Malign Portents

[Warboss Gorbolg]

My guess is that we will get some new Death units during MP as they are discovered or "unlocked" as part of the narrative.  I think that would be pretty awesome if it happens.

[Jamopower]

The actual Malign Portents book will also most likely have all sorts of narrative fun for everyone and especially death. The harbringers are bit of a letdowns, bu I didn't expect them to be anything but nice splash heroes in the warhammer quest style.

[Infernalslayer]

They did hype the Harbingers all this time, so the reveal of the warscrolls feels disappointing indeed.

The Darkoath Warqueen can't be marked, so in a Slaves to Darkness army other units will get the "undivided" bonus of +1 Bravery instead of the much more useful chaos marks bonuses.

She also has these abilities that make you want to have her charge small enemy heroes to gain the bonuses, but with 5+ save she will die in the next opponents attack before putting to use any extra attacks added to her axe.

The Infernal Runeshield won't do much to save her either. It could be useful if she was used in a Tzeentch Mortals army like Fatesworn with destiny dice, but alas she can't have chaos marks.

I can see why people are disappointed with the rest of the Harbingers as well, but they have already been talked about.

 

Hope that the death warscrolls and rules  are more interesting for the Death players.

[Jamopower]

My guess is that the book has some portent related stuff for narrative play related to the harbringers. Wasn't it even mentioned somewhere that they would be free if both players had them in the Albion campaign style?

[Aeryenn]

Remember when somebody asked what malign portents was about and they answeared sth like "all you mentioned and more? If we are to take it literally then we should be also seeing 1 new death faction if i remember correctly and a new starter box. Nurgle vs DoK anyone? ?

[Jamopower]

With the latest story in mind, how fun would it be if the new death faction would be based on recycled tomb king kits  

[Kirjava13]

Could someone tell me why I, as a Skaven (mostly Skryre) collector, should get the Darkoath Warqueen? Yes, she's an awesome miniature, but if thematically she doesn't fit... and rules-wise she doesn't help... What reason do I have to pick her up? I think that is the point being made- these guys were hyped up as being something that anyone from any GA can collect and paint, but what use is the Warqueen to a Pestilens player? What use is the Lord-Ordinator to a Seraphon player? Can you make these guys fit thematically, mechanically or narratively?

The rules aren't super interesting to me, so I'm glad I already made the decision to convert my own ratty herald.

[Menkeroth]

14 minutes ago, Kirjava13 said:

Can you make these guys fit thematically, mechanically or narratively?

Anyone can if he is up to. How can you make a miniature that would fit equally all? that's impossible by any means. But as we've got alliances, you can incorporate any miniature depending on your vision of the whole picture. 

[Rumblefish]

My guess would be that the Warscrolls are intended to carry them past MP in to normal matched play etc.

Broader, GA wide rules for them might be applied by the Malign Portents book and allows them to not be insanely over priced in normal games.

 

[Keldaur]

17 minutes ago, Kirjava13 said:

Could someone tell me why I, as a Skaven (mostly Skryre) collector, should get the Darkoath Warqueen? Yes, she's an awesome miniature, but if thematically she doesn't fit... and rules-wise she doesn't help... What reason do I have to pick her up? I think that is the point being made- these guys were hyped up as being something that anyone from any GA can collect and paint, but what use is the Warqueen to a Pestilens player? What use is the Lord-Ordinator to a Seraphon player? Can you make these guys fit thematically, mechanically or narratively?

The rules aren't super interesting to me, so I'm glad I already made the decision to convert my own ratty herald.

Yes, you can fit her. But you don't seem really interested in her so I would pass.

[MechaBriZilla]

 

 

 

On 1/16/2018 at 1:57 PM, Yeled said:

I think it's almost definitely a vampire due to the description and the way the plague/maggots don't seem to affect her.

I'm not sure this part matters.  As seen in 'The Cycle Interrupted' even the ground was able to burn and destroy the minions of Nurgle.

On 1/16/2018 at 5:32 PM, Yeled said:

Now, this is almost certainly a reference to turning. The vampire or Nagash cultist is turning the woman into another being like her, ie, a vampire. If not, then what is happening here? If it's something else then we as the reader are really left in the dark. We can speculate or guess, but I would argue that is not the author's intention. The author expects us to know exactly what is happening, because we've seen it a hundred times. The same is true about other aspects of the story, such as the vampire being unaffected by disease. There is no need to speculate here because the author is doing everything in his/her power to tell us exactly what the woman is.

This is a great point.  I don't think it quite hits being definitive,  but is perhaps the best argument for her being a Vamp.

