Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
GW as writers do have their Strengths, there is a reason that Warhammer fantasy and 40k are some of the longest-running and most loved fantasy/sci-fi settings in modern history. (if not anywhere in the league of LOTRs or star wars, obviously) When they hit the ball on tone, atmosphere, character and the juxtaposition of grim-dark and dark humour with just a sprinkle of hope.... its a home run.

but god damn do they shit their pants on base a lot between those home runs.
 
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So we really don't have any maps that show de facto control by factions? Huh.

There's sort of the impression that the beastmen map gives that the entire empire is constantly fighting a guerrilla war across it's entire territory but it is also somehow safer than elsewhere. Which, given how hard it is to grow food when under constant pressure of raids, seems like it might just be GW ignoring logistics again...

Except that the areas that aren't under constant beastman threat have skaven underneath them. So we end up with both "everywhere in the empire is contested territory" right alongside "the empire is the most powerful human polity in the world".

Which makes no sense to me- it's trying to treat the entire heartland of an empire as border marches....

Ugh. I hate the motivated reasoning and cognitive dissonance behind GW world building.
Also. I am sorry to bring this back up from Sunday but I have been thinking about it and I actually think maybe this is at least one of the less bad cases of it? Or at least the most justified. Because like, Beastmen are a big chunk of Chaos. So showing up fighting them in tournaments is going to happen. So you really want there to be reason to fight all of them, in the modern era, for all the Empire. And as far as these things go, "vast tracks of the very deepest forests are contested by Beastmen" is one of the less odious causes they've come up with. In an out of universe level, that is, mostly by not tossing away the sort of character wanted by either set of players?

Unlike, for instance, making the Bretonnians try and pull a dickhead landgrab during the Storm of Chaos instead of being, you know, Knights in Shining Armor like most of the Bretonnian playerbase wants. (I know, I know, but it's the big example that comes to mind)

In comparison, "Raid-counter raid warfare between the humans and the beastmen, sometimes swinging one way and sometimes the other" comes off very well.

I dunno, I just had thoughts and felt the need to put them down.
 
Note that Boney has pointedly and repeatedly stated that the whole Rhunkit being a thing was entirely out of desperation and deemed a perfectly suitable reason for the apprentices who taught them to commit suicide by daemon. Now that the situation which warranted said desperation is over, they're probably going to cut way back on teaching new people. In fact, they'll probably let the Guilds come in and try to sort out who should have been taught and who shouldn't have--probably depending on their relation to the original Runesmithing clans or just raw ability if they're lucky--make those people proper Apprentices, and let all the other Rhunkit just die out over a generation or two. At least, assuming reasonable compromise on both sides.
That 'reasonable compromise' is only one possibility; it's quite likely that stubborness on one or both sides could mean plenty of less reasonable outcomes. Rhunkits were necessary for Karak Vlag's survival, so they've got ample reason to want to keep the tradition alive. And the Cult of Thungni is perhaps one of the most stubborn dwarf clans around on a normal day, let alone when they hear someone's been spreading their secrets around. I don't think it's likely to get any outcome that'll lead to a return to normalcy like what you suggest.
 
To be honest if that was written now I would read it as "We don't have any female wizard models and can't be bothered making them so come up with some excuse so the rpg doesn't include them either"
Gw is lazy as hell they don't want people getting ideas about things they don't sell.

Then again that's from 2005 when they were pretty okay with people kitbashing things and stuff, so yeah its even worse... seriously what were they thinking.
 
To be honest if that was written now I would read it as "We don't have any female wizard models and can't be bothered making them so come up with some excuse so the rpg doesn't include them either"
Gw is lazy as he'll they don't want people getting ideas about models they don't sell.
That's actually something I've wondered about...

Did they sell models for the RP? Like, I know Mordheim had models, but I have never seen anyone bring up RP models. I feel like it would have come up at least once, for some of the RP-only monsters if nothing else.
 
That's actually something I've wondered about...

Did they sell models for the RP? Like, I know Mordheim had models, but I have never seen anyone bring up RP models. I feel like it would have come up at least once, for some of the RP-only monsters if nothing else.
I'm not saying for rp, but Modern gw wouldn't include things in rp they don't make, if they were in direct control of the rpg.
 
To be honest if that was written now I would read it as "We don't have any female wizard models and can't be bothered making them so come up with some excuse so the rpg doesn't include them either"
Gw is lazy as he'll they don't want people getting ideas about models they don't sell.
to be fair on that, a lot of the reasons they now don't give a lot of rules and lore for characters without models is that they lost(and won, it's complatated) a legal battle with a third party bits maker.

in short: they were actually ok with people substituting for characters with rules but no models with stuff the players own or made for themselves. but didn't like it when third parties were fully making these models for profit off their IP (which, despite what neakbreads will say, is fair, it's their's)

but what happened was that the court ruled that if the model wasn't made, then they had no right to it, even if they made rules for this non-model.

which is a problem if someone raced to make and patented a model for say... Old one-eye. then GW would have to pay them for the use of that character, not just as a model, but in lore, books etc.....

so ya, they cut making rules for non-model characters very fast, to protect them as Written IP's until/if a model is made.
 
