Why did people hate Age of Sigmar??
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- Опубликовано: 21 окт 2024
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The problem is that, with the End Times, GW made clear that lore comes well after the amount of sold minis. I am sure that, if 40K wasn't GW's cash cow it could also end with the same sad uncool death.
Just try to Imagine it: next year a bunch of books come out where the great rift just keep opening, and warp spills over the entire galaxy and beyonf. Everything and everyone is dead. Terra blows up. The Emperor gets his final stand, but it's all anticlimactic and futile. Most named characters are now canonically dead, all those lose threads will remain so. All the Xeno races that never sold that well die off-screen. What about Leagues of Votann? What about all the new models Gw just released? What about the Tyranids who we thought were the next great threat? Who cares, they are dead now the Emperor's Children snorted their bones or something.
But wait one of the Emperor's shards was capable of saving a fraction of Real Space thanks to the help of a random all-powerful dragon. In this space suddenly all the best-selling character reappear! Or at least a very faint mockery of them, basically unrecognizable. But now there is no more galaxy so this space is now pringles shaped, and that pringles is neatly divided in slices based on one cliches. Gone are the star sistem and the planets, we just need a fire place, an elf place, a bad place and Ultramar. Yes, because now humanity is made of only Ultramarines and Cadians! Also they are entirely different and magic now, but with now models! Buy them! Oh no, now Abbadon is a chaos god! He is ready to launch the first black crusade of this setting, hope he doesn't win again. Really, pray he doesn't win or you will have to buy everything again. Wouldn't that be a bad investment? Wouldn't that be a scam? Why aren't you invested yet?
Womp womp😊
Oh, I can guarantee that as soon as 40k will stop selling this well, Emperor will fall off the chair and everyone will die.
Fortunately that won't happen for at least next 50 years or so
Ding ding ding!
bro chill
I like how people are telling you to calm down instead of actually trying to refute what you are saying. Shows that you are right on the target.
I think a lot of the hate came from the invalidating of existing armies (especially brettonia and tomb kings). AoS's smaller scale meant that even those who rebased their minis would have a large amount of built, painted minis that were just collecting dust, feeling like a waste of time and money. That plus the fact that fantasy was then wholly eliminated as a game system. It could've been kept like horus heresy, where it stayed basically the same with a small range (and square bases you can buy for new models) to throw a bone to established fantasy players.
It also simply isn't ... nice to play.
And the Fluff isn't ... Yeah. Well, it is what it is. I still wanna my Dwarfs back.
*Cries in Clan Mors* I MISS-MOURN QUEEK HEADTAKER
It's not fun to play either, the rules are convoluted.
I was a Brettonian player never played it again. Sold the Army so going back very low chance of happening.
Even if you had a cary over army it was please rebase the whole lot thanks! WTF the boom its now a full on skirmish style where were the ranks of infantry just gone good times. It was full on face palm and cry.
For me, the big appeal of Warhammer Fantasy _was_ the big blocks of rank-and-file soldiers. I liked that tactical element of wheeling and marching and seeing blocks of infantry stacking up against one-another. Not every model had to be a glorious centerpiece. But it also had fantasy elements so it wasn't just some historical tabletop game. My first army was Vampire Counts because the appeal of seeing hundreds barebones skeletons (pun intended) and a few really, special overpowered lords really scratched some itch in me. Moving regiments on big, plastic base-trays was more fun than moving individual models on round bases. It felt like the artwork: depictions of thousands of bodies being thrown on one-another in brutal combat.
Yep. I moved to historical games after GW killed WFB. I like formations because they make sense when your army is made up of melee fighters or slow-firing ballistic weapons, where being able to use volley fire and barrage fire make infinitely more sense than everyone doing their own thing.
I first started with GW way back when they first published LotR tabletop - but upgraded quickly to WHFB and NEVER looked back. I came to despise the Lotr shit back then precisely because it lacked any tactical aspects, it was just individual miniatures on round bases running at each other and then ramboing it out. Nothing sucks more than throwing dice for 20 individual melee combats in one round.
Compared to that in Whfb you could actually do tactics. Flanking actually was damn effective and could very much turn the tide of battle. You could literally prepare and spring traps on your opponent with cavallerie. Or stop a regiment in its tracks with grapeshot before they could reach your artillery.
Yup, that's the appeal of fantasy wich I simply never got from anything else, so to this day I play the fanmade 9th edition.
And don't forget about fillers. This is why I didn't like FB. In Age of Sigmar/40k, if you need 60 models, you need 60 models. In FB, “skillful hands” will make 60 models in one squad of 10 models and will be proud of themselves. This is disrespect for those who actually built and painted 60 models.
I'm not even talking about the usual low level of painting in the unit block.
In fact, on FB the miniatures are not warriors, but only markers of wounds.
Like most fans of fantasy "Endtimes was reall bad" and it was. If they had more care sending it off I think AoS wouldve been accepted by more. But some things just felt so outta pocket by GW.
What, you think the king of the dwarves dying because he didnt close a door was bad writing?
yes@@bvdemier1
Ima be honest, at this point the people that hate AoS to me are the same type of people that still hate ultramarines to this day and I find it kinda dumb. Both the ultramarines and AoS getting shit are the fault of Matt Ward, who we know sucks ass, but now I find dumb for people to hate qhat is going on now because of him, considering that he doesn't wrok at GW for years now, so at this point is just a dumb leftover resentment which is making people not give the new things a chance, especially when everything Matt Ward did has been mostly corrected
Even if End Times was done well, it wouldn't change the fact that AoS is a fundamentally different setting with a completely different tone and feel. Just looking at it from the outside, it doesn't share much in common with Fantasy other than some characters.
@@bvdemier1Not as bad as Eltharion...
Literally had one of the most badass storylines in End Times only for GW to get bored and kill him with old age...
For me, the End Times seemed a case of GW saying, “Hey, 40k is selling better than Fantasy. So let’s blow Fantasy up so that we can remake it with round model bases. Oh, and throw in Fantasy Space Marines too. Because people love to buy Space Marines.”
Still a bit salty to this day, I’ll admit.
“How do we fight demons”
“I got it! We just become demons and all move into the warp, it’ll be great”
Not selling as well as 40k is a massive understatement, the game was really unpopular. The entire Fantasy rage was being out sold by the Tactical Marine kit and paint. And there are a bunch of reasons for that; the lore was stagnant, the rules were too complicated, the models were too old, etc. So in reality, Fantasy was already dead, the End Times were just the funeral, a really really awful funeral (not even as an AoS simp with a mild hatred towards Fantasy can I defend the End Times) , but one nonetheless
Yeah but now, the GW Shop in my City was several times close to closing.
Because AoS doesn't sell really - people just buy one or two Models for D'n'D, and nobody plays AoS. 40k itself doesn't float the boat neither on its own. The Fantasy Players switched to other Tabletops.
@@expanddongerydoo34 *ceases making the product better*
*everyone pikachu faces on why its staying bad and never changes*
*make a statement saying it never sold well while you were constantly ignoring its potential*
*blow up product*
*sell all the pieces of it that look the most like 40k and call it a day*
*delete your best looking model line from the games existence because shooting yourself in only 1 of your feet isnt enough* (tomb kings)
I would say GW are master minds of long term psychological manipulation, but they're really just master minds in the long term downfall of their own company.
@@DaroriDerEinzige And? That's an anecdote, AoS (and 40k) not doing well in your area doesn't reflect the state of the game as a whole (also I highly doubt the continued existence of Fantasy would have saved that store). I've heard multiple anecdotes of AoS doing better than 40k in some areas, but like your story they aren't reflective of the state of the game. In reality AoS is doing quite well, not as good as 40k, but that's a given, and if it wasn't actually selling well GW wouldn't be supporting it, at least as much,
The Games Workshop vs. Chapterhouse lawsuit basically caused not only the destruction of oldhammer and the creation of the age of sigmar but also all the 40k properties getting renamed imperial guard to astra militarum etc.
The lawsuit was really interesting. Chapterhouse was a 3rd party bitz and model company that did not fuck around with trying to cover up what their stuff was for. They didn't call something " roman space knight shoulder pads" they called them "ultramarine 3rd company pauldrons". As I understand it the entire company was an attempt to troll GE into a lawsuit which it was very successful at considering the outcomes. Which included GW loosing the right to space marine as an IP except in the sphere of tabletop wargaming and directly in 40k.
Thanks for the info and the context around/behind it, didn't know about that (stupid names tho(speaking about the changes following, that is)).
@@ivanivanovic5586 no problem. For how obsessed the fan base is the chapterhouse lawsuit is not really well known especially since it explains so many GW decisions from 2013 to the present.
I would be upset but this happeng to GW makes 100 times funnier
@@mr.toastable672 They might actually listen more if they're hit on the pocket hard enough (moneywise).
@@ivanivanovic5586 GW was, which is why they sued Chapterhouse. Between 3rd and 5th editions, many rules in the books didn't have models/bits. If you wanted a las/plas razorback then you had to make it yourself. Chapterhouse and others stepped in and started making the different bits GW no longer wanted to and had stopped doing between 2nd and 3rd. That is one of the reasons GW lost; they were told they couldn't have issue with a product they wouldn't sell, much less one based off history.
