EccentricCircle

It may well be a mistake, but chaos elves would still be pretty cool...

What happens if your general dies, and the best pick to take command is an allied unit? I once had a situation where a Darkling Sorceress had to take command of a Daughters of Khaine army, since she was the only hero left. At the time we had no idea whether it was allowed, but I was losing so badly that we didn't worry too much...

Its a little hard to see what's going on in that beastgrave card, but it definitely looks like a female fighter in the traditional attire of the Daughters of Khaine. It would be very cool to get some new models for them. The Kharadron warband could be an interesting example of what can be done. I've just been painting it up, and its kind of cool that it basically has a representative of every troop type in the army. Two little guys, two heavy guys, and a hero effectively. I could see a similar Daughters warband with Two Witches, or a Witch and a sister, a Snake girl, a Khinerai, and then either a Hag Queen or a Medusa to lead them. It would cover almost all the bases, and still fit into the model could in a similar way to the Kharadron band. Equally they could go more along the Sylvaneth line, with one very unique variant hero, and a handful of supporters who are new takes on one of the existing units. I've not painted enough of the other warbands to know which sort are more common, but I feel like the former would be a better choice, unless the power level of Khinerai and Melusai is too high for them to both be in there.

There is an argument to be made that a mostly real world with a few magical elements feels more weird and wonderful than one which is all magic, all the time. If the world is mostly like the one around us, then a mountain made from the skull of a gigantic godbeast is wonderous and spectacular. If all mountains in the country are made of giant skulls, then surely the people who live there will be used to it by now. If you come across a river which flows in a circle, then it should ask the question of how it got there, what makes it that way, and finding out those answers makes you learn more about the setting, and dig a little deeper into the lore. If the answer is just "it doesn't matter, its a fantasy world, so MAGIC!" then you don't get to find a more interesting answer to those questions. If all rivers flow in circles, then you don't even need to ask the questions. Note that I'm absolutely not saying that AoS always goes too far. The fact that each realm is a crystalised manifestation of one colour of the preexisting magic system is a great blanket explanation, which gives gamers to the tools to come up with cool weirdness of their own, and link it into the fabric of the world. I really like the cosmology they've developed, and think that it has a lot of potential to explore.

Ooh, do you have any more information on the distinction? I'd been under the impression that it was mainly how they were perceived by their worshipers, and how they behaved with regards cooperating with other powers which divided things like the Elven/Eldar gods from the Ruinous powers?

They'll come out at some point between next week, and the heat death of the universe. More we cannot say.

That's a really good point. When I first read about Age of Sigmar my assumption was that the "Age of Myth" was the old warhammer world, the Age of Chaos began with the end time as the refugees were harried across the multiverse, and now the Age of Sigmar is the turning of the tide. I was kind of dissapointed to learn that that fairly elegant set up wasn't the case, and that they'd barely described what amounts to an entire cycle of the world rising and falling to chaos again. The snippets I've read about the age of Myth sound cool and all, but I don't have any sense of connection to it. I can see why they want to establish new characters, not tied to their past lore. But it does always seem odd when they say dramatically "after ten thousand years... XXXXX has returned?" and everyone is just like "Who?"

