The LAF Games Workshop Discussion Thread

[Major_Gilbear]

Being a Chaos god, I'm surprised there isn't one guy whose head turns into a teapot.

"Bob, you can stay, uh, back at camp and serve refreshments... don't nod, you're spilling it everywhere!".

From The Perry Bible Fellowship:




All we need now is for the GW designers to be inspired by (but not influenced, and especially not as a result of seeing anybody else's work ever) this comic strip and introduce a new Chaos god in AoS. 

[Andrew May]

(And i say this as a 22 year old art student who works alongside these same designers, not a crotchity old man.(no offence ) )

To be fair I'm only 33! 

[Cubs]

Skip forward and almost every male actor is by default a sculpted hero like being regardless of context.
Shows like Game of thrones have managed to actually avoid it, but in big budget films it seems that every single character,both male and female has to be beyond peak physical form to the point of caricature.

I'm a rugby player (got an away game tomorrow in the valleys actually) and the sort of body shapes on show in the changing room would surprise you. Some of the fittest and strongest players have very ordinary looking physiques and a good few of the gym-bunnies struggle with the physicality on the pitch. I always recall the flabby fella Bruce Lee was sparring with at the start of 'Enter the Dragon', flinging himself around like a rare one. Gives hope to us all.

[nic-e]

I'm a rugby player (got an away game tomorrow in the valleys actually) and the sort of body shapes on show in the changing room would surprise you. Some of the fittest and strongest players have very ordinary looking physiques and a good few of the gym-bunnies struggle with the physicality on the pitch. I always recall the flabby fella Bruce Lee was sparring with at the start of 'Enter the Dragon', flinging himself around like a rare one. Gives hope to us all.

I can believe it. As I say, the images that are trickling into the inspiration pool now are not of real strong people but of an already fantastical standard. When you start the the only way to go is the up. That's why the new khorne minis have abs on their abs.

[Leifr Eiríksson]

Ok, not on the topic of age of ziggy. I have been playing Mordheim the computer game online with other people.

OMFG......it is so damn cool! The best 2 player turn based game I have ever played. Me and my gaming bud have been having nothing but ultra fun with it. Having got in on this with the beta , this updated and balanced final version is just a treat. With a human opponent playing against you it is elevated into the realm of 'beyond awesome.'

The best description I can give is, it is like you are playing minis with all the paperwork sorted out for you and a flawless hidden movement system in place.

Anyways if people have the game and are looking to kick it up a level with a human opponents. Or they want to get the game for some online wargaming then we should form a casual league.

We play on Steam too.

Have they surmounted all of the original problems at launch? I recall it being a bit of a disaster to be honest!

[Hupp n at em]

Yeah, It is a solid game now. We just had a game of Witch Hunters vs Undead. Super tactical, heaps of twists and turns and nail biting finish.

Highlights included me having one of my Ghouls set up away from the rest of the warband and then infiltrate in through the rear areas and steal the witch hunters holy shrine from their loot wagon.

Perfect heist only spoiled by a fanatic who just happened to be in the neighbourhood. He sorted things out by popping the end of a heavy flail through the poor creatures head just before it could get away in among a tangle of ruined houses. (he never would have found me once I was in that rats nest.)

Once people get the hang of the game and realise it is not a good idea just to headlong rush into a mass brawl, it is a whole new experience.

Damn... I may have to look more into that now. 

[Hobgoblin]

I'm a rugby player (got an away game tomorrow in the valleys actually) and the sort of body shapes on show in the changing room would surprise you. Some of the fittest and strongest players have very ordinary looking physiques and a good few of the gym-bunnies struggle with the physicality on the pitch.

Yes. It's always the apparently undersized front-rowers that you have to watch out for. Over the years, I played rugby with a few guys whose gym work was primarily bodybuilding (rather than just getting stronger) and who consciously followed diets to create a lean, "vascular" look. They were all prone to severe bruising and were
 frequently injured - just not enough padding! There's also certainly a phenomenon where some people are much, much stronger than they look - this can be natural or the result of low-rep weight training (the opposite of the bodybuilding approach). And "old-man strength" (which anyone who's played club rugby will have encountered) is a real thing - something to do with shortening tendons and better leverage, if I remember correctly.

Archaeological evidence (e.g. from the Repton find of Viking corpses or from the Towton battlefield) does show that medieval warriors were very heavily muscled, with the same sort of bone spurs that are found on people who do a lot of weight training. But they were very unlikely to be "ripped" like a bodybuilder following a special diet - just think of all that mead and ale! And - and this is where a lot of fantasy designs go wrong, I think - however strong they were, they weren't doing the bench press. Even early-20th-century strongmen/bodybuilders (Saxon and Sandow) didn't have the disproportionate pecs that can only be achieved through horizontal pressing. Lifting weights overhead was the big thing. But a lot of miniature designers seem to reckon on a very early development of the bench press in their pseudo-medieval milieu.

