Warhammer - The Old World thread

[asf]

elves are white

[WaterMage]

ho dislikes bretonnia is hard gay

A bit more of firearms development in the old world, and one Braganza's besieger with a Gatling gun would be more than enough to destroy an entire Bretonnian cavalry regiment. Ohhh, wait, no need for such development a single celestial wizard hired by Braganza's besiegers casting Comet of Casandora and getting a night with a captured damsel as a reward for his service is already more than enough to destroy an entire cavalry regiment.

All that Bretonnia has is knights more arrogant than elves and more stubborn than dwarfs that spend all day being sodomized by horses and only surviving due its Elf bathwater.

[Manny V]

arthurian knights with funni french accents and peasant conscripts are kino, simple as

[UltraFan123]

Bretonnia is basically the stereotypical medieval fantasy setting.

It does get mogged by the Empire and by pretty much most other factions too, but I guess their backwards mentality and culture can be seen as endearing by classic fantasy enjoyers.

[WaterMage]

Demigryphs > horses
Griffons > Pegasus
Cannons > Trebuchet
Magister Patriarchs > Damsels
Marksman with repeaters > Peasants so malnourished that can't even fully draw their bows
Empire Greatsword > Elf Bathwater grail knights
Sigmar, the man who ascended into Godhood > Lady of the lake OnlyFools bathwater

Simple as that.

[Manny V]

dunno why you have such a hateboner for Bretonnia they're just the medieval faction dawg

[WaterMage]

dunno why you have such a hateboner for Bretonnia they're just the medieval faction dawg

Because they are too generic and are ruled by diehard tradcucks.

Sometimes say **** to trigger Bretonnia fans, like "A single celestial wizard hired by Braganza's besiegers casting Comet of Casandora and getting a night with a captured damsel as a reward for his service is already more than enough to destroy an entire cavalry regiment."

But in lore and in TT rules, would this happen? Not likely, not sure to happen, I mean possible.

Think of the Mercenary Wizard as a College Patriarch-tier powerful wizard, with some lesser wizard assistants and hours and hours to prepare the most powerful and devastating spell possible. Think that people smuggling guns into Bretonnia escalated till Tilea X Bretonnia are at war and Bretonnia is besieging a fort defended by Braganza Besiegers and assembling Trebuchets. I know that top-tier spells have a miscast chance, that Bretonnian knights have blessings of the lady to resist better magic, and I know that such a spell in the most likely scenario would kill some Bretonnians but not all, and the question is how much, but I'm asking if everything goes right for the wizard and everything goes wrong for the Bretonnians, could this ever happen per lore and per tabletop rules?

________________

Being honest. What I like about Warhammer is that each faction is different.

Bretonnians would view Tilea as a den of prostitutes and mercenaries. Tileans would view Bretonnians as a bunch of zealots.

[DemoGraph]

edit: nvm

[WaterMage]

Another thing about Bretonnia, believe it or not, I don't hate Bretonnia. My opinion is just, "I would rather that they had a more interesting faction in their place," BUT seeing every diehard tradcuck here becoming triggered every time that I attacked Bretonnia made me want to attack them more and more because I find it amusing. I say **** like "... more than enough to destroy an entire cavalry regiment." But I know that Bretonnia has Damsels to dispel such spells and that their knights have resistances against magic. So, it will deal considerable damage, kill a lot but not destroy an entire regiment.

Another thing that I said "Empire Greatsword > Elf Bathwater grail knights," is obviously untrue. In fact, Grail Knights are superhuman; an Empire Greatsword would need multiple buffs from a Warrior Priest, a Beast Wizard, a Golden Wizard, and a Life Wizard to match the same Grail Knight in an unmounted duel. And such buffs would be temporary for the Greatsword. But other things that I said are truth. Demigryphs are much stronger than horses, but are also much less common and much harder to "tame" as they are "apex predators".

