MitGas

Khorne, Nurgle, Slaanesh and our very own boss obviously! Since you‘re in a dire spot, perhaps the Great Horned Rat will come as well. I could also invite my Brimstone co-workers but they‘re buzzkills, I got that covered already! 😎👍 PS: I‘ll write Settra too, just for you. It‘s Christmas after all!

We don‘t even joke about that. Time for an intervention, I‘ll call the others! 😱

Looks like something with a long neck… don‘t wanna scream dragon as it could just be something for 40k but who knows…

Do you have any idea what you‘ve done? And here we go… 🙈

Oh, you can bet your little green butt that those will come - perhaps later than sooner but at least the other releases for our green friends so far didn‘t disappoint in the slightest! 👌

Still one of my favorite AoS minis. ❤️‍🔥

It still sucks though… you might not be in a hurry but I bet many are, it‘s a great little gift and this was obviously timed to be out before christmas. Sure, it‘s no real tragedy but it was entirely doable. Failure needs to be punished! 🥰

Yeah, it‘s damn shame they started to have many online exclusives… high prices and long waits is a lame combo! Strangely I got a lot of what the heck reactions here last time I lamented this. I‘m sorry for all those that wanted their christmas gobbo, that‘s a total fail on GW‘s part and I‘m tired of not calling it what it is. Also I hate that I still have no Nurgle harbinger. I‘d never keep him obviously but I wanted to paint him up and give him to a good mate (he doesn‘t invest much time in painting and wanted me to paint something for him for ages…). Ebay is the solution I guess - but it feels strange that a new, amazing mini doesn‘t get produced in satisfying quantities and a timely manner.

I did never argue against your point, you just interpreted it like I did. Historically how many women were wearing knightly armor? The exceptions are absolute outliers, so Brets would have like one single woman in knightly armor maybe to reflect that number. Having female knights in the bret range is entirely "unrealistic" if we go by historic standards (which we don't), so I'm not sure it makes sense to include it as an argument. I do agree though that they will look better than female Chaos Warriors cause the historic armor is not a male power fantasy but a functional design and thus a female head will look more congruent, which the chaos warrior's armor however is/isn't and objectively so. And that's where I say that it creates a visual conflict. An objective one, hence I'm stepping in here and arguing my POV. I know, I don't have to use female heads. But it's not like I hate female minis in general, sisters from 40k are awesome e.g., the female SCE look great (and they are just as powerful if not more than CWs) and both are heavily armored female warriors. But the basic CW with female heads are meh and that's down to the armor's design. And why I'd argue that they should make some changes for female CW minis to fit more harmoniously or not bother. Anyways, I'll stop now too but I feel we're kinda arguing parallel to each other in this regard.

I think it's obvious that's a woman. What I'm getting at is that a realistic armor is more "unisex" due to the way it looks than some of the fantasy armors we have in AoS/Warhammer that are clearly male (like gigantic shoulder pauldrons) in nature. Kinda like Space Marines. Hence why I say that putting just a female head on them doesn't sell the idea all that well, they need to do more to make great female sculpts for those units. it's almost like putting a female head on nude male barbarian and think it's good enough. Y'know, female warriors don't have to wear skimpy armor or anything but if the proportions are not in any way feminine or at least gender-neutral, it's visually off. We don't have movement or even realistic human proportions, nor size/resolution to work with here, it just looks like you stuck some other minis head on it and be done with it. Btw, thanks for the interesting discussion so far! 👌

Chaos Warriors armor is hyper-masculine without being modeled on the male physique (think armor with a chest and abs) to say the least. Put a female head on a classic liberator's body and it would look off too.

That's not really the point tho. Nobody said they needed to have boob armor or child-bearing hips, it's about proportions, not armor details. Also, Joan of Arc is usually seen in a much bigger size (artwork or TV/movie representations) than minis so you can see it by her face and height or even movement that she's female, minis do have their own proportions so they need more distinct visual cues than RL examples to work that well by the fact that they're small, static pieces of plastic. hence why female bret knights will likely work better (disregarding the historical novelty of women wearing armor like that) than say Chaos Warriors! See this Joan of Arc mini for example, it's bigger than AoS minis but due to the realistic proportions it reads as female right away: And this does not really:

Do they really? I mean, yes, their armor has a very similar look but the dimensions are completely different. Certainly beats putting a female head on a dude's body and be done with it IMO. Stormcast have a clear distinction between m and f models too. Hence why I think Chaos warriors would look better that way too, although I don't really see Chaos Warriors as something feminine in general anyways but that's not really part of the discussion. But right now it feels like putting a female head on a fyreslayer and go "there - here's your female version. Be happy".

I'll out myself, I think it doesn't work for all models/units. Bear with me, I'll try to explain my POV. E.g. the current Chaos Warriors feel off to me as women, as the visual style is clearly male and then you stick a women's head on them. I would've liked female Chaos armor in the way that Stormcast armor for females is a bit different in their proportions so that it reads as a woman, doesn't need any sort of distinct breast armor or something though. Yes, I even know women that are just as muscular as men (one's in my gym, I wish I was as diligent as her xD) but I'm still old-fashioned there I guess. It's not about women being just as strong or stronger than men, especially not in fiction. And even then I'd probably just like chaos dudes better tbh but yeah, that's preference likely down to knowing it that way and the visuals. It was certainly strange to see people argue that the recent Curseling e.g. "is" a woman now tho so I would've liked more visual diversity between the genders armor (I mean he could be if you want him to be but nothing about him suggests it outside of a slightly peaked chest armor that the old one (a dude in lore) had as well).... I'm not sure female Bret knights won't look off to me either, I'll be honest, but I think it's less of a visual contradiction as Brets aren't as massive as CWs. Doesn't ruin anything for me but in a more historically-influenced game such as WHFB it might feel more off than in AoS. Some units I would've liked to include much more female sculpts, e.g. Kairic Acolytes for my army, where it just feels natural to have more gals in the club as in a high-fantasy setting, they'd join our nice cult hopefully too. Guess I'm a mixed bag but Im certainly one to argue that it sometimes feels off to me. No offense intended, it's certainly no dealbreaker for me but I count myself to "one of those" in a way. I know many here disagree with my stance there but I think it's fair to explain why I think like that.

