Sception
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Posts posted by Sception
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1 hour ago, sandlemad said:
Agreed that reaching for malice is a mistake but there’s a lot there that does fit with the picture of internal silos within GW.
Certainly. But even if true this would be a dumb thing imposed from above by management, not the actual devs trying to sabotage each other except in so far as management has forced them into competition.
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5 minutes ago, Bosskelot said:
When you have multiple examples of supposed "Limited" stock items languishing on shelves and not moving while entire markets have been unable to.buy basic units like Land Raiders and Fire Prisms for a year then that's not just about production capacity; that's about bad market research and bad prioritisation.
Very much this. I'm not trying to defend GW or especially its management, I just don't think there's need to reach for malice against old world specifically when the same sorts of problems are plaguing the entire company.
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I mean, there's also the same production issues that have plagued all the other GW games. When big new products for your flagship games are getting pushed back 6 to 12 months because you just can't get enough stock together to release them, and essential existing products for those games are unavailable for literally years at a time because you just can't spare the capacity to make more, it kind of makes sense to scale down production plans for side games.
There was that rumor that their new factory in the uk couldn't be run at capacity, or even at all, due to the local electricity infrastructure not being able to meet the increased draw, and the nearby hospital getting priority. I'd be more inclined to blame that than any conspiracy of gw hobbling old world on purpose out of spite against their own employees & customers.
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21 minutes ago, Goatforce said:
Well that's disappointing about no Kislev and Cathay, I guess it saves me some money as doubt I would have been able to resist buying a Cathay army.
They were clearly intended at some point, we were told as much outright for Kislev in early development articles, and both feature heavily in the lore sections of the big rulebook, at least as much so as the currently supported factions. Long term, if the game doesn't fail* then I wouldn't be at all surprised to see one or both factions being released some time in the future.
* Launch sales were clearly above expectations, but there aren't really any factions that are easy to collect right now, even bretts & tomb kings have several key units that haven't even been re-released yet. Insufficient supply could easily drain the interest out of the game before they're able to solve the availability issue. Honestly, GW's best friend right now for Old World is 3rd party proxies and 3d printers, because they can at least get people playing games and keep the community growing and attracting new players while GW catches up.
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When I first started warhammer way back in early 5th edition I was captivated by the Undead, especially the characters of Nagash and Arkhan who just seemed like fun villains with funny big hats. and I loved that. But then the vamp count/tomb king split happened, splitting my army in half with my favorite characters not appearing in either half. So I got rid of my undead (big mistake in retrospect, but oh well), and started over with Wood elves, who were about as far opposite as I could go thematically, and who had a really cool and unique play style to them. I stuck with Wood Elves until 7th ed vampire counts which pulled me back with the updated model range. Then End Times: Nagash happened, bringing back my proper unified Warhammer Armies: Undead type faction with Nagash and Arkhan back in the spotlight, so I abandoned my Wood Elves and expanded my vamp counts with tomb kings stuff to play proper Undead Legion again... just in time for WHFB to be discontinued in favor of Age of Sigmar - a terrible downgrade at the time given the awful quality of AoS at release. But AoS kept Nagash and it kept Arkhan so I kept with it as slowly over time the community stepped up to fix GW's mess, turning AoS into an actually pretty decent game by the time 2nd edition rolled around, just in time for Nagash to take over the narrative much to my delight.
Now I mostly play Soulblight, since that's what I have most painted (legacy of my now defunct Legion of Sacrament plus a cursed city box set), but I've purchased small armies worth of each of the current undead factions in AoS and am slowly working on getting them painted up. Meanwhile I've dived right back into Warhammer Fantasy with the release of Old World, rebasing a bunch of my older Tomb Kings and Vamp Counts models back onto squares for the rank & flank game.
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Yes I use varnish - usually matt through an airbrush, then pick out bits I want to be shiny/wet with a paint on gloss varnish (snow, gore, gems, shiny clean gold & silver, etc. If the overall model wants to look more shiny or wet then I'd go with satin followed again by paint on gloss where appropriate.