AOS has really cool models and maybe even fun rules. The big shame (as a non-tabletop guy) is that there is not a lot of setting or tone overlap between AOS and Warhammer Fantasy. They just feel too different and no amount of "Hey remember Gotrek!" will get me to invest the same way I was invested in Fantasy.
Hopefully that will come back with The Old World when that finally starts rolling out.
Because it's was nearly a reboot
Good.
@voidragongorknah 40k doesn’t need to steal all the good stuff from other universes
As someone who wasn’t super invested in fantasy or rather only really found out about around the end times after a while it didn’t bother me but digging in deeper into fantasy with total war warhammer definitely changed my views on it
I don't want 16th Century magic space marines, I want peasants throwing rocks at goblins.
i mean you can still do that by playing the cities of sigmar
To be honest, people liked talking about it but I've never seen anyone play fantasy. The original models were outdated, and often didn't look good. The universe didn't need a restart, it more needed a rework with better models like now.
Part of that was GW making it absolutely more difficult to get armies to play with for new players and adding more rules when none where needed
Back in the day, this was late 2000s and early 2010s I didn't actually know anyone who 'played' 40K, collect some models sure but other than watching one game of it being played at university I didn't know anyone who played it. I did however know several people who had Empire arms, Dwarf armies, skaven, and played regularly. I myself had gotten into the hobby at that time and started with an Orc Army which never once saw victory, and had started on a Bret army right before AoS came out. Seeing a table filled with full armies was a sight to behold.
I am totally aware however that my wargaming friend group was just my group, and I'm sure else where in the world a WHF player would turn up to a gaming night and have no one to run their army against,
I came into Warhammer from the Total War games, the lore of the fantasy world is what really got my friends and I hooked. We had considered getting into the tabletop game but then learned there was no Warhammer fantasy game anymore and Sigmar had replaced it. We couldn't get into the Sigmar lore because it felt so cheap that everyone was a god and there didn't seem like there was any stakes. Eventually got into 40k instead and now all of us have our own tabletop army and I've read more than 30 BL books lol.
I'm sure that's not what you meant and that BL is a warhammer related abbreviation as well, but getting hit by "...and I've read more than 30 Boys' Love books lol." made me laugh out loud.
@@user-zz3sn8ky7z In this context it's black library, the company responsible for warhammer books. But there is definitely some overlap if you read space marine books
Did you really complain about stakes while liking 40k? 40k has far less stakes than AoS does. 40k is awesome for what it is though :D
Not seeing how stakes are any different it’s still “win or the chaos gods eat souls and burn your civilization to the ground”.
@@H240909 The Chaos gods are significantly less threatening when other factions have comparably powerful and active gods. Sigmar, Gotrek, Teclis, Tyrion, Malerion, Nagash, GorkaMorka, there's just way too many "chaos god" level gods running around for the Chaos gods themselves to feel distinct or uniquely threatening
Warhammer fantasy showed far more its legacy toward historical archaic warfare. That meant tactics a Roman legion might have used, had some viability on the battle field. Age of Sigmar just reduced the fantasy combat to a more melee heavy version of the same tactical paradigm as 40K. I grew up playing Ancients miniatures and gravitated toward Fantasy in its early years while in college. I enjoyed 40K for its open formations and more firepower based 'modern' tactical paradigm, but loved Fantasy for its foundation on archaic warfare with fantasy and magic thrown in. AOS and Fantasy just are not the same, at all.
Fantasy>AOS
If I wanted a history setting, I would choose a REAL History, not a fake one with elves and orcs.
The formation thing was used because of the nature of weapons being used, and how they were reflections of medieval weapons (for the most part) and tactics.
Hell, you'll find formation tactics were used in the real world all the way up to WW1, because accurate bolt action rifles and the machine gun simply blew through formations.
However, when your primary weapons are muskets, or bows, or spears, formations make INFINITE amounts of sense. Yes they were roman tactics, but they were kept because they WORKED.
Given AoS is still predominately melee and slow fire fighting, it doesn't actually make any SENSE to abandon formations.
@@Vasily_Kotickovitch
That's what made Fantasy cool though. The whole thing was written like a giant love letter to real world history just cranked up to eleven with all the fantasy elements added in.
Does anyone remember when AOS came out and had NO POINTS. There were a bunch of fringe point systems that players had to make up themselves in order to play the game.
yeah, the early days of "Just bring what you think is cool" was a mess. That exactly what people already did by buying their models. To be set out to sea without a rudder like that was a mistake they quickly backpedaled on.
Shit blew my mind
Biggest mistake they could have made. That works for some casual night at a friend's house when it's more about hanging out together and neither care about what you're playing. It absolutely doesn't work when you want to play a fair game with someone at a local gaming club or heck participate in a proper tournament. No points made the game completely unplayable outside of casual games with friends. To this day I don't understand the reasoning. Did GW truly think the vast majority of their audience were just hobbyist who only cared about cool models?
From what I remember the rules for that were that you could pick your victory objective such as killing the enemy general and the side with fewer models also got some kind of advantage like going first, so I just kinda screwed around with it a little bit by bringing an army consisting of 10 Bretonnian peasant archers and 1 paladin, having the archers use their "once per game the unit shoots three times as many shots" ability, dumping 30 shots into the enemy general, and then the game was over, win or lose. It was very silly.
Because it made no sense. It wasn't a natural progression of the end times, it was just a "F-U we need to make an IP that can't be copied so we are doing this."
The End Times were not well handled. Of course the fans would be miffed that the setting is going. There isn't really a good way to deal with it. But huge parts of it were rushed, poorly thought out, or contradictory. Malekith's surprise Pheonix King arc, the Dwarves being handed a basket of idiot balls, and Bretonnia being written out in about three sentences, all stand out.
That poisons the well hard for AOS, especially when it's opening lore and rules were not great by comparison.
Going from Dwarven Holds liKe Karaz-a-Karak to "DWARVES ON FIRE! FYRE SLAYERS!" made alot of us just throw up our hands and go "great, they dumbed down the rules AND the lore."
It has gotten better, the AOS Elf stuff isn't bad and while I loathe Nagash, the various undead factions have different and interesting flavors.
In short; I don't hate it like I used to. It is growing to stand on its own and if removed from its inception, is pretty good.
However, it did murder an arguably more interesting world. Just look at the Total War Warhammer games, to say nothing of the best parts of AOS being characters from the Old World. Its some good shite.
That's basically my impression of the situation and I honestly feel really close to how you described it, I got into Warhammer I think through Total war, at least that's how I got into fantasy. Seeing those cool characters made me look up the lore and I loved it! then I learned a thing called the end times happened and going through it... even without years of being in the hobby.... I honestly felt the sad, especially since AOS really wasn't as cool as I loved the grounded fantasy more.
I grew to resent AOS a bit I think because of it. But now after some time, the lore is finally getting a bit interesting to me. Mostly cuz I've gotten into the models now and holy crap do the AOS models look awesome! I especially like the Deepkin's look and lore, they are honestly what got me into AOS now. But while I still think Fantasy is still the best Warhammer setting, I'm staring to like AOS a bit more now.
@@Lusus-zj9pt Sounds rad! You kinda backed into Fantasy in reverse, thanks to Total War which is cool.
Yeah, the models are well sculpted and the setting lets them get pretty gonzo with it.
@@fedupN Exactly, while I think I prefer the grounded story of Fantasy, the high fantasy setting Of AOS is starting to appeal to me in a sort of grandeur fantasy metal way whitch I love and wish I realized that was what AOS was sooner.
Think it needs more media and lore to show off their world. If only fan animations and fan works were still a thing :/
@@fedupNpeople put so much blame on how poorly the launch went along with End Times, but AoS is a fundamentally different setting with a completely different tone and feel. Warhammer Fantasy was a grimdark low fantasy setting with tons of fun historical references and the perfect mix of wacky and grounded. AoS is superhero fantasy where the characters are literal gods and the stakes just don't feel very high.
@@ivansmirnoff6987 Completely agreed, they are very different beasts. Power/Epic Metal to Sludge Rock or Gothic Metal. You can see the shared DNA but differing themes. And playstyle in this case.
That is why I think with enough time and distance, AoS can stand on its own.
AoS gets HATE because it sprung from the poorly butchered corpse of Warhammer.
Aos would get DISINTEREST if able to be removed from the poor launch.
That is how I look at it.
Honestly what was so great about Fantasy is how, and I know it sounds strange, grounded it was. It was a surprisingly well connected setting that made sense and had both incredibly well explored regions as well as mystery lands. The empire was not only a grounded setting that provided a human view of the world (and endless hours in the rpg games), but also incredibly rich to the point that random villages have actual lore entries, and every big city is deeply explored extensively, having their independent cultures and traditions.
Furthermore armies actually did shit that made sense. Yeah your basic humans aren’t fighting orcs as individuals, they are forming a pike line while the skirmishes take a few shots. The elves are even erecting a shield wall while their archers pelt you…
This is a stark contrast to how empty AoS still feels, sure now they have fleshed a bit some places, but even the biggest cities are barely explored and the realms are expanses of nothing with a dozen or so landmarks that have a name and a few lines describing them, there’s barely anything to explore in AoS because the realms are just too empty.
