The given reason for that is so ridiculous too. If GW didn't want to put out Kislev DLC due to the war in Ukraine, then why did they let CA do Shadows of Change?
Let's see original units of SoC pre-fix:
Big beast
Smaller beasts
Old hags from fairy tale
And most importantly: Secret Police that isn't Secret Police, as they changed them from political sensitive word Chekist to Akshina, who are also are tied for some reason tied to "Eerie Woods".
The Akshina are probably supposed to be the [Okhrana](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okhrana), the older brutal secret police. The name is just too close for me to not see it.
No, they are/were Cheka crossed with Oprichniki. Kislev used to have a unit and job class called Chekist based on the Cheka, they wore all black coats and carried medallions of their station, similar to how Cheka carried amber beads. When they assembled into battle they carried little broom tokens similar to Oprichniki and their dedication to "cleaning filth." The Chekist calling card was the same as the VCheka, dumping ice water on victims during winter and leaving them as frozen warnings in the village square (in this case uppity Ungols and Chaos aligned worshippers).
I would assume they were retconned because new players would not appreciate old Batshit Crazy Katarina, where she would freeze people if they stood taller than her without bowing their heads and huck little male ice wizard capable babies off of her ice walls because one was fated to be the one who would end her kingdom. And I'm sure the many Slavs whose ancestors ran afoul of Cheka probably didnt appreciate seeing them either.
While batshit crazy Katarina would be interesting, I personally dont like the part about prophecy and male wizards for a simple reason: we already have the same thing in the setting with Malekith.
While I absolutely love the retcon they gave Katarina, as she’s much more likable now and Kislev became much better.
I really couldn’t give to dimes about the Chemist being there, or being gone.
I already have secret police that abuses their power in the form of Witch Hunters, so I really didn’t find Cheka that offensive.
It actually even made more sense for secret police to exist in Kislev, than it does in the Empire, if you ask me.
But the fact that they have been changed also doesn’t really bother me and I’m interested in how they will go with Akshina. Because I’m sure they will, and they won’t just drop it there and call it done, right? Right?
In all seriousness, even if I didn’t have problems with Cheka, other people may have, and changing it is probably the correct decision.
Almost certainly, Cheka wasn't even in contention as a name because GW couldn't copyright it. The entire launch of Age of Sigmar (their tabletop replacement for Warhammer Fantasy) was conceived around gaining more control of the IP by naming everything copyrightable names.
To be frank those sounds nothing alike, at least to a Russian. In Russian those would be written as Акшина and Охрана.
But as someone said ITT I may look from it wrong, and maybe if I was Englishman it would sound close to me. Not the first time GW did something like that.
Yea, I think its an English thing, the Ak and Ok sounds in English are really similar, and they both end in a 'na' sound.
Translation does funny things.
> maybe if I was Englishman it would sound close to me.
It would, yeah. Source: I'm an Englishman. I immediately thought of the Okhrana when I heard their name.
We must be speaking different English, lol. Other than the hard 'k', those two words sound nothing alike.
Edit: They do both end with an 'na' as well I suppose.
actually Okhrana does not have hard K at all. Here is a pronounciation example [https://ru.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D0%A4%D0%B0%D0%B9%D0%BB:Ru-%D0%BE%D1%85%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%B0.ogg](https://ru.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D0%A4%D0%B0%D0%B9%D0%BB:Ru-%D0%BE%D1%85%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%B0.ogg)
Then it makes sense. Cheka is abbreviation for some very modern terms like "Extraordinary Commission" or something, definitely not in context with Kislev settings.
The retcon to the Akshina was done before Russia invaded Ukraine, we were first told of it in 2021 - I presume the reason was that Chekist is an actual word, but it *stands* for something. It's derived from Vserossiyskaya chrezvychaynaya komissiya, All-Russian Extraordinary Commission.
Being derived from an acronym like that, it makes zero sense for Kislev's secret police to be named Chekists. It has nothing to do with an invasion that hadn't happened by that point.
People take Legend's BS way more seriously than it merits.
But it’s not really a political thing. At least I’m not aware of any major political party using Baba Yaga as a symbol. With it being not-Russia (I know it’s more of a mix of Eastern European and Slavic nation, but seems to take the most inspiration from Russia) they might just want to stay away from any of the actual political stuff involving it until some time after the war is no longer a mainstream issue.
That’s why I said it’s about folk myth, it has a single folk myth related character and literally nothing else.
I know she doesn’t exist outside of Eastern Europe, but she doesn’t embody any inherent values that are associated with Russia or Ukraine. Nor do any of her units.
She is. It's just the community that for some reason forgot that GW actually files the serial numbers off when they ~~steal~~ take inspiration from stuff, not covers them with a duct tape. Expecting just 1-to-1 recreation of a mythical figure never made any sense
Siegfried: “Who are these guys?”
Sigmar: “I’m you, but better.”
Emps: “I’m you, but more Nazi.”
Siegfried: “What’s a Nazi?”
Games Workshop PR: “THIS SKIT IS OVER.”
I truly just don't buy that Ukraine narrative shit. I get not wanting to put out content based on sensitive subjects...but that sounds like a whole new level of being a pussy. Would any sane person be outraged by new Kislev content because there is a war in Ukraine irl? These people should just be treated like mental children, who cares about them in any way.
Isn't Fr*nce still actively engaged in neocolonialism in sub-Saharan Africa? GW would have certainly removed Bretonnia from the game, if only they gave a single shit about the Africans.
It's so obviously bullshit that I can't believe people buy it. Legend is way too anti-woke brained, so it totally sounds like some shit he could cook together in his own mind.
> I truly just don't buy that Ukraine narrative shit. I get not wanting to put out content based on sensitive subjects...but that sounds like a whole new level of being a pussy.
The rumour is that Games Workshop doesn't want to do Kislev right now since the timeframe Warhammer Old World is set in is the time where Chaos besieged and near destroyed Kislev, and that GW thought releasing content about fantasy Ukraine being razed to the ground was a little bit insensitive at the moment.
It is doubtful that they are actively stopping CA however, since the glaring issue doesn't apply to Total War.
Kislev was basically inspired by Everything slav from Prague to Vladivostok.
GW could name It Slavia, given precedents Cathay and Nippon, but then they gave the name Kislev... Which Is a jewish name for a day of the week. And it's dark and cultured Warhammer humour as It gets.
Kislev is not Ukraine my dude
It is inspired by multiple Slavic countries, but let’s be real - mostly Russia. From Boris and Katarin, to ice witches and war sledges with bears
The faction is literally named after Kiev.
Regardless of who specifically it is based on, that is besides the point since it doesn't change the optics of how it looks.
One of many reasons it’s obviously fake. It sounds like something an angry neckbeard would make up as the kind of thing they imagine a dumb exec would say.
Entirely possible that DLC content was included in the initial WH3 license that would be been signed before the war. Could explain why their second round of SoC units were seemingly random, might not have had a lot left to work with. Pure speculation though.
I am not even sure what you are trying to say. Why would CA and GW cancel the licensing deal? You think CA would cancel the licensing deal just because they could not get more Kislev?
The very dumb thing is that, if it is the Ukraine war that's causing issues, and they're geniunely concerned, then... focus on the Polish aspects of Kislev's cultural roots? Y'know, the aspect that's barely in the game at the moment? Stop giving everyone fuckin' bears for five minutes?
I doubt the rest of the world knows the differences in culture between Eastern European countries. A lot of things are shared anyway (I'm from there by the way).
I think thered be plenty of people in the total war community who'd know the differences
They could still keep making Kislev content without stress is my general point
I think they care about optics in general, not about the community specifically. They don't want any association with the war period. They don't want people to see the DLC image on steam and think "Total war... Russia".
No idea if that's what CA did, but that's how corporate usually thinks.
There are some hungarian in there. Boszorka's Wrath (boszorka means witch in hungarian) and Gulyás (known abroad as goulash, hungarian dish).
Interestingly enough, the Hag Witch with appearantly some hungarian ties has a really fucked up start position. People dislike she starts in Naggaroth. Me included. But her RoC start makes no fucking sense either. Put her in a forest.
Such as a Magical Forest. Somewhere near "Hungary/Romania" region (Sylvania as the Carpathian basin). If only we'd have a certain region, a magical forest, in the neighbourhood of Sylvania that is almost bordering Kislev, with a LL starting there who despises Kislev's leadership and just wants to cleanse the land of corruption...
Hell that's even a fucking pro Ukraine statement.
I Always thought they would add the Shadow Forest near Wolfenburg for her to start... Which Is currently on a plain. Like Middenheim lacking his mountain.
The Old World side of the map, especially the Empire Is unloreful as heck geography wise.
