it into an active thing, with a game table and all. This was in addition to the 70 pages that went into the units and stuff.

 

I don't want to disappoint you but the book is called "Legions of Nagash". What a surprise! the books about other guys have more than 30 pages of fluff and how they live. But as you are a demagogue, I stop here. Problems of one person are not the problems of the whole setting or GW, happily enough. 

 

[Aegisgrimm]

13 hours ago, Turgol said:

I wouldn’t put too much thought into absurd descriptions such as Hammerhal is the size of a continent. The description of how it works or the story of Shadows over Hammerhal don’t fit with that. Hammerhal is much more intelligent than this one sloppy sentence. 

The sentence also has its origin precisely as an answer to the criticism that AoS lacks maps. As the first relevant map developed, they overreached by trying to show that this one map is the like of a continent map like the Old World. 

In its youth, AoS does a lot of that: overreaching. But just as youth defects, I would trust time to synthesize all those cool but sometimes absurd ideas into a coherent whole. Remember we are still in the phase of revealing stuff: Ulgu and Hysh are still to be revealed, the aelven legions are still to be revealed, etc.

Yeah, I don't understand the whole "Hammerhal is continent sized" element, even if its a statement by GW.  Their map of Hammerhal, using the inset as an estimation, has the whole city being huge, sure.  But the Fire Realm half is huge like, say, all of Los Angeles with it's suburbs.  Which certainly isn't continent sized, or even American state-sized, unless the Ghyran half is several, several magnitudes larger.

[Menkeroth]

Not believing what is written by GW in a setting of GW and book of GW is something of a much higher level than usual. What you don't believe is no concern of GW or somebody else, it's just your problem, which matters not actually.

[Aegisgrimm]

Ok, I think we should all stop being so confrontational in this thread, which is expressly about people's opinions, not about who is 'right', as has been said before.

[Turgol]

4 hours ago, Menkeroth said:

Well, I was expecting such a response, so have no need to continue. Especially because of the fluff for a wargame, which is the same for all games. And no, each book focuses more and more on the whole setting which they did from the start. 

I don't want to disappoint you but the book is called "Legions of Nagash". What a surprise! the books about other guys have more than 30 pages of fluff and how they live. But as you are a demagogue, I stop here. Problems of one person are not the problems of the whole setting or GW, happily enough. 

 

It seems to me you normally never go beyond claiming others are demagogues or something is their private problem. Not very imaginative or convincing, but it certainly goes along what your not missing anything from perfect AoS attitude! Coherence is indeed a great value.

I am sorry to everyone else for falling into confrontational attitude, but I am sick of someone bullying around.

[shinros]

48 minutes ago, Aegisgrimm said:

Yeah, I don't understand the whole "Hammerhal is continent sized" element, even if its a statement by GW.  Their map of Hammerhal, using the inset as an estimation, has the whole city being huge, sure.  But the Fire Realm half is huge like, say, all of Los Angeles with it's suburbs.  Which certainly isn't continent sized, or even American state-sized, unless the Ghyran half is several, several magnitudes larger.

 The realms are bloody huge where they have their own pocket dimensions and planets let's not forget GW have said repeatedly that you won't be able to cross a realm in a mortal lifespan without realm gates. Let's not forget in this setting Skaven can literally barrow through dimensions.

So we clearly have a sense of scale and yet somehow in this over the top setting people have problem with a city being the size of a continent which I shall add has no problems expanding due to the information I provided here. Let's not forget cogforts are essentially walking fortresses according to the malign portent story. 

Reaching up from the bedrock on both sides of the stormrift, sigmar's warriors discovered rich outcroppings of realmstone. Formed from the concentrated magics of the mortal realms, these volatile crystals were a valuable yet dangerous source of arcane power first harnessed by the renowned architect Valius Maliti. The energies that poured from their central lodeshards were crucial in speeding along the construction of hammerhal, fuelling the efforts of the ironweld engineers who - with the aid of the lord relictors - caged the energies of the realmstone, building elaborate sigmarite machineries around them to harness their volatile sorcerous emanations. In hammerhal aqsha, those wrathful energies powered a vast shield of flickering lightning, while hammerhal ghyra funneled them into protective wards to confuse and misdirect hostile invaders. 

