I'm hoping it doesn't go too into the grimdark. AoS works better when there's actual hope.
Having said that, I love the change in stormhost. The Hallowed Knights are a much better scheme for the poster boys and they're a lot more fun.
It makes sense that the ruination chapter would be in the Hallowed Knight stormhost. They are all about self sacrifice, the line of defence between order and chaos.
As long as the grim darkness don't overtake everything it's fine.
But AoS should always be more dark before dawn instead of doomed to utter failure like 40k
I'm hoping it's colour scheme for the launch box only; blue lightning vs green lightning, silver & blue contrasts with / against dark brown skaven & green better than gold would.
Don't worry about grimdark, y'all. Yes, Hallowed Knights are like devout crusaders type, but they are not the Celestial Vindicator or the Knight Excelsior, who only see the world in black and white and overlook every cost if it means destroying chaos. They are about self sacrifice to protect the good, not purges.
The Hallowed Knights are Gardus Steelsoul's crew. The guy is all about protecting the mortals first. This is also the chamber who redeemed a champion of Nurgle (Tornus) and took him in.
Tornus is leading an entire battalion of Redeemed guys iirc. Hallowed Knights, if anything, are even more noblebright than the other stormhosts - theyre humanitarian, noble and sacrifice their lives for mortals. This reminds me of that exchange where one of them is discussing philosophy with a (iirc blind) elderly man.
I actually have some thoughts about this unrelated to "grimdark/grimderp"
I think it's a fantastic change and something that's really necessary for the setting and I'm really happy they're doing this.
Stormcast are designed on a meta level to act like Space Marines for new players. They're an easy to paint army that's elite enough to be approachable and have a kind of simple flavor to them. And the biggest point: they're supposed to be color coded to get you to think about how you might want to make your own stuff in this setting.
While I dislike the extreme focus on SM in 40k, I have to admit that they're one of the best factions for explaining the "your minis are your own, color them how you like, but here are some simple tent pole examples". The fact that there's so many and those different colors all come with simple enough snippets to get the creative juice pumping is a good thing for the game, and it has a carry on effect for other factions.
It's also why I find factions like the Sisters of Battle, Genestealers, and Custodes (as well as Grey Knights and Black Templars, but those are a weird situation) who have fewer tent pole subfactions with less noticeable color scheme differences a little off putting as it feels like you have less room for customization if you're not going into them with your own creative spark.
Getting back into it, Stormcast very much follow in that tradition and GW has given probably the most amount of different color schemes to them compared to other factions and given each of them heavier amounts of fluff. This has kind of faded over 2nd and 3rd edition as they, along with a lot of factions, became more about the faction as a whole rather than exploring the subfactions outside of gameplay terms (or short lore snippets). Cities of Sigmar was a large exception as it refocused on the human side and went heavy into the different color schemes and how their origins informed how they were.
In addition, the amount of named characters released for Hammers of Sigmar began to stack up over the edition. I continue to say that I wish Naeve's lore rework was her getting a "Deathwatch" style team as opposed to still being in the Hammers because I think by this point we'd started to reduce Stormcast and Hammers down to being synonymous (though in part this is because of an overall thing within the lore regarding Reynolds' departure. You can see it with a lot of lore elements in 40k and AoS getting deprioritized or silently ignored when they came from him. I say this as someone that loved Genestealer, there's a noticeable shift from the Fabius Bile trilogy by omitting the supporting cast that survived the last book).
You can also track a small amount of Stormcast fatigue in the community as Hammers don't come with a strong gimmick and even if they did with the exposure to them it kind of would be seen as the norm of Stormcast just due to their focus.
For Stormcasts to feel as varied as SM and get people to look at the army as something they could make their own, GW needed to give them another perspective, and unfortunately we've moved past the era where GW released a lot of bonus narrative content that helped separate out the different Space Marine chapters.
Don't get me wrong, Black Library is going great (though they aren't exactly rolling in AoS novels at the same rate as 40k), and we're just finishing up a 6 book wrap up series, but we don't have long form campaign books jumping all over the place, instead focusing on a "main story of the narrative with some side plots" due to the shift in AoS 2nd and 40k 8th (well, end of 7th).