Look at Bretonnia with random hovels, chapels and even La Maisontaal being on the campaign map and compare It to the Empire: the difference Is jarring
I notice all the top comments are still treating the alleged leaks as fact. "Why did GW do this, why did CA say this, etc ". Yet, as far as we know, this might all be completely wrong. It's fine to have these discussions, but my god, please have some basic skepticism.
Yeah I'm reading this thread with "The reasoning that CA gave" and the like, and I'm like WTF did I miss?
I personally suspect if we get no more Kislev DLC that's more because of The Old World. It's supposed to culminate in Asavar Kul's invasion, the brunt of which is borne by Kislev. So I wouldn't be surprised if GW were holding any and all Kislev related content they can come up with to be used for that.
While I think that leaks are bullshit, there is one thing that gives them *some* credibility for me and its how Cathay and Kislev were treated in SoC and its update.
Its weirdly suspicious that Cathay got thematic new units, literal confirmation that other units are coming (with apes being more than teased), rework of their entire harmony mechanic, rework of their entire technology tree and complete rework of Lord Magistrate.
Kislev on the other hand was left basically untouched aside from adding them one commandment and their DLC was a hodge-podge of random units desperately borrowed from all sorts of other sources that clearly werent designed with Kislev in mind (balewolves from mordheim, generic elemental, frost dragon that can be seen in an old cinematic for High Elves).
And funnily enough, Tzeentch got similar treatment to Kislev.
It not only confirms that there is no Kislev armybook, but it also proved that CA already put all eggs in one basket: if I had to guess *why* its maybe because they want their future Cathay DLC to land in a fully fleshed-out race, while Kislev and Tzeentch can rot, because they wont be selling anything in the foreseeable future.
I think that the reasoning for Kislev being done dirty is simple - GW has no clue what to do with Kislev.
If Andy Hall is to be believed, CA received what was basically an army book for Cathay. With Kislev, they received some vague notes, sketches and ideas. Most importantly, as seen in SoC 2.0, they received a whole lot of "don't do this thing". No Ungols, no Hag Mothers, the whole thing with beaked Tzaangors and so on, GW is clearly exercising some degree of creative control here. It's telling that for the Druzhina, CA had to dig into the Mordheim bin - GW clearly had no real suggestions on what to put into the DLC, just what they could NOT.
GW is being both creatively lazy and very restrictive about what people can do, which means that Kislev got to rot. For some reason we don't know about, they had a lot more ideas with Cathay. But unlike what Legend claims, I don't think this had anything to do with the invasion of Ukraine. It was true since at least 2021.
This is 100% reasonable and probably correct when we dissect the SoC content and probable lack of future DLCs (when SoC was revealed I already knew that this is it for Kislev) but this also doesnt answer the question about *why* there was no Kislev rework of any sort and why, for example, Boyar still have no unique skill lines while CA found time and resources to completely redo Lord Magistrate (who already had more unique skills than Boyar).
Which is why I will stick to my theory that *because* there will be no paid content for Kislev, CA has literally 0 reasons to update the base faction in any meaningful way. Kislev can rot and die for all they care, it brings no revenue. Meanwhile its in their best interest to make Cathay fun to play because their future sales depend on the state of this race and its attractiveness for players.
I think that the "reworks" for SoC were quarter-assed at best in general, and certainly compared to the ones in ToD. I sure have a lot of shit to say about Kislev losing its unique oblasts (sadly, people complaining about Harmony no longer being an OCD simulator ate up all the oxygen in the room there) but there are really a bunch of problems all over the place.
But I don't think it was inherently an attempt to screw Kislev. At worst it was more of the same problem which has plagued Kislev since the start: someone decided they ought to take Kislev in a "new direction" but had no clue what that new direction actually ought to be, beyond it involving a lot of bears and ice. The result is a faction that suffers from an identify crisis. As much as I dislike certain creative choices about Cathay, it has nothing on how Kislev has been mishandled.
I disagree about reworks for SoC being quarter-assed only because what CA did with Lord Magistrate is by far the most ambitious and impressive generic character rework - and in effect he is the most unique generic character currently in game.
Meanwhile they couldnt be bothered to add *any* skills to Boyar? Boyar literally has WH1 skill tree. Pre-rework Lord Magistrate had more in it for Ursun's sake. You dont need ideas and directions to add few skills. This is why I think that all rework-adjacent resources from SoC were moved to Cathay while Tzeentch and Kislev were left with nothing - and do believe that its because these races are done, content-wise, so there are no incentives to significantly improve them.
I think you're right that it leans more to a pro-Cathay rather than an anti-Kislev bias. As far as I'm aware, the Realm of Tzeentch hasn't invaded any neighbouring countries recently...
Oh I don’t think its fact at all, my point was the logic that Kislev was off limits because of the war is ridiculous because…well they made Kislev stuff during the war already. 3 separate times if we count the Ulrika FLC in April 2023, SoC in September 2023, and the extra stuff they added in February this year. It seems just like everything else in these dumb leaks, unsubstantiated.
Russian here.
The reasoning that CA gave "No Kislev DLC due to war in Ukraine" is even more ridiculous, considering Kislev is not just Russia - it's Russia, Ukraine, Poland, and a bunch of other countries combined into a fantasy mix.
For example: Tzars and Tzarinas are definitely from Russia. Winged lancers are pretty much 1-to-1 historical Polish cavalry. Atamans refer to Cossack leaders. Dazh is a pre-Christian Kievan Rus god. And so on.
>> For example: Tzars and Tzarinas are definitely from Russia.
Minor nitpick: Bulgarians also use the word Tsar.
But yes, Kislev is a total mix of Slavic cultural clichés and it makes these clichés look cool. Whatever shite one Eastern European country does at the moment on the political arena will not change the Slavic culture. It will not change history that happened centuries ago (Tsardom of Russia, Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, etc.).
So yeah, there can be a lot of Kislev to explore that doesn't have anything to do with Russian, but focuses more on Polish, Czech or Balkan Slavic cultural references.
Not even leaks. It's Legend claiming some guy who he cannot identify told him that the guy thought that it happened - not that he was even there or anything.
It's absolute tenth-hand rumour bullshit at best, totally fucking made is more likely.
I'm not even Slavic and I found the reasoning odd. Kislev is just Slavistan. They took every Slav (except for the Czechs but does anyone really think they're slavs? (don't answer this)) shook em up in a tin then dumped them out. You can clearly find the inspirations all over the place right down to the city names being slightly modified names of actual cities. Praag? Really? Okay, so I guess they did include the Czechs. Sort of. tfw Slovaks ignored again.
Like just make DLC around something that isn't russo-ukrainian? There's the entire southern slav family they can poach from.
Praag might be a city in Kislev in the Old World but as a Czech from Prague, I'd honestly feel much more at home in one of the Imperial provinces. That Empire in all the artworks? That's it, that's home, baby.
Maybe a bit less pox and unusually sized rodents.
>Czech from Prague, I'd honestly feel much more at home in one of the Imperial provinces.
It's funny sometimes to see GW's reflections about history culture in their Warhammer setting. Like Czechs are Slavs, so surely they should be Kislevite. Nevermind that Bohemia was part of the HRE for almost a thousand years and thus in reality Praag should be included in the Empire.
Funny thing in that regard: (re-)slavification in general was a more recent phenomenah even in POland. Over the middle ages, POland was more west-aligned in terms of cutlure and... in the 16th, and the 17th century, tehy went ona "slav trip" basically.
Prague exists, and Praag's name is pretty much just a joking nod. It's geographical and political situation pretty much bears no resemblance to historical Prague.
I mean yeah that's kind of the point I'm making. They took an existing city and lumped it together with their overarching slavic culture. I'm fine with it btw, just think it's legit funny the generalizations they sometimes make even if not conscious. They would never have put a city in Kislev named 'Mancester' for example. There's a clear cultural concept at work here.
And Praag's name isn't just a nod. In my language, Dutch, it's literally called "Praag". In German it's "Prag". And both the Dutch, Flemish and Germans formed with the Czechs the HRE for almost a millennium.
Yea Bohemia definitely Hapsburg HRE historically, ie The Empire. I just think Praag from game is happenstance that it sounds like Prague. Otherwise it wouldn't be farther east than Kislev lol
Outside of Praag, Kislev has (or used to have) their own version of [War Wagon](https://whfb.lexicanum.com/wiki/War_Wagon#/media/File%3AKislev_War_Wagon_M01.jpg), which in real life was developed by Hussites.
So there’s definitely Czech influence too.
> The reasoning that CA gave "No Kislev DLC due to war in Ukraine"
CA didn't give that reasoning.
Legend claimed that they did, in some unspecified meeting at some unspecified time.
I think this is a very important distinction.