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13 hours ago, Beliman said:
Still reading the book, but it seems that it has a bit more going on than the previous ones. At least, it feels more "immersive".
I kind of regret buying the last two, but not this one, because yeah. It does feel like more is going on, with consequences reaching farther than just the fate of these two crusades. Plus the Triumph & Treachery stuff feels like a meaningful bit of content that the previous couple books didn't have.
Then again, I play death factions exclusively, so that might just be bias based on my factions featuring more heavily this time.
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Bah, the Mannfred story had originally been described to me as reanimated undead rats, something that might have been a sign of arkhan returning. Seeing the actual story that's explicitly not the case, and very much a skaven thing, with rats that are diseased but alive, not undead.
Oh, well. Still waiting on any sign of Arkhan's return. I'm happy enough to leave Nagash in time out for the medium term, maybe even rebrand his model as an 'Avatar of Nagash' (as an excuse to drop its power a bit and its points cost a lot) with his true self recuperating while slowly going mad in the Nadir. But I'd really like Arkhan back sooner rather than later.
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For the Flesh Eater Courts in general, and the Knight-focused Hollowmourne subfaction in particular:
"No, on second thought let's not go to Summercourt. It is a silly place."
- what the leaders of the Ghyran crusade should have said-
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seems like more kroot to me.
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43 minutes ago, Jamopower said:
In overall having dragons with 2+ save (and ward saves) is very strange design choice when they have made lots of effort on having the 2+ save otherwise for very few cavalry units and reduced the saves (and armour piercing) in general over the whole game. Especially as in the past editions having any additional protection for flying monsters was very limited and they were usually pretty formidable even then. The Tzeentch Eye that gave 3+ ward against shooting is the only one that comes to my mind from 6th, and it was very broken.
Yeah, but in most previous editions cool big monster riding heroes were trash, easilly pulled down by a couple cannon shots or even some small arms fire. Combined statlines is the obvious solution to that, and imo they've mostly done a good job of it. The armor saves were combined in the wrong way, but even so imo they're closer to where they should be now than they have been in... forever maybe. Not counting AoS of course.
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21 hours ago, dmorley21 said:
Poor Grimghasts become even less relevant.
Eh, they're still the killier unit among the default battleline, a relevant choice for emerald host in particular (even if narratively they're more tied to hexwraiths). I don't like how many units are effectively locked down to or locked out of particular subfactions, but that's not something we can even hope to see fixed until a 4th edition book, and even then I'd call it a long shot.
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6 minutes ago, Twisted Firaun said:
In addition to the fact that Krell would greatly fill in the "menancing, silent type" role the undead typically have in other mediums (that I agree AOS is somewhat lacking), there's also the fact that as a former chaos-champion turned slave/worshipper of undeath Krell has some of the coolest armor an on-foot hero can have in any version of fantasy (seriously GW, bring this man back):
The thing is, if you want that 'former chaos guy as undead' aesthetic back it pretty much /has/ to be a new guy. Because while Nagash could bring back Krell, by what logic would he bring back Krell's specific busted up suit of armor? Krell was a mortarch in the end. If he comes back, he'd get a fancy new set of deathlord armor in the style of the end times plastics or the Ossiarchs. Heck, he'd probably /be/ an Ossiarch.
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20 minutes ago, JackStreicher said:
I want Krell.
Why? He's not even a person. He has no personality, no motivations. The most interesting parts of Krell were always tied up in his relationship with Kemmler, the open question of whether it was the ranting necromancer or the silent skeletal brute behind him that was really pulling the strings. What does Krell, especially devoid of Kemmler, bring to the table that a wight king or ossiarch liege grounded in AoS's specific lore and setting couldn't?
EDIT: No, that's not fair. Krell does have some appeal in the 'silent hulking brute but you can't be sure what if anything is actually going on inside'. Like, is he just an automaton or is he an actual thinking guy. That's not nothing, it is a pretty solid archetype for a skeletal dude, and none of the AoS undead characters have that in that they all have motivations (albeit sometimes muddled ones) that they'll happily tell you about at length. They're all chatterboxes, none of them are just silent and menacing.