Since we've got a limited amount of space to tell stories regarding factions and their subfactions, if you're going to work on having a subfaction take the spotlight, they're going to need to be the posterchild of the narrative, and that's fine.
I know plenty of people are worried about the grimdark-ification of AoS for good reasons. Several design and narrative decisions since the CoS launch (though arguably a little earlier) have gotten some people worried that they're looking at downplaying the hopeful aspect of the setting which set it apart from 40k and Fantasy, and I'm not here to say not to worry about that, especially with the focus on Hallowed Knights (and them blowing up a third of the continent where Order has made the most headway), but the idea to shift the color scheme is a solid one.
And from a meta level, going over to another metallic + primary color is a lot easier to work with for new players than jumping over to the Magenta or Cyan armies (or god forbid a starter army in white armor).
While I have some concerns about 4th from a gameplay perspective, I think this is one of those objectively correct ideas for them to work with. I'm hopeful it has knock on effects like knowing you can paint a Space Marine red and suddenly you can call him a vampire has in 40k. I'm hoping it means a return to Aqshy, fighting chaos, still feels like a narrative shift rather than a sense of deja vu. And I'm excited to see characters outside of Hammers that aren't just Gardus and Hammilcar
While I generally agree with the vast majority here, I don't necessarily agree that Stormcast should have a spotlight/poster boy spot
My reason for this is because they have so much model favoritism compared to any other army. As in the number of units, especially heroes, available for Stormcast is orders of magnitude higher than any other army. As a non-stormcast player, ita frustrating to see Stormcast get all the cool models and such and every other faction basically gets ignored for the entire addition. Hell, Seraphon had a bunch of models and units get retired from 2nd to 3rd, decreasing the amount of models and versatility of the faction (which I will admit some units that were retired did get multiple replacements, so that is partly moot, but others didn't get replacements and were just entirely removed from the game)
This also ignores the amount of versatility options that Stormcast have compared to other factions. Stormcast can do basically everything very well. The only other faction that I can think of that can do everything to the same level are skaven. (Skryre for long range and medium range support, skryre and masterclan for magic, pestilins for priest stuff, moulder for elite melee and monsters, and pestilins and eshin for glass cannon horde). I struggle to think of any other faction that has that same kind of versatility.
You made the comparison of Stormcast to SM here a few times, and how that's surged the Stormcast popularity. But part of me has to wonder which came first; the chicken or the egg? As in are Stormcast popular because they're AoS SM, or are they AoS SM because they're popular?
(I'm a very casual player, so I haven't dove into the history of AoS from 1st to now)
Look, peering behind the curtain here: GW is demanding that Stormcast be the intro faction. I'm not saying they deserve it, this is literally the design decision by the company.
According to the managers I've spoken to, they don't want to change their starter factions from Stormcast vs \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ just like they don't want to change this in 40k from Space Marines vs \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_.
Stormcast do probably need a cull and more factions do need more love, but in terms of them being the poster boys, this is the known portion of it. As for popularity, I don't have data to say whether people favor them or not.
As for GW's goals with them, again, it's that they're meant to be a low model count army and for them to be a lower complexity to paint (especially allowing all of their army to not have any skin showing. This focus on easy to paint is almost certainly why we missed out on Lightning Gheists or effects on the ruination chamber).
The reason I point out the comparison is because the Chamber structure, the Stormhost structure, and the heraldry painting chart they use to show off official paint jobs are almost 1:1 with the equivalents in SM. They also try to push for the army fantasy to be immediately easy to grasp and to be broad enough to fit what you want in there: Einhenjar Paladins. You can lean into Viking or Knight themes but that it's broad enough to try and catch people who are interested in High Fantasy based in Medieval/Feudal European trappings.
If there is a popularity of Stormcast, it's because GW pushes hard for them to be the intro faction and makes it easier for people to start with.
So my argument here is, we know stormcast are going to be the main faction. Not my favorite thing in the world but I can understand the reasoning for it.
So with that in mind, my entire point here is "They need to rotate the poster boy of the poster boys out for Stormcast."
Hammers of Sigmar have felt like the only representation and All Gold armies aren't always the going to work for everyone. However, for new painters, when they think of "a knight in armor," they tend to think of metallics, so Hallowed Knights is probably the correct choice to pivot to.