Something that made Fantasy great as well was how the main factions were fairly grounded, the Empire didn’t win because of random magic bullshit or by having an army of totally not space marines, but with faith, steel and gunpowder. The threats the humans faced, while sometimes extremely powerful, were generally also equally grounded, pretty much everything save a few exceptions could be reasonably killed by your average joe with a long stick, or joes in plural with pointy sticks.
Hell, it is explicitly described how even a single chaos warrior with a herd of about a hundred beastmen makes everyone go “oh shit” in a Gotrek & Felix book and they wipe out entire settlements.
In AoS every single tiny battle involves demigods, dragons, demon princes and every crazy thing you can imagine to a point where it is just not believable. Am I supposed to believe humans can survive in a setting where you turn the wrong corner and you can see a golden inmortal demigod fighting a giant flying shark while a demon of tzeentch plays dice to see who will win? Also cities of sigmar’s armor looks like trash compared to empire armor.
In general AoS just feels a lot like DnD and pathfinder. Nothing makes sense other than “it is cool, so let’s add it somewhere” and the power creep is so atrocious that normal humans essentially don’t make any sense in the setting. And sometimes the factions are literally a subfaction from fantasy rebranded (fyreslayers lmao) or outright copy 40k lore (nice aspect shrines Lumineth have lol).
The best part about AoS is that it is a good wargame to play.
I couldn't agree more! It really saddens me to see Warhammer being subject to the "D&D effect", where everything is so inflated with random things thrown in along with the "rule of cool" dominating that it just results in everything being too noisy, generic, and bombastic.
I mean that's not really the case if you read the books. Like sure, army wise ya everything is very heightened, but in lore most of the really crazy stuff happens well off away from where most people are dealing with stuff day to day. The thing is, like with 40k, AOS has a MASSIVE setting where the scale is so grand that 99.99% of people will never see a god or a named hero or anything like that and even 90% of Cities of Sigmar troops will not see a Storm Cast in there life time even with them jumping all over the place to help put out fires and fight on multiple fronts. However, when your playing the board game, your playing the rare (in the grand scale) conflicts where things pop off! This is where it most differs from Fantasy where most battles will be taking place between smaller armies that are constantly actively clashing due to being in a smaller, more pressurized setting.
The thing to keep in mind with AOS is that the highs are much higher, but the scale has been decompressed to the point where things are allot less crazy over the top for the majority of people even compared to fantasy, just cus of how stupidly BIG the mortal realms are.
@@Duhad8 I think the setting has a ton of potential, but it needs to focus more on small-scale things and flesh everything out a lot more. It can definitely get there, but GW has to put in the effort.
You get it. It’s a world with fantasy elements not a make it up as you go world. That’s what drew me into warhammer in the first place. I like my fiction grounded with only understandable hand waving like space travel. Yeah no one knows how that works irl or if it can so… it’s for the fun!
@@Duhad8 most recent books have been trying to fix it, indeed
So my step mum had a massive bretonian army, my brother had tomb Kings, dad had Wood elves and orks and I had skaven and high elves. Safe to say since half of our armies in my house were defunct we all stopped playing fantasy and just moved onto 40k and I doubled down on my goblins of Moria since I had a couple buddies who played the forces of good. Glad I didn't burn my shit but wish I still had it all. Also yes yes give give more skaven content yes yes
Yes-yes give skaven video thing now-now!!!
Coolest family.
What does your family play in 40k
why don't you just play fantasy? i still play it today, 6th, 7th, 8th edition, AoS... don't care, i'm also studing 5th edition and try to make a list
if you're playing with family, why not just play on your favourite edition?
I love AOS. Have several armies. Play regularly. But I get it. AOS Is literally standing on the corpse of your favorite franchise and it's proud of it.
THANK YOU. You're more intelligent than most AOS fans. Most are just "get over it" as if we haven't spent thousands of hours and dollars into an army and world we cherished. I like AOS and like some of it's characters. But if AOS died today, it wouldn't have the same amount of fans keeping it alive through fan works
@@pryftan1292 As a fan of AOS, I can say the same about FB fans. It was they who imposed this hatred. They have been constantly coming and pouring shit on us since 2015. They didn't give this universe a chance, and they hated those who did. It's the same now. But these days, the AOS community has grown stronger, and it has begun, we put it like this, to fight back. And FB fans immediately started crying, they say what AOS fans are aggressive. It's just that we've heard a lot of insults and shit over the years.
@@АлександрПавлов-ь2ь3м AOS got hatred because a world built for 30 years was torn away and replaced with a 40k knockoff. But Aos fans are the victims because FB dared to be angry and salty about that? Your Lack of awareness is exactly what I'm talking about. Somehow YOU are the victims when Fantasy fans lost everything
@@pryftan1292 They are the victims. You are pouring hate on people that had nothing to do with that, and acting like victims while doing so. It's pathetic. I love both franchises, and felt the same about AoS as many Fantasy fans did, but grew up.
Many Fantasy fans did not.
@@stephenjenkins7971No they aren't. They just had to deal with hate online. We had to also deal with that AND were told to "get over" the squatting of every army that we put thousands into. Keep the same energy if AOS ever gets destroyed for the next franchise and almost every model you own doesn't cross over. Even as someone who plays it, AOS fans are infuriatingly ignorant of the feelings of fantasy fans and just expect them to "get over it"
I just liked Fantasy's aesthetic more. AoS has a lot of amazing models, and I certainly went out of my way to own a couple of them, but I just have a personal preference for the knights of old and the shot and pike look that Bretonnia and Empire had. Cities of Sigmar though looks super cool, and Old World becoming a thing has be excited.
I remember being really interested in Warhammer fantasy at the time AoS came out. To the point that I was starting to contemplate my first army. Needless to say AoS killed my enthusiasm and if it wasn’t for young me discovering that 40k existed, I probably would have dropped warhammer entirely. For that reason I just remember AoS as that system that killed my introduction into war gaming.
Exact same thing happened to me.
Kill the setting then pump out the most popular RTS game at the time
My issue with AOS is the aesthetic. I don't like the look of the model ranges or the universe. I was a die-hard fantasy fan and really enjoyed the world it was set in. I didn't collect every army, but I liked every single one of them. It was more grounded and not as "out there" as AOS seems to be. When the End Times happened I could have lived with a change in the ruleset; I understood that Fantasy wasn't selling well and a smaller skirmishing game would probably be much more popular/beneficial for the health of the IP and GW as a whole. However, when they killed the setting and the world itself and replaced it with the "mortal realms" they lost me. I've read that the lore has steadily gotten better, but I think for me the issue is that, at its core, Age of Sigmar is just waaay more abstract for my taste and I don't think that is ever going to change.
Exactly my thoughts.
Having the empires God just essentially fart out a new universe instantly removed all stakes.
The universe he did fart out looks like a Jackson pollock painting. The parallels to real world settings and elements are all gone.
It is mcguffin land.
Exactly. AoS engages in that "maximumism" that 1000 other fantasy IPs do already. There's no thought to how the arms and armor work within their own world... they just exist because some designer thought "busy artwork means good artwork."
Fantasy designs are not only usually functional within their own world (if you ignore some of the bigger offenders like Dark Elves) but embraced both established real-world aesthetics and made the most out of simplicity. A simple steel Empire cuirass with like a skull embossment and purity seal has so much more personality than some garbage Sigmarine Lego man with gildings and carvings on every square inch of his Power Rangers armor.
@@TaRAAASHBAGSThey shoehorned space marines into fantasy and people gobbled it right up.
honestly, while i get prefering the more toned down setting, i do think making it more high fantasy was for the best
keeping it the similar grounded setting as Fantasy would honestly just be more insulting, and the stormcast would clash a lot more with it. making it more high fantasy helps distinguish it from Fantasy. it also helps that AoS leans into it instead of just dabbling with it, yes it's crazy, but it's consitantly crazy
also, i'm just gonna say it, stormcast are cooler than space marines
My hate for Stormcasts is only equivalent to my love for Space Marines.
Fixing the Lizardmen lore from being mind deamons, and the new models brought me back in.
I always thought people hated Age of Sigmar since it was shit on release if you had more money for a bigger army, you win the other person didn't have a chance, so it had to be heavily homebrewed to be fun so those who initially tried it with an open mind quickly moved on. Also end times being dogshit didn't help at all.
Yeah agreed, I think some people either forget or weren't there for the original rules release. It was a horrible game that was very hastily thrown together with poor wording. It's vastly improved, but I think the original release was written on a napkin on someone's break.
Pay-to-win characterized 7th and 8th editions of Fantasy and were a huge reason they were maligned. Single braincel GW execs thought "hmm... it must be the setting itself, not our terrible handling of the ruleset or predatory monetization."
