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Grail Seeker wrote:
I'd bet a paycheck that there was no decision made on whether Malekith was the true phoenix king or not upon his creation.

That is just how GW works. It was likely a conversation had when coming up with End Time stories and somebody said, "wouldn't it be cool if..."

Its how most "universes" work. The idea of a Bible is great and all - but no creator knows if "this" book/show/film etc is the one that's going to sell a million copies and start a universe. You may have some idea where a trilogy is going - but then re-write if there are breakout characters, or you get new ideas as you go etc.

I mean the 4th edition High Elf army book was published in 1993. GW didn't have a clue they'd be doing End Times in 20~ years time - and If WHFB had been making £££, they wouldn't have ended it.

When you look at say the Horus Heresy series - it wasn't imagined at the outset as a series of 100~ books. If it had crashed and burned they'd presumably have stopped. But it did well and so got ever more stretched. Certain plot points were set in stone - but others could be created out of very little or nothing. And if readers liked that, embellished. And if readers went "what the hell is this?", then Eldrad could mind-war them in the head.

Anyway, I feel "they aren't in the setting" is like this. They aren't for now. If TOW sells well, nothing stops them going "yeah, they woke up idk, buy our new DE/Skaven/etc".

chaos0xomega wrote:
Yeah, I admit it sounds totally bizarre to me that they don't show up. The reasons sound contrived, but I'm also not a WHFB lore expert so I chalk it up to maybe Black Arks not existing yet or maybe this is right after the High Elves pearl harbored the entire Dark Elf fleet and it takes them 100 years to return to the sea in force. Or, yknow, whatever arbitrary made up reason the authors decide to write into the fiction.

Going through one of my old high elven army books the setting seems to be set during Bel-Hathor's rule as Phoenix King (The one preceeding Finubar), or possibly early in Finubar's reign depending on the exact year, so the Dark Elves were actually pretty quiet during this period; they'd last attempted an invasion of Ulthuan twice a century or two earlier and gotten pretty beaten up by various earlier Phoenix Kings. The next time they show up is during the Great war against Chaos when they again invade Ulthuan and Tyrian and Teclis get their big debut.

I guess that is why they are "supposedly" not showing up as they're busy licking their wounds / dealing with internal politics. The same argument can also be used for both the Lizardmen, who are largely keeping to themselves right around now, the Skaven, who are busy fighting a civil war unitl the Horned Rat appears, and the non-Nehekaran undead, who got largely wiped out in the Vampire wars.

Last I checked they were getting an army list like everyone else, just no focus during this time.

They are getting an army list like Tomb Kings and Bretonnians got an army list for Age of Sigmar.

As the chosen races get full campaign books and models they will be left further and further behind until GW decides to include them for real.

Yes, all legacy factions are getting whats basically a legends style index army list with the release of The Old World.

Its a legends index. Thats it. No further support unless you're one of the 6 or 8 or whatever chosen factions that would be part of the games ongoing narrative. The rest are explicitly said to not be part of the story they want to tell with this game and will not be featured at all beyond that.

chaos0xomega wrote:
Yes, all legacy factions are getting whats basically a legends style index army list with the release of The Old World.

Its a legends index. Thats it. No further support unless you're one of the 6 or 8 or whatever chosen factions that would be part of the games ongoing narrative. The rest are explicitly said to not be part of the story they want to tell with this game and will not be featured at all beyond that.

Not quite. They said they won't be part of the initial coverage of the Old World. The door is pretty wide open for a New World expansion.

chaos0xomega wrote:
Yeah, I admit it sounds totally bizarre to me that they don't show up. The reasons sound contrived, but I'm also not a WHFB lore expert so I chalk it up to maybe Black Arks not existing yet or maybe this is right after the High Elves pearl harbored the entire Dark Elf fleet and it takes them 100 years to return to the sea in force. Or, yknow, whatever arbitrary made up reason the authors decide to write into the fiction.

They'll probably still show up in the lore, the game just won't focus on them or give them new model releases in it's initial period.

Mozzamanx wrote:
Surely there's a way around this by introducing plot points that prevent the End Times from being inevitable?
If Archaon fails to get one of his artefacts, or Be'lakor does some nonsense to interrupt his ascension, or maybe he has a rival to overcome first?
Maybe we go back to the Storm of Chaos timeline instead of the End Times and Archaon can get pushed back to Brass Keep, with a less hammy ending.