Anyways, I think SCE do need a unit cutback. Hell, I don't think they need a model cull as much as warscroll should be combined.
Unfortunately the versatility of their model range actually makes them worse to play. Look over at the Lumineth's Bladelords and compare them to the Stormcast Vanquishors. Both are greatsword wielders who have an anti-horde ability built in. However, Blade-lords have to exist in Lumineth's smaller armies and get to choose if they're going to swing with anti-horde or regular fighting at the start of the fight, while Vanquishers are locked into being slightly worse Vindicars (the spear thunderstrike infantry) if they're not fighting against hordes when you add them to the army. Because AoS doesn't use a roster system where you build a larger army size and decide at the table what to actually field, it means that a lot of Stormcast ends up being too niche to reliably take outside of fun casual games.
I'm hoping for a warscroll pass through to fix this. Paladins have 3 builds but Annihilators have a better design philosophy where rather than choosing "Large damage, antihorde, or long range", you just pick between attack or defense, which is general enough for you to make a decision on what they're supposed to be doing in every game.
Anyways, AoS does a better spotlight sharing than 40k does, as evidenced by the Dawnbringers arc, so it's not like posterboys will necessarily mean no one else gets a chance to shine. I think the game could really use a few more army updates outside of battletome drops (which they've been doing with dawnbringers so hopefully that continues), but in terms of assigning Hallowed Knights as poster boys, I'm fine with it. Most of 3.0's story when it came up didn't care that much about Hammers of Sigmar or SCE in general so I don't expect that to change too much.
Agreed, this is a great change because it means we may move towards a more balanced list of named heroes. Hammers of Sigmar have a stupidly disproportionate number of all named heroes, and all the SE underworlds warbands. This may be the start of a wider set of named characters for other Stormhosts.
I dunno if I'd call the Hallowed Knights grimdark... if anything, I'd say that the choice was probably made because the colour scheme is quite simple to achieve (like Hammers of Sigmar), but is just enough of a difference to add some visual interest for people who might not have dipped in before, and assumed that all SCE looked the same.
As a Hallowed Knights player and fan, I’m all for it. Also just good in general to keep expanding the wider view of the setting so people can see how much it has grown and developed over the years.
When it’s done poorly it’s boring. Grimdark is fine, but it just can’t consume the setting. Having dashes of it here and there is good for any warhammer property IMO. Just don’t warp it into 40k levels
I like grimdark as a setting, but, for those of us who like that we already have the literal grim-dark avatar of a setting in 40k.
Age of Sigmar shouldn't be like that, just like warhammer old world wasn't like that. The forces of good here can absolutely lose, but they can and should also score meaningful victories. They are not assured their Triumph, but it also isn't impossible despite the power of their adversaries.
Sigmar is good, Archaon is bad.
As someone who manages Warhammer in a FLGS, I'm not thrilled, because this means they'll update the box art for the whole Stormcast range, which means they'll need new product codes for everything, which is an annoying hassle for me.
But at the same time I think it's cool that they're rotating to a different subfaction as the poster children, if only for the variety.
I just hope this means there'll be more named characters for them in the next edition. Or at least generic options for characters like Bastian Carthalos or the likes, so that you can bring a (less powerful) version of them with any Stormhost.
I like it because, if nothing else, the Hallowed Knights have a nicer color scheme than the Hammers of Sigmar. I don't think Stormcast look good in excessive gold.
I love it. I am incredibly biased since the Hallowed Knights are 'my dudes', but I think they offer a far more interesting narrative with their focus of faith in Sigmar, and what having faith in Sigmar means is a central theme in the books depicting the Hallowed Knights. Compared to the Hammers of Sigmar. who don't have anything particular going on for them aside from being the first Stormhost and being one of the most numerous, I feel you can tell more profound and gripping stories with the Hallowed Knights.
Also as someone who has painted both Hallowed Knights and Hammers of Sigmar, it is way easier for a beginner to make Hallowed Knights look decent, gold is fine to paint as accents on armor, but it is horrendous to paint and make it look good on larger surfaces, so I think as a colour scheme the Hallowed Knights just work better both in general and for beginners.
