The background that annoys you most

[Penitent Engine]

Like the title says, what's the thing about Fantasy's background that annoys you the most?

For me the big problem is how insanely dangerous the world is! If we go by a standard battlefield, nearly every tree, river, pond, hill, wall, building, etc WILL KILL YOU!

I find it difficult to take this seriously. How are you going to feed a city like Altdorf when cabbages come to life overnight or every third calf turns out to be a warped beast? If the Empire is a series of "islands" amongst endless malevolent forests inhabited by bloodthirsty creatures and spiders the size of a house, how do you maintain trade and contact between cities? How is an economy maintained if there's a major invasion/civil war/marauding monster ravaging any given part of the nation every ten years or so?

Maybe this is part of the reason why Fantasy's background isn't as popular as 40K - sure, they're both as OTT as each other, but 40K's variety and scope saves it from the ultimate silliness that is the Old World.

[Artinam]

The whole 90% tax rate on Bretonnian Peasantry. They wouldn't survive for a year.

I tend to 'interpret' it as a maximum cap on taxes set by Knights. Meaning everyone with a functional brain and a basic grasp of medieval economy knows that Dead/Dying/Weak Peasants do not produce crops and such measures would lead to peasant rebellions (its fighting or dying from starvation.

[Righthandedtwin]

Like the title says, what's the thing about Fantasy's background that annoys you the most?

For me the big problem is how insanely dangerous the world is! If we go by a standard battlefield, nearly every tree, river, pond, hill, wall, building, etc WILL KILL YOU!

I find it difficult to take this seriously. How are you going to feed a city like Altdorf when cabbages come to life overnight or every third calf turns out to be a warped beast? If the Empire is a series of "islands" amongst endless malevolent forests inhabited by bloodthirsty creatures and spiders the size of a house, how do you maintain trade and contact between cities? How is an economy maintained if there's a major invasion/civil war/marauding monster ravaging any given part of the nation every ten years or so?

Maybe this is part of the reason why Fantasy's background isn't as popular as 40K - sure, they're both as OTT as each other, but 40K's variety and scope saves it from the ultimate silliness that is the Old World.

It's a little over blown there I think pal; if you look at the numberof WARS that happened in the Empire it's not actually that many, the Old World is a big place, it may not look it on a map but it's several times larger than central europe so most of these invasions and civil wars occur in distant areas of the provinces typically involving small villages/mid-sized towns. Large cities rarely get involved and even then during the larger wars the casualities tend to be mostly from the soldiery, just look at Europes bloody history and you'll notice that the number of wars, revolts, invasions isn't that high.

Don't forget as well there is more to FB than just Old World, there is affterall:

Old World
Lustria
Naggaroth
Ulthuan
Brettonia
Albion
Nehekhara
Bad Lands
Dark Lands
The Ancient Giant Lands
The Mountains of Mourn
Arabi
Cathay
Ind
Nippon
Tilea
Estalia
The Dragon Islands
The Southlands
Kurgan Steppes
Hung Steppes
Norsca
Kislev
Chaos Wastes (Northern)
Chaos Wastes (Southern)
Underway
Skaven Blight

And many, many more regions so the population of the Warhammer World is monolithic and can take these constant outbreaks of war here and there or the odd border skirmishes, the AB protray the Warhammer World as in a perpetual state of people dying while the Novels tend to show that there are significant periods of peacetime...so yea take it how you will.

Comparing Warhammer to 40k is a big BIG mistake both in scale and the level of death for in warhammer the death tolls measure in hundreds/thousands/hundreds of thousands...in 40k the Death Tolls come in Millions, Billions, Trillions and the whole "everything kills you" case is equal across the board.

People will like what they like but claiming one is better than the other is a pointless excercise. 40k's current popularity is due to Relic and THQ, the spate of 40k games has launched 40k into pop culture recently thanks to DoW and SM as such a lot of people are coming to the hobby from the games...while FB has a less than steller history of gaming, as yea...when 8th ed is sorted and if they can put a decent game out you'd see the tables turn and WHFB make a return afterall for a long while FB was more widely played than 40k.

[Satan]

For me it's always been the Genevieve stories. I know some people love them, but I really don't.

[Righthandedtwin]

For me it's always been the Genevieve stories. I know some people love them, but I really don't.

I have to second you on this one. Although it's hard competition for SoC. Genevieve wouldn't have been so bad if it wasn't for her being a "Half-vampire" and being portrayed as the heroine in a slash fiction or fanfic, especially the last book with the count/countess...that one really...just...I have no words for it

[quantumcollider]

The whole 90% tax rate on Bretonnian Peasantry. They wouldn't survive for a year.

I tend to 'interpret' it as a maximum cap on taxes set by Knights. Meaning everyone with a functional brain and a basic grasp of medieval economy knows that Dead/Dying/Weak Peasants do not produce crops and such measures would lead to peasant rebellions (its fighting or dying from starvation.

I second this. As well as the fact that every Bretonnian peasant has defects or is a (borderline) inbred. Even though their genepool is much wider than that of the nobility.
And why exactly is every noble a stuck-up, hypocretical, petty tyrant and every peasant a downtrodden, dungcovered wretch?

[Righthandedtwin]

I second this. As well as the fact that every Bretonnian peasant has defects or is a (borderline) inbred. Even though their genepool is much wider than that of the nobility.
And why exactly is every noble a stuck-up, hypocretical, petty tyrant and every peasant a downtrodden, dungcovered wretch?

Lady of the Lake keeps thier blood holy and pure...I suppose it goes back to the Nobles being descendants of the grail companions..so they have a sort of arrogance about thier heritage....if you assume the Lore in the AB is written from the perspective of a noble...or someone in the employ the Noble (I can't think of the name for it but they're comparable to the middle class, not born into a noble family but not poor enough to be peasantry.)

