WHtOW – fluff and does it make sense ?

[bvandewalkerParticipant 2073xp 0]

Actually, while you both have point about proxy army building given they have not worked on Cathay and Kislev at an army list level before,  they can do a lot to IP them up so they are at least not competing with 28mm history kits like the Empire and anything “white Euro with extra skulls” would be (so expect all those proxy print out minis to be next to useless for those armies when the official ones get out).

Also the original concept of elves doesn’t come from a “word meaning white”* or have anything to do with our European ancestral blood linage who where all backwater hick savages** till they discovered Jesus, then they where just backwater hicks till they invented patent laws

No, elves themselves came from Norse mythology in two flavors: The Dökkálfar (Dark Elves) and the Ljósálfar (Light Elves), which were clearly not human let alone Norse or European. Now while Dokkalfar are viewed by some “modern scholars” as another word for dwarfs, given the wording I would say the concept originators viewed them and Ljósálfar as the same race but in some sort of “yin/yang” setup. Also given Elves propensity for disciplined archery in modern pop culture, something most European cultures are not strongly associated with and generally suck at***, well lets just say Medieval Japan and Korea or even the Mongolian tribes would be a more realistic base cultures to draw from than the ones GW is  currently using for them.

 

*(Which was added as a moniker to the critters later and likely had more to do with the Fae nature of elves rather than their skin color).

**(Except maybe the Romans and Macedonians who might be counted as up to date outgoing backwater savages).

***(Yes there is the Medieval Welsh and British, but honestly they both used “redneck” level weapon tech for their bow builds and are pretty much the same over hyped backwater culture we all grew up hearing about in history class so not very fantastic or elf like and remarkable only for how boring and over hyped they are).

[phaidknott 7012xp 0]

Personally I’ve always thought that the armies of Cathay and Norse were in the army books to allow (probably the writers and play testers of the 1st edition) to game Warhammer with their existing “historical” armies (Japan and Viking) as there probably wasn’t a load of suitable armies worth of fantasy figures available from Citadel at the time (rather than an intentional insertion for the “fluff” for the game at the time). Both those armies (and some other units as well) are more of a legacy from those early editions. GW never bothered doing figures for them at the time because there were already shed loads of figures from the historical side of things already available (plus you can’t copyright history).

 

But now that the Devs over at Warhammer III have added a “fantasy” version of a Chinese army, there’s LOTS of imagery that CAN be copyrighted so we will see them soon (I’ve always wondered if the GW creative team had a hand in designing them/or the Devs for Warhammer III were working from some concept artwork supplied by GW).

 

[wolfie65Participant 1229xp 0]

Proto-Norse ‘Alb’ = white. Elf, elb, alb are variations.

You’re still stuck in the Abrahamically falsified comic book version of Nordic – and generally European –  mythology, which also explains why you still believe the propaganda about northern Europeans  – Celts and Germans – having been ‘ignorant, unwashed savages’ until the central and eastern Mediterraneans ‘enlightened’ them. Many people believe this crap, many centuries of propaganda and lies have made sure of that.

There is plenty of evidence, including many current archeological finds, that Celts and Norse were culturally on at least the same level as anyone in the Middle East or Mediterranean, and maybe even before they were.

Elves being archers has nothing to do with mythology, but comes from fantasy literature, primarily Tolkien. Who, by the way, based the Elven languages he invented on Welsh and Finnish (both of whom do have some pretty good archery tradition), respectively. He clearly wasn’t thinking Mongols…….

Think about this: What do you ‘know’ – or think you know – about the Celts and who authored most of those beliefs ? The Romans, arch enemies of the Celts.

What do you ‘know’ about the Germans and Norse ? Mostly stuff written by Christian scribes, arch enemies of anything European.

And your teachers in history class basically just parroted all that Roman and Christian propaganda, which you take for ‘fact’…..because they wouldn’t LIE about their ENEMIES now, would they…….no, never…..

