Cèsar de Quart

It's been said here before, but the matter of high fantasy or low fantasy is alltogether a matter of taste. BUT There is an issue of consistence and quality to be considered. There's more Low Fantasy than High Fantasy, and generally it's easy to find good low fantasy than high fantasy, because most of the work is already done if you want to create a low fantasy world. The world itself. After all, the world is similar, if not the same, as ours. The ground rules are the same, people are the same, cultures may even be the same... GoT is nowadays' prime example, but I'd say that Sapkowski's The Witcher novels are a better showcase of the trope. On the contrary, High Fantasy, as in "magical and supernatural elements are everywhere and rather mundane", the "trains fueled by gibblegook fuel, gyrocopters running on Djinns blowing from the co-pilot seat, ships that fly thanks to the Power of Love and Friendship", kind of High Fantasy, is difficult to do. Suddently the power of Love and Friendship can be harnessed and used to do amazing things. Why aren't people doing it? The ground rules can be so bizarre that you need very iron-tight narrative and scaffolding for your world to make sense. After all, why wouldn't they use fire wizards to kickstart an industrial revolution? People still need manufactured goods, and wealth can still be had in selling it. Which raises questions, which you want answered in a way that makes sense in-universe. "The Kharadron should be immensely rich because of their superior means of transporation and therefore dominion on trade". Yup. No amount of air krakens will make air travel less safe than land or sea travel, I think. Unless the air krakens blot out the sun, in which case we're all doomed and there's no world. Of course, the writers can give explanations, and the reader can choose to believe (or not) in them to better enjoy the book or game or movie. But the explanations need to make sense. When you read Harry Potter and you ask yourself, "Hmm, maybe Boris Johnson had no time to nominate a new Minister of Magic. Hmm, I wonder who might be the Minsiter of Magic for Jeremy Corbyn. Does he have a pick? Was Himmler the Reichsminister of Magic Affairs for the Third Reich? What were the wizards up to during WW2?", then you're in a low fantasy world that hasn't been well thought out. But, of course, Harry Potter was a story, not a setting. When you create a setting, it needs to be tight. And the world being tight is the main thing, to me.

I find it laughable that some people say GW is "pandering" to us "grogs". Before I know it GW will be offering us free money, and it will still feel like a bad monday. And, mind you, I'm taking the viewpoint of the "not grogs", apparently, where the old Empire minis will be discontinued in favour of new sculpts with a different aesthetic, or rather they'll be just squatted like the High Elves. Like Myrdin was saying, I hope the optimists here are right. The breeches-and-feathers aesthetics for the old Empire was iconic. So iconic that nowadays many miniature companies produce at least one line of Empire-like miniatures. As central to the setting as the green orcs or the over-armoured vikings as Chaos Warriors. Why wouldn't it fit AoS?

A lot of "People who like the Old World aesthetics generally don't like AoS" comments. As far as I've seen, most people around me, myself included, moved on from WHFB into AoS in one or two years, once the shock was over. We (as in, people who love WHFB aesthetically) do like and play AoS, and I, for one, would like the setting to grow, gain in depth and flavour and complexity, and the game to be fun times with friends. So, yes, we exist. The fact that now they aren't releasing any life-saver new miniature in the Old World style is not only disappointing, but deeply worrying to me. I've bled ink and paint on an Empire army for 20 years, buying extra kits for conversions, applying that extra bit of greenstuff to recreate the units GW still refused to build and sell... and now it's all "poof", thanks for playing, come back again for our oversized goldenboys who you can't even use as foot knights because they're big as a car! I've tried looking at it from a positive lens, but all I can think of is "I'll never get new minis". Slowly, they'll discontinue the kits one by one. Ebay will be the only place I'll be able to find new material for my army. People say "CoS don't fit the aesthetics of AoS!". And while the aesthetics of AoS are all over the place, many people here don't like the poofy hats and striped pantaloons, the whole 16th Century landsknecht thing. So... they might be right, like a self-fulfilling prophecy. If the target audience for AoS doesn't like the Cities of Sigmar's proposed look, which is carried over from WHFB, it's clear what will happen. Eventually, GW will try their hand at either "generic Medieval men" virtually indistinguishable from the armies of men from lesser fantasy miniature brands (Kings of War, for example), or "wacky new idea", which may be great, but it will not be the Empire anymore. Sorry if this sounds exceedingly bilious. but I really had hopes for at least a captain or general kit as a little "hey, don't worry, little man, your small niche will not be forgotten, thanks for your loyalty". But no. Everything else is shaken to the core, High Elf players got racked good, Tomb King players are still salty that the Bonereapers are not Tomb King enough, and us, well... I hope I'm wrong, but it feels like the last season of Game of Thrones. And man, was I right then.

