GW News: SKAVEN VICTORY! #NewAoS

I could live with that. Still big enough to field as a Khemric Titan in 8th.

 

Again, there is no statement in lore that this is the case, and I'm a fan of this army, I think I know what I'm talking about. Where's your evidence?

You'd also need to explain how they got the undead beasts to accept them in the first place without them getting bucked off/eaten. Ghouls are not undead in the way that Skeletons are. In the case of a Black Knight, for example, both rider and mount are summoned from the dead and so would both follow the Necromancer/Vampire's lead, whereas with a Ghoul cavalry unit you're pairing a living Ghoul with a steed risen from the dead by the Ghoul commander, so the steeds would need supervision by the Ghoul leader. True, you have Ghoul characters riding Zombie Dragons and Terrorgheists, but those are being ridden by the Ghoul King himself and are thus easier for him to command, whereas these lesser cavalry steeds are being ridden by Ghouls with no magical power and are thus less easy to control by the Ghoul King, potentially resulting in them running amok or falling apart if they and their Ghoul riders stray beyond his locus of control.

Sounds pedantic, doesn't it? But I'm only mimicking your own attitude toward Fyreslayers - you can't force one army to follow one rule (which GW tends to ignore anyway), while giving all the others a free pass because you like them more.

It's pretty obvious they already have beastmasters in order to successfully raise and tame Magmadroths in the first place, it would not be much of an extension to say those same beastmasters could raise other creatures in the vaults of the Magmaholds equally successfully.

Similarly, the ideas I mentioned of animated Slayer statues, wheeled shrines to Grimnir, units of Priests and female warriors are all very much possible with the existing lore and would need just a couple of lines of explanation.

Er... they made it?

They have guns that can fire lava as a projectile weapon, that's a significant piece of technology. Someone had to invent that, and if they could create that they could create other things. The old Slayer army list from Warhammer Fantasy included the option of a Slayer engineer character called Malakai Makaisson, it wouldn't be much of a development to include another caste of Fyreslayer society dedicated to building, repairing and maintaining Fyresteel weapons. Perhaps they're combi-smith-architects who also design Magmaholds before they are built, and are more focussed on maintaining the old, very much as the Fyreslayer army as a whole does, rather than experimenting with the new like the Kharadron do. The new war machines introduced into the army could have been as old as the hills, and just kept in mothballs in the deepest vaults until the time was dire enough to get them out again.

It would be another homage to the classic Dwarfs, and easily explain this expansion of the army in just a few lines.

No it doesn't, it simply requires just a few lines of extra lore to be added onto what's already there, as with any other expansion of an existing army, as I've just shown you above.

It wouldn't be similar to those updates at all, both of those updates are actively replacing old models with new ones (and I severely doubt GW have gone to any great length to explain in-lore why Cold Ones were replaced with dull-generic-Jurassic-World-velociraptors, how Razordons went extinct or why Cities of Sigmar have completely changed their uniforms all of a sudden).

A Fyreslayer expansion, on the other hand, would be just another second wave release like those Lumineth, Slaanesh and Sylvaneth got, that would organically expand the army from the original roots of the first release. GW never needed to explain in great detail why Lumineth suddenly got to ride kangaroos or Sylvaneth got to fly around on giant insects (other than "iT's aElVes So wE thInK it'S CoOl"), and they would not need to do so with a Fyreslayer expansion either.

Nonsense, as I have just proven above.

You know very well that I like Kharadron just as much as Fyreslayers, I was just using that generalisation to demonstrate how narrow-minded @Canas' attitude to the Fyreslayer army is. He (and you as well to a lesser extent) seem to be trapped in this nonsensical mindset that the Fyreslayer army has to be kept in a particular description box while other armies don't need to. Probably because neither of you like the army and are quite happy for it to fail.

 

I mean, having them only be able to control their mounts while within their king's domain (or at least area of influence if the king goes on the warpath) would be perfectly in line with how the FEC work, and thus be completly acceptable. It's not like FEC really roam all that far from their established domains. So that's not really a issue, nor is it pedantic.

Alternativly, just make the cavalry lesser nobility, who have enough magic to command a lesser steed.
Or as a final option, simply state that when a kingdom falls to the vampiric curse everything is afflicted, including their mounts and beasts of burden. So the insane ghouls are riding on equally insane ghoul horses.

All three options are perfectly in line with established FEC lore.

Seraphon, CoS (or well, the old ones at least, not sure how significant the dark elves are in the new version), Skaven, Idoneth, Ogors, and probably some others I'm currently forgetting, are established as beastmasters who regularly raise or capture various types of beasts of various purposes.

Fyreslayers on the other hand are only ever shown to interact with Magmadroths.
An interaction that is based specificly on the fact that their god and godlike ancestor did battle resulting in a link between the two species.
Which is why they don't raise anything else, because there is no other creature which with they have this kind of link, and they do not have a beastmaster type culture.

