Topic: I still cant love stormcast eternals models

[Realjuan]

When I first saw a catalog of WHFB I imminently liked the Empire, I liked their fluff, their models, and the variation in general (units, colors, etc). It was a simple choice, and I do not regret it. I still love the Empire models, and would love to collect them. Sadly the opposite happened with Stormcast Eternals (SE), the main reason I did not get into AoS from the go, was the SE models are just not appealing to me. They seem to robotic, or to plain. Doesn't help that most people paint them basically one color. Nevertheless, I got a AoS starter set because it was a good deal and wanted to give AoS a chance. I still have not played a single game, but more and more I get pull towards the dark side. 

Looking to get myself a present this Christmas and considering that I need more models for an AoS army, I decided to take a look the BattleForces boxes. Even with the bonus of continuing my "empire" collection, I cannot like the SE models. What is that a plasma gun? Why no faces in most of the models? Why is there no more diversity in the human race? No poor villages rallying to fight the evil Orc horde? Or the nerd engineer with his rifles with way too many gadgets? The great swords with the smug faces and determination? Who are these people, and do the models say anything about them?

Basically I blame the helmets! Why do SE have to wear helmets. The models with some face are more easy to get like, more human (which is +), and even other types of helmets seem to be more warm, friendly, and/or interesting (i.e. even 40k Marines).

So I am asking you, to save this soul and help me continue my line as a human race defender. Give me some inspiration so I can love the Stormcast Eternals, what drives you to battle with these robots against the evil forces. What is the most interesting model you seen? Have you written any fluff about them? Please share, else I think the bullies, over tan and blood monger will take another innocent soul and I will join their ranks.

Note: I have found out that I am more of a aspiring painter and lover of fluff than I am a gamer, so even if SE were OP that wouldnt be a interesting aspect (more likely a negative, why play something that is OP?)

[Rowsdower]

The Empire has always been my favourite army. The plastic kits were the best. I liked nothing more then picking up a few plastic kits and seeing what I could do with them.
When AOS came out, I acted the same way many ten year olds did during the premiere of the 1986 Transformers movie [I didn't go so far as to lock myself in my bedroom though].
After the nerd-rage had subsided, I decided to be tolerant to those who liked AOS.
When I received a free Stormcast eternal, I turned him into a chaos warrior

[StealthKnightSteg]

Yo mexican sub!

I can't tell you how to like SE, it's just a feeling you have or don't have, or more rare, something you get to like over time as you read more about them.

I didn't like them at first with those monochrome look to them, but it intrigue me and I started to read more about them and the other Stormhost and their other color scheme's. I found one that suited me and a narrative came along.

Just look in the B&P (and my blog) and see if there are snippits that you might appreciate.. otherwise, do yu like the other half of the starter set? Khorne can be really be appealing as well and also have great money saving boxes. And so will the rest of the armies and in time I think even our Empire, now Free People and Devoted of Sigmar, will get some love.

At least you can play a game with me and see my SE in real life at the Eurobash if you come along

[S.O.F]

Basically I blame the helmets! Why do SE have to wear helmets. The models with some face are more easy to get like, more human (which is +), and even other types of helmets seem to be more warm, friendly, and/or interesting (i.e. even 40k Marines).

I think this video (at 1:40 mind you) very accurately discussed the problem of Stormcasts. Though if you are looking for more positive thoughts on the SEs I think this thread probably needs to be moved to the AoS subsection.

[Baron von Klatz]

Well, they're not all helmeted automatons.

http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2016/08/aos-stormcast-questor-rules-points-confirmed.html

Though you can just hear swap and add your own character to them like this Ulrican army:

http://m.imgur.com/gallery/BZuvr

In anycase, Josh Reynolds knows about the problems you're talking about the setting and is addressing them in his next books.

One of the common criticisms levelled at this particular setting has been its relative lack of depth. We know who the factions are, and why they’re fighting, but not what they’re fighting for. Who and what are the various factions seeking to protect, conquer or devour? Now, anyone who’s read the various tie-in novels, audios and short stories related to the setting probably already has some idea as to the answer to that question.

https://joshuamreynolds.wordpress.com/2016/11/23/wip-wednesday-eight-weapons/

He's also looking at the Stormcast.

What do you think stormcast eternals do when they're off duty?

Actually, that's talked about a bit in Hallowed Knights: Plague Garden. Different stormcasts do different things, from quiet contemplation to games of chance and skill. It depends on what they did in life, and the traditions of their stormhost. The Hallowed Knights, for instance, spend a lot of time trying to record the memories of their mortal life, so that who they were and where they came from won't be forgotten after their inevitable reforging. Some stormhosts probably build (or rebuild) the places they liberate. The Astral Templars hunt monsters for fun, or go bother their descendants.

