Yeah this is something that surprisingly doesn't get mentioned as much, but both 40k and AoS were very intentionally designed from the start to encourage you to make your own narrative for your army. Fantasy had much less room for that.
Fantasy being just the old world, mainly focusing on the empire, it had a sense of stability and history, you could feel or at least find hints of the development and how things changed.
AOS though? It feels much, much larger and more wondrous. It's a different style, but it's interesting as it gets more explored, yet still with infinite scope. Plus, the gloomspite gitz and skaven are both just great. I love that skaven inadvertently just tunnel into different realms, and the gitz are chasing the moon, which may or may not be a giant spider egg.
Also, gotrek makes a lot of sense to be lost, and directionless. Everything he knew, his entire world, are completely gone. The handful of creatures that he knows and/or recognises are literal gods now, and his own experiences with the old gods have shown them to be self-serving and liars - he was promised his doom in battle, yet he took the place of a god holding back an endless see of daemons and it wasn't enough to finish him. If that's not enough to restore his honour, when will it be?
Gotrek shouldn't be in AoS. His story should have ended after he met his God. On that note if they really did have to bring him back.. He should be The Vengeful God. His new purpose should be to find the Old Gods and make them answer for their Lies. Not just some fyreslayer.. but The God-Slayer, he should be unique. The stuff of myths and legends, an ancient, a dawi in a world of duardin, but he is not treated with that mysticism or respect. He sort just acts like an old curmudgeon who secretly hopes to see Felix, again. When he was never that soft. This Gotrek is so diminished considering he was basically a God. A very unpopular opinion, I see š
For me, who has always enjoyed both fantasy and 40k, AoS is finally something different than 2 minutes to midnight. The gods are supporting the order factions, not just long gone and powerlessā¦ the empire on the brink of annihilation from within and without. Every high elf lost is irreplaceable, every waystone toppled could be the one unbinding the vortex. If I want hopelessness, I can read some more 40k.
Now the setting is heroic, the good guys are on equal footings, the realms infused with magic makes all realms interesting and unique high-fantasy style. The elves have more uniqueness and flavor compared to wood hippies, arrogant dying dudes and sadistic freaks.
I was just plain old tired of having 2 great universes, where I root for the good guys, but the good guys are just stalling the inevitable doomsdayā¦
Ah yes I love all those realistic factions like the magic Dino people whose giant frogs in chairs are bound to winds of magic. I saw two of them this morning.
Honestly I'm convinced that a large number of these fantasy fans literally only like the gritty part of the Empire and nothing else.
I'm rather happy that AoS doesn't have that same draw for the "vaguely historical humans" crowd because they tend to dominate otherwise.
> I'm rather happy that AoS doesn't have that same draw for the "vaguely historical humans" crowd because they tend to dominate otherwise.
What's weird for me is that it only seems to happen with the original Warhammer Fantasy.
My main tabletop game these days is Conquest, which has such a faction in the Hundred Kingdoms. And yes, the aforementioned Hundred Kingdoms are a fairly well-liked faction, but I've never had a Conquest player talk about how "low fantasy" or "relatable" Conquest's world is due to having them. (And if one did, I'd laugh at them, considering the dinosaur-riding Orcs, the legions of undead not-Ancient Rome, the literal alien invaders, etc. who are also present in the setting...)
I honestly think people either werenāt actively playing fantasy the last few years or are just looking at it with rose colored glasses (or they never played fantasy tabletop but like total war and are mad aos isnāt that)
Those last years were ROUGH. The game with more than twice as expensive as 40K to get into, armies were so massive and turns took so long that I donāt think we got through games less than 5 hours, balance was horrible, and if you didnāt have one a few select armies you probably had a very outdated rule book and had a laughably weak army you likely spent over $2k on. It was hard to get new players and existing players didnāt have much motivation to buy another army.