So I wanted to make a new comment here just because, after a lot of back and forth, the Skaventide box models finally convinced me to take the dive for 4th edition AoS, and while I've only played 1 game of spearhead, it was a ton of fun, watching lore vids have been a ton of fun, and painting the models are actually enjoyable, where in 40k it kinda feels like a slog. AoS is actually worth it I can say legitimately
So I never played fantasy tabletop but was a fan of the lore
Not saying AoS is bad it has incredible models and I’ve been tempted to by some just kitbash on my blood angels
My problem is how out there aos is hell it’s more outlandish that 40k in some aspects. Folks have brought up before but it’s like reading war and peace and then suddenly it’s sequel is dragonball. I’m not saying the lore is “bad” but holy shit mang I listened to lorecrimes go over it as an opener and it was too out there for me
Super late but wanted to throw in my 2 cents. I got into fantasy cause of blood bowl 2 and total war and fell in love with warhammer dwarves. They were extremely well designed as an 'other' race that, while close to human in morals, still had their own unique culture and highlighted the lifespan difference. A dwarf would expect your grandchild to repay a debt you incurred because to them it is still a debt owed.
Also troll slayers. Just everything about the concept is amazing. Feeling so shamed you shave your beard and most of your hair, and then proceeding to find the biggest thing you can kill and trying to kill it without any armor is amazingly metal. The fact the 'best' troll slayers are considered failures by themselves and their own people because their goal is to die in combat is just an amazing cherry.
My town has a hella ton of AoS players, just as much as 40k. It's so much that I didn't know there was any controversy at all
I like 40k lore the most but enjoy AoS models and gameplay more.
I find AoS does a great job with non human armies compared to 40k
My problem with AOS is that it's the time before eternity where the legends of a yet unborn world are being forged to stand against infinity. For me it's way too high fantasy and WF was one of the best dark fantasy setting out there and the pinnacle of that being the book Troll- Slayer and seeing a world that interesting die sucks.
But then Chaos come, they conquer all other world with only Azer was left. It has a degree of Dark Fantasy too. Its just the power system being in definition of High Fantasy.
Plus there's not a lot of High Fantasy setting focus on people of the struggle, when a band of mortal human was driven to crusader with Steel Gunpowder and Faith to Sigmar
@@tonyfranksland428Actually they still have those. The Dawnbringer Crusades are putting the Freeguild (regular humans) front and center
@@harmonlanager2670 That's why I said it as such. These Dawn bringer will make mortal sturggle for life
There is nothing at steak in AOS. Where is the doom of mortals? The hopelessness? The grit? The grimdark?!
For those who wants to know about Harry the Hammer 7:55, he got killed during End Times by Vlad Fon Karshtine (a big daddy vampire), when exactly I do not remember, but I know it happened.
AoS rules and the lore is getting to a point where major set pieces have been established and they're starting to populate the setting horizontally instead of simply moving the overarching story forward. It's also Mythic Fantasy (which is like making a High Fantasy version of High Fantasy) with literally infinite realms which means it has the most room for creativity. That's why it has the most interesting sculpts and wildest factions. Recommended reads: "Godeater's Son", "Hamilcar: Champion of the Gods", "Prince Maesa", "The Hollow King", and the drekki flynt novel.
my main objection came from a role-playing perspective and the "none earth looking world"; I loved the historical references in old warhammer fantasy and liked the idea of a dark fantasy late medieval / early gunpowder setting, old warhammer fantasy had, and it made the "everyday man" perspective much more interesting.
I cant get interested in a high fantasy setting where questions like; how are they feeding their armies, how are kids raised in those magical realms, what generates the breathable air in those magical realms... dosn't have answers
@@gawkthimm6030 yeah that's fair. As I mentioned in my previous comment, they have been answering those questions in th recent novels. Authors like Noah Van Nguyen giving a boots-on-the-ground perspective of the pockets of human civilization that survived the apocalypse in that region of Aqshy, what their history was survivng against chaos alone for 20 generations going from empire to scattered tribes. He walks you through the ruins of this Empire no one in Azyr cares to remember and you learn the different dialects and cultural differences between these tribes and ethnic groups that have descended from that once united civilization of their ancestors before Archaon arrived and Sigmar shut the gates to leave everyone to fend for themselves. The most interesting interaction is the coming of the Dawnbringer Crusades (part of the current edition's lore) launched out from Azyr's cities to "reclaim" land from Archaon. Of course, none of them care to hear what the humans still living there think. The Azyrites treat them as savages who should be grateful for the "gift of civilization". The detail is being added. It just takes time. It's only 8 years old and doesn't have the benefit of leaning on a fuzzy view of the real world to generate places, cultures, and history.
Ironically, I can't get into the Old World from a role-playing perspective either. It's too close to the real world. If I'm not interested in "Not" white western europeans then my only options are evil abhumans or monsters. Sure it has material for an "everyday man" perspective, but someone who looks like me does not belong to its definition of "man". Whereas in AoS, you can look however you want and hold whatever culture you want and still get to choose any of the realms to roleplay in. I'm already restricted by the history of the real world, and I don't see the appeal in being restricted in the same manner in a "fantasy" setting.
@@gawkthimm6030You’d love the Dawnbringer Crusades then cause the Cities of Sigmar armies made up of regular people are at the forefront and it gets into logistics.
@@NapGodgreat point here, love where the setting's going and it is absolutely growing into its own beautiful world not restricted by anything before or after
Where did you get the term “mythic fantasy” from?
Age of Sigmar killed what we loved around the time that the Total War and Vermintide games started gaining popularity. This was very confusing and frustrating for old and new players alike.
Total War introduced me to WH Fantasy. I didn't even know it preceded 40k
one can only wonder how things would've went had those games came out early
The only reason I hate it, THE ONLY REASON, is because they said the 40k universe just fucking exploded, and then came AoS
Endtimes and the 1st edition of AoS that got everyone so pissed
I had two Warhammer Fantasy armies (Dark Elves and Bretonnians - the former are kinda in AoS, but they really suck and everything that made them fun in Fantasy is gone) and loved the lore of it. So, from the jump I was probably lost to GW when they took all the money I had spent on what I had a trashed it. They broke the community for a weird lore shift. They could have easily introduced the elements you talked about without spitting on the lore and I think they probably could have pulled me along if they hadn't adopted their stupid scorched earth approach to what came before. I still get mad when I think about it. I have not bought a GW product since and I never will again.
1:39 *"I still know people who go into screaming rants, saying they killed fantasy."*
Goin after pancreasnowork now are we? /j
I feel Pancreas is one of the fairer voices on AOS, yes killing Fantasy sucked but AOS had benefit of hindsight to avoid some of 40K and Fantasy’s worse flaws, such as the obnoxious level of favoritism towards one or two factions while leaving every other faction as background extras for the Space Marine daddy Issue punch up 2.0
AoS is Power Metal personified. And I am a massive fan of Power Metal. Every time I see artwork for AoS, Twilight Force, Blind Guardian, and Manowar start blaring in my head.
What? No Bolt Thrower?
@@Lycurgus1982 Bolt Thrower is… ok. Not my favorite.
It's a shame all their designs are so painfully generic.
lol did you just say AOS designs are more painfully generic than fantasy? - that's a good one!@@OmegaShadeslayer
it lacks identity compared to Fantasy, Yes Fantasy is very generic but it has roots in history and is deeply inspired specially with the lack of early modern fantasy settings,
Second is that 40k exist even the least zealous Fantasy fan can tell how a Stormcast is very much a copy of the Space marine by oversized shoulderpads alone and third which is mostly my personnel grip with Sigmar is that it lack the soul of FB's Design both Aesthetically and in-spirit for In Comparison Fantasy was made by history nerds having fun with all the shenanigans of the era it was base upon while Sigmar is very saturated and comes more MMO-ish than a Wargame.
@@theDackjanielz
For anyone wishing for the old days, play Oathmark, it's very reminiscent of oldhammer and the community allows your old models
This! And I’ll add Warlords of Erehwon for a fun skirmish game.
Or Turnip28, which is The Old World as intended.
I like AoS but for fans of Fantasy, I highly recommend Conquest: Last Argument of Kings
I am a displaced Star Wars fan so I've only jumped into 40k recently. Just finished Galaxy in Flames yesterday. I know very little about Warhammer Fantasy or Age of Sigmar, but if you start to cover it I'm here for it.
All of the 40k creators I've subscribed to have rescued my RUclips Algorythm out of the doomscrolling nose dive it was becoming. So thank you very much for that.
As someone who only got into Warhammer recently I thought Aos was really cool. It was fantasy but it took the time to create unique races that weren't just ripping of Tolkien like every other high fantasy setting. Though now that I've gotten the chance to play games like Total war: Warhammer it sucks that all these cool characters and factions were simply erased.
I love Fantasy because it takes all those old fantasy archetypes and takes them in new and interesting directions, along with the awesome historical references. It just feels so grounded and interesting, versus AoS which is superhero fantasy.
@@ivansmirnoff6987 Personally, I think exactly the same thing.
They killed one of the extremely rare Tolkien based universes and replaced with with something that just bleh.
@@ivansmirnoff6987plus, warhammer fantasy helped create some archetypes and key traits for fantasy races, such as Dwarfs holding grudges to the point of obsession and Elves possessing a dichotomy of ancient grace yet horrible brutality
The races aren’t even unique, it’s just “lizard men” and “rat men” and the such
@@vast9467 they're not just "lizard men" and "rat men"
Each one has their own culture, based off of one from Earth, and turns it up to an extreme
The Lizardmen are the keepers of the Old Ones' "Great Plan", and will do whatever it takes to ensure the world doesn't stray from it. They were the first race to populate the world, crafted by the Old Ones as their warriors and wardens, before the Old Ones left.