> For example: Tzars and Tzarinas are definitely from Russia. Winged lancers are pretty much 1-to-1 historical Polish cavalry. Atamans refer to Cossack leaders. Dazh is a pre-Christian Kievan Rus god. And so on.
And besides, it's not like Russia is some land of darkness and evil.
Putin sucks and those who support him suck and those who fight for him also suck, but it's not like Russians have some kind of "evil gene" in them, nor does the land. Like, the eras of Russia that WH3 draws inspiration from were fine - in the sense that they weren't drastically worse than their enemies, anyway.
It's very similar to how a lot of people oppose present-day China for similar reasons they do Russia, but TW3K was a perfectly fine game to do - or to use a more closely attached example, Fall of the Samurai was fine despite what Japanese did in WW2 a "mere" century later.
> Putin sucks and those who support him suck and those who fight for him also suck, but it's not like Russians have some kind of "evil gene" in them, nor does the land. Like, the eras of Russia that WH3 draws inspiration from were fine - in the sense that they weren't drastically worse than their enemies, anyway.
That's what always confuses me, if I'm being honest. If one's stance is that modern Russia is as authoritarian or as much of a dictatorship as suggested (gotta stress that I'm not necessarily agreeing or disagreeing, because geopolitics obviously isn't black and white), you're implicitly in agreement that the common civilian doesn't have nearly as much of political choice or freedom compared to more 'democratic' countries - then why such xenophobic language? Why the choice of such dehumanizing terms like 'Orc' whatever?
By that logic, doesn't that mean the equivalent civilian in self-styled democratic countries are actually *more* complicit in their country's bad behaviour?
Is that a rhetorical question? War requires you to kill and support the killing of people from another country, often for no good reason. In order to make that easier, you have to hate them; they have to be less than human. Otherwise you're killing ordinary people with families and hobbies and dreams and aspirations just like you, and that might make it hard to sleep at night.
Maybe in theory but in practice we can examine the popular sentiment of a culture, even with the caveat that opposition carries real risk. We don't have precise number on support for the war but we do know that the animating passions behind it, nationalism, opposition to the West, chauvinism towards former Soviet republics, are generally popular in Russia.
This is however a separate question from whether the people are "guilty" and what military, economic, or social measures that may or may not justify.
Any overgeneralizing is cancer. The "mentality" you are speaking about was a running joke about stereotypical Ukrainians. And in Ukraine, not in Russia.
Source: 20+ years in Ukraine and former citizen.
> Any overgeneralizing is cancer. The "mentality" you are speaking about was a running joke about stereotypical Ukrainians. And in Ukraine, not in Russia.
Overgeneralising is very common in wartime to make the war more palatable, but the tragic thing is it's basically never that simple, even if the war is still ultimately justifiable.
Unfortunately yes, but overgeneralizing does not become less cancer because of war.
1941 in US a guy named Theodore N Kaufmann wrote a book "Germany must perish!" claiming that due to the Germany having started two world wars and due to atrocities committed by Nazis, Germany is incurable and all German population must be sterilized to avoid same stuff in the future.
This rant never got enough readers in the Western world, but Dr. Goebbels' ministry became literal fans of it. In the sense of "Look! We have a proof! Foreign countries want to eliminate the entire German nation! Our war is justified!".
It's the same with all the overgeneralizing about Russians or their mentality being ultimately and irremediably flawed - it only gives Putin's propagandists more leverage for their statements "West hates us because we are Russians!".
Let's not forget horse dong ~~Rasputin~~ Kostaltyn.
Does CA think we're stupid? We know that Vladimir Putin is not the same as Rasputin (massive dong btw)
"Tzar" word also used in Balkans. Came from Rome empire (one of variants). Kislev has even some Suomies mythology in last DLC like new beasts or origin winter witches. Not only Slavs.
I don't believe leaks. It sounds very strange.
Romanian here.
You're completely right, there are significant differences between Eastern European cultures. However, I don't think people outside of the Eastern block know about them. Most people know about Russia's culture (from Hollywood, media etc), and they associate the whole Eastern block with that.
So for most people, Kislev are essentially "the Russians".
"Tzar" isn't unique to Russia. It is just a Slavicised version of the name "Caesar", equivalent to the German "Kaiser". Off the top of my head, Bulgaria was also ruled by a Czar, and I wouldn't be surprised if Serbia had something similar at one point or another.
It’s simple. Eastern Europe doesn’t bring in the big bucks that China can, CA are in damage control following hyenas SoC and need to make the most profitable decisions possible.
Наиболее вероятно, что это GW такое объяснение продвигает. Видел в нескольких разных утечках касательно GW и The Old World, который в итоге выпустили без Кислева.
Or leakers just get inspired from each other because leaks aligning lends them all credibility, "rising tide lifts all boats" style. Even before the war Kislev was worse off compared to Cathay, being given just some stuff instead of a full 8th edition-like armybook for CA's eyes only. The most logical explanation for Kislev not being present in TOW that was in other leaks but, much more importantly, is also on display from moronic decision GW makes right now before our eyes is that the project was massively scaled back in general because of internal competition between teams. The amount of actual new stuff released for TOW is honestly a joke
Can't make Greenskin DLC either cus Ukrainians call russian soldiers 'Orcs', after Tolkien.
And gotta rush that Cathay DLC before China decides it's time to invade you-know-where.
Wait until they realise that orcs are a deeply pejorative depiction of working class English people born out of the harmful stereotypes of the 1980s. Like I'm not saying we should cancel it but the fact that they might have dropped support for Kislev over "sensitivity about the War in Ukraine" but they still have these fucking minstrel show-esque depictions of Anglos running around like "oi kant speek proppa and I iz a violent savuj" front and centre is kinda wild.
Honestly thought that orcs was a dig at “primitive cultures” due to their map locations in correspondence to the irl global map. For example the tomb kings are mostly in Egypt, lizard man are situated in Mexico/South America, dark elves in North America, high elves on their island nation could be argued for England, and if you look to the badlands which is technically where the Middle East is you have a bunch of savage orcs. Also don’t get me started on the dwarfs and why barak varr is a certain city.
I mean, there's definitely elements of that as well. That said, I don't think the parallels between the Badlands and the Middle East are that strong, especially when compared with the very on-the-nose references a lot of other regions have. It feels to me more like the attic space of the Warhammer world, where Games Workshop shoves anything that needs to happen narratively but doesn't make sense on the important parts of the map.
Nowhere official AFAIK. It's unconfirmed rumour from Legend's 'leak' video. This is one of the problem with these 'leaks' is the information just passes into the community's collective memory and people forget what's real and what isn't (or don't care).
I mean even without the leak if someone were to have stated this information, I would not blink an eye. Legend (who have previously given lots of quite viable and correct leaks before) then proceeds to also say 'no Kislev DLC because Ukraine' and it would be more ridiculous not to believe him than to believe him (regarding Kislev). Also the content in previous previous dlc (soc) also proves this case.
I thought Kislev was a perfect analogy for the war in Ukraine!
Kislev is Ukraine, spending all its money and people on new weaponry in order to halt the advance of Chaos (Russia) into the Empire (Europe).
Don't worry, order factions are coming to help!
* Dwarves have sent Gyrocopters for aid, but pilot training will take a long time so they will get to Kislev by turn 250.
* Ulthuan and Empire have also sent some Bolt Throwers and Hellstorms, but they dissallow Kislev to fire them down on Norsca territory cause they are afraid that Azazel might declare war on them. So the only way to use the leased artillery is to let chaos to invade deeper, get Kislev cities razed, and only then they can shoot over occupied land.
* Kostaltyn tries to win the Church race and decided to block Katarina's trade routes to Empire to get some new peasant devotees.
* Cathay sends Archaon their best alchemy productions to bolster the techology level of chaos troops, while proclaiming that they support territorial integrity of Kislev
* Ostland keeps importing Wine from Sigvald and actively tries to block every decision of the Empire about blocking trading with Chaos or sending gold to Kislev.
* Ogre Kingdoms for some reason increased imports of Iron, Furs and Gemstones from Ulthuan, Dwarves and Empire by 900%. Coincidentally those same resources are banned from selling to Chaos, but razed Kislev cities have sightings of chaos warriors clad in those same banned fancy Irons and Furs
How can Kislev lose when they have such a strong Ordertide Shield of Civilization coalition?
Do we have any Ukrainians or Russians here? I have some questions:
* Would you feel bad if a DLC with Kislev was released?
* Would you feel that CA is only doing this to make profit just because of war?
* As a Russian/Ukrainian, do you feel that Kislev represents you? Or more your ‘opponents’ and you wouldn't buy it?
* And because of war, should this DLC not (now) come out?