On 1/17/2018 at 2:54 AM, RuneBrush said:

Nagash's influence has clearly changed as we read in the story with the village that had given itself over to Nagash - Nurgle couldn't touch it and it was anathema to even his most loyal followers.  That's new, although Nurgle may not be able to corrupt the followers of Nagash, not being able to even plant anything to my knowledge hasn't occurred previously.

This.  Nagash has changed. His powers have changed.  I don't really think we are going to know what/who he is now, until we get LoN and MP.

On 1/22/2018 at 7:38 PM, BURF1 said:

As for 'be still sister' that sentence seems a lot like when you go to the dentist and he say 'now stay still and this won't hurt a bit.' She seems like she's talking about something she's immediately going to do.

I took this more like in the Bible, 'Be still, and know that I am the Lord.'  In this context, it means be calm, don't worry.  Obviously coming from an emissary of death, that's going to put a new twist on it.  But ultimately, I don't think it implies any sort of harm.  And the 'and your end will come’ part is referring to what the pale woman had said earlier:  ‘Nagash can end the torments of these people,’ said the pale woman. ‘Nagash can end your own nightmare. He offers his help to you freely.’ again, ominous, but not necessarily foreboding death.

One of the key things we are about to see is how mortals live along side the undead in Syish.  The tone of the story is certainly ominous, but I don't think there is any reason to assume that Gosma is about to die.  In fact, it would be out of character, for what we know of the pale lady, who has only been killing those too far gone already.

15 hours ago, shinros said:

Right love the models I am just going to get this out of my system now. That legions of nagash book better be good an event started off by Death being upstaged by Aelves? Yeah.... and honestly I am not expecting any models this just confirms it IMO. I would like to be wrong but hey. 

I have no Idea what to think... But it feels like a damned kick in the nuts to me.  Death finally get's some attention, but still nothing really new.  We all know these campaigns are won by the army that has gotten the most recent new releases, and part of that equation is new models. Here we are about a month from MP's start, and Death is still not getting anything new in the foreseeable future.  Instead, our last update was yet another Chaos entry, and the next one looks to be yet another Order entry. 

FFS!!!!  

I want to be excited, I am excited, but I'm also seriously worried, that not only will we not get much for GA death outside of some alternate kit builds, and a some rules that make us more competitive, but that we are also going to get our A$$es handed to us in the campaign, because no one wants to build a new army of old models.

[skool]

Just so everyone knows Gosma apparaently means goo or slime in Portugese.

[Kirjava13]

41 minutes ago, Keldaur said:

Yes, you can fit her. But you don't seem really interested in her so I would pass.

"How can I justify her?"

"Reasons that I choose not to give."

Alright cheers buddy x

[Sete]

1 hour ago, skool said:

Just so everyone knows Gosma apparaently means goo or slime in Portugese.

I can confirm.

Also a disease in chickens.

Or someone living at your expense. Like a freeloader.

[Rogue Explorator]

One thing I have noticed about Death in the Malign Portents narrative so far: They are never the protagonist or a viewpoint character. We had multiple cases of Nurgle daemon protagonists, another Nurgle Champion protagonist, some Free Peoples and one story from a stormcast perspective. The closest thing we got was the lady in Grim Deliverance, and hers is one of the most ambiguos roles in a storyline flled with ambguity so far.

At this point the forces of Death are played less like a active part in the upcoming event and more like a force of nature or calamity for others to overcome. Issue for me is, Death is also a playable faction in this story event and yet we do not really know what Death is driving at. I hope this changes soon, it is really hard to get behind your chosen faction when you do not even know what it really wants.

 

The newest story is really odd to me. After all the ambiguity, the spookiness and clear ambition in storytelling of every story so far, we get a pretty standart wargame background battle description. Really, apart from some cute characterization on Rotigus, sub-standart, normally such tales at least make a point to give pretty tangible description of the "units", here they are often simply identified by name, without a description by which one could tell what it is.

Then we get some mentions of before unknown Death units, which should be reason for rejoycing, but they are quite loveless, I find. One is (literally!) a throwaway snake skeleton. And then we get some mortals with death magic enhanced crossbows and bows, those with crossbows working together with shield bearing skeletons. Which should be interesting, but it really is not, mostly because it is described just like that. We do not find out how these people look or dress or any personality.

It all brings to mind some bog standart peasants bringing down a legendary greater deamon with magic bolts and arrows and that is just the most un-AoS image an AoS story has ever given me. Its like they did not want to give to much away and lost the essential point because of it. And the entire thing really completely misses the tone MP has set so far, for me.