And some stormcast - those who've been reforged too many times - don't do anything. They just wait for the next battle.

https://trackofwords.wordpress.com/2016/11/25/black-library-live-coming-soon-age-of-sigmar/#_=_

My army is based off of the Hallowed knights chamber and have a strong focus on upholding chivalrous values as they aid my Bretonnian army the kingdom of Verre and the Asrai allies.

On another project with them, I've been converting some to go along with my pseudo-Hyrule army(which right now consists of two Links, Zelda, Ganondorf and some guards) as Dark Nuts which are evil armored knights:

https://www.google.com/art/The-Black-Knight-144385793

Shaving their helms abit and adding the crests and the little round shields does wonders in copying that look.

Hope this helped!

[Midaski]

Yo mexican sub!

I doubt Grutch even saw the original pic ......................... 

I so want to make a spelling error of Columbia v Colombia .......................... 

[S.O.F]

Though you can just hear swap and add your own character to them like this Ulrican army:

http://m.imgur.com/gallery/BZuvr

As nice as those are done they still feel more like Sigmar's Space Wolves than anything else, fur and head swaps don't take the obscene amounts of Sigmar imagery off the minis.

Regardless Stormcast fluff still has them in a sort of hellish existence, forced to fight wars over which slowly more and more of what makes them a person dies. Christ that is bleak and a more monstrous thing to do than anything those foul necromantic types try.

[GamesPoet]

Still no interest in Stormcast crud.  No need to be either.  I've still got my empire figures and plenty more to make and paint, too.

Plus there is my interest in historicals, but I won't go through all that here.

My only suggestion for you currently ... the so-called Free Peoples.  Maybe GW will come out with some interesting figures for these, but we'll see.

[Realjuan]

@S.O.F. I agree with that video. Wouldnt mind seeing or reading a more in depth and argumentative video/post but the idea is clear.

@StealthKnightSteg I will read more about SE and see if the fluff catches on me. What did you read? I have the SE book, but nothing else. I am planning on buying one of the Battleforce for Christmas, and thats what lead me to look deeper into both army models. I am building the Bloodbound minis at the moment, and I like them. I may take a detour on the fluff, and make something like gladiator/mad max theme. Still thinking about it.

@Baron thanks for that Ulrican army, it does look interesting. With my lack of conversion skill probably to hard atm, but who knows in the future. It did help a lot. Thanks.

@Midaski I am keeping an eye on you.

@GamePoet My other option is to not add to the AoS army, and buy models from fantasy that I dont have. Missing steam tank, flaggelants, etc.

Thanks for all the answers,

[StealthKnightSteg]

Well I read both of the Battletomes for SE and SE Extremis, and I read all the Realmgate war books (well busy wit All Gates (nr 4)) And I started with the Novels Gates of Azyr (which was free a week ago) and started on War Storm.
But read a few other Battletomes also.

[Warlord]

Regardless Stormcast fluff still has them in a sort of hellish existence, forced to fight wars over which slowly more and more of what makes them a person dies. Christ that is bleak and a more monstrous thing to do than anything those foul necromantic types try.

It is pretty horrible. Dark twist on good guys - what GW like to do.

[Baron von Klatz]

It gets worse when you get into the nitty-gritty of what a grimdark high fantasy setting has in store for them.

From mundane things like getting ripped apart by ravenous ghouls (who don't wait for death or the meat get zapped away) to the big fantasy stuff like a chaos affected moon having the power to affect gravity and pull anything under it up into orbit to die horribly, which was made worse as the khornites were well prepared for it and grounded themselves with long chains so they could attack the now weightless Stormcast who lost all semblance of order as they tried to stay grounded.

Then there's facing the armies of daemons that'll tear their souls apart if the Stormcast don't have the Relictor(fellows with the skull helmet, they're actually former necromancers who sided with Sigmar) around to protect their souls from chaos and Nagash. That situation actually happened in the realm of life where they were surrounded by Nurgle's daemons. The response? A huge argument amongst the army between continuing the mission or commit suicide by drowning themselves and hope Sigmar saves their souls instead of the daemons feasting on them.

Another unfortunate factor is that their battles against chaos was their baptism by fire, before that the Stormcast only had regular training so you get results of Stormcast archers panicking under a ambush and shooting their own comrades and a Stormcast commander being so shocked by a Khorne warrior ripping his own damaged jaw off and laughing that he left himself wide open and got a spike shoved in his eye.

An interesting thing is that Sigmar can't recruit just pure heroes for his forces like emperors, warrior kings and former pit fighters. He also has to recruit for will-power(kinda like scraping the barrel) because some notable recruits are a former baker and a fat king who abused his subjects. Not helped by the fact that chaos can apparently sense who he plans to reforge because Archaon spited him by obliterating a noble warrior tribe that Sigmar long had his eye on.

