WHtOW – fluff and does it make sense ?

[wolfie65Participant 1238xp 0]

So it’s a fantasy world and therefore -according to you – anything goes and nothing has to make sense, yet you find Bretonnia ‘anachronistic’ ?

Which is it ? Make up your mind.

Cathay may exist in it, but it’s WAY out of the way of absolutely everyone else  – except Chaos and Ogre Kingdoms (which I find silly, anyway), perhaps. Maybe a High or Dark Elf trading vessel might find its’ way over there every few hundred years or so, but that’s about it. Maybe there are Clan Eshin tunnels under it – good for them. No one else has the slightest reason to have any contact with or knowledge of them. Wood Elves are Elves, but they rarely if ever leave Athel Loren, not even to Bretonnia, which is right next door It’s a LONG way from Athel Loren to Cathay, so until the Cathayans drive their oxcarts (made in Nippon) the several thousands of miles to Athel Loren and start cutting down trees to make magic chopsticks with, there is zero reason for even 1 Wood Elf to give a squirrel’s fart about Cathay.

Silk road, eh ? Yeah let’s. Let’s take a ride down the fantasy version of the silk road, over the World’s Edge mountains (Goblins, Orks), through the Dark Lands (Chaos Dwarfs ? Hobgoblins ?), some Ogre Kingdoms perhaps and who knows what else. That better be some GOOD silk – which, not surprisingly, has, to my knowledge, never been mentioned in any publication about the Warhammer world Even the real silk road in our world got so dangerous that they started sending ships all the way around Africa and into the completely uncharted – except by the Vikings you seem to hate so much, but more on that later – waters off to the west where There Were Dragons….

And no one in the western world knew much of anything about China until the early 20th century, many hundreds of years after Mr. Polo….

Albion is, as already mentioned, RIGHT THERE in the thick of things. All a Bretonnian fisherman would have to do is get just  a li’l bit lost et voilà – there he is. High Elf traders – or Dark Elf raiders – would purposely have to avoid the isle on their way to or from the Old World. If Albion fluff – of which there is precious little, at least not from GW – bothers you, that’s your business, you hate Vikings, so it makes sense that you would hate their Celtic and Anglo-Saxon brothers and cousins as well.

Too bad, because Celtic mythology and history is one of the richest, most colorful and diverse – yes, I went there – in the entire world and I think GW are doing themselves a tremendous disfavor by not taking advantage of that. An Albion army and army book would not only sell like hotcakes and bring a ton of new people into the hobby, it would also lure a lot of the old guard gamers who stopped at some previous edition – or the A$$ of Sickmar, who could blame them – back to the new edition. Even I might buy that, and I haven’t bought any significant number of Citadel models of=r GW products since about 2000 and Battlefleet Gothic. Heck, I’ll go one step further and declare that if the introductory boxed set is Norsca vs. Albion, I’ll pre-order that set , sight unseen.

[wolfie65Participant 1238xp 0]

I will certainly agree that we don’t need any more Viking FICTION.

Because that’s what 99% of all the books, movies, TV shows and games are.

Hostile, alien propaganda, designed to make northern Europeans appear as ignorant, superstitious, brutal savages, all part of the culture war we are in.

What we do need are FACTUAL depictions of one of the most capable, intelligent , adventurous and heroic people to ever walk the Earth. Factual depictions that tell the truth about how the so-called ‘Viking Age’ even started: By Charlemagne slaughtering their southern cousins, the Saxons, and destroying their sacred groves. Factual depictions about Northmen sailing the north Atlantic – one of the most hostile stretches of water  in the world – against prevailing wind patterns and founding colonies in empty Iceland, almost empty Greenland and almost empty Vinland (Newfoundland) at a time when most everyone else were scared to venture more than a few miles offshore in the placid waters of the Med or the Red sea.

Factual depictions of the superior weapons, armor and tactics of these ‘ignorant savages’, which often prevailed against much larger ‘civilized’ forces. Never mind the achievements of more modern day Vikings, the scientists, philosophers, writers, poets, physicians and other such highly skilled people from Norway, Sweden and Denmark.