Its a very interesting question, and one which isn't straightforward to answer. Overall I'd say I'm a fan of "gritty low fantasy". That's defining "low fantasy" as being a fantasy epic set in a reasonably grounded world, which contrasts its fantastical elements with an otherwise "realistic setting". A world where put upon heroes prevail against the odds while stomping around in the muck. There is another definition of low fantasy, which is more along the lines of magical realism, where fantastical elements are introduced sparingly into what is otherwise the "real world". Clearly that doesn't apply to a secondary world fantasy story like Warhammer. To give some examples; I love reading books by the likes of Scott Lynch and Joe Abercrombie. When it comes to my own world building and RPG design I tend to veer more in that direction. I create a largely grounded world, with lots of inspiration from real world history. I like heists, political scheming, and scenarios where a few neer-do-wells succeed over ridiculous odds. Historically that is the fantasy niche that Warhammer has always done really well in. It distinguished itself from other fantasy games by being the "grim world of perilous adventure". Compared to Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance that made it very bold and different. To continue the literary analogy; In an age of Tolkien rip offs it dared to be a Michael Moorcock story. That said, I don't think the warhammer world is really that "low fantasy". Depending on your perspective the magical elements are actually very prominent. If you're slogging around the empire then magic is something to be feared and avoided. Witches abound, and chaos cults lurk in the shadows, but you've probably not actually seen them and there's obviously no such thing as Skaven. If you're a Dragon Prince of Caledor then clearly you are far more aware of the high fantasy side of the world. This is a planet beset by magical forces, mutation abounds, dragons fill the skies over Ulthuan, and the lizardmen work weird magics in their hidden citadels. If you are reading about the great rituals of Nagash, or the lore of the elves. then you are very much in a High Fantasy story. On the battlefield that stuff is naturally going to come to the forefront, because who doesn't want to paint and field dragons? I mean... they're Dragons! So Warhammer wasn't inherently less fantastical than any other game, it just balanced those fantastical elements really well, so that there was room for the low fantasy stuff, without it being drowned out by the high fantasy stuff. That can be hard to pull off. Contrast the Forgotten Realms. Elements of that setting have a lot going for them, but by trying to encompass everything in D&D it becomes generic as heck. The perception is that you can't walk into a tavern in Balder's Gate without bumping into overpowered NPCs, and that there are so many magical threats besetting the world that there's no space for normal people. They've had to work very hard to try to break some of those cliches. Conversely Warhammer did this so well that they were able to market their product as the definitive low fantasy game. I think they've lost that somewhat in the transition to AoS, and ironically in their effort to establish their own unique product identify on a micro scale, they've lost a lot of what made their world unique on a macro scale. We live in a world today which is crowded with fantasy settings. All of them are trying to be the definitive setting for their little niche of the genre, but they've all got to try to appeal to the fans of the others too. The low fantasy elements are actually as present in Age of Sigmar as they were in the Old World. They are found in an increasing number of novels, and seen in some of the army books more than others. However they are drowned out by the high fantasy elements, even though there are only slightly more of those than there were in the old world. Before the focus was on the Empire, and there was a lot of material about it. It remained at the core of the marketing, even though a typical tabletop battle wasn't really representative of that background. Now the background is much more in sync with the tabletop experience, and they've taken that opportunity to dial things up to eleven and add more of the cool high fantasy stuff. However in so doing they've lost that balance between the two aspects of the setting, and so its easy to people to miss that the Low fantasy is there, and decry things which are essential parts of the setting as not fitting their conception of what the "AoS aesthetic" is. I think some of this is down to the way AoS is set up to have a much less clear sense of place. In the old world everyone more or less knew where the Empire was, and what Kislev was like. You knew that if you walk north you reach the Chaos Wastes, and Dark Elves come raiding from across the sea. Everyone had the broad strokes, and then dove into the lore of their chosen faction. In Age of Sigmar everything is still a bit too undefined. We know the broad layout of the universe, but not really of any given world. From the stuff I've seen and read, I can only think of one place I've actually "visited" more than once (which happens to be Excelsis). They keep referring to places, and I can sometimes find them on the maps, but you don't get the same sense of every part of the lore reinforcing other parts. Its all spread out, and lots of stuff is kind of in isolation. I'm confident that this will improve with time, and then maybe we'll get a better balance between the high fantasy and the low. I don't think that will necessarily make everyone with conflicting tastes happy, though. What would be the fun in that?

It certainly used to be the case that all gods were to some extent warp entities, and thus could be called Chaos Gods regardless of their actual alignment. As ascended incarnates of one or other wind of magic the new gods must have a bit of the Realm of Chaos in them, but my understanding was that they had largely retconned the chaos connection. It will be very cool if this is true. Having shadowy chaos elves would be amazing, and help address the concern s of the "too many elves" crowd too. I'll believe it when i see it though ... edit: What if Malerion is part ascended Makekith, part resurgent Malal?!

I tend to use my (many) metal cairn wraithe as grimghast reapers, and just keep the current one as a hero.

Scanning some of the old catalogues on the "stuff of legend" site could be informative, any thing from 1990 onwards seems to be the start of the classic warhammer setting. You get wardancers for wood elves, the goblins have a focus on crazy war machines. Bugman's drunken dwarfs could also be a possibility. Classic chaos warriors are iconic, so they could definitely mine that further. They could revisit some of the wackier dogs of war and mordheim units. More god specific beast men would be logical.