After Archaon got wrecked in the Storm of Chaos campaign (courtesy of the Orcs and Goblins players, mind you), they eventually retconned that out of the Warriors of Chaos army book. The End Times was, essentially, "Storm of Chaos (How It Should Have Happened)".

 Manfred von Drakken wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

 SgtEeveell wrote:

 Crimson wrote:
Well, as the Eldest child and thus heir apparent of the Phoenix King Aenarion, Malekith was the legal Phoenix King.

Well except that the Sorting Hat, uh, I mean Eternal Flame specifically rejected him.

Except every other Phoenix King had rituals and that done before they entered the flame. End Times makes it clear Malekith wasn’t a no. He was a “not right now”

Which tells you alot about ET lore - although maybe it was just to stop him having children with his half sister the Everqueen...which seems a Very good reason not have the Phoenix King as a heridtory thing

On the subject of Old World - do we think they will not have any centre piece models and have two entire fantasy ranges

Centerpiece models are a bit tougher to do in a system like WHFB/Old World, but not impossible. Dragons and Steam Tanks certainly fit the bill, there.

Will they be in the rules? Yep. Dwarven High King, Bretonnian Grail Pilgrims, DE Cauldron of Blood, Skaven Screaming Bell, Imperial War Altar, etc. etc. etc.

Will they be usable in the meta?

News at 11...


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chaos0xomega wrote:
They are part of the setting, just not the game. They are in not-north america minding their own business being hedonistic exiles and doing slaver stuff.

Well, yeah, but doing slaver stuff generally meant raiding the shores of the Empire, Bretonnia, and other places that ARE in the game. I expect that was most DE battles right there, taking out garrisons protecting an area so they could raid it for slaves more efficiently.


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chaos0xomega wrote:
Yeah, I admit it sounds totally bizarre to me that they don't show up. The reasons sound contrived, but I'm also not a WHFB lore expert so I chalk it up to maybe Black Arks not existing yet or maybe this is right after the High Elves pearl harbored the entire Dark Elf fleet and it takes them 100 years to return to the sea in force. Or, yknow, whatever arbitrary made up reason the authors decide to write into the fiction.

Here's your primer on the DE origin. Malekith ruled a province in the NW of Ulthuan, Nagarythe. Malekith goes bad, big civil war, High Elves destroy Nagarythe by sinking it under the waves. Dark Elves use big magic, much juju to turn their surviving cities into huge boats (the Black Arks) and sail off to the New World to found Naggarond. IIRC, they raided Tiranoc for horses shortly afterward, to create their Dark Steeds (took them a while to 'domesticate' Cold Ones). Raiding for slaves didn't take much longer.

Of course, GW can rewrite any of that at their whim, but it would annoy DE players like me to no end...

 Manfred von Drakken wrote:

Mozzamanx wrote:
Surely there's a way around this by introducing plot points that prevent the End Times from being inevitable?
If Archaon fails to get one of his artefacts, or Be'lakor does some nonsense to interrupt his ascension, or maybe he has a rival to overcome first?
Maybe we go back to the Storm of Chaos timeline instead of the End Times and Archaon can get pushed back to Brass Keep, with a less hammy ending.

After Archaon got wrecked in the Storm of Chaos campaign (courtesy of the Orcs and Goblins players, mind you), they eventually retconned that out of the Warriors of Chaos army book. The End Times was, essentially, "Storm of Chaos (How It Should Have Happened)".

It wasn't, though. A lot of important pieces were totally changed, a lot of events from Storm of Chaos not only never happened but never even went in the same direction, and a lot of events which did happen were completely new.

Ultimately, Storm of Chaos was done to continue the story of the world. End Times was done to close it. And with at least some irony it was done to create a setting more open for players to invent their own content to inhabit it.


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 Arbitrator wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:
Yes, all legacy factions are getting whats basically a legends style index army list with the release of The Old World.

Its a legends index. Thats it. No further support unless you're one of the 6 or 8 or whatever chosen factions that would be part of the games ongoing narrative. The rest are explicitly said to not be part of the story they want to tell with this game and will not be featured at all beyond that.

Not quite. They said they won't be part of the initial coverage of the Old World. The door is pretty wide open for a New World expansion.

And they'll no doubt get around to the Great War against Chaos eventually.


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 insaniak wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
I don’t know how to explain it to you if you aren’t inspired by the same things. The finality of a setting’s destruction affects enjoyment of the whole setting.