The problem with fallen heroes is that they're a shrinking resource.

Also, my friend Shinros gave me some recommended reads.

 

For me personally the stories that really got me to like stormcast is the audio drama series the hunt for nagash, fury of gork, bladestorm and warbeast. Those three novels really showed their human side that they are still essentially people.

It was the audio drama that really got me to like them in context of the situation with Tarsem and mannfred.

[GamesPoet]

War is still war in W:AoS.

[ZeroTwentythree]

Regardless Stormcast fluff still has them in a sort of hellish existence, forced to fight wars over which slowly more and more of what makes them a person dies. Christ that is bleak and a more monstrous thing to do than anything those foul necromantic types try.

It is pretty horrible. Dark twist on good guys - what GW like to do.

Perhaps even grim and dark... 

[Naitsabes]

It gets worse when you get into the nitty-gritty of what a grimdark high fantasy setting has in store for them.

From mundane things like getting ripped apart by ravenous ghouls (who don't wait for death or the meat get zapped away) to the big fantasy stuff like a chaos affected moon having the power to affect gravity and pull anything under it up into orbit to die horribly, which was made worse as the khornites were well prepared for it and grounded themselves with long chains so they could attack the now weightless Stormcast who lost all semblance of order as they tried to stay grounded.

Then there's facing the armies of daemons that'll tear their souls apart if the Stormcast don't have the Relictor(fellows with the skull helmet, they're actually former necromancers who sided with Sigmar) around to protect their souls from chaos and Nagash. That situation actually happened in the realm of life where they were surrounded by Nurgle's daemons. The response? A huge argument amongst the army between continuing the mission or commit suicide by drowning themselves and hope Sigmar saves their souls instead of the daemons feasting on them.

Another unfortunate factor is that their battles against chaos was their baptism by fire, before that the Stormcast only had regular training so you get results of Stormcast archers panicking under a ambush and shooting their own comrades and a Stormcast commander being so shocked by a Khorne warrior ripping his own damaged jaw off and laughing that he left himself wide open and got a spike shoved in his eye.

An interesting thing is that Sigmar can't recruit just pure heroes for his forces like emperors, warrior kings and former pit fighters. He also has to recruit for will-power(kinda like scraping the barrel) because some notable recruits are a former baker and a fat king who abused his subjects. Not helped by the fact that chaos can apparently sense who he plans to reforge because Archaon spited him by obliterating a noble warrior tribe that Sigmar long had his eye on.

The problem with fallen heroes is that they're a shrinking resource.

Also, my friend Shinros gave me some recommended reads.

 

For me personally the stories that really got me to like stormcast is the audio drama series the hunt for nagash, fury of gork, bladestorm and warbeast. Those three novels really showed their human side that they are still essentially people.

It was the audio drama that really got me to like them in context of the situation with Tarsem and mannfred.

I have only one question: how can you laugh without a jaw?

[Baron von Klatz]

By making a raspy gurgling noise that gets spittle everywhere. It was more body language than the actual thing as the Khornite wasn't even bothered by it.

Understandable why the Stormcast leader was shocked.

[The Black Knight]

From mundane things like getting ripped apart by ravenous ghouls (who don't wait for death or the meat get zapped away) to the big fantasy stuff like a chaos affected moon having the power to affect gravity and pull anything under it up into orbit to die horribly, which was made worse as the khornites were well prepared for it and grounded themselves with long chains so they could attack the now weightless Stormcast who lost all semblance of order as they tried to stay grounded.

That has to be hands down the most hilarious bit of warhammer fluff ever!

Imagine the massive stormcasts drifting away like huge, golden, hot-air baloons, bumping into each other while their leaders yell orders or deliver inspiring pre-battle speaches: "Gravity has forsaken us but Sigmar is with us!". "Today we stand float against the forces of chaos!".

Meanwhile the khorne berzerkers spring their master plan (concoted by Dick Dastardly and Willy E. Coyte no doubt) and launch themselves at the unexpecting Stormcasts in complete slow-motion, floating towards them reeeealy slowly, getting the spiky chains with which they tied themselves to bits of masonry and random shrubs completely entangled, creating this huge ball of angry chaos warriors.

I want to see this as a movie, directed by Edgar Wright!

[GamesPoet]

Its seems like 40K to me.

Let the Olde World continue!

[The Peacemaker]

So I am asking you, to save this soul and help me continue my line as a human race defender. Give me some inspiration so I can love the Stormcast Eternals, what drives you to battle with these robots against the evil forces. What is the most interesting model you seen? Have you written any fluff about them? Please share, else I think the bullies, over tan and blood monger will take another innocent soul and I will join their ranks.