[N810]

Dwarves, Seriously we are sorry, we didn't know the skaven where diging a tunnels under your holds, it's not entirely our fault. Seriously its been many generations since then.

- The Slann

[nagash66]

Moonblood...that is all.

[Artinam]

For the big War people. Wars can also involve hundreds of people and still be classified as a war. Only really since Napoleonic times you see more mass equipped armies of the people ranging in the hundreds of thousands or more.

In Medieval times, wars were a lot smaller scale. I mean I can portray a VERY grim dark depiction of our time. I see Warhammer as something similar otherwise 'civilization' couldn't exist.

[Jedi152]

The overall 'grim-ness' is getting too much. For once i want to see the good guys win.

I can't remember the last time non-chaotic humans, dwarfs or elves won a battle in the background.

[Righthandedtwin]

Am I the only person that thinks Genevieve reads like the prototype for Twilight? :O

[Athelassan]

I second this. As well as the fact that every Bretonnian peasant has defects or is a (borderline) inbred. Even though their genepool is much wider than that of the nobility.
And why exactly is every noble a stuck-up, hypocretical, petty tyrant and every peasant a downtrodden, dungcovered wretch?

Actually, it's not necessarily the case that the peasants' genepool is larger than that of the nobility. In theory the peasant genepool is much larger, but in reality they are almost all serfs who need their lord's permission to leave their village, which is going to have a very small selection of eligible breeding partners. A couple of generations down the line and everybody's everybody's cousin several times over. The nobility, meanwhile, have potentially the whole of Old World aristocracy and gentry to choose from. They might marry their cousin occasionally, but infrequently enough that they're still maintaining a reasonable degree of genetic diversity. It's different for the urban proletariat and bourgeousie, of course - they're probably less inbred than the nobles.

[Craze_b0i]

There is a tendency of fluff-creep whereby each army-book writer tries to make his race's achievement more overblown than before. (Exception being Dwarfs who are on permanent-decline mode). In particular this leads to the 'present day' of the timeline getting overloaded with an excessive number of cataclysmic battles.

Mostly its the inconsistencies between writers that can annoy me. It really needs someone at GW who knows the existing canon to check the new books for consistency.

[quantumcollider]

Actually, it's not necessarily the case that the peasants' genepool is larger than that of the nobility. In theory the peasant genepool is much larger, but in reality they are almost all serfs who need their lord's permission to leave their village, which is going to have a very small selection of eligible breeding partners. A couple of generations down the line and everybody's everybody's cousin several times over. The nobility, meanwhile, have potentially the whole of Old World aristocracy and gentry to choose from. They might marry their cousin occasionally, but infrequently enough that they're still maintaining a reasonable degree of genetic diversity. It's different for the urban proletariat and bourgeousie, of course - they're probably less inbred than the nobles.

If history is anything to go by, it's far more likely that the Bretonnian nobility is far more inbred as they purposely marry marry relatives in order to keep wealth and power inside the family.

Because Bretonnian peasants are so poor, they at least have the luxury of marrying for love. Which usually does not involve a cousin.

Then again, this is the Warhammer universe...

[Korraz]

The overall 'grim-ness' is getting too much. For once i want to see the good guys win.

I can't remember the last time non-chaotic humans, dwarfs or elves won a battle in the background.

Whenever they fight each other.
But I'm with you there. This Chaos Boner has been going far too long.

[Iverald]

Dwarves mistrust wood and are reluctant to use it. As if lightweight, portability, renewability and some properties I may not be awate of, were of no issue to them. I'm no materials engineer, but I just can't see how metal alloys can in every case be vastly superior to wood.

[Righthandedtwin]

Dwarves mistrust wood and are reluctant to use it. As if lightweight, portability, renewability and some properties I may not be awate of, were of no issue to them. I'm no materials engineer, but I just can't see how metal alloys can in every case be vastly superior to wood.

Dwarves value durabillity over things like weight and renewabillity...you don't need to renew something if it takes millenia to break down...unlike wood which isn't even a fraction as durable as steel and stone.

[Gekiganger]

Dwarves mistrust wood and are reluctant to use it. As if lightweight, portability, renewability and some properties I may not be awate of, were of no issue to them. I'm no materials engineer, but I just can't see how metal alloys can in every case be vastly superior to wood.

I flat out refuse to buy the new war machines, hunting the old wooden ones is a pain.

Boneripper.
The original boneripper that died in nuln was two armed, he was rewarded with the three armed one after his "success" by the council. Yet the reanimated one that was stolen from a display in nuln university / museum after it's corpse was recovered from the burning building it died in, has three arms. This has irked me continuously.

The latest Thanquol book also states that the original device that shattered the underground / skavenblight / the dwarf holds was a "Doomsphere" designed for causing havok to the dwarfs, which makes no sense since the dwarfs have no record of skaven pre-dating the devices explosion making the holds accessible. It was made to expand the underway for skaven expansion, not to wipe out their unfound enemy.

Having one of the 4 great clans become "dominant" doesn't bother me as much, but still annoys me a tad. Last time that threatened to happen resulted in a skaven civil war that needed their God summoning to resolve. I just don't see the other 3 or the Seers letting something disturb the mexican standoff of balance they have going.

Totally bias in my skaven only gripes, but they're the faction I feel most invested in, thus the ones that annoy me the most.

[Righthandedtwin]

Wights...specifically the Wight kings, one moment it states they come to life on thier own and the next it states that they are bound by Necromancers....I can't tell which it is and if they are capable of coming back on thier own why can't I build a Wight army without the worry of crumbling/need to have a caster? It'd make sense if the Battle Kings come back they could gather thier minions who also came back and go out on thier own...