I think that's what puzzles me the most here... Because it sounds like we are indeed inspired by the same things, but you find knowing the ending to be limiting, while I look at all the space in between now and that ending and imagine how to fill it in.

The Old World isn't dealing with the settled past. We have only very broad strokes about the events of that time period and everything leading from there to the End Times. There is still plenty of room for inserting your own creations into the mix.

Hell, if the ending is the problem, then just ignore it. Bung your own Fassbender and McAvoy proxies in there and assume that the future is really just more of a set of guidelines than an actual rule. Sure, the setting was destroyed... but it hasn't happened yet. Maybe it won't.

Both positions seem pretty reasonable to me.

Having just re-read LotR, from the appendices there's endless space for other stories to be told, when Gondor and other kingdoms had "normal" medieval ups and downs and not simply good humans vs bad orcs. If course we never actually see that utilised for setting in games etc. The problem with WFB is where the established history interferes with the gameplay, ie agic is illegal" or "skaven haven't emerged yet" or whatever, but that can just be handwaved or retconned imo.

 Arbitrator wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:
Yes, all legacy factions are getting whats basically a legends style index army list with the release of The Old World.

Its a legends index. Thats it. No further support unless you're one of the 6 or 8 or whatever chosen factions that would be part of the games ongoing narrative. The rest are explicitly said to not be part of the story they want to tell with this game and will not be featured at all beyond that.

Not quite. They said they won't be part of the initial coverage of the Old World. The door is pretty wide open for a New World expansion.

No, that is *not* what they said. They were rather explicit as to what time period the overarching game is set in (as opposed to just the "first wave" as some have tried to misinterpret in order to convince themselves that they arent being screwed over) and that those omitted factions have no business being in the game as a result.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
And they'll no doubt get around to the Great War against Chaos eventually.

They explicitly said the game is set before the Siege of Praag, which is before The Great War Against Chaos. So no, they wont.

I really don't get why so many people have trouble with this. The games time period is from some point after the Vampire Wars to before the Siege of Praag within a soecific geographic region of the setting, in the same way Horus Heresy is set after Istvaan III and before the death of Horus within the context of the conflict between Horus and the Emperor. In the same way that xenos are out of context for the Horus Heresy (its been what, 15 years since they started the game? Xenos ain't coming), dark elves abd skaven are out of context for TOW. In the same way HH doesn't cover the Great Crusade or Scouring, TOW wony cover the Vampire Wars or Great War. Not just through the first wave or initial period, but *ever* - or, yknow, at least as long as current management is in place. The point is that its out of scope and not part of any short or long term plan for the game. Just accept it.

What they explicitly said was that the races were not part of the narrative. The narrative is the over-arching story. It's where the focus is found. They did not rule out the possibility of them occasionally intruding in a seemingly minor skirmish that has important ramifications elsewhere. For instance, if a small zombie army suddenly needs to be crushed by Empire reinforcements that end up just missing a big battle against a greenskin horde as a result, that doesn't mean that VC are suddenly part of the narrative. But it does mean that they just had an important (albeit small) role to play in a scenario that might be worth replaying on the tabletop with a special army list.

Releasing geographically-based expansions (Warhammer: The Old World - Over There) later on would give them plenty of scope for introducing the other races that don't fit into the initial launch story.

 insaniak wrote:
Releasing geographically-based expansions (Warhammer: The Old World - Over There)

I'm in favour of this idea, but only if they keep that naming convention.

of course that is possible "later", but the later we should expect is 10-15 years

if this is the single person project like HH was at the beginning, it will take 5+ years until all the initial suggested armies are seeing their book

they also mentioned that the campaign they start will settle with the Siege of Praag and this is a 100 years away, so from that I expect that someone there has a 10+ year plan for releases

yet this is still all subject to change as without dedicated models lines being there, no investment is done that makes them stick to that plan
might be that they switch again and we see a very different thing and it all starts with the Crusades against Arabia instead

chaos0xomega wrote:


They explicitly said the game is set before the Siege of Praag, which is before The Great War Against Chaos. So no, they wont.

I really don't get why so many people have trouble with this…..

It’s pretty simple, plans change. I mean the original Old World comms was focused on Kislev and a closer tie to Total War, but those original plans have changed just a few years later.

It seems obvious that if the Old World is relatively successful, it will get a second edition / expansion with additional content.

Haven't they advanced the timeline of 40k since Rogue Trader? Who's to say they can't do that here and incorporate whatever they want based on the success of the game.