So fair enough, I withdraw my complaint, I can see /why/ someone would want Krell back. I just personally would rather see a new take on that archetype and leave Krell himself back in the Old World. Though even then I have to admit that the decision to lock the Old World game down to a time period when Krell's still entombed and Kemmler probably isn't even born yet means we won't even get to see him there.
So I guess I wouldn't object to bringing Krell back in AoS, at least not as much as I'd object to Vlad or Abhorash (seriously DO NOT bring back Vlad or Abhorash).
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The only exceptions I'd be willing to entertain are for minor characters who never really got the chance to shine in oldhammer, or for characters you could do something radically different with in AoS. Neither is something we're likely to see, since the characters fans tend to ask for are the big popular fully established ones, and if you change those characters in any meaningful way the people who wanted them back in the first place will get mad.
For example, I'm mostly into the undead factions, and I regularly hear calls to Bring Back Vlad or Bring Back Abhorash, even though they are so fully grounded in the old world that they'd make little sense in AoS while simultaneously sucking all the air out of the room, so to speak. And especially in Vlad's case, his death in the End Times was an especially effective close to his character that I for one would hate to see undone.
But, by contrast, consider Isabella. She was always a background character in her own life, the mechanism by which Vlad gained political power, the woman he loved to give him character depth, never a character in her own right. Her End Times story saw her level these criticisms at Vlad - you never really loved me you just wanted power, I never really loved you I was simply dominated by the monster who killed my father - but only in the context of Isabella being possessed by Nurgle, so she still didn't get to have her own agency. In the end Vlad proved the sincerity of at least his side of the relationship by dying to free her, both from chaos and from himself. That's a very satisfying close to Vlad's character, but it's an even more compelling *beginning* to Isabella's story - a story that can finally actually center her choices, her character. She can't just follow Vlad back into death like she did the first time he died, that would be ignoring all the very real flaws of their relationship that had just been laid bare, the fact that no matter how strongly she feels love for Vlad she can never again trust that it was sincere and not just something he did to her. And even if she decides that love was real, killing herself now would be spitting on the sacrifice Vlad made to save her. So she lives on to honor that sacrifice and does...
Nothing. She does nothing, because the world ends two weeks later.
Isabella as the 'Mortarch of Shadow', filling Vlad's empty boots, could be a darned compelling character in AoS in a way that she was never allowed to be in WHFB. You could have her taking revenge on Mannfred both for his betrayal of Vlad and for the way he treated her directly. You could have her allying with Neferata as peers, playing into the novels portrayals of Neferata as sort of a hopeless sapphic. You could have her playing a particularly rebellious or subversive role towards Nagash as someone who at this point is fully sick and tired of being controlled by others - which could also be used to explain her absence up till now, using her 'mortarch of shadow' powers to hide until Nagash was out of picture, maybe establishing a hidden kingdom in that realm of shadow we've heard so much about but that's been strictly in the background so far. You could do a gender-swapped version of the Bram-Stoker Dracula thing where she starts to suspect that some dashing Stormcast hero might secretly be the soul of long lost Vlad reincarnated by the storm god, and examine her own internal conflict over whether she even wants him back.
But this will never happen. Partially because I think GW knows that AoS really doesn't benefit from putting even more emphasis on characters and relationships grounded in old world lore, Partially because the Gravelords are already choked with named characters and the absolute last thing we need is yet another one, and mostly because, I mean, it's Isabella. Nobody cares about Isabella, nobody's clamoring for Isabella to come back. The main reason for GW to bring back old world characters is to cash in on nostalgia from old fans, but the characters old fans feel nostalgic for aren't the ones that have room to do anything new or interesting with.
EDIT:
As another example, while I'm happy to see him again in the Old World, I would hate to see Settra in AoS. There's no room for him to change & develop, his character's all wrapped up in his kingly claim over a land and a people that wouldn't even exist anymore if you did do anything new and different with him - eg if you made him a Stormcast hero who couldn't even remember his history, torn between his loyalty to Sigmar and an almost imperceptible voice from deep within saying he should be in charge - that might be interesting, but IF they did that then Settra followers would get big mad and they'd have to retcon it all away. IF they did that.
