GW News: BIG N' SMALL WAAAGH! COMIN'

Ah, Ind... supposedly the place where the Skaven got the notion of the Doom Rocket from - because heaven forbid the Skaven have any original ideas (learnt ninja'ing from Cathay/Nippon, the Doom Rocket from Ind, and guns... probably from the Dawi just to annoy the bearded ones)

It recently hit me that I hate the Beastmen. Not because the Beastmen themselves are a bad concept (evil cow and goat men is hilarious), but because any other animal-human hybrid race will always be classed as Beastman of a different flavour (such is the case of Ind's tigermen). Even the Lizardmen are in-universe occasionally mistaken for such.

Like, if I wanted a Warhammer take on Gnolls (hyenas being one of my favourite non-lizard animals), they will just be deemed hyena-style beastmen, rather than trying to come up with a unique concept, god knows Gnolls could have been used as a less racist-caricature replacement for pigmies as the African tribe analogue of Warhammer, with no Chaos or mutation involved in their history.

 

I thought the Doomrocket was another thing that came from Cathay, and the Warhammer Fantasy wiki seems to agree with me:


Besides the fact that in real-life history fireworks were pioneered in China rather than India.

Hey, don't blame my Beasty Boys for that, point the finger at the dim-witted neo-Germans of the Empire (and GW who love them) for using such a generic categorisation for us all!

At least WFRP makes the effort to distinguish different types - Caprigors, Bovigors, Canigors, Insectigors... the list goes on.

Hell the Tigermen from Ind are still considered Beastmen, though it doesn't stop them having a different agenda from those in the Old World, so if you wanted to reinvent Pygmies as Gnolls, there's nothing stopping you (especially as even the original Pygmies hunt humans and other prey just as the Beastmen do).

 

It's a weird one. I read that while the Empire got a lot of their rocket technology from reverse-engineering Cathay, mirroring real-world fireworks being reversed engineered from China (which contradicts other sources claiming they got the technology from the Dawi, but I take that as in-setting confusion and propaganda, Cathay would like to take credit, the Dawi would be stubbornly insisting that the Empire would be inspired by the best aka them), the skaven got the Doom Rockets in particular from an Ind specific innovation. But I can't remember the source, so I'm going to have to put a question mark on the citation until I have a spare moment to see if I can track it down.

I just might if I ever write about events going into the Southlands.

 

Nothing wrong with the idea, it's just not my cup of tea. I'm personally not interested in Kislev, Cathay, Ind or any other similar human faction.

 

If not Chaos Lizardmen, do you have another idea for a non-human faction?

 

Hmmmm... not sure if 8th edition needs one to be honest. I'd much rather the last three remaining armies (Skaven, Beastmen and Bretonnia) got their 8th edition update. And even above that, I would have preferred that GW finished the 3 books that were supposed to follow from the Tamurkhan book.

However, if I had to choose, I'm probably in agreement with @- Q - :

And of the two I'd probably go with the Dogs of War. They're a fun mix of many different elements and races.

 

https://www.warhammer-community.com...mob-prepare-to-race-across-the-mortal-realms/

 

https://www.warhammer-community.com...review-reinforcements-for-the-orruk-warclans/

 

Looks like folks were right that Empire is the next army in ToW. Here is the new plastic kit.

 

That leaves us with High Elves, Beastmen and Wood Elves remaining. Which I'm guessing will be released in that order.

 

I'm actually think it's more likely to be the reverse of that order, assuming that Beastmen aren't next. Beastmen being next would make it an evil faction following the Empire's good, and then because the last two are both order aligned, they can instead fit into an Elf and Other-Slightly-More-Morally-Grey-Elf theme.

 

I have no issue with human factions in a fantasy setting (so in this case, Warhammer), so long as there are enough non-human factions/nations to balance it out.

Ind: Considering the tiger-Beastmen which are functionally Rakshasa of Hindu mythology? I feel like if GeeDubs embraced that theme, Ind would be a truly mixed race faction. So yeah, while humans would likely be focused on, there will also be also tigermen, yeti and garuda...

Cathay: Ruled by literal dragons, has their own version of the Monkey King trolling around. The dragons can and do interbreed with humans (because shapeshifting, not because the humans thought cor I want to bed that giant reptile (though I'm sure there were some that did); so I feel like the potential is there for more diversity than just humans. But like with the possibility of Ind, humans have been front and centre in Total War, because humans are easy to do in mass.

Nippon (which you didn't mention but is a realm that I've heard plenty requesting for): I read somewhere, but like with my note about the Doom Rocket, I can't recall where so question mark the citation, that it had a population of non-humans coexisting alongside the humans. Tengu would be an easy one, Oni, but specifically I heard that the Warhammer equivalent of bugbears also live in Nippon.

Kurresh: Is meant to be a very hostile and non-human realm entirely.

Kislev: Yeah, end of the day they are a human faction. Can't argue there.

The takeaway is that I get the feeling that if GeeDubs lean into mythological influences for the Far East, they represent the opportunities for GeeDubs to go less human oriented factions, while still giving them the easy design that comes of having humans included.

 

The reason I don't think the Beastmen will be next is because it would force GW to finish off with two Elf releases in a row. So if they want to split the Elves up that leaves us with either HE-Beasts-WE or WE-Beasts-HE. I think the former is more likely because the High Elves were explicitly named on their TOW roadmap a while back and because I want the Wood Elves released as soon as possible... so GW will leave them for last.

 

Ah, the same logic that dictated the Seraphon in the previous AoS edition. We finally get our lizard bois... only to be told that the book will be redundant in a matter of months ¬_¬

 

I couldn't care less about the TOW Wood Elves book, it could be made obsolete in a month. I just want the old Wood Elves models released for my wife's 8th edition Wood Elves army. Come on GW, get crackin.

 

If Space Wolves refresh is just half as good as the new Gitmob wolves, I'll promise my firstborn son.

 

Even with non-human elements (just like the Empire has) it's just not really my jam. I personally would have no interest in collecting any of those armies. Keep in mind, I'm not saying that they are bad ideas or that others would not really like them. They might be wildly successful.

That said, there is zero chance of them being released into WHFB, so it doesn't bother me at all. 8th edition is already pretty well balanced in terms of armies:

• 3 Elven [Wood Elves, High Elves, Dark Elves]
• 3 Human [Empire, Bretonnia, Warriors of Chaos]
• 2 Dwarven [Chaos Dwarfs, vanilla Dwarfs]
• 2 Undead [Tomb Kings, Vampire Counts]
• 1 Monstrous [Ogre Kingdoms]
• 5 Creature Feature [Beastmen, Lizardmen, Skaven, Orcs/Goblins, Daemons of Chaos]