You’re bored with the crap about them on TV ? So am I, buddy, so am I……

[onlyonepinman 18064xp 2]

No one in the western world knew anything about China until the 20th century – are you kidding me? There were chinese people living in England and America during the Victorian era.  Britain fought wars with China in the 19th and 18th centuries, Portugal had been fighting wars around those parts since probably 15th/16th centuries and people in Europe had been trading with them for many centuries before.  And let’s not forget the Mongol invasions in the 12 and 13th centuries.  So while Herr Peasant may not have known a great deal about China, they would certainly have known that it existed and perhaps even what people from that area looked like and many people in the merchant and noble classes would have had much greater knowledge and possibly even first hand experience.  It’s complete nonsense to say that westerners were unaware of China; uneducated perhaps but absolutely aware.

 

It is possible for something to be an anachronism in fantasy even though technically anything goes – you still need to create a sense of consistency so it feels real such that the fantasy elements that you then add in (magic, monsters etc) then also become more believable.  You could have a world where gravity is reversed and everything floats away or flies, but if you do it then becomes more difficult to add more weird things like magic at the same time.  Fantasy elements work when they’re placed against a backdrop that feels real and relatable – I personally find Bretonnians stick out like a sore thumb against the other Human Kingdoms in the Old World. In a world as dangerous as the Old World, it really doesn’t make any sense that they would not have adopted things like the gunpowder weapons and heavier plate Armour of their neighbours even if they maintained their more fuedal society. So yes, as much as I absolutely love Bretonnia (they’re the army I collected), they ARE an anachronism. Like I said, just because you can do literally anything doesn’t really mean everything you do will work and I personally feel Bretonnia need a bit of an overhaul to make them more believable within the context of the Old World. I doubt GW will do that because they sort of doubled down on the backwards nature of Bretonnia and Arthurian Legend (again, not very Warhammery) in the last edition of Warhammer Fantasy Battle, possibly from a need to make them fundamentally different, visually and literally, to the Empire. But they weren’t always like that, I remember seeing Bretonnian bombards for example. The problem with changing Bretonnia to be more like the Empire is… we already have the Empire and you just end up with two factions that are too similar. Cathay on the other hand represent an opportunity to create a larger than life faction full of vibrant colours, interesting and visually distinct units, monsters and war machines that could have near peer technology to the Empire whilst looking totally different. The same is true of Kislev.

 

However it is not really true for Albuon. Albion, while it’s mentioned as a place, is generally described as an isolated, primitive backwater.  Is Celtic Mythology very rich?  Absolutely, it’s amazing.  Is it very “Warhammery”?  Nope.  Not even a little bit. It suffers all the same problems as Bretonnia and Arthurian lore and then some. The Old World is a Renaissance themed setting, Bretonnia are a Medieval themed faction based on medieval (or perhaps pre-medieval) lore. Albion is based on something even older, dark age, possibly even antiquity era Celtic Mythology – it just doesn’t work. Unless, of course, you like your fantasy to just be “all kinds of everything” in which case, sure let’s have Albion as well. I had the same reaction to the City States models for Parabellum’s Conquest – absolutely LOVE the models because I love Greek mythology but given that they have a faction that looks like the Empire, those Greek Hoplites just look out of place.

[onlyonepinman 18064xp 0]

What we do need are FACTUAL depictions of one of the most capable, intelligent , adventurous and heroic people to ever walk the Earth. Factual depictions that tell the truth about how the so-called ‘Viking Age’ even started: By Charlemagne slaughtering their southern cousins, the Saxons, and destroying their sacred groves. Factual depictions about Northmen sailing the north Atlantic – one of the most hostile stretches of water in the world – against prevailing wind patterns and founding colonies in empty Iceland, almost empty Greenland and almost empty Vinland (Newfoundland) at a time when most everyone else were scared to venture more than a few miles offshore in the placid waters of the Med or the Red sea.

 

Factual depictions of the superior weapons, armor and tactics of these ‘ignorant savages’, which often prevailed against much larger ‘civilized’ forces. Never mind the achievements of more modern day Vikings, the scientists, philosophers, writers, poets, physicians and other such highly skilled people from Norway, Sweden and Denmark.

