Why folks hate the Stormcast Eternals...

[Cutter]

"Why folks hate the Stormcast Eternals..."

Is it because, and I'm just spit-balling here, they're so mind-crushingly dull?

[Path Walker]

You can say what you will about Stormcast Eternals but the souls of heroes painfully remade over hundreds of years in a forge of Gods into a warrior clad in golden armour, wielding hammers made of lightning, and flying with wings made of pure light is not dull in the slightest.

[Morgrim]

I think the marvel is that GW took something cool like that and made it dull by turning them into the clone army.

[Ray Rivers]

I'd just like to see some female Stormcast is all, because, hey, it's me and that's pretty much all I want from every army it makes sense for.

Well, if we look at ancient history and myth, women play a prominent role. From the Gods (Athena, for example) to the Amazons there is plenty of scope for getting them into the game and I am pretty darn sure we will see them.

[Asymmetrical Xeno]

I think part of the problem was more how they released the models. It felt like they really stretched it out too thinly. The character model only weeks especially slowed things down. I think at least some people would of kept the excitement up if they hadn't stretched it too thin. I think they should of compressed the stormcast (and khorne for that matter) into 4 weeks each and used the other 4 weeks to release random kits from some of the other factions to add some variety. I don't think it helped some of the releases were already things we previously already saw from the starter set either.

[benn grimm]

So many reasons...but basically it boils down to context; as the poster boys of the death of WFB and the birth of AOS they carry a lot of baggage for a lot of people right out of the box.

Then there is the aesthetic, which is fine if you love he-man and 300 and things of that nature, but it is incredibly obvious and crass and they do look just like Blood Angels if Blood Angels had lived in the land of make believe and faeries. They all look the same and the ones with wings look sort of awesome until you realise the spectacular ridiculousness of this fat man in heavy armour with wings that look like swords...oh and the hammers, too many hammers...

[Ben_S]

I've read all kinds of stuff about how OTT these minis are, how they are actually fantasy space marines, etc. etc., and none of that makes any sense to me.
...
In fact the Stormcast Eternals is based on a Greco-Roman aesthetic and if you don't believe that, all you have to do is look at the Prosecutors with Javelins.

Agreed that they're Greco-Roman, rather than medieval. But, if you take that aesthetic and apply it to large, super-human warriors with over-sized pauldrons, doesn't the space marine comparison make just a little sense? Go take a look at Sanguinary Guard in particular. (Whether you *like* Space Marines in Fantasy is, of course, a matter of taste. If you do, then fine. But I don't see how you can say that the comparison makes no sense.)

[Erik Setzer]

Open your minds folks...

My mind *is* open. I enjoy historical games as well as fantasy. Your reasoning is *not* why I dislike them, nor is it because I have a "closed" mind.

My issue is that they're designed to be over the top from the ground up, not just the models but also the background. They're too often described as immortal awesome warriors that can beat anyone. They fight, they die, they fight again. They have just one purpose in existing.

And they shouldn't even be able to win. We just established mere months ago that when Chaos wins, it obliterates everything. But suddenly, it can't do that? And then Sigmar has the time to build a secret super-soldier army?

I also don't recall Greek hoplites wielding hammers, or long spears, or guns masquerading as crossbows, or insanely large bows, or generic knight shaped shields, or golden masks designed to look like a face, or riding on wings made of freaking light (which, I'm sorry, is such a juvenile idea that it feels insulting). Oh, or having enormous shoulder pads.

So, yeah, they're not Greek hoplites at all, any more than Blood Angels are, and people aren't hating the Blood Angels for anything more than the shift to make them all Vampire caricatures.

The Stormcasts are all so bloody similar, even the characters look the same as the other guys, which makes it cheap and fast to throw together a new army's design, but makes them feel rather boring as a force, made so much worse by everyone being painted the same. Even Space Marines have differences in unit aesthetic and color scheme.

So you have a whole army of models that look like the same guy cloned over and over but given different armaments, created just to have an army to fight off a threat that doesn't really sound like much of a threat, and they all seem way too similar and almost soulless. It's like they're bloody Clone Troopers.

[Erik Setzer]

Well, if we look at ancient history and myth, women play a prominent role. From the Gods (Athena, for example) to the Amazons there is plenty of scope for getting them into the game and I am pretty darn sure we will see them.

I don't mean this offensively, but honestly given your apparent optimism here... Are you completely new to the GW hobby?

I'm trying to think of females in Warhammer, and, out of the massive amounts of models out there, here's what I'm remembering off the top of my head:

Sisters of Avelorn (sp?) - All-female Elf unit
Witch Elves - Female elf unit, barely clothed, specialize in murder and sex fantasies
Alarielle, Morathi, Wood Elf sisters on Dragon, Khorne female special character - Various named characters, pretty much all Elves (and Morathi had half her chest uncovered, because, you know, women don't need clothing).
Female chest pieces for Elf units
Handful of female Vampires - At one point, there was a line of just female vampires. They used seduction to get their way. Because of course they did.

There was a model for the Tsarina of Kislev, but they drop-kicked Kislev back out of the game almost as soon as it showed up. There was a female Elector Count, and she was one of the only Elector Counts to not have a model.

On the 40K side, there's Sisters of Battle (ho boy...), the Callidus Assassin, and some Eldar torsos. I think there might have been a female Inquisitor at some point, and there was Commissar Corset, which isn't really helping matters.

Now, you might think that sounds like a good bit... but go to GW's website right now and look through the massive piles of figures. Also recognize that the Sisters of Battle have gotten zero love in forever.

GW doesn't really do women in their games. Even where it makes sense, it's shocking to see them actually have a female model. And now we've had them say that you can just pretend there's women in those male designed suits, because why wouldn't women want to look like men in battle? So yeah, don't be too "damn sure" we'll see female models.

(I'm pretty sure this rant is still a lot smaller than one you could get from someone like Eldargal on this topic.)

[Cutter]

You can say what you will about Stormcast Eternals but the souls of heroes painfully remade over hundreds of years in a forge of Gods into a warrior clad in golden armour, wielding hammers made of lightning, and flying with wings made of pure light is not dull in the slightest.

You say toe-may-toe, I say dullsley dullington.

And I field an army of Daleks when the notion strikes me.

They have more character.

Exterminate.