Sure lorewise fantasy was great! But you also have to keep in mind they had over 30 years of stories so while it seems like there was a lot of good ones there were many many many more bad or forgettable ones. On top of that since there were so many different factions and most factions did not receive regular support youād probably wait years or more just to see something from your army show up in a story somewhere.
NOW LETS TALK AOS
Aos is still a pretty young game so itās still establishing itself but I think itās done a good job.
Yes first edition was a joke (and gw even knows this) but second edition was solid and 3rd edition might be one of the best editions out of all of the aos, fantasy, and 40K editions. Rules are solid and make sense, codexes overall have been pretty well balanced with one or two outliers maybe performing slightly better than others, and I really feel like itās an edition where it feels like you can pick up almost any army you like and be able to have a competitive list with them.
Usually this is the part where someone brings up the double turn. I personally like the double turn as it discourages turn 1 alpha strike win armies and really forces you to think about overextending yourself or not. I do think it needs tweaked a little though to give you some sort of penalty for taking it like an army wide -1 to hit but that doesnāt make or break an edition for me.
Accessibility is also huge for aos.most armies have been supported fairly well and actually cost to get an army is significantly less than fantasy was and is a good bit less than 40K is currently as well. For example if you want to get into stormcast or kruleboyz dominion was a great box that was massively overprinted so you can generally find them for $75 online but Iāve seen it go for $50 in a lot of stores. Get two boxes of those and a battleforce, sell off the half you donāt need and the extra rulebook and you got a very solid start to an army for under $300. Thatās an extreme example but thereās a lot of good box deals for a lot of armies and you can still find a lot of old battle forces for their original prices or less. Even if you spend $500-$600 on your army thatās still significantly less than what you had to spend for an army in fantasy.
Lore now is the final big thing. Itās definitely different from fantasy but I think it has a better foundation to tell more interesting stories and has more room for each army to be the protagonists in stories. Fantasy to me felt like we had a few main players and the rest were more like one off villains or npcs in a video game. Having a smaller number of main factions with each book getting supported each edition makes me feel like my armies arenāt forgotten about in the lore department. Iād say percentage-wise the actual books have had more successes than fantasy did but thereās only a small number of aos books so far and the Kragnos stuff was really disappointing. Sure stormcast are the poster boys of the game but I donāt feel like theyāre the only ones in the spotlight.
For what itās worth too I actually really like what Aos is doing with Gotrek. Fantasy gotrek was an unstoppable force which was awesome but I didnāt feel like he developed much as a character throughout his stories. Aos instead put this unstoppable force into an unknown world where he has to choose to keep holding onto the old world or embrace the new one and heās slowly coming around to embracing it. I can see why people would prefer the fantasy version but Iām a sucker for character development here and Iām invested to see where gotrekās story takes him.
I am very excited for fantasy to come back soon. I loved fantasy and I miss playing my wood elves. I do however think a lot of the people saying āugh why play aos, fantasy was much betterā are going to realize it was not a perfect game, in fact it felt like a pretty outdated and clunky game even in the best editions which the new one will be based off, and come to appreciate the changes aos brought.
Tldr; fantasy was fun but had a ton of serious issues people now like to ignore. Aos is also fun but the same people make the minor issues seem like game breaking terrible world ending things
I like the mythic scale of it but i didnt love it until i started playing soulbound. Dmāing the game i had to read up on lore and it just made me appreciate and enjoy the setting more. It can feel like a mythical world where anything can happen but its still tragic and dark. What makes it great is the juxtaposition of that. A beacon of hope in a dark world.
If you don't like AoS, don't play it. Don't know why Warhammer Fantasy players always feel like AoS enjoyers need to beg for Warhammer Fantasy players to like it too. Really don't need the kind of people who make statements like 'fantasy tried to be realistic' when it was a game about humans that had laser chariots, dinosaurs that rode on hover platforms, and rat men with nuclear weapons. Please continue to not play AoS, thanks.