I'm a bit sad this Red Gobbo is Santa Claus' assistant. But the mini can be turned easily into its glorious old self.

Excuse me? Who has the Hammer now?

BfME2 remains an amazing game. Lots of great moments with the units levelling up, the summoning of the heroes and the special abilities... it was really good. AoS could definitely use it, and it would circumvent the need for a "solid map", as was discussed before. Althoug, again, it's essentiallt the same formula as Down of War. A solid RTS. Arguably DoW began the introduction of Space Marines and 40k in general to a wider audience. "Heresy!" posts, Space Marine images and the name Warhammer are much more prevalent now than 10 years ago in the mainstream (although it was really popular here in Spain among kids my age back 15 years ago, I don't know anyone who hasn't heard about it). AoS needs a bit of that. Things that can become as classic as the bolter fire sound effect. Lines of dialogue which essentially set the stage for what AoS should sound like. Space Marines speak like they speak mostly because of DoW. But BfME2 and DoW were resting on a very solid bedrock: seeing Rohan or Gondor in danger or the Elves ride to battle with the music and sound effects from the movies was one of the best experiences I've had with any RTS (aside maybe from the first forays into the genre with Age of Empires 2, unforgettable, and from the hero ships firing their abilities in Sins of a Solar Empire). AoS doesn't have this yet, and would need to make up for it with... well, a very good game. Which I hope they do.

Now this is a game I can get behind. Still behind in my list though (TW Warhammer has been on my game wishlist for ages, and now it's a sweet sweet reality). Cities Altdorf is still my first pick. But Paradox has published a fantastic game, Tyranny, a narrative game where you choose the path your malign overlord takes in his way to total domination. I'd like a similar approach, but from both the points of view of a Darkoath warqueen and a Stormcast Celestant. Mix this with XCOM, and you'd get what, to me, is the perfect AoS game, for three reasons: 1- Flesh out the workings of each Realm. (I can imagine realm-based DLCs. Week 1, Chamon, Third month: Ghur, Fifth month: Hyish and Ulgu... help). 2- Give us a perspective on Chaos that's not a) I'M AN EVIL MONSTER OF MURDER AND RAPE, or b) I'm such an ignorant barbarian. Chaos, capital C, is supposed to be the goal of the anarchist and the freedom fighter as well. Not born of ignorance, but of a corruption of noble archetypes where, contrary to Coltrane, it's not giant steps, but small ones which lead one astray, and Gandalf may become Saruman if he is not wary. The official lore rarely portrays Chaos this way. 3- Turn based strategy, like the game you play, inside a meaningful campaign, like the game you can never play. What more publicity you want? There would be heroes, battles (turn based xcom-like, but with units intead of individuals), land development, founding of free cities, rebuilding of infrastructure, standing within your own Stormhost, and with Sigmar back in Azys, sending you supplies or admonishing you, and maybe even dealing with other Stormhosts, who are probably not always in good terms with one another. I like that Sigmar's Tempest came first, and then things got quieter and the building began. Initial bonus to conquest, followed by a surge in colonists, etc etc. GW has been worried for decades that, if computer games were to come out and be successful (like Total War Warhammer has done), less people would buy their toys because more people would be keyboard, and not brush, in hand. This has been proven wrong, first with Dawn of War, and then with TWW.

Ah the famous Shyishian sushi. The name itself rolls on the tongue so well I'd be a crime if Reynolds doesn't include it in his next book. Purple tinted, white interior, served with blood sauce. Of course.

