Rethinking the Grand Alliances

[grungolah]

All this talk of good and evil...   Nurgle clearly is an ally of life.

[BaldoBeardo]

4 minutes ago, grungolah said:

All this talk of good and evil...   Nurgle clearly is an ally of life.

It has been a subtle change. Pre-AoS Nurgle was more the absence of despair - entropy is unavoidable, so don't worry - be happy!

Post-AoS, he's moved on from "everything ends!" to "everything starts (after something else ends)!"

[amysrevenge]

I'm not saying that I demand any changes - just that it would be easily justifiable to go in a number of different paths.  You could formulate arguments to re-brand several factions into different GA groups and  be convincing and  internally consistent.  Or you could make arguments to keep them where they are, and be convincing and internally consistent.

I think the result might be more interesting, if the races were spread out a bit more across the factions, but I can also see why you wouldn't.

[Overread]

Nurgle has always been quite the happy god so long as Gork/Mork don't get into his garden to spoil things. 

Heck his Beasts of Nurgle are basically giant puppies who are super happy to play with new people! 

[Mr. White]

I guess one upside to keeping all of the aelves in Order, even if some could thematically fit in other GAs.

It allows GW to at some point do a combined aelf BT sort of like Legions of Nagash with units from all 3 (or 4...or 5).

[amysrevenge]

Part of the problem is that, other than Chaos*, none of the other GAs have explicit definitions.  We have all these ad hoc explanations about civilization builders and tribes and Nagash, but they are all sort of informal after-the-fact explanations.  There are several allegiances that chafe within their assigned GA, and could easily fit as well in a different one.  Maybe not *better*, but similarly.

As examples, the tiniest of lore tweaks could put FEC or DoK or Brayherds or  Idoneth or even Sylvaneth firmly into Destruction.  Tomb Kings, if they weren't squatted, could easily fit within Order.

Looking historically, they made Empire and Vampire Counts, and then (!) Dark Elves and High Elves (!) believably ally in the End Times - nothing is impossible after that.

 

*Even for Chaos, adding in Skaven doesn't seem like a big deal now, but hold on - what's the deal with that?

[Mr. White]

yeah, but this all makes for some interesting discussion on a slow Friday at work.

[Circus of Paint]

To me this feels more like an issue with the uneven distribution of factions across the Grand Alliances.

At the end of the day, Destruction just needs a whole lot more than they've currently got.

[Overread]

41 minutes ago, Circus of Paint said:

To me this feels more like an issue with the uneven distribution of factions across the Grand Alliances.

At the end of the day, Destruction just needs a whole lot more than they've currently got.

When you view the alliances on the store page or in a casual manner this does seem to be the case. However when you look at he actual alliances factions can take in game and at the lore you see that whilst Order is big its not actually that united. In fact many of the Order factions dislike or even hate each other; they mostly only ever get together when its mutually beneficial; or the alliances are only at the casual trading level. 

It's something I really hope GW addresses with their new Sigmar website and with how they show off Sigmar; then again I think that until 2.0 dropped sigmar was kind of in a bit of a lore rutt in that it was still suffering from the end of the old world woes and the fact that the launch was marred with poor rules and reception in some ways (granted it did launch a lot of new sales though so it wasn't all bad). 

 

It's something I see time and again and was the same with myself- seeing the Grand Alliances and thinking "ok so all those factions are joined up - gods that means Order is ruling everything! So messy too where is the faction identity". It was only once I got a Battletome and really got into it that I saw "oh hey actually my Daughters can only ally with Stormcast and the other Dark Elves; they can't take High elf units or treemen or free cities or dwarves - ooh this is much better!" 

I think once one gets past seeing the Grand Alliances as a single mega-faction the game starts to become more sane and more fun. You see the game for what it really is and all the internal lore politics become all the more fun as now there are allies in the grand order of things who hate each other; or distrust; or which are rather evil/nasty but still tolerated. 

[amysrevenge]

I think, really, if you were to start over again without the spectre of legacy IP hanging over everything, the GAs could have better names, that make it seem less... unappealing to move individual factions around.  Or maybe it's my old school D&D bias showing.

Evil (current Chaos)

Chaos (current Destruction)

Order (current Death)

Good (current Order) - might want a better name than "good" but you get my idea.

And then from here, rearrange individual allegiances to fit where they belong better. 

Evil could have the 4 (current) chaos gods, everchosen, slaves to darkness.  Also DoK maybe, although they might belong in (new) Order better.

