[Cogforts, mobile bastions, who has been drawing on dreaming of them?]

2 hours ago, Jamie the Jasper said:

While the creativity on display in this thread is wonderful, for me a lot of these designs are all fort and no cog. Plonking a literal fortress down on top of some kind of propulsion system just doesn't do it for me. 40K Titans could also be described as moving fortresses, but they're not literally buildings with legs - there's a lot more going on in the concept and design than that.

Given that these structures are presumably so closely associated with clockwork mechanisms that the word 'cog' makes up half the name, perhaps a design that takes its inspiration directly from some of the more bizarre, complex and wonderful clockwork creations would be more evocative. There is some truly mesmerising clockwork automata out there, both historical and modern. Very few of the concepts I've seen so far truly give me a sense of some grand mechanism, rather than just architecture that's on legs but is otherwise as static as any other building.

For me, if something is called a cog fort then I would want it to be a fort that's literally, visibly made from clockwork in large part, not just nominally propelled along by it.

Just some constructive critique.

I absolutely agree. However, the tricky thing with this is that it also has to be a fort. Logically any clockwork which is essential for its function would be safely tucked away behind the armoured panels so that it can't be broken during a battle.

The trick is keeping the mechanism exposed enough to suggest the cogs, while armouring it enough to make a solid fort.

I'm envisioning something along the lines of a ring of watch towers, connected by armoured bridges, with a massive clockwork engine at its heart. The towers, and their batteries can be rotated using massive interlocking cogs, while the engine drives a mass of armoured legs. In the centre is a vast smokestack, belching steam into the air. Skyships and Gyrocoptors come and go from skydocks build on the pinacles of the steel towers, while vast hangers can be lowered to the ground beneath the legs to deploy squadrons of steam tanks.

[Your Collection/armies]

43 minutes ago, Overread said:

@EccentricCircle an army that vast calls for a photo showing off the over 2000 models in one go (go forth and dominate the floor and tables!)

Lets see what i've got in the way of gr oup shots... 
Some of these aren't the best, since i'm trying to photograph too much at once really. The Lizardmen were my first army, and i've collected them on and off for years. The Tomb Kings are what I was collecting as the End Times struck, and I just managed to complete my collection before they vanished into the mists of time. The Chaos Dwarves are probably the one I'm most proud of, as it took several years to track down the older models, and I got very lucky on a few of them.
The Dwarves and Vampire Counts/LoN shots are the most recent ones I have to hand, but those collections have been expanded on a bit since. Alas I don't have time today to set everything up for a more complete photoshoot!

[Your Collection/armies]

I have quite a large collection of models, spread over several "armies". However I tend to try to collect a variety of models, rather than build specific army lists. I generally get models when I need them for RPG purposes, and then try to expand those forces into full Warhammer armies if I enjoy painting and modelling them. I thus tend to have lots of varient models, and heroes, but don't have the rank and file in the same numbers that most people seem to.

 I have three "grand armies" where I have all of the available units, and can *mostly* field them in sufficient numbers. These are my almost 500 Lizardmen, my 300 Tomb Kings, and 270 Chaos Dwarves.

Dwarves are practically a grand army at this point, as I have almost as many of them as I do Chaos Dwarves, however it isn't a complete collection, simply because of the vast number of dwarf models that have been released over the years. I'm currently working on some Kharadrons, which will add to my good dwarf roster.

I have a 160 model wood elf army, which is currently a work in progress. They are taking a bit of a while to paint up. When combined with just under a hundred High Elves they form a reasonably large army. I then have around a hundred models for Sylvaneth, Legions of Nagash and Collegiate Arcane (I did a collection project trying to get all of the varient wizards for the different colleges of magic. I've completed the collection, but the painting is still a work in progress.)

Throw in a few other factions, and the full breakdown looks like this:

[Souls Wars by Josh Reynolds]

They appear briefly to set the scene, and show the scale of the necroquake. The focus of the story is on stormcast fighting nighthaunt, with a few freeguilds. Other factions really show up for less than a chapter, and are just there to add flavour.

[Souls Wars by Josh Reynolds]

Are there many stormcast who are confirmed to be reincarnations of Old World characters? I'd assumed they were all heroes from the age of myth before reading this book.

In other words, who is still kicking around, albeit with a different name?

[The Rumour Thread]

I'd hoped that they would have brought back the Ushabti and Liche priests for a full tomb king made to order run. Settra and Khalida are awesome models, and i'm glad they are included, but some of the other stuff would have been far more useful.

[Cogforts, mobile bastions, who has been drawing on dreaming of them?]

22 hours ago, StoneMonk said:

I think the conversation of 'what is too far' is exactly where the fun of this particular army build sits. A lot of the 40k stuff is sci-fantasy. It's not high-tech. Where it gets high-tech or even modern - weapons, vehicles (tanks) - it starts breaking the believability of this build. Kharadron Overlords has done a lot to push this boundary. But I'm less worried about it looking 40k as opposed to other sci fi or modern. Also, this line will be subjective to the builder, but perhaps we can discuss bits that go too far or not far enough as we see them.
 

That brings me to my show and tell for today. My first sketch of a cogfort idea.  per the conversation above, there'd be a mix of newer materials like sheet metal and rivets where mechanical functionality is required, but stone, timber and stucco where it's not. Magical elements, black powder elements, scientific elements...all blending together.

An interesting idea about forts, back in the "old west" of the US. You might have fortifications and guns etc, but did you have enough ammo, or black powder, or food, or aether materials, or runes etc. So this drawing might have 4 arcane spires, but not enough wizards to work them all. There may be repairs in progress on two of the side cannon lifts...so we can use those for this battle. 

 

I love this sketch. Very Phillip Reeve-esque!

[Warhammer Legends]

Its encouraging that the new resource is a complete Dark Elves Compendium, and not just stats for the specific models they are re-releasing. If they hope to do a similar compendium for each of the old factions then the question becomes which models they are most likely to release along side it.

Is there any sort of definitive list of which models were actually discontinued during the End Times? I know what vanished from the factions I play (I just managed to complete my Tomb Kings army in time!) However, i'm not familiar enough with many of the other armies to know (without painstakingly cross referencing their old army books with the current catalogue at least!)