Dread Solstice Dilemma - Which Outcome & Why?

[Galas]

Well, my choice is clear as a Khorne worshiper. 

 

SKULL IT IS! NO ONE WILL KEEP ME AWAY FROM BEING KHORNE'S CHOSEN, AND DEFINiTELY NOT THIS KHORGOS KUL! 

[Elmir]

Anything with a "nuke it out of orbit" as an option really only has 1 option, doesn't it?

 

[Carnelian]

It does look like the skull nuke is gonna win this week! It's far ahead already.

personally I'm all about Drake - I for one welcome our new blood bound overlords

[Redmanphill]

The Eye is such a non-option. I don’t see the point in them having written it in.

[Carnelian]

1 hour ago, Redmanphill said:

The Eye is such a non-option. I don’t see the point in them having written it in.

for skaven players only hahah!

[Sennyo]

i think the eye is quite an interesting one to me it sound like the free cities would be abbandoned and lost, thus preventing anyone from getting any boost or power ups. Drake is defently a Chaos powerup ( chaos free city anyone) while skull sound like the coolest narative to me as i get the idea of prehaps Order and Death working togwther in the realm of fire to take out chaos, with order and the free cities gaining a boost and death gaining some new tech.

the other idea i like is the idea that the Ancient Archeo-machinery is actually sephron but i dont actually know much about sephron lore to know if like the lizardmen or old if they still have ruins over the old world

[Redmanphill]

While I doubt they’d have the Free Cities they’ve established become abandoned, they definitely could have some  of the less well established ones damaged/destroyed. It’s still a choice for defeat, I don’t see any possible benefit in choosing it.

[OnboardG1]

As with any archeotech there is the possibility that this could go insanely, hilariously wrong. I’m in.

[Kamose]

As a Seraphon player, I have to go with Skull.  As magical space frogs, I think we are best suited to use arcane magical technology fueled by mists derived of condensed bloodlust, murder, and hatred.  The warm-bloods will just muck it up...prolly blow up the realm.  Let us handle it!

Moreover there are not that many Slaan left.  In the All-Gates book, Khul chopped my good friend Xen'phantica out of reality.  Then he undid millennia of work keeping those daemon lords busy.  There must be vengeance.  Slow, methodical, cold-blooded, emotionless vengeance.  The only Slaan left are the ones that survived the death of the World-That-Was and each one lost is a piece of the Old World and the Old One's plans that is lost forever.  They are a dying race!  At last count there are only "as many as the plot demands" left. 

[MacDuff]

They're not dead, Jim. They're hibernating.

[Double Misfire]

This week's outcome, looks like you got your wish @Kamose:

And its accompanying special rules (no new artefact). Temporal Healing looks terrifying:

 

And the big one. Call it a hunch but I can see Nagashizzar getting sacked by players by the end of the week:

[Double Misfire]

Eagerly awaiting @Sception's PR piece on why we should all go Drake this week.  

[Sception]

@Double Misfire  I'm still consulting the necrosages on whether I should push Drake or Skull this week.  I'm tentatively partial to the latter, but I think some of them doubt even my ability to sell the community on the idea of doing nothing while Nagash devours time itself, despite my unbroken record of success to this point.

While we finish our scrying and resolve our debates, I ask that everyone please hold off on posting results.  I'll deliver the final consensus, and an explanaition of why it was the only sensible choice all along, within a few hours.

In the mean time, congratulations to everyone on the fantastic and overwhelming endorsement of the correct outcome in week four.  As always, I'm incredibly proud of all of you.

[Envyus]

Nah I say we do the week 1 thing and do nothing again. 

 

AKA SKULL!

[Chikout]

So it occurs to me that invading Nagashizzar might be a bad idea. The magic at the edge of the realm of death is said to be unsurvivable by mortals as they rapidly age and die. Nagash’s grand plan has been to move the grave sand from the edge of the realm to Nagashizzar. He has achieved this so that the greatest concentration of grave sand and therefore magic is at the centre of his realm. The result of this is that any mortals who come too close to Nagashizzar will likely die.

I think Nagash wants a huge force to come to Nagashizzar, die and give a massive influx of souls to power whatever his new creation will be. 

[RuneBrush]

10 minutes ago, xking said:

Also archaon and his mortal army was able to get around the Nagashizzar life stealing effect the first time it was destroyed. So it can be nullified. 

I got the impression that the Grave Sand collecting didn't really start until after Archaon sacked Nagashizzar?  Could be wrong on that though

[shinros]

2 minutes ago, xking said:

The life stealing effect  has noting to do with the Grave Sand collecting.  Nagash made Nagashizzar with the  life stealing effect back in the age of myth, Because he don't like alive stuff.

Actually it got worse going by lon and malign portents when nagash retook his city. I also recall on stream they said the people of shyish can taste the very air changing.

[shinros]

Someone made an awesome gif of last week choice just now on facebook. 

 

[VoodooChileIRL]

I had a thought. Now that there is a giant time cannon in Aqshy, what would happen if the Fyreslayer lodges there emptied their holds of ur-gold, gathered it into one big pile and fired the cannon at it?

Instant Grimnir, just add reverse time?

I mean if it did work, he might only end up a shadow of his former self but if they could revert him back to a point where he has consciousness, maybe he could pull himself back together? (godhood etc)

[Sception]

Ok, my friends.  After much deliberation without the necrosages coming to any clear consensus, with the objectively wrong answer jumping out to an early lead, I think it's time for my to step in and get a handle on this situation.  I know a handful of you have been waiting on baited breath for me to tell you what is in your own best interest, and now I'm here to tell you exactly what to do.

VOTE SKULL

Seriously, Skull is the only right and good option here, for a variety of reasons both diagetic and extradiagetic.