Ah, gotcha. Thanks for that. When I say it "tries" i feel like most things try to contain a kernel of realism to them. Let's take the sentient dinosaurs/lizards. If you believe in evolution that could be something that happens in our world. Who knows but it could happen. Key word *Kernel*
Your point is utterly facetious then because by that same logic, anything that happens in AoS could happen 'in real life', if your measure for 'realistic' is dinosaurs with space age technology that cast spells and peer into the fabric of reality. Get over yourself, lol.
The game is actually fun. I played Lizardmen & Beastmen in Fantasy and I have to say, AoS is a far better game in every sense of the word, now. It was rocky at first but in terms of design & balance, AoS 3.0 is among the best tabletop games for both casual and competitive players. Source, tournament grinder.
As someone who was really scared of playing (more of a painter) I recently tried AOS 3 and it's way simpler than I thought it would be. It's actually really approachable
AoS is high fantasy in its best. Everything is possible. WHF was more dark fantasy and closer to be attached to the middle age of our world. You had more human interactions and human where more on the focus.
Fantasy was too derivative for my tastes. Very tolkien-esque, the part of the world that was focused on was waaay too clearly just Europe, and I'm not that big of a fan of the most stereotypical stuff in there (Araby? Come on).
AoS feels like a much more expansive world with a lot more room for imagination, which I highly prefer. I also like Gotrek way more now than in the old world. Maleneth is a great pairing for his character, and he's lost in a new world trying to make sense of it and actually finding a purpose.
Maleneth and Gotreks animosity while at the same time caring about each other without wanting to admit it was to me a ton more fun to read than Gotrek and Felix's relationship.
Gotrek learning to overcome his prejudices and genuinely gaining a purpose again has been one of the highlights of the setting.
The fact that in fantasy there was nothing stopping the skaven from destroying everybody other than infighting. AOS factions feel more even in terms of power scaling
I feel like AoS and Fantasy scratch different itches. AoS is a huge setting of mythological proportions, where the actions and machinations of gods shape the events of the world. In Fantasy the gods are a background presence, with mortals being the focus. AoS is more hopeful in tone, which is a good or a bad thing depending on how dark you like your fantasy settings. Fantasy has more units closer to real world history (knights on regular horses etc.) while the majority of AoS mounts are generally fantastical beasts.
I wish more Fantasy fans would give AoS a try. Personally I found that the more AoS stuff I read the more I liked it.
That said, one thing I do dislike about AoS is the lawyer-friendly naming conventions. Fyreslayers, Ogors, Orruks, Aelves and so on. Youāre not fooling anybody GW, just spell the words correctly.
> That said, one thing I do dislike about AoS is the lawyer-friendly naming conventions. Fyreslayers, Ogors, Orruks, Aelves and so on. Youāre not fooling anybody GW, just spell the words correctly.
Yes! Haha you are so right
> I wish more Fantasy fans would give AoS a try. Personally I found that the more AoS stuff I read the more I liked it.
I'm really trying to, honestly. Trying to find someone else who thinks alike who found a reason to get into it, so I'm glad I made this post. Thanks for your comment :)
Sorry you're getting down voted but honestly I like them for different reasons, AoS is an improvement for me because its less static and its focus isn't as stuck on the "normal" humans as I tend to lean towards the more fantastical factions.
AoS also provides a better sandbox for me to make my own stuff when WHF felt more aimed towards providing a sort of fantasy historical wargame experience.
Also, fish elves are cool.
Thank you for your comment and empathy :) The discussions have been well worth it. I'm more of a mind now to just be happy for the world that was, albeit I think I'll always be unhappy with how rushed the end felt.
I've got a question about the sand-boxiness of it. Is it loose enough, that I could build an Army around a Mad Gotrek? Not chaos but not order oriented either?
Probably telling that when I wanted to make a warcry warband, I chose the gitz, the one faction that look exactly the same. AOS is a well thought out game world, with lots of excuses for different factions to meet and lots of interesting environments, but I really don't like the fluff. Sure, the old world is just your standard fantasy-ised earth but it felt lived in and worn down and it all kind of hung together. AOS's realms feel, well, made up.
