Topic: What's Not To Like About The New Kislev Art?

[Captain Dob Van Dwi]

Oh? What don't you like about the new Kislev art? Granted the concept art for the new kossars/archers weapons is... not great but I haven't seen anything to odd with the style so far.

Too high magic for me - too fantastical. It feels like it belongs in Age of Sigmar, not Warhammer.

Take, for instance, that unit of Ice Witch archers. That's like having an entire unit of Damsels of the Lady or Empire Battle Wizards as a regiment, and it feels wrong. Or the bear cavalry, to me, feel too much like demigryph knights. I prefer to keep my Old World a bit more grounded.

There are good elements, but if you prefer a Kislev that you more-or-less get in Realm of the Ice Queen or in McNeill's Ambassador Chronicles, I think the new material is tacking away from that. The End Times Kislev novella, With Ice and Sword, is fantastic, and the new material - both for the Old World and for Total War - feels like a different world or different genre to me.

So I'll probably use and rescue the basic troops, but there are parts that I will ignore, I think.

Interesting, I am inclined to sort of agree when you put it like that. I was only thinking of things from a model/sculpt/ascetic stand point.

Yes the whole ice archer thing is dumb. The idea that that many ice witches would work together in cohesiveness is not just poor writing.  It is a definite over exaggeration or exploitation of Kislev lore, just as an excuse to make some snazzy new models. Certainly lore breaking.  Not to mention that rules wise they are likely to be stupid overpowered/underpowered in order to justify them. This is GW trying to spectacularly over hype the setting.   

As for bear cav, I feel like it is an potential over exaggeration of Kislev lore. Unlike the ice archers, current lore we have on Kislev says that bears are tamed (mostly for entertainment purposes mind you) and Tsar Boris did ride one in to combat. So bear cav is not a long stretch.

What would be lore breaking is that they are not exclusively Gospodars, and you can take multiple units of them. I feel like there should be a 1 unit limit is what I am saying.

That being said, a much more reasonable (and sensible) option would be having bear mounts exclusively for lords and ditching the whole bear cav unit entirely. 

Demigryphs should have gotten the same treatment to be honest. Even more so. A bear is a bear right, a normal animal? But Demigryphs are rare magical creatures! How in the name of all that is good, does an entire knightly order of demigryph riders exist!?

I can see a particularly influential regimental captain, a wealthy gold wizard or especially an amber wizard have one as a mount, but a whole order?

I don't know dude.

[Michael Stockin]

This   ^^^

[Zygmund]

Amen.

-Z

[Jmash]

Personally I don't mind Demigryphs so much, as long as they're few and far between. Same as the above, they are mythical beasts, but beasts all the same so they DO exist out in the wilds.

The Knights Griffon are penned as maintaining a conclave of Demigryph Knights and the Imperial Zoo is known to house rare and mythical creatures, I guess if you really delved into it they could potentially breed monstrous steeds from the Zoo's stock?!

Maybe that's going a little far but then that's what's great about the hobby I suppose, everyone has their own take and can put on their own spin.

Getting back to topic though - Kislev arty stuff, totally agree, too much magic ruins the setting IMO. Beasts and monsters yes, magic no (at least not so much). Bear Cav fall into the same category as Demigryphs, fine for them to exist but they should be rarities, only a handful at best.

[Captain Dob Van Dwi]

Personally I don't mind Demigryphs so much, as long as they're few and far between. Same as the above, they are mythical beasts, but beasts all the same so they DO exist out in the wilds.

The Knights Griffon are penned as maintaining a conclave of Demigryph Knights and the Imperial Zoo is known to house rare and mythical creatures, I guess if you really delved into it they could potentially breed monstrous steeds from the Zoo's stock?!

Maybe that's going a little far but then that's what's great about the hobby I suppose, everyone has their own take and can put on their own spin.

