The background that annoys you most

[Urgat]

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!

But it's not background, it's game mechanics. In the background, most trees are normal, plain trees

[Verm1s]

6/7 ed ogre book. Ogres are fat. Fatty fat fat. Lookit them there, wobbling their big fat man-boobs all over the place. Tell them to quit their butter-smuggling job but they're too frickin' thick to know what smuggling is, let alone get the joke. A wonder they don't stand around drooling when they're not eating, eating, eating. They're infamous mercenaries who can be hired by any other race while at the same time their only reaction to any other race is 'cor, I'll hit that on the head and eat it'.

I don't know what the new book is like. At least they don't look like they've been fished out from the bottom of a lake after a week, any more.

[Spider-pope]

6/7 ed ogre book. Ogres are fat. Fatty fat fat. Lookit them there, wobbling their big fat man-boobs all over the place. Tell them to quit their butter-smuggling job but they're too frickin' thick to know what smuggling is, let alone get the joke. A wonder they don't stand around drooling when they're not eating, eating, eating. They're infamous mercenaries who can be hired by any other race while at the same time their only reaction to any other race is 'cor, I'll hit that on the head and eat it'.

I don't know what the new book is like. At least they don't look like they've been fished out from the bottom of a lake after a week, any more.

In a similar vein, the 7th Ed. Beastman army book. Faeces, faeces and more faeces. Gone are the twisted antithesis of the Wood Elves, the dark mockery of man, now they just throw faecal matter at everything. Did i mention faeces?

[Marauder_chieftan]

My gripe is how much every army book is puntuated by examples of every army known to mankind defeating the same bunch of inept, stupid chaos marauders who happened to bring their raiding party to the most rediculous place in the world. Why in Archaon's name did they choose to illustrate how cool some tomb king army choice is by some lore involving marauder tribes getting their asses kicked? Why on earth would the marauders go all the way to nekhara?

[Leogun_91]

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.

They mainly value the way metal will last much longer. They really like Wuthroth (Think it's named that but Khazalid is not that easy) which is an exceptionally long lasting and sturdy oak that the dwarfs have cut to the edge of extinction. When a dwarf makes an item he pictures his grandson impressing his grandchildren with it's quality.


I'm annoyed at how many holds are mentioned in tidbits to have been destroyed when you compare them to the number of holds that exist and have existed. The writers must sit down, read the dwarf armybook and understand that they should have written mining outpost or something similar.

[Craze_b0i]

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.

And this is a race that digs mine-shafts for a living!

But it's not background, it's game mechanics. In the background, most trees are normal, plain trees

Unfortunately thou this has entered the fluff as well, the writing team today seem to be of an MTV/CGI mindset that wants to make everything about the setting more and more extreme.

"There is no serene countryside, no safe hollows or wonderous mountain tops in which to remain secure. The lands have been infused with wild magic for aeons; its mutating effects have wrought great changes. The trees lash out, their roots seeking warm bodies for sustenance, boiling geysers of magma burst out of the ground to flood whole towns, livestock can mutate into hideousd spawn overnight and when storm clouds gather it may rain blood-slicked teeth instead of life-giving water... This place, this living nightmare, is none other than the Warhammer World."
- WD 367 re: new background fluff for Warhammer 8th Ed.

[TrueKin]

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.

I actually see the current fluff as the opposite of this. It seems to me that Chaos can never win anything, no matter how much they might outnumber or otherwise overpower the enemy. Most of Malekith's life has been failure after failure, and there hasn't been a Chaos incursion that was at least a bit successful after Asavar Kul (the guy who destroyed Praag), the Daemons haven't done anything actually notable since their first great incursion, which they obviously failed as well. Beastmen and Marauders are pretty much the "evil" punching bag, Dwarves can't be the only faction to handle that job, after all.

The most annoying piece of fluff for me is that of the Ogres and Sky Giants. Here we have the kinda stupid Ogres, who decide to wipe out an entire species that is considerably larger, stronger and more intelligent, after which they steal the huge cannons created by these giants. No matter how the outnumbered the giants were, they lived in fortresses on mountains, had cannons, and were even physically stronger than Ogres. Nevertheless the Ogres win. How? Shouldn't be possible... We actually even had an argument with a few friends about this, and the final mental picture everyone had was of a horde of fat midgets about the height of our knees pouring in through doors and windows, stabbing us (the "sky giants") to death with small needles... Can you see this happening in any setting? I didn't think so either, but what can you do about it...

[Artinam]

Seriously, if the world is such a chaotic hell hole then why not burn down the forests. Get a few uncorrupted plants and plant it again.

[Craze_b0i]

I actually see the current fluff as the opposite of this. It seems to me that Chaos can never win anything, no matter how much they might outnumber or otherwise overpower the enemy. Most of Malekith's life has been failure after failure, and there hasn't been a Chaos incursion that was at least a bit successful after Asavar Kul (the guy who destroyed Praag), the Daemons haven't done anything actually notable since their first great incursion, which they obviously failed as well. Beastmen and Marauders are pretty much the "evil" punching bag, Dwarves can't be the only faction to handle that job, after all.

