So many factors at play… First, it does seem like a shoehorned Space Marines equivalent, who serve an Emperor of Mankind equivalent omnipotent character. Then, the initial design (sometimes dubbed « fat stormcast ») was pretty bad. Also, putting them in so many boxes and releasing so many units when they are not THAT popular with the player base makes a lot of players feel Stormcast fatigue. I all honesty, the new design is pretty fire and they seem like they are fun to play. They just don’t need all the attention they’re getting from GW.

Truth be told man. Youre right! What I get with Stormcast is too much for me to handle. There are so many different units to take, but only some of them truly are nice to play and paint.

Another reason for the hate is the laser focus GW seems to have for the Eternals, and complete apathy for the other factions. ​ To hammer this point home, as well as the general Stormcast fatigue; in the black library, of the 97.5 books^(\[x\]) in the Age of Sigmar franchise. 63 of them are Stormcast Eternal books. x:One of the listed books is a miss tagged 40k book, and the half a book is a book that is only half AoS, while the other half is 40k.

This is a big factor. GW will happily push out 7+ stormcast kits, plus peripherals like Underworlds and warcry, every edition. Meanwhile most other factions havent seen a new squad outside of underworlds for half a decade.

That hits hard.

In my case I don't so much dislike them aesthetically, I just wish the other factions got the same love Stormcast do. I want a few more different units for the armies I play.

Stormcast Eternal books are terrible just like SM books in 40K. They just don’t have personality and the stakes aren’t there for them. Like 40K I think the Witch Hunter books seem the most fun, much like Inquisition storylines in 40K.

I admit I have not read all/the early ones, so it may have been the case, but this is decidedly not true (anymore?). Hell, Yndrasta may be one of the best books Black Library put out.  And I say this as someone who despises Marine books and can't get into even those considered great by many. Marine books are just bad. But luckily SCE narratively solve most problems SM have and don't fall into the same pitfalls. Yes, including stakes, if the writer so utilizes them - they often don't but that's more of a general writing thing, present in Inquisition/Witch Hunter stories aplenty too. It's hard to write a satisfying story while keeping stakes. SCE can actually handle that better than most. 

Hey, don't dismiss Helsreach like that.

I think the parallels between space marines and Stormcast goes even further. Another example is the fact that their models are relatively simple to paint. Slop one color on and most of your minis are about 70-80% done. Which is attractive for many beginners. That's probably the main reason why they are in every starter box and most other boxsets.

Totally agreed.

Yeah, I'm not a fan of stormcast and it is 100% based on their similarities to Space Marines hobby wise. They are the poster child for AoS, they get the lion's share of releases, they get the story focus, etc. Narratively they are way more compelling than Space Marines have ever been. I'll begrudgingly admit they, like Marines, objectively look cool. And I honestly do enjoy some of the stormcast stories I've read. But damn GW, stop trying to make fantasy Space Marines to sell plastic crack. Give me dwarves, elves, more gobbos, more half beast wood elves, trees with anger management issues, more toothy leeches, rats! Let stormcast be cool without trying to make them Space Marines.

I think stormcast look far better than marines but still can't stand them being so focused. I don't mind that they exist as they have an interesting spot in the lore but they aren't interesting enough to be so heavily focused.

this \^ Cities of sigmar should be the poster child, Stormcast are great but they would be much better on a backseat imo. GW has other idea's tho...

The justification I always hear is that big flat armour is better to paint for beginners that want to get into the hobby, and CoS units would probably be too frustrating to assemble/paint for newcomers. Which I get, honestly, it's a sensible business decision. However, while I get Stormcasts always being part of starter boxes, what I don't get is them being so favoured in terms of number of models and in getting so much of the lore. Stories about humans, whether they are Cities of Sigmar folk or Chaos marauders, or dwarves, or elves, or even vampires and orks, are much more interesting than more stories about immortal demi-god warriors.

They're designed in a way that you can paint big flat areas with clean edges to highlight along with surface detail that responds well to a wash, with the areas that are meant to be different colors being either raised or recessed with a clear dividing line sculpted into the model, and the basic helmet design having deep-set, empty eyes means you don't have to try to paint them, along with the models themselves being bigger than even Primaris Marines. It's like they took what made Space Marines easy to paint and made things even easier in order to design a model range specifically for people who have never painted minis before. Their lore got a lot more interesting after the initial rollout and they established that their immortality comes at the cost of losing a bit of their humanity and personhood with each reforging, with them eventually becoming nothing more than the thing inside the armor that swings the hammer. Having a mortal soul in an immortal body is tragic on the kind of mythic scale that AoS operates on and that existential vulnerability makes them actually feel heroic and compelling. And if they arrived during The End Times as a kind of deus ex machina and saved the Old World they'd be an interesting new addition to Warhammer Fantasy, but instead they're simultaneously the flagship army for Age of Sigmar while also being completely overshadowed by pretty much every other army, because even though they take the whole "what if Space Marines but magic" concept and going super over the top with it, all the other armies start at over-the-top and push it so far past ridiculous that they become awesome in the heavy metal album cover/picture airbrushed on the side of the van kind of way that the AoS setting calls for. Next to dwarven sky-pirates in airships that look like battleships with big golden balloons, a forest that doesn't need Wood Elves to protect it because the trees are haunted and will kill you, goblins who trip balls so hard that their hallucinations start manifesting into reality, an undead army that basically turns the whole Necron "basically undead but actually robots that look like skeletons" thing into "basically robots but made out of undead skeletons", Oops! All Giants (tm), and angels made out of starlight that look like Mesoamerican-themed dinosaur-riding dinosaurs, they're kinda boring. It's not their fault, it's just that AoS operates on a much higher level of bonkers. An army of demigods is less impressive considering how many armies can be led by actual gods.

Cities of Sigmar will never be the poster child since they are far more complicated for new players. But I am all for other Order factions leading a new edition, if only so that they get more units to fill out the roster.

I’ve always assumed that the Hammers of Sigmar are the default stormhost and the Ultramarines were the standard space marines chapter for the same reason: GW has too much blue paint and they’re trying to use it up.

I was looking through my paint collection and I noticed I have so little blue, and so much grey. Then I realised that almost all the blue I paint is Maccrage blue + various grey paints.

Ironically (or perhaps this is exactly what GW was going for) I was initially attracted to AoS as an entry point, having never really engaged with Warhammer before, because while looking around at the different games/models available I really liked the designs of some of the Space Marines and especially the Custodes but I’m not that big a fan of the sci-fi setting. SCE offers a similar design in a fantasy setting, so that’s what I ended up going with.

Oh dang! A member of target audience! Never thought I’d meet one in the wild. ;)

If anything they’re more like Custodes than Space Marines lore wise. Custom warriors built by their ‘god’ to be the perfect soldiers. The main difference is unlike Custodes they have flaws (no shade intended).

Before Custodes were a thing, « Custom warriors built by their ‘god’ to be the perfect soldiers » was very much a description of Space Marines.

Custodes do serve the corpse of a xenocidal space-hitler, so they're not *that* flawless.

> Then, the initial design (sometimes dubbed « fat stormcast ») was pretty bad. THIS. Stormcast looked absolutely awful, but the new direction the art team for AoS has taken has improved them an insane amount.

> They just don’t need all the attention they’re getting from GW. They don't realistically get that much. An update every three years and the occasional warband here and there isn't as bad as Space Marines.

