W+ Review - Loremasters, with Wade Pryce

[Petitioner's City]

Series Thoughts

 

Excellent production values, and I'm always happy to see more of Wade Pryce talking about a subject he clearly loves - but .... I must admit I am a quite a bit disappointed - I had actually hoped this would be more of a 'history of the lore' that built organically out of Wade's interviews on Stormcast/Voxcast/Warhammer Podcast, with interviews about how Abaddon came into being as a character and his interpretations or recreations over the years - basically a documentary series focused on specific bits of the lore from across the Warhammer IP.

 

Wade is an excellent interviewer and this seems like a mistake for him not to interview writers, artists, designers and other creatives from over the years about a topic (imagine if ADB spoke about reinterpreting Abaddon, Dan Abnett on 'creating' the heresy character, Gav and Andy Chambers and Rick Priestly on 2nd edition; Andy C on BFG; Phil Kelly and his colleagues on the Gathering Storm/Fall of Cadia decisions; Blanche, Mark Gibbons, etc), as well as showing archives of unpublished elements (imagine the sketches for and any alternate designs of his new mini!). Of course that's a higher cost production (some guests might need to be paid to appear), but it could have been a really unique and special thing that only GW could do.

Overall, I lukewarmly like it (Wade is great, and the art - oh the art!*), but I had hoped for something utterly different that built on Wade's podcasting - with its reflexive focus on how the things we love came into being - and GW's potential to build on that visually from a 'how is lore made' perspective; this could even have been interspersed with this 'explaining the lore' bit. It also doesn't afford the ability to explore changes, differences, etc., in 'lore' over the past 3 decades - instead it's frozen. More so, if it was just a lore video, it lacks a serious amount of quotes of famed sections of prose from Codex: Chaos onwards - there could have been some evocative moments from over the years featured  

* Again on the art, I feel each should have its artist identified! I always get annoyed by how GW does not generally name artists....

 

Episode 1: Abaddon the  Despoiler

 

Interesting what wasn't really mentioned - Khayon and Sigismund, for example, nor the clone legend. However, a nice strong cohesive narrative that actually helps tidy up some of Abaddon's appearances, with heavy nods to his sections in The Solar War, as well as Drachnyen in Master of Mankind, and nice call backs to the classic Codex Chaos (2nd edition) and Battlefleet Gothic. 

Edited September 8, 2021 by Petitioner's City

[byrd9999]

A Warhammer+ "IP-masters" would be a perfect accompaniment to the pure in-universe lore :) 

[Subtleknife]

I was a bit disappointed. You can pretty much get all the info from wiki etc. I was hoping they would reveal some plot points that haven't been released etc.

[Noserenda]

Yes that sums my thoughts up nicely, its a slick recounting of things we already know but without that behind the scenes elevation its not likely to keep my interest. That animation at the end was hawt though :D 

[malika666]

Hmm, sounds like GW might soon go after Lexicanum?

[Petitioner's City]

Hmm, sounds like GW might soon go after Lexicanum?

 

No need to troll - making up stuff like this doesn't help a review thread, or help discuss GW. 

 

Unless you mean 'this was better than the lex article on Abaddon' 

[malika666]

 

Hmm, sounds like GW might soon go after Lexicanum?

 

No need to troll - making up stuff like this doesn't help a review thread, or help discuss GW. 

 

Unless you mean 'this was better than the lex article on Abaddon' 

 

Apologies, but the impression I got from your review was that this episode on Abaddon was basically a glorified Lexicanum article. I can imagine that GW would think the same. So looking at it like that Lexicanum might actually become a competition. Same as the indie animators and artists doing fan videos/art.

[Petitioner's City]

My apologies too, was just afraid it would be that brand of IP anxious complaining that could derail a thread.

 

I think it's almost too different a medium; this is authored rather than anonymous. But it's definitely in that world of condensed infodump that wiki articLes also exist in

[theSpirea]

Decided to catch up on WH+ over the weekend with my girlfriend and thought I would share our thoughts.

 

I always enjoyed Wade's Vox when he did interview with BL writers, you can see he genuinely loves the universe and it's always a pleasure to hear him talk about it. I had high expectations for this series when they originally announced it.

 

I'm not really sure who's the target audience. For newbies this is a really weird choice to start with Abaddon. My gf knows only basics about the universe (read around 10 books so far, all set in 40K, and watched a few lore videos on YT) and it was too fast for her, she was getting lost in the amount of information and has no desire to watch another episode. Her reaction was "why talk about Horus's son, Abaddon, I've never even heard of him, why not Horus at least?" She would appreciate a brief summary/history of the universe, main conflicts, introduce main factions, etc

 

At the same time, it doesn't provide any new info for people well versed in the WH lore. It's an odd choice; confusing newbies, not offering anything new to "veterans". I will check the next one or two episodes to see if it's going to improve but so far this is a pass for me/us. If they at least provided "recommended reading material". This was a solid marketing opportunity to advertise BL books...

[Shield-Captain]

Decided to catch up on WH+ over the weekend with my girlfriend and thought I would share our thoughts.

 

I always enjoyed Wade's Vox when he did interview with BL writers, you can see he genuinely loves the universe and it's always a pleasure to hear him talk about it. I had high expectations for this series when they originally announced it.

 

I'm not really sure who's the target audience. For newbies this is a really weird choice to start with Abaddon. My gf knows only basics about the universe (read around 10 books so far, all set in 40K, and watched a few lore videos on YT) and it was too fast for her, she was getting lost in the amount of information and has no desire to watch another episode. Her reaction was "why talk about Horus's son, Abaddon, I've never even heard of him, why not Horus at least?" She would appreciate a brief summary/history of the universe, main conflicts, introduce main factions, etc

 

At the same time, it doesn't provide any new info for people well versed in the WH lore. It's an odd choice; confusing newbies, not offering anything new to "veterans". I will check the next one or two episodes to see if it's going to improve but so far this is a pass for me/us. If they at least provided "recommended reading material". This was a solid marketing opportunity to advertise BL books...

 

I have to agree. They don’t seem to know what audience they are marketing this particular series too and the video was just kind of a mess. They spent a lot of time explaining things that didn’t directly involve Abaddon, but were so brief that these little background blurbs missed context.

 

The production quality was excellent and the artwork was good. Cool to see some John Blanche stuff in there. But I don’t think Abaddon was a great place to start. Maybe I’m missing something.

[Indefragable]

Honestly, Loremasters should be the History channel for all things 40K.

 

It’s there opportunity to have a definitive statement with great production value about well whatever they want. Instead it doesn’t really know what it wants to be. I turned off after 2min.

 

This and the battle reports are a bit odd for me…and frankly not worth the subscription price *in their current form.* The only thing that makes them stand out from what you can get likes of *for free* by the community is the production values. And even then it’s only a matter of time before someone slick enough equals or exceeds them.

 

Like the army builder app, with stuff like this I would like GW to recognize that they are *the* source for their own product. They have what no one else does which is to say the entire freaking thing.

 

Do Battle Reports that coincide with new Codex releases: show off new units for the first time in the Battle Reports. Have Battle Reports that mean something, that tie in with BL output and the fate of the game will determine the next entry in the series or such (“how Dante got that scar” etc…).

 

Likewise, have Loremasters be the definitive source on a topic, as others have said, talk about the origins of the character, the original concept, where they are now, where they are going, etc…

 

It’s like GW forgets they are the chef in their own kitchen.