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new death battletome announced!


tea_wild_owl

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Erm, I find that expansion list a bit strange...

Neferata joining the FEC (although I suppose ghoul kings are decendants of the Carrion king, who used to be a "normal vampire") and Arkhan joining nighthaunt? (I thought that would surely be manfred because of the whole night thing)...

Odd choices. 

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I have been holding off building my Morghasts into Harbringers or Archai in case I mess up a potential Allegiance. But I see they keep it generic here. Hopefully the two warscrolls will be interchangeable, making building towards your desired allegiance (what ever that is going to be) more flexible. 

Probably looking into it too much though :^)

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17 hours ago, AverageBoss said:

Well, they have done just that with 40K. Over and over again in fact. Space Marines, Spikey Marines, Gross Marines, Magic Marines, Shiny Marines, Shinier Marines, Furry Marines, Red Marines, Green Marines, King Size Marines. I think the fear is that "Deathcast" would be the beginning of that, and everything that is not a "cast" derivative would be put even further on the back burner going forward.

Don't you think we can agree this is a lot over-simplified.  Everything you just mentioned is either a part of the Imperium in which the Space Marine is sort of within their aesthetic, or Chaos SM which are literally  Space Marines that have rebelled against the imperium.  This is all enshrined in the games fluff, and is the basis upon which all of 40k was built.

If you could point to Eldar Marines, Ork Marines, Necron Marines, etc....  I'd take this more seriously.

As for things being put on the 'back burner' as it were.   Marines/Stormcast are, and always will be, the poster children of their respective games.  They will always get more attention than the other factions, and will always have the most players.  It's just a fact of life in the GW world.  Heck, Death has been on the 'Back Burner' what? 3 years now?

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32 minutes ago, MechaBriZilla said:

Don't you think we can agree this is a lot over-simplified.  Everything you just mentioned is either a part of the Imperium in which the Space Marine is sort of within their aesthetic, or Chaos SM which are literally  Space Marines that have rebelled against the imperium.  This is all enshrined in the games fluff, and is the basis upon which all of 40k was built.

If you could point to Eldar Marines, Ork Marines, Necron Marines, etc....  I'd take this more seriously.

As for things being put on the 'back burner' as it were.   Marines/Stormcast are, and always will be, the poster children of their respective games.  They will always get more attention than the other factions, and will always have the most players.  It's just a fact of life in the GW world.  Heck, Death has been on the 'Back Burner' what? 3 years now?

You've missed the point of the argument. The point is that approximately half of the factions in 40K are some variation on Space Marines. Now while they have slightly different playstyles, they're still ultimately the same army. Take it from someone who plays against pretty much nothing but Marines, even playing an all Imperial Knight list yesterday was a refreshing glass of water in the desert.

SCE are currently the largest faction, but not nearly as dominating as Space Marines are in 40K, and AoS seems to have a more diverse array of factions being played. At least it seems like that from my experience.

Of course there are no Ork or Eldar Marines, because those armies are the rare outsiders that aren't Marines. It's like demanding a person prove that black is white, otherwise white doesn't exist.

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2 hours ago, TalesOfSigmar said:

Could this give an idea of how some of the different allegiances are being played out?

Nefferata with the Flesh Eaters, Arkhan leading Malignants, Soulblight and Skeletons being used together?

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From what I can tell, this is a suggested purchasing order, not a subfaction breakdown, and vertical columns don't mean much outside of overfaction.

First of all, it's clearly about malign portents, not legions of nagash.  You can tell because there's non-death stuff past the third column.  Second, look at the second column - 'skeletal horde' is very clearly a box name, not a faction.  And in the the third column uses 'malignants' instead of 'nighthaunt'.  I mean, yeah, malignants is also a keyword, but it's not a faction keyword, where it is the name of a 'start collecting box.  Look at the other items in the skeletal horde column.  None of them are skeletons.