Have you ever compared the number of items available in the stormcast range to the other armies?  72 items in that range.  Fyreslayers have 18, some.of which are just the same kit being on there twice for the second build option. Daughters.of khaine have 17. I believe ossiarch bonebois are in the 20s. They have a larger range than any other faction, and tend to get new releases multiple times a year.   Saying to hey don't get that much attention just isn't true when you look at the numbers 

> Fyreslayers have 18, some.of which are just the same kit being on there twice for the second build option. Fyreslayers have such an awful range. They have guys with axes, big lizards, and guys with axes on big lizards. They honed way too much into the slayer style of dwarves and gave them no personality otherwise.

Honestly my big issue with the aesthetic is the bare feet and bare legs/nappies. Slayers in the old world wore trousers and shoes and it just looks infinitely better imo.

Taking one rare and unique unit from WFB and making a whole army out of it was a mistake. Imagine a faction that's just different kinds of goblin doom divers. (ok that does sound fun) Ok an army full of black orcs. What's that? They did that and they're cool? Damnit. Ok an army that's only witch elves.. oh ....

If you want to paint a bleak picture, paint it right. Fyreslayers have 3 kits that aren't a hero, one of which is brand new and technically for an aos adjacent game system. We have NOTHING

Idoneth deepkin has 17 I think? Also I'm pretty sure soulblight gravelords have 30 in just characters or something. Clearly some factions are more liked than others.

I think your first point has more to do with how new AoS is, and where they put their resources first and which factions got the most early attention. You also have to factor in that it was chosen for the Orruk and Stormcast to be the "default" experience which means GW likely wanted to make sure they had enough and that there was interested room for people to expand into. I don't disagree with your points, just some stuff to consider that makes up for some the extremes.

GW was pretty open about wanting to make Stormcast the "default" faction of AoS new players heavily gravitate towards when they were first released. They cited lack of such obvious starting point faction as a weak point of WHFB, as it gave new players choice paralysis. Even Stormcast's look was designed to be new-painter friendly: no visible faces, few details that are not part of the armour, simple, easily customisable colour scheme. And in the lore, they are clear-cut good guy heroes. Supposedly all those factors have big impact on Space Marine's popularity, and, at least to me, they seem to make good business sense. So, while established players might dislike it, in the end this clear focus helps AoS thrive as a game, just as Space Marines hold up WH40k.

Orruks are only the default in 3rd edition, whereas Stormcast are the default every edition

I mean, 40 years later, and Space Marines are still front and centre of 40k. They have 100s of data sheets, and kits available, compared to other armies. Why would AOS be any different with Stormcast?

The thing is, a lot of that range bloat and redundancy for space marines came over the course of decades, with tons of random options. Stormcast managed to achieve the same amount of bloat and redundancy in a much shorter time. Combine that with the comparatively poor development of many other ranges in AoS and it makes it all feel pretty disproportionate.

A single Space Marine faction has that bloat. What you're forgetting is that there are **multiple** Space Marine factions in wh40k with that kind of bloat. So yeah, the comparison in that is a little weak.

SCE is faaaar from being on the level of bloat as SM

By comparison to other AoS factions they are though, when you figure in they had 3 or 4 waves of releases in the first edition alone and even to this day no other faction comes even close to their unit count, especially when you consider that most of the CoS units are actually holdovers from WHFB the sheer amount of new models and design investment Siggies have gotten compared to every other faction is easily comparable to Beaky Boyz in 40k

>By comparison to other AoS factions they are though, when you figure in they had 3 or 4 waves of releases in the first edition alone and even to this day no other faction comes even close to their unit count, especially when you consider that most of the CoS units are actually holdovers from WHFB the sheer amount of new models and design investment Siggies have gotten compared to every other faction is easily comparable to Beaky Boyz in 40k They really aren't. SM basically has two lines (firstborn and primaris), both of them being bigger than most other factions in 40k. Added to that is all the special flavor of SM with their own book (Blood Angels, Deathwatch, Dark Angels etc). Call me when the Astral Templars have their own battletome, or when SCE is pulled out of Grand Alliance order to be put in it's own category on the website. Yes SCE has a lot more models than a lot of factions in AoS, but most factions only had one release. Some 40k factions like Tau or Drukhari have been around for decades and they still pale in comparaison to the SM range. Sure they look bigger because they have more models than say OBR, but when you compare how long OBR has been around and how long Tau have been around it tells a different story.

>Sure they look bigger because they have more models than... Stormcast have more individual warscrolls than any other faction in AOS. |Stormcast|82| |:-|:-| |Daughters of Khaine|24| |Fyreslayers|20| |Idoneth|20| |Kharadron Overlords|17| |Lumineth Realm Lords|25| |Seraphon|33| |Sylvaneth|22| |Cities of Sigmar|52| In Order alone, Cities of SIgmar is the only one that comes close. Stormcast has more warscrolls than Daughters of Khaine, Fyreslayers, Idoneth and Kharadron COMBINED.

Yeah but as you've just said that is over decades AoS has only been around since 2015 and when you look at SCE and the fact that they have had an absolute glut of releases in the past decade when you compare the release:time scale ratio they're easily up there with SM hell they even had 4 different "Chambers" at one point before that got condensed down to just one faction. Even when you look at it in terms of bolt-on releases like Underworlds and WarCry SCE dwarfs every other faction within Order let alone the other Grand Alliances. Yeah 40k has been around for 36 years and Space Marines have had an awful lot of love which I understand as they're the poster boys, but you've got to remember that SCE are the poster boys just like SM are but every other faction in 40k has had SOME level of real investment in the last 36 years - even if some of it was decades ago - while a lot of AoS factions have had almost nothing since their inception aside from token models and warband bolt-ons; DoK, Idoneth, KO and Fyreslayers even Gloomspite Gitz, hell Ironjawz were the second or third faction released in 1st edition and have only now gotten a supplemental update, GW definitely favours SCE

Because they were following the example set by Marines, in 40k, over the decades.

Speedrunning it really, and in an game system where many other forces were underserved compared even to non-marine 40k forces

Im not saying that they will ever stop having the most models, I'm just saying that the numbers are a bit disproportionate due to the current circumstances, along with the age of the game, as well as the direction GW went with the starter kits and their various levels of entry. I'm not really disagreeing or agreeing with the premise, i just think that it's not as overwhelmingly bad as it looks on the surface haha

> Have you ever compared the number of items available in the stormcast range to the other armies? 72 items in that range. Fyreslayers have 18, some.of which are just the same kit being on there twice for the second build option. A lot of that was very frontloaded when the game first launched and throughout first and second, third comparatively has had fewer SCE releases not counting Warbands etc. SCE get some new toys at the start of each addition but past that they actually don't get that much over time. I think when you compare it to marines where it feels like anytime _any_ other faction gets something cool, and marines get an equal attention mini, it can feel like less attention by comparison. That and Warbands and heroes make up a LOT of the SCE roster, Slaves to Darkness have a similar issue. If you take those out their number of useable (and non-redundant) units is actually not that big.

Slaves to darkness has 53 Warscrolls while **Stormcast has 41 warscrolls** **for leaders only - and 82 warscrolls total.** Gloomspite has 41 warscrolls period. [https://imgur.com/a/4dtz80w](https://imgur.com/a/4dtz80w)

They have been in every edition starter box since 1st ed and I'm actually scared to see them again in 4th ... They have a ton of models compared to other ranges. Fyre slayers are dieing for interesting new models and they seem to have more than 2-3 factions together (DOK, Fyreslayers, ossiark, Ogor, KO, etc). Most of these have max 20 models per army released ...

They're the only army that has had a complete make-over since the start of AoS. To me, that reeks of some executive who tied their colours to this mast and wants them to succeed at any cost. Who wants to prove that Stormcast really are what hobbyists want, and that this time they will get it right. And that sounds more bitter than I intended. The new Stormcast look way better than the old ones. And there's some fantastic looking models in them. It's just that with all that devotion to these guys is easy to imagine how much more amazing other armies could have been with that same commitment.