Now, decades after it's founding, hammerhal stands unbowed as an immense and thriving metropolis, full of incredible wonders. Hammerhal ghyra grows an endless bounty of produce, which the inhabitants trade through the stormrift realmgate with their more mechanically minded neighbors in hammerhal aqsha. In return for keeping the fire city fed, the life city receives a carefully channelled flow of molten stone that they direct into the broad defensive canals in order to hold back the overwhelming fecundity of the realm of life.

Each time hammerhal ghyra expands its borders, these lava canals are redirected to claim new land, leaving hollow, ashen networks of tunnels in their wake which the city streets wind between. Hahmmerhal aqsha, by comparison, often uses technology to advance its boundaries. Huge iron-legged cogforts lumber ever outwards from the city edges, the lightning conductors atop their towers expanding the city's energy shield even as the guns of their garrisons watch over hammerhal's approaches. Behind them, hammerhal Aqsha spreads, the zealous devoted cleansing the land with their blood before work crews move in behind them to raise wondrous structures in sigmar's name.  

The Orb Infernia is a region of Aqshy. Once a world into itself that hung above the Flameworlds, it was conquered by the forces of Chaos. Over the centuries, its oceans have boiled away, leaving fragmented lands bound together by the hatred of the four daemon princes who rule them. The four princes are collectively known as the Tetrarchs. The Slann Starmaster Lord Xen'phantica also dwells on Orb Infernia, secretly ensuring that the daemon princes and their legions do not escape.

People in the region though Ignax the god beast was a bloody sun. THE SUN do you know how large that is?

Yet people find disbelief in a city being the size of a continent in a setting like this? So far all of this to me just looks like people want things to be like WHFB or it's just a matter of taste at the end of the day. Since to me all I have read about the setting it's not hard to believe that Hammerhal is about that size and let's not forget it's in the guidebook for the city. It's not a metaphor that's the size of the city in the very first page when they describe the city. 

I will type out the whole paragraph from my guidebook. 

The twin-tailed city is comprised of two sprawling metropolises linked together by the ancient stormrift Realmgate and governed as one. Known as Hammerhal Aqsha and Hammerhal Ghyra, together they are large enough to cover an entire continent. The former lies in the realm of fire, while the latter stands amongst the encroaching wilds of Ghyran, the Realm of Life. This unique symbiosis is Hammerhal's greatest strength and its greatest weakness. For while Hammerhal reaps the benefit of both the mineral treasures of Aqshy and the fecundity of Ghyran, so dependent are the sister cities upon each other that should one fall, the other surely follow. 

[shinros]

9 minutes ago, xking said:

If you look on the map of Hammerhal Aqsha it has entire forest in it.  http://whfb.lexicanum.com/wiki/Hammerhal

Yup and look how tiny the cinderfall district is. This is the map of Aqsha well half of it look how tiny the cinderfall district is.  Hammerhal(both) together are about the size of a continent. I just verified the whole map version of this image in my guidebook(it's the same) cinderfall is bloody tiny in context of the whole city. 

second half 

 

 

[AthlorianStoners]

Don’t think it matters too much in practice whether it’s “continent sized” or just really huge haha, either way it’s a big cool city filled with dwarfs, elves, lightning gods and a bunch of other crazy ******. In terms of the world and the story it’s exact size in KM or whatever metric of measurement exists in the mortal realms falls by the wayside in respect to the fact that the city exists in twin realms, is assulted constantly from within and without by evil and whole other more interesting aspects than its exact size. 

Suret we call all agree that it’s very very big, and that it’s a cool city. Describing it as continent sized could be hyperbole, could relate to a small continent or could mean its bigger than Pangea. All of those options are very viable and if someone wanted to run with any (or none of them) I’d imagine they were well within their right based on what’s been published. 

As it stands I wouldn’t consider hammerhalls size a “fluff problem” and don’t really think debating the semantics of whether it’s “really big” or “really really big” needs to go on haha. 

Lets just scrap all the low key hostility and have a fun chat  

[Ollie Grimwood]

13 hours ago, DynamicCalories said:

I imagine a lot of stuff with the Harbingers is left vague because they want to expand on it later.  Can't really go into much detail in three pages.