The Skaven are the pinnacle of Ruthless Industrialism, they don't care how many people die so long as they keep expanding. They think the world is rightfully theirs, and they are the most technologically advanced race in the world (they have nukes in a world where the next most advanced thing is a steam engine warmachine). They expand rapidly, and go to the surface yo attsck not because "haha evil rst people", but because they literally need to yo survive. The only thing keeping the Skaven population in check is the amount of cannibalism and murd3r they perform on each other
The death of fantasy was way worse in lore than you can imagine. To put into context of how big of a fuck-up the end times were: the dwarf that got assasinated in the end times wasnt your average Dwarf. His whole stick is that he was a king inventor genous that invented some of the best magical weapons and devices in the setting with a paranoya so high he had enough armour and protection on himself that he could fight off 100 skaven at once And WIN. Yet he was somehow killed by a poisoned dagger by a regular ass skaven with the authors doing a great injustice to the characters entire storyline by inventing a means for the skaven to get into his room rather than doing them justice by say; having him die at in the end times tryung to save the world. All major characters, all build-up lore, all plothooks and all story arcs up until that point were dropped, unceremoniously killed off, and left to die, with some well known and famous characters from each faction being straight up forgoten by the authors when they wrote the book who only had 2 years notice to write these dam books whilst age of sigmar was being developed in tandom with one another. When you have 14+ major fan characters, 9+ factions, and easily over 25+ storylines you gotta wrap up in 2 years and somehow give everyone a sound and sweet ending in antisioation of a shoe horned new game that stole the characters you loved only to then ruin their storyline and then tell the fanbase that all of your existing models for that game were not suported for the new game ontop of only starting with 5 factions in its 1st edition... Some people are going to be justifiably mad.
As someone newer I totally understand why some people will basically never forgive GW for AoS and fantasy, I also don’t think it helps that people like me who got into Warhammer through total war basically can’t get any of the legendary lords as characters in models.
The biggest issue with AOS is that it just steals only a tiny bit of lore from a 30 year game with lots of interesting background and history. No transition, just "Oh they died, that died and now everyone is stuck on pieces of land floating around with magic everywhere"!
I will admit Im very biased and havent liked AOS since the beginning and WHFB gave me great memories and I was a tournament player for years. Something about the WHFB player comrades that still isnt with AOS yet.
Im really hoping the Old World is sorta good.
I’m gonna get into both Age of Sigmar AND The Old World.
Life is too short to hold a grudge that prevents you from having fun.
Please excuse my English.
I'm a historical nerd for whom Warhammer Fantasy was the first fantasy book because it had a historical mix. Hussars on bears fighting the vikings, german landsknecht defending the HRE like empire against the Orcs, mysterious cults buried in cities, the economic and social situation of social groups and cities.
Hell, in Warhammer Fantasy RPG you played with a social class, not a character class like in a typical RPG.
This drew me to fnats in general, I started reading Game of Thrones, Chronicles of the Black Company, etc.
The end of Fantasy also meant the end of my interest in the franchise.
I've been trying to understand what Age Of Sigmar is, but it's more mythological fantasy than the Historicism Fantastic that Warhammer Fantasy was.
In my country, battle games were less available, whether it was 40k, Fantasy or AoS, so it wasn't for the game that I was interested in the l universe.
I wanted to see where it would go next, whether the Empire would go through an industrial revolution, or I would see fantasy in the style of 19th century fantasy. But it turned out to be nothing.
Pity.
They killed all the fan favorite characters, doing some just dirty, and tried to kill Gotrek by blowing up the planet.
Here’s the thing, I really like AoS; I think it’s lore is pretty cool and 4th edition is really beginning to separate Stormcast and Space Marines and is all around creating a better setting and game. However, I will never be able to forget my love for Warhammer Fantasy; my Settra, my Karl Franz, my Gotrek and Felix, and my Iket Claw. I still look back and wish it could’ve been saved because despite how much I love AoS; hearing about how Gotrek and Felix managed to thwart Thanquol’s plans this week never gets old. But, above all else; I miss my Settra kicking Arkhan’s black teeth in and telling Nagash to screw off because Settra does not serve, Settra Rules.
Cause it was ass. Old Fantasy was so rich in how fully it embraced the ridiculousness but was fond of fantasy signifiers. AOS was from the jump just a copyright and Trademark exercise
I think that regardless of whether AoS gets better with time or not, there's a much bigger point to focus on: GW had no issue screwing an entire playerbase and basically telling them "shove those 15 paychecks of minis you have uo yours lmao buy our new stuff or gtfo", and they will do it again.
Investing any money into their products after that is stupid. It's like putting money into cellphone games. Any amount of thinking will result in the realization that these things have an expiry date, and all the money you put in it will be gone.
The only sane move is to abstain from any spending. If you really really want to play it, download PDFs of the manuals and 3d print generic models. Don't give a company that won't think twice of ditching 30 year customers any of your money.
I'm not salty about losing any of my money mind you, this is a purely logical view of the situation from someone who never had strong attachment to the product to tint my glasses.
Problem is skeletons, orcs and elves aren't exactly unique to GW - a lot of us simply shifted across to competitors (Mantic even made a big deal at the time about how you could simply import your fantasy army into their KoW), stuck with our favourite FB edition or went with the fan produced edition. Similarly I still own a few AoS models, I just use them in games like Oathmark, no interest in actually playing AoS.
If they fork it off into an alternate reality that exists alongside Fantasy, people would be a lot more accepting of it I think. Heck, they could even make all of the Age of Sigmar setting a creation of Sigmar's own mind in the Warp. He went and forged a whole actual universe and harvested a bunch of damned souls to create this pantheon because he couldn't accept his failure, but in reality the original old world still exists, that kind of thing.
As someone who played Warhammer and 40k during my young teen years (2009-14). AoS was something that I'll never forget. I loved both 40k and Fantasy and it sucked that when AoS just invalidated all my hard work I put into Fantasy. It also killed the lore that I really enjoyed. I remember everyone at the shop just stopped playing anything that wasn't 40k after the change. Then the shop closed and I went to college.
Even now, I look back at AoS and the models don't excite me. Still waiting for my Bretonians to get new models.
yes i agree.
How the heck is sigma falls through space and finds an giant space dragon who tells him, how some random realms works, how to... idk prepare for war and get old colleagues back.
Sorry it sounds so stupid.
fantasy had tons of deep lore and felt unique. AoS just feels generically fantasy.
AOS is fine now. I’m glad to see the Lizardmen finally get updated and get a little bit more personality to them. Hopefully that personality will carry into the Old World.
What I’d really like to see happen though is the entirety of the End Times retconned and rendered non-canon. It’s all terribly written and does awful things to many characters. Technically the only requirements for AOS to happen are the end of the world at the hands of Archaon and the survival of several characters, all of whom are immortal or extremely long lived anyway. So it literally doesn’t matter if the End Times happen during Franz’s rule or a thousand years later as long as some elves, Nagash, and some vampires are still alive.
I don't know. on one hand i like what they did with end times IN CONCEPT (can't underline this enough), allowing plot armor to fail and have established characters die is a nice change of pace to feel like no one is invincible. i'm also not against the world ending to do a soft reset, however they just handled it in the worst way possible and it felt so rushed. they gave chaos plot armor and didn't give any other faction a singular win.
i think had the end times gotten a few more years to really flush itself out with a new edition or two and some end times models, i think it would have been better. made the end of the world a more drawn out, slow thing that explores the increasing dread and depression of characters having to realize (or deny to themselves) the reality of the situation. something like how vermintide II really focuses on the characters attempts to come to terms with the current situation.
@@sovietunion7643you took the words right out of my mouth
AoS has been "fine" since 2019, but the first 5 years were rough and most of the hate that exists for the game online is mostly a product of salty ex-hobbyists regurgitating the same tired accusations and excuses which were once valid back in the mid 2010s but are now woefully misrepresentative of the current state of the game system, lore and model range. On the surface AoS looks like a high fantasy rip off of Warcraft + Magic slammed together in an attempt to sell fantasy to WH40K players.
But in reality it is more than that, it may of been that to begin with but it isn't that now. This is possibly why there is a genuine lack of AoS video games (as far as I'm aware there are only three, one of which is a mobile gatcha game with the others being a by the numbers DCCG and a tactics game). Games Workshop is well aware that most of the people who buy their video games are the ones who quit the hobby because they thought the models are too expensive, they are also keenly aware the majority amongst them hate AoS simply because of the echo chamber rather than actually taking time to show it enough consideration to look into it because making a judgement on it.
@@foxdavion6865 i mean there are genuine reasons to not like AOS. its less down to earth and personal than fantasy, which can take away a lot of people's enjoyment. sure big huge battles with gods on the battle field is fun but a lot of people liked the smaller grimdark moments of random peasants and villagers dealing with the crappy state of the warhammer world.
thats the same gripe i have with 40k, is that it gets so over the top and into gods and such that the few moments it decides to slow down its on some agri world that even if its nuked 20 other worlds replace it. in 40k every village and town destroyed and hurt can be felt.
this of course is an opinion, but that change from more down to earth stories and less overpowered characters to AOS's gods and powers (also changing from more high fantasy) really offput people
you know, could be that i simple dont like fucking high fantasy you know? Not all of us like ridiculous big armies fighting over for some world ending weapon, thats why im not into aos or 40k @@foxdavion6865
I don't play table top Warhammer but I think the main issue is how GW finished the Old World.