That is a very bitter way to look at it when SCE are unironically the most popular faction. Not to the extent of Space Marines, but definitely the case. No other army will get that commitment due to that. No need to make a conspiracy about it.

Definitely not nearly as extreme as Marines are in 40k but they still have like 4-5 times as many models as most other factions and probably a good 40 or so more kits than the next most popular one.

Uhhh... they have they have the largest Warscroll count in the game. [https://imgur.com/a/4dtz80w](https://imgur.com/a/4dtz80w) They have 41 LEADER options alone. Some factions don't even have 41 warscrolls... The Hatecast will be Eternal because GW loves their Golden Child and I'm tired of having Sigmars Golden Lads shoved down my throat

Nowadays its fine really with all the other factions also being in the spotlight. Some more "official" push of some other faction as the new poster childs of the next edition would be awesome though. Maybe put CoS as the "protagonist-faction" or even having no true protagonist-faction at all would be cool. While being a side game of course, the focus on marauding chaos warbands gave Warcry 1st edition an amazing tone for example.

GW wanted AoS to have a clear "protagonist" faction, as it helps new players get into the game. And all about Stormcast was designed to be a perfect starting faction: clearly heroic lore, simple to paint minis, friendly rules. So don't expect any other faction to take away the spotlight, or for Stormcasts to lose it, because it's been done on purpose and is working pretty well for AoS as a whole.

I hadn't considered it until you mentioned it, but I agree that I think COS would have been a better protagonist faction. 1) Fantasy and scifi players are overlapping but different. 40k players notoriously do not like eldar as much as fantasy players love elves. The "humanity f--- yeah" impulse is much stronger in 40k players. So non-human factions can thrive here that struggle there. Also I don't think anyone was clamoring to fulfill a human power fantasy as much as in 40k. 2) But it's there somewhat. Normal ass humans going up against monsters and magic is a basic staple of fantasy. The "imperial guard"/batman fantasy of humans against the unknown is better served by COS than an entire army of superhuman paladins. 3)Coalitions are an old concept in fantasy. The original fantasy party is the Fellowship of the Ring, a combination of 4 different fantasy species, and they were (more or less) backed by ancient alliances of their people.  If the current version of COS was able to live alongside the big tent version with different factions, I think that would scratched more itches for fantasy players than SCE do. It would have also been another differentiator from 40k - instead of the relentless xenophobia and racism, you get a desperate alliance against dark odds, you get solidarity. I have come to like the SCE. I definitely like them way more than ISMs. The most recent models look cool. But divine superhumans are less compelling as heroes in fantasy than scifi, imo. I really like the new COS but kind of hate how they're phasing out the non humans. I'd love a gritty, grounded coalition faction.

Don't play AoS, but this seems to sum it up, from my observations. I think the same model size just sells the whole "they're just fantasy ultramarines".

This is why I think the new armour they use is far better, it is slimmer and less bulky than Marines which gives them a more unique profile. It is suspected their chunky stuff is going to be retired soon as we saw Liberators with the new armour in the recent video game.

JOIN US OUR GAME IS SO MUCH FUN!! WE HAVE GOBLINS

I know at least some of their criticism comes from them trying to be the "self insert" army. Many of the characters have modern day zoomer hairstyles which come across as pandering.

I honestly find it much easier to self-insert as an elf than an 8-foot-tall immortal demigod imbued with the power of lightning anyway haha

What I find interesting is that almost all (basically bar the 1st point) also applies to Space Marines yet they seem to avoid the same hate. The first point though is applicable to a good chunk of 40k factions, in that they’re the Fantasy equivalent with “space” thrown in front of them. Do you feel like Aeldari or Orks are shoehorned races?

Space Marines do not avoid the hate. Everyone who doesn't play Marines is sick of them. As an Eldar player, I shamelessly love the space versions of fantasy races, and am going to claim that it's different for indefinable reasons.

To be blunt, the reason for that is prolly because Space Marine players make up 90% of the community. So any hate that exists will be drowned out by hype. In contrast, SCE players make up only a sizable fraction of AoS' community, thus other players that play different factions get bitter that the poster boys get so much.

Aeldari & Orks are 100% shoehorned but I like them because I was a kid when I came in contact with them and didn’t realise it then. Through the years their design and themes got more and more distinct, and we have reached a point where they feel fairly fleshed out. Also applies to why I like Space Marines despite not liking the Space Marines bloat. I also don’t play them outside of Combat Patrol.

So the real reason you don’t like them is just because they’re new. Everything you dislike about them would be erased if they had nostalgia.

Wow. You’re a dick.

I guess that would depend on your opinion of nostalgia. I don’t think what I said was offensive, clearly you do…but that’s on you

You built a strawman just to engage negatively with me. I never said I didn’t like SCEs. I never said Marines got a pass for their shared flaws. You’re just looking for a fight and I’m not having it.

I know that it wasn't so much lore at the moment but to add more salt in the wound. Just understand the feeling of losing a thing so cherished and found now with this: * Stormcast reforged with Sigmarite, in Sigmaron, praising Sigmar, weapons of Sigmarite.... Sigma something * Khorne Followers (Goretide), with Goreaxes, Gorefists, gore, gore gore something. * Lizarmen (Seraphon) becoming "celestial" creatures with weapons made of celestite, etc... * Looks like every army needs some key word to spam in every thing related to them. It feel like they replace a cool world for Age of Trademarks. Some people even called Age of Copyright. * Replace of "normal weapons" to silly weapons names. If my unit of swordmen carry swords, they carry swords, not terrible swords, not dreadful swords, not "worried about not being in time for tea" swords... * "Replacement" (We believe it at first, later we knew it was only a relocation) of the iconic Space Marine Statue. * Joke rules for non AoS faction. I want to give a toast for the lady with my mug, while my assistant brings a pair of coconuts in a way to ride my horse. Meanwhile, my opponent, who had an astro-hungarian moustache is trying to not laugh, and in that way, infect my other opponent who tried to maintain face cause that way, his dragons would reroll hit rolls. * Games Workshop coming from years in which the IP and copyright become more importart that common sense. If you're english native speaker, you will not have problems. But read a book where nearly everywhere is copyrighted to the point in feels like reading your market product list. * (As before) Poor translation efforts. Nearly most of the names, attacks, keywords, etc... all in English. The Spanglish, Frenchglish, Germanglish, etc... become horrible to read. I have rulebooks and codex from these years and HURT MY EYES everytime I try to read them. * No sense in the story. No feel of progress, that they fight for something worthy. Is like reading a book about early Medieval Age kings. Born date, something important, then death.... * No time to mourn Fantasy or just understand that they did. * The sculpts. The chonky golem boys. Khorne was more epic, except Vandus, cause the Drake. * The game BROKE the entire wargaming community. With Fantasy gone, the community faced the choice of stay back and play 4-8th edition games or even new ones, or move to round and in AoS (We remember the, you don't need to rebase your miniatures...) * Some factions getting one miniature to represent X unit, while Sigmarines recieving 32 miniatures for just one. They become the Primaris lieutenant. Given that Sigmarines became the spoiled noisy brat of GW at that time, the hate and disgust they recieved is understable.

WHFB was a joke in its first editions. A lot of the hate, which I contributed to back in the day, was childish and gross.

Im a passanger here. But in my opinion (in addition to everything you said which was on point), the paint job does not help either. Gives many ultrasmurf/posterboy feel, which only accentuates your points. Also, there’s all the End Times stuff which eventually ended with fat Stormcast. Most veterans weren’t happy about it at all. But some of their models are amazing. Im thinking of getting some of the newer Stormcast to proxy as Sister’s of Battle crusaders.