As far as fleshing out destruction I think there are actually a few possibilities. As a fan of Chaos Dwarf lore, I'd love the goblin wolf riders to be the vanguard of a full Hobgoblin Khans faction. There is plenty of potential to mix some of those older models with some of the cool stuff that was lost when the Gitmob were removed. However I think that one possibility which hasn't been mentioned much is a full Giant army. I could see them making something like the Imperial Knights in 40K where an army is a very small number of huge models. You could expand on the trolls and include them as well, or they could form their own faction, separate to Gloomspite one day.

Or one of the new warbands is literally just Gotrek. That would also work.

"A warband unlike any you've seen before: Ultramarines! We know you all love space marines so much, that we figured it was about time you got to play them in warhammer underworlds as well!" At the end of the day, I'd be surprised if its actually anything that different or revolutionary. They just like to big things up.

Maybe the head from the Dark Elf Sorceress? Most other female elves don't quite have the right look.

Yeah, the last thing Games Workshop want is for any of the various and sundry wars to end. If someone wins, then its over, whereas they want a state of eternal strife, where everyone has a good reason to fight anyone else (up to and including themselves!) Its one of the reasons 40K works so well as a wargaming setting. You don't have a finite conflict which you will one day win, rather its about holding the line against lots of different and multifaceted threats. The balance of power in the old world worked very well in that respect too. There were opportunities for alliances, but basically everyone hated each other, and had every reason to go on the warpath. In some ways AoS still has a bit of catching up to do in this regard, since there are some factions where it simply doesn't make sense in the lore for them to fight each other, and not all of the factions have good excuses to fight themselves.

Yeah, so far we've seen the AoS release cycle mirror that of 40K a year earlier. They released a big new edition, then had a year of rapid fire codex releases. We're seeing that same thing unfold for AoS now, so whatever happens next for 40k is a pretty clear indicator of what the future holds for AoS. The big question remains what the period between editions is likely to be, and thus how long stuff will last before they try to update it all again...

So the verdict is that the new Zig-Zag Foam cases from GW aren't worth it then? They don't substantially help for the newer type models?

There is an argument to be made that Legions of Nagash wasn't a soup tome either though. It was Vampire Counts updated for Age of Sigmar, with the Caveat that Nagash had usurped the throne from the actual vampires. Like Beasts of Chaos it just put most of the disparate parts of a shattered WFB army back together (barring ghouls). When a new Chaos Undivided book comes it will just be Chaos Warriors (minus the god specific stuff), rather than a soup, per se. The real exception is Cities of Sigmar, which is basically taking five different WFB armies, and combining them all into the same book. What I'd kind of like to see is a system where each grand alliance has maybe six or so factions, and then a larger unifying battletome, like Legions of Nagash, which lets you put it all together without resorting to just running the grand alliance allegiance. Depending on how things work out, that could be some sort of Slaves to Darkness tome for Chaos, Waaagh! for destruction, Cities of Sigmar for Order, and of course Legions of Nagash for Death. Time will tell whether they go in that direction.

Some leaks could also come from those printing the books. Manufacturing has to happen many months before release for obvious reasons.

Of course a lot may depend on what the Christmas battle forces are this year. I know there are a few factions which could be very tempting if the right models end up in a discount box. They generally make the contents complementary to SC sets and vs boxes, but beyond that its hard to know what they'll pick. My guess would be gloomspite, maybe a big box of trolls to complement the sqig heavy looncurse, and a more balanced SC set next year. Nighthaunt could also be a good option, but it would need to complement the starter set so avoid the easy to build kits. They usually have some made of older models too though (50% last year) so those will be a complete surprise. It will be too soon for bone reapers, but Slaanesh could be a possibility, although the options there may be a bit limited, since they wouldn't include the keeper, and the smaller stuff is in Realm of Chaos. In short, who knows, but if the right deal comes up it could change all my plans for next year!

For painting fatigue it can be good to start a display. Clear a shelf and arrange the painted figures in a nice setup, maybe with some terrain. Leave space for the stuff you are still working on. Then every time you paint a model you can add it to the parade! I find this really motivates me to crack on and finish some more models, and it makes it easy to compare things to make sure the style of the new models fits. Its almost like having the finished figures cheering you on as you paint their friends!

You never know, tonight's preview might be a brand new faction: "Destruction Battletome: Tardigrades" It would be cool if they preview the Cities and Orcs stuff, but aren't we more likely to get the new Underworlds series before that starts?

It sounds great.

That is really cool! Looks heavy to carry around though!