[onlyonepinman 18053xp 0]

@bvandewalker not sure how you figure that the STL proxies would be next to useless – unless you are playing in a GW store or sponsored tournament, you can use any miniatures you like.  And the companies I was talking about aren’t making historical miniatures, they’re making “Warhammer” miniatures.  Have a see for yourself:

You can pretty much get an entire Kislev army from Highland miniatures.  We can probably assume, given that GW designers worked with Creative Assembly on the Warhammer Total War game (@phaidknott I think thus answers your question – I read that on Warhammer Community), that the design as depicted in the video game for both Kiskev and Cathay is going to be similar to that brought to the tabletop.  Games Workshop are also on record saying that they want the game to look and feel like the Warhammer of old – and Kislev are already cemented in the minds of many gamers so they won’t be staying too far from its roots.  So I am reasonably certain that ALL of the 3rd parties that I have looked at will be visually compatible with whatever GW brings out.

[wolfie65Participant 1229xp 0]

A big thumbs up for ‘alternative’ minis, especially if they’re metal and reasonably priced !

There is no ‘official’ GW store within several hours of my place, so I’ve never worried about what they consider ‘tournament legal’ or not and just used whatever minis I, myself, wanted to buy and paint and what I, myself, wanted my armies to look like.

When I ordered the 5th edition box set, someone at the Mail Order Trolls screwed up and they sent me 2 – I only paid for one, I checked – so my Bretonnian army does have a lot of Citadel models in it, but there are others, such as Harlequin/Black Tree Design, which match up very well with Citadel, especially if you like the 80s/90s look.

My Lizardmen are also mostly Citadel – see ‘boxed set’, above – but also contain snake men from the Carnage box, and even some toy store dinosaurs, there was no way I was going to pay $ 30, 50 or whatever the price was for a Citadel Stegadon when I can get the same for 1/30th of that price.

Orcs & Goblins a mix of Citadel, Harlequin, Grenadier (including the VERY impressive Goblin War Giant) and a few others, Empire a wide variety: Citadel -including LOTS of Battlemasters –  Grenadier, Harlequin, some extra Halberdiers from a game system called Weapons & Warriors,  Wizards from Reaper, Ral Partha and who knows who else.

Beastmen mostly Citadel because I do – or did –  like the figures and back when I built the army it was difficult to find non-Citadel models matching that look, but the Wizard’s from Fenryll, the Shaggoth from Scotia Grendel. I found the Citadel Shaggoth rather disappointing.

Dwarfs mostly Grenadier with some Vendel and Mithril ( I used that army to play LotR) , Wood Elves a mix of Citadel, Grenadier, Reaper, even a few repainted Mage Knight figures, Ral Partha,etc.

High Elves mostly Citadel thanks to a few closeout sales at game stores and lucky Fleabay swipes, with tons of 4th edition spearmen and archers – I like those – as well as Alternative Armies, Ral Partha, Harlequin and others. There are even a few Citadel Melnibonéans, from WAY back in the day…..before the Empire became the focus….

I suppose I could field a Chaos army with nothing but Battlemasters and Heroquest figures and have a small box full of assorted other minis that would fit perfectly into a Chaos army, many of them would require a deep dive into Lost Minis Wiki to identify.

Thanks to a lucky Fleabay find, I now also have 3D-printed Chaos Dwarfs, clones so close to the 4th/5th edition Citadel ones that it would take an expert – or someone armed with the massive 1999 Citadel catalog – to figure out they’re  not actually Citadel. And I  discovered some metal Hobgoblins I didn’t even remember I had…..

You’ve heard of the ‘pile of shame’, well, I have a whole room full of shame……

[amoorParticipant 0xp 0]

Wow guys you are so good at this: I envy such curiosity

[onlyonepinman 18053xp 0]

If you aren’t playing in a GW store, you can basically design your army to look however you like using any miniatures you like.  You could even do 100% proxies, not using any GW models but sticking within a single miniature range so there’s an internal consistency between the whole army.  The world’s your oyster really

[bvandewalkerParticipant 2073xp 0]

First @onlyonepinman I guess I should clarify again: GW can change the army list needs for Kislev , so cassocks,etc. could get thrown out completely and replaced with were-bears or  something more fantastic and less liable to “X company made a cheap historical plastic set version of that the WFB unite was based on”, also not everyone has a 3D printer. Yes Proxy modeling for both Kislev and Cathy is still going to happen, but GW can make it so its less likely you’ll see 4dchan and every fan blog out there recommending you just buy cheap Perry, etc. plastic models  to play those two (which was what was happening to the Human armies around the time GW axed WFB, and frankly looks like the big factor in that decision to me).