Loving the idea as well - I'd like for them to stick to one though (and would prefer an AoS one)... make it a long-lasting thing over many years/supplements, not a game supported for a year and then it's over like Black Fortress or Silver Tower. I think everyone knows lots of people (who are not necessarily into Warhammer) that loved HeroQuest for example! 👌

It‘s less the gods themselves but how the setting uses them/godhood and it‘s a difficult position regardless imo. While I find eldritch gods more interesting and thus will always prefer outer gods such as the chaos ones who are basically enablers that never directly intervene (at least in the sense of not standing on the battlefield themselves), I think the problem lies more in god X feeling like s/he‘s always there and will succeed. It makes it less special to see those gods and even worse, it makes it hard for other characters to establish themselves. I vastly prefer „demi-gods“ to real gods in the direct storytelling as they‘re closer to us and thus provide better drama, even if GW follows the greek pantheon‘s way of having flawed gods - demi-god‘s powers are more strictly defined and limited, it gives something to work with. i think there‘s a good reason why the God-Emperor is just a vague bit-player and the primarchs are the demi-gods we read most of, similarly the chaos gods and their champions. Imagine a stupid scenario like hero X coming across a cursed place or deadly-sick man… if a god like Sigmar couldn‘t heal them or lift the curse, he‘d feel impotent to the reader and if can mind-battle Nurgle over the poor soul‘s sickness and win, it feels a bit cheap too - if our super-strong hero can‘t do it and has to do something to make it happen, we suddenly got an adventure! I‘m no writer obviously and a lot of personal preference swings into it from either side but I shall repeat what I‘ve been told in script-writing classes: „ultimately what we really care about are the people‘s relationships with each other, not the action, not the effects. You take the human component away and it might be cool from a technical POV but it will never pique your interest in the long run and make you wish to see it over and over.“ the best sci-fi movies etc. have a lot of „normal“ drama in them.

And you really think that is the right direction? Not even an evil vamp is as toxic as the relationship of those two. I just wanted to add one little thing to the other discussion: I don't think one should really see Realms of Ruin lukewarm success as a big indicator of anything. Any RTS game struggles more or less, even SC2 does in the grand scheme of things, with Blizzard having earned more for a single WOW skin than SC2 (yes, REALLY... also the reason why they go berserk with loot boxes and extra skins). Looks like RTS are simply out of fashion at the moment. Haven't played RoR yet but I take it that it isn't as good as SC2 either.

I think it just needs time… when I look at stuff like Ushoran, that particular artwork… who in their right mind doesn‘t love that? It‘s not really high fantasy anymore, it‘s dark (souls)! I‘m not one to love the basic concept for AoS with its endless realms (ok, they changed that thankfully already) and gods as I find that narratively speaking a difficult setting, but it‘s very clear that GW/the creatives add cool stuff in there bit by bit. In ten years it will be really fleshed out and feel quite complete. It‘s getting there faster than 40k and WHFB did. It‘s a work in progress as all cool universes are. It‘s not like Marvel, LOTR and the like were perfect from the start - various authors worked long and hard on them to create something cool. The bad apples from the WHFB crowd will always be haters but it‘s not like AoS is at fault there… if anything they can only blame GW or people in general for not supporting the game in a satisfying fashion. edit: what I think AoS should do is add more primarchs/strong heroes instead of focusing too much on the gods themselves personally. Makes it easier to come up with cool stories. I see the focus on „absolute“ characters for each faction as the single biggest problem for the setting currently but I figure time will add more layers/protagonists to esch faction too.

I think high fantasy in general has it hard on TV, there‘s a bit of a barrier from my experience (e.g. most girls in my personal experience don‘t care for it). More grounded fantasy such as GoT and WHFB is probably easier to sell to the “masses“. An Amazon WHFB series would help TOW however, then GW would certainly produce more new stuff for it! Perhaps if there are more DnD movies and the like people will appreciate AoS fantastical elements more… or they‘ll make AoS more grounded or use the more grounded parts of lore/the realms.

Or just be done with being overtly creative and give the gents that want mummies exactly that in AoS as well. And more egyptian-inspired skeletons. I think if TK sell really well, then that would likely happen. But it's hard to be confident there - the new dragon is amazing but will lots of people buy the old sculpts along with the awesome new ones? Kinda hard to imagine for me tbh.

Oh, I'd really like to see that for you TK fans... mummies are pretty much the only trope missing from death's roster at this point. We got vamps, skeletons, ghosts, zombies, ghouls, golems/constructs... outside of mummies is there anything not covered in AoS? Wait, I'll go ask some Belmont or something.

That's what Toolmineth Lamelords are for! 👺

Yeah, she needs another 5-10 egyptian-inspired vamp hero friends! I've heard ScionofOssia is a big fan of the idea! 🤙

Oh poop, with my excessive spamming, I‘ve created a new Chaos God. Welcome Junkial to the pantheon. Spam for the spam god!

It could also be a squig… the tongue seems similar. 🤔 Anyways, whatever it is, as long as the rest looks this good, we all win.