Huh, I'd have figured that they'd have gone for models in their RP (given that, well, it's GW, making and selling models is quite literally their business model)
the RPG is weird (in the past, very much like the current model now) in that GW sold/rent the use of its IP to other groups (Hogshead Publishing. Green Ronin, Black Industries(GW themselves), Fantasy Flight Games and now Cubicle 7) and so make very little direct profit off of it.

no reason to push models for an assist that makes the same money for them whether or not the models sell.

and those publishing groups don't have model factories, even if it would be nice.
 
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Huh, I'd have figured that they'd have gone for models in their RP (given that, well, it's GW, making and selling models is quite literally their business model)

GW started as a manufacturer of games like Backgammon and Go, and got into nerdery when they started importing D&D rulebooks and branched out into making figurines for tabletop RPGs. 1st Edition Warhammer Fantasy was a sort of experimental hybrid between wargame and tabletop RPG, which they then split into the 2nd Edition of Warhammer Fantasy Battle and 1e Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. So WFRP sort of got grandfathered in even after their business model shifted to focus on making money on models instead of rulebooks.
 
1st Edition Warhammer Fantasy was a sort of experimental hybrid between wargame and tabletop RPG, which they then split into the 2nd Edition of Warhammer Fantasy Battle and 1e Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay.
Huh.
The original WH40K: Rogue Trader, from that mid 80s era, also struck me as that sort of RPG wargame hybrid, but was certainly missing something as a roleplaying game.

And almost all the extensions and articles for it in White Dwarf magazine were very much on the 'cool new army lists, and hey, look at these new models' side.
I never saw first ed Warhammer Fantasy, though I've got 1e WHFRP and had a fairly early WFB Armies book.

I did think some about hybridising the nearly-rpg WH40K with WHFRP grafts, but it never quite gelled.
 
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Huh.
The original WH40K: Rogue Trader, from that mid 80s era, also struck me as that sort of RPG wargame hybrid, but was certainly missing something as a roleplaying game.

Yeah, Rogue Trader was made in 87 at about the same time as Warhammer Fantasy's 3rd Edition, and it seems like they'd already begun to shift their focus to wargaming and models by then. It's said they had plans to make a parallel RPG for 40k from the beginning, but they didn't actually follow through on that until Dark Heresy in 08. Though I get the feeling that Inquisitor in 01 was a flirtation with the idea that ended up being twisted into a 'narrative skirmish' game, and it suffered for being neither fully wargame nor fully RPG.
 
Yeah, Rogue Trader was made in 87 at about the same time as Warhammer Fantasy's 3rd Edition, and it seems like they'd already begun to shift their focus to wargaming and models by then. It's said they had plans to make a parallel RPG for 40k from the beginning, but they didn't actually follow through on that until Dark Heresy in 08. Though I get the feeling that Inquisitor in 01 was a flirtation with the idea that ended up being twisted into a 'narrative skirmish' game, and it suffered for being neither fully wargame nor fully RPG.
Rogue Trader was certainly very heavy on the fluff (as we called it) or lore (as we term it now), and conspicuously lacking in any army lists. It's possible the company focus changed during development as you say, and in the end they put out a book with the material they'd written, still falling between two stools.
Space Dwarf Trikers, Space Zoats, no Chaos and all.
 
which is a problem if someone raced to make and patented a model for say... Old one-eye. then GW would have to pay them for the use of that character, not just as a model, but in lore, books etc.....
No, it would be just as a model or image (and only if said model or image was clearly similar to the copyrighted model) that they'd have to pay for it, the point of copyright is to protect an artistic expression and text describing a character is generally a different expression from an image that could be of the same character. If the character has some feature where the mere idea of its existence is copyrightable that would apply to both, but would belong to the creator of that feature (presumably GW, unless GW were actively copying the other model-maker)

Image copyright doesn't somehow trump text copyright.

(Patents have absolutely nothing to do with this - it was a case about copyright and trademarks, models are not a new technology.)

Obligatory: I am not a lawyer, I just have an interest in intellectual property laws and knowing whether what I write is likely to be infringing. I have no special knowledge beyond what can be gained with a few days of self-study.
 
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So taking bets on who is the surprise visitor?

I'm trying to think, if I was playing another quest, who would be the one that would vote to go and 'find out who Mathilde Weber is' after Vlag.

I thought it would be grand theologist, but that's not shaping up from leaving Aldorf already...

Al-Ulric? To get a better read on us or to talk shop about the Waystone project and the politics around it.

One of the duckling? death duck has kind of been left along for awhile now.

Enoir? Saying hi.

Aseri: where the fuck is the seed!

Bro-king/runelords?
 
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