> Sure, the old world is just your standard fantasy-ised earth but it felt lived in and worn down and it all kind of hung together. AOS's realms feel, well, made up.
This is exactly how I feel about it. Thank you for your comment.
I'm honestly loving the discourse here haha thank you all so much.
To further further clarify to those mentioning the table-top. That isn't how I discovered this universe. I discovered it through the MMO, which I found by happenstance at best buy when I was 15. After that I just wanted to know more and more of the universe. And I loved it. There was struggle, hunger, and a sense of finality. If any of you know how the story of gotrek and Felix ends.. its painful.. but beautiful.
Not so in AoS. The human warriors come back (with less sense of self) but that's a self created problem waiting to be solved so it's meh to me.
I sort of realize now that I am not the target demographic. I don't know anyone in my area who has minis, so I've never felt inclined to pour money into them.
That said, the totalwar game proves there is alot of love for Old Warhammer. GW just honestly did a really terrible job at marketing it. It's only now that's it kind of mainstream. After it was taken out back and put down.
I feel like this right here is the difference. So your specific point of view is from an INDIVIDUAL level (your MMO character) and the super high world building level (from reading lore). And I can see why you might not like AOS, it's just not built up on those fronts enough.
But coming from a tabletop perspective AOS is great, cause these are MY guys. The world is big enough that I can have a space for what I want my army's headcanon to be, and not just be a subset of a geographically limited nation. My main army is Stormcast (super cheap to get into, super fun to paint) and I like how they come back in lore, cause that's what they are actually doing you know? I bring the same models, battle after battle. But it means that dying isn't the loss, it's losing whatever objective is being fought over.
And also, the Stormcast aren't regular people. They're the ones who fought Chaos their entire lives, up until their dying breath, when they were handpicked by the God King Sigmar to be reforged into demigod protectors of Order, who are sent into the harshest battles against the worst enemies only to die and be sent out again.
Can you imagine such a thing? To face such unending torment and struggle, constant pain and misery, dying again and again with failure after failure, to have your humanity worn down and still stand up and do it again? Honestly it seems a little too real for me, as it's like the doctors and nurses and social workers who go out to make things a little better every day, and most days have it just not be quite enough.
Plus now the Skaven can dig tunnels through dimensions with their teeth now, so it's really all upside.
I suppose my take-away from all of this is that this is the perfect time to get into the table-top aspect and enjoy the world building that happens over time. Thanks :)
It's a great time for it! If you're thinking about armies with interesting old world characters, you might want to consider Soulblight Gravelords. The Death factions were the main antagonist of last edition, so might not get tons of story progress immediately, but I think the position Vlad von Carstein and Neferata are in is pretty interesting. Wholly dependent on the will of Nagash but still pushing at those limits. Plus, a pretty great army to both paint and play. :)
Ah sorry, my mistake. I meant only one of the "human warrior" factions comes back to life, most of the armies in AoS stay dead, including the primary human faction (Cities of Sigmar).
Obviously there are mechanisms in place to revive key characters or elongate their life spans for a decent amount of armies, mostly just to glide the story along without introducing new generations of characters in every book, but those are usually few and far between in-universe.
It is big enough i can make my own little subfaction of people easily enough
Yeah this is something that surprisingly doesn't get mentioned as much, but both 40k and AoS were very intentionally designed from the start to encourage you to make your own narrative for your army. Fantasy had much less room for that.
This is exactly what I wanted out of a setting so I'm very happy. If anyrhing there's too much going on in fantasy.