No can do Slurms. No can do.

But this is what I can do for you:










And there are many more.
I you really want the fantasy feel then go with the grey knight terminators.

Just go with alternate models to substitute the Stormcast. You can also do bretonian head swaps on the stormcasts as well which look pretty cool if you really like their armour style.

[Baron von Klatz]

That has to be hands down the most hilarious bit of warhammer fluff ever! 

It was written as a pretty dire situation but the Khornites were getting a laugh out of it though. Though the constant bloodshed tends to make those lads giddy anyway.

tied themselves to bits of masonry and random shrubs 

Nah, none of those bits around, they were smart for once. The battle happened on a bridge made of iron cages spanning a massive chasm filled with warp fire and mutated animals trying to crawl their way out of it.

The cages were filled with mutilated and burned birds, the Khornites got a kick out of watching the passing moon's gravity pull some free while they feebly tried to fly on bloody wing stumps.

The book "Hammers of Sigmar" does a good job of showing the extent that chaos completely turned the mortal realms into hellscapes with stuff like that.

You can also do bretonian head swaps on the stormcasts as well which look pretty cool if you really like their armour style. 

Can confirm, they look amazing:

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=P4OzvBqu0es

Though if the helmeted look bothers you then maybe try giving them human heads to better show their position as defenders of humanity?

Also, here's some artwork of the Stormcast I really like.

https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-bjHD42J9gjQ/VuuypOn-B-I/AAAAAAAAAac/zBbTWEBHffU_y6cq0xgDdsX6pAZY1G6Fw/s1600/skaven3.jpg

https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lrylxyrXZKw/Vuu19y7_2hI/AAAAAAAAAbI/OPFxsxMN4fU7TqkCI3L_z_YHbVcPdeJaw/s1600/dracoth2.jpg

https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Bj3DI5RBAas/Vw9Y8h0NjhI/AAAAAAAAAjs/v1ko0Y3fqss_gZ3NazLmtlnwrN_x-eDZACKgB/s1600/age%2Bof%2Bsigmar%2Bartwork%2Bstormcast%2Beternals%2Bvs%2Bnurgle%2Bdaemons.jpg

https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-wNU6kZvK6qY/Vw9ZDcY3laI/AAAAAAAAAkA/Nh0NK4O0ukoicW2ZxHiTMCAk1HfH_aVmgCKgB/s1600/chaos%2Bbeastmen%2Btauroi%2Bwarherd%2Bminotaur%2Bvs%2Bliberator%2Bstormcast%2Beternals.jpg

And if you're feeling creative you can always try a Dark Souls theme around them:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Warhammer/comments/53da7y/artorias_the_warpwalker_stormcast_eternal/

[Realjuan]

Spoiler ALERT!!! (just kidding)

Really nice Stormcast/Bretonian army, and those images you share are also pretty nice. Thanks for sharing, and when I am done with my other models I think I will use some of the info/idea in this thread to convert my SE.

I think what I liked the most are the wings. Gives an angel look to the army. The last model is what I would think its perfect for a new Empire army.

[Mathi Alfblut]

I feel that no matter how much headswap you do, the Stormcast will remain superhumans too Space Marine regardless. It does not really help that you have too read novels to get a feel for how gritty they have it.

Now, having read some of the Horus Heresy novels you get another feel for the Space Marines. But at the least they still remain superknights compared to the soldiers of the Imperial Army. So far the best book have been when normal humans get involved and are part of the story. And "Legion" with the portrayal of the Imperial Army really is one of the best since you feel what it is like for a normal human a bit like you or me to be there in front of these demi-gods.
Note: Demi-gods that can still spring a trap on the very Cabal!

I am very happy my youngest 7 year old wants to do Guardsmen because "They look like real normal soldiers".

I so much want to feel for Age of Sigmar so I could join in a bit more, maybe convince my oldest son to try something and use it for skirmish fighting alongside KoW, since AoS cannot provide the fieldbattle feeling anyway.

Now, maybe if they release something proper for the elves and not just what is in the Grand alliance: Order book. The Wanderers looks cool.

That said, I would still need someone to play with. Maybe my youngest son would be happy to try it out.

[Baron Von Griffon]

Stormcast Eternals? Never heard of them... But those Sigmar Marines are gak.

[Wolfgang aus Wien]

Looks like The Empire is called 'Free Peoples' now.
Swords, pikes, greatswords, pistols, knights.
All still there.
How all this survived the cataclysm, I have no idea, but, apparently, it did.......

[Baron Von Griffon]

Looks like The Empire is called 'Free Peoples' now.
Swords, pikes, greatswords, pistols, knights.
All still there.
How all this survived the cataclysm, I have no idea, but, apparently, it did.......

But the knights are gone...