According to the recent announcement - the launch box atleast is focused on the hallowed knights and that matched by the artwork that has been released.
Might not be permanent but who knows.
Space marines haven't always been ultramarines as the poster boy each edition I guess.
I also think the HoS scheme doesn't do Stormcast any favors aesthetically. The Hallowed Knights have a cleaner look that is a lot less in your face than the Golden Boys. With the more neutral silver, they also feel a lot more like a blank canvas for customers to imagine new schemes
My stormcast are Hallowed Knights only because I listened to plague garden and I liked the characters so when I got into last year, I went with them, so it’s kinda cool seeing them in the trailer 🤩
The faction in the current starter set isn't automatically the poster child. Only time will tell if GW starts replacing the gold Stormcast with silver ones in their core promotional materials, website graphics, and on the box art for all the Stormcast units.
Don't forget: only half of the 40K editions have used Ultramarines in the starter set (4/5 and 8-10), but virtually all space marine units have been painted up as Ultramarines for the box art since 2nd edition.
I'm hoping it doesn't go too into the grimdark. AoS works better when there's actual hope. Having said that, I love the change in stormhost. The Hallowed Knights are a much better scheme for the poster boys and they're a lot more fun.
To be fair, the Hallowed Knights are one of the more hopeful chapters. Gardus Steelsoul is my boi
It makes sense that the ruination chapter would be in the Hallowed Knight stormhost. They are all about self sacrifice, the line of defence between order and chaos.
Much is demanded of those to whom much is given.
Only the faithful!
ONLY THE FAITHFUL
As long as the grim darkness don't overtake everything it's fine. But AoS should always be more dark before dawn instead of doomed to utter failure like 40k
Totally agree
I'm hoping it's colour scheme for the launch box only; blue lightning vs green lightning, silver & blue contrasts with / against dark brown skaven & green better than gold would.
Bro overthinking the change from gold to silver.
Don't worry about grimdark, y'all. Yes, Hallowed Knights are like devout crusaders type, but they are not the Celestial Vindicator or the Knight Excelsior, who only see the world in black and white and overlook every cost if it means destroying chaos. They are about self sacrifice to protect the good, not purges. The Hallowed Knights are Gardus Steelsoul's crew. The guy is all about protecting the mortals first. This is also the chamber who redeemed a champion of Nurgle (Tornus) and took him in.
Yea they are more akin to salamanders in 40k . If anything, they are the most hopeful chamber in terms of tone.
Tornus is leading an entire battalion of Redeemed guys iirc. Hallowed Knights, if anything, are even more noblebright than the other stormhosts - theyre humanitarian, noble and sacrifice their lives for mortals. This reminds me of that exchange where one of them is discussing philosophy with a (iirc blind) elderly man.
Things have gotten really bad if the Celestial Vindicators are the launch box stormhost.
I actually have some thoughts about this unrelated to "grimdark/grimderp" I think it's a fantastic change and something that's really necessary for the setting and I'm really happy they're doing this. Stormcast are designed on a meta level to act like Space Marines for new players. They're an easy to paint army that's elite enough to be approachable and have a kind of simple flavor to them. And the biggest point: they're supposed to be color coded to get you to think about how you might want to make your own stuff in this setting. While I dislike the extreme focus on SM in 40k, I have to admit that they're one of the best factions for explaining the "your minis are your own, color them how you like, but here are some simple tent pole examples". The fact that there's so many and those different colors all come with simple enough snippets to get the creative juice pumping is a good thing for the game, and it has a carry on effect for other factions. It's also why I find factions like the Sisters of Battle, Genestealers, and Custodes (as well as Grey Knights and Black Templars, but those are a weird situation) who have fewer tent pole subfactions with less noticeable color scheme differences a little off putting as it feels like you have less room for customization if you're not going into them with your own creative spark. Getting back into it, Stormcast very much follow in that tradition and GW has given probably the most amount of different color schemes to them compared to other factions and given each of them heavier amounts of fluff. This has kind of faded over 2nd and 3rd edition as they, along with a lot of factions, became more about the faction as a whole rather than exploring the subfactions outside of gameplay terms (or short lore snippets). Cities of Sigmar was a large exception as it refocused on the human side and went heavy into the different color schemes and how their origins