Unsupported factions

[wolfie65Participant 1238xp 0]

Another excellent video by Dr. Blaxill – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKBJMeeVlFc – in which he adresses many WHtOW issues, including ‘illegal’ armies, meaning those factions that will apparently not be part of this edition of the game, at least not in ‘official’ tournament play and will only get makeshift army lists via pdf: Lizardmen, Dark Elves, Ogres, Skaven, Demons (??!!??), Chaos Dwarfs….

I personally know 2 Chaos Dwarf players who quit the game altogether when GW (now Nomad Investements) spirited their favorite army out of existence at the changeover from 5th to 6th edition and I totally understand why people would never want anyting to do ever again with a company that does that to long-time fans and customers.

I’m not going to miss the Ogre Kingdoms, the idea of an entire Ogre army never sat well with me, I much preferred it when Ogres were just individual mercenaries pretty much anyone could hire, which made much more sense fluff-wise, nor the Chaos Dwarfs, which never held much appeal to me besides their rarity and collectible factor.

Lizardmen were my first full-fledged Warhammer army, but I did get kind of tired of painting them and don’t necessarily feel the need to resurrect them for this edition, but it does seem weird that they would just drop the faction that essentially created  the world…the Slann……

Similarly, Skaven have been an integral part of Warhammer lore since very early on and it seems fairly unlikely that they just stayed underground and didn’t bother anybody prior to what we now ‘know’ were The Bland Times…..

Michael Moorcock’s creations have also been a major inspiration for the company formerly known as Games Workshop from the very beginning and both the High as well as the Dark Elves are the best example of this, being effectively the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ Melnibonéans of Moorcock’s Elric saga.

Most weird is the omission of Demons, the Realm of Chaos (a mix of Moorcock and Lovecraft) being THE no.1 thing that makes the world of Warhammer unique and different from all the other fantasy game scenarios and backgrounds. In some way, I like the fact that there won’t be any Demons, because I’ve always found them extremely difficult to beat – maybe that’s just because they seem to attract an even more dedicated type of power player than any other faction does, at least in my area, but much the same could be said for Chaos Warriors, and they’re still there.

I’m not very likely to be buying any new models, I have plenty, so the fact that those ‘illegal’ factions won’t be getting any doesn’t bother me at all and the old models didn’t go bad – they’re not fruit, they don’t rot – so that part is fine by me, but many others are likely to be upset that their favorite army won’t get ‘updated’…whatever that means….

 

[orinoco 5362xp 0]

I think part of it is if a large percentage of the models can be used in Age of Sigmar then no army at the moment for the Old World.  Skaven still use the same minis from Warhammer Fantasy in Age of Sigmar.  Lizardmen got a range refresh but my understanding is, unlike cities of Sigmar, they are like for like (skink for skink).  I presume Chaos in Age of Sigmar has older models kicking around in it as well.  It is also my understanding that a lot of minis outside the starter sets  for The Old World are going to be Games Workshop direct only.

I think every year we’ll see a book or two of extra armies from the dead list.  Firstly to show the game’s not dead.  Secondly as minis are shunted out of Age of  Sigmar and into GW’s recycle bin.  Thirdly need to sell more stuff.

So next Christmas expect Rumblings Up North as Chaos, Chaos Dwarves and the Norse appear and Kislev rides out or AOS Skaven evolve and the old models are flushed down the sewers into the Old World for Trouble Down Below as the ratmen appear, the dead walk  and the Border Princes start fielding Dogs of War.  The 3rd expansion might be Far Expeditions with the Norse upsetting Cathy and the Lizardmen.

[orinoco 5362xp 1]

[onlyonepinman 18062xp 0]

@orinoco I believe this is the case.  GW don’t want people re-using miniatures between The Old World and Age of Sigmar, therefore any army which has a lot of miniatures still in use for Age of Sigmar will not be included in The Old World.  If The Old world goes on to be a success, I would be surprised if we didn’t see Chaos Demons, Skaven and Vampire Counts at some point – especially the first two as these were a fundamental part of the fabric of the Warhammer Fantasy story.

I know that it potentially hurts players of Dark Elves and Lizardmen personally, I quite like the cut down focus of the game, looking only at the Old World rather than trying to expand the view to include the New World.  I have mixed views on the likes of Cathay, on the one hand I would love to see what they do with them but on the other, much like the Lizardmen, it starts to get a bit harder to explain how/why the armies of Cathay might ever have made contact with the Empire and Bretonnia in such a way that they were fighting in each others’ territory.  There hasn’t really been anything in the lore to date that would adequately explain how that could happen and why it would.

[wolfie65Participant 1238xp 0]

@orinoco – If the game continues to sell like it apparently has during its’ first week, you may well be right and we’ll see a host of ‘expansions’. And ‘errata’, of course…..Because ‘playtesting’……

Personally, I wouldn’t have a problem with no Demons, if I was NI, I’d make Demons an add-on to Chaos Warrior armies, maybe as ‘rare’ choices, makes more sense to me than entire armies of nothing but Demons.

At least in my area, Dark Elves are not likely to be missed, I only remember 1 guy who played them, and that wasn’t even in Warhammer, he used 15mm figures, most of them Reaper Shadow, for Armies of Arcana.

@onlyonepinman – Didn’t we have a discussion on Cathay and other far-flung factions a couple of years ago, when news of the reboot first appeared ? I could see Cathay, Nippon, Ind or other armies from the other side of the world fighting Lizardmen (also from the other side of the world), Dark Elves (ditto), High Elven fleets plying the oceans, Chaos (they’re EVERYWHERE) or maybe Chaos Dwarfs, but how they would come in enough contact with Bretonnia, Wood Elves, Empire, etc. to fight them in battle would be rather difficult to explain.