I'll start with the honestly less important in-universe reasons, the first and foremost of which being..

The seat of Nagash's power was an impossible fortress situated in the center of a nightmare hellscape of wildly unrestrained death magic even way back in the Age of Myth.  Now that Nagash has returned, and moved an entire mountain's worth of Shyishian Realmstone to his city, it is simply beyond taking.  Mortals who so much as approach it age a hundred years with every step, collapsing in a pile of black sand when the city is still but an ominous speck on the horizon.  Oh, sure, ageless immortal creatures like daemons might make it to the gates, but good luck taking them.  Maybe once they might have, but the city is larger and better defended than ever, Nagash's servants haven't been broken by a rampaging Sigmar, and the golden god's stormcasts have Archaons forces split across battles on half a dozen worlds.

This if folly.  If Nagash is even responsible for the stolen hours at all - and we'll get to that - this can only be a trap, an attempt to draw as many mortal souls into sure death as possible on his very gates, leaving the archliche to feast on the souls of the dead and the dying.  This seems the most likely case, as the lore leading up to Malign Portents hasn't forshadowed anything about time, but rather been all about Nagash devising means of trapping even those souls claimed by other deities, provided they fall within the realm of death.  We saw this in the closing moments of the last Realmgate War novel.  We saw this in the Mortarch of Night audio dramas.  This momentary fluctuation in the chonology of the realms is likely just an invitation, and attempt to force victims to him in desperation to fight and die in the millions where his power and control is strongest.

And again, that's all assuming these temporal hiccups are even Nagash's doing.  I mean, we just fired a gigantic time cannon over on the realm of fire after super-charging it with barely-harnessed chaos magic.  It seems to me dramatically more likely that the time-slips rippling through the realms are a direct result of that action, and have nothing to do with Nagash at all.  Sending your armies to Shyish is a terrible blunder, they should be escorting your wizards to Aqshy to tame the wild chronomancy swirling through that realm.  That seems a far more likely course of action for fixing this mess.

So clearly EYE is by far the worst option to take.  What then should be selected instead?  The truth is, we don't know what's going on, going to Shyish is the absolute last thing any sane person should do.  Drake indicates an attempt to steal the time 'back' from Nagash, but we don't even know for sure that Nagash has it, and if he did, well, that is the drop dead last person you should be trying to steal anything from.

The clear answer here is SKULL.  Just, gather your forces and wait for the situation to be more clear.  The rippling fallout from firing the time cannon will fade, and the correct course of action will reveal itself.  Any other action at all is a mistake right now, one likely to cost not just a few hours here and there, not just a loss of the odd Monday here and there that you didn't even want to drag yourself through anyway, but the very immortal souls of yourself and your followers.

The in universe justifications well established, it's time to turn to the dramatically more important real world reasons to vote Skull.

'But Sception', I hear you ask, 'how can we stand by while Nagash endangers the entire setting?'  The answer to that is to WAKE UP!  Nothing is in danger.  What, you think if Nagash wins GW's gonna just be all "whoopsy-doodle, I guess that's the end of Age of Sigmar, better cancel the release of these fish elves we already paid all this money to make."  Don't be ridiculous.  Literally nothing is actually in danger here, unless by that you mean Age of Sigmar's game and setting are in danger of a much needed shake-up dragging the narrative kicking and screaming out of it's boring, mono-dimensional Order vs Chaos rut.

As I've hammered away every single week, A VICTORY FOR NAGASH IS A VICTORY FOR ALL OF AGE OF SIGMAR.  As a game worth playing.  As a setting worth investing in emotionally.  Can't you feel it?  I can't be the only one who's felt the surge in quality since the Malign Portents buildup began.  How the fluff, the tone, everything has taken a dramatic step forward.  This whole campaign has been a fun, spooky bolt of energy and interest and excitement in a way that the Realmgate Wars and whatever that city business never were.  You don't want this to end do you?  I don't want to go back to that, and you don't either!  An ascendant Nagash, a clear message to GW that we actively welcome the 'Great Work' he's been doing for this setting, will root this newer, darker, murkier, more dangerous, less clear cut tone as a major aspect of Age of Sigmar going forward, and that is absolutely a good thing for the game as a whole.

A victory for interest.  A victory for variety.  A victory for the little guy, sending a clear message to GW that there are FOUR grand alliances, and we're tired of Order and Chaos being the only teams that matter.  That the neglected factions have a following, that we want to be not just mentioned but central in the narrative, in the product line, in the game mechanics.

Yes, a victory for Nagash is a 'Bad Ending' for this campaign.  The worst ending, even.

But sometimes the worst ending is the best ending.

 

[shinros]

Yeah I believe GW wrote that part in Malign portents/LON for a reason how can you sack a city you can't get anywhere near to?  You will just die. I mean this could be a red herring but this is GW so yeah.  Considering Nagash killed a man in Ayzerheim via just from a shard walking to the centre might not be a good idea.

[Soulsmith]

Hmm, I mean that's all nice logic and all, but...

 

WAAAGH!!!

[shinros]

6 minutes ago, xking said:

Vote eye, you guys are over thinking this.  If the life stealing effect could be nullified before, It can be nullified again. 

Yeah but his seat of power is now surrounded by upside down pyramids that is made of gravesand. The recent story showed what a small amount could do. Anyway we have to wait and see.

[shinros]

2 minutes ago, xking said:

Yes, we should wait and see. If Order, Chaos and Destruction lose. We should go down fighting, Not hiding. 

You may not even get to the fight since the city itself will kill you. Build your army and then see what happens instead of charging in head first without thought. 

[Soulsmith]

Just now, shinros said:

You may not even get to the fight since the city itself will kill you. Build your army and then see what happens instead of charging in head first without thought. 

Something something something Gorkamorka.