So yeah, this isn't "here's how different armies are arranged in the fluff."  Rather, this is "so you've heard of Malign Portents, and thing this is as good an excuse as any to pick up a new army or jump into AoS altogether, but you're not sure what to buy?  Well here's some suggestions!  Start with one of these start collecting boxes, then buy the new MP character associated with your box's grand alliance, and then look at any of these various other boxes that might appeal to you.  Just like that, you now have a new playable army!  At least, you do if you ignore the battleline requirements for matched play, which is all anyone ever plays in this game, and which were absolutely not being taken into consideration when these start collecting boxes were being put together, not to mention that most of them come with *a* box worth of an infantry unit that's only worth fielding if you buy at least three more boxes just for your first unit of them.  But don't mind that, just spend spend spend!"

There's no game mechanic or lore insights to glean from this page.  It's just an add.

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1 hour ago, CoffeeGrunt said:

You've missed the point of the argument. The point is that approximately half of the factions in 40K are some variation on Space Marines. Now while they have slightly different playstyles, they're still ultimately the same army. Take it from someone who plays against pretty much nothing but Marines, even playing an all Imperial Knight list yesterday was a refreshing glass of water in the desert.

SCE are currently the largest faction, but not nearly as dominating as Space Marines are in 40K, and AoS seems to have a more diverse array of factions being played. At least it seems like that from my experience.

Of course there are no Ork or Eldar Marines, because those armies are the rare outsiders that aren't Marines. It's like demanding a person prove that black is white, otherwise white doesn't exist.

I'm sorry if I missed your point.

I'll drop this here.  No interest in arguing.

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5 hours ago, Sception said:

There's no game mechanic or lore insights to glean from this page.  It's just an add.

Yep pretty much.

For those wondering why Neferata might hang around with Flesh-Eaters... well... she technically is an allies option. So all they're doing is coming up with some suggestions on how you might expand your army if you started with the Flesh-Eater Courts box.

In particular this seems to be Month 3, so it's likely in Month 2 you would've already fleshed out your main faction with a couple of boxes. So good time to start looking into allies and the like.

 

So yeah, agree with @Sception don't read anything into this as to who the Legions of Nagash might work.

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Don’t forget, neferata is tied closely to ushoran (FEC main vampire) as she and nagash banished him and tortured him. 

I would rather see mannfred ties to FEC though, especially following the realmgate wars book mortach of night. In one of the battles he has loads of FEC Fighting for him. Would be better for me anyway, mannfred and FEC are my favourites besides soulblight.

anyone have any thoughts on what mannfreds own legion could look like. I’d put money on vargheists being part of it, maybe ghouls or zombies too.

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42 minutes ago, CoffeeGrunt said:

Whichever Legion is a Nighthaunt/Deathrattle combo is the one for me. Legions of skeletons and spirits will be fun to focus on. 

I think that's my favorite combo as well. I have just about finished painting some SCE for a tournament, and I have been list building to start a death faction after that project. Think the hexwraiths add speed that a pure deathrattle lacks. I think that the knight of shrouds ties these two factions together as well aesthetically. 

Hoping its Arkhan is the Allegiances Mortarch as well, and my motivation to build a death army is to have something completely different to my stormcasts. Hordes and lots of fun magic is what I want from my death army going forward.

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If it were me designing them, arkhan would get skeletons, ghosts, & deathmages.  Neferata would get skeletons and soulblight.  Mannfred would get deadwalkerz, flesh eater courts, and maybe vargheists & bats.  All three would get morghasts, and share a new death spell lore.  Nagash would be 'grand alliance death 2.0', with everything minus the compendiums, but with alternate and more arcane focused allegiance traits.

Likewise, if I was doing it, there'd be a bunch of new units for old models.  With the compendium special character rules gone, the vlad, isabella, kinrad, and mannfred models are freed up to represent new kinds of generic hero, the way krell became 'wight king with black axe'.  Bigwing and Ladyboot vampires could become distinct units as well.  In terms of mixed kits, skeletons & grave guard can each become two units.

And you could add a hexwraith hero using black knight barding.  Probably not a whole unit, though, since you cant do them all that way in the box without some slightly more bothersome conversions.  And you can introduce, what, two? Three different kinds of wraith?  To be distinguished by their different face bits.