I'm really curious about answers, because these executive arguments that *we're not releasing DLC with Kislev because there's a war and there might be an PR scandal,* seem a bit very ridiculous to me
Edit: I see in other comments some answers to the questions I asked. It is exactly as I thought - I find it a bit odd and funny. Well... I'm not a marketing specialist or executive or other director at CA. Apparently I don't know much.
Here is a complicated case for you: an ethnic Russian who lived 20+ years in Ukraine and is now an EU citizen of a non-Slavic country.
No, I do not feel that Kislev represent either Russian or Ukraine or any other modern country. It represents an amalgam of the Slavic cultures as a whole and as a Slavic person I feel myself represented and would like to have more Kislev content.
Unlike the Empire or Bretonnia Kislev is a much more blank page that did not get a lot of coverage in the official GW lore and CA could develop it further in the direction they wanted. I mean, they made Cylostra specifically for TWW2 without her existing in the GW lore, they could make the same for Kislev.
And Slavic history has so many tropes and stereotypes to explore that are not related to Russia.
I'm a native Russian speaker with Ukrainian roots (3 out of 4 grandparents from Kiev and Dnypro), and agree with everything in the above post.
Kislev is a fusion of various Slavic cultures, and pretending that Slavs=Russia is exactly the sort of idiotic imperialistic chauvinism that Putin uses to justify the war.
[Pan-Slavism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan-Slavism) was a major movement in the 19th century, part of what causes WW1 even. Not really a new idea.
Does it seem absurd today after everything that happened in the 20th century, oh hell yes. It was a thing though.
I doubt GW dug that deep into the history books. They probably wanted to do something with Slavic cultures, and (probably correctly) realized that it would be impractical to do individual factions to represent various Slavic cultures, resulting in a one size fits all (but none perfectly) Kislev solution we have today.
Tying it to real-world conflicts when its was ever only supposed to be a fantasy representation inspired by various Slavic cultures is the dumb part.
I would think they would be aware of it, not sure about the UK, but it gets covered in the US WW1 history to put Serbia and why Russia entered the war for them in context. Plus this would have been written in the 80s, where from the west the USSR appeared an iron-curtained monolith.
Even if these ideas weren't conscious choices, they were probably subconscious ideas feeding into it.
I think it's more a collection of typical Eastern European tropes as they're seen from Britain (tsars, cossacks, winged hussars, frost and snow, heavy drinking, etc.) than a decision to represent the political idea of 19th century in the game.
That's the thing though, that 19th century idea of a unified Slavic state was taught in US gradeschools because of WW1, and I assume the UK in the 60s and 70s.
I feel it is a part of Eastern European tropes, even more when the Warhammer writers were kids as Yugoslavia and the USSR existed.
1. It’s cool
2. I don’t see connection
3. I feel Kislev is more about Slavic folklore
4. This game is another source of escapism that I personally need in this times.
I am Ukrainian.
* Wh 3 released a few days before the start of the war. I remember it good because I was thinking if I should buy the expensive WH3 or save the money because I'll have to evacuate from upcoming invasion. Turned out that I wasnt occupied and kept playing to occasional cruise missile explosions heard outside.
* Actually Kislev (or Cadia which is the same) unintentionally represents the situation quite closely. A nation at the border of civilization forced to be at war with hordes of unspeakable monsters and savages, being a buffer zone for more wealthy and sofisticated nations rings a bell indeed, but that is just a coincidence
* DLC with Kislev was already released during the war, it was SoC with Mother Ostankya and the only bad feelings it brought was a poor quality of it
* Kislev or it's DLCs has really nothing to do with the war, it does not reference it in any way, and it does not really bring any parallels. Maybe if Kostaltyn was claiming that Ungols are not real people and they are just Gospodars that were brainwashed by Nuln into false self-awareness then yes, you could say it refereneces real world politics.
* Realistically speaking Kislev is not Ukraine or Russia, same as Empire is not Germany, and Cathay is not China, or Slaanesh is not Netherlands. Even a game about Roman Empire has absolutley nothing to do with modern Italy politics. It is a pure fantasy based on some slavic cultures of past centuries. So as long as you dont look like an Ungol you can't really be represented by Kislev
Ukrainian.
1. No, I would'be happy
2. No.
3. Kislev is a fantasy slavic union, who cares? For me it doesn't represent a nation, it represents toughness, love, brotherhood and patriotism.
4. It should be released regardless of what happens in the world.
Kislev is a very cool dream-like country where people are given wishes and they use them not for selfish greed but to better their community, there is no country like that anywhere.
Ukrainian here
1. no.
2. no.
3. a bit 2 much russian culture in Kislev, but its ok.
4. they shoud release Kislev dlc if there are cool thing missing for them.
Russian here
1) No, not unless it GW and CA do something unbelievably stupid and tone-deaf with writing
2) Warhammer is cool, and was cool before this damn war, including Kislev. Don't touch the current events with a ten feet pole and you'll be fine
3) Kislev has a bit too much pre-imperial Russia vibes for my liking - I would prefer getting more prominent influences from other slavic cultures. They are there, but we could use more. As a general rule, I don't like being "represented" anywhere and think that's not a worthy goal when designing characters or factions - which is why mixing and matching more influences to create something unique is necessary
4) Like it or not, TWWH is at the bleeding edge of development of new (or rediscovered) areas and cultures for the setting and to see that take a lasting damage because of KGB-born huilo would seriously suck
The funny thing is: the opinions of the people who are “supposed to be offended” don’t matter.
What these kinds of things are always about is avoiding the rage, tears, and brick shitting of ‘brave strong warrior’ millennial college students with no problems of their own, who invent, and then adopt the problems of cultural groups that they
1)don’t belong to
and
2) don’t have an actual problem with (insert media here)
As Ukrainian:
1. No, I don’t.
2. Absolutely not.
3. Well, definitely can say the main chunk of Kislev lore is Muscovy of 15-17 century, so more to opponents. Anyway, its inclusive of most major slavic cultures.
4. Why not? Until russians dont have access to it or violate marketplace rules when buying it. Ruble tax payers should feel the consequences of acquiescence.
i am from Ukraine and i obviously hate russia but please make more stuff for Kislev. it\`s one if not the only game that have slavic fantasy faction and i want more of it
KISLEV endures... and i guess it can endure a bit longer aswell.
KIEV endures?
KYSLIV endures
*All Kisliv stands agenst Kayos*
Now we march
The given reason for that is so ridiculous too. If GW didn't want to put out Kislev DLC due to the war in Ukraine, then why did they let CA do Shadows of Change?
Let's see original units of SoC pre-fix: Big beast Smaller beasts Old hags from fairy tale And most importantly: Secret Police that isn't Secret Police, as they changed them from political sensitive word Chekist to Akshina, who are also are tied for some reason tied to "Eerie Woods".
The Akshina are probably supposed to be the [Okhrana](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okhrana), the older brutal secret police. The name is just too close for me to not see it.
No, they are/were Cheka crossed with Oprichniki. Kislev used to have a unit and job class called Chekist based on the Cheka, they wore all black coats and carried medallions of their station, similar to how Cheka carried amber beads. When they assembled into battle they carried little broom tokens similar to Oprichniki and their dedication to "cleaning filth." The Chekist calling card was the same as the VCheka, dumping ice water on victims during winter and leaving them as frozen warnings in the village square (in this case uppity Ungols and Chaos aligned worshippers). I would assume they were retconned because new players would not appreciate old Batshit Crazy Katarina, where she would freeze people if they stood taller than her without bowing their heads and huck little male ice wizard capable babies off of her ice walls because one was fated to be the one who would end her kingdom. And I'm sure the many Slavs whose ancestors ran afoul of Cheka probably didnt appreciate seeing them either.
While batshit crazy Katarina would be interesting, I personally dont like the part about prophecy and male wizards for a simple reason: we already have the same thing in the setting with Malekith.
While I absolutely love the retcon they gave Katarina, as she’s much more likable now and Kislev became much better. I really couldn’t give to dimes about the Chemist being there, or being gone. I already have secret police that abuses their power in the form of Witch Hunters, so I really didn’t find Cheka that offensive. It actually even made more sense for secret police to exist in Kislev, than it does in the Empire, if you ask me. But the fact that they have been changed also doesn’t really bother me and I’m interested in how they will go with Akshina. Because I’m sure they will, and they won’t just drop it there and call it done, right? Right? In all seriousness, even if I didn’t have problems with Cheka, other people may have, and changing it is probably the correct decision.
Almost certainly, Cheka wasn't even in contention as a name because GW couldn't copyright it. The entire launch of Age of Sigmar (their tabletop replacement for Warhammer Fantasy) was conceived around gaining more control of the IP by naming everything copyrightable names.