That's cool. Lone Saurians gone rogue, like those from the Dragon Isles back in the Old World. I'm also loving the new Sotek-like feathered serpent. GW should embrace the absolute crazyness that is Aztec myth. Go nuts with it. Own it. Not move away from it. "Doesn't fit AoS" is not a good argument because anything can fit AoS. If slick fantasy armoured Marines, puffy hats and extravagant staches, weird fish elves and steampunk flying dwarves can all be part of the same universe, I'm saying Aztec Lizardmen are a perfect fit.

Many people say that the Lizards are "tied to the Old World". I understand why they say that, but honestly, it's a meaningless observation. They are the same guys. The Slann sent their temple ships to the Heavens and they dreamed the Seraphon into existence or some such thing. You can expect them to just poop into existence the same Kroxigors and Saurians they remember. The Aztec Lizardmen aesthetic doesn't have to go. Also, it'd be a hell of a project to update the ENTIRE lizard line of minis with a different feel. Thanks, my thoughts exactly. It's not that we're obsessed with death and taxes, it's just that it was easy to imagine taxation, trade and customs in the Old World. GW didn't have to flesh out every village and city from Sylvania to Brionne because it was obvious. Even Cathay, Nippon and Araby were very obvious places to imagine. And you could go nuts if you wanted. But now, we do need some information on what Kelly and the rest have imagined for the Mortal Realms. I can imagine, for example, some Ghur floating man with a strange Middle Eastern accent saying "Azyr meteor coins are no good out here, I need something more real!". Azyr credits may be fiat money backed by the might of Sigmar's hammer, but out there, Sigmar's might means nothing. I need more little things like these.

We would need mostly metaphysical or vague kind of maps, like this: Something rich enough to spark imagination and wonder, but vague enough to let us define the character and outline. A land of red grass and hot-sap woods in Aqshy? Great. A verdant parch of steaming jungles, a calm landscape with explosive, mercurial people, or a section of Aqshy so affected by the Gate of Now that we're at it, a question: Some realms have their obvious counterparts, but some don't. ULGU - HYISH - Light vs darkness. Understanding vs obfuscation. GHYRAN - SHYISH - Obvious. AQSHY - AZYR? - We could think of this as Apollonian vs Dyonisian. Rational thinking, prudence, order, vs passion, instinct and emotionality. CHAMON - GHUR? - Maybe change according to strict rules vs random change? It's clear that the Eight Winds of Magic were not a very well thought out concept.

Will they squat the Cities of Sigmar, eventually? Or drag them across concrete like Bretonnia (until they squatted it)? Not gonna lie, I'm mighty disappointed. They removed the General on horse and that's the last we're ever going to see of it. It was a good kit. The horse looked darn fine.

This would be a neat narrative. As for Gotrek, there's plenty of Chaos warp portals he can get into and get lost for a thousand more years.

This is the opposite of what the poster asked. The 40k galaxy is outlined, but mostly left vague so that you can fill it in. AoS has developed a small part of some Realms, and left all the rest blank. Not even vague, just nothing. As Michu said, this is not really a problem. I like running wild and making up free cities with a random features generator I've put together on Microsoft Excel. The problem is that the lack of a clear timeline and the relative vagueness of the setting makes it difficult to focus on theme or consistence. When I think about Lochainn's Pit and its green copper mines, shuld I make up the ruling class characters? Because if generations go by fast, then all of my characters are dead. Kind of pointless. And the names... Toponymia in the Age of Sigmar has taken a deep dive towards the corny and the unoriginal. But that's the problem of language; since English is the generic common language, we have English names similar to those we'd get if we translated names in the world in a literal manner. And then, turned the lazy fantasy up to eleven (especially in Shyish, where names are ridiculously campy). Because "Flamescar Plateau" is a silly name. It is.