Chaos could have bray and war herds, thunderscorn, grots of all sorts, orruks of all sorts, ogors of all sorts, flesheaters, skaven of all sorts.

Order could have Nagash undead, and (controversially perhaps), both new mercenary Duardin factions, and maybe even Idoneth Deepkin. Perhaps DoK.

I'd still want SCE, Sylvaneth, and Seraphon in Good for sure in this arrangement, as well as the various Free City sub-types of humans, aelves, and duardin.

 

 

But perhaps they wouldn't want to lean in so hard on the D&D alignment axes.

The alternative, I think, is to not have GAs at all.  Just have ally lists more or less as-is.

[Overread]

This sums things up pretty well for Order

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2018/06/18/no-006-go-good-guys/

[Ravinsild]

The point of Destruction is that they live exclusively for War. They have no civilization at all. They’re all roaming bands of Warriors that just kill whatever is in front of them purely for the joy of it and for food sometimes. 

They just destroy. They don’t make buildings, they don’t stay in one place. They’re like forces of nature that just sweep through and crush whatever is before it. It’s as true of BCR as it is for Ironjawz and Bonesplittas just hunt giant monsters and whatever looks strong hoping to summon Gorkamorka. I would guess grots are more cowardly but they too just kill and wander around. 

This does not sound like any of the Aelves at all. 

[Kyriakin]

I am almost getting to the point where I would opt for the Grand Alliances to be dropped altogether.

But anyway, non-Chaos god Beastmen to Destruction always seemed like the most natural move to give give Destruction a lift (and remove some bloat from Chaos). Thunderscorn too.

For me Chaos, should basically be the four Chaos Gods, and a kind of over-arching Archeon/Everchosen elite thing.

That would still leave Skaven as the awkward one though.

[Vasshpit]

I'm not the biggest lore buff by any stretch but aren't beastmen,  like, made of "chaos"?

Like THE original children and all that?... O_o

Keep hearing the whole beastmen in destruction thing, is it just because they are... beastly or what is it? 

[dmorley21]

40 minutes ago, Kyriakin said:

I am almost getting to the point where I would opt for the Grand Alliances to be dropped altogether

Yeah, this would work. The ally system does what the grand alliances intended. 

24 minutes ago, Vasshpit said:

I'm not the biggest lore buff by any stretch but aren't beastmen,  like, made of "chaos"?

Like THE original children and all that?... O_o

Keep hearing the whole beastmen in destruction thing, is it just because they are... beastly or what is it? 

IIRC, they were corrupted and mutated by Chaos. The idea would be that at some point they would revolt. I could be wrong on that; they're not a faction I've ever followed closely. 

[Kyriakin]

1 hour ago, Vasshpit said:

I'm not the biggest lore buff by any stretch but aren't beastmen,  like, made of "chaos"?

Is that in AoS or WHFB. If it's a WHFB precedent, then I don't think it should carry too much weight. Lots of things were reimagined (*i.e. Seraphon, FEC, etc.) during the crossover to existing miniature ranges.

At the end of the day, they are bestial animal-men that go around smashing stuff up and defecating everywhere. If that ain't destruction, then not much is.

Anyway, as mentioned above, a faction changing GA's could make for a good story and an excuse for a splash release for said faction.

[Baron Klatz]

Reimagined yes but also stuck to their roots and just progressed like everything else. Seraphon are still carrying out their mission from the Old Ones to oppose chaos and FEC are ghouls through and through but with the madness spread by Ushoran that infects their kind and is further carried by the other ghoul kings.

Beastmen are from the realm of chaos that spilled into the world-that-was and are thoroughly apart of it as they came from nightmarish realms where meat and twisted bodies were the vegetation (thus why they have goat heads but eat meat).

They came upon the realms with chaos so have spilt from that realm again and with people infected by chaos' influence we get origin stories of mutant children left to die but the herds raising them  as they mutate into beastmen(the Tzaangor origins specifically mention this is how some of them are born).

So beastmen are chaos through and through. Not impossible and certainly interesting for some to go Destruction but it really doesn't do anything for them that the chaos gods already have. The herds that would go to Gorkamorka would be a very unique case.

As for Grand Alliances, I really don't see a problem with them and certainly would hate to see them go as they allow for such creative army combinations.

Death and Destruction just need more releases to feel as fleshed out as Order and chaos do, most complaints I hear is just people wanting more stuff in their corner anyway.

