Tongue lodged very firmly in cheek...

Tongue lodged very firmly in cheek... It's been said before (correctly or not) that the Warhammer settings (both of them) originally received their identity through GW trying to jam "everything that was cool back in the day into them while paying as little in royalties as possible."

So, let's pretend for a moment it never existed and was being invented today: miniature game settings made up by jamming together "everything cool" in the late 2010's without intellectual property lawsuits.

What would it look like?

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Well since "retro" has been cool ever since people realised the nineties sucked, all the elements that make it cool are still present, even if only as nostalgia. So the question can't escape being "What would they add today that's cool now but wasn't in the 80s". Add to that the fact that it came decidedly from the "nerd" culture and cheesy macho action films, and you'll realise the pool from which they could draw without making a totally different thing hasn't expanded much in 30 years.

One issue is that the people that made warhammer were highly cultivated. A lot of them had doctorates, and they were very knowledgable on history, anthropology, and a bunch of other fields. That's a trait shared by a lot of old creators. The first edition of Shadowrun had some excellent insight on immediate franco-german post ww2 politics, for example.
Nowadays a lot of geek culture is based on earlier geek stuff instead of more general knowledge. So if warhammer was made today it would differ a lot.

>A lot of them had doctorates, and they were very knowledgable on history, anthropology, and a bunch of other fields.
How the mighty have fallen

>So if warhammer was made today it would differ a lot.
How so?

It would be dumbed down, in an effort to broaden the appeal.

>implying you can dumb warhammer down any further

>What is "Age of Sigmar"?

Like this guy said, it'd be pretty much the same.
Only there'd probably be more zombies.

youtube.com/watch?v=ZiE3aVQGf8o

And trans character.

>originally received their identity through GW trying to jam "everything that was cool back in the day into them

Uhh well early WFB was plopping Tolkien races next door to medieval France/Germany and seeing how things would play out. The jamming of a bunch of other shit came in later years as the series developed its identity. The series was a lot more grounded back then. Bretonnians had cannons and the Empire's technology level was more reminiscent of the late 15th century rather than the 16th iirc

Bizarrely, it's still canon that Bretonnia has a 17th century style navy (with triple masted, triple decked ships with broadsides of cannons) while the Empire has more medieval ships with oars and huge cannons in the front.

>mfw humans compare naval accomplishments

the empire's basic troops probably wouldn't be landsknecht but rather more generic fantasy troops for one. Probably wouldn't be guns because modern fantasy is fucking allergic to guns for some stupid reason.

>modern fantasy is fucking allergic to guns
No more so than it was when Warhammer was made

Probably because nobody, much less GW, has given any thought whatsoever to the naval warfare games since time immemorial.

Bump

What things do we consider pop-cultural icons of today?

Off the top of my head:
Zombies
Vampires
Hunter-types (the Winchesters, Blade, Buffy etc.)
Superheroes
Game of Thrones-style grim fantasy

That's some weird shit to build from. I'm intrigued.

Blade and Buffy are more early 2000's and hype for vampires kind of got destroyed by twilight.

Grim fantasy is certainly popular at the moment with Game of thrones and Dark Souls. Could also factor in the influence of bloodborne.
Looks like Lovecraft is more popular at the moment so instead of the big eldritch evil being based on Moorcocks gods of Chaos it would likely be some collection of horrors from beyond the stars.
Superheros are definitely popular right now but I don't know if they would tie into the tone of the fantasy setting being created. Remember, the designers would still be wanting a coherent setting and place that before putting absolutely everything that was cool and popular at the time in.
Fantasy settings also seem to have moved a lot further away from being set tied in any way to earth than before so the Warhammer world would probably not be such a blatant rip off of ours design wise.
Tolkenesque fantasy knock-offs have seen a decline outside of relics from their heyday like D&D and its settings so the world would probably be human only with a couple elder races as fantastic elements. I wonder what the factions would be.

>Hunter-types (the Winchesters, Blade, Buffy etc.)
More likely witchers and bloodborn hunters.

>hype for vampires kind of got destroyed by twilight.
Speak for yourself. Or, rather, speak for the subculture you represent. Being mired in geek society as geeks ought it's easy for them to forget how tiny and irregular a minority they represent in the public opinion. GEEKDOM has gone batshit about Twilight, but for society at large - the people who have never heard about Vampire: The Masquerade (or Interview with a Vampire, for that matter), and who genuinely believe that the background Twilight "revolutionized" consisted of Dracula and a character from Sesame Street? Those guys think Twilight MADE VAMPIRES COOL.

Which, funnily enough, knowing GW's practices means if they'd made the game nowadays the Von Carsteins would be a lot less Bram Stoker and a lot more Stephanie Meyer.

>I wonder what the factions would be.
Judging by the current trends, you'd see a lot more varieties of non-European humans. Cries of SJWry aside, it's actually not guaranteed they won't be depicted as hilarious stereotypes (albeit not in the same way as back in the eighties). Again, think Game of Thrones and Essos.

Brets being based on France and Empire on German states (and Marienburg on Netherlands); it's not surprising.
Plus seafaring Bret knights worship Manaan instead of the Lady, so they have a lot less retardation than their mainland brethen.

France of the 12th century still had worse ships than Germany of the 16th.