You were asking what I meant by Viking Fan Wankery…

[wolfie65Participant 1238xp 0]

The Chinese populations present in the west were, until about muh1960s, negligible, the wars you mention barely skirmishes compared to what was happening much closer to home and I very much doubt that Herr Peasant even knew anything about the city 1oo miles away, never mind China.

If you collect Bretonnians, you should know that they eschew war machines, gunpowder, et. al. because their religion says no. Not sure what GW were thinking when they gave them a bombard, but that brings us back to the issue of things deteriorating beginning with 6th edition.

I think Albion could work – even if they are ‘backwards’ compared to the Renaissance-esque technologies of Empire, Skaven or Dwarfs. THE allegedly most advanced of the bunch -the High Elves – don’t have cannon, either…….Nor do the Slann, ancient and wise visitors from the stars.

If pride in northern European heritage makes me a ‘wanker’ in your eyes, so be it. Maybe you can free yourself from the propaganda one day.

If you like east Asian stuff, there already are a bunch of somewhat ‘Asian’ troops and factions. The Skaven have a vaguely Asian feel to them – Clan Eshin not so vaguely – so do the Ogre Kingdoms as well as several Orc & Goblin troops, especially the wolf riders, very obviously modeled after Mongols. In the Battlemasters days, there were a lot of Orcs and Goblins in Mongolian outfits. Chaos Dwarfs were also obviously based on Assyria, their Hobgoblins on Persia. Maybe you should try to track down some leftovers from the short-lived early 00’s game Clan War : 100% Asian, not a single ‘boring’ Viking or ‘rubbish’ Celt in sight…..

[onlyonepinman 18064xp 0]

I’m not going to get into a debate with you about whether the Vikings were great.  But your summary of them exemplified perfectly what I mean by Viking fan wankery.  I’m glad you are happy/proud to be from wherever you are from – not that lack of pride in my heritage really has anything to do with my opinions on vikings.

Why did GW give Bretonnia a Bombard?  Because at that time, GW hadn’t written Bretonnia into the weird, backwards, Monty Pythonesque faction that they ultimately became by the time WFB was cancelled.  Bretonnians “eschew gunpowder” only because GW wrote them that way, and by writing them in such a way they made them look and feel out of place in the world.  You can’t explain why they’re an anachronism using their lore because it is their lore that causes it. I know all about the lore, it’s not even particularly bad lore were it not for the fact it doesn’t fit within the context that it is placed. Albion would work less well than Bretonnia.  That’s not to say you couldn’t write a convincing faction, only that you couldn’t do it and not have them look even more out of place than Bretonnia.

Finally it’s s got absolutely nothing to do with what I like – I am not making any decisions about what is and is not included in warhammer the old world.  By telling me that if I like East Asian stuff so much I should go and play another game, you do sound very much as though you feel I am somehow responsible for the introduction of Cathay and thus ruining your fun.  I can’t control what GW do and do not introduce into the game.  But you asked (I will remind you for a second time) whether including Cathay makes sense and the answer is that yes it does and for lots of reasons.  It feels more like what you wanted to ask was “who else doesn’t like the inclusion of Cathay’?  End of the day, you could in theory shoehorn any faction you like into the game and make it kind of work, GW have chosen to with Cathay when it seems you would have preferred something else.  Well life’s a bitch, time to suck it up and move on, we don’t always get what we want.

By way of a summary, in my personal opinion, Cathay is an excellent fit for Warhammer the Old World.  Strip away my personal opinion and they make about as much sense as pretty much anything else you could imagine would make.

[wolfie65Participant 1238xp 0]

Compared to Lizardmen, Bretonnians are downright hi-tech: they’ve got steel….. Who needs technology when your Slann Mage Priest can just think his way to victory.

The closest to technology the High Elves come are bolt throwers and chariots. Who needs technology when you’ve got Dragons and Phoenixes (Phoenices ? whatever…). Ditto Wood Elves.

You don’t want to know what the Dark Elves do with technology.

Not sure if the ill-advised ‘Hell Cannon’ counts as ‘technology’, but other than that, I don’t recall Chaos – easily THE most powerful faction since at least 5th edition – having many boom-boom sticks, either.

Guess they’re all ‘anachronisms’ then, right ?