And yes, this can be expanded upon, but then they'd need to actually expand things and explain why they started raising other beasts.
As it currently stands, the Fyreslayers have no equivalent to say, dark elf beastmasters, whose job is specificly to raise various types of beasts. They just have the magical link that was created when Grimnir fought Vulcatrix which some powerfull fyreslayers can use to train their own Magmadroth.

Slayer statues are the easiest to make work, as animated dwarven statues have actually appeared in lore here and there.

Any sort of siege equipment/wheeled statues/etc. would feel massivly out of place as they don't have any history of doing this.
Sure, you can say they changed their mind, but you'll have to explain why an army that previously fought with no warmachines whatsoever is suddenly dragging all sorts of nonsense to the battlefield.

As for units of priests & female warriors; both of those are just more angry naked dwarfs and doesn't really fix the lack of unit variety. But sure, you could add them.

I'm not saying they're completly incapable of making the things. They're good enough blacksmiths that they can make a chariot or something. Not like a chariot is all that complicated.

However, they have no history of using any sort of equipment in war. Hell they don't even use siege equipment, they just use magmadroths to batter down a wall if they need to.
Nor do they have a history of being inventive.

Which makes adding any warmachines, however minor, feel immeadiatly out of place cuz it's completly out of character.

I mean, you'd think they'd have used those at some point during the millenia against chaos when hold after hold got destroyed. It'd be completly nonsensical to pull out something as basic as a chariot right now.

Which is kind of the core issue fyreslayers suffer from, their initial characterization has been so absurdly limited, that at this point adding new stuff is going to result in a bunch of things retro-activly looking rather dumb. Again, GW massivly wasted their potential on the intial release, and then doubled down on it by releasing bits of lore further cementing this waste. At this point fyreslayers need some actual work to allow for sensible expansions of the army.

CoS already had wildly varying uniforms and combat doctrines that differed per city, as well as evolved over time depending on the enemies they faced. So they don't need much more explenation than "Some General introduced a new standard uniform and some new doctrines"

Seraphon have an established section of beastmasters utilizing various different beasts, so replacing one beast of war with another is perfectly fine. The implication being this new beast of war is better/stronger/easier to raise/etc.

Riding a random forest creature doesn't really need much explenation for the literal spirits of the forest that are sylvaneth.
Lumineth have been established from the start as having a massive empire with all sorts of different nonsense and the first wave of Lumineth where very explicitly only a small part of this empire.

I don't really like any of the elves, but their initial characterization left plenty of room for their 2nd waves, as well as for any futher 3th or 4th wave.

In contrast; when the fyreslayers where established GW immeadiatly wrote themselves into a corner by making them consist of literally only angry naked dwarfs, giving them no war machines, and limiting them to 1 animal companion which they only use because of a divine link between them and this animal. And since their release, GW has doubled down on those limitations by consistently depicting Fyreslayers in this limited way.

'

Honestly, I like fire-themed dwarfs. Fyreslayers is just a massive waste of potential due how absurdly limited their initial characterization was, and due to GW continuously doubling down on this limited characterization and refusing to add anything novel to their culture.

And yes it can be fixed, but it'll require some retcons and general adjustments to their core characterization if you want it to feel natural.

 

O sure, it's by no means an insurmountable task.

Just saying that where other factions naturally leave some room for new and exciting additions due to having a nice broad theme, Fyreslayers require some actual effort due to how limiting their initial setup and theme was.

And unfortunatly, GW generally only puts that (minimal....) effort into their favorites. Which is a shame for fyreslayers, cuz fire-dwarves and magma monsters are kinda cool.

 

No need the throw insults.

I don't like them but I don't hate them. I merely have zero interest in them and as such, I am indifferent to them failing or succeeding. The only army I would actively enjoying watching fail would be the SCE.

On the other hand, you are a fanboi of the Fyreslayers. If anyone is carrying bias, it would be you. You have an active interest in seeing them succeed.

Nobody is saying that they can't be expanded. @Canas has stated several times that it would simply require a bit more effort and lore re-tooling on the part of GW. However, GW doesn't give two shits about lore, so they could very easily do so (and will do so if it makes financial sense).

This is the crux of it. The Fyreslayers are essentially a slightly modified iteration of the Dwarf Slayers from WHFB. The difference is that in WHFB the Slayers were part of a larger Dwarf force that was significantly more colourful and varied. One part of a greater whole. When GW decided to port them over to AoS and make them a stand alone army, they should have expanded their concept beyond the addition of a single monster.

If by favorites, you mean most financially lucrative, then I agree. The old days of staffers' personal interests driving/influencing the direction of the company are over. GW is a publically traded company. The authors/sculptors/designers take their cues from the bean counters. The all mighty dollar always has the final say.