The demand for the minutiae of the realms mystifies me though. I imagine it's very much like every other fantasy setting. If you're born into a world where your city lives on the back of a worm or spreads across two realms... it's still probably much of a muchness. You life, you die (probably by getting eaten by a furious tree).

I thinks there’s an element of their stories still being written as The Dread Solstice and Malign Potrtents continues.   So their most important stories are still to be written. 

I’d suggest that any looseness is entirely deliberate in that that the goals is for us to write/play our own stories and an absolute ridgitiy in the narrative will restrict that. 

I’d agree that we should be able to fill in any blanks about humans we are all very familiar with them and it’s the circumstances they find themselves in that varies.  

 

 

[Gaz Taylor]

30 minutes ago, Ollie Grimwood said:

I’d suggest that any looseness is entirely deliberate in that that the goals is for us to write/play our own stories and an absolute ridgitiy in the narrative will restrict that. 

100% this.

I get why some players need to have all the detail about how everything looks and works but that pulls away from the story and we end up getting a manual. The goal is for those people who want to create their own narrative, have the freedom to do what they need to do and the people who just need it as a setting don't have pages and pages of words to read up on. If you want that extra detail, read the novels from Black Library. 

+++ Mod Hat On +++

Right, I'm please this topic has gotten sort of back on topic but I'm going to ask you all again to be nice to each other as the tone hasn't been that nice.

@Red & @Menkeroth - I know you aren't the sole cause of how the tone is in this thread but you have both ignored the warnings. I'm going to issue you some points as a warning. Please behave

Cheers

[Lousy Beatnik]

If both referring to a city as the size of a continent and showing a map that doesn't quite match that description were the worst mistake made in a fantasy/nerd setting ever, I'd be pretty happy

With some of the more over the top things about AoS (for instance, distance to travel from one place to another), I quite like that the people in the stories don't seem to mind or know any better

[Killax]

49 minutes ago, xking said:

 

Cubicle 7 is making a Age of Sigmar RPG, When that comes out we will have a lot of details  on how stuff works. farmers, governments, trade etc.

http://forums.cubicle7.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=8535

Which will be awesome! But indeed this RPG content is made to immerse. As it's not content to directly apply with the miniatures game itelf.

I do get that some might be underwhelmed by some of the narrative content found in a Battletome. But as with WFB and 40K the Army books, Codeci and Battletomes arn't really made to flesh out all the lore anyway. Again there is a difference between Games Workshop game related content and Black Library novel related content. For those who really want to immerse themselves more in the regular folk I still believe that you shouldn't look for it in Battletomes. Which some seem to do.

As I don't want to stirr up this conversation I can only leave those that want more insight to the following links:
  https://www.blacklibrary.com/warhammer-age-of-sigmar for content of the ongoing battles and life in the Age of Sigmar realms.
  https://ask.fm/JoshMReynolds ask Josh Reynolds, writer of Age of Sigmar narrative content, anything about narrative content.

The design (call it good or a flaw, that is very subjective) of Epic/Mythic Fantasy usually does not focus on the life of regular man. This is also the case  in Age of Sigmar and also the typical case in Mythology. It also doesn't focus on realistic historical designs. However fantasy would not be a genre if it did since the beginning. Some ideas and typical design information of those genres can be found here:
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mythology
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_fantasy

Some might wonder how Mythology and High Fantasy relate to Age of Sigmar and what we very much see is that it's about epic battles, with unbelievable fantasy powers and indeed the leaders of each army/force is a personification of a phenomena, in this case a Realm. As we know not everything has been fleshed out, but a lot has. E.g. Sigmar is the personification of Order, Archaon that of Chaos, Nagash that of Death, Malekith that of Shadow etc.

If things are getting to unrealistic for someone personally than they are right, the whole difference between Historical Fantasy (WFB) and Age of Sigmar is that there is no real historical real life or world tone. There will be some of it, but one will never outweigh the other because it's not part of that genre.

