Expanding on Death: Not Enough Flavour

[Undeadly]

4 hours ago, Aelfric said:

Regarding other Gods of Death,  The Dread Solstice story "The Forgotten Dead" is all about another Death God (probably from the Age of Myth?) hiding from Nagash.  There is nothing to say this was the only Death God in hiding and it is clear that Nagash is still on the look out.  If Sigmar is on the hunt for alternative God of Death to join his Pantheon, then that could be a nice addition to the Lore and an interesting rival to Nagash.

Honestly, I wouldn't be opposed to a Death God that was allied with Sigmar; honestly, I'm sure there must be one, if only because of how expansive the Mortal Realms are. But out of necessity and theming, I'd prefer if they were put into Order, and not into Death.

[Dirtnaps]

5 hours ago, TheMuphinMan said:

I still don't get why death needs to be nagash centric other than the half of FEC that follow the Carrion King who haven't been mentioned since the FEC battletome

I really hope they actually do something with the Carrion King, bringing him more into the lore to openly defy Nagash sounds pretty dang interesting to me. I reckon he could make for a pretty sweet looking model too. I mean nothing screams powerful quite like being the origin of an entire race, sure he couldn't be anywhere near as powerful as a god but even with his madness I think he could throw a spanner in Nagash's plans and make for at least a minor threat to Nagash and it would be easy to come up with a narrative for why they're fighting along side each other if you use them together. The whole of the FEC is kind of a big middle finger to Nagash if you think about it really, since none of them are actually dead and if the Carrion King did return they would all bow to him instead of Nagash regardless of whether they worship Nagash or not, hell they could even write it that they see him as Nagash in their delusion.

I wouldn't mind them expanding on the Varghulf courtiers as well, they're so different than the rest of the FEC visually and I don't think its really explained why that is anywhere. Whereas all of the other FEC units originate from your basic ghoul the Varghulf Courtier is just there.

[Lucky Snake Eyes]

8 hours ago, Honk said:

Please report immediately to your local inquisitioner for counseling... blamm 

In nurgles defense, he just wants to spread the love, his love just so happens to be deadly to those that don't embrace him back. On the other hand, he did resurrect Isabella as a vindictive daemon host to torment Vlad... Considering his own marriage that seems routine for nurgle.

[N.I.B.]

Arrr, I remember back when ye olde Luthor Harkon first set anchor outside the shores of Lustria!  http://warhammerfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Zombie_Pirates

Such much awesomeness flavour, take a look at the glory  - http://sgabetto.free.fr/Telechargements/War.CZombiePirates.pdf

 

 

Some of these units I recognize in the trailer above.  And isn't there a Mournghul? 

Back then, the Zombie Pirates of the Vampire Coast rules were part of the Army of Sylvania, which was another way to play Vampire Counts. The Grave Sites of Death in Age of Sigmar are  Army of Sylvania Grave markers, just a bit different. 

Zombie pirates has that comic relief/horror going, maybe there's a market out there? 

 

 

[Honk]

37 minutes ago, N.I.B. said:

Zombie pirates has that comic relief/horror going, maybe there's a market out there? 

They just released that noblebright 40k kids adventures stuff...

if they do so for AoS, we might get something crazy like zombipirates and big bad vodoo priest, while little Lisa lightning is helping her friend violet the vampire to rescue her family. Well hopefully pg-13 not preschool

[michu]

@HonkYou're aware that AoS Warhammer Adventures is a thing? You can read sample chapter on the https://warhammeradventures.com site.

[Honk]

39 minutes ago, michu said:

u're aware that AoS Warhammer Adventures is a thing?

Nope... ?

took the „who are u“ test, wanted to be a necromancer {digging/knowledge...} was demoted to realm of life!!!

total disgrace, the shame...

[ledha]

I would really like a ultra-elite army for death, like stormcast but even more elite, with vampires. Full black and stylized armor, badass swords and capes, vampiric powers.

Each of those guys is supposed to be a murder machine. Nothing more badass than a army of 30-50 models killing an army twice to thrice it size

[Dirtnaps]

8 minutes ago, ledha said:

I would really like a ultra-elite army for death, like stormcast but even more elite, with vampires. Full black and stylized armor, badass swords and capes, vampiric powers.

Each of those guys is supposed to be a murder machine. Nothing more badass than a army of 30-50 models killing an army twice to thrice it size

This is exactly how I think Soulblight will be once they're fleshed out with a stand alone battletome and new units. 