Mortis wngine with and without book couls become two units, one regular and one a spellcaster and hero.  Corpse Cart rider with sword & fancier paint job could be made a hero spellcaster as well.

Could probably squeeze an extra unit or hero out of morghasts with different combinatiins if head piece, chest piece, weaponry, and fancy paint job.

Basically, if we're not getting new models, then for now at least give everything the FEC treatment, to get as many units as we can out of the range we've got.

And while you're at it, naybe significantly tune up grave guard, black knights, wight kings, & wraiths.

 

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I really hope they tune up the grave guard, black knights and wight kings. 

I am not holding my breath, but seen as we are unlikely to see new models the current range should be brought into line. Look at Saurus Guard compared to Grave Guard. Almost better in every way. Granted there is a 20 point/5 model premium for fielding them, but they are at least useable!

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Yeah, I don't have a lot of confidence that any of that will happen, but it is at the moment the best I'm hoping for.  What I think we really need is new models for new subfactions (deathcast or otherwise)  led by new heroes, all tied to the new setting of the new game.  It's hard to engage with Age of Sigmar and the Mortal Realms through armies and especially heroes whose designs, histories, personalities, and motivations were all founded in the abandoned setting of a discontinued game.

Part of the reason I'm personally for the introduction of Deathcast, in whatever form they might take, is that we already have a strong character in the background through which we could engage with them, one firmly grounded in the new setting - both in his previous life as a Shyishian noble and his later time as a stormcast before being captured and dominated by nagash.  Make that guy a mortarch!  Make that guy a central character!  Restore that guy's memories, and use him to tell us first hand what life in Shyish was like before chaos, what people and places there are that we should care about and want to fight for.  And then give us cool models for him and his own new subfaction that we can use to fight his battles on the table ourselves.  Have the other mortarchs build relationships with him as rivals and allies, and use that to connect them to the new setting in turn.

Or if not him, then some other new figure.  Narratively, thematically, we need new blood.  Something and more importantly someone that isn't just a hold over from the old world.  Knight of Shrouds comes close, but misses the mark on two points.  First, it's just *a* knight of shrouds, not *the* knight of shrouds.  We need named, singular figures.  Not just generic heroes for any number of, in the end, fundamentally replaceable background characters.  Second, his model.  Don't get me wrong, it's very good, it looks great.  But it's designed to fit in with the old warhammer ghosty models.  It looks like it could easily have been a lord level wraith in the 8th ed vamp counts book.  There's nothing new about it aesthetically, nothing visually setting it apart from the old game or tying it into the new setting.  It doesn't even take any noticeable visual queues from the end times models, apart from the ghostly arms being more similar to the spirit hosts rather than the skeletal wraith arms or more naturally proportioned banshee arms.

So it's definitely a step in the right direction to get something new at all, but like the Shadespire skeletons it doesn't actually provide a way forward for the undead line as a whole, it's just a well executed take on leftover ideas from the old game.  Both the KoS and the shardspire skittles visually make me think of the Old World, of armies marching out of Sylvania to battle against against the armies of Louen Leoncoeur or Karl Franz.  Neither of them make me think of battles for the fate of the Mortal Realms fought against Stormcasts or Bloodbound.

 

Say what you like about Deathcast conceptually, I can certainly understand thinking they would be too redundant, but they'd at least be definitively AoS undead and not WHFB undead.  Alternatively, expand the End Times releases with more kinds of morghasts and a morghast hero, make them a real faction of their own, something the old world never saw.  Or give us a line of wraithly undead elves in death lords style armor, as Nagash takes his toll of the dead souls freed from Slaanesh's grasp.  Or a new living mortal kingdom of Shyish,  One ruled by vampire aristocrats, with a priestly cast of necromancers raising zombies as unskilled labor, all with their own culture, fashion, & aesthetic style distinct from anything we saw in the Old World.  Maybe crib a few  design notes from the City of Yharnam in Bloodborne.  Or something based out of the Underworlds of Shyish.  They're supposed to be every afterlife imaginable, right?  Well imagine some!  Draw from cultures or works that GW hasn't used for inspiration before.  Like, maybe a faction based on the Hell of Dante's Divine Comedy, with different units whose looks and abilities are based on the different kinds of sins that damned them, all twisted by Nagash's personal take on them?