-

But to comment on my last thoughts on the subject, if some don't like Age of Sigmar lore, don't like how WFB got blown up and how some traces of WFB are in AoS and others noth, that's really okay. But if you want it to appear make it known to Games Workshop. Ask about it on their Facebook pages and ask Josh Reynolds about it. I think it will come, just like Malign Portents made a lot of grim dark fans happy as it's set in that vibe.

[Ollie Grimwood]

1 hour ago, xking said:

 

Cubicle 7 is making a Age of Sigmar RPG, When that comes out we will have a lot of details  on how stuff works. farmers, governments, trade etc.

http://forums.cubicle7.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=8535

I’m sure it’ll have a level of detail however it’ll still be a look at a specific section of the Realms. It won’t be a catch all for how things happen in the Mortal Realms or even a specific race. Rather it’ll be section or locality.   It will also be no more canon than what you or I could produce. Which is a good thing in my mind.  

Its very clear the Mortal Realms are GW translating what they have in 40K to a Swords and Sorcery setting with certain points defined by them with rest as sandbox to be played with.  I think the real answer to how the minute details work is “well how do you think they work” 

Maybe the real thing missing is more tools such as the Free City Generator which would aid people to define their sand box.  I certainly defined how mine got its food and what it’s major industry was. 

[Enoby]

I started playing Warhammer right when AoS was launched, and so I have not played in the WHFB setting at all. I have, however, read some of the fluff for Fantasy (in army books and Black Library books), and I've read considerably more fluff for AoS; I say this only to admit that I may not have the knowledge to make a fair comparison. 

When I started reading the Realmgate Wars books (names The Gates of Azyr, Warstorm, Ghal Maraz, and Hammers of Sigmar), I have to admit that I was a little let down by them; I played Death at the time and I really didn't give a toss about Stormcast or Khorne, and I certainly didn't care for all of the fighting in the books. Now, I know that it may be a little strange to complain about too much fighting in a book from a wargame, but my reasoning is that a lot of the books felt very dull because they seemed to solely consist of waiting for a battle to begin, fighting, explaining how all odds were against the Stormcast and how thousands died by the second, and then how the Stormcast brought it back at the last second. After reading all of these books, I must admit that I was not a fan of the Stormcast at all - they seemed too strong, and that I would never be gripping the edge of my seat waiting to see who would pull through this battle because the answer was almost invariably the same. I feel the focus on war and on two factions hurt the AoS setting for me at first as I just couldn't bring myself to care - after all, if I could reliably guess how the battle was going to go when seeing who was fighting, and the books were almost all about fighting, there was very little point reading them in the first place. In addition, I was very confused about what was where in the Realms, and if anything really mattered if they were infinite (after all, why should I care if 1 trillion humans/dwarves/Sylvaneth/Stormcast/whatever die if there are unlimited amounts more? ). I feel the lack of direction from the beginning and the focus on one faction hurt the beginnings of AoS's world.

Conversely, I decided I would attempt to read 'Neferata' by Josh Reynolds, which was a WHFB book. I really enjoyed it and while there were occasionally fights for the sake of fights, a lot of it was character development and intrigue. I liked how I knew it would matter if all the dwarves in the Silver Mountain died because there weren't infinite dwarves or infinite Silver Mountains, and following around a unique named character was pretty cool as it felt like what she did was important - and even though she was the first of the vampires, she never felt unbeatable and so I couldn't be certain how each fight would go (though I could assume she wouldn't die as it was a historical book where it showed she was alive in the future right at the beginning). 

Like I said before, I played Death, and so while I did skip the Realmgate Wars books 5 to 9, I read Mortarch of the Night and Lord of Undeath with hope that there would have been some improvement in the series since I left it. In a way, there was. I'll be honest and say that I didn't enjoy Mortarch of the Night much and this was for similar reasons to before (too many battles, Stormcast seeming invincible), as well as a personal distaste for Manfred. I did enjoy Lord of Undeath more, though, and not just because it starred by favourite character in it but also because there were certain parts that weren't all about bashing in skulls with hammers and instead focused a bit on how the mortals lived in Nulahmia,  which I found to be interesting. Even then, the focus on Stormcast was distracting (I distinctly remember a part where Neferata tried to charm one of them and the result to be something like 'she would have charmed any man, but the Stormcast were no normal men' which while understandable, didn't exactly make me like Stormcast any more as it felt like a way to say 'Stormcast are too strong to be fooled by someone who has been an expert conwoman for longer than they've been around' after we've learned that they're also too strong to be beaten in a fight). I gave up AoS books for a second time.