On the other hand, consider Khalida. All her life tied up in this hatred of Neferata, then we learn in the Neferata book that said hatred was never really reciprocated, Neferata had a crush on Khalida, sincerely wanted to share power with her, was bitter and upset when Khalida forced Neferata to kill her. And then in the end times Khalida chooses to bend the knee to Nagash in the hopes of preserving some portion of Asaph within herself, rather than be destroyed like settra and see the last shred of her god follow the rest of the pantheon into Nagash's gullet. But then in the shared battles against chaos that followed she's forced to fight at Neferata's side, and the hatred just sort of drains away? And they faced the final end together, the centuries long feud seeming suddenly small and meaningless as the world is torn apart around them, the last two survivors of a civilization and now a world lost...
and while that works as an ending, it also could have been such a compelling beginning to the two once mortal enemies moving foward as friends and allies (and maybe more), the only to people in all the realms who remember and mourn their lost homeland. Imagine Neferata tipping the scales against mannfred, getting a bit powerful and full of herself, and so Nagash calls back her ancient enemy to help further balance out her growing influence over Shyish, only for Khalida to join Neferata's side, or to make a show of continuing the old rivalry while secretly they work together.
But again, this will never happen, partially because Khalida is less popular than settra (though not by as much as Isabella is less popular than Vlad), but mostly because the fans Khalida does have are super invested in her hatred of Neferata, and a complete 180 on that, while it would open up new and interesting places to take her character, would be seen as a betrayal by those fans, who don't just want to see old world characters back, they want to see them back exactly as they were, preserved in amber forever unchanging even as the entire universe changes around them.
EDIT 2: "Sception this post isn't about what actually makes a returning character compelling, is it? You just want GW to give Neferata one or more girlfriends to alternately make out and conspire with."
A post can be about more than one thing at the same time.
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There are ways to justify more old characters coming back, but I share the opinion that it shouldn't really be done. I don't want to get rid of the old world characters we already have, the ones we have define the setting that AoS has become. You can't have AoS without the S. But I don't want to add any more. By the end of second edition, the mortal realms were well enough defined that they didn't need to borrow any more validity from oldhammer characters, they can readily produce their own instead. Characters whose personalities and motivations are grounded in and give depth to the people and places of the new setting, instead of being grounded in peoples and places that don't exist in AoS, and that AoS lore can barely even reference in character since nobody remembers that far back with any real clarity.
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I've been trying to brainstorm ways to convert the Cities of Sigmar manticore lady into Dieter Helsnicht. The manticore looks amazing, and her chair has enough skulls and bones in it to work for a necromancer. But I have no idea what to do for the rider, and undead-ifying a big monster with feathered wings is a lot trickier than doing the same for a model with leathery wings that you can easily dremel some tattered holes into. I'd need to have a solid plan in place before starting - the model's way too pricey for me to just buy one and 'wing it'.
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On 2/17/2024 at 5:14 AM, Jamopower said:
I’m pretty sure it will eventually be erratad to something along that way (i.e. Mounted monsters to use their own save always). It feels such an oversight in the rules.
imo mounted monsters should use the lower of the monster or the rider's armor save. the mounts save then becomes a cap on the rider's armor save, but there's still a reason to give the rider armor or a shield.
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Spoiler
1000 points each of Tomb Kings Mortuary Cult and Vampire Counts, all re-based for the Old World
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2 hours ago, Whitefang said:
Pretty sure there is some misinterpretation here.
Two horned rat models confirmed!
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Are there credible rumors stating whether skaven are getting the 'here's some pretty new models for your existing units' type of overhaul, or the 'here's some entirely new units that obsolete your old units or even kick them to legends outright' type of overhaul?
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The long anticipated nerf to Null Myriad has finally come. As of the new battlescroll the subfaction's spell ignore has been dropped from a 2+ all the way down to a 4+. Ouch! As a bit of a consolation it now always applies, instead of require your units to be wholly within some range of a mortisan or archan, which is something at least.