[WaterMage]

Cool video about magic in WH fantasy



Many people complain about wizards in other high fantasy settings being too versatile and powerful, and some people even advocate for 4e BS, but Warhammer solved this problem by

• Mages, mainly humans, specialized
• Mages dependent upon outsider forces and mages having ludicrously high or ludicrously weak powers based on winds of magic around them.
• Magic is risky, period. You are channeling outsider forces that bend reality. Think in having to code a neural network in raw C, but you can't debug your program, if your make a mistake, is fatal.

Quoting a very reliable site

WFRP is also probably the only high fantasy universe in which magic is not (terribly) overpowered. Not so much because the rules don't have spells that can deal 4*1d10+4 damage with every hit having a chance to be critical, dealing another 1d10 damage, which, keeping in mind that a PC who is min/maxed and lucky too can at most have 22 hitpoints and 13 damage reduction, is quite a bit. No. It's because of the fact that casting even a lowly fireball has the chance to open a rift to the realm of Chaos that sucks you in so your *** can be eternally ****** by Slaanesh (done by rolling doubles on your casting roll). There is a minor mishap table and a major mishap table for miscasts.

https://1d6chan.miraheze.org/wiki/Warha ... y_Roleplay

I'm such a simp for Celestial/Azyr magic in Warhammer that I brought the Jade Emperor DLC for TWW3 only because he is the unique "legendary lord" with anything resembling celestial magic. I still think that he feels like a fanfic self-insert character and that Cathay is a fanfic faction. I'm playing Bannerlord—the old realms—as a wood elf, and despite having multiple lores too chose from, I'm using mostly celestial magic. I enjoyed their Yin and Yang based magic. Is "multi wind" magic but only from similar winds, is not like High Elves which manages to "fuse" lore of heavens and lore of the beasts, two opposite lores, as one is all about logic, patterns and math and another all about raw instincts.

_________________

Another thing that I like about WH. You can have low, medium, and high fantasy settings. Contrary to GoT, which starts as low fantasy and becomes more and more high fantasy, in The Old World, a Bretonnian peasant would have a very low fantasy life. A wealthy Tilean merchant would have contacts with Celestial Wizards and Life Wizards to deal with business, diseases, and protection, and some priests using divine magic, maybe even a Dwarf or two on your payroll, essentially being a "mid magic" playstyle. Now, if you are playing as an elf archmage in the white tower, you are playing a very high fantasy game.

[WaterMage]

In warhammer, if Gelt is the most powerful human caster without a God boom(Eg - vampirism, grail blessing), who is the strongest melee human character?

[Manny V]

In warhammer, if Gelt is the most powerful human caster without a God boom(Eg - vampirism, grail blessing), who is the strongest melee human character?

probs one of these two:
https://warhammerfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Kurt_Helborg

https://warhammerfantasy.fandom.com/wik ... chwarzhelm


otherwise i'd say old mate Wulfrik the Wanderer if you count boons that don't affect combat capabilities (he's blessed by the dark gods the gift of tongues, so that he may issue a challenge to any opponent, regardless of language)

[BlueMemphis]

Strongest human imo would be brettonian king funnily enough.

That said i am of the opinion warhammer humans are ubermensch in general, even the goddamned peasants, seeing what they fight in melee against all the time.

[WaterMage]

Other thing that I like about Warhammer fantasy over 40k is that everything is smaller in scale. When scales become too big, everything is meaningless. In Warhammer Fantasy, the Empire of Sigmar losing Nuln would be huge. In 40k, the Imperium losing an entire solar system is inconsequential.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Other thing that I like about Warhammer fantasy over 40k is that everything is smaller in scale. When scales become too big, everything is meaningless. In Warhammer Fantasy, the Empire of Sigmar losing Nuln would be huge. In 40k, the Imperium losing an entire solar system is inconsequential.

