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Images of History and the History of Image - ModernDayMoriarty | |
| I have recently been giving a lot of thought into my failing interest in this hobby. Whilst I have several conclusions on this score I thought I'd start by trying to explain why I have strayed so far from a game that I loved for so long - Warhammer Fantasy. In my opinion, it has to do with the game's lack of excitement etc that I have already mentioned elsewhere, but perhaps more importantly, it is the collapse in quality of the history and backstories of the armies in Fantasy that has galled me. Fantasy's armies have lost their shine because all the gripping old histories have been carved away. Warhammer has tried to adopt 40K's 'Pop Fantasy' image and it has been a terribly ill-judged move.
It is a fairly commonly held belief that Fantasy, whilst it is the more 'grown up' and 'tactical' of the two main games, has a vastly inferior history and setting to 40K. To long term players, this should come as a shock at best and a severe concern at worst. In you look back to when the histories and stories really became important (around 4th Ed is when they really kicked in), Warhammer was home to some truly outstanding sagas and classic characters. Conflicts in those books are the stuff of legend and really helped to sell the game to people. Quote any of the 4th Ed books really and I could quote you some spectacular tales. The Skaven history for example was quite groundbreaking because it took a race (Ratmen) that in most systems were simply 'Alignment: Evil, meet in groups of 4-5' and made them into an intricate and extremely charismatic race. The 'Four Quartets' of Dwarves, Empire, Orcs+Goblins and Skaven made for an excellent tale of war and passion spread over the respective books. Orcs were great back then with some truly despicable warlords and memorable conflicts. Their atrocities against the Dwarves, explained so well in the Dwarf and Orc books was really the foundation for the rock solid support that Dwarves have as an army today. It was incredible stuff as they really brought out the unrelenting hatred that these races had for each other. Orcs were certainly NOT comedy back then (or rather it wasn't nearly as pronounced). The Undead and High Elf books were also of a very, very high standard indeed. These two histories, the sagas of the various Phoenix Kings, the invasion of Ulthuan by King Grom, Nagash's reign of terror and the toppling of the Lichemaster Henrich Kemmler... these are what made me love the game. Rarely since those days have I ever seen such stirring stories and well crafted backgrounds. And it breaks my heart to see what GW are doing to these armies these days. And the problem lies with history I think because you can trace correlations between good histories and army popularity. Empire for instance, used to be quite popular but their status as the first army to come out along with the fact that, themselves, they were fairly uninteresting reletive to the peoples attacking them, has seen that support dwindle over the years. Their popularity back then stemmed from the fact that they were the only truly human race with a book for ages and they squared off against all the big names (but these conflicts were detailed in books other than the Empire book which didn't help). Chaos and Dark Elves are two more races that have really struggled to live up to the expectations that GW and the public place on them. People want to like them because there is the germ of something truly great there. But neither really has the meat to back it up in terms of story (which in the case of Chaos has led to continuous bouts of 'boom and bust' as people flock to its newest incarnations only to be left cold and uninterested). Chaos never really had that wonderful a history actually. They were simply too vaguely described back then and the lists never seemed to match up with what stories there were. The demonic hordes and small numbers of chaos warriors never really translated into the books. The only really great stories with Chaos were their invasion of Ulthuan and invasion of the Empire. The problem was, great as these were, it gave Chaos a very 2D image. They were 'the evil guys' who existed only to threaten the world and invade every now and again. One chaos champion was much the same as another and there was always the feeling that 'if it wasn't Khornate it didn't count' as Khorne seemed the obvious God for such a warlike, conquering people. As for the Dark Elves... they represented one of the worst continuations of a history seen in any GW game. Jervis had some good ideas and the Dark Elves are still a fairly charismatic race on occasion. They simply were not like the DE described in the Elven histories however. No longer did they worship Slaanesh; they had acquired a new god from somewhere (the change was never really mentioned) and a God that was largely believed to be an incarnation of Khorne! Dark Elves... decadent and hedonistic people who placed sadism and physical gains over martial excellence and honour, who had a King who according to the Elven book had a Mark of Slaanesh on his shield, who was a sorceror himself and who now advocated a God who despised magic.... ? The DE also never really seemed as credible as they were in the High Elf book. Being a Dark Elf female now apparenly meant that you had an urge to wear leather boots and not much else. It also meant that you lived in places that had blood running down the walls, skin stretched over the floors and gave your children severed heads to play with... It was diluted and silly horror of the worst, exploitative kind and was a terrible sucessor to the wonderous Elven/Dark Elven race wars depicted in the High Elf book. This has only gotten worse. However, regardless of quality/non quality of individual books, one thing was certain. Warhammer was a fragmented game in terms of army support. Most of the races had very strong armies of fans who would only collect that particular race (or a small selection of races). No race ever really emerged as overall favourite. Contrast this with 40K and you see the difference immediatly. 