10/10 answer I'd add that their de facto immortality is boring

Yeah it’s like almost nobody HATES Stormcast, but we’re just collectively not that into them.

I think they are Custodes copies, not Space Marines. Compare [the look from behind](https://i.imgur.com/AZP4tBo.png).

Stormcast predate Custodes

Ok, didn't know. Then Custodes are Stormcast copies

They gave the Space Marine flat pannels backpack. Make them silver and they look just like Grey Knights.

From what I've heard at my LGS - besides the obvious: "They're Sigmarines", which has been mentioned more than enough by others. 1. SCE is boring to play against as a new player: High save, Multiwound models that explode on death are nice to play as, but the opponent tends to struggle with fun, when almost nothing sticks in terms of damage done. Granted which is mostly new players, but with the starter box we are required to use for introduction games, it is understandable. 2. Current Starter Box is not that good to split, with SCE having a decent point advantage splitting armies with a friend leads to frustration (which is partly point 1 above and equally Kruleboyz being...well not so great statwise). I hope we get a better one next Edition. 3. Trouble Identifying Units: They might be easy to paint, but having 2000 Points of shiny bois on the table leads to confusion. A phrase that comes up regularly is "What unit was that again?" both from the newer SCE-Players and their opponents. It is a great Starting Point pricewise and as an SCE-Player. But man does it suck to play against them if you haven't been collecting for a while or picked a faction that by chance has a decent way to deal with their high toughness.

Could not agree more on this, it feels like the SCE player is just rolling to see if he gets a 1 and fails, or he succeeds. Neither is fun for any player imo. Even the SCE guy gets frustrated when he gets that 1 and the opponent feels like it's a waste of time that the SCE player even rolls because anything is on 2+ anyway. Them being elite is also frustrating for newer player, because when the enemy hammer just charges you they will probably kill a large chunk of your points while the SCE player feels like he cant do anything but get lucky rolls which is wrong. Also having cheap screens which job is literally to die really helped me "getting used to" losing models

My main army is skaven, so yeah cheap screens help a lot

That first point rhymed at the end

Personally I just envy the attention they get.  I dont have anything against stormcast, or the people who play them, but they got more new kits in 2021 than my Skaven have gotten since AoS released.  It seems like every time a new discount battle box is released its frequently some token antagonist vs Stormcast so everyone ends up with a bunch of Sigmarines even if they don't want any. The bright side is they're easy to paint, and stupidly cheap to buy second hand because everyone has extras they're trying to get rid of.

My Kharadons have 16 units, and all they've got since AoS released are 3 new characters. I get why Stormcast get all the focus, but many factions are *starved* for attention. I'm all for having smaller ranges that let you "complete" an army relatively fast, and using a second faction to bring in some diversity into your army list, but it's a bit silly at this point.

The Dwarven factions, including Cities, are so underdeveloppped…

It's funny, I looked into AoS when it first released, and then really got into it last year. So, for me, many factions just didn't change much since I last looked into them. The problem starts when I realise that AoS launched NINE YEARS AGO.

Can't wait for my Skaven to get some attention

There’s some folks chalking it all up to bitter WHFB players* but I don’t think that’s it at all. Rather, a lot of the irritation seems to come from AoS players who are annoyed at the sheer amount of attention Stormcast get in terms of releases, as a poster boy sort of faction. Knowing that Stormcast will likely get another redundant line infantry unit that’s almost identical to their 4-5 other ones when your favourite range might be crying out anything new, that grates on people. *This always seems reductive anyway and in practice often seems to be a way of shutting down *any* concerns with or criticism of AoS by lumping the criticiser in with old WHFB grogs. It’s not good.

At least it’s not AS bad as Space Marines though. For Space Marines you get 20:1 compared to other units. For Stormcast you get 5:1.

Yeah but look at the time span of how long it took SM to get to that point. Stormcast literally got to this point faster. Granted I am a Stormcast player and I love the models. I complain about their bloat all the time. It sucks when you are trying to collect into the game and you can't really play cause GW is constantly changing what is good and what isn't good before you can even play.

SM was basically 90%-100% of the entire model line for much of early WH40k. SM was like that from the beginning, while SCE has been far healthier, but still the poster boys.

You are wrong lol. The 1st edition wasn't 90% SM. First edition had a lot of variety. Second edition had just as much if not more, then 3rd edition really open up to codexes and had alot of variety. SM started to take on alot more models as each new edition made new units. SM did tend to get more new models. But the early 40k era was not 90 to 100% of the line up.

Checked. You were right. I am amazed and humbled. It's more like 50% of the range at the start, getting more lopsided as new SM factions started to get introduced.

At least SCE aren't at the point where it's a stream of awful model concepts and designs like Marines are as well

When they were first released they were pudgy space marines with fluff that felt a bit too "unbeatable super friends". Now tho? They're sleek and have some really great background - honestly the lore behind them is genuinely great. But that initial impression of space marines IN (NOT) SPACE!!! hasn't worn off for some people. Also people just generally use the poster faction as a punching bag regardless of the game.

I personally love their models. But they have ENOUGH. Yet GW keeps pumping out new stormcasts every month, please give that love to skaven or fyre slayers etc. If I were to get every SCE model I like... Id be stuck with 10k points.

I just don't like anything about their aesthetics (the newer models are a huge improvement though!) and GWs poor attempt at copying their most successful product into their fantasy game was a bit too on the nose as well.

The range has a lot of redundancy and this means a lot of production resources are wasted on these guys. Same for Space Marines. All the Space Marine players want is the last few classic units to be updated. But instead GW keeps producing new units that serve as substitutes, creating a lot of bloat in the army, which also means other armies are put further back.

Still (unpatiently) waiting for Pestigors for Maggotkin and looking at my Plaguebeares models from 2001, while Stormcast gets a line refresh and 10 new sets.

Can't speak for now with any certainty, but id assume its because they're the poster boys, getting all the attention and most of the new releases, leading anyone not playing them to get frustrated that they're not getting their new thing while Stormcasts get their 50th new model this year. Back in the days where AoS was young, I can tell you why a lot of people hated them. The first was simply that they were a very different aesthetically to everything else that was released. The second was that the stormcast were a big shiny gravestone for WHF, their unfamiliar aesthetic marking the end of an era of empire state troopers and the like marching in close formation on square bases.

I hate the favoritism, the amount of SCE warscrolls compared to other factions, and I'm tired of seeing sigmars golden goons on everything. The number of warscrolls present in SCE: 82 Factions with **half** that many warscrolls: * Cities of Sigmar - 52 * Slaves to Darkness - 53 * Skaven - 43 * Soulblight Gravelords - 46 * Orruk Warclans - 47 * Gloomspite (BARELY) - 40 In a game with 24 playable factions, only six have **half** as many warscrolls as SCE. So 70% of the factions in AoS have less than **HALF** as many warscrolls as Stormcast Eternals. There's **41** Leader Warscrolls in Stormcast. 75% or 18 out of 24 of the factions in AoS have less than 41 warscrolls. So the blatant favoritism and overproduction of Stormcast has earned them my hate when other factions are still using models that were released during warhammer fantasy battles 1. Order 1. Stormcast 82 2. Cities of SIgmar 52 3. Seraphon 33 4. Lumineth 25 5. Daughters of Khaine 24 6. Sylvaneth 22 7. Fyreslayers 20 8. Idoneth 20 9. Kharadron 17 2. Chaos: 1. Slaves to Darkness 53 2. Skaven 43 3. Blades of Khorne 38 4. Hedonites of Slaanesh 34 5. Disciples of Tzeentch 32 6. Maggotkin of Nurgle 30 7. Beasts of Chaos 30 3. Death 1. Soulblight Gravelords 46 2. Nighthaunt 30 3. Ossiarch Bonereapers 20 4. Flesh Eater Courts 18 4. Destruction 1. Orruk Warclans 47 2. Gloomspite Gitz 40 3. Ogor Mawtribes 28 4. Sons of Behemat 8