The small scale combined with the existential stakes is one of the reasons why Fantasy died. How many times did Acharon invade and level Kislev? How many times did the undead vampires invade the Empire? How many times did Nagash come back and be killed? How many times did Malekith invade the Elf home continent? It was the same storyline over and over about civilization being on the brink of ruin, evil invades, but evil can't win because then that means the total annihilation of that faction which means no more Empire or Elves for you (and therefore the brand dies). So the invasion always gets repelled and the setting amounts to a nothingburger in which the heroes never lose the status quo always remains, until the franchise become unprofitable and GW decided to end the franchise for real.

With 40k you can actually have losses without it causing the end of the franchise. Or you could be like Warmachine where the world is not on the brink of being swallowed up by evil and be okay with eliminating factions and heroes and replacing them with new factions and heroes to follow.

[UltraFan123]

I do agree that from the business perspective for a wargame, small scale stakes where nothing really changes is peak stagnation which does lead to boredom and lack of interest.

Having said that, from a narrative standpoint I always preferred low down-to-Earth stakes since that always felt more "human".

Like how the inquisition from 40k can blast away planets to dust and kill billions without feeling anything, while the ones from Fantasy walk from village to village and personally torture heretics slowly.

The smaller scale setting usually works better for novels, however, not wargames, so I guess there's some truth to Val's point.

[WaterMage]

The small scale combined with the existential stakes is one of the reasons why Fantasy died. How many times did Acharon invade and level Kislev? How many times did the undead vampires invade the Empire? How many times did Nagash come back and be killed? How many times did Malekith invade the Elf home continent? It was the same storyline over and over about civilization being on the brink of ruin, evil invades, but evil can't win because then that means the total annihilation of that faction which means no more Empire or Elves for you (and therefore the brand dies). So the invasion always gets repelled and the setting amounts to a nothingburger in which the heroes never lose the status quo always remains, until the franchise become unprofitable and GW decided to end the franchise for real.

Age of Sigmar is exactly fantasy with much more magic and unlimited words and is much less popular than fantasy.

That problem which you described is due **** GW writing, is not a setting weakness. If Mannfred besieges Altdorf, that should be huge. You could have novels and novels about how people live under siege, about how, for example, a greatsword got invested with vampirism, witch hunters want to burn him on the spot, Golden and Light Wizards want to study his blood to develop ammo and spells more effective against undead and vampires, about the Celestial and Red Patriarch trying true apocalyptic spells to break the siege and how it is sabotaged and fails, how priests of Ulric and priests of Sigmar cope with it, how demigryphs confined to Altdorf become bored and it becomes a problem, and how engineers try to develop new flame-based weapons akin to Dwarf Firethrowers to deal with undead but due the siege, don't have resources to mass produce it. How sea elves reacted to it. How dwarfs react to it and how some Elector Counts visited Tilea and tried to bring Braganza's Besiegers to try to break the siege could be an amazing story. If the invasion is broken, the consequences are heroes dead, villages burned, post-war recovery, and new technology developed. The blame game, e.g., one zealot Witch hunter blaming colleges for inviting corruption and for its failures, colleges blaming witch hunters for pressuring wizards to not try large scale ritual spells.

But GW always ends up with "and the invasion was repealed and nothing changed."

The smaller scale setting usually works better for novels, however, not wargames, so I guess there's some truth to Val's point.

Yep. IMO, GW shouldn't have abandoned Fantasy, just made Fantasy a more RPG- and novel-focused franchise.

Warhammer seems to have ben writen by historians and fells more "live" than other settings.

[WaterMage]

One question about Bretonnia. I know I "hated" them a lot, but I'm genuinely curious. They see every non-Damsel magic as corruption. They also have questing knights that many times quest outside of Bretonnia. How do they interact with local sanctioned wizards? Like mercenary wizards in Tilea, college wizards in the empire, ice witches in Kislev...

[WaterMage]

Do you think that Warhammer Fantasy will become more popular than PF and D&D?