[onlyonepinman 18062xp 0]

The Lizardmen are a bit like the Snake People from Frostgrave Ghost Archipelago – they are part of  a spin off to frostgrave set in the same world as but separate to the main Frostgrave game.  This sets a smaller window on the world in which to play the game.  So perhaps a “Warhammer: The New World” might have explorers from Cathay and the Empire fighting Lizardmen and Dark Elves and even High Elves but I don’t think that’s on its way any time soon (as cool as it would be);  it probably wouldn’t expand Cathay all that much either as it would focus on their expeditions rather than their homelands.  Or you could do some kind of Eastern based expansion that had Ogre Kingdoms and Cathay (which seem like the most natural opponents) but it would start to become more difficult to include the Old World factions

[wolfie65Participant 1238xp 0]

There was a boxed game called Carnage , made by Holistic Designs, which had some very cool minis, Barbarians mounted on cattle and Snakemen, I was lucky to get a copy for about $ 20 when a now defunct game store had one of their mega-sales. Dark World  also had some cool Snakemen in one of their boxes.

From Robert E. Howard: ‘Slay, Kull ! They all be serpent-men !’

Dark Elves vs. Cathay would make for a really cool naval engagement, you could use Man O’War  for the sea battle, the losers could then make their last stand on an island using Warhammer rules. Never know where those Elven ships might turn up.

Norse in Lustria are part of the fluff from LONG ago, Cathay, Ogre Kingdoms and Chaos Dwarfs would be naturals for many battles in that area of the world.

I could see skirmishes with explorers from the Empire, Estalia or Tilea, like when Markus Polio got a little lost looking for a new noodle recipe…..

[tankkommanderParticipant 6424xp 0]

This is a GW game. They will spam factions over the coming years. Day 1 is always going to be limited because they don’t have the models to sell you.

[onlyonepinman 18062xp 0]

@tankkommander I don’t think they will go further than the current bill of factions if the game isn’t successful.  I would like it to be successful because I would really like GW to bring new factions into the mix in future (specifically, I would love to see Kislev as a faction).  But it’s early days yet, I think we need to give it a few months to see how it goes.  Personally, as someone with a long neglected Bretonnian army I am quite happy to see them getting a bit of love and some new models to fill what were glaring gaps in the old range (hey, I only waited 20 odd years!).  So I might grab a rulebook and give the game a whirl, I know my brother desperately wants to give it a go

[woldenspoonsParticipant 3557xp 0]

The problem they will have, for the armies that can also be used in Aos is literally tracking sales and working out profit margins. It will be as simple and annoying as that.

[onlyonepinman 18062xp 0]

I don’t think that’s true.  They will easily be able to work out sales figures for each kit, likewise for profit margins.  The issue as far as I can tell is that they don’t want any crossover between AoS and The Old World as that would potentially dilute sales (or at least that’s their thinking).  That’s in keeping with Horus Heresy not having ANY of the other 40k factions at all and the general phasing out of “First Born” marines.

[bvandewalkerParticipant 2078xp 0]

Given one of the starters is Tomb Kings, all bets on the “smaller window” are off since that faction is far from the “main action” in that setting.

 

[onlyonepinman 18062xp 0]

Well, they obviously are part of the main action now.  The thing people need to remember here is that this isn’t “Warhammer Fantasy Battle”.  It’s set in the Warhammer World but it’s its own thing with its own lore.

[wolfie65Participant 1238xp 0]

It’s set a few hundred years prior to the original, but it’s still WHFB.

Why they picked Tomb Kings and Bretonnia for the starter set(s), I’ll never know, it cannot possibly have had anything to do with background/fluff.

Empire civil war, Empire vs. Chaos or ye olde Empie vs. Orcs would have made more sense, but what do I know  – I’m not a Nomad Investments shareholder…..Just someone who’s played miniature games since about 1973.

Persoanlly, I still think that annihilating WHFB was a HUGE mistake and should have been corrected in one of two ways:

The absolutely best thing they ould have done would have been to issue a public apology to players and customers worldwide and borrow an explanation from the world of soap operas. Grey Seer Splinter indulged in way too much warpstone one fine evening in the sewers and the resulting horrible nightmares were what we have come to know as The Bland Times and The A$$ of Sickmar. But since it was all just a really, really bad dream (‘It’s ok, Heather, you were just in a coma all of last season….’), everything’s back to normal now, the Old World didn’t explode, Karl Franz still sits on the throne of the Empire, Leon Leoncoeur runs Bretonnia, there are Vampires and Skaven and stuff. As you were.

Option B would have been to go back even further into the ‘history’ of the Old World, to the time before the Elven split and release a basic set of Elves vs. Dwarves at the time of The Great Betrayal.

No Empire, no Bretonnia, Humans exist only as scattered semi-primitive tribes- some of them enslaved by the Slann- there are PLENTY of Dragons everywhere, Chaos is just a distant shadow around the edges, Skaven don’t have anything to gnaw on because Humans haven’t started to build huge trash piles yet, and not a single Skeleton has ever left Khemri.

Very much the OLD world, very High Fantasy and refreshingly different.

I might have even pre-ordered such a box set, sight unseen.

[elessar2590 18207xp 0]

I was originally going to do a Bretonnian and then a Vampire Counts army and the news did kind of give me a sour taste but as long as the community just ignores GW and includes them in events anyway. I have zero desire to play in a GW event and for me events are more about seeing the community and their armies not power gaming or winning. As long as the community is open to the PDF armies then GW doesn’t really matter so long as we can buy the minis.

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