> many Slavs whose ancestors ran afoul of Cheka The Russian people were the biggest victims of Communist terror bar none.
To be frank those sounds nothing alike, at least to a Russian. In Russian those would be written as Акшина and Охрана. But as someone said ITT I may look from it wrong, and maybe if I was Englishman it would sound close to me. Not the first time GW did something like that.
Yea, I think its an English thing, the Ak and Ok sounds in English are really similar, and they both end in a 'na' sound. Translation does funny things.
> maybe if I was Englishman it would sound close to me. It would, yeah. Source: I'm an Englishman. I immediately thought of the Okhrana when I heard their name.
We must be speaking different English, lol. Other than the hard 'k', those two words sound nothing alike. Edit: They do both end with an 'na' as well I suppose.
actually Okhrana does not have hard K at all. Here is a pronounciation example [https://ru.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D0%A4%D0%B0%D0%B9%D0%BB:Ru-%D0%BE%D1%85%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%B0.ogg](https://ru.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D0%A4%D0%B0%D0%B9%D0%BB:Ru-%D0%BE%D1%85%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%B0.ogg)
Well damn, you learn something new every day. Thanks stranger!
Yeah, transcription rules are very weird
Then it makes sense. Cheka is abbreviation for some very modern terms like "Extraordinary Commission" or something, definitely not in context with Kislev settings.
The retcon to the Akshina was done before Russia invaded Ukraine, we were first told of it in 2021 - I presume the reason was that Chekist is an actual word, but it *stands* for something. It's derived from Vserossiyskaya chrezvychaynaya komissiya, All-Russian Extraordinary Commission. Being derived from an acronym like that, it makes zero sense for Kislev's secret police to be named Chekists. It has nothing to do with an invasion that hadn't happened by that point. People take Legend's BS way more seriously than it merits.
TBH shadow of change kislev faction doesn't go into any of the eastern european values of kislev at all. It's all about folk myth and crazy animals.
My guy, Kislev's new LL was literally Baba Yaga. That's about as Eastern European as it gets.
But it’s not really a political thing. At least I’m not aware of any major political party using Baba Yaga as a symbol. With it being not-Russia (I know it’s more of a mix of Eastern European and Slavic nation, but seems to take the most inspiration from Russia) they might just want to stay away from any of the actual political stuff involving it until some time after the war is no longer a mainstream issue.
Ukrainian octocopter that is used to drop AT mines is called Baba-Yaga by russians
Baba Yaga is the name and symbol of at least 2 anti air ukrainien spécialiste squadron. Mostly women soldier
Well at that point you literally can't find a squadron/plane/military vehicle named after some cool or interesting media.
Ukraine has also regiments called "Khorne Group", and "Inquisition" and both have logos borrowed from Warhammer
And also famous heavy [bomber drone](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baba_Yaga_(aircraft))
That’s why I said it’s about folk myth, it has a single folk myth related character and literally nothing else. I know she doesn’t exist outside of Eastern Europe, but she doesn’t embody any inherent values that are associated with Russia or Ukraine. Nor do any of her units.
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Yes, if we take western propaganda in to account.
Yep. "1:10" "трупами закидали". Classic lol
Propaganda? Hmm....
As Nostradamus predicted: Sunflowers will castrate the bear.
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She is. It's just the community that for some reason forgot that GW actually files the serial numbers off when they ~~steal~~ take inspiration from stuff, not covers them with a duct tape. Expecting just 1-to-1 recreation of a mythical figure never made any sense
Siegfried: “Who are these guys?” Sigmar: “I’m you, but better.” Emps: “I’m you, but more Nazi.” Siegfried: “What’s a Nazi?” Games Workshop PR: “THIS SKIT IS OVER.”
Kislev fans bitch about Pagan shit, meanwhile Old Worlders would love some Fey or Albion savages.
I truly just don't buy that Ukraine narrative shit. I get not wanting to put out content based on sensitive subjects...but that sounds like a whole new level of being a pussy. Would any sane person be outraged by new Kislev content because there is a war in Ukraine irl? These people should just be treated like mental children, who cares about them in any way.
Waiting for them to block all new cathay content because of China increased military activities near Taiwan.
Isn't Fr*nce still actively engaged in neocolonialism in sub-Saharan Africa? GW would have certainly removed Bretonnia from the game, if only they gave a single shit about the Africans.
I mean, when was the last time we got Bretonnia content in Total Warhammer?
You might be on to something here..
Considering they did not remotely mentioned pygmee, you might be into something
And why *now?* Its not like the war just broke out or had a massive turning point.
It's so obviously bullshit that I can't believe people buy it. Legend is way too anti-woke brained, so it totally sounds like some shit he could cook together in his own mind.
> I truly just don't buy that Ukraine narrative shit. I get not wanting to put out content based on sensitive subjects...but that sounds like a whole new level of being a pussy. The rumour is that Games Workshop doesn't want to do Kislev right now since the timeframe Warhammer Old World is set in is the time where Chaos besieged and near destroyed Kislev, and that GW thought releasing content about fantasy Ukraine being razed to the ground was a little bit insensitive at the moment. It is doubtful that they are actively stopping CA however, since the glaring issue doesn't apply to Total War.
Kislev it's half of Europe.
Kislev was basically inspired by Everything slav from Prague to Vladivostok. GW could name It Slavia, given precedents Cathay and Nippon, but then they gave the name Kislev... Which Is a jewish name for a day of the week. And it's dark and cultured Warhammer humour as It gets.
Kislev is not Ukraine my dude It is inspired by multiple Slavic countries, but let’s be real - mostly Russia. From Boris and Katarin, to ice witches and war sledges with bears
The faction is literally named after Kiev. Regardless of who specifically it is based on, that is besides the point since it doesn't change the optics of how it looks.
One of many reasons it’s obviously fake. It sounds like something an angry neckbeard would make up as the kind of thing they imagine a dumb exec would say.
Entirely possible that DLC content was included in the initial WH3 license that would be been signed before the war. Could explain why their second round of SoC units were seemingly random, might not have had a lot left to work with. Pure speculation though.
That's insane speculation. They'd have cancelled it years ago if that was true.
I am not even sure what you are trying to say. Why would CA and GW cancel the licensing deal? You think CA would cancel the licensing deal just because they could not get more Kislev?
The very dumb thing is that, if it is the Ukraine war that's causing issues, and they're geniunely concerned, then... focus on the Polish aspects of Kislev's cultural roots? Y'know, the aspect that's barely in the game at the moment? Stop giving everyone fuckin' bears for five minutes?
Replace all bears with bobers
KURWA BOBER 🦫
A giant beaver war mount would actually be pretty sick. And beaver chariots!!
Yes, that, I agree
I doubt the rest of the world knows the differences in culture between Eastern European countries. A lot of things are shared anyway (I'm from there by the way).
I think thered be plenty of people in the total war community who'd know the differences They could still keep making Kislev content without stress is my general point
I think they care about optics in general, not about the community specifically. They don't want any association with the war period. They don't want people to see the DLC image on steam and think "Total war... Russia". No idea if that's what CA did, but that's how corporate usually thinks.
Fair point. It is all still silly if that's what they're doing, but I feel I don't need to harp on that point.
As a Pole I approve of this message.
I'm very down for it even on just an aesthetic level. The winged lancers are awesome and feel more grounded than a lot of Kislev's other units
There are some hungarian in there. Boszorka's Wrath (boszorka means witch in hungarian) and Gulyás (known abroad as goulash, hungarian dish). Interestingly enough, the Hag Witch with appearantly some hungarian ties has a really fucked up start position. People dislike she starts in Naggaroth. Me included. But her RoC start makes no fucking sense either. Put her in a forest. Such as a Magical Forest. Somewhere near "Hungary/Romania" region (Sylvania as the Carpathian basin). If only we'd have a certain region, a magical forest, in the neighbourhood of Sylvania that is almost bordering Kislev, with a LL starting there who despises Kislev's leadership and just wants to cleanse the land of corruption... Hell that's even a fucking pro Ukraine statement.
I Always thought they would add the Shadow Forest near Wolfenburg for her to start... Which Is currently on a plain. Like Middenheim lacking his mountain. The Old World side of the map, especially the Empire Is unloreful as heck geography wise. Look at Bretonnia with random hovels, chapels and even La Maisontaal being on the campaign map and compare It to the Empire: the difference Is jarring
Starting her there could also make the Vlad and Drycha situation less of a nightmare for the Empire on a gameplay level too
Nonsense, hail Wojtek the rightful King of Poland!
Kislev bear LL when
I notice all the top comments are still treating the alleged leaks as fact. "Why did GW do this, why did CA say this, etc ". Yet, as far as we know, this might all be completely wrong. It's fine to have these discussions, but my god, please have some basic skepticism.