 

Also, once again, after being a force of independent Kingdoms of Dead in early AoS, once more Deathrattle are reduced to mere pawns. But we already got that a lot with MP and the info on LoN so far.

Every MP story so far has been quite nice, hopefully the 30th delivers again. Maybe we will get a new viewpoint. Destruction or the upcoming Daughters of Khaine would be nice, I do not even expect Death untill GW is finally ready to drop the other shoe.

 

 

P.S.: I've looked over the Campaign structure for the upcoming Campaign and the way it branches I really do not think it is dependant on which GA wins each phase, judging by the way it branches:

At a guess, since the setup is "Everyone vs Death" and "all about Prophecies", I think it will be something like: Each player chooses what Portent to follow each match, with the true meaning only revealed afterwards. Which would be a neat blend between the current narrative and organized play, imo.

[Turgol]

Well the reason why there is no description of motivation, personality or anything on this these death aligned mortals (Cult of Nagash, calling it) was identified by yourself: viewpoint is on Rotigus who cannot know that.

Not my favorite MP story, that must be the free guild guy assasinated by knight excelsiors, but not the worst either.

[Rogue Explorator]

3 minutes ago, Turgol said:

Well the reason why there is no description of motivation, personality or anything on this these death aligned mortals (Cult of Nagash, calling it) was identified by yourself: viewpoint is on Rotigus who cannot know that.

Not my favorite MP story, that must be the free guild guy assasinated by knight excelsiors, but not the worst either.

It is still a storytelling choice to to use a perspective that can not tell any of that. In the context this story was told, I do not find it to be a very thrilling choice.

[Turgol]

Of course. Anyways February WD seems to confirm that MP is NOT centered on death: you never get Nagash’s PoV, because the idea is precisely to assume dramatically the PoV of all other forces and gods. You know Nagash is doing something nasty, you feel the collateral effects of that (those collateral effect ARE the malign portents) but you will not uncover what that is, at least until later on. Which fits with death not really getting much attention until then.

[Praetor of Calth]

6 hours ago, Jamopower said:

With the latest story in mind, how fun would it be if the new death faction would be based on recycled tomb king kits  

I really really want Tomb Kings too be brought back, but it cant be done based on recycled kits. They need to re-imagined ala Dok/Sylvaneth etc; in order for them to work in the new setting, the old models would look even more out of place than the current "Freeguild" range.

[Infernalslayer]

Now that i think of it, is there a reliable source that the leaked warscrolls are real?

The harbingers scrolls could be some well made fakes. The reason i think of this is, that GW no longer uses photos of the actual models in the warscrolls, neither in the new battletomes nor in the downloadable pdfs so i assume someone could have used the photos of the models from the malign portents videos to make some realistic warscrolls in the older style.

 

Just a thought as i do not know if these came from an official reveal or not.

[Jamopower]

5 hours ago, Praetor of Calth said:

I really really want Tomb Kings too be brought back, but it cant be done based on recycled kits. They need to re-imagined ala Dok/Sylvaneth etc; in order for them to work in the new setting, the old models would look even more out of place than the current "Freeguild" range.

Yeah, that's what I meant, based on those newest TK kits, but developed in to something else.

[Chikout]

4 hours ago, Infernalslayer said:

Now that i think of it, is there a reliable source that the leaked warscrolls are real?

The harbingers scrolls could be some well made fakes. The reason i think of this is, that GW no longer uses photos of the actual models in the warscrolls, neither in the new battletomes nor in the downloadable pdfs so i assume someone could have used the photos of the models from the malign portents videos to make some realistic warscrolls in the older style.

 

Just a thought as i do not know if these came from an official reveal or not.

I have feeling that they are fake. They supposedly came from an update to the Australian version of the aos app.  But noone else has been able to corroborate that. It is a pretty cheeky fake if so. It is just close enough to Malign Portents and legions of Nagash's release that GW could have accidentally revealed them early.

[Slayerofmen]

I just had a look through my version of the app (aussie) and i cant see any of the characters

[Kaleb Daark]

1 hour ago, Jamopower said:

Yeah, that's what I meant, based on those newest TK kits, but developed in to something else.

I think with a flesh eaters style rewrite the plastics would still work. Bin the metals and maybe add something new or two.  Aos is the perfect setting for them as  like all factions the realm gates give them the reason to be anywhere.

[Jamopower]

Yeah, they would make much more sense fighting against most of the factions in the Mortal realms than in the Old world,which actually applies to quite many of the old armies.