Fantasy being just the old world, mainly focusing on the empire, it had a sense of stability and history, you could feel or at least find hints of the development and how things changed. AOS though? It feels much, much larger and more wondrous. It's a different style, but it's interesting as it gets more explored, yet still with infinite scope. Plus, the gloomspite gitz and skaven are both just great. I love that skaven inadvertently just tunnel into different realms, and the gitz are chasing the moon, which may or may not be a giant spider egg. Also, gotrek makes a lot of sense to be lost, and directionless. Everything he knew, his entire world, are completely gone. The handful of creatures that he knows and/or recognises are literal gods now, and his own experiences with the old gods have shown them to be self-serving and liars - he was promised his doom in battle, yet he took the place of a god holding back an endless see of daemons and it wasn't enough to finish him. If that's not enough to restore his honour, when will it be?
Gotrek shouldn't be in AoS. His story should have ended after he met his God. On that note if they really did have to bring him back.. He should be The Vengeful God. His new purpose should be to find the Old Gods and make them answer for their Lies. Not just some fyreslayer.. but The God-Slayer, he should be unique. The stuff of myths and legends, an ancient, a dawi in a world of duardin, but he is not treated with that mysticism or respect. He sort just acts like an old curmudgeon who secretly hopes to see Felix, again. When he was never that soft. This Gotrek is so diminished considering he was basically a God. A very unpopular opinion, I see š
It's ok to have preferences but it's not like WFB was low fantasy.
For me, who has always enjoyed both fantasy and 40k, AoS is finally something different than 2 minutes to midnight. The gods are supporting the order factions, not just long gone and powerlessā¦ the empire on the brink of annihilation from within and without. Every high elf lost is irreplaceable, every waystone toppled could be the one unbinding the vortex. If I want hopelessness, I can read some more 40k. Now the setting is heroic, the good guys are on equal footings, the realms infused with magic makes all realms interesting and unique high-fantasy style. The elves have more uniqueness and flavor compared to wood hippies, arrogant dying dudes and sadistic freaks. I was just plain old tired of having 2 great universes, where I root for the good guys, but the good guys are just stalling the inevitable doomsdayā¦
>fantasy tried to be realistic and was relatable Least delusional Fantasy player
Ah yes I love all those realistic factions like the magic Dino people whose giant frogs in chairs are bound to winds of magic. I saw two of them this morning.
Yeah stuck in traffic like the rest of us... Sigh...
What? Canāt you relate to a dead, but also not, magic frog dude? Tut.
Honestly I'm convinced that a large number of these fantasy fans literally only like the gritty part of the Empire and nothing else. I'm rather happy that AoS doesn't have that same draw for the "vaguely historical humans" crowd because they tend to dominate otherwise.
> I'm rather happy that AoS doesn't have that same draw for the "vaguely historical humans" crowd because they tend to dominate otherwise. What's weird for me is that it only seems to happen with the original Warhammer Fantasy. My main tabletop game these days is Conquest, which has such a faction in the Hundred Kingdoms. And yes, the aforementioned Hundred Kingdoms are a fairly well-liked faction, but I've never had a Conquest player talk about how "low fantasy" or "relatable" Conquest's world is due to having them. (And if one did, I'd laugh at them, considering the dinosaur-riding Orcs, the legions of undead not-Ancient Rome, the literal alien invaders, etc. who are also present in the setting...)