From the wiki:

"Despite their fearsome reputation, Demigryph Knights are relatively rare, as the beasts themselves are far too few in numbers to mass-produce, and the breeding programs meant to supply the Empire with more have been met with grisly consequences. As such, the only way to tame such a beast is to go to the darkest reaches of the Reikwald Forest."

 "At the heart of this great Forest lurks many foul and ancient beast of many ages past. But none are so noble and majestic in their heritage as the prides of Demigryphs who ruthlessly claim this patch of territory as their own."

 "Amongst a select few of the Knightly Order, an aspiring Knight's final quest is to capture and tame a mighty Demigryph and break it to his will. Unsurprisingly, many fail upon his task and are torn to bloody ribbons as a consequence. However, those that do manage to tame a Demigryph are given great praise, for not only has the Knight gained a mighty and loyal companion, but he has also given his Knightly Order even greater prestige in having such a beast within their arsenal. Such a reward comes at a heavy price, for a Knight would be scarred for all his life with the cuts and wounds inflicted by his own mount. However, these Knights wear the scars like a badge of honour, for they set themselves apart from their horse-mounted brethren, bearing testament to their own personal bravery and martial ability. In turn, Demigryphs are forever loyal to their masters once they have earned their trust, with tales abound of loyal Demigryphs stalking their prey to avenge the death of their noble rider."

OK so there should only be a few for each order right?

"When the call to war is sounded, these Demigryph Knights would form into their own respected squadrons of heavy shock cavalry."

Wait so how big are these squadrons?

 "The Royal Altdorf Gryphites are the finest of the Drakwald Riders' Inner Circle of cavalrymen."

" At their inception, these demigryph-riding veterans numbered over a dozen..."

  *sigh*

See this is what I mean. These sorts of numbers should be reserved for only the most powerful orders like the Kights Panther. Even then there should only be a handful at best.

I can only imagine the positive legions of bear cav...

[FVC]

I made a post in the other thread, which I hope was optimistic enough to go there.

The issue I have with demigryphs is that, despite what the army book says, they became too common on the tabletop and in games, and that I feel like they're too obviously artificial, if that makes sense?

True griffins seem all right: I understand the mythological origin there. Demigryphs are not creatures of myth. I feel like they were created to fill a mechanical niche and then the flavour was invented later? Like the logic was, "Hm, Empire needs monstrous cavalry, what would be a good unit... well, the Empire has a griffin flag, maybe they could have mini-griffins? Great! Get the modellers to work that up for us!"

So it makes the world feel a bit less organic to me.

The other issue I have with them is that I think they look a bit silly. Look at, say, the charge of the demigryphs in the Total War trailer. Look at how the riders bounce around struggling to hang on. I can't help but look at it and think that, if I were riding a beast into battle, I would much rather be on a horse. The horse is just as large, keeps you higher off the ground (which is a military advantage), and the horse's saddle isn't constantly bouncing up and down so you have a stable platform to fight from. In all seriousness, I look at these and I think that the demigryph is just an inferior mount to a horse.

Admittedly there's a problem there in that WHFB has always made horses bizarrely weak - seriously, horses are S3 and T3, what on Earth? - but anyway, aesthetically I don't care for them because I think they look less practical and less cool than traditional horse cavalry. I don't mind exotic cavalry sometimes - ogre mournfang cavalry is pretty cool, for instance, and I like cold ones - but at a minimum I want the exotic cavalry to look cool and deadly, and to me, subjectively, demigryphs fail that test.

[Captain Dob Van Dwi]

I can talk about horses.

Yes their strength is very high. Get kicked in the head or chest, by even a medium sized horse and you can expect serious, even fatal injury. Honestly they should be strength 4. Maybe even 5 for larger horses in game.

The inverse to this though is that horses are surprisingly fragile. A simple pot hole can cripple them for life or even lead to euthanasia if the injury is serious enough. A good old fashioned cold can render them basically useless, while worms are a constant issue. A pinched nerve can end careers of racing horses.

Toughness 3 is all to accurate.