I was never much a fan of Warhammer Fantasy, but I'm really hating the direction in which both Paizo and WoTC are taking their IPs. IMO, D&D started to decline when WoTC allowed stuff like dwarf wizards in 3e, contravening previous lore and worldbuilding; all reason to persecute them in Glantri ceased to exist. And now in 5e, you can make a halfling as strong as an orc. Races become merely skins, classes so homogenized, monsters nasty abilities get nerfed, and now, you don't fear being petrified if fighting a medusa. Even at low levels, your character can survive cannon shots.

[UltraFan123]

Do you think that Warhammer Fantasy will become more popular than PF and D&D?

I was never much a fan of Warhammer Fantasy, but I'm really hating the direction in which both Paizo and WoTC are taking their IPs. IMO, D&D started to decline when WoTC allowed stuff like dwarf wizards in 3e, contravening previous lore and worldbuilding; all reason to persecute them in Glantri ceased to exist. And now in 5e, you can make a halfling as strong as an orc. Races become merely skins, classes so homogenized, monsters nasty abilities get nerfed, and now, you don't fear being petrified if fighting a medusa. Even at low levels, your character can survive cannon shots.

I think it will depend in how Games Workshop handles the IP, and while I want to be optimistic, knowing how GW is right now I don't have so much hope for the far future.

As of right now 40k is still more popular than Fantasy, but because 40k is being "modernized" so fast it will inevitably lose a good chunk of its playerbase, and in the process of 40k becoming smaller Fantasy may become GW's flag IP as a result.

Obviously, leftards refuse to learn anything so once Fantasy becomes their main IP they will shove it down the drain just like they're doing with 40k right now.

So what I think is that; as long as Fantasy never becomes as mainstream as 40k, it should be relatively safe from corruption.

[WaterMage]

Yep. What saves Fantasy for being ""modernized"" is the low playerbase compared to 40k.

The greatest problem is that lets say that Hyperborea becomes big. Investors will put money, buy licenses for CRPG, for card games, movies, etc. And when their influence grow, they can demand the company to hire some "diversity consultant" and voala. Will be corrupted and become another Commiefornia.

[Manny V]

the best thing about fantasy is since they decided to kill it off early, it's immune to being pozzed

anything new being made about it that's cringe and gay, is just retconned and not canon, simple as

[Norfleet]

Other thing that I like about Warhammer fantasy over 40k is that everything is smaller in scale. When scales become too big, everything is meaningless. In Warhammer Fantasy, the Empire of Sigmar losing Nuln would be huge. In 40k, the Imperium losing an entire solar system is inconsequential.

The flipside of that is that you never have to escalate the stakes, and the amount of damage involved in anything proceeding in any direction is limited. If the Imperium loses a solar system, it's a bad end for the heroes of the story...but the setting doesn't have to be radically changed for the next story and you don't need to escalate things.

So the invasion always gets repelled and the setting amounts to a nothingburger in which the heroes never lose the status quo always remains, until the franchise become unprofitable and GW decided to end the franchise for real.

The alternative, obviously, is that something happens, but that means something BIGGER must happen NEXT time. That's the problem with treating a game setting as an ongoing story, as opposed to just a SETTING, for the DM and players to then go in a direction with and contain the consequences of to their own game.

With 40k you can actually have losses without it causing the end of the franchise. Or you could be like Warmachine where the world is not on the brink of being swallowed up by evil and be okay with eliminating factions and heroes and replacing them with new factions and heroes to follow.

And more importantly, the next chapter of the story doesn't need to somehow bring in a bigger and badder guy.

[WaterMage]

I don't think that fantasy is immune to woke infection. I just think that first GW will ruin 40k. Then Age of Sigmar. Then Fantasy. IE is the third in the chopping block.

The flipside of that is that you never have to escalate the stakes, and the amount of damage involved

Yes and no.