[Cursed]

1 hour ago, Dirtnaps said:

This is exactly how I think Soulblight will be once they're fleshed out with a stand alone battletome and new units. 

And I hope they give each bloodlines different allegiances abilities and a really distinctive way to play each of them

-Blood dragon for a super fighty, super elite force

-Nosferatu for a magic heavy vampire coven with access to summonable units like zombies/skeletons

-Lamia with a lot of debuffing and subtle magic to make your opponent cry while you set your trap in motion!

-Von Carstein (they will surely give them another name, sadly) for an aristocratic vampire army that is a mix of every other one (little fighty prowess, some magic capabilities, some debuffing)

-any other bloodlines they can think of!  (shamanistic vampire! with blood voodoo or something)

 

For new units, I hope we get

-elite infantry vampires

-new blood knights models! and make them tougher and killier! I want them to be the elite of the elite! super hard to shift and a nightmare to face in melee!  (of course they should cost more in points for these buff!)

-Living thrall for cheap infantry and board control (and a snack when your vamps are hungry!  ahah!)  ps: this let me think it could be a really cool rule! In your hero phase, do d3 MW to a thrall unit within 3'' of any vampire heroes and they heal same number of MW done!  

-fast attack vampire Knight units on hellstead (flying pegasus)

-combat buffing vampire heroes (blood shaman!)

-new heroes model for vampire lords! (I really want a new model for the winged vampire because I really don't like the look of the one we have now!)

-Make vampire heroes sturdier and killier! in WFB they were the true nightmares in the army and your opponent was really afraid of them!

-vampire assassins who use shadow magics to teleport around the battlefield to stalk their prey!

-some kind of real shooty units! Vampire Stalkers or something who hunt with dire wolves and crossbows!   (the undead don't shoot mentality starts to get old!)

-new named character for each bloodline!

-and a lot more! Soulblight was my favorite factions at the beginning of AoS and now there rules are so weak and old compare to the new ones, it's just better to play legion of blood instead  

[Dirtnaps]

9 minutes ago, Cursed said:

-Von Carstein (they will surely give them another name, sadly) for an aristocratic vampire army that is a mix of every other one (little fighty prowess, some magic capabilities, some debuffing)

I could see them keeping the name, I mean Mannfred's still a Von Carstein so it would make sense.

I'm hoping they give us Abhorash since he's actually in AoS, probably won't happen but it would be awesome if it did. I'd guess Adhema from the novels could be a named character for them not sure if she'd go with either the Blood Dragon or Lahmian bloodlines if they did do characters for each bloodline though, probably Lahmian.

[Lucky Snake Eyes]

3 hours ago, Cursed said:

And I hope they give each bloodlines different allegiances abilities and a really distinctive way to play each of them

-Blood dragon for a super fighty, super elite force

-Nosferatu for a magic heavy vampire coven with access to summonable units like zombies/skeletons

-Lamia with a lot of debuffing and subtle magic to make your opponent cry while you set your trap in motion!

-Von Carstein (they will surely give them another name, sadly) for an aristocratic vampire army that is a mix of every other one (little fighty prowess, some magic capabilities, some debuffing)

 

I don't know any surviving nosferatu, but we have abhorash, lamians are a dime a dozen and it's possible the von carstein ring has allowed isabella to survive the death of the old world. ?

[N.I.B.]

Necrarch, my good sirs. I'm not familiar with the fluff for the Old World's ending, maybe they killed off the entire bloodline? They kind of compete with Necromancers, and Arkhan the Black. I used to run a lvl 4 Necrarch lord sometimes, but no vampire thralls, necromancers were cheaper and better. 

 

 

[Sception]

Anti-Nagashi undead aren't really super possible in the current lore, not because undead can't act against Nagash, but because the moment such action becomes significant enough to attract his attention the undead in question are brought back to heel.  Of course, new fluff could change or retcon that, but even then, anti-Nagashi undead wouldn't be 'Grand Alliance: Death' units.  They'd be order (Settra, as a civilization builder, would fall in here), or destruction (one could imagine independent ghoul hordes/kingdoms under Ushoran as a destruction faction), or chaos (think nurgle zombies).

