Reply To: WHtOW – fluff and does it make sense ?

[bvandewalkerParticipant 2078xp 0]

Actually as a 34 year old European descended white male living in the USA, I can say with the same certainty given to gravity working that Asian themed fantasy subjects for table top gaming is not really that “niche” of an idea like it might have been back in the olden days of the 1970’s  (ever heard of Legend of the Five Rings? How about Kensei? Bushido? all that is Asian Themed Fantasy). Whats more there are tons of white European descended  people interested in Asian fantasy thanks to manga, anime, light novels, webtoon, Chinese fantasy films, etc. (a great deal of which at least outsells if not outpaces the native entertainment media industry of those fields in the US currently at least).

Likewise miniature wargaming isn’t just a hobby of the English speaking white populous anymore, and this is even more true of table top gaming in general. TTRPG’s  have a pretty good sized following in Asia, particularly Japan which has had several popular D&Dish games of its own for decades now (like “this was kinda of old news back in the late 1990’s” decades). Also in case you have not noticed for some reason known only to you, Japanese is one of the “on the box” languages GW puts on those over priced plastic sets they have been putting out since at the late 90’s at least.

Plus, Asian fantasy  literature (particularly Chinese Fantasy) has its own parallel to European fantasy literature  complete with sub-genres that actually predates Western fantasy literature by centuries, (so yeah its not really a “small little niche” thing so much as an not fully translated into English subset of international classical fantasy).

In short the ethnically European crowd interested in Asian fantasy specifically  is growing all the time while the number of people interested  in general fantasy is becoming a heck of a lot less white and so to are the “generic” settings.  I say this as someone who goes to SciFi and Anime cons and has listened to people complain about how there was no Cathay Army option (yes I have heard multiple complaints about that over the years, and when Cathay was announced I heard a lot of “about time!” like comments). Frankly speaking GW is late to the party, particularly when you consider all the  Asian Fantasy themed table top game KS projects we have seen get funded over the last decade.

So I think your arguments are more fantasy then the actual armies we are talking about at this point and it might be better redefine what you know as General/classic Fantasy cause that is already starting to change to include things like the martial artist monk temples or the Samurai style country with Fox changelings and oni just in normal western fantasy media. And let be real the argument “its niche so it not going to have a good following for wargaming.” was made about steampunk gaming but  Steampunk as heck Warmachine Hoards outdid WH40k for awhile there in sales.

By the way, yes I have seen girly girls with nerf dart blasters as well as tomboys who like the color pink (in the US we even have real guns that are sold pre-painted pink and I have seen photos of girls using them at firing ranges so not real argument).