I did try to read more Fantasy stuff, but none of it really caught my eye as I knew it didn't matter to advancing any plot, considering that the vast majority of characters in the stories would be dead. I did however learn that WHFB was not really a game that advanced at all in its plot except when it ended, and while I did not play the game, I do think that it would have been a shame to have a lot of books that would inevitably amount to nothing in an attempt to ward of any change. I feel that I would have liked reading the history but I would not have liked being a part of a world that was too scared to sacrifice a few sacred cows now and again in order to have something happen; that said, I feel the End Times would have been a good place for me. 

Fast-forward to now  with Malign Portents, a few more books (which I haven't read but have heard good things about), and a whole heap of new Battletomes. My interest in the Lore of AoS has peaked again now they're focusing on other factions that I find more interesting and the Malign Portents shorts are about normal events. In addition, while I still stand by my dislike how how Stormcast were portrayed in the earlier books, I really like how the Excellis (sp?) Chamber plays a more sinister role; fear and terror seem like appropriate responses to give something that is hurled down from the sky in a bolt of lightning and has a single purpose in destroying Chaos, which may mean destroying innocents in the process. I'm glad that each faction is developing its own identity and that characters who matter are being developed (as opposed to 'Liberator #3048, the Destroyer of 526 Bloodrevers') and that the Realms are being explained more than just "they've got their own theme and they're infinite". As for the future, I hope they keep going with introducing new characters and story hooks which can be acted upon by the players and will actually change something. 

TL;DR 

I think the AoS fluff had a lot of issues at its beginning, mainly because of vagueness and being too focussed on Stormcast (and Khorne to a lesser extent), and the WHFB world had a more solid setting with more interesting characters due to the amount of lore that was already built up. However, Fantasy suffered from being too scared to change and so the books would end up being stagnant, and AoS seems to be reigning the focus of its story back in, and spreading the love around numerous factions. All in all, AoS has a lot of unrealised potential that will take time to come to fruition. 

[Menkeroth]

2 hours ago, Enoby said:

I think the AoS fluff had a lot of issues at its beginning, mainly because of vagueness and being too focussed on Stormcast (and Khorne to a lesser extent), and the WHFB world had a more solid setting with more interesting characters due to the amount of lore that was already built up.

I like how people don't see the difference between 20+ years and 3. How convenient. But it doesn't work in this way.

2 hours ago, Enoby said:

All in all, AoS has a lot of unrealised potential that will take time to come to fruition. 

Any setting has if its creators are, actually, creative. What people don't seem not to understand as well is that if any idea stops moving, it dies. No setting can be truly complete, if it's complete, it's history and let's move on.

[Enoby]

5 minutes ago, Menkeroth said:

I like how people don't see the difference between 20+ years and 3. How convenient. But it doesn't work in this way.

Meaning behind words can be a little difficult to establish on the internet, so I apologise in advance if I have misinterpreted what you are saying, but the part of my post which you quoted doesn't try to say that the difference in time should not be considered when comparing the lore (indeed, it should certainly be considered). I did say, "due to the amount of lore that was already built up on" in order to convey that WHFB had a sizeable head-start on AoS, but that doesn't mean that AoS's fluff didn't have rocky beginnings - even if we ignore that WHFB existed, it's difficult to argue that the first few Black Library books of AoS weren't focused on fights, Stormcast, and Khorne. It's absolutely fine for someone to like that, but (while I cannot survey all AoS fans) it seems like a good number of people didn't like the focus on Stormcast and fighting, and I feel that hurt the introduction of AoS's lore (this based off general comments on the internet - yes, not the best way to base an opinion, but evidence of opinions on either side are very difficult to find).    