The Grand Alliances are just that, alliances.  Yes, there might be infighting within them, but they set that aside and work together when it comes to battling forces of the other alliances.  The armies of Tzeentch and Khorne might clash, but they work together against Sigmar, and never work /with/ sigmar against each other.  Likewise in order, sigmarines might fight to protect an innocent village from khainite blood elf murderercults, but they'll be fighting with those cults against orc hordes, nagashii undead, or the forces of chaos, and never with those against the khainites.

Grand Alliance: Death is the 'Nagash' alliance, the forces acting - willingly, knowingly, or otherwise - in service of Nagash's vision.  Any force, living or otherwise, so fundamentally opposed to that vision that they would more readily ally with sigmar, gork/mork, or Khorne against nagash than vice versa by definition isn't a part of that alliance and shouldn't have the 'Death' keyword.

.............................................

As for ways to expand the factions and themes available to the alliance, there's a few ways to do it.  The flesh eaters/nighthaunt model of taking a particular 'race' of undead and expanding it into a discrete faction is one, and seems the most obvious.  For instance, you could imagine the following as Death army books:

Flesh Eaters (ghoul stuff, maybe Ushoran as a ghoul mortarch)

Nighthaunts (ghost stuff led by olynder)

Deathrattle (skeleton stuff, maybe borrowing TK themes with bone giants, archers, chariots, etc, maybe led by arkhan, or krell, or somebody new like Tamra)

Fleshy stuff (zombies and necromancers plus some abhorrant 'frankensteins monster'esque elites and stitched flesh chimera monstrosities)

Soulblight (vampires, vampire bats, maybe vampire wolves, maybe some blood donors / mortal cultists dedicated to surving the vampires in the hopes of being chosen themselves)

Deathlords (nagash, non-faction-specific mortarchs, morghasts - maybe hero level morghasts, maybe vampire lords and master necromancers specifically chosen as the acolytes of the various mortarchs), plus rules for 'generic death' and 'legion of nagash' armies with access to all death models but maybe requiring a deathlord leader as the general for the legions?)

 

But while that's perfectly viable, a more interesting route might be going with more general themes.  For example, you might have undead pirates with a mix of vampire captains, skeletal & zombie crew, ghost mermaids & what-have-you, and then an entirely separate necropolis army with ghost aristocrats, skeletal citizen levy, necromancers animating stone statues & gargoyles, etc.  with each themes having a mix of different kinds of undead within them, rather than the different kinds of undead each separated out into secregated factions, and then just leave 'legions of nagash' more or less as is for the 'generic gothic' basic versions of undead without some theme layed on top.

IMO either way would work.  In the mean time, after the rather impressive nighthaunt release and the very solid Legions of Nagash book, I'm personally content to wait a bit for more new stuff while we get some more elves, dwarves, slaaneshi stuff, mortal chaos followers, greenskins, and other somewhat underrepresented AoS factions.

 

[Lucky Snake Eyes]

Nagash really doesn't like the other gods removing souls from the cycle of death, if there isn't already lore out there for this it would be cool to see a battletome for an elite undead army tasked with the retrieval of the stolen souls. Like some sort of proper reapers meant to break the stormcasts cycle of reforging to return their souls to the mortal coil or something.

[Dirtnaps]

5 hours ago, Lucky Snake Eyes said:

Nagash really doesn't like the other gods removing souls from the cycle of death, if there isn't already lore out there for this it would be cool to see a battletome for an elite undead army tasked with the retrieval of the stolen souls. Like some sort of proper reapers meant to break the stormcasts cycle of reforging to return their souls to the mortal coil or something.

Retrieval of souls is sorta what the Nighthaunt were made for which you can see with the Guardian of souls drawing lost souls to it with its lantern and the Spirit Torments which on the table get bonuses for Stormcasts dying and in the Soul Wars novel which makes a lot of sense when you take into account Nagash's view on the hierarchy of death with the living being on the bottom of the food chain followed by Deadwalkers then Deathrattle and Nighthaunt sitting at the top with the Soulblight standing on it's own (believe this is mentioned somewhere in the Soul Wars novel as well). So I don't really think GW would make another soul hunting faction and instead expand on that aspect of the Nighthaunt if they were to do something like add elite units for hunting down Stormcast. Probably wouldn't happen anytime soon though considering the size of the model range atm but it'd be pretty sweet to have some big heavily armoured reapers opening stormcasts like a tin can and ripping out their souls.

[Lucky Snake Eyes]

@Dirtnaps I haven't read soul wars yet so thanks for clarifying!