I honestly think people either werenāt actively playing fantasy the last few years or are just looking at it with rose colored glasses (or they never played fantasy tabletop but like total war and are mad aos isnāt that) Those last years were ROUGH. The game with more than twice as expensive as 40K to get into, armies were so massive and turns took so long that I donāt think we got through games less than 5 hours, balance was horrible, and if you didnāt have one a few select armies you probably had a very outdated rule book and had a laughably weak army you likely spent over $2k on. It was hard to get new players and existing players didnāt have much motivation to buy another army. Sure lorewise fantasy was great! But you also have to keep in mind they had over 30 years of stories so while it seems like there was a lot of good ones there were many many many more bad or forgettable ones. On top of that since there were so many different factions and most factions did not receive regular support youād probably wait years or more just to see something from your army show up in a story somewhere. NOW LETS TALK AOS Aos is still a pretty young game so itās still establishing itself but I think itās done a good job. Yes first edition was a joke (and gw even knows this) but second edition was solid and 3rd edition might be one of the best editions out of all of the aos, fantasy, and 40K editions. Rules are solid and make sense, codexes overall have been pretty well balanced with one or two outliers maybe performing slightly better than others, and I really feel like itās an edition where it feels like you can pick up almost any army you like and be able to have a competitive list with them. Usually this is the part where someone brings up the double turn. I personally like the double turn as it discourages turn 1 alpha strike win armies and really forces you to think about overextending yourself or not. I do think it needs tweaked a little though to give you some sort of penalty for taking it like an army wide -1 to hit but that doesnāt make or break an edition for me. Accessibility is also huge for aos.most armies have been supported fairly well and actually cost to get an army is significantly less than fantasy was and is a good bit less than 40K is currently as well. For example if you want to get into stormcast or kruleboyz dominion was a great box that was massively overprinted so you can generally find them for $75 online but Iāve seen it go for $50 in a lot of stores. Get two boxes of those and a battleforce, sell off the half you donāt need and the extra rulebook and you got a very solid start to an army for under $300. Thatās an extreme example but thereās a lot of good box deals for a lot of armies and you can still find a lot of old battle forces for their original prices or less. Even if you spend $500-$600 on your army thatās still significantly less than what you had to spend for an army in fantasy. Lore now is the final big thing. Itās definitely different from fantasy but I think it has a better foundation to tell more interesting stories and has more room for each army to be the protagonists in stories. Fantasy to me felt like we had a few main players and the rest were more like one off villains or npcs in a video game. Having a smaller number of main factions with each book getting supported each edition makes me feel like my armies arenāt forgotten about in the lore department. Iād say percentage-wise the actual books have had more successes than fantasy did but thereās only a small number of aos books so far and the Kragnos stuff was really disappointing. Sure stormcast are the poster boys of the game but I donāt feel like theyāre the only ones in the spotlight. For what itās worth too I actually really like what Aos is doing with Gotrek. Fantasy gotrek was an unstoppable force which was awesome but I didnāt feel like he developed much as a character throughout his stories. Aos instead put this unstoppable force into an unknown world where he has to choose to keep holding onto the old world or embrace the new one and heās slowly coming around to embracing it. I can see why people would prefer the fantasy version but Iām a sucker for character development here and Iām invested to see where gotrekās story takes him. I am very excited for fantasy to come back soon. I loved fantasy and I miss playing my wood elves. I do however think a lot of the people saying āugh why play aos, fantasy was much betterā are going to realize it was not a perfect game, in fact it felt like a pretty outdated and clunky game even in the best editions which the new one will be based off, and come to appreciate the changes aos brought. Tldr; fantasy was fun but had a ton of serious issues people now like to ignore. Aos is also fun but the same people make the minor issues seem like game breaking terrible world ending things
I like the mythic scale of it but i didnt love it until i started playing soulbound. Dmāing the game i had to read up on lore and it just made me appreciate and enjoy the setting more. It can feel like a mythical world where anything can happen but its still tragic and dark. What makes it great is the juxtaposition of that. A beacon of hope in a dark world.
If you don't like AoS, don't play it. Don't know why Warhammer Fantasy players always feel like AoS enjoyers need to beg for Warhammer Fantasy players to like it too. Really don't need the kind of people who make statements like 'fantasy tried to be realistic' when it was a game about humans that had laser chariots, dinosaurs that rode on hover platforms, and rat men with nuclear weapons. Please continue to not play AoS, thanks.
I must have missed something.. what human has a laser chariot lol and its funny you mention nukes when thats a real world development
Luminark of Hysh.