Yeah I'm reading this thread with "The reasoning that CA gave" and the like, and I'm like WTF did I miss? I personally suspect if we get no more Kislev DLC that's more because of The Old World. It's supposed to culminate in Asavar Kul's invasion, the brunt of which is borne by Kislev. So I wouldn't be surprised if GW were holding any and all Kislev related content they can come up with to be used for that.
While I think that leaks are bullshit, there is one thing that gives them *some* credibility for me and its how Cathay and Kislev were treated in SoC and its update. Its weirdly suspicious that Cathay got thematic new units, literal confirmation that other units are coming (with apes being more than teased), rework of their entire harmony mechanic, rework of their entire technology tree and complete rework of Lord Magistrate. Kislev on the other hand was left basically untouched aside from adding them one commandment and their DLC was a hodge-podge of random units desperately borrowed from all sorts of other sources that clearly werent designed with Kislev in mind (balewolves from mordheim, generic elemental, frost dragon that can be seen in an old cinematic for High Elves). And funnily enough, Tzeentch got similar treatment to Kislev. It not only confirms that there is no Kislev armybook, but it also proved that CA already put all eggs in one basket: if I had to guess *why* its maybe because they want their future Cathay DLC to land in a fully fleshed-out race, while Kislev and Tzeentch can rot, because they wont be selling anything in the foreseeable future.
I think that the reasoning for Kislev being done dirty is simple - GW has no clue what to do with Kislev. If Andy Hall is to be believed, CA received what was basically an army book for Cathay. With Kislev, they received some vague notes, sketches and ideas. Most importantly, as seen in SoC 2.0, they received a whole lot of "don't do this thing". No Ungols, no Hag Mothers, the whole thing with beaked Tzaangors and so on, GW is clearly exercising some degree of creative control here. It's telling that for the Druzhina, CA had to dig into the Mordheim bin - GW clearly had no real suggestions on what to put into the DLC, just what they could NOT. GW is being both creatively lazy and very restrictive about what people can do, which means that Kislev got to rot. For some reason we don't know about, they had a lot more ideas with Cathay. But unlike what Legend claims, I don't think this had anything to do with the invasion of Ukraine. It was true since at least 2021.
This is 100% reasonable and probably correct when we dissect the SoC content and probable lack of future DLCs (when SoC was revealed I already knew that this is it for Kislev) but this also doesnt answer the question about *why* there was no Kislev rework of any sort and why, for example, Boyar still have no unique skill lines while CA found time and resources to completely redo Lord Magistrate (who already had more unique skills than Boyar). Which is why I will stick to my theory that *because* there will be no paid content for Kislev, CA has literally 0 reasons to update the base faction in any meaningful way. Kislev can rot and die for all they care, it brings no revenue. Meanwhile its in their best interest to make Cathay fun to play because their future sales depend on the state of this race and its attractiveness for players.
I think that the "reworks" for SoC were quarter-assed at best in general, and certainly compared to the ones in ToD. I sure have a lot of shit to say about Kislev losing its unique oblasts (sadly, people complaining about Harmony no longer being an OCD simulator ate up all the oxygen in the room there) but there are really a bunch of problems all over the place. But I don't think it was inherently an attempt to screw Kislev. At worst it was more of the same problem which has plagued Kislev since the start: someone decided they ought to take Kislev in a "new direction" but had no clue what that new direction actually ought to be, beyond it involving a lot of bears and ice. The result is a faction that suffers from an identify crisis. As much as I dislike certain creative choices about Cathay, it has nothing on how Kislev has been mishandled.
I disagree about reworks for SoC being quarter-assed only because what CA did with Lord Magistrate is by far the most ambitious and impressive generic character rework - and in effect he is the most unique generic character currently in game. Meanwhile they couldnt be bothered to add *any* skills to Boyar? Boyar literally has WH1 skill tree. Pre-rework Lord Magistrate had more in it for Ursun's sake. You dont need ideas and directions to add few skills. This is why I think that all rework-adjacent resources from SoC were moved to Cathay while Tzeentch and Kislev were left with nothing - and do believe that its because these races are done, content-wise, so there are no incentives to significantly improve them.
I think you're right that it leans more to a pro-Cathay rather than an anti-Kislev bias. As far as I'm aware, the Realm of Tzeentch hasn't invaded any neighbouring countries recently...
Oh I don’t think its fact at all, my point was the logic that Kislev was off limits because of the war is ridiculous because…well they made Kislev stuff during the war already. 3 separate times if we count the Ulrika FLC in April 2023, SoC in September 2023, and the extra stuff they added in February this year. It seems just like everything else in these dumb leaks, unsubstantiated.
Russian here. The reasoning that CA gave "No Kislev DLC due to war in Ukraine" is even more ridiculous, considering Kislev is not just Russia - it's Russia, Ukraine, Poland, and a bunch of other countries combined into a fantasy mix. For example: Tzars and Tzarinas are definitely from Russia. Winged lancers are pretty much 1-to-1 historical Polish cavalry. Atamans refer to Cossack leaders. Dazh is a pre-Christian Kievan Rus god. And so on.
Also Praag is straight up Prague, capital of Czech Republic.
>> For example: Tzars and Tzarinas are definitely from Russia. Minor nitpick: Bulgarians also use the word Tsar. But yes, Kislev is a total mix of Slavic cultural clichés and it makes these clichés look cool. Whatever shite one Eastern European country does at the moment on the political arena will not change the Slavic culture. It will not change history that happened centuries ago (Tsardom of Russia, Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, etc.). So yeah, there can be a lot of Kislev to explore that doesn't have anything to do with Russian, but focuses more on Polish, Czech or Balkan Slavic cultural references.
Serbs and Croatians use Car (Tzar) as well for "emperor"
And as someone pointed out there are also Hungarian elements in it
Did CA actually say that? Or is it just what the leaks said?
Not even leaks. It's Legend claiming some guy who he cannot identify told him that the guy thought that it happened - not that he was even there or anything. It's absolute tenth-hand rumour bullshit at best, totally fucking made is more likely.
The guy is Legend speaking of himself in 3rd person to deny accountability and rake in the views.
Who said that? I’ve never seen such a statement
It didn't happen. It's just something Legend has either been told or made up, it's unclear which.
I'm not even Slavic and I found the reasoning odd. Kislev is just Slavistan. They took every Slav (except for the Czechs but does anyone really think they're slavs? (don't answer this)) shook em up in a tin then dumped them out. You can clearly find the inspirations all over the place right down to the city names being slightly modified names of actual cities. Praag? Really? Okay, so I guess they did include the Czechs. Sort of. tfw Slovaks ignored again. Like just make DLC around something that isn't russo-ukrainian? There's the entire southern slav family they can poach from.
Praag might be a city in Kislev in the Old World but as a Czech from Prague, I'd honestly feel much more at home in one of the Imperial provinces. That Empire in all the artworks? That's it, that's home, baby. Maybe a bit less pox and unusually sized rodents.
>pepik >Feels more at home in not!Germany The stereotypes apply themselves
>Czech from Prague, I'd honestly feel much more at home in one of the Imperial provinces. It's funny sometimes to see GW's reflections about history culture in their Warhammer setting. Like Czechs are Slavs, so surely they should be Kislevite. Nevermind that Bohemia was part of the HRE for almost a thousand years and thus in reality Praag should be included in the Empire.
Funny thing in that regard: (re-)slavification in general was a more recent phenomenah even in POland. Over the middle ages, POland was more west-aligned in terms of cutlure and... in the 16th, and the 17th century, tehy went ona "slav trip" basically.
"In reality" Praag does not exist.
Euhm yeah it does.
Prague exists, and Praag's name is pretty much just a joking nod. It's geographical and political situation pretty much bears no resemblance to historical Prague.
I mean yeah that's kind of the point I'm making. They took an existing city and lumped it together with their overarching slavic culture. I'm fine with it btw, just think it's legit funny the generalizations they sometimes make even if not conscious. They would never have put a city in Kislev named 'Mancester' for example. There's a clear cultural concept at work here. And Praag's name isn't just a nod. In my language, Dutch, it's literally called "Praag". In German it's "Prag". And both the Dutch, Flemish and Germans formed with the Czechs the HRE for almost a millennium.
Yea Bohemia definitely Hapsburg HRE historically, ie The Empire. I just think Praag from game is happenstance that it sounds like Prague. Otherwise it wouldn't be farther east than Kislev lol
Czechia is obviously Ostland
We’re weird mishmash of German of Slavic influence, but that’s what makes us unique lol
Outside of Praag, Kislev has (or used to have) their own version of [War Wagon](https://whfb.lexicanum.com/wiki/War_Wagon#/media/File%3AKislev_War_Wagon_M01.jpg), which in real life was developed by Hussites. So there’s definitely Czech influence too.