I'd argue that a lot of older fantasy miniatures already factored in appropriately heavily muscled physiques. The Perry norsemen (now the Foundry Vikings) look about right, allowing for "heroic scale". But current trends - and I think those Tzeentch acolytes are a case in point - take it to a bizarre extreme.

Now you have designers who aren't referring to films like Excalibur and krull, but the new conan and 300 films for their high fantasy sword and sorcery, so this trend is going to be absorbed. (And i say this as a 22 year old art student who works alongside these same designers, not a crotchity old man.(no offence ) )

Good points! The interesting thing, though, is that there are counter-examples in popular culture - and they're actually the dominant ones. You mention Game of Thrones, but what about the Jackson Tolkien films? I'm no great fan of them, but they create a much more coherent and plausible vision of the fantastic than the campy 300 or the new (or old) Conan. And between them, they're clearly far more popular.

And there's a case in point: the LotR films' Uruk-hai, which were very unlike the book's descriptions, but were big, muscly sword-and-sorcery beasts that might have been more at home in a Conan adaptation. And, given that, very well done. But look at the miniatures based on them: they're convincingly done as big, burly beasts that might slip into the All Blacks back row, yet they don't look like action figures. And - this, I think is a key test for fantasy miniatures - they don't look absurd next to historical figures.

[nic-e]

Good points! The interesting thing, though, is that there are counter-examples in popular culture - and they're actually the dominant ones. You mention Game of Thrones, but what about the Jackson Tolkien films? I'm no great fan of them, but they create a much more coherent and plausible vision of the fantastic than the campy 300 or the new (or old) Conan. And between them, they're clearly far more popular.

And there's a case in point: the LotR films' Uruk-hai, which were very unlike the book's descriptions, but were big, muscly sword-and-sorcery beasts that might have been more at home in a Conan adaptation. And, given that, very well done. But look at the miniatures based on them: they're convincingly done as big, burly beasts that might slip into the All Blacks back row, yet they don't look like action figures. And - this, I think is a key test for fantasy miniatures - they don't look absurd next to historical figures.

A point well made and one i had thought of but didn't think to write out. There will always be exceptions of course, but I would argue that as game and media companies have to try harder to create recognisable setting to compete with each other the old fantasy tropes are being pushed aside in faour of the more animated styles we now see, because these are easier to imprint a house style onto. It's far easier to say "our aremour is this " when it's 8 foot tall bright purple and suspiciously shaped than if it's your standard gondorian plate and mail.

I'd also say that things like Lotr and GoT get away with it by being pre established low fantasy settings that had their image very much cemented by their fans before they were really absorbed into the mainstream consciousness, that is to say that 20 years ago most people had heard of lord of the rings but the only people who had a clear image of what everything looked like were the hardcore fans who had turned to myth and history for context, just as the writers did.

Plus we should remember that contemporary fantasy is building on top of this foundation, rather than parallel to it. In the same way contemporary art trends often arise out of a conceptual attempt to counter what came before or re-contextualise it through alteration and subversion, so fantasy literature and imagery will be doing the same.
I would argue that that was exactly how warhammer came to be.An invention of punk art students and writers who decided to take on boar the new counter tolkien fantasy of moorock and create a crippled tolkienesque world. That became the norm and you get games like warmachine that rebel against that norm with big ugly models and bright colours, games like warcraft that ramp up the brightness and size, and then a new generation of designers come into GW having absorbed media that was a reaction to their own original reactionary creation and a new reaction begins, this one an OVER EXTREME version of fantasy, where EVERYTHING is ramped up to 11, where the world isn't a twee magic land, it's an INFINITE REALM of GODS AND CELESTIAL POWER.

If the original GW team were starting out now with AOS,we'd be seeing it as a caricature of things like Warcraft, a punky side swipe at hyper fantasy tropes. The problem of course is that GW did really well by creating a pastiche that was as endearing as the elements it was subverting (probably due to it's working out of affection for its source material rather than it's contempt.) and now it has to create a sincere universe.

Don't get me wrong, I like AOS, I think it's a much better game, but i'm very much playing in my own worlds set somewhere loosely within their infinite realms.

[Hobgoblin]

The problem of course is that GW did really well by creating a pastiche that was as endearing as the elements it was subverting (probably due to it's working out of affection for its source material rather than it's contempt.) and now it has to create a sincere universe.