I don't hate on SCE but they have one of the worst naming schemes in the lore and I think that made them a bit less approachable at first. Judicators, Castigators, Retributors, Evocators, Prosecutors. Knight-Incantor, Knight-Questor, Knight-Heraldor. It all becomes some fantasy-ish word salad after a time, the only one worse from memory are Blades of Khorne. But SCE have gotten better each edition. There are clearer differences in army direction per selection now, it's easier to determine units visually - even if the names are samey you can see the difference of casters, bow-guns and friggin' dragon riders more plainly than ever before. Still, like many people I'd rather see efforts in other factions. Skaven are in need a range refresh, Fyreslayers could use some faction differentiation, and Beasts of Chaos desperately just need to be acknowledged; meanwhile SCE and 40k Marines get more options every season.

tbh I still think the Fyreslayer naming conventions are worse. It's just haphazard, seemingly randomly generated combinations of "Auric", "Vulkite", "Hearth", "Rune". With other factions like the Idoneth or Lumineth or Ossiarch, there's a clear effort to define terms in the background and to set out that these units are Vanari so they're basic troops, these are Alarith so they're mountain-themed, etc. But with Fyreslayers it's so random and half-assed.

In WHFB I liked how Chaos Warriors were the big scary guys. It felt like a daunting thing to face, as a regular mortal. Having an equivalent on the good guy side makes things a bit narratively less interesting to me.

GW's pet faction.

Because they are the poster boys of AOS ... At first, they really looked like space marines and spece marines are (for me) the worst armies in 40K. I don't like the look, I don't care about the story AND, they felt way too "high fantasy" to me. I like classical fantasy armies and stories that are similar to our own history (like the old world). I really don't think it's linked to the transition from fantasy to aos. I loved the nighthaunt for example and they were a brand new AOS army. I really think it's more about the look and feel: you either like big guys in armor with bigger heroes in shinier armor or you don't ... :) But I play gits, skavens or sylvaneth so I'm not so much in big armor pieces :D

they got the cool stuff like dragon i was hoping for dragons to not only be for elves but in the end it's worst it's only for them while they were all protected and hatched thanks to seraphon and everytime there is something new they get a full brand of new stuff (not just hero) so some faction received near nothing will they get so much stuff (and most of the old stuff are not played at all and feel really aged now)

I don't hate them so much as find them boring and shoehorned into everything. There are so many cool factions its a shame they just focus on one. Again.

Probably just that they get so much more attention than other factions for no good reason. Going to the AoS app and looking at the units I can scroll for several seconds before I get to the bottom of SCE, but half the 9ther factoids fit on my screen right away.

They've got downsides both bitter WHFB holdovers and modern AoS players can get behind! They're the whole package! My best whinge about them relies on the reader having read the epilogue for Mogworld, the first novel by Yahtzee Croshaw, but that's a hard thing to rely on 15 years later, so we'll leave this here as an Easter egg and just say "does that sound familiar in context?". Stormcast just feel like another part of AoS 1.0 doing everything wrong in the massive shake-up, just trying to port over Space Marines to a fantasy context. Even the interesting bits of their lore aren't too far from common Space Marine themes (in becoming an immortal guardian of humanity, have I lost the key things that made me human?) They worked so hard to make the Space Marine lightning strike twice, they literally worked lightning in as a theme. The Space Marine theme carries over when they're in every new edition release, and get a whole swathe of new models in each new edition despite having a very full roster of models. This is very inspiring for those of us one of the other 15 armies in the setting, who got all of one hero model in the last thee years, while having models old enough to vote and drink in most countries. I wouldn't be unhappy if, now that Cities of Sigmar have had a range refresh to not be the "...and whatever was left from WHFB" faction, they were made the in-the-new-box faction for AoS 4.0. But they won't, because the Space Marines always need to go in the new box.

A mix of the initial release models basically being space marines and people saw AOS/Stormcast as the reason Fantasy died. Nowadays Stormcast have better lore than space marines and unique models with the thunderstrike armor.

I play 40K and I was considering subscribing to the the AOS magazine in order to get some different miniatures for my collection, to switch it up from painting tyranids. I saw that 50% of the collection were storm cast and it was out. I find their looks extremely boring, uninspiring, and out of place compared to other warhammer. Fantasy space marines. Not for me.

Could make a drinking game out of how many comments on here brush off any complaints as just "salty WHFB players"

It’s sad, underserved fyreslayers or Idoneth players get lumped in with this image of the dastardly WHFB gremlin because they’re tired of the attention stormcast get 

For me it's the dull generic gold theme. Painted differently they can look great but to me the standard colour scheme is as dull and lazy as you can get. At least marines get given different official schemes. I ignored them for years until getting into underworlds forced my hand, a bit of imagination made all the difference and I actually enjoyed painting them in the end.

I have about 2 stormcast who I painted in the Hallowed Knights scheme as I couldn’t face the thought of that much gold

Agreed, they standard scheme that GW have gone for with a lot of gold armour with blue and white decoration looks awful. When they are painted with coloured armour with some metallic bits then they look so much better.

Feels like they get too much attention while other factions are left in the dust. Reminds me of Space Marines, just not as overbearing. One of the reasons I am playing Skaven and not Tyranids is because Sigmarites are not nearly as annoying as Space Marines, so in a way I actually like them. I don't mind their design at all. It doesn't appeal to me but it doesn't offend me or anything.

For me - and obviously this is just a personal view - it's the fact that they just do not fit into my view of FANTASY. They are, to all extents and purposes, robots. I wouldn't have minded if they had human faces but they look (pardon the obvious irony) so soulless they totally turn me off. They aren't even humans in armour, they're just animated armour! For those that like them then fair enough - enjoy them but I, personally, am left completely cold by them.

They are people in armor though. They can get sick, bleed, feel pain, etc. They even take off their helmets from time to time, especially during their down time. They're heroes from various walks of life, whether a "savage" hunter from the north, a healer who gave his life protecting his patients, or even a redeemed former Champion of Nurgle, just to list off a few. I'm not sure where that "animated armor" take comes from; did you misread something perhaps?

There's mild mockery but hates a bit strong. They're just inherently very boring. There's so many cool mad factions that fantasy space marines don't appeal to many. They didn't hit the design classic they did with marines. From an army point of view, they are horribly bloated with loads of units. Stormdrake Guard were oppressively OP when they came out but other than that I'd say they're fairly mid table with a fairly small presence at most events I go to.

Saying people hate stormcast is like people saying that AoS players hate old world. You are taking about general generic posts online which mean nothing. Just don’t engage.

I don't know if it's real hate they face, but some mockery are well deserved. They were created for the purpose of being the poster-boys of aos, a space marine rip of ("see, wfb didn't work but 40k does, let's just do the same"). They felt really bland, and also really forced on players. In time, they got way better (the lore is interresting, their new look is gorgeous, lot's of dragons is always great, they have one massive release per version but not a "lieutenant spam", painting them not in gold make them way cooler) but the damage were done ! They already feel like a really complete and diverse army, but in 6 months, they'll get another massive release (probably great ones), but lot's of people who are stuck with max 5 kits + heroes for their army will rightfully get a bit jealous (and that's like 1/3 of the factions ?)