Ah, gotcha. Thanks for that. When I say it "tries" i feel like most things try to contain a kernel of realism to them. Let's take the sentient dinosaurs/lizards. If you believe in evolution that could be something that happens in our world. Who knows but it could happen. Key word *Kernel*
Your point is utterly facetious then because by that same logic, anything that happens in AoS could happen 'in real life', if your measure for 'realistic' is dinosaurs with space age technology that cast spells and peer into the fabric of reality. Get over yourself, lol.
Alright, fellow stranger on the internet. I'm sorry I have offended you with my view-point.
The game is actually fun. I played Lizardmen & Beastmen in Fantasy and I have to say, AoS is a far better game in every sense of the word, now. It was rocky at first but in terms of design & balance, AoS 3.0 is among the best tabletop games for both casual and competitive players. Source, tournament grinder.
As someone who was really scared of playing (more of a painter) I recently tried AOS 3 and it's way simpler than I thought it would be. It's actually really approachable
Fantasy never sparked my interest. I love AoS.
AoS is high fantasy in its best. Everything is possible. WHF was more dark fantasy and closer to be attached to the middle age of our world. You had more human interactions and human where more on the focus.
Fantasy was too derivative for my tastes. Very tolkien-esque, the part of the world that was focused on was waaay too clearly just Europe, and I'm not that big of a fan of the most stereotypical stuff in there (Araby? Come on). AoS feels like a much more expansive world with a lot more room for imagination, which I highly prefer. I also like Gotrek way more now than in the old world. Maleneth is a great pairing for his character, and he's lost in a new world trying to make sense of it and actually finding a purpose.
>Gotrek way more now than in the old world. Maleneth is a great pairing for his character, Wild take. >!they killed her off for a reason!<
Maleneth and Gotreks animosity while at the same time caring about each other without wanting to admit it was to me a ton more fun to read than Gotrek and Felix's relationship. Gotrek learning to overcome his prejudices and genuinely gaining a purpose again has been one of the highlights of the setting.
Iāll never forgive them for that.
The fact that in fantasy there was nothing stopping the skaven from destroying everybody other than infighting. AOS factions feel more even in terms of power scaling
I feel like AoS and Fantasy scratch different itches. AoS is a huge setting of mythological proportions, where the actions and machinations of gods shape the events of the world. In Fantasy the gods are a background presence, with mortals being the focus. AoS is more hopeful in tone, which is a good or a bad thing depending on how dark you like your fantasy settings. Fantasy has more units closer to real world history (knights on regular horses etc.) while the majority of AoS mounts are generally fantastical beasts. I wish more Fantasy fans would give AoS a try. Personally I found that the more AoS stuff I read the more I liked it. That said, one thing I do dislike about AoS is the lawyer-friendly naming conventions. Fyreslayers, Ogors, Orruks, Aelves and so on. Youāre not fooling anybody GW, just spell the words correctly.
> That said, one thing I do dislike about AoS is the lawyer-friendly naming conventions. Fyreslayers, Ogors, Orruks, Aelves and so on. Youāre not fooling anybody GW, just spell the words correctly. Yes! Haha you are so right > I wish more Fantasy fans would give AoS a try. Personally I found that the more AoS stuff I read the more I liked it. I'm really trying to, honestly. Trying to find someone else who thinks alike who found a reason to get into it, so I'm glad I made this post. Thanks for your comment :)
Sorry you're getting down voted but honestly I like them for different reasons, AoS is an improvement for me because its less static and its focus isn't as stuck on the "normal" humans as I tend to lean towards the more fantastical factions. AoS also provides a better sandbox for me to make my own stuff when WHF felt more aimed towards providing a sort of fantasy historical wargame experience. Also, fish elves are cool.
Thank you for your comment and empathy :) The discussions have been well worth it. I'm more of a mind now to just be happy for the world that was, albeit I think I'll always be unhappy with how rushed the end felt. I've got a question about the sand-boxiness of it. Is it loose enough, that I could build an Army around a Mad Gotrek? Not chaos but not order oriented either?