That will drive future decisions more than anything.

that is what they said, that they will advance the timeline (and no, the timeline in 40k has not really advanced as any advancement was retconned or ignored an edition later)

TOW will start ~2200 in the border princess and advance in story to end 2300 in Praag, and this includes the ~8 factions named and nothing else

if there is another campaign doing a different setting depends what happens after they reach Praag
could as well be a 2nd Edition that starts again in 2200 but in a different place or a different time, or nothing new at all

Where did they say they'd advance the timeline?

chaos0xomega wrote:

 Arbitrator wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:
Yes, all legacy factions are getting whats basically a legends style index army list with the release of The Old World.

Its a legends index. Thats it. No further support unless you're one of the 6 or 8 or whatever chosen factions that would be part of the games ongoing narrative. The rest are explicitly said to not be part of the story they want to tell with this game and will not be featured at all beyond that.

Not quite. They said they won't be part of the initial coverage of the Old World. The door is pretty wide open for a New World expansion.

No, that is *not* what they said. They were rather explicit as to what time period the overarching game is set in (as opposed to just the "first wave" as some have tried to misinterpret in order to convince themselves that they arent being screwed over) and that those omitted factions have no business being in the game as a result.

The idea of "waves" seems to have come from this sentence in the faction reveal article:

Much of the action in the first wave of books and supplements takes place in and around the Border Princes – the barrier lands between the Empire and Orc territory. Accordingly, we will be focusing on nine core factions.

The Skaven re-emerged only after the Horned Rat himself was summoned at Skavenblight to end the strife and instil new purpose into his children (this ties in with the wider rise of Chaos and the destruction wrought by Asavar Kul), turning them into a new power in the world.

Chaos Daemons have existed in the past and will again, but there is an ebb and flow to the power of Chaos – in our period Chaos is at its lowest ebb in a long time. When Asavar Kul rises to become the 12th Everchosen, the power of Chaos will build again, but we won’t see daemonic servants of individual gods for a while yet.

So for the "first wave", we get nine core factions, and then with the "second wave", we'll see the return of the excluded factions, despite the article stating:

The game will be set firmly within the Old World itself – the lands between the coast of Bretonnia to the west and the Worlds Edge Mountains to the east – during the decades immediately before the Great War Against Chaos and the Siege of Praag.

They repeat the where/when setting of the game multiple times throughout the article. As Kodo says, even if the Great War is their intended end for the TOW narrative, it'll be years before we see it. If they intend to bring back the excluded factions, I can't see how they can fit them into the narrative when they literally gave reasons for their exclusion during the period the game is set in.

question here is, what is a "wave" in context of TOW
can be "first wave on release", can also be "first 10 year lasting Edition" and the 2nd wave is the 2nd Edition with a new story line

Tyel wrote:
Where did they say they'd advance the timeline?

Warhammer Fest? one of the release Videos/Stuff/Articles whatever were they confirmed that it will be in the past, starting with border princess and covering a timeframe of approx 100 years till siege of praage as goal

 kodos wrote:
question here is, what is a "wave" in context of TOW
can be "first wave on release", can also be "first 10 year lasting Edition" and the 2nd wave is the 2nd Edition with a new story line

Tyel wrote:
Where did they say they'd advance the timeline?

Warhammer Fest? one of the release Videos/Stuff/Articles whatever were they confirmed that it will be in the past, starting with border princess and covering a timeframe of approx 100 years till siege of praage as goal

I was wondering if there was something more definitive than the article Sathrut quoted. As said, the debate all seems to be in what "first wave" means.
To my mind the Siege of Praag can easily be the Siege of Terra. Theoretically its the end point - in practice, it can remain forever in the future.

I.E. we could have the following
Wave 1: Blood in the Badlands.
Wave 2: Empire Civil War
Wave 3: Great War against Chaos/Siege of Praag.

But we could (theoretically) have

Wave 1: Blood in the Badlands
Wave 2: Trouble in Troll Country - Faction added: Kislev
Wave 3: Imperial Civil War round 1.
Wave 4: Ghosts in the Grey Mountains - Faction Added: Non-Khemri Undead.
Wave 5: Peril from the Great Ocean - Faction Added: Dark Elves as Black Ark Slaving Fleet
Wave 6: Imperial Civil War, round 2.
Wave 7: Lets go treasure hunting in Khemri
Wave 8: Torment in Tilea - Faction added Skaven
Wave 9: Great War against Chaos/Praag etc - Faction Added: Daemons
(Or whatever you imagination can create).