Many characters and even races were simply disrespected to a major degree. Characters and races that had been around 20+ years.
Its fine to finish things off and kill characters to mive the plot forward or introduce a newer version of the setting, but it has to be done the right way.
GW fundamentally failed to do it properly.
Ppl forget that the first edition of AOS had absurd rules like “reroll if you have a mustache” and other stupidly absurd nonsensical pointless things like that. I think that’s a major reason why ppl hated aos ar first
I'm a simple man. No Settra, no interest.
Im a simple greenskin, no grimgor, no interest
@@risforrandomandrandomisme762 Proppa' git you iz.
I remember reading about end times on the 1d4chan, they had this gem of a sentence "then end times happened and it was all manfred's fault!". I think it was around the same time gw started using those stupid trademarkable names too. Mind you, the idoneth(sea elves), nighthaunt and ossiarch models do look really cool. Haven't gotten around to read much of the new, let alone old lore.
If Vlad never made Mannfred a vampire the fantasy world would still be alive
Imagine unironically using the name Aelf, Duardin and Orruck. XD
I do not hate 40k, I just enjoy AoS, the existence of 40k does not affect me at all, I invite people to test AoS, and if really really enjoy the game, they are welcome, if not, they are welcome as well, to watch maybe, or to play 40k in the next table. Let the people enjoy things.
You can narrow the problems with AoS down to about three or four things. The first, and biggest, is its utter contempt for Fantasy despite the fact that AoS uses many of its elements and characters as a fundamental base for it's setting. It's lack of regard for its older sibling causes AoS to make some baffling bad narrative choices and largely feel like a cynical project because its using preestablished elements for simple brand recognition.
The next two problems, broadly, feed into each other. AoS is, by GW's own admission, designed around being the fantasy 40k, as opposed to being a spiritual or narrative successor to WHFB. As a result, it wholesale copies many concepts from 40k, consequently, repeating many of the same problems while creating entirely new ones. Two of the best examples of the top of my head are Stormcast being respawning fantasy space marines and the realms concept. Stormcast are almost a 1-1 replica of space marines, but lack flavour that make marines even remotely interesting, and the size and number of realms makes the scale of setting incomprehensible so conflicts feel meaningless more often than not.
The last major problem with AoS is that it still really hasn't fully formed its own identity yet. Fantasy and 40k took decades to become what we know them as today - AoS hasn't even been around for a single decade, let alone multiple. In a lot of ways, AoS is flailing around as an IP still in an attempt to carve out its own identity. While this is expected, it does still come with plenty of growing pains.
PS:
Something worth noting, but some of the newer trends introduced by AoS have gradually seeped into 40k over the last few years. Chief among these has to be turning background characters of legend into active participants in the setting. This would be taking "historical" characters in the setting whose influence was always felt more than explicitly seen, such as Sigmar or the Primarchs, and forcing them on stage to do things. The has the consequence, somewhat ironically, of devaluing the character, as, due to their strength, the narrative has to constantly invent excuses for those god-like character to not simply start solving every problem, making these characters seem incompetent.
I’m thankful that you’re a lot more respectful and cogent in your dislikes of AoS, compared to some of the people on here who continue to act like toddlers about it.
I still disagree with a lot of your statements here though. I don’t see what narrative missteps you seem to be referring to? AoS’ narrative has been pretty dynamic and impactful (a lot better than 40k’s by a mile if you ask me.) And as for Stormcast, I find them way more interesting as an army than Space Marines. Stormcast resurrection isn’t this freebie can’t die thing. In the narrative, Stormcast are afraid of dying, and will sometimes defy orders so they don’t. Every time a Stormcast is returned to life; they lose memories, personality traits, and steadily become more and more robotic.
One of the things that I love most about Fantasy is that it's a fantasy version of medieval Earth, and because it has been around for so long the setting has the right amount of complexity in the politics if the factions to make it work as fantasy Earth. AOS just completely lacks any of that.
You are romanticizing something that did not exist. GW have always been very bad in politics, economics, as well as in physics and technology. All the states and societies shown in the "Old World" could not exist in reality.
@@Basil_Ghothickovitch Did I say real world politics? No I said "good Fantasy Earth". Capturing the nuances of real world politics is hard and it's usually better to just show a small piece to make it easier to digest. By good fantasy Earth I mean no "everyone is lined up on the good side or evil side" no "the world is thousands of years old but has the political depth of one that has been around for a few hundred at best". These are the things that turn off to a fantasy Earth. In a good fantasy Earth everyone needs to hate each other to some extent (including allies) for both reasonable and stupid reasons, and you need to at least have a decent amount of real world cultures represented in an interesting ways (like dinosaur Aztecs or the Holy Roman Empire with griffins and steam tanks) Instead of five flavors of European and maybe one flavor of something else. Both of those can work in something with limited time, space, and scope like a book trilogy (IOW Lord of the Rings) but when you have given yourself way more to unlimited time, space, and scope you need to do more. Warhammer Fantasy at the beginning was all the things that I just complained about. It's because they kept adding more on to it over time that the lore became something that I love. AOS could become that way too but that will take years maybe even decades to get to that point. Which means it won't be able to hold my interest until then while Warhammer Fantasy has it right now.
The main problem with AoS is that old world was sacrificed for it. AoS is fine but people really loved the old world and it sucks that the ending was just "then everyone died. The End."
For people actually into the setting it was really lame. The timing was also really bad with a lot of new fans getting into Warhammer through the Total War games
Age of Marvel? I just prefer my fantasy to have a darker aesthetic, not one ripped from the comic book world.
Age of Sigmar also didn't help itself on arrival by GW not bothering with a points system - they honestly didn't seem to see the problem with saying 'Just you and your opponent throw whatever you like on the table, it's all good'. And as you said, treating the old setting the same way Hasbro treated Optimus Prime back in the 80's just showed a weird lack of understanding of the attachment people felt to the lore of the Old World and its characters.
Words cannot express how half-assed and cynical the release of AOS was. 8th edition Fantasy struggled after trying to force you to buy 100 man blocks of infantry and the huge centerpiece models they were putting out, so their solution was to flush a game with nearly 30 years of player investment and setting detail, for what?
A blatant attempt to slap the Warcraft aesthetic onto space marines, the often nuanced and satirical dark fantasy setting replaced with a textureless high-high-high fantasy setting of bubble universes bumping, and a rule set excluding fan-favorite armies, without point values, and with nonsensical rules like rewarding you for having a mustache. Making a more casual game play experience is fine (playing GW games competitively is kind of a joke), but AOS was barely a game on launch. The Fantasy audience always skewed older than 40k's and the gameplay was comparatively technical, when GW made it clear how little they valued their existing base, a significant part of that base returned the favor.
All of WFB's issues came down to GW's own decisions. GW acted like it was the player base's fault that WFB 8th edition needed a ton of models. THEY WROTE THE RULES.
Warhammer Fantasy was something I really loved. I enjoyed the strategy of the rank and file formations that rewarded planning and maneuver over stacking special rules on top of each other. I enjoyed the interesting interconnected world with decades of built up history. I had many fond memories of megabattles and friendly games. I understand why it was doing poorly and GW felt the need to end it, but it will always hurt. Age of Sigmar may have been improving over the years, but it is a very different game. It may be less expensive and more marketable, but it also happens to have removed pretty much all the things I loved about the original Warhammer.
I love AoS and I always love to see more videos on it.
Even as a fan of Warhammer Fantasy (which I still am) I never hated AoS as much as most. I do think it's getting better though. Plus Fantasy's coming back with "The Old World," fingers crossed that'll work out well...
I have slowly come around to AoS as a setting, but only because I kinda see it as an alternate timeline, kinda like those new star trek movies from so many years ago...
Like there is one timeline that the world ended and became AoS... (not my FAVORITE, but I CAN see the coolness of the setting...)
And there is a timeline where the end times DIDN’T happen so dumb, order won, and now they are in the "Age of Reckoning. "
(Seriously, seeing them as two separate, but strangely tied worlds is a whole lot more fun...;))
Nah.
I stopped with Tabletop all together due to AoS. F*ck GW.
I loved Fantasy and played it for several editions. When the time came, I switched to AoS. It’s a different game but it has proven to be a very good one.
A part of me wants to like age of sigmar as that whole winds of magic forming their own realms thing? I LOVE the sound of that! Plus I got into warhammer after the end times, so I 'should' be less affected by the whole controversy surrounding it. The problem for me is the fact that it was total war warhammer that got me into the franchise, so learning that the setting that originally got me into warhammer was just nuked and replaced with something that somehow felt like it was lying to me because it looked like fantasy but didn't have the same feel as fantasy made me mimic and absorb the anger of the community like khorne. Maybe one day I can enjoy it, maybe one day I shall make a skaven army... or even learn about one of the other factions that exists because of age of sigmar but until then I shall remain with warhammer fantasy and warhammer 40k
I was in a table top group at the time that frequented a FLGS. I had a couple of people in my group who had some armies. One guy had some wood elves and a decent amount of dwarves. Another guy had Ogres. This third guy had three whole armies of Tomb Kings, Wood Elves, and Vampire Counts. Another one had Slaanesh, Ogres and Beastmen, whole armies. All together it was literally thousands of dollars worth of minis, paint, and rule books, and that was just my Table. There were other guys at the store who had armies.