The most annoying piece of fluff for me is that of the Ogres and Sky Giants. Here we have the kinda stupid Ogres, who decide to wipe out an entire species that is considerably larger, stronger and more intelligent, after which they steal the huge cannons created by these giants. No matter how the outnumbered the giants were, they lived in fortresses on mountains, had cannons, and were even physically stronger than Ogres. Nevertheless the Ogres win. How? Shouldn't be possible... We actually even had an argument with a few friends about this, and the final mental picture everyone had was of a horde of fat midgets about the height of our knees pouring in through doors and windows, stabbing us (the "sky giants") to death with small needles... Can you see this happening in any setting? I didn't think so either, but what can you do about it...

The point is though the whole premise is that everything is continually getting darker with the forces of destruction getting stronger and stronger each time. Even if the Empire defeats 99 Chaos Incursions they will still come back stronger and stronger until all resistance is crushed. Problem is the good guys are never allowed to advance, all they do is sit there while Chaos is constantly battering them and try and survive a bit longer.

[Korraz]

Exactly. Order is a mountain. A mountain in the Sea of Chaos. It doesn't matter how many Everchosen look like total complete failures, the Chaos Gods just cackle and send the next wave.
Empire, Dwarfs, Elves and so on on the other hand and just have to sit there and wait for the eventual end. Either from the North, or from the Undead Hordes.

Meanwhile, the only tiny speck of hope is a dusty carcass on a floating throne that tries to send everybody "back to their place", in the hope that that'll restore order.

[woodster17]

Slann. The passive uselessness of the Slann annoys the heck out of me. For a race that is meant to be the most powerful casters of magic in the world, they sure as hell sit around doing not a lot for much of the time.

[The bearded one]

I despise all the fluff where another random dwarf hold is made up for the funzies in order to let the army of the respective armybook in which this hold features destroy it. the OK book in fact made up 3 entirely new holds. The daemon and WoC books probably mentioned close to a dozen random karaks that were destroyed with little effort. The daemonbook goes so far in its wild orgie of karak destruction that it fails to notice it has ku'gath and his daemons attack Karaz-A-Karak.. years before it's founded.

[Craze_b0i]

On a similar note army books that rave and rave about that race's victories but gloss over its defeats. Ok you can't describe everything in 1 book but still, do they think it will put kids off collecting army X is the book says that army X once lost a battle?

[The bearded one]

except with dwarfs.. their timeline has about as many defeats, setbacks and costly victories as genuine victories.

[Son of Sanguinius]

Gotta vote for the ruination of potential that Malekith has had.

I understand it's difficult to write a great villain, and especially one with as much power as Malekith has, but he's a buffoon as often as he is a terrifying demi-god.

[Hicks]

Dwarfs never win, ever.

[lord marcus]

The fact that almost everyone I meet says "Oh, you play khemri."

No, sirs, I do not. I play tomb kings, from the city of Quatar. Khemri is not the only damnable city in the entirety of Nehekhara.

[Son of Sanguinius]

Settra would probably say otherwise.

[Urgat]

Unfortunately thou this has entered the fluff as well, the writing team today seem to be of an MTV/CGI mindset that wants to make everything about the setting more and more extreme.

"There is no serene countryside, no safe hollows or wonderous mountain tops in which to remain secure. The lands have been infused with wild magic for aeons; its mutating effects have wrought great changes. The trees lash out, their roots seeking warm bodies for sustenance, boiling geysers of magma burst out of the ground to flood whole towns, livestock can mutate into hideousd spawn overnight and when storm clouds gather it may rain blood-slicked teeth instead of life-giving water... This place, this living nightmare, is none other than the Warhammer World."
- WD 367 re: new background fluff for Warhammer 8th Ed.

It's just an exaggerated effect of style. You aren't going to find a single piece of fluff where a guy gets eaten every ten meters, unless that particular piece of fluff is about the Forest of Loren or the Wastes. It's like in Warhammer 40K, there is not only war, those people eat, love, go to work, live their lives and I'm sure certain planets have no seen war for generations. How would you expect anybody to be able to live there, you won't feed a city like Altdorf with peasants that risk their lives just by sleeping in their warp-mutated bed, then have to survive the morning 1 out of 6 chance that their mug of milk is going to rip their face off, try to not get cut in half by the carnivorous door (old oak, it's failed its test a wile ago...), manage to get up the road of bloody teeth and work their ass off all day long in the field of acidic grain (to harvest what, poisonous corn?), etc etc. The whole of humanity would be wiped out in one day So I take it as an hyperbole. Let's be honest, volcanoes swallowing cities, as surprising as it is, are rare in Warhammer, whatever that blurbs say. Can't think of a single occurrence in anything I've read about Warhammer.
But if I had to take that seriously, yeah, no doubt, it'd skyrocket in first place

[Sheena Easton]

All the new additions from 7th and 8th such as the nonsensical "war in the Border Princes", Grom magically popping up in Middenheim to steal the temple roof, Gor's obsessed with defecating on everything, daemons of rival deities playing happy families, the "moonblood" holiday that the Everqueen suddenly has every decade, the abysmal ending of SoC and the even more ridiculous and inconsistent attempts at brushing it under the carpet...