If the engineering capital of the empire is under siege, that is a huge deal. You don't need to constantly escalate stuff higher than this.

Besides, if you want to have lots of destruction, cities being built and destroyed constantly, you can have less civilized areas, like colonies in Lustria or border princes (https://warhammerfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Border_Princes).

https://i.imgur.com/BbElaHi.jpeg/img]

That place is the best place to have free-for-all, high-stakes adventures, where a magically talented Bretonnian male peasant that fled Bretonnia could build their own town, and it could grow into a new small kingdom without affecting much of the canon.

is that something happens, but that means something BIGGER must happen NEXT time.

False, the history could evolve in other ways.

[Norfleet]

The flipside of that is that you never have to escalate the stakes, and the amount of damage involved

Yes and no.

If the engineering capital of the empire is under siege, that is a huge deal. You don't need to constantly escalate stuff higher than this.

The catch is, there are only two outcomes of this:

1. The heroes win, the siege is defeated, status quo is restored. Nothing ever happens. But now you need a bigger bad guy than last time.

2. The heroes lose, the capital is destroyed, and your world is now radically changed.

False, the history could evolve in other ways.

The problem is that fantasy-scale settings are too small for them to sustain major damage without imploding messily in some way. It's not like SPAAAAACE where you can destroy an entire solar system's worth of **** and...well, nothing has REALLY changed.

[WaterMage]

1. The heroes win, the siege is defeated, status quo is restored. Nothing ever happens. But now you need a bigger bad guy than last time.

False. the heroes win. At terrible cost, but the desperation also lead to innovations, and a new unity was developed. Smaller changes, a new spell, a new unity, the bad guy also learned and developed a new spell and trained a new unity.

[WaterMage]

Another hot take. Many Bretonnian fans hated when the lady of the lake was revealed to be Lileath. But IMO makes perfectly sense. She does fells more like an elf deity than human deity.

• The Damsels? Taken as children, raised away, taught magic without ever being allowed to fully understand it? Classic Asur secrecy. Making them infertile and killing all males also makes Bretonnians in long run weaker and weaker in magic.
• The Grail? An object of supposed human holiness, but guarded in forests by spirits and enchantments straight out of Athel Loren.
• The Lady's refusal to allow advancement of knowledge, literacy, or firearms? Not divine humility—it’s elven control. And to maintain the forests as safe as possible.
• The obsession with quelling human ambition viewing it as the greatest human flaw? Also seems very elfish to me.

She is a deity vastly different than Sigmar which is a barbarian that rose into chief, that rose into king that rose into Godhood. Or Myrmidia.

[Manny V]

retconning a factions whole religion into 'lol she wuz an elf da whole time' is cringe and gay and ruins it

[WaterMage]

End Times has fanfic-tier **** writing, BUT the Lady of the Lake does seem almost like an elf deity, not a human deity... My preference. I would prefer it if she were maintained as a mysterious figure and the revelation that she is Lileath was just Tzeentch/Changeling trolling, which launched Bretonnia into a civil war, and those who maintained his faith despite evidence contrary being generously rewarded.

[WaterMage]

Another hot take. Since video games, the tabletop, and even the RPG focus on war, this is rarely explored, but IMO Lahmians are the worst type of undead. A von Carstein army can be destroyed by cannons, the comet of Casandora, flamethrowers, holy water, blessed bullets, etc. How do you defeat an enemy that can win without even fighting? For example, seduce a spoiled Elector Count's son, put the church of Ulric against the church of Sigmar, and slowly twist and make faith serve them, and even if the empire resists, they could use their illusions to, for example, make Bretonnians believe that the empire is invading and the empire believe that Bretonnia is invading, putting humans against humans without forcing both sides to kill themselves without even realizing that they are fighting. Lahmians due their mastery of Ulgu can destroy or conquer empires without suffering a single casualty.

That is a much more terrifying ability than any army slaying flashy spell.