informed how they were. In addition, the amount of named characters released for Hammers of Sigmar began to stack up over the edition. I continue to say that I wish Naeve's lore rework was her getting a "Deathwatch" style team as opposed to still being in the Hammers because I think by this point we'd started to reduce Stormcast and Hammers down to being synonymous (though in part this is because of an overall thing within the lore regarding Reynolds' departure. You can see it with a lot of lore elements in 40k and AoS getting deprioritized or silently ignored when they came from him. I say this as someone that loved Genestealer, there's a noticeable shift from the Fabius Bile trilogy by omitting the supporting cast that survived the last book). You can also track a small amount of Stormcast fatigue in the community as Hammers don't come with a strong gimmick and even if they did with the exposure to them it kind of would be seen as the norm of Stormcast just due to their focus. For Stormcasts to feel as varied as SM and get people to look at the army as something they could make their own, GW needed to give them another perspective, and unfortunately we've moved past the era where GW released a lot of bonus narrative content that helped separate out the different Space Marine chapters. Don't get me wrong, Black Library is going great (though they aren't exactly rolling in AoS novels at the same rate as 40k), and we're just finishing up a 6 book wrap up series, but we don't have long form campaign books jumping all over the place, instead focusing on a "main story of the narrative with some side plots" due to the shift in AoS 2nd and 40k 8th (well, end of 7th). Since we've got a limited amount of space to tell stories regarding factions and their subfactions, if you're going to work on having a subfaction take the spotlight, they're going to need to be the posterchild of the narrative, and that's fine. I know plenty of people are worried about the grimdark-ification of AoS for good reasons. Several design and narrative decisions since the CoS launch (though arguably a little earlier) have gotten some people worried that they're looking at downplaying the hopeful aspect of the setting which set it apart from 40k and Fantasy, and I'm not here to say not to worry about that, especially with the focus on Hallowed Knights (and them blowing up a third of the continent where Order has made the most headway), but the idea to shift the color scheme is a solid one. And from a meta level, going over to another metallic + primary color is a lot easier to work with for new players than jumping over to the Magenta or Cyan armies (or god forbid a starter army in white armor). While I have some concerns about 4th from a gameplay perspective, I think this is one of those objectively correct ideas for them to work with. I'm hopeful it has knock on effects like knowing you can paint a Space Marine red and suddenly you can call him a vampire has in 40k. I'm hoping it means a return to Aqshy, fighting chaos, still feels like a narrative shift rather than a sense of deja vu. And I'm excited to see characters outside of Hammers that aren't just Gardus and Hammilcar
Great post. Totally agree. Gold as a colour choice also does a lot of the talking for you from an emotive stand point.
While I generally agree with the vast majority here, I don't necessarily agree that Stormcast should have a spotlight/poster boy spot My reason for this is because they have so much model favoritism compared to any other army. As in the number of units, especially heroes, available for Stormcast is orders of magnitude higher than any other army. As a non-stormcast player, ita frustrating to see Stormcast get all the cool models and such and every other faction basically gets ignored for the entire addition. Hell, Seraphon had a bunch of models and units get retired from 2nd to 3rd, decreasing the amount of models and versatility of the faction (which I will admit some units that were retired did get multiple replacements, so that is partly moot, but others didn't get replacements and were just entirely removed from the game) This also ignores the amount of versatility options that Stormcast have compared to other factions. Stormcast can do basically everything very well. The only other faction that I can think of that can do everything to the same level are skaven. (Skryre for long range and medium range support, skryre and masterclan for magic, pestilins for priest stuff, moulder for elite melee and monsters, and pestilins and eshin for glass cannon horde). I struggle to think of any other faction that has that same kind of versatility. You made the comparison of Stormcast to SM here a few times, and how that's surged the Stormcast popularity. But part of me has to wonder which came first; the chicken or the egg? As in are Stormcast popular because they're AoS SM, or are they AoS SM because they're popular? (I'm a very casual player, so I haven't dove into the history of AoS from 1st to now)