I just connect it to how the Seeds of Hope campaign went, even with three Destruction battletomes and a Death one released during it, Order and Chaos were the biggest playerbases with Order dominating. This on top of GW announcing they had the next 5 years of productions planned after that makes me think the campaign determined which Grand Alliance got the biggest focus since then as they were unsure of AoS' future and wanted to play it safe.

So I expect some more Order love up to 2021 but even now we're seeing them trying to spread it out more so hopefully non-Order fans will get their due as we keep going forward and AoS can take more risks.

[Kitty]

I think the main problem is, is with the addition of new lore and new races, the Grand Alliance idea becomes more and more convoluted. For example within the new Deepkin book alone we have the fact that Sylvaneth, DoK, Freeguild and anything else that isn't Stormcast don't really ally with us. The same goes for DoK, they don't fit in Order.

But where they should go (in my opinion DoK Destruction, IDK Death) doesn't work at all either. 

It was a nice idea for the start of the age where desperation meant allying together no matter the grudge, but in a new age attempting to evolve to new heights, we need an individual ally table for each army. I'd like to see the Monster Arcanum from FW become not just for destruction as well. I think Idoneth should be able to take a Merwyrm for crying out loud!

[Baron Klatz]

1 hour ago, Kitty said:

For example within the new Deepkin book alone we have the fact that Sylvaneth, DoK, Freeguild and anything else that isn't Stormcast don't really ally with us. The same goes for DoK, they don't fit in Order. 

Actually Sylvaneth and Deepkin get along swimmingly.

The battletome makes note of this as they come to the aid of the Sylvaneth

"Radharcith is a Isharann Soulscryer of the Idoneth Deepkin[1]

He led a force of deepkin, who in alliance with the Sylvaneth, destroyed a large Chaos force. he was impressed with the power and fury of the tree-folk but did not understand their need for a ceremony of lamentation of the dead."

Also there's a new E-book now that's also about both of them.

https://www.blacklibrary.com/warhammer-age-of-sigmar/featured/eshort-aos-from-the-deep.html

As they continue to show up we'll see more of their interactions between the other Order races, both the friendly Idoneth and the ones who prefer souls over allies.

[Still-young]

12 hours ago, amysrevenge said:

I think, really, if you were to start over again without the spectre of legacy IP hanging over everything, the GAs could have better names, that make it seem less... unappealing to move individual factions around.  Or maybe it's my old school D&D bias showing.

Evil (current Chaos)

Chaos (current Destruction)

Order (current Death)

Good (current Order) - might want a better name than "good" but you get my idea.

And then from here, rearrange individual allegiances to fit where they belong better. 

Evil could have the 4 (current) chaos gods, everchosen, slaves to darkness.  Also DoK maybe, although they might belong in (new) Order better.

Chaos could have bray and war herds, thunderscorn, grots of all sorts, orruks of all sorts, ogors of all sorts, flesheaters, skaven of all sorts.

Order could have Nagash undead, and (controversially perhaps), both new mercenary Duardin factions, and maybe even Idoneth Deepkin. Perhaps DoK.

I'd still want SCE, Sylvaneth, and Seraphon in Good for sure in this arrangement, as well as the various Free City sub-types of humans, aelves, and duardin.

 

 

But perhaps they wouldn't want to lean in so hard on the D&D alignment axes.

The alternative, I think, is to not have GAs at all.  Just have ally lists more or less as-is.

I think it would be very counterintuitive to have a Grand Alliance called Chaos that didn’t have Chaos in it. 

[syph0n]

I don't feel the need to rearrange the grand alliances. I can see that Destruction are light on choice, where maybe a new race would fit in. I really don't see aelves of any sort, ever, in Destruction. Chaos, yes, due to the old Slaanesh link but that has sprouted better lore I feel with the way the Melusai, Khinerai and Deepkin have all turned out. And I'm glad that they despise Chaos.

Again, I think a lot of the feeling things don't fit comes down to the good evil vs order chaos definitions. The Daughters most definitely have order, so therefore aren't Destruction (the absence of order) but they aren't 'good'. Not all of the Daughters live in Ulgu and are half snake too, which I enjoyed reading in their lore. I also think the aelves have dramatically different ethical and moral compasses to the other mortal races. They feel superior, they live longer, intelligence etc. The Deepkin represent this brilliantly too, with their tragic storyline. 