You hate to see it, but then again honestly it was expected much sooner - I was shocked when the Myriad survived the previous battlescroll untouched, so you can't say we didn't have a good run of it.
That said, I was hoping for ~less~ of a nerf, maybe going from 2+ to 3+ instead of all the way down to 4+, so yeah, it does still hurt. Oh, well!
As for points changes, Archai and immortis are both up 10 points. Frankly I think they were fine where they were and would have rather seen Harbingers and stalkers come down a bit more, but whatever, I don't think they're unplayable at 230. Nagash is down a whopping 40 points, so still unplayably overpriced, probably needs at least two more such discounts before he sees much play in OBR armies, though I've been wrong about him before. Zandtos is down 10, which probably puts him into a playable range for praetoris armies, which will likely be more common now with the myriad's nerf. Or rather it would put him into playable range if we weren't still stuck in andtor.
Crawler's down 10, still probably too expensive for what it does, but it can't get much cheaper with how huge it is or people will start fielding them purely for the amount of space they zone out on the table, and that would be embarrassing. Honestly, the crawler, like the harvester, needs fixes other than points adjustments.
Vokmortian's down another 20 points to 120. That's honestly a steal for a double cast loremaster, even if all his other rules don't actually ever do anything. Or rather, much like Zandtos, 120 would be a steal if were weren't still stuck in andtor. Even 40 points more for a soulmason is still worth paying to have your double cast loremaster also be a locus. On the other hand, even as a locus, a soulreaper being only 10 points less than vokmortian is bad comedy. I'm kind of surprised they didn't drop the soulreaper's cost again too. Oh, well.
No huge complaints for me. Again, sad to see the myriad nerf, but it was long coming. Love it or lump it, the bone times are over. Thankfully they nerfed the frogs even harder, so they shouldn't be running rampant even with myriad out of the meta.
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On 2/10/2024 at 6:05 AM, GhostShark said:
Can anyone suggest a good source for movement trays? Im in the US.
I'm in the US and I order txarli factory designed 3d printed plastic bases and movement trays from Covetedforge.com. They come pre-fitted for 5x1mm disc magnets, which is nice, they're not too pricey, turnaround time on orders is like 3 weeks give or take. If you have your own 3d printer you can buy the print files from txarli factory instead.
The one word of warning i'll give is that some of the new Old World base sizes (60x100mm bases, bases and unit trays for 30x60 at least, I haven't tried any 30mm square bases or trays yet but probably those too) were re-sized from smaller bases without fixing the magnet slots, so the slots themselves are oversized and/or oblong. You can still glue the same magnets in, the depth of the magnet slots isn't messed up, but you've got to be careful about centering to get the magnets in the bases and the movement trays to line up.
So there's a fair few caviats here, most of which I'm sure will get worked out in time, but imo these are still the best bases & movement trays you can currently buy for a reasonable price.
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2 hours ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:
I just saw someone mention not being allowed to use hills and walls when playing TOW at a local GW because they don't sell them anymore.
That's absurd, half of old world is stuff gw doesn't sell at the moment. Thankfully my local guy is more reasonable.
Warhammer - The Old World
in Warhammer: The Old World
Posted · Edited by Sception
I'm also confused why the Old World can't function as a 'specialist game' for AoS like warcry - or for that matter why 30k can't operate as a 'specialist game' for 40k like killteam. Accountant conniptions & department fights over who gets credit for what sales clearly don't prevent them from releasing a new model kit for 40k as a kill team (Eldar Striking Scorpions) or a new model kit for AoS as a warcry warband (Lumineth Riverblades). Underworlds teams get rules for AoS and Warcry, 40k units get rules for Kill Team and Necromunda, corporate can't definitively know what game to credit for the sale of any given genestealer magos blister, and yet somehow the sky doesn't fall.
I'm not saying the product line segregation isn't happening, it clearly is. Just that it's dumb and not even universally applied.