I expect in reality they've got Phase 1 Greenlit and they'll see how it does. Much like how Horus Heresy was vaguely defined early on, and quickly just turned into endless Yakety Sax.

or we can also get:

Wave 1:
Border Princess Book 1: Bretonnia & Khemri
Border Princess Book 2: Empire & Beastmen
Border Princess Book 3: Dwarfs & Orcs
Border Princess Book 4: High Elves & Wood Elves
Great War Against Chaos Book 1: Empire Civil War
Great War Against Chaos Book 2: Magic
Great War Against Chaos Book 3: Chaos Warriors & Kislev added as new faction

Wave 2:
Book 1: Skaven VS Tilea
Book 2: Dark Elves vs Norsca
Book 3: Empire united
etc

I like the idea and some good titles - format.

Cathay seems to the odd one to add into as it should come reasonably early like Kislev as its the big race that the older gamers have the most to buy which is actually new.

Can't help but notice there's not so much news in this news thread as a few of people arguing over potential lore. Can't you take it to another thread.

 .Mikes. wrote:
Can't help but notice there's not so much news in this news thread as a few of people arguing over potential lore. Can't you take it to another thread.

The most recent posts are discussing the potential release in light of the information at hand.

Tyel wrote:
Where did they say they'd advance the timeline?

They didn't specifically. Nor, I believe, have they said that it's set specifically beginning at 2200 IC. I don't know where that came from, though we seem to certainly be looking roughly at that period. The supposition is that they'll eventually expand into the Great War if there's enough success from the game to justify it.

 .Mikes. wrote:
Can't help but notice there's not so much news in this news thread

because there is no new information

the news are the very same since 3 years, TOW will sometimes in the future be released, some armies will get new models, there will index like army list with all the models available in 8th


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JimmyWolf87 wrote:
Nor, I believe, have they said that it's set specifically beginning at 2200 IC. I don't know where that came from,

because they mentioned that it will start ~100 years before the Siege of Praag which happened in 2304

Queektail wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:
Yeah, I admit it sounds totally bizarre to me that they don't show up. The reasons sound contrived, but I'm also not a WHFB lore expert so I chalk it up to maybe Black Arks not existing yet or maybe this is right after the High Elves pearl harbored the entire Dark Elf fleet and it takes them 100 years to return to the sea in force. Or, yknow, whatever arbitrary made up reason the authors decide to write into the fiction.

Going through one of my old high elven army books the setting seems to be set during Bel-Hathor's rule as Phoenix King (The one preceeding Finubar), or possibly early in Finubar's reign depending on the exact year, so the Dark Elves were actually pretty quiet during this period; they'd last attempted an invasion of Ulthuan twice a century or two earlier and gotten pretty beaten up by various earlier Phoenix Kings. The next time they show up is during the Great war against Chaos when they again invade Ulthuan and Tyrian and Teclis get their big debut.

I guess that is why they are "supposedly" not showing up as they're busy licking their wounds / dealing with internal politics. The same argument can also be used for both the Lizardmen, who are largely keeping to themselves right around now, the Skaven, who are busy fighting a civil war unitl the Horned Rat appears, and the non-Nehekaran undead, who got largely wiped out in the Vampire wars.

It's seemingly Finubar's reign yes (by about 50-100 years) though he was already a very prominent figure beforehand. The Dark Elves had been laying low for centuries at this point, they'd lost a major conflict and probably having to deal with internal issues as well as the growing Chaos incursions on their own border (until they just joined in the fun themselves when The Great War starts). Obviously scope for them to be raiding during the Old World setting though there's at least a modicum of pre-existing lore to justify their absence, especially if it's initially focused on the Border Princes.


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 kodos wrote:

 .Mikes. wrote:
Can't help but notice there's not so much news in this news thread

because there is no new information

the news are the very same since 3 years, TOW will sometimes in the future be released, some armies will get new models, there will index like army list with all the models available in 8th


Automatically Appended Next Post:

JimmyWolf87 wrote:
Nor, I believe, have they said that it's set specifically beginning at 2200 IC. I don't know where that came from,

because they mentioned that it will start ~100 years before the Siege of Praag which happened in 2304

Where? They've said 'the decades before the Siege of Praag'. That could be anything. Could be 20 years. Could be 100. Don't recall seeing a specific start point beyond that.