Good analysis. I think the "sincere universe" point is key here. The original Warhammer scenarios took place against a very lightly sketched background (basically, "our world but a bit different, and throw in whatever you like") and were very tongue-in-cheek. Then the RPG took the material in a different direction - more sincere on one level, but still winking at another. But then, as the RPG faded and the wargame took off, the background became the foreground and restrictive at the same time. It's always good to remember that the earlier editions of Warhammer had systems for statting up whatever you cared to place on the table and actively encouraged the use of non-GW figures (even in 54mm!).

I suppose AOS is in some ways an extension of the more "sincere", restrictive background that characterised later editions of Warhammer - and slightly po-faced because of it. And, in the process, the inspiration seems to have drifted from Breughel and Rembrandt to 300 if not Tom of Finland (which makes the po-facedness all the stranger!).

[nic-e]

Good analysis. I think the "sincere universe" point is key here. The original Warhammer scenarios took place against a very lightly sketched background (basically, "our world but a bit different, and throw in whatever you like") and were very tongue-in-cheek. Then the RPG took the material in a different direction - more sincere on one level, but still winking at another. But then, as the RPG faded and the wargame took off, the background became the foreground and restrictive at the same time. It's always good to remember that the earlier editions of Warhammer had systems for statting up whatever you cared to place on the table and actively encouraged the use of non-GW figures (even in 54mm!).

I suppose AOS is in some ways an extension of the more "sincere", restrictive background that characterised later editions of Warhammer - and slightly po-faced because of it. And, in the process, the inspiration seems to have drifted from Breughel and Rembrandt to 300 if not Tom of Finland (which makes the po-facedness all the stranger!).

I think part of the reason is also the changing market. When warhammer came around it was aiming at the D&D players.Fantasy was, I am told, considered a little bit weird by the traditional wargamers of the time.If anything the game itself was as much a pastiche as the background, A tool used by many for serious strategy being put to use to make giants kick goblins like footballs.
Now that isn't the case, fantasy is the dominant norm and wargaming is no longer the closed off hobby of bored dads and retired generals.Taking the piss out of it,even in a loving way, just isn't going to bite anymore. anything overly tongue in cheek is going to be dismissed as not serious enough to be worthy of the attention by the vast majority.
Add on top the fact that games need a world to sell now. I can't tell you how many dead game systems there are at work that act as shelf filler, not because they are bad games (if anything it's some of the best rule sets that suffer) but because the world feels tacked on or like a standard cut and print setting. AOS has managed to over come this hurdle by sheer bulk, using the financial and historic weight of GW and the warhammer world to draw people in while the world is built around it.

I'd say games like Arceworld and Relicblade are closer to the attitude that birthed warhammer.Quirky , loose, a little bit punk (or indie i suppose would be the contemporary equivalent.) with some obvious jokes and sideways glances at the genre as a whole, but made out of a sincere love, one that is grounded in an understanding that the whole thing is a little bit weird and nerdy anyway so why take it too seriously. Give it 30 years, if the systems are still being played, They'll be taken alot more seriously and their worlds will be alot more rigid and humourless than they are now, not by design, but by the evolution of player expectation.

[Andrew Rae]

I suppose AOS is in some ways an extension of the more "sincere", restrictive background that characterised later editions of Warhammer - and slightly po-faced because of it. And, in the process, the inspiration seems to have drifted from Breughel and Rembrandt to 300 if not Tom of Finland (which makes the po-facedness all the stranger!).

I wouldn't project too much sincerity onto GW (they're clearly just having fun), nor would I call AoS background restrictive. The exact opposite in fact. It seems deliberately designed to allow GW and their players to insert whatever they want into the game, and no-one in GW is going to tell you 'you can't do that because of this background note'. Some players might, but GW never will; they just want you to buy their toys. Warhammer 40k will go the same way - the whole Eldar thing this month is just a background reason to allow gamers to buy whatever eldar figures they want, be it Craftworld, Dark or Harlequin. And there will be plenty of reasons why they could include figures from other ranges too.

[Andrew May]

Cor! Love that beastie!  

Edit: pic not showing? http://www.beastsofwar.com/age-of-sigmar/lordaquilor-leads-charge-age-sigmars-stormcast/

[Andrew Rae]

Cor! Love that beastie!  

Edit: pic not showing? http://www.beastsofwar.com/age-of-sigmar/lordaquilor-leads-charge-age-sigmars-stormcast/

Exactly! Po-faced?!

[nic-e]

"men of the free guild, BEHOLD MY MIGHTY CHICKEN!"

I love it. According to GW on facebook it's a wild beast of the realms tamed by the stormcasts to explore and scout, a nimble road runner compared to the stubby bulldog of the dracoth.

[Momotaro]

"My steed is tireless in pursuit, fearless in battle and lays my breakfast egg every day without fail".

Love the model and the Gryph-hounds!  And the 40k Yvaine model needs to be a scheming Reverend Mother in some Imperial court...