Anything really, so long as it's conceptually, visually new.  Not just new models for old world ideas, but AoS models and ideas altogether.  Something as unique to the Mortal Realms as Stormcasts or Sylvanneth or Kharadron Overlords.  Legacy factions are good, and I want them to continue to receive support.  I want Deathrattle to be expanded until their rules can be used to replace the TK compendium outright, so the old rules can be retired while people with old armies can be simultaneously assured of support going forward.  I want nighthaunt to get an expanded range, too.  I want FEC to get actual models for their heroes that are just 'regular unit guy, but painted fancy'.  But while I hope all that happens, none of it would be able to bring the undead as a whole into relevance in the setting and lore of AoS.  For that, we need something actually and truely new.

That's what I think Death needs, ans sadly it's not what we're getting in this book, and I don't expect to see it any time soon, either.  GW can reorganize the existing death line all they want, and maybe they'll get something playable one of these attempts, but none of it looks like real support on their part, so I'm not sure how they can expect it to drive real engagement on the part of their customers.

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I'd say Sylvanneth, Fyreslayers, Bloodbound, Tzeentch birdgoats, Everchosen and Ironjaws have all been pretty successfully distinct, at least those units not directly ported over from the old game.  And even the units in those groups that were directly ported over were still very successfully recontextualized by the new elements of their ranges.

For instance, I'd never confuse a Varanguard for a chaos knight, or a Blood Warrior for a chaos warrior.  They look significantly more legendary / high fantasy, particularly in terms of both the number and the type of mutations present.  Likewise the gore-gruntas and maw-crushers don't look like anything out of the old world, not just because they're new, but because the entire style and feel of them are different.  And Ardboys as the least over-the-top element of the iron jaws range feel completely different from Black Orcs as the most over the top element of theirs, even though they are the exact same models.

There are some late WHFB units and ranges that seem like they'd feel more at home in AoS.  The trend in the look and feel and scale of models was already moving towards the more outlandish & high fantasy.  Many of the latter day wood elf & dark elf models, for instance.  And I remember complaints back in the day when the current dryads and especially tree man was released that they looked too outlandish for the WHFB setting, and though I liked them then, I do agree that they seem to fit better with the new sylvaneth in AoS.

 

Some models in the undead line have the right feel.  The End Times stuff, obviously.  The mortis engine, even more so than the coven throne.  The black knights / hexwraiths maybe.  The crypt horrors/vargheists/flayers.  But other stuff...  there's nothing wrong with skeletons and grave guard models, but they're very plain.   In my personal opinion, they need some bigger, more elaborate, more high fantasy stuff in there to help them fit into the new setting, the way the bigger and fancier ironjaws bring the old black orc models forward in relation to them.

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There is still ongoing support for older and older looking model lines, introducing some stuff that fits the new game's style won't undo that.  And even if it did have to be all or nothing, IMO not liking the aesthetics of Age of Sigmar in general is a reason to not play Age of Sigmar, rather than a reason to hope one out of the four factions is left forever looking like a different game entirely.

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Seems like as good a place to bring it up as any (while we wait on some actual news to discuss). What would peoples thoughts be if we lost the 6+ Ward as our army trait, as well as regen focused hero and banner abilities, but gained something more akin to Necron Reanimation Protocol from 40K (while those banner and heroes move on to doing other, more interesting things)?

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As much as I like the 6+ save its just not unique anymore. I think the regen mechanic is core to the feel of death though but the id rather have something more unique. I mean look at nurgle new battle trait. Give me something with that depth rather than I get a 6 up save at 6" which I find i dont use nearly as frequently. If it eas pushed back up to 10 inch maybe or they gave us something to mitigate hero sniping which for us even more detrimental.

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