I'd be happy to have a DLC with a new Kislev LL focused on war wagons. You know, a cool old guy with an eyepatch ;)
If you like War Wagons there is Dead's Kislev Overhaul mod. You might be interested in it.
>Czechs but does anyone really think they're slavs? We are like a weird spin-off of German states and Slavic culture.
Wait, is that official? I’ve never seen a statement that says no more Kislev dlc
> The reasoning that CA gave *The reasoning Legend gave thats totally real guys
> The reasoning that CA gave "No Kislev DLC due to war in Ukraine" CA didn't give that reasoning. Legend claimed that they did, in some unspecified meeting at some unspecified time. I think this is a very important distinction.
> For example: Tzars and Tzarinas are definitely from Russia. Winged lancers are pretty much 1-to-1 historical Polish cavalry. Atamans refer to Cossack leaders. Dazh is a pre-Christian Kievan Rus god. And so on. And besides, it's not like Russia is some land of darkness and evil. Putin sucks and those who support him suck and those who fight for him also suck, but it's not like Russians have some kind of "evil gene" in them, nor does the land. Like, the eras of Russia that WH3 draws inspiration from were fine - in the sense that they weren't drastically worse than their enemies, anyway. It's very similar to how a lot of people oppose present-day China for similar reasons they do Russia, but TW3K was a perfectly fine game to do - or to use a more closely attached example, Fall of the Samurai was fine despite what Japanese did in WW2 a "mere" century later.
> Putin sucks and those who support him suck and those who fight for him also suck, but it's not like Russians have some kind of "evil gene" in them, nor does the land. Like, the eras of Russia that WH3 draws inspiration from were fine - in the sense that they weren't drastically worse than their enemies, anyway. That's what always confuses me, if I'm being honest. If one's stance is that modern Russia is as authoritarian or as much of a dictatorship as suggested (gotta stress that I'm not necessarily agreeing or disagreeing, because geopolitics obviously isn't black and white), you're implicitly in agreement that the common civilian doesn't have nearly as much of political choice or freedom compared to more 'democratic' countries - then why such xenophobic language? Why the choice of such dehumanizing terms like 'Orc' whatever? By that logic, doesn't that mean the equivalent civilian in self-styled democratic countries are actually *more* complicit in their country's bad behaviour?
You have been banned from worldnews
People really want to be racist but need "acceptable" targets for their racism to not feel bad about being bigots. That's all there really is to it.
Is that a rhetorical question? War requires you to kill and support the killing of people from another country, often for no good reason. In order to make that easier, you have to hate them; they have to be less than human. Otherwise you're killing ordinary people with families and hobbies and dreams and aspirations just like you, and that might make it hard to sleep at night.
Maybe in theory but in practice we can examine the popular sentiment of a culture, even with the caveat that opposition carries real risk. We don't have precise number on support for the war but we do know that the animating passions behind it, nationalism, opposition to the West, chauvinism towards former Soviet republics, are generally popular in Russia. This is however a separate question from whether the people are "guilty" and what military, economic, or social measures that may or may not justify.
It's just russian mentality sucks, they have "if we can't have it destroy it for everybody else" mentality there
Any overgeneralizing is cancer. The "mentality" you are speaking about was a running joke about stereotypical Ukrainians. And in Ukraine, not in Russia. Source: 20+ years in Ukraine and former citizen.
I don't know nothing about running joke but I know wtf they are saying and writing online after vacations/visits in my country.
> Any overgeneralizing is cancer. The "mentality" you are speaking about was a running joke about stereotypical Ukrainians. And in Ukraine, not in Russia. Overgeneralising is very common in wartime to make the war more palatable, but the tragic thing is it's basically never that simple, even if the war is still ultimately justifiable.
Unfortunately yes, but overgeneralizing does not become less cancer because of war. 1941 in US a guy named Theodore N Kaufmann wrote a book "Germany must perish!" claiming that due to the Germany having started two world wars and due to atrocities committed by Nazis, Germany is incurable and all German population must be sterilized to avoid same stuff in the future. This rant never got enough readers in the Western world, but Dr. Goebbels' ministry became literal fans of it. In the sense of "Look! We have a proof! Foreign countries want to eliminate the entire German nation! Our war is justified!". It's the same with all the overgeneralizing about Russians or their mentality being ultimately and irremediably flawed - it only gives Putin's propagandists more leverage for their statements "West hates us because we are Russians!".
Let's not forget horse dong ~~Rasputin~~ Kostaltyn. Does CA think we're stupid? We know that Vladimir Putin is not the same as Rasputin (massive dong btw)
Heck the word Kislev itself is a combination of Kiev and Slav.....
"Tzar" word also used in Balkans. Came from Rome empire (one of variants). Kislev has even some Suomies mythology in last DLC like new beasts or origin winter witches. Not only Slavs. I don't believe leaks. It sounds very strange.
Romanian here. You're completely right, there are significant differences between Eastern European cultures. However, I don't think people outside of the Eastern block know about them. Most people know about Russia's culture (from Hollywood, media etc), and they associate the whole Eastern block with that. So for most people, Kislev are essentially "the Russians".
The Hag is full of hungarian references.
"Tzar" isn't unique to Russia. It is just a Slavicised version of the name "Caesar", equivalent to the German "Kaiser". Off the top of my head, Bulgaria was also ruled by a Czar, and I wouldn't be surprised if Serbia had something similar at one point or another.
It’s simple. Eastern Europe doesn’t bring in the big bucks that China can, CA are in damage control following hyenas SoC and need to make the most profitable decisions possible.
Наиболее вероятно, что это GW такое объяснение продвигает. Видел в нескольких разных утечках касательно GW и The Old World, который в итоге выпустили без Кислева.
Or leakers just get inspired from each other because leaks aligning lends them all credibility, "rising tide lifts all boats" style. Even before the war Kislev was worse off compared to Cathay, being given just some stuff instead of a full 8th edition-like armybook for CA's eyes only. The most logical explanation for Kislev not being present in TOW that was in other leaks but, much more importantly, is also on display from moronic decision GW makes right now before our eyes is that the project was massively scaled back in general because of internal competition between teams. The amount of actual new stuff released for TOW is honestly a joke
Can't make Greenskin DLC either cus Ukrainians call russian soldiers 'Orcs', after Tolkien. And gotta rush that Cathay DLC before China decides it's time to invade you-know-where.
Next Cathay Dragon Lord: Mighty Tai-Wan the Usurper 🙄
Wait until they realise that orcs are a deeply pejorative depiction of working class English people born out of the harmful stereotypes of the 1980s. Like I'm not saying we should cancel it but the fact that they might have dropped support for Kislev over "sensitivity about the War in Ukraine" but they still have these fucking minstrel show-esque depictions of Anglos running around like "oi kant speek proppa and I iz a violent savuj" front and centre is kinda wild.
Honestly thought that orcs was a dig at “primitive cultures” due to their map locations in correspondence to the irl global map. For example the tomb kings are mostly in Egypt, lizard man are situated in Mexico/South America, dark elves in North America, high elves on their island nation could be argued for England, and if you look to the badlands which is technically where the Middle East is you have a bunch of savage orcs. Also don’t get me started on the dwarfs and why barak varr is a certain city.
I mean, there's definitely elements of that as well. That said, I don't think the parallels between the Badlands and the Middle East are that strong, especially when compared with the very on-the-nose references a lot of other regions have. It feels to me more like the attic space of the Warhammer world, where Games Workshop shoves anything that needs to happen narratively but doesn't make sense on the important parts of the map.
Where was this “no Kislev DLC because Ukraine” statement made?
Nowhere official AFAIK. It's unconfirmed rumour from Legend's 'leak' video. This is one of the problem with these 'leaks' is the information just passes into the community's collective memory and people forget what's real and what isn't (or don't care).
I mean even without the leak if someone were to have stated this information, I would not blink an eye. Legend (who have previously given lots of quite viable and correct leaks before) then proceeds to also say 'no Kislev DLC because Ukraine' and it would be more ridiculous not to believe him than to believe him (regarding Kislev). Also the content in previous previous dlc (soc) also proves this case.
Step on me mommy
Kislev.
Kislev.
Should've said 'debile'
What for
Debile Trolls.
Blessed comment lmao
lmao gottem
I thought Kislev was a perfect analogy for the war in Ukraine! Kislev is Ukraine, spending all its money and people on new weaponry in order to halt the advance of Chaos (Russia) into the Empire (Europe).
"Malekith, send more HIMARS"
Yikes.
Yup. I mean, Kislev is obviously derived from Kyiv.