Apparently, there was 1 battle between a ‘Greek’ – well, Hellene – army and the Chinese sometime after Alexander kicked the bucket, the thing is that most of those Hellenes weren’t very Greek by that time, but mostly central Asian. They might have had a Greek great-grandfather…..

How many battles between French and English ? Vikings and Romano-Celts ?, Saxons and ‘Normans’ ?

But yeah, Cathay fits just as well as Albion does…….

[onlyonepinman 18064xp 0]

Honestly mate, I really don’t know what any of your points are.  You’re literally just rambling about stuff now, a lot if it based on assumptions about my opinions on things that I haven’t actually divulged.

There’s a sort of sliding scale within the Warhammer world between magic and technology.  On the one hand you have Elves and Lizardmen who have almost no advances technology at all but who command vast and powerful magic.  Magic IS their technology and does all the heavy lifting for them.  On the other hand you have the Dwarfs who have no practical magic at all beyond carving runes and sigils into things.  Instead they have incredibly advanced engineering skills (compared to the rest of the world).  In the middle you have the Empire, they have some wizards and they have some technology but do not have the best of either.  Then you have Bretonnia who have neither powerful magic nor great engineering.  They have, well, very little really.  They don’t really fit with the design rules of the Warhammer world.  Albion wouldn’t really fit with the design rules of the world either because it was always described that the Elves taught magic to humans and only taught them a little bit.  So you can’t really make Albion a super high magic faction.  It’s already described being a primitive backwater so you can’t make them technologically advanced either and so you probably end up with yet another Bretonnia.  Also, if you did them as an ancient Celtic themed faction, you are kind of just duplicating wood elves.  So I am not saying you couldn’t write Albion as a faction – which is quite obviously what you think they should have done – only that Albion comes with restrictions and challenges that Cathay doesn’t.

It feels more and more like this isn’t really about whether it makes sense and whether or not YOU like it.  It pretty much all “makes sense”, what it really boils down to is whether you personally like it or not.  And in the case of Cathay, it seems the answer is no, you do not.

[wolfie65Participant 1238xp 0]

If perfectly valid and very obvious points are ‘rambling’ to you, oh well.
Albion is RIGHT THERE in the thick of things, Cathay is WAY THE HECK out of the way.

How much Albion would resemble the Wood Elves would be up to the talents of GW writers and designers. My suggestion would be to re-hire the guys who worked for them in the 80s and 90s.

Cathay would probably closely resemble the Empire, with maybe a little Chaos or Dark Elf mixed in.

[onlyonepinman 18064xp 0]

I don’t really see any point in carrying this on.  You’re clearly upset for some reason that they are going to potentially make miniatures for Cathay rather than Albion.  I think what you are doing is trying to explain why what you wanted is the right thing and then explain that using fictitious lore.  At the end of the day, they could have done Albion.  Or Araby.  Or Estalia and Tilea.  They would ALL have made as much sense in the lore because the lore would simply be written to make sense.  But ultimately GW have decided to go with Cathay and the response to that announcement for Total War generated a lot of excitement so I would say it seems like a popular choice.  And the lore will be written in such a way as to allow it to “make sense”.

I really don’t know what anyone could say that would ease your suffering at this point.  It is what it is and nothing you say will change it.  It does make sense, you just don’t like it.  And it’s OK that you don’t like it but you really need to understand that’s literally just your own opinion.  It can be explained by all of things you have said about the lore, but that doesn’t change your subjective opinion into objective fact.  It just explains why you think the way you do.  My opinions on Bretonnia aren’t really objectively true, they’re just my own subjective opinions.

[wolfie65Participant 1238xp 0]

Look at the map. Where’s Albion ? Where’s Cathay ? Facts don’t get any more objective than that.

You’re misunderstanding. I don’t care if Citadel make Celtic minis or not, I have tons of them, many other companies make excellent ones – historical, quasi-historical as well as fantasy – and for much less money, too. I just bought a bunch from Lucid Eye, including the fantastic Jim Fitzpatrick renderings, no one at GW has sculpted anything like that in 20 years. £ 6 apiece on sale, similar figures made by Citadel would cost a cool 35……

Who knows, maybe we get really ‘lucky’ (…) and they go the Hundred Kingdoms route: an African cat people faction. A twisted circus evil clown faction. Maybe some Alien greys like in Wild West Exodus. Maybe ‘arry Po”er and Hermione can lead Dumbledore’s army against Peter Pan and the pirates and Indians at Blackfire Pass.