No body was really vitriolic about it, but when AoS came out those models and rules sat on the shelves for literally years. They got a nice coating of dust. I think the only guy who ever bought any AoS stuff was this one guy who bought some Stormcast Eternals, and he bought them to convert into Chaos Space Marines, a combo Tzeentch/Slaanesh army.
Every body who had the old WhF stuff just kept playing their older editions and Mordheim games. The FLGS' I go into now barely have any AoS stuff. The most popular games I see played are that Marvel game, which is fucking weird to me, but I'm old now...
And as for me, well I never paid much attention to any of it. See, nobody ever play the game I did save a buddy in my group who borrowed models from me. Nobody plays the GW LotR game.
The Lord of the Rings game is great though. You should really try it.
@@a-line88889 Yeah, I know. I have it. I still need to get the newer rule book. Nobody else out my way plays though Dave that one guy and he just LARPs now.
it was a shame that, when age of sigmar came out, all the old books for warhammer fantasy and all the memories about the rules were completely deleted out of existence, making it impossible to play any edition of the game you prefer
I was really spooked when my bookcase caught on fire as the books self-immolated. lol
that's my main issue, it would've been alright if Fantasy stuff was still available and AoS was simply an alternate future setting
@@thejuiceking2219 well, can you believe that i played some games of 6th and 7th edition AFTER the launch of AoS?
The problem, i think, with warhammer fantasy and AoS is that Fantasy never was Grimdark in the first place;
It was Grim at times, and it fell under the Dark fantasy genre in part, but it never was "GrimDark" as we intend it like with 40k, so AoS pretty much is trying to fill something already filled
Some of the model sculpts are cool but honestly overall not a fan. Fantasy was my first war game and I still have my minis. I have been tempted to try AoS but just don’t feel the expense and effort is justified. For the most part I have now more or less moved away from GW minis.
I was never invested in Fantasy. AoS Seraphon Lore is Hella dope and I'm way into it. I care about no other faction, just give me giant magic frogs and dinosaurs... and I'm happy.
As someone who first got into WarHammer through Total War I can say that it was disappointing to play it, think “I want to know more about this world!” Then only to stumble upon everyone being dead and Moutan’s of burning peuter and resin, even worse was the faction that I gravitated to was the Lizard men “or Seraphon” and all their named characters where dead unless you like big mummy Slann, with the refresh they got I was kinda hoping they would get some new lore or a actual character, I want to love AOS but it’s biggest problem is the fact that it lives in fantasy’s shadow.
Have you read AoS Battletomes on Seraphon or trpg content with them? As one old time player said about Seraphon "my faction went from a backwater meme on the edge of the world map to one of the major forces behind the lore and a force to be reckoned with. Noe guess which of the two settings do I prefer?". Sorry, everyone has their own experience, but in my humble opinion this comment summarises the situation with this faction. I do not play Dracothion's favourite children but in my playgroup(s) my "job" is to be resident lorescribe and I can assure it was a blast seeing how gently GW brought lizardmen from a questionable caricature into a literal guests from the stars only to than gently incorporate them into the ecosystems of the Realms. This they GW pleased both those who enjoyed the idea of the magic-spawned and highteck Seraphon and counter-beatmen ferocios and wild Seraphon. Also reading their a lot of GW's plans are revealed around what they want for both SoA and FB, like that Old Ones are actually alive, that FB's little planet is actually by far not the first incarnation of the fantasy universe and so on. Beg your pardon for long post, it just baffled me, when you said "no character".
@@skirongozdawa40 Lizard men a backwater meme? Than you just have no clue about the lore ....
I do like AoS but that was due to i joined at the near end of Second editiom and i got in through the AoS Gotrek stories which all minus Gitslayer are very fun but both Realmslayers made me pick up Fyreslayer books and fall for them, i did like Dwarfs lore from the world that was and i prefered the Angry almost naked warrior monk mercs over the sky corperations, (Just some nick names for them) and playing the game even on Tabletop sym with my American friends was super fun i have come around to this and really like it, sometimes more then 40k but 40k was my first Warhammer expirience and always will be, love to see your and how you find the facions keep it up Arthur
They literally blew up a fantastic character rich world. Destroyed the world in the lore so they couldn’t return to it. Should have just not been so drastic. You never know when you might want to return to a product.
Might get a lot of flak for saying this but fantasy died because people didn't support it, it's a bitter pill to swallow but when the game was making GW less than their hobby supplies it's fate was sealed. In my local community there were people playing the game with armies that were between 20-30yrs old and the only things that some of them were buying were the books, many others were just playing previous editions of the game. It didn't exactly help that the fantasy community were all a bit older and closed off to any newcomers, so for people trying to navigate the massive ruleset fantasy had there wasn't really anyone for them to turn to apart from the local GW, which was tiny at the time. End times brought a lot of interest back to the game and I thought the first three books were pretty interesting, really nosedived for me in the 4th and 5th book but seeing Queek get a W was scrumptious (A Dwarf's natural state is Skaven food after all).
When AoS came along I thought it was awesome, I thought the initial lore, whilst shaky in some areas set excellent foundations as a whole and it's been a joy watching the setting turn into what it is now, both lore-wise and rules-wise. It feels like a massive sandpit where you can have as much grimdark or noblebright as you want and initially you could use all of your models. I reckon most of the hate for the game's lore comes from people who haven't read any of it past the initial 1st edition stuff or people who are just jumping on a bandwagon that was set up by sites like 1d4chan (Whose lore articles aren't the best and perpetuate the cycle of bad memes). Community wise it's one of the most supportive I've seen, it's not closed off and unapproachable like the fantasy crowd was here, and it's not toxic and hyper-competitive like the 40k scene here. If people are looking for outstanding AoS fiction, I'd recommend anything by Josh Reynolds and more recently Richard Strachan.
In regards to the comments about Warhammer adventures, I actually worked at GW whilst these were being printed, they were a huge success and I think more are in development. They did so well that GW managed to get David Tenant and Billie Piper to do narration work for them. It's also not like they were intended for super young kids, target demographic for them were kids that were just heading off to high school, adults don't have a monopoly on dark fantasy! They got pretty dark themselves, iirc in one of the 40k ones the main characters watch as space marines get cut down by Necrons who then actively hunt them down through the streets of the hive, and one of the main characters gets killed.
Thank you for reading this essay, I hope you all enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.
That s just not true. GW DIDNT SUPPORT THE PLAYERS. There were no releases for years and bad sells a normal consequence. As soon as the End Times brought new stuff to Fantasy, GW had huge financial succses.
List of things that perpetually bug me about Age of Sigmar:
-8 Different Settings pretending to be 1 Setting
-Soft Magic that has no rhyme, reason, or consistency
-Thinly veiled commercials for new releases masquerading as a "plot"
-Lack of change
-Lack of consequence for what does change
-No compelling characters
-No narrative investment in general
-Social justice that people pretend isn't there
-Disneyfication that people pretend isn't there
-Space Marines that people pretend aren't there
-A faction of giants that all have the same pair of legs
-A community mostly made up of MtG players
-Nearly a decade of people saying it's a new setting
-Making the setting about as far away from Tolkien tropes as possible and still defaulting to Tolkien tropes with silly hats
-Blowing up the old setting and then telling everyone to move on
-Making the background of half your characters "Actually don't move on go read about them in that setting"
-Having better miniatures and gameplay than 40k
It will be a cold day in the Nine Hells before I say anything nice about AoS beyond "detailed models." Otherwise, it can get fucked sideways with a rusty metal spork.
They literally blew up my favorith Fantasy world that I have loved and cherished for a long time. Hating age of Sigmar is an understatement from me.
I played Tomb kings and warriors of chaos lmao i feel you on a spiritual level
Lol i guess you also seethe inside you hear someone they like age of sigmar
@@realKarlFranz Nah. Hating someone for liking a game I do not like is dumb and retarded. Why would you think I hate people over a game?
I remember once when I was first considering quitting yu-gi-oh, I asked a group of warhammer 40k players how much a starter set for their game cost because it kind of looked fun, they told me $300, I simply turned around at that and decided it wasn't for me.
Yup this is it. People try to put blame everywhere but forget that WH at its most successful. Was when as a kod you could support your hobby with your allowance and still have certain part of it left.
@@sagatlike3393 Doesn't help that it's cheaper to just buy a 3d printer and make your own minis.
@@Nyghtking still tends to be on the rough side but yea sooner or latter this will be a issue they need to address in a decent manner.
I’d love to hear more AoS lore! I played WH Fantasy in ye olden days before Age (I was one of those weirdos who liked Beastmen) and I never kept up with the overall story, so I’m curious about more crazy shit that happened.
It’s bad. The lore of the end times and AoS is massive cringe.