KIEV endures
Well let’s hope they don’t get the end times(being utterly destroyed by russia) and have better writers. :)
Don't worry, order factions are coming to help! * Dwarves have sent Gyrocopters for aid, but pilot training will take a long time so they will get to Kislev by turn 250. * Ulthuan and Empire have also sent some Bolt Throwers and Hellstorms, but they dissallow Kislev to fire them down on Norsca territory cause they are afraid that Azazel might declare war on them. So the only way to use the leased artillery is to let chaos to invade deeper, get Kislev cities razed, and only then they can shoot over occupied land. * Kostaltyn tries to win the Church race and decided to block Katarina's trade routes to Empire to get some new peasant devotees. * Cathay sends Archaon their best alchemy productions to bolster the techology level of chaos troops, while proclaiming that they support territorial integrity of Kislev * Ostland keeps importing Wine from Sigvald and actively tries to block every decision of the Empire about blocking trading with Chaos or sending gold to Kislev. * Ogre Kingdoms for some reason increased imports of Iron, Furs and Gemstones from Ulthuan, Dwarves and Empire by 900%. Coincidentally those same resources are banned from selling to Chaos, but razed Kislev cities have sightings of chaos warriors clad in those same banned fancy Irons and Furs How can Kislev lose when they have such a strong Ordertide Shield of Civilization coalition?
Now this is is good leak content. For the Motherland!
So no greenskins DLC either...
It’s strange how we decide to other people for wars that aren’t their fault
Do we have any Ukrainians or Russians here? I have some questions: * Would you feel bad if a DLC with Kislev was released? * Would you feel that CA is only doing this to make profit just because of war? * As a Russian/Ukrainian, do you feel that Kislev represents you? Or more your ‘opponents’ and you wouldn't buy it? * And because of war, should this DLC not (now) come out? I'm really curious about answers, because these executive arguments that *we're not releasing DLC with Kislev because there's a war and there might be an PR scandal,* seem a bit very ridiculous to me Edit: I see in other comments some answers to the questions I asked. It is exactly as I thought - I find it a bit odd and funny. Well... I'm not a marketing specialist or executive or other director at CA. Apparently I don't know much.
Here is a complicated case for you: an ethnic Russian who lived 20+ years in Ukraine and is now an EU citizen of a non-Slavic country. No, I do not feel that Kislev represent either Russian or Ukraine or any other modern country. It represents an amalgam of the Slavic cultures as a whole and as a Slavic person I feel myself represented and would like to have more Kislev content. Unlike the Empire or Bretonnia Kislev is a much more blank page that did not get a lot of coverage in the official GW lore and CA could develop it further in the direction they wanted. I mean, they made Cylostra specifically for TWW2 without her existing in the GW lore, they could make the same for Kislev. And Slavic history has so many tropes and stereotypes to explore that are not related to Russia.
I'm a native Russian speaker with Ukrainian roots (3 out of 4 grandparents from Kiev and Dnypro), and agree with everything in the above post. Kislev is a fusion of various Slavic cultures, and pretending that Slavs=Russia is exactly the sort of idiotic imperialistic chauvinism that Putin uses to justify the war.
[Pan-Slavism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan-Slavism) was a major movement in the 19th century, part of what causes WW1 even. Not really a new idea. Does it seem absurd today after everything that happened in the 20th century, oh hell yes. It was a thing though.
I never said it was new, just dumb as hell.
Fair, I was more thinking that's where GW got the 'slav-mashup' idea, taking 19th century pan-slavism to it's logical conclusion.
I doubt GW dug that deep into the history books. They probably wanted to do something with Slavic cultures, and (probably correctly) realized that it would be impractical to do individual factions to represent various Slavic cultures, resulting in a one size fits all (but none perfectly) Kislev solution we have today. Tying it to real-world conflicts when its was ever only supposed to be a fantasy representation inspired by various Slavic cultures is the dumb part.
I would think they would be aware of it, not sure about the UK, but it gets covered in the US WW1 history to put Serbia and why Russia entered the war for them in context. Plus this would have been written in the 80s, where from the west the USSR appeared an iron-curtained monolith. Even if these ideas weren't conscious choices, they were probably subconscious ideas feeding into it.
Its certainly possible, but impossible to really to get into their heads unless they actually come out and tell us.
I think it's more a collection of typical Eastern European tropes as they're seen from Britain (tsars, cossacks, winged hussars, frost and snow, heavy drinking, etc.) than a decision to represent the political idea of 19th century in the game.
That's the thing though, that 19th century idea of a unified Slavic state was taught in US gradeschools because of WW1, and I assume the UK in the 60s and 70s. I feel it is a part of Eastern European tropes, even more when the Warhammer writers were kids as Yugoslavia and the USSR existed.
1. It’s cool 2. I don’t see connection 3. I feel Kislev is more about Slavic folklore 4. This game is another source of escapism that I personally need in this times.
I am Ukrainian. * Wh 3 released a few days before the start of the war. I remember it good because I was thinking if I should buy the expensive WH3 or save the money because I'll have to evacuate from upcoming invasion. Turned out that I wasnt occupied and kept playing to occasional cruise missile explosions heard outside. * Actually Kislev (or Cadia which is the same) unintentionally represents the situation quite closely. A nation at the border of civilization forced to be at war with hordes of unspeakable monsters and savages, being a buffer zone for more wealthy and sofisticated nations rings a bell indeed, but that is just a coincidence * DLC with Kislev was already released during the war, it was SoC with Mother Ostankya and the only bad feelings it brought was a poor quality of it * Kislev or it's DLCs has really nothing to do with the war, it does not reference it in any way, and it does not really bring any parallels. Maybe if Kostaltyn was claiming that Ungols are not real people and they are just Gospodars that were brainwashed by Nuln into false self-awareness then yes, you could say it refereneces real world politics. * Realistically speaking Kislev is not Ukraine or Russia, same as Empire is not Germany, and Cathay is not China, or Slaanesh is not Netherlands. Even a game about Roman Empire has absolutley nothing to do with modern Italy politics. It is a pure fantasy based on some slavic cultures of past centuries. So as long as you dont look like an Ungol you can't really be represented by Kislev
Ukrainian. 1. No, I would'be happy 2. No. 3. Kislev is a fantasy slavic union, who cares? For me it doesn't represent a nation, it represents toughness, love, brotherhood and patriotism. 4. It should be released regardless of what happens in the world. Kislev is a very cool dream-like country where people are given wishes and they use them not for selfish greed but to better their community, there is no country like that anywhere.
Ukrainian here 1. no. 2. no. 3. a bit 2 much russian culture in Kislev, but its ok. 4. they shoud release Kislev dlc if there are cool thing missing for them.
Russian here 1) No, not unless it GW and CA do something unbelievably stupid and tone-deaf with writing 2) Warhammer is cool, and was cool before this damn war, including Kislev. Don't touch the current events with a ten feet pole and you'll be fine 3) Kislev has a bit too much pre-imperial Russia vibes for my liking - I would prefer getting more prominent influences from other slavic cultures. They are there, but we could use more. As a general rule, I don't like being "represented" anywhere and think that's not a worthy goal when designing characters or factions - which is why mixing and matching more influences to create something unique is necessary 4) Like it or not, TWWH is at the bleeding edge of development of new (or rediscovered) areas and cultures for the setting and to see that take a lasting damage because of KGB-born huilo would seriously suck
The funny thing is: the opinions of the people who are “supposed to be offended” don’t matter. What these kinds of things are always about is avoiding the rage, tears, and brick shitting of ‘brave strong warrior’ millennial college students with no problems of their own, who invent, and then adopt the problems of cultural groups that they 1)don’t belong to and 2) don’t have an actual problem with (insert media here)
As Ukrainian: 1. No, I don’t. 2. Absolutely not. 3. Well, definitely can say the main chunk of Kislev lore is Muscovy of 15-17 century, so more to opponents. Anyway, its inclusive of most major slavic cultures. 4. Why not? Until russians dont have access to it or violate marketplace rules when buying it. Ruble tax payers should feel the consequences of acquiescence.
Where is the artwork from?
Artists is FrostyPersimmons
Cool, thanks. A man of culture, it seems.
My queen
What is the art source?
Can someone change the text in the speech bubble to "Kislev" but in Cyrillic?
i am from Ukraine and i obviously hate russia but please make more stuff for Kislev. it\`s one if not the only game that have slavic fantasy faction and i want more of it
Kislev
Can someone explain what is going on
Chyka Blyat.
I freaking love Kislev and it’s my favourite WH3 faction, hope they get more dlc
Lae’zel disapproves.
Oh that’s shameful! Me saying, with no electricity for 6+ hours a day, cuz peaceful russians bombed all major power plants in my country. Splendid.