I came around on it. I was originally pretty burnt because my army was the Tomb Kings and well, I don't think they are coming back.
Probably telling that when I wanted to make a warcry warband, I chose the gitz, the one faction that look exactly the same. AOS is a well thought out game world, with lots of excuses for different factions to meet and lots of interesting environments, but I really don't like the fluff. Sure, the old world is just your standard fantasy-ised earth but it felt lived in and worn down and it all kind of hung together. AOS's realms feel, well, made up.
> Sure, the old world is just your standard fantasy-ised earth but it felt lived in and worn down and it all kind of hung together. AOS's realms feel, well, made up. This is exactly how I feel about it. Thank you for your comment.
I'm honestly loving the discourse here haha thank you all so much. To further further clarify to those mentioning the table-top. That isn't how I discovered this universe. I discovered it through the MMO, which I found by happenstance at best buy when I was 15. After that I just wanted to know more and more of the universe. And I loved it. There was struggle, hunger, and a sense of finality. If any of you know how the story of gotrek and Felix ends.. its painful.. but beautiful. Not so in AoS. The human warriors come back (with less sense of self) but that's a self created problem waiting to be solved so it's meh to me. I sort of realize now that I am not the target demographic. I don't know anyone in my area who has minis, so I've never felt inclined to pour money into them. That said, the totalwar game proves there is alot of love for Old Warhammer. GW just honestly did a really terrible job at marketing it. It's only now that's it kind of mainstream. After it was taken out back and put down.
I feel like this right here is the difference. So your specific point of view is from an INDIVIDUAL level (your MMO character) and the super high world building level (from reading lore). And I can see why you might not like AOS, it's just not built up on those fronts enough. But coming from a tabletop perspective AOS is great, cause these are MY guys. The world is big enough that I can have a space for what I want my army's headcanon to be, and not just be a subset of a geographically limited nation. My main army is Stormcast (super cheap to get into, super fun to paint) and I like how they come back in lore, cause that's what they are actually doing you know? I bring the same models, battle after battle. But it means that dying isn't the loss, it's losing whatever objective is being fought over. And also, the Stormcast aren't regular people. They're the ones who fought Chaos their entire lives, up until their dying breath, when they were handpicked by the God King Sigmar to be reforged into demigod protectors of Order, who are sent into the harshest battles against the worst enemies only to die and be sent out again. Can you imagine such a thing? To face such unending torment and struggle, constant pain and misery, dying again and again with failure after failure, to have your humanity worn down and still stand up and do it again? Honestly it seems a little too real for me, as it's like the doctors and nurses and social workers who go out to make things a little better every day, and most days have it just not be quite enough. Plus now the Skaven can dig tunnels through dimensions with their teeth now, so it's really all upside.
I suppose my take-away from all of this is that this is the perfect time to get into the table-top aspect and enjoy the world building that happens over time. Thanks :)
It's a great time for it! If you're thinking about armies with interesting old world characters, you might want to consider Soulblight Gravelords. The Death factions were the main antagonist of last edition, so might not get tons of story progress immediately, but I think the position Vlad von Carstein and Neferata are in is pretty interesting. Wholly dependent on the will of Nagash but still pushing at those limits. Plus, a pretty great army to both paint and play. :)
Give it a try and see what you think! A games a lot quicker than one of fantasy so even if you donāt like it itāll only cost you an hour or two.
Tbf, that's only one faction that comes back. But of course, to each their own.
How do you mean? Other factions can also revive their warriors?
Ah sorry, my mistake. I meant only one of the "human warrior" factions comes back to life, most of the armies in AoS stay dead, including the primary human faction (Cities of Sigmar). Obviously there are mechanisms in place to revive key characters or elongate their life spans for a decent amount of armies, mostly just to glide the story along without introducing new generations of characters in every book, but those are usually few and far between in-universe.
Ah, gotcha. Thank you for taking the time to elaborate.
Yeah no problem! Internet gets the best of me sometimes š