If you hate characters, setting, and pacing. Then AoS lore is right up your alley.
Don't listen to that person
Well, even if it’s trash, I still would want to know the details of that trash. I’m like a pig, wallowing in lore-mud.
Don't listen to the other guy as I am speaking from someone who haven't read AoS yet. I've heard AoS is written miles better than 40k (for reference) with it being able to actually move the plot line forward
AoS just means humanity lost and went extinct. Nothing else matters and it's only a matter of when, for everyone to get deleted by Chaos. For Chaos has won completely once, they'll win completely again. and again.
Age of Sigmar pretty much threw out all of the beloved Warhammer lore and replaced it with "world blew up, but don't worry, the lizardmen survived and saved some other races . . . somehow". It also completely destroyed what made Warhammer awesome: The large rank and file armies that you would field against each other, that you needed to carefully maneuver around each other to maybe get a flank attack off and don't get flanked yourself etc. Then there was the whole "we're not giving you unit or item point values, just bring what you have"-fiasco which was an absolute joke. And don't even get me started on destroying pretty much most of most army rosters aswell as the previous models.
In essence, Age of Sigmar tried to turn Warhammer into Warhammer: 40k - and it sucked balls !
As a tomb kings fan who came into Warhammer in like 2019, I was kinda bumbed that they didn't exist anymore. Besides that I also kinda just hopped on the band wagon of hating the game even though it was a bit more beyond the point of that being cool but whatever. As of now, I think it's cool but I kinda prefer Warcry's current aesthetic instead so idk, make of that what you will.
From personal experience, it was a couple things:
1) they invalidated my time and army, giving me and those like me, a big middle finger.
2) They were careless toward WHFB. The vile way they ended it with a "deal with it" attitude was why I never bought into it at all.
3) Their unnecessary rebranding of established fantasy creatures/factions SOLELY for trademark reasons: Orks > Orruks, Dwarfs/Dawi > Duardin etc.
4) The total change in character. The general Renaissance/Medieval vibe of the factions' uniqueness has been replaced for a Warcraft clone. Thats really all AoS is, just a poor copy of Warcraft.
Thats my take anyway.
I love AOS almost more than 40K because at least AOS didn’t ruin magic users. GW completed ruined psykers with 10th edition but AOS still has magic users that are useful, fun and cool
When you build your new IP on top of the corpse of a beloved franchise of million of peoples that has been around since the 80's it is hard NOT to hate it.
I’m gonna put this out there, not many people know this I guess and as a player of all three of these armies I wanna put this out here. tomb kings, chaos dwarfs, and brettonia are playable in age of sigmar using index rules. It’s not the best and it’s not like they sell the armies anymore (until oooold world~), but i just wanted to put this out there.
Tomb Kings and Bretonnia are back! ...Once they're back in stock, at least.
As a player since 1997 let me tell you a boomer thing: Warhammer Fantasy was not a medieval nor a fantasy game. Was a Napoleonic wargame mindset&ruleset of its time with fantasy miniatures reskin from LoTR and other tastes. Over. XD
I’m sure it would have been decent as it’s own thing. But the reason myself and a lot of Warhammer Fantasy fans hate it is they killed our beloved setting to create it.
They killed Game of Thrones to create He-Man.
I don’t hate He-Man either but I wouldn’t want Game of thrones killed to create it.
Do hate, not did hate. No past tense. present and future. Now and forever.
AOS feels largely like 40K if like 80% of the armies were mostly focused on doing close combat in some manner. Which was exactly my problem with 40K, most of my games felt largely like two armies would set up, then just roll dice at each other with movement mattering very little. Like, your basic dudes have a 30" threat range really often. Movement doesn't matter nearly as much in AOS as it did in fantasy, but it's still basically where you win or lose the game. And fantasy is cooler than Sci-fi anyways IMO. When they started printing Gotrek novels and everything got points, I was back in.
Having everything be melee based was a huge draw for me compared to 40K.
I think one of the worst parts of AoS inalienable to it is how cynically and business-minded it was conceived: "Take Fantasy. Kill any factions that don't sell gangbusters. Remove anything real-world/potentially controversial. Only bring back named characters who are easily marketed like Gotrek. Rebrand things like zombies and elves to our own names so we can copyright strangle people. Bring things like Slayers and not-Space Marines to the forefront because they do sell well. Make the lore herohammer on steroids. Make sure all the human fighters are more diverse than a McDonald's commercial. Make the world loosely defined so any army can fight each other at any given time. Perfect."
And then add on top that it's this kinda tepid halfway between 40k and Fantasy where 40k players are gonna want something more extreme and grand and Fantasy players want something more immersive and grounded. One of the best parts of Fantasy is that it rolled heavily with real-world inspiration and evolved it organically within the set rules of its own world. (That's why old Kislev worked a lot better than the flanderized "Ice vs Bears" we got with TWW3). The old stuff was very clearly written by history nerds, not comic book artists. Unit tactics and logistics mattered a lot not just to the story, but the gameplay. You'd have instances of hilarious irony wherein a mundane cannonball would clobber a 800-year-old Elven Swordmaster or a thousand emaciated rat slaves attritioned down a powerful Chaos Lord... and it was like "well, yeah, realistically that COULD happen in that universe." Whereas AoS goes full-throttle with this generic, forced style of heroes and gods deciding everything major and the rank and file troops barely matter in the end... like so many other low fantasy properties (and I'm told 40k is moving in this direction). Speaking of such, I find the "maximumism" of AoS really ugly and generic, the ridiculously bulky armor and impractical weapons with 10,000 little ornaments on them are things I can already find in a hundred other fantasy IPs. Old World had this (mostly) faithful history nerd blend where most arms and armor were ergonomic and simple but still had just enough flamboyance to look really pretty and unique. The units of each army also felt generally more believable to their world instead of constantly hitting the "rule of cool" excuse button whenever something seemed contextually out of place.
At the end of the day, I just think a lot of these problems come down to modern Games Workshop, wherein AoS is just a beacon of their finance-driven ethos. Modern 40k and stuff like Total Warhammer/Old World are running into similar problems of being generic, sanitized, and not having a lot of thought put into their world building. To me it seems to be a case of going from "history nerds writing something they want to and marketers figuring out how to sell it" to "marketers decide they want something with as much mass appeal as possible and contract yes-men comic book artists to make it."
Bro the everything at the end of time music is genuinely starting to make me tweak. I feel like I’m loosing my mind.
I didn't like AoS at first (due to mirking the entire Old World which wasn't cool). But now Old World is coming back, AoS has a chance to be it's own unique thing (Cities of Sigmar being an indication of this), and now I'm starting to warm up to it. Ofc, just my opinion 👌
You do realize Old World is a prequel right?
It only ends one way
@christiandauz3742 Yeah, I know what happens haha. I think everybody knows about the end times. All I'm saying is it'll be cool for the two franchises to step further away from each other and be more unique. And Old World will always be the greater of the two as well 👌
@@Adoir333
Old World leads to End Times which leads to Age of Sigmar
@christiandauz3742 Yeah dude I know lmao
AoS has a lot of uniqueness already. Just look at Kharadron or Idoneth deepkin. I do agree though several factions need to be updated from their old world models.
Pretty much because it took Warhammer fantasy (many people and my own favourite fantasy setting) and took it behind the shed with a shotgun
I miss Karl Franz and the knowledge that the VT2 gang is dead now does not sit well with me lol
I'm halfway through my first AoS book - "Gloomspite", and I have to say, you won't find any funny ideas about selling warhammer to the younger audience here (pretty grimdark, not gonna lie). The writing style is quite interesting and very different from 40k, it reads like a summary of some TTRPG adventure (very appropriate style in fantasy setting). Maybe not yet on a par with some 40k heavy hitters like "The Twice-dead King: Ruin" or "The Infinite and The Divine" (I'm a Necron fan, sue me) but it's heading in the right direction.
Besides, new AoS models slay, Kruleboyz rules and Warcry looks super fun to play.
Form a lore perspective, WHF felt grounded. Normal people in a (some what) believable world fighting against chaos and themselves. Everything I’ve seen of AOS felt more like WH40k than a grounded fantasy game
From the outside it seems like a terrible plan that's now finding it's footing as it's own thing, distinct from Fantasy. Could maybe even exist alongside it somehow! Just, y'know...the conception was...man. I'd forgotten that GW tried to make 40k/AoS for kids. GW seems like it so desperately wants to have a generic, appeal-to-everyone franchise to market and instead they have some of the coolest and most interesting settings that exist. Shame for them, really.
It was a good plan for GW. The old product wasn't selling, with mini prices going up it would make fantasy even more unaffordable in the future. I don't like them, don't play their games or buy their paints but it was no different from the many times in the past when they have released a new game. In this case it stuck, maybe it was more likely to as it was mildly related to their existing IP that fans liked.
However GW likely looked upon it as people buying other branded minis as "killing" the game. The game was its own problem due to the number of units some armies needed to field. They could have gone for epic or 10mm (whatever), reset everyones armies, kept the existing lore + everything and also stopped third party minis (to a degree, who makes 10mm?).
But then they couldn't sell a single human sized hero for ~$80 AUD
its the thing that came after the world I was interested in