"Irondrakes, Lightning Cannons, and Doom Rockets?" Topic

As my title states –

So for all the criticism and tongue-in-cheek derision at GW for making miniatures that are being called "Sigmarines" aka 40k fantasy marines, I would like to point out a few things to the community.

The great irony that is found in all this uproar in GW supposedly ruining the aesthetics of fantasy with the new AOS minis is this -

40kish elements are nothing new to fantasy and in fact have been right in front of your very faces, practically forever. Interestingly, those elements are ones that I personally don't care for and I don't use them in my armies. But they are there nevertheless, and most likely are owned and used by most of you who are proclaiming this latest move by GW the ruination of fantasy as you know it.

I actually find the AOS minis to be among the least intrusive in terms of their supposed 40kishness. I find the AOS minis to be uniquely fantasy in their own right, but still very much fantasy in spirit with a god-like quality, and not at all 40kish.

So it's pretty simple.

How is it that players can accept fantasy armies that have things such as:

The dwarven IRONDRAKES: Fully armored from head to toe, even their faces covered in armor, in VERY space marine looking suits, wielding very bazooka/rocket launcher-looking magical FLAMETHROWERS?

The Skaven with their WARP LIGHTNING CANNON: An enormous, magically powered, for all intents and purposes, a doomsday laser cannon operated by slave minions crawling all over it?

The Skaven with their DOOM ROCKETS: Slaves with backpacks and rocket launchers that fire magically powered rockets, rockets that by the way are complete with fins and rivets like you'd find in a Road Runner and Coyote cartoon when the Coyote is ordering from the Acme Company?

The Skaven not only have those very sci-fi like weapons, but their Warlock Engineers have power cables attached to some of their gear, they are like ratmen from a Star Wars movie.

So how is it that fantasy players, and what's more competitive fantasy players, who are all shouting that AOS is the ruin of Warhammer as they know it, can accept all of these other very sci-fi ish elements in their armies but can't accept the AOS minis?

I'm not seeing the difference here. Enlighten me.

You left out the Dwarf Gyrocopters!

I agree with you on some of the Skaven units, like the rockets, but I like the Warp Lightning Cannons. While very Sci-fi they still look pretty low-tech and have the same basic appearance of other fantasy siege weapons.

I also do not like to employ units with firearms or cannons and the like. When I do I normally limit it to one such unit per army and treat it as a very rare or unique unit. Much like the mad bomber in the two towers who blew up Helms deep.

So for me, it's all my own personal interpretation of what fantasy looks like (your mileage may vary) with the big difference is these units are very optional and crossbows can be used instead of firearms.

The AOS stuff so far just does not come even close to having the same feel of fantasy or look about them to me. The Dwarven armor, while uber-cool still seems to fit. On the other hand the AOS armor looks way to much like power armor. Who knows, maybe it's powered by Warp Stone??? ;-)

@Barenakedladies,

Gyrocopters, indeed! Great reply, appreciate the perspectives…

No prob!

Remember, fantasy is just that. There's no right or wrong if it's your fantasy.

My Warhammer armies would never win any tournies, but I'm not interested in that, so I don't care! Even if I did I could just add and use those units on those occasions.

Not to mention the newest skaven rat-ogre thingies- beyond steampunk, VERY sci-fi.

I never said AoS ruined the aesthetic of Warhammer. IMO, that's been on a downward slide for some time. I the constant attempts to reinvent the wheel to churn the product (not to mention staying one step ahead of copycat competition), they have definitely been straying in this direction for some time. The further down the line you look, ever iteration is "more extremer" than the one before it. So no, I didn't think it was all swell before AoS, but this is just one of the biggest mile markers past a wrong turn some time back.

Flushing the Old World, and the mass combat system for something descidedly half-baked, that's the issue.

Warhammer 40K crossovers are nothing new I remember Amazons in 1st/2nd edition having accesses to bolt pistols and power swords. 3rd edition Realms of Chaos had a technology chaos attribute (champion of Khorne with a las-cannon for an arm hell yeah). The Slann where servants of the 40K Old Ones.

There has always been a link between the two games buried in the background. AoS has taken it to a whole new level though.

Personally I gave up on the constant Warhammer upgrades at 5th edition and went back to playing 3rd which is were I still am so the AoS has little impact on me.

Arent they trying to separate AoS from Warhammer? I dont believe they want it to be the next Warhammer edition. That will come after AoS fails….

@Beast Rampant are you refering to the "stormfiends"?

yeah, I don't think i'll be using the one with 3 ratling guns anytime soon.

Most of the list you rattled off didn't appear until 8th edition. So, your argument doesn't hold any water for those of us who bailed out earlier.

But I also agree with you: 8th edition brought out a lot of 30k special unit types that made the game look more like Steam Punk, or Hordes or one of those other Battlebot games.

@wizbangs,

Well yest true, those particular units wouldn't apply if you bailed out before 8th. But you are forgetting that there was other stuff in 6th, 7th that had a lot of 40k overtones.

And as I said, during the period when 3rd edition was out, White Dwarf used to show openly and blatantly the 40k universe and the Old World universe fighting each other on the very same tabletop And as someone mentioned above, there was a time I think in 2nd edition where some Old World Warhammer characters/heroes had the option of taking bolters and other weapons from the 40k universe. Really bizarre.

That was 1987. As I said, this didn't start just with 8th edition, so my argument totally holds water, even for earlier editions.