40K is the game of Imperium Vs Chaos. The other races have their hardcore of course but the game has always really come down to these two. And the core story of 40K, from The Horus Heresy through the Badab and Armageddon (1st) conflicts, the splitting of the Legions etc, all this stands as easily, easily the equal of anything in Warhammer. In many ways it has really helped the game as it gives a focus that allows for the taking of sides in more polar way than Fantasy ever can. Campaigns are much more sucessful in 40K because if you designate Imperium and Chaos you will have roughly comparable forces whereas with Warhammer you really have to include everyone as you cannot rely on 2 or even 3 races to generate enough players and interest. So 40K does hold its own against Fantasy's history. With the 2nd invasion of Armageddon, the assault on Iyanden and Ultramar by the Tyranids, the Black Crusades etc, 40K can boast many superbly written and engrossing storylines. However they all involve the Imperium and this is part of the curse of the game. So heavily invested is the average player with the Imperium, that they simply do not care about a story if the Imperium are not involved. They are the Heroes/antiheroes of the game, beset on all sides by aliens and traitors. The unfortunate point here is that means playing the other races means you are playing 'the alien menace' rather than a particularly charismatic race on its own terms. They all exist in relation to the Imperium, the literature usually focuses on an Imperial view of a certain race even in that race's own book! Other race's opinions are seldom included. Some races (Tyranids and Necrons particularly) are usually viewed exclusively in this format having little or no personality of their own. So how then does 40K get away with not only having such a respected history, but also for having a history that is considered by a great many people across the Internet to be 'easily and clearly superior' to that of Fantasy? My conclusion is that the nuking of backstory and history from both systems (as has happened in the previous editions as books became less informative and more stylised and 'artistic'), was far more damaging to Warhammer than it was to 40K. 40K is a game that has survived very well, in fact it has increased in popularity, since its stories were largely consigned to history. Many of the new generation of players have little concrete knowledge of the 1st (and even second) wars for Armageddon and have only a potted history knowledge of the Horus Heresy etc. Yet 40K is massively popular and the Space Marines (a race with no real personality at all of any kind) are amongst the most popular of all races over all the games GW have ever done. I put this down to 40K being more visually expressive than Warhammer. Its models carry more charisma with them in general to my mind. The IG for example are the epitome of the modern army; they don't really need any history when they have a hook like that. It is the opportunity to own a more historical looking army in a game of aliens and rayguns. Marines are solidly built and menacing looking people; they look rock and people like hardness in their men. They look like ruthless fascist troops so it doesn't matter if they have no real personality. If you want that, take Space Wolves or Dark Angels. Both model ranges effortlessly convey the personality of their armies. 'But wait MDM', I hear you cry. Doesn't that mean that 40K is simply a hell of a lot less subtle than Fantasy? Doesn't that mean it simply hits its gamers over the head with super stylised images? Well yes, but it works for 40K because it trades in symbols like Angels and Demons, Order and Bestiality so much. Take Eldar and Elves for example. Elves, whilst they look like you would expect are really still just cavalry, archers, spearmen etc with long hair and pointy ears. They don't exactly leap from the table with character. Eldar on the other hand have the Aspect Warriors who are extremely stylised to the point where they look exactly how they play. The Banshees are elegant and athletic, the scorpions are poised ready to strike, the reapers look literally like death... Simple images and simple connections to make but it works big time as the ringing cash tills will attest. This bold use of images and artistic expression on the table helps to sell 40K to players without having to hook them with interesting stories. It worked so well that many players stopped missing the histories after a while. But look at the Dark Eldar - no real history and a terrifyingly poor model range. They have been, in all honesty, a bit of a disaster for GW and there was even rumours of their removal from the game. Their next incarnation needs to fix those models (as people complain all the time about their models but only intermittently about their lack of history). Examine the Tau next - questionable stories at best but quite unique and interesting models. They haven't taken off but they haven't sunk like the DE have. This isn't really the case in Warhammer Fantasy however. When the new Dark Elf models came out, there was an awful lot of hoo ha about them. Stylised and looking like they stepped out of a book of fairytales, many felt they didn't suit the game at all and detested them straight off. The fact that so many people clamour for Chaos Dwarves, Kislev, Tileans etc show the greater interest that Fantasy players have in the history of their game. They like the ideas and want to play as them; many remember old stories and sagas including these armies which left such an impression that they still want them even now. And yet Fantasy has seen its history shrink and shrink. The old stories are gone, not included in the new books except in some extremely condensed forms. New histories have been terribly uninspiring such as the battle for Albion. Formless, it tried to rope in every army under one story but the story was bad and interest waned. Archaon and (Valten is it?), are boring characters who just don't get the blood fired up at all. Having titles such as 'the hero of light' or whatever it is... how insipid is that? Orcs have become comedy characters with no real threat asigned to them. The Skaven are an appalling shadow of their former selves - they're so 'wacky and funky and totally kerrazyy man'. Sad. Just check out the number of times Phil Kelly assures you they are 'fun and how fun it is to kill your own troops' in his tactica in the Skaven book. A ludicrous 20+ times over 2 pages I believe... When I look at the Fantasy books these days, all I feel is sheer depression. Stylised so much they have squeezed all the true personality out at the expense of 1 or 2 facets that they drum up beyond all proportion, they don't make me feel anything but hatred for all the races now really. Disapointment really, that they are being treated like this when it could have been so much better. Seriously, if you can, get a copy of the old Undead (4th ed) book and compare it with the Vampire Counts book. There really is no comparison. The Vampires and their silly bloodlines simply have no 'feel' to them. They are just stereotypes of behaviour stretched to be a bloodline. The only good one is the Von Carsteins because they are the originals before any of this bloodline nonsense existed. Their history is more interesting than anything in that new book. Who you want to be, who you represent is fast becoming 'who is the hardest', rather than a proper decision of who you like the most. The armies have been so watered down and have stories of such dubious quality now that people can think in those terms. GW need to get back on track and hire some decent writers (or just rehire their old writers). They need to put the history back in focus and stop releasing such personality-free armies as the Ogres. 'We're gonna eat ya, rarrr!' Are you? Great. I have a problem with the lack of Fantasy in Warhammer Fantasy these days as I say and on the table, I would like my armies to be more exciting but first, I must get to the table with an army I really care about. That never used to be a problem but it seems an insurmountable one now. Well, that rambled on a bit didn't it? Give yourself a free biscuit if you read it all in one go! Thanks for indulging me. | |
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