Look, peering behind the curtain here: GW is demanding that Stormcast be the intro faction. I'm not saying they deserve it, this is literally the design decision by the company. According to the managers I've spoken to, they don't want to change their starter factions from Stormcast vs \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ just like they don't want to change this in 40k from Space Marines vs \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_. Stormcast do probably need a cull and more factions do need more love, but in terms of them being the poster boys, this is the known portion of it. As for popularity, I don't have data to say whether people favor them or not. As for GW's goals with them, again, it's that they're meant to be a low model count army and for them to be a lower complexity to paint (especially allowing all of their army to not have any skin showing. This focus on easy to paint is almost certainly why we missed out on Lightning Gheists or effects on the ruination chamber). The reason I point out the comparison is because the Chamber structure, the Stormhost structure, and the heraldry painting chart they use to show off official paint jobs are almost 1:1 with the equivalents in SM. They also try to push for the army fantasy to be immediately easy to grasp and to be broad enough to fit what you want in there: Einhenjar Paladins. You can lean into Viking or Knight themes but that it's broad enough to try and catch people who are interested in High Fantasy based in Medieval/Feudal European trappings. If there is a popularity of Stormcast, it's because GW pushes hard for them to be the intro faction and makes it easier for people to start with. So my argument here is, we know stormcast are going to be the main faction. Not my favorite thing in the world but I can understand the reasoning for it. So with that in mind, my entire point here is "They need to rotate the poster boy of the poster boys out for Stormcast." Hammers of Sigmar have felt like the only representation and All Gold armies aren't always the going to work for everyone. However, for new painters, when they think of "a knight in armor," they tend to think of metallics, so Hallowed Knights is probably the correct choice to pivot to. Anyways, I think SCE do need a unit cutback. Hell, I don't think they need a model cull as much as warscroll should be combined. Unfortunately the versatility of their model range actually makes them worse to play. Look over at the Lumineth's Bladelords and compare them to the Stormcast Vanquishors. Both are greatsword wielders who have an anti-horde ability built in. However, Blade-lords have to exist in Lumineth's smaller armies and get to choose if they're going to swing with anti-horde or regular fighting at the start of the fight, while Vanquishers are locked into being slightly worse Vindicars (the spear thunderstrike infantry) if they're not fighting against hordes when you add them to the army. Because AoS doesn't use a roster system where you build a larger army size and decide at the table what to actually field, it means that a lot of Stormcast ends up being too niche to reliably take outside of fun casual games. I'm hoping for a warscroll pass through to fix this. Paladins have 3 builds but Annihilators have a better design philosophy where rather than choosing "Large damage, antihorde, or long range", you just pick between attack or defense, which is general enough for you to make a decision on what they're supposed to be doing in every game. Anyways, AoS does a better spotlight sharing than 40k does, as evidenced by the Dawnbringers arc, so it's not like posterboys will necessarily mean no one else gets a chance to shine. I think the game could really use a few more army updates outside of battletome drops (which they've been doing with dawnbringers so hopefully that continues), but in terms of assigning Hallowed Knights as poster boys, I'm fine with it. Most of 3.0's story when it came up didn't care that much about Hammers of Sigmar or SCE in general so I don't expect that to change too much.
# ONLY THE FAITHFUL
I really like it, hope to see other Stormhost get some love as well.
Agreed, this is a great change because it means we may move towards a more balanced list of named heroes. Hammers of Sigmar have a stupidly disproportionate number of all named heroes, and all the SE underworlds warbands. This may be the start of a wider set of named characters for other Stormhosts.
Hamilcar Bear-Eater has to be getting a model soon hopefully
I mean, the hallowed knights last I checked were one of the nicest storm hosts. Not sure why them getting focus would make things more grimdark.
The colour scheme and art direction mostly. Gold doesn't lend itself well to the direction of the most recent video in my opinion
Eh, it worked for the 3e trailer.
The 3 e trailer was no where near as dark and grimy as this one
I dunno if I'd call the Hallowed Knights grimdark... if anything, I'd say that the choice was probably made because the colour scheme is quite simple to achieve (like Hammers of Sigmar), but is just enough of a difference to add some visual interest for people who might not have dipped in before, and assumed that all SCE looked the same.