[Menkeroth]

1 hour ago, Enoby said:

I did say, "due to the amount of lore that was already built up on" in order to convey that WHFB had a sizeable head-start on AoS

Which is precisely what I don't agree with, because they can't be compared at all - WHFB had the entirely different start and was developed step by step, just like anything. AoS is also going slowly but steadily forward and in comparison to WHFB had an advantage in the form of being based on WHFB and just being a continuation of its history. 

1 hour ago, Enoby said:

but that doesn't mean that AoS's fluff didn't have rocky beginnings - even if we ignore that WHFB existed, it's difficult to argue that the first few Black Library books of AoS weren't focused on fights, Stormcast, and Khorne.

Following the history of WHFB it's clear why it was so - because Chaos blew up the world and such, and everything is explained in the first RW book "The Mighty battles in an age of an unending war". And even then it was all divided between three realms and three different enemies  - Khorne, Tzeentch and Nurgle, for the most part. The fact you don't know all that changes nothing in this regard.

1 hour ago, Enoby said:

I feel that hurt the introduction of AoS's lore

It did, but it was all explained - as Chaos reigned supreme, only the new Sigmar's army could change the situation, and when they did, other forces started to joining the fray - and even then, from the start, we got also beastmen, skaven and sylvaneth. So it was not that bad.

[Gaz Taylor]

Just to remind you all that Phil Kelly is on Warhammer Live this Wednesday (28th Feb) to talk about Daughters of Khaine. This is a great opportunity for any of you with those sorts of questions about the background. You need to be a subscriber to ask questions but it's worth it if you have a need to ask. Don't forget to put QUESTION before your question - eg. QUESTION - How big is Hammerfall?

 

[Enoby]

3 minutes ago, Menkeroth said:

Following the history of WHFB it's clear why it was so - because Chaos blew up the world and such, and everything is explained in the first RW book "The Mighty battles in an age of an unending war". And even then it was all divided between three realms and three different enemies  - Khorne, Tzeentch and Nurgle, for the most part. The fact you don't know all that changes nothing in this regard.

I understand why it is the case, but that doesn't change the fact that they could have written it in a more appealing way. The fact that they focused on Stormcast made sense only because the fluff made it make sense; to elaborate, GW have infinite narrative power, and so could have had anyone fighting Chaos in place of the Stormcast, but they chose Stormcast as the main driving force of the narrative (there's no problem with this in and of itself but it certainly made the other factions seem like 'secondary characters'). Instead, they could have introduced Stormcast but had the Realmgate Wars focus on the impact of Chaos on all of the other factions and have the Stormcast appear in these tales as legends; for example, there is a large difference in the narrative between a normal human man trying to survive in a city that is being destroyed by Chaos day by day and then being aided by mysterious lightning men from the sky, compared to Stormcast travelling around the Realms and cracking some skulls in lengthy battles in order to save a city - both tell the same overarching story (Stormcast saving a city from Chaos) but have a different driving narrative (the former allowing a focus on different factions other than Stormcast). 

I hope you understand that I am not arguing that the story shouldn't have played out the way it did, but rather I am saying that there was a different way to tell the same story that would have made the first few books more palatable and would have answered the questions of "but what about the normal people?" much more quickly than what happened in reality. 

[Ollie Grimwood]

They did have normal people in the early stories. Folks may not have liked how they were portrayed but they were there. 

I’m not so sure they could have done it much differently and achieved their aim of establishing the Stormcast. It’s worth remembering that they were the ones with no story where as all the other stuff has 30 years of backstory.  The characters have developed and situations but there’s plenty to get a feel for them until they get AoS’d fully.  The Stormcast had zip. 

[Menkeroth]

2 hours ago, Enoby said:

I understand why it is the case, but that doesn't change the fact that they could have written it in a more appealing way.

This I don't argue, for of course, it could have been different and there are always different ways of choosing. Certainly. 

2 hours ago, Enoby said:

The fact that they focused on Stormcast made sense only because the fluff made it make sense; to elaborate, GW have infinite narrative power, and so could have had anyone fighting Chaos in place of the Stormcast, but they chose Stormcast as the main driving force of the narrative (there's no problem with this in and of itself but it certainly made the other factions seem like 'secondary characters')

Yes, but this is a side effect of having poster faction in the setting. Just like in 40k, for instance. But I personally came to like SC to some extent, especially those painted silver, turquoise or black (like Hallowed Knights, Celestial Vindicators and Anvils of the Heldenhammer). And they certainly fulfill their role, and are not bad either. 