[Kitty]

In the seventh edition beastmen book (couldve even been late sixth) there was a lot of stories about the Beastmen feeling abandoned and ignored by their gods. Yes their original kin were born of chaos entering the world, but they have no love for it, merely fighting. Of course they can be easily swayed, but few receive boons from the big 4. I could definitely see within the new fluff them slipping from chaos altogether and landing in destruction. It makes sense to put them here to, they don't build, they roam and they long to destroy anything that shows any signs of settlement and order they wish to tear down.

Seeing in the switch Chaos yoinked Skaven I think the switch would be a welcome event.

[Still-young]

36 minutes ago, Kitty said:

In the seventh edition beastmen book (couldve even been late sixth) there was a lot of stories about the Beastmen feeling abandoned and ignored by their gods. Yes their original kin were born of chaos entering the world, but they have no love for it, merely fighting. Of course they can be easily swayed, but few receive boons from the big 4. I could definitely see within the new fluff them slipping from chaos altogether and landing in destruction. It makes sense to put them here to, they don't build, they roam and they long to destroy anything that shows any signs of settlement and order they wish to tear down.

Seeing in the switch Chaos yoinked Skaven I think the switch would be a welcome event.

I’d like Beastmen to be in destruction too. They might be created by Chaos but they could be like a byproduct, and not tied to Chaos. 

[Moonlightwolf]

Order and chaos certainly have an unbalanced number of factions compared to death and destruction, but just trying to force existing factions into allegiances they aren't a fit for to equal out the balance isn't going to work, all the existing Aelf factions hate the chaos gods and want civilizations to exist, even if in the case of DoK its to serve Morathi's politics and manipulation of other factions. Idoneth are also in favour of civilisation, if they had the option to not steal souls and still survive as a race they would, thats their tragic story. They still build and create civilization the soul taking is considered a necessary evil. Trying to label them as destruction would not make sense, the destruction ethos is plundering and consuming, destruction fight because if they stopped they'd end up turning on each other. Idoneth want to hide in their cities and avoid conflict unless it is necessary.  Death Aelves will never make sense because it would require an Aelf god to subjugate themselves to Nagash. We may see chaos Aelves when slaanesh breaks free, if she who thirsts  decides the remaining Aelf souls in their belly would make useful minions rather than a snack but at that point they won't really be Aelves as they'll presumably be deamon possessed and not acting on their own free will. 

[Ravinsild]

Ok in DnD terms Order = Lawful Neutral. 

Theyre neither good nor bad but they all have lawful civilizations and build cities with walls around them and probably do some modicum of agriculture and generally, if left alone, would just live peacefully and try to prosper. 

This does not describe anyone in Chaos, Death or Destruction.

Destruction is the polar opposite of this: they build nothing, ever. They are purely nomadic, do nothing but kill and destroy anything in their way and then eat just about anything they can find. In times of peace they seek out something to fight on purpose and don’t want to be left alone. If left alone they fight themselves until nothing is left. They are literally the dictionary definition of destruction. 

Death is: you guessed it! All undead things. Your quintessential Hollywood razzamataz of Vampires, Werewolves and Frankenstein! Ghouls, Zombies, Ghosts, Skeletons, Liches, Zombie-Dragons, Vampire Bats, all the cliches. They’re all about killing the living and eating their flesh and/or souls. Look to: The Forsaken - The Scourge from Warcraft. ‘S basic. 

Chaos is - the other polar opposite of Order. They are the anti-lawful. There are no rules except “do what you want”. Chaos is fulfill your own selfish desires as much as you want and hurt other people while you’re at it. Got an unquenchable thirst for knowledge and the forbidden? Make sure to test out your latest spells on other people to make sure you got it right. 

Are you just really angry all the time and tired of your boss telling you what to do? Why not murder him and all of your fellow employees and then run screeching into the wilderness searching for more skulls to collect? 

Are you a mad scientist that loves brewing up new ideas for potions? Papa Nurgle is just like you - except disease! And now you’re immortal! And now you can share all of your (and his) newfound creations with everyone you meet! All of the time! And love your job! 

Are you a perfectionist that must also live existence on the edge of sensation and cannot be satisfied with anything less? Do you need the highest highs? The BEST music, the BEST art, the BEST food, the BEST at fighting, the BEST at sex and just generally being better than everyone else and indulging in things that make your senses pop? Perfect welcome to Slaneesh.

Unfortunately after awhile pursuing such things puts you at odds with living peacefully in a city so eventually you too will be ostracized and find yourself living in the wilderness with a bunch of other weirdos all trying to out feel you in one thing or another. But since you’re the best you absolutely can’t lose to them so you’ll always have the best feeling everything ever. 

The Grand Alliances are fine. They make sense.