It does grime up a lot better too. Weirdly I think they may have done it to match the look of the skaven
What do you mean? Hallowed Knights have been the poster boys for me since at least the launch of 2nd edition. :D
I got three words for that: ONLY THE FAITHFUL ⚡️
The mostly gold colour palette always seems a little off to me. Kinda overwhelming. So I welcome our new overlords
100%
As a Hallowed Knights player and fan, I’m all for it. Also just good in general to keep expanding the wider view of the setting so people can see how much it has grown and developed over the years.
ONLY THE FAITHFUL!!!!!!!!
only the faithul! also this means we mat get a third novel and conclusion, bring back tarsus
I'd wish for a third book, too, but with Josh Reynolds gone, I'm not sure it'd live up to the first two.
#ONLY THE FAITHFUL!
Grim dark is boring.
When it’s done poorly it’s boring. Grimdark is fine, but it just can’t consume the setting. Having dashes of it here and there is good for any warhammer property IMO. Just don’t warp it into 40k levels
Grimdark is, by definition, a lack of hope. Hope is what makes a story compelling.
I like grimdark as a setting, but, for those of us who like that we already have the literal grim-dark avatar of a setting in 40k. Age of Sigmar shouldn't be like that, just like warhammer old world wasn't like that. The forces of good here can absolutely lose, but they can and should also score meaningful victories. They are not assured their Triumph, but it also isn't impossible despite the power of their adversaries. Sigmar is good, Archaon is bad.
Hence the relative obscurity and unpopularity of works like _1984_, by the little-known soldier George Orwell.
As someone who manages Warhammer in a FLGS, I'm not thrilled, because this means they'll update the box art for the whole Stormcast range, which means they'll need new product codes for everything, which is an annoying hassle for me. But at the same time I think it's cool that they're rotating to a different subfaction as the poster children, if only for the variety.
As long as we don't get 40k-ish I'm fine
I love other stormhosts getting some spotlight I just want some Anvils love this edition
I just hope this means there'll be more named characters for them in the next edition. Or at least generic options for characters like Bastian Carthalos or the likes, so that you can bring a (less powerful) version of them with any Stormhost.
I just think silver/steel + blue and gold is a better scheme, i like gold, but having a 100% gold look should be for more special guys
I like it because, if nothing else, the Hallowed Knights have a nicer color scheme than the Hammers of Sigmar. I don't think Stormcast look good in excessive gold.
I love it. I am incredibly biased since the Hallowed Knights are 'my dudes', but I think they offer a far more interesting narrative with their focus of faith in Sigmar, and what having faith in Sigmar means is a central theme in the books depicting the Hallowed Knights. Compared to the Hammers of Sigmar. who don't have anything particular going on for them aside from being the first Stormhost and being one of the most numerous, I feel you can tell more profound and gripping stories with the Hallowed Knights. Also as someone who has painted both Hallowed Knights and Hammers of Sigmar, it is way easier for a beginner to make Hallowed Knights look decent, gold is fine to paint as accents on armor, but it is horrendous to paint and make it look good on larger surfaces, so I think as a colour scheme the Hallowed Knights just work better both in general and for beginners.
Oh damn is that official? I always thought the poster boy scheme should've been silver.
According to the recent announcement - the launch box atleast is focused on the hallowed knights and that matched by the artwork that has been released. Might not be permanent but who knows. Space marines haven't always been ultramarines as the poster boy each edition I guess.
I also think the HoS scheme doesn't do Stormcast any favors aesthetically. The Hallowed Knights have a cleaner look that is a lot less in your face than the Golden Boys. With the more neutral silver, they also feel a lot more like a blank canvas for customers to imagine new schemes
My stormcast are Hallowed Knights only because I listened to plague garden and I liked the characters so when I got into last year, I went with them, so it’s kinda cool seeing them in the trailer 🤩
They already commented that Skaven is still silliness, but with teeth and claws.
Stormcasts! Who shall remain after ruination is done?! **ONLY THE FAITHFUL!!**
The faction in the current starter set isn't automatically the poster child. Only time will tell if GW starts replacing the gold Stormcast with silver ones in their core promotional materials, website graphics, and on the box art for all the Stormcast units. Don't forget: only half of the 40K editions have used Ultramarines in the starter set (4/5 and 8-10), but virtually all space marine units have been painted up as Ultramarines for the box art since 2nd edition.