All in all the problem is that the narrative is more focused on Order and Chaos, and as a side effect of this - SC and Khorne as the mainstay of those alliances. But then you always have to choose.

[erasercrumbs]

I still haven't got over the seeming futility of the Sigmarite religion.  The entire Devoted of Sigmar line feels wrong if every living thing that isn't of Chaos just winds up a servant of Nagash.  I mean, Chaos Gods care about about the eternal aspects of their followers than Sigmar does.  Philosophically and pragmatically, there is literally no reason for anyone to worship Sigmar over Nagash.

They could rectify this in at least two ways: 

1) explain that under some kind treaty between Sigmar and Nagash, the former's devoted are allowed to exist autonomously in Shyish so long as they pay Nagash some form of tribute and come to the aid of Shyish should it be invaded by Chaos.  

2) go utterly grimdark and make it so that the Sigmarite religion misleads its followers into thinking they'll be taken care of in the next life. Sigmar can try to justify this by saying it's for a good cause, since the uneasy truce with Nagash has helped to keep Chaos from destroying reality again. 

Either way, I'm good.  But it's been an elephant in the room ever since I first read about AOS, and I've never really heard a satisfying explanation.

[AthlorianStoners]

@erasercrumbs I can see most of the devoted becoming Knights Excelsior or similarly extremist Stormcast. 

[HorticulusTGA]

10 hours ago, erasercrumbs said:

I still haven't got over the seeming futility of the Sigmarite religion.  The entire Devoted of Sigmar line feels wrong if every living thing that isn't of Chaos just winds up a servant of Nagash.  I mean, Chaos Gods care about about the eternal aspects of their followers than Sigmar does.  Philosophically and pragmatically, there is literally no reason for anyone to worship Sigmar over Nagash.

They could rectify this in at least two ways: 

1) explain that under some kind treaty between Sigmar and Nagash, the former's devoted are allowed to exist autonomously in Shyish so long as they pay Nagash some form of tribute and come to the aid of Shyish should it be invaded by Chaos.  

2) go utterly grimdark and make it so that the Sigmarite religion misleads its followers into thinking they'll be taken care of in the next life. Sigmar can try to justify this by saying it's for a good cause, since the uneasy truce with Nagash has helped to keep Chaos from destroying reality again. 

Either way, I'm good.  But it's been an elephant in the room ever since I first read about AOS, and I've never really heard a satisfying explanation.

Well IMO it's pretty simple in fact : 

It's like in the Old world. In the Empire,  Sigmarite faith was the main religion, Sigmar was said to be taking the souls of the "chosen ones", the best of his worshippers, and the "rest" was going to Morr, who took the vast majority of the Empire citizen's souls. 

In AOS  it was the same, Sigmar's greatest worshippers  either "went to him" as in their souls were integrated in his essence (very rare), while the vas majority go to Shyish - that was during the Age of Myth.

Now, in the Age of Chaos / Sigmar, the best of Sigmar's flock are reforged, and the rest still go to Shyish. 

[erasercrumbs]

39 minutes ago, HorticulusTGA said:

Well IMO it's pretty simple in fact : 

It's like in the Old world. In the Empire,  Sigmarite faith was the main religion, Sigmar was said to be taking the souls of the "chosen ones", the best of his worshippers, and the "rest" was going to Morr, who took the vast majority of the Empire citizen's souls. 

In AOS  it was the same, Sigmar's greatest worshippers  either "went to him" as in their souls were integrated in his essence (very rare), while the vas majority go to Shyish - that was during the Age of Myth.

Now, in the Age of Chaos / Sigmar, the best of Sigmar's flock are reforged, and the rest still go to Shyish. 

Yes, yes, but knowing that their eternal aspect is meaningless to Sigmar, why would anyone follow him? In the Old World you had a complex theology with Morr tending to and guiding the dead to a place of rest, but in AOS, there is no reason to follow Sigmar when Nagash actually interacts with the only eternal aspect of you. It's surprising that no one else has been bothered by this inconsistency.