@wolfie65  that “Abrahamically falsified comic book version of Nordic and European myth ” as you put it  is based on Snorri Sturluson’s  poetic saga, which is admittedly a Christian view (according to wiki which is not saying anything given neopagan fake historians give messed up Norse history lessons) but I wouldn’t say comicbook  since it and Royal praybooks are the most detailed of the early mentions of Elves (which actually seem to mostly come up during the Christian era not before) and in both of those it is even clearer they are not based on human people. Likewise while “proto German” word does mean white (among other things such as barley) I doubt its use has anything to do with skin color and frankly making the argument that early white people would view their ancestors as some sort of supernatural critter just doesn’t add up culturally even by academic standards (European cultures rarely respected their elders, let alone viewed them as magical beings).

Also just because Tolkien used Welsh as a base for elvish does not mean other writers should make their elves strictly welsh or euros, and frankly its a mistake to do so at this point in time for spice reasons particularly if your going to make your main human faction predominately Europeanlike unless you are multiracing each nation your setting and picking on later culture tropes (i.e. 1812  instead of 1218 C.E.).

As to “Roman and Christian propaganda about the Celts and Norse” effecting my opinion of the Celts and Norse, no I arrived at them being backwater hicks fairly recently based on their low population numbers and tech levels compared to what China and Assyrian-Persian empires where doing during the same time frame technologically along with their larger population numbers (which are well document and backed up by archaeological evidence). Also just to make things clear I view all the Hellenist states as being truck stop hicks  on par with the Celts and Norse  except maybe Rome and Macedonian states who where second tier civilization for the the same reasons.    Simply put pre-christian  Europe may as well be Arkansas or Nebraska and it was in the Bronze Age long after almost everyone else in class moved on to iron and would likely have stayed there if it had not been for Persia’s influences via trade and the Macedonian Empire’s conquest.     As to them being savages, the Norse outed themselves as such in their own pagan sagas written in stone and we have the corpses the Celts left, the pagan Romans and other Hellenist should also be viewed in the same light, as savages, based on their own records  of themselves.

[wolfie65Participant 1229xp 0]

While there certainly are many fakers calling themselves ‘Pagan’ – while knowing little to nothing about it in reality – there are also plenty of perfectly knowledgeable scholars, archeologists, linguists and similar who put the Arkansas and Nebraska ‘hicks’ of northern Europe on a par with any other culture of their time. Sounds like you’ve never heard of them or their findings, which isn’t surprising if Fakeypedia, TheirTube or anything resembling the mainstream media are your sources of information.

Not sure what that rambling paragraph about ‘royal praybooks’ and Elves was all about, but it is also not surprising if Christians write about Elves as ‘supernatural critters’ and completely misunderstand – or deliberately falsify – that image. It’s what they do.

I also have no idea what you mean by the Norse ‘outing themselves as savages’ via their sagas or runic inscriptions. I’d say the Romans outed themselves as cucks by accepting an imported alien death cult as their state religion.

I did not say or mean that Elves have to be ‘Welsh’ or ‘Finnish’ because Tolkien used those languages as models, I simply meant that he clearly wasn’t thinking Japan, China, Mongolia or whatever when he wrote about Elves.

[onlyonepinman 18053xp 0]

@bvandewalker I doubt they will deviate too far from what we have already seen in Warhammer Total War and that version of Kislev would be recognisable to anyone who remembers the ’90s Kislev miniatures.  In fact, as per their statement about not wanting to deviate too far from the Warhammer that people know and love, that means that their kislev models will likely still look remarkably similar to 16th and 17th century Poles/Cossacks – to make sure that Kislev still looks like, well, Kislev.  Sure, maybe they give them two wings or more skulls or whatever, but the final aesthetic is still close enough to their historical counterparts that proxying with historical miniatures will be entirely possible.  And if you have proxied an entire army, rather than mixing and matching between official and unofficial, chances are that your army will also have a consistent look and feel.  There’s very little GW can do to prevent people from proxying and even Suggesting where such proxies may obtained.  There will always be a cheaper alternative that’s close enough to the GW offering as to be a recognisable proxy

And while they could do away with certain unit types and replace them with others, there will still be proxy options available.

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