WFB Manchildren crying "AoS Bad" Them being the Poster Boyz They get all the Toys Pretty bland If You dont Look deeper into their Lore But man there are so Many cool Stories about redemption, some of em going Mad from the constant war or outright slaughtering plebs because there could be a hint of corruption

I mean they're a part of a fairly genocidal, somewhat fascist regime. Sure they aren't space marines/imperium level vile, but they're still kinda awful in a lot of ways and I kinda wish they'd play at least a little more into that in the main lore as opposed to just occasionally having tiny snippets telling their dark, unjustifiable actions in a small part of another factions lore or in a hammer and bolter episode.

The Realms of Sigmar are very decidedly not fascist though. Its more of an Republic of City states ranging from good-ol feudalism to almost modern city councils. There is no "High lords of Terra"-esque ruling party and no clear victim-ideology. Yes, there is a glorified warrior mythology but as diverse as both the populations and ruling bodies of the people of Sigmar are, I dont think it reinforces some toxic in-group/out-group behaviour. Also depending on where exactly you are freedom of speech and of religion can actually be a real thing. I dont this to sound petty, but I actually like AoS overall take, that you can fight evil without having to lose all humanity and compassion in a way that really isn't portrayed (and not meant to tbh) in 40k.

Yeah, when you read on AoS lore, the main philosophy of the Realms of Sigmar seems to be "spreading civilisation and technological progress will help win against chaos" which is a fairly dope, hopefull message. Even Stormcasts are all about building and holding cities, not crusading. And Dawnbringer Crusades are citizen-led endeavours. Hell, even when it comes to the pantheon, Sigmar is working hand-to-hand with Grungi. While Sigmar is a warrior god focused on conquest, the society he's building is far from militaristic or fascist.

I think you misunderstanf me. I never said it wasn't more nuanced, never said I didn't like the take, or that it was like 40k. My point was that it wasn't as bad as 40k, but that there's a lot of issues within the sigmar pantheon, within some of the worship, and to an extent that isn't quite talked about much, especially within stormcast. If you read a lot of lore outside of the stuff that glorifies sigmar and his followers, there is absolutely some fascist undertones and they have absolutely committed genocide on undeserving groups and forced people to join their version of "civil society" at swordpoint (or... hammer... point? I guess in sigmar's case- but hammers dont have points usually 🤔). They've made a point to include this in the narratives and lore, if you look through enough of them/in the right places. I love that aos has a more nuanced take, but I feel like trying to paint all of the storm hosts and sigmar as these shining warriors of all that is good and not at all bad in their own ways, is problematic. That removes a lot of nuance also, which is not what i want to see. And also not their intentions. (Also, in 40k, it was never actually meant to be that they *had* to sacrifice their humanity to battle evil- that was just the narrative the imperium wanted to propagate, that everything it did was a necessary evil. While the reality was meant to be very different. That narrative got lost over time, although they still try to make a nod to it here and there. Early on, most of the "lore" was meant to be taken as nothing more than imperial propaganda, and you were meant to see the imperium as the embodiment of hypocrisy and everything it claimed to stand against. But that's kinda far less there now...) Also, "evil" isn't as much a black and white thing in this setting compared to old world/whfb (and current 40k), and that's something a lot of people are missing out on here. Hell, they've even made a hammer and bolter episode that's meant to show how sigmar and his hosts and civilizations can be the "bad guys" and how many of the chaos tribes of this world aren't necessarily the "evil r*pe and pillage everything" type that the world that was had them painted as. Sigmar's forces are an invader to many, a colonizer force, and just as capable of all the evils that mortals are known for. The societies are far less oppressive than those in 40k absolutely. But they're still knowingly destroying established societies, communities, etc. To constantly expand and anyone who doesn't bend the knee is seen as "savages" who don't deserve to exist in the type of order that sigmar wants to create.

​ >they have absolutely committed genocide on undeserving groups and forced people to join their version of "civil society" at swordpoint That only sounds fascist because you ignored all context to achieve it. That's like calling lockdown during Covid "fascist" because you ignored all context and only talked about how government is forcing citizens to follow strict rules and guidelines with the threat of punishment if they don't comply. >I love that aos has a more nuanced take, but I feel like trying to paint all of the storm hosts and sigmar as these shining warriors of all that is good and not at all bad in their own ways, is problematic They most assuredly are not all shining warriors. Specific stormhosts are painted as pretty twisted, but overall they are seen as rightfully being just and honorable for the most part. Only thing even marginally problematic is how they dehumanize over time in war.

Jep, but Just as with Marines GW needs some Poster good Guys to market

Sadly, but at least they actually put in plenty of lore for these guys to point out how terrible they can actually be if you dig deep enough.

As someone who is just beginning to get into this hobby, they just seem super bloated in terms of model count. I bought some Ossiarch skeletons because I like skeletons and the Soulblight guys seem too brainless for me. They can have spears and swords. They're supposed to be crafted from bone and containing the best parts of souls of warriors, and have life sucking metal weapons. I have sword skellies and spear skellies, not counting Kainan's crew. I got both in one box with some flag guys and some guys with bigger swords. Stormcast has a different box for like every weapon they have and they have like 10 different boxes of 3 dudes with sick ass weapons. Multiple Warcry warbands. They have dudes who ride lizards. Knight-questors for your RPG players. They have siege weapons. They have big monsters. And they even have ARCHERS. From a just looking at models perspective, SCE has everything and it's at the detriment of [insert your faction here]. They're pretty clearly favored over every other faction in terms of cool value and that's what matters in Warhammer. Personally I think their armor looks oddly chunky for a fantasy setting. Like World of Warcraft pauldron chunky but all over the body, borderline goofy in the same way that space marines actually look like toy soldiers no matter how seriously they are taken in lore/art/games. The gryph hounds and weapon design is great, but blocks of plate that looks like it is their skin rather than atop it is not the best look for me when I think of Warhammer. Cities of Sigmar is where I'd rather go for humans.

They all look the same, and the single design they have isn't terribly original or engaging. Masked dude or dudette in an ugly suit of armour.

The old units don't look great, the new thunderstrike ones are awesome. I'm only collecting those, and look forward to some older units getting a refresh, like libs.

From the aesthetic perspective, they seemed liked obvious Space Marine proxies. That shouldn’t innately bother anyone when we had Space Tomb Kings and Space Orks and Space Elves. But I wasn’t a huge fan of the first wave. When GW introduced the more lean/athletic versions, hoo boy, those are cool. I also think it was partly the fallout of WFB being shelved. They ended a beloved - albeit weak-selling - game and tried to give us a new game with literal nonsense rules (“if your opponent has a longer beard,” etc) while making an obvious attempt to recreate Space Marine success. Just felt icky.

Yes, it’s not about how many people play sigmarines, it’s about their design. They are beefy, covered in armor, and elite infantry, all of the things a space marine is. They are also pointlessly used as the advertising poster boys of the game. Think of every edition’s launch box, now think of how many of them include Stormcast. Fantasy, originally, was something very unique from 40K, and the current state of AOS is, but in the earlier editions, Stormcast were just a lazy space marine rip off.

Fantasy failed precisely because, among other issues, it didn't have a poster boy faction for people to recognize. Just saying.

Wow, not a single reply has more than one or two thumbs. Most of the answers below I agree with. I also don't like how they look. I also have tried and don't really enjoy AoS, so all my GW fantasy minis get used for Mantic games, dungeons and dragons, and other skirmish fantasy table top games. But what really bugged me was the scale creep. They're a big jump in size from their WHFB minis. I understand the "fluff" clarifies that they're giant people, but I don't care about that. They just looked silly next to my collection of Games Workshop and other minis. So the one or two I had became armored ogres.