It is, after all, fantasy……..

[onlyonepinman 18064xp 0]

Distances on the map have nothing to do with whether it makes sense.  Distance didn’t stop the Spanish and Portuguese getting to the far east or the new world.  Or the Mongols getting to Hungary.  You’re dressing this up as not making sense but really, it’s is just your personal preference mate, it really is.  There’s nothing about the warhammer world that would makes Cathay’s inclusion in the game somehow less “realistic” than anything else that is already in the game.  Absolutely nothing at all.  There are only reasons why you would prefer to see something else.

But if you don’t care, why do your knickers seem to be in such a twist over this?  This really does feel almost like a tantrum because Games Workshop are potentially introducing an army you don’t like

 

 

[bvandewalkerParticipant 2078xp 0]

Actually I think the real reason to do Cathay and Kislev is that unlike the western European style lore nations they are harder proxy and I am pretty sure proxying was one of the main reasons WFB got its plug pulled last time and why Albion and Norsica are not being promoted.

Albion is just Celtic England, given the North sea being more dangerous then its real world counterpart setting wise it actually does make a degree of sense that they might still be low tech backwoods savages with chariots and the like compared to the Empire, etc. That said there are several historical mini options out there in plastic that would work as proxies for that since British Celts tend to be one the first opponent options plastic companies make if they are doing Romans despite them being in a rather unimportant backwater of the Empire not to mention the world of that day and age, and that’s not adding in tons of metal figures covering Celtic history and fantasy (frankly Albion was a rather bad marketing idea back in the 90’s due to over saturation making IPing it hard, from a pure marketing viewpoint they should sink it or have the Dark Elves, undead, etc. depopulate it completely when they do the new oldworld lore, actually undead Albion might be fun).

As to Norsica, as it stand there are 3 companies with historical plastic set proxy options at least, something like 2 to 3 more with fantasy options that would work in plastic, and that’s not adding the fact that Goths,Normans, etc. can work as them as well or the metals out there. Not to mention the Chaos Warrior miniatures already out there would cover them and they are kinda of just alternate list for that army. So yeah they are a lame idea even from a GW marketing perspective to promote, likewise this is Warhammer we are talking about why would we want “light and fluffy cultured fairy tail Vikings” for an epic  Grimdrep satire fantasy setting particularly since they where never really that way in the lore (this isn’t “How to Train Your Dragon the wargame”).

Russian and Chinese themed factions on the other hand make a lot of sense marketing wise (not a lot of competition in plastic and they can be fantasy-ed up in ways that will make IP lawyers and shareholders happy), as would an Arabian nights themed army and lore wise all those exist. While Cathay is not next to the Empire, they are next to the Chaos wastes and Ogres which if I recall right seemed to be the more competitive armies anyways.

 

[onlyonepinman 18064xp 0]

While there aren’t loads of companies out there doing it, I do know at least one that does a small selection of fantasy chinese miniatures, mixed in with a large range of warhammer fantasy proxies – including a cossack faction.  And there are several companies doing 3D printable Kislevites – very good proxies in fact.  End of the day, if people want to proxy, they’re going to find a way.

[wolfie65Participant 1238xp 0]

It seems that IPing only started to become a factor in the GW business model after they replaced all the creative and talented gamers, artists, sculptors and other beer&pretzel types with stock holders, lawyers and accountants.

You can’t patent the word ‘Orc’ – the earliest mention of it I’ve found is in a French fairy tale and refers to a humanoid sea monster – but calling them ‘Orruk’ or other such silly nonsense isn’t going to stop people from substituting horrendously overpriced models with more affordable ones – or simply ones they like better from a sculpting point of view. I, for one, pretty much stopped buying new Citadel stuff about 20 years ago because I just don’t like the way they look anymore.

You can’t patent the word ‘Elf’, it comes from proto-Norse and means ‘white’, referring to our ancestors.

You can’t patent the look of a Landsknecht, the word ‘halberdier’, the word ‘knight’ and so on.

None of this had apparently bothered them – or any other company – until sometime in the 2010s.

[Author]

Posts