As much as @Lord Agragax of Lunaxoatl may try to deny it, the Fyreslayers are less financially viable than many of the other armies, so they are a lower priority in terms of releases. Even when most of the armies were relatively similarly sized (before their subsequent updates), the Fyreslayers likely performed worse financially. That's why GW shifted their focus to the armies that brought in the money. The same was true during the days of WHFB, when the likes of the Vampire Counts were given priority of the Tomb Kings. I may like the Tomb Kings better, but that doesn't change the fact that the Vampire Counts were a more lucrative investment for GW. That's why the Vampire Counts where GW's "favourite" and the TK were not.

 

O the dollar has final say, but individual managers and designers will always have some freedom to play favorites. Especially when it doesn't directly influence the bottom line. And it tends to be noticeable that certain factions get more fleshed out rules, better internal balancing, more coherent fluff, are more often put in the spotlight in short stories as the winners, etc. It is basicly unavoidable, they are only human after all.

Simply put, you can tell when an update was made by a designer who liked the faction or by one for who it was "just work".
And sure, it might no longer be as obvious as it used to be when they were a smaller company, but it still shows.

 

Choosing when armies are to be updated and how extensive those updates are does affect the bottom line. It is undoubtedly the higher ups that are making those calls.

 

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2023/09/05/cut-your-teeth-on-the-new-vampire-star-players/

 

Like in pretty much every other company, the higher ups don't actually know the subject, and rely on middle managers and senior designers to tell them which projects are good ideas and which are a waste of money. A (potential) project that has more internal company-"champions" has a much bigger chance of being approved, since those champions will put in effort to convince the higher ups that it's a good idea. And those champions will be pushing harder for their favorites to recieve updates. And more importantly, while the suits may sign off on the broad strokes of a project, they're unlikely to have much input for the actual contents of that project, which means designers have a certain level of freedom to (subconsiously) play favorites as long as they stay within those broad strokes.

Also, this isn't just limited to playing favorites with factions, but can affect anything. For example, I'd probably guess that the AoS designers aren't particularly great fans of magic and wizards given how poorly developed the magic system is, and always has been with very limited changes, and prefer the command abilities system for some reason, which they've overhauled and improved multiple times.

 

I love that top model of the fully transformed vampire, very very cool. I’d have that in a regular army.

the other two are fittingly tongue in cheek blood bowl. The shades on the bottom one in particular fit the aesthetic of the game amazingly.

not sure on pirate hat guy

 

Hopefully has an alternate head.

 

Put it this way, Space Marines (Primaris) aren't getting update after update after update because the design team really likes them. They dominate the financial metrics, plain and simple. They bring in the most money so they get the most attention.

Definitely a great candidate to ported into an army.

 

O definitly, but those financial incentives mostly hold for the more large scale expansion type updates, when they release a new wave of multiple models.
The influence of finances on smaller updates & on rules or lore, is much smaller, and that's where you'll notice favoritism the most.

Like multiple Slann dying while struggling to slow down Nagash's magic while supported by the combined forces of Order, while the elves got to crush Nagash effortlessly on their own a few stories later.
Or how long it took them to finally flesh out summoning for Seraphon.
Or how all undead factions are forced to submit to Nagash with no room for any independence, and by extention basicly no interesting characterization.
Or how prayers & mount traits are given out seemingly at random with certain factions clearly lacking them, and others having them for no apparent reason.
Or how only about half the factions have faction endless spells, and it's not necesarly even the magical factions that got them. (which isn't even going into their quality).
Or how certain factions get horrific spell lores/artifacts/general traits with maybe 1 good option, and others are spoiled for choice.

And you can probably go on for a long time like this if you'd like to

 

As it pertains to our original discussion, the Fyreslayers don't get as many updates as the more popular armies because the higher ups recognize that they aren't as profitable. The designers/writers ultimately work on the tasks that are delegated to them and not pet projects or personal favourites.

Personal bias may be partially responsible for some of these examples but only in small part alongside individual discrepancies in terms of intelligence, ability, focus, style, etc. With different people working on different projects, you're guaranteed to end up with major variations in terms of their finished projects. Not all people are on the same level.

Theoretically, if a single person could work on all the factions (which is impossible due to the scope of work involved) you would end up with a lot more uniformity.

 

Aesthetically speaking, they're a really boring army in my opinion. One tone and nearly indistinguishable from one another. If the initial release would have been more appealing, things likely would have turned out differently.

 

O, incompetence is definitely a part of it as well. But since it tends to happen repeatedly to the same factions (e.g. the various Elves tend to get consistently above average releases) there's clearly some biases that filter through or are simply the biases of senior designers/writers/managers. Even something as simple as the boss making sure his favoured factions are done by senior designers would explain some of these consistent biasses.

Who knows, maybe if someone who liked Fyreslayers worked on the initial release they might've put in some actual effort and introduced at least 1 visually distinct unit in the horde of angry naked dwarfs with mowhawks. Which would've done wonders for the faction's general appeal and its succes