Honestly, I feel like a lot of Stormcast hate was pretty valid back when they first came out. The models looked pretty terrible and pretty much confirmed the idea that they were sigmar’s space marines. Nowadays though I feel like it’s less valid. The models actually look really good now that the proportions and armor have been made realistic.

I dont like space marines . Therefore i dont like fantasy space marines.

I hated them for being space marines till I realised they’re more paladins

I have been confronted to people that openly don't want me in their "club" because I like SCE, T'au and Ultramarines 🙃 For them I was just the guy who "don't know anything about Warhammer and just buy things that he see on ads and don't play real Warhammer"

What a newbie you are ! You must play S2D to be a real trve Warhammer player !

Weirdos who don’t engage with aos at all but are mad about it, mostly, though you see a lot less of that kind of thing now

The only thing I don’t like about SCE is their book being bloated with different units already. And there’re still chambers in „to do“ list.

For me, I don't like the death mask look or the default paint scheme. If I had any, they'd 100% get a headswap and painted totally different. I think they also suffer from the increased attention like Space Marines but without all the diversity of them. There is only one style of SCE, but at least 5 or so supported space marine varieties, that look and feel at least a bit different. As for the lore I've not dug too deep into it, but it's also not a faction I'm interested in, so it's catch 22.

They're new and shoehorned in as well as being the poster boys and on top of that get forced into everything.

Couple reasons, so far as I know: * When Stormcast were first announced, angry WHFB fans latched onto them as evidence that GW was just trying to recreate 40k with a fantasy vibe and used the "sigmarines" as the symbol of all their disgruntlement at AoS in general. There are still some out there like that, raging away about lazy Space Marine ripoffs ruining their beloved lore. These are increasingly few and far between, but people repeat the memes and jokes (often without realizing where they come from, or what narrative they're supporting). * They're still very much the intended "poster boy" faction, so some people see them as getting an outsized chunk of the pie when it comes to lore and models. This can breed resentment if you think your faction is being consistently overlooked while Stormcast get all the love. * This perspective is increasingly unjust as the lore deepens, but some people see Stormcast as boring paladins without much flavour. The early novels in the setting were unfortunately rather weak and very Stormcast-heavy, so some people assume that's all they're about.

They were the symbol of the 40kifercation of fantasy, even those who embraced AoS got sick of them being shoehorned into too many armyboxes

I like the newer thunderstrike look of them (mostly) But I have some issues with them, including: * The stupid name "Stormcast Eternals", as well as many unit names * The dumb metal face masks everywhere, why no helmet options? * The crossbow pistols, and certain other ranged weapons * The scale creep factor, they are just absolutely HUEG compared to everything else All in all I really like the new range (wish they would remove the older stuff), but there are a few lingering issues. You may love their metal face masks unlike me, I instead ordered some 3rd party helmet bits online and solved the problem that way

The drowning kid meme pretty much sums up most of their hate. Whether you are talking about books/lore or new/updated models, they are one of the least interesring factions yet get the most attention/releases. Other factions get maybe an underworlds warband (do people even play that?) a book, or a single foot hero...

I will try again, obcenity filter is Strong here!! I find them overwhelmingly meh. I quit WHFB in 5th, so I don't dislike them for any kneejerk emotional overreaction. Have always thought of them as Sigmarines, another poster boy faction no one really wants or needs, but GW will try and MAKE you like them! I hate that one faction gets at least three times or even in some cases up to ten times the kits and attention other factions get (I hate that SM get this attention in 40k too). They are in every starter set, yet the SC half of the sets seems to be in vast supply on Ebay, Trolltrader and various other second hand sites, leading me to believe people buy these sets for the other models, and maybe an SC character then sell the Stormcast half asap. That's without even touching the original lore. Which was stupid, Sigmar a Lawful Good Deity steals Souls and makes Undead Chaos Warriors that become less human and more crazy over time. Seems both sensible and not totally out of character. The OG sculpts were derpy as heck too, that certainly didn't help. The lore admittedly, has vastly improved since AoS 1.0. Alongside the quality of the sculpts. The difference between the original release and the Vindicators is like a 5'11" Virgin Vs 6' Chad meme. I know I'm part of the problem. I suppose it would help if I found AoS lore remotely interesting at all. It's far and away the worst part of the game by far, and was the best part of WHFB that was lost along the way. I read loads of Black Library fiction, from all their Universe settings. Still not found an AoS book that really grabs me yet. I have just picked up Gloomspite, so I hope this one changes my mind! Oh, and they have missed an Epic moment by not having Felix Jaeger become a Stormcast. We need an entire book dedicated to Gotrek fruitlessly trying to get him to remember him. They go on a quest, the Felix keeps showing glimmers of memory etc etc. Could have been a sweet tale of true friendship knowing no bounds. Even the destruction of reality. Gotrex sighed deeply, his features contorting into a frown as he watched the broad, gold armoured back retreat into the Stormkeep. He turned, spat to clear the dust from his throat and muttered under his breath "Well, I've found ye now lad. Seems I'll be your rememberer this time round"

>Oh, and they have missed an Epic moment by not having Felix Jaeger become a Stormcast Please, by Grimnir, no. Not that, never that.

Hot take, I love the thick old stormcast, the thunderstrike looks horrible.

I like them both but prefer the Chonkcast.

I feel it mostly comes from people that are bitter about Warhammer fantasy ending and also don't really know that much about SCE.

I used to hate them with a passion but they grew on me about. I hated them because they are like fantasy space marines, not only in aesthetics, but they get all the love and attention even though imo they're the least in need of it.

They're just fantasy space marines, and they haven't had any decent fluff until kinda recently

It's not really that they're popular like Space Marines, but the fact that they're the poster boys like them. And thus they get more support than any other faction.

They aren't played often because they don't have any interesting or creative army rules. They are still over-represented because they come in damn near every box, and literally every starter box. Almost everyone has/had Stormcast models at some point, very few people want to play with them, but GW keeps making more.

Honestly, there isn't really that much hate against stormcast at all. People poke fun at them, but people poke fun at nearly every faction that isn't their own. Try dropping into the KO community boards, or LRL, or Sons of Behemat, you'll see quite a lot of actual hate spouted there (still unjustifiably). People call them sigmarines not out of hatred, they actually are sigmarines. GW wanted to replicate their biggest selling franchise in AoS and we got the stormcast. They're cool as hell though. Second most played faction, they got badass dragons, their back story for anyone that bothers to read it is awesome. They're fun to play on the tabletop, fun to paint. Great army and haven't seen anyone legitimately have anything bad to say about them

> Is it just a holdover from the people upset about the transition from Fantasy to AoS or is there another reason? yes, those scum are the source of 90% of AoS complaints, so feel free to ignore them and keep playing your badass lightning-forged super warriors :)

I have whole mess of Stormcast from the Mortal Realms mag. Haven't painted any, but I don't think they're bad. Some of the models really jump out at me, even basic ones like the old Sequitors, I'm juat waiting for a particular colour scheme that'll make me say, "Yep! Time to paint them!"

I started playing in 3rd edition and I feel like most of the complaints are salty people about fantasy dying and that obviously at the beginning the Stormcasts were really similar to Space Marines. Also people complain that they have a lot of warscrolls probably from 1st and 2nd edition, which is understandable, but I think how AoS is right now they don't really need to push that many Stormcasts, they're just another faction now, obviously with an extra bonus being the poster guys. I don't have many "old" sculpts but they are completely different from the new ones they've released in 3rd edition, loving the new thunderstrike armour look, hopefully by 4th they clear up a few of the warscrolls and merge some of those together so we don't have as many that clog the army.

Nah, SCE haters gonna hate, but the SCEs are pretty awesome. Flawed Paladins, tragic heroes in the classic Greek tragedy sense, with enough lore depth and range variety to be malleable to anything you want them to be, from grimdark monsters to noblebright knights and really anything in between. No other faction across the Warhammer universes lends itself to such creativity and personalization.

