Creating Unique Stormhosts

[Guest]

We've seen a few different 'official' stormhosts for Stormcast Eternals, but for the most part they're only differentiated from each other by colour palette, a few lore details and some minor special rules. This is all great, but stormhosts currently lack the distinctiveness of the major Space Marine chapters in Warhammer 40K, which each take the basic template and push it towards very different themes. Space Wolves and Blood Angels not only look very different from each other, but also have their own rich background lore, their own dark secrets, plus their own unique units and chapter organisation.

Age of Sigmar is a young game and Games Workshop may begin differentiating the various stormhosts more over time, but in the meantime I'm interested to hear the community's ideas for how truly unique stormhosts could be implemented. What historical or mythological themes might they draw on? How would they look different to 'standard' Stormcasts? What unique quirks would they have, and how would these affect the way they fight and organise themselves? Do they have any atypical spiritual beliefs? Any dark secrets? Have they adapted to life in a particular realm? And in imagining these stormhosts, how can we avoid simply repeating what has been done for Space Marines in 40K?

[Melcavuk]

With Stormhosts the issue is that to a degree they are all both "fresh" and ancient, every time they are reforged they are done so by sigmar to what is essentially his standard template. So variation in the field is largely dependant on nobody having died else theyre coming back as Sigmar intended, this mechanic then limits the variation possible. I'd like to see more exploration of the chambers who have gone through the meatgrinder so many times that theyre nearly automata, slower and less responsive creatures but near blind to pain and fear as they have embraced their own cycle of destruction, desensitised to the very world around them and embracing the searing heat of the forge as their only real sensation.

[Guest]

10 minutes ago, Melcavuk said:

With Stormhosts the issue is that to a degree they are all both "fresh" and ancient, every time they are reforged they are done so by sigmar to what is essentially his standard template. So variation in the field is largely dependant on nobody having died else theyre coming back as Sigmar intended, this mechanic then limits the variation possible.

 

It limits it a little, but really is it any more restrictive than if a Space Marine chapter got near wiped out and had to recruit again from scratch? Those new scouts would very quickly learn the unique ways of the chapter and start to take on the customs, peculiarities and physical adornments of the chapter's culture. There's no reason that freshly resurrected Stormcast wouldn't do the same. Particularly if they were already accustomed to it from their previous years of service in the field.

So yes, maybe the 'fresh' Stormcast would look more like the vanilla type we've seen so far, but the hardened brothers who have been in the field (perhaps for centuries, without any direct contact with Azyr) and have become experts at not dying - they might look and behave very differently. They could be covered with all manner of trophies, affectations and idiosyncratic markings. They might have taken on local customs or replaced damaged armour plates with locally-sourced alternatives, for example. Or they might have started recruiting mortal locals into the Stormhost in non-combat supporting roles, like wizards, priests or trackers.