Sure, it took time for the Old World to settle down. This will too, eventually. When people say "this setting lacks characters", like I said before, I think the real meaning behind this is "the setting lacks the possibility of character conflict". I actually like the bickering of the Pantheon. They're characters. I want to see them bicker and have conflict and resolve it. But I also want to see the leader of X, the seneschal of Y and the abbess of Z, the matriarch of A, the shaman of B, etc etc. I'd like to know, for example, how did the Lantic Empire fall. It had the potential to be an epic tale, especially if the staff take inspiration in what should inspire them (Gibbon's Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire. And please, make Chaos insidious and corrupting, don't bring out the "Chaos corrupts the inside, but there's doomstacks of troops at your doorstep" train) and be the cultural bedrock of the new setting, like the Trojan War for the Greeks or the tale of the Three Kingdoms for the Chinese. Or if there are any non-Free Cities states left. Are there?

We also don't know of any important person who's not a Stormcast or a Chaos warlord (or at least, we don't know many), and it's not like in 40k, where you have an Imperial bureaucracy which always looks the same, and then every planet is whatever you want. Easy and streamlined. When I was creating my free city, I wanted it not to be alone, so I created a Steel Road of trading cities in Ghur, where (I imagined) metal is scarce, except for weird kinds of metal. But I don't really know if Sigmar has superintendents, if the Kharadron enforce tariffs on ground trade, if Hammerhal and other cities have hinterland territories (and therefore my cities too), if there's a universally accepted currency (having twenty realmstone currencies is not practical in the slightest), if there's a lingua franca, and what it is... I'm sure the novels flesh out some of that, but I think the army and rule books should take care of these basic strokes.

I'm with you on this. The idea that certain places can be affected by permanent whirls of magic winds and become weird is very appealing. A light dragon in the middle of Naggaroth, a real Fountain of Youth because of a Ghyran vortex in the heart of Lustria, copper metal verdigris Cliffs of "Dover", a purple sand desert where the living die and the dead live... there's a lot of cool potential.

You make a very good point. AoS has many over the top designs that take a while to get used to. All the weird weapons, oversized warriors and floating bits should be like an extraordinary thing, otherwise they appear mundane. One of the things I like the most about AoS lore is the idea that the Realms are stable and nice and normal on their centers, but things get exponentially weirder the more rimwise you are. There are powerful, valuable things in the Rim, but it's a dangerous place where you can be turned into a living crystal or spontaneously combust or get lost for aeons in memory-stealing fog. Great idea to put together the ordinary and the extraordinary. But we need to see the ordinary first. A common complain back in the first days of AoS was "where's the normal people? Who am I fighting for?" Aside from the novels, they still have some work to do adressing that in the main sources of lore.

They very well could. Could it be that they're just throwing out warbands they find cool or interesting? If enough people show interest in the Kurnothi, maybe they'll expand them in the future (4-5 years into the future, if they go by today's reactions). Maybe people will lose their armbands over wolf-riding goblin classics. But for now, it doesn't look that way. They seem to be a bone for the old timers. Their aesthetic is so tame by AoS standards that I'm quite amazed they saw the light of day at all.

The updated style with the old aesthetic, beautiful. They did this more or less with the new Ogre Tyrant, same style but updated into the Age of Sigmar.

Bugman?

A "command squad" would make me a happy man. Oh yes.

That would be nice. I'd consider buying it, but I'm not keeping my hopes up for this.

I do wonder why do some companies like Kromlech or Victoria make money on bits for Warhammer (usually competing among themselves for what I imagine is a small niche of 40k conversion, mostly Orks, Marines and to a lesser extent Imperial Guard and CSM) but GW doesn't get into it. I mean, I don't know much about business, but Kromlech has existed for a while, and they must be making money. These are not your Facebooks or Ubers where they operate at a huge loss while they grow and gobble up investors eager to see returns in 5 or 10 years. These companies must have a very simple business plan of "produce resin kits at low price, sell them at a higher price, try not to get sued by GW in the process". GW could be getting all this money through FW. It probably isn't as much money to begin with, or they'd get into it right away.

Considering the Freeguild General is unavailable, either we'll get a repackaged general similar to the four wizards box, or we'll get (hopefully) a new freeguild general with more options (or, a man can hope, different poses than just "charge!" and "look here, men!"