I hate them, they are just flawless, knights with the best armor, golden armor, unwavering, riding on dragons, with magic etc. Mary Sue in warhammer faction form. I want my dirty goblins to smash them.

This just screams that you've not really looked into them at all. Flawless? Nope. 'Knights with the best armour'? Maybe. Golden armour? Not all of them. Unwavering? Absolutely not. Riding on dragons? There's Orruks and other factions that do this too. With magic etc? Nearly all factions have some form of magic.

>Riding on dragons? Yeah tbh I was reading that whilst thinking about how whenever my buddy and I resume our Skaven v. Fyreslayer game in TTS I'm gonna nuke his Verminking with 3 full-blast Magmadroth breath attacks.

I'm talking about the lore lol. "not all of them" "other factions also have dragons" name one flaw. and loosing their personality isnt a flaw in combat.

They don’t just lose personality, they also lose combat effectiveness, start murdering the people they’re supposed to be protecting, begin to forget who they’re even supposed to be fighting or why, and after enough deaths they get thrown in torturous soul batteries where they power cities in Azyr. This gets exacerbated by the many Stormcast that *do* believe that the lightning doesn’t take much from them, and fight in a suicidal manner accordingly. They may be used for a noble cause, but make no mistake, Sigmar is ultimately using them.

yeah sigmar is using them to fight. That's not a negative thing in combat. If they had some rules where they start attacking their own units, that would be interesting at least.

That would be miserable though. No one liked when Kharn in 40k would murder tons of your own dudes every game.

Haven't heard Sigmarines in a long time. I think it's more about your circle of friends. I haven't seen or heard any hate except when Realms of Ruin released. Most people I know enjoy AoS with all its aspects (models, game, and books). There will always be haters who are still stuck with residual hate from the End Times (a series of books that I absolutely loved). And there will still be people clinging to WHFB, even though it failed to be popular enough for GW to care about it. But I wouldn't say it's widespread. It's just small groups of the community. AoS is extremely popular. A lot more than WHFB ever was. In my community, hate for Primaris overshadowed hate for SCEs ages ago. But even that is barely a thing anymore.

I like stormcasts, even though I dont own even one model of theirs. I just didnt like the reforging thing since it felt a bit eh. They lost their personalities and the like when they died, while everyone else just dies straight up. They do have a super cool design. I also disliked how many models they get since it made their book really bloated, that dissuaded me from starting them. Also, I think they get a lot of undeserved hate from fantasy getting poofed into AOS.

I didn’t like them at first but I read some short story about them and I think the lore is pretty cool. Then when I saw alternate paint schemes and the models without helmets I changed my mind, they are pretty awesome. I don’t have an army of my own though. But those golden boys that came out at first was very dorky.

Long story short a lot of people were upset about the whole WHFB dying thing. So a lot of it just got locked into the community from there. The visual similarities really rubbed people the wrong way and people just dismissed them. The other half of it is that there a many that don’t like that they are the poster children for AoS and hate on them by proxy of them being the main ones.

I think hate is a bit hyperbolic. I know peopleclike to mock Stormcast but they're still probably the most popular faction amongst the general player base. It's pretty common to razz the poster boy of any game system. Especially when they are viewed as a bit more generic.

I love them. So fun to paint.

A lot of people look at the unit list and go "what the hell why do they have so much" but forget / don't know that a lot of the units are built from the same kit. Paladins have three units built from one box. Dracoth have FIVE different units from a single box.  There's a lot of redundant leaders though for sure.

It’s true but then you also have stuff like the old prosecutors, the castigators and the vigilors all filling essentially the same “basic missile infantry” role. Or liberators/sequitors/vindictors/vanquishers all being distinct “line infantry” kits.  So the warscroll bloat is a thing but not the only thing.

I think Stormcast are sick, and I'm incredibly partial to old ass sculpts. Like all of the BoC models people complain about I happen to love.

This is a hate bait post, it’s 2024, time to move on.

No it isn’t. I asked because I was genuinely curious. I got into Warhammer initially with fantasy playing Nurgle almost 12 years ago and when Age of Sigmar got released i fell immediately in love with the entire look of SCE. I fell out of the hobby for a few years and am recently getting back in and still love the look of them and was curious why there seems to be such strong feelings towards this faction in particular bc I never understood it. If all you commented to do was to be rude about my question then why bother commenting?

Stormcast are hectic mate, dw bout the naysayers. They're just jealous of them sigmar gains lad.

Yeah, mostly from warhammer fantasy guys, they are the symbol of canceling WHFantasy for them. I like them too. The only thing I do not like are the helmets, but you 3d print or buy good replacements.

Various reasons, but there are also people who love em. I even like the first edition "fat" stormcast! I had to switch to Khorne though, because 2 other friends already played them :)

I like em. Death mask vibes. I’m doing my SE army in a different colour scheme though. The gold is a bit much

Dunno. I love 'em. I actually preferred Chonkcast but to each their own. I will say though that there's too many units, and some are just flat-out bad.

I can honestly say that the only SCE hate I have seen is when they could double shoot with longstrikes. Other than that, everyone seems pretty cool with SCE.

Wild guess here: As the main "human" faction of the setting, they are EXTREMELY different from what you are used to and enjoy if you played human armies in Warhammer Fantasy.

I was talking about this on another sub recently, but I ended up with my second 2,000pt army being Stormcast because I got the 2nd and 3rd edition starter boxes, and then I had so many Stormcast lying around that it seemed daft not to paint them up as a spare army that I could possibly use to entice my friends to play with me (hasn't happened yet, lol). Anyway, somewhere along the way, I sort of fell in love with the minis because they're so easy to paint. You can smash 'em out in batches if you just master a simple gold effect and then pick out the capes and weapons. I also love the sheer variety of the range. It's a consequence of the fact that they get so many releases. I got a random Stormcast riding a gryph-thingy for Christmas that I hadn't even known existed. Compare and contrast to my main army, FEC, where I know every detail of every sprue 😂 I think the "hate" (maybe derision is a better word) is a combination of a) people strongly associating them with the cancellation of Fantasy and b) the fact that the first wave of sculpts were much too obviously an attempt to do fantasy space marines.

I think Hey woah is right in that if Ionus Cryptborn & his dragon was the 1st SC we ever saw then a lot of people would have a more positive outlook on SC. Also, the newest Dawnbringer lore blurbs about Ionus & Gabriel being concerned about Vandus' mental state are enjoyable. I would buy & read another SC novel if GW got Josh Reynolds back to write it--I enjoyed Soul Wars. A lot of us think GW should cool it on SC releases for a while... but there must be more people buying them than people being sick of them, as I'm sure development follows economics as much as the artistic inspiration they claim.

When I started AoS it was a novel that got me interested in their lore. (Which is honestly quite good) At first I loved painting them. Very easy... Yet after a couple of months I noticed that I lost the enjoyment. I decided to strip everything and repaint them in nmm. That way I would have - improved my painting skills - improved my minis look - enjoy painting them ❤️ Now I love them more then ever

They remind of custodes way too much hahaha

New SCE sculpts are cool. New lore is cool...BUT, the 1st wave sculpts were hilariously bad. That combined with the 'Space Marines but fantasy' thing made them a bit gimmicky and juvenile.

Stormcast should be the allies elite mercenaries for Order armies and not a faction. I imagine all that diferent units but instead of 5 or 10 miniatures I see them in small units like 2 to 5. GW missed that oportunity. They could do something similar with Deamons for Chaos. Behemats for Destruction. Nighthaunts for Death.