What Death Battletome do you want to see, and why?

[shinros]

11 hours ago, MechaBriZilla said:

Not sure I agree. 

 

The pattern  AoS is more factions with tighter themes.  I don't think there is anyway we see them merge what has already been separated since AoS. It just doesn't make sense that they split things up only to put them back together.

Same for TK.  If they come back, I don't think they go in deathrattle.  To thematically different.

Well tell that to beasts of the grave that were merged into flesh eater courts. Death faces the problem that factions either are only heroes and one unit. Or only heroes like death mages their section is only TWO models. What on earth can they do to expand that into it's own faction? Unless we get a whole human death faction but that won't make much sense since they are stated to be necromancers that use the undead.

Or they have poor leaders like nighthaunt. The common trend in the fluff and books I have read that vampires still use mixed undead. Well they mainly use zombies according to the grand alliance death book as basic foot soldiers. 

With elite vampire units etc at most I do suspect they are at least going to get the dire wolves. I feel the deadwalkers(who are noted to be used by vampiers) and death mages along with the soulblight would make a rounded faction that covers bases well. Plus they can give us an elite vampire infantry unit, plastic blood knights and new plastic vampire hero I would call that a day IMO. It still has not changed that necromancers are the vampires Igor's looking for the blood kiss according to lord's of undeath. 

I feel the faction would not be fleshed out just with vampire infantry in my opinion, they make the express point in their section that when they wage war they raise armies of undead AND sire nest's of vampires.

If they don't do this I suspect we are going to get a mixed battelion with zombies, skeletons and a necromancer for sure. 

2 hours ago, BrAiKo said:

My only thought with TKs as a faction is should they actually fight in the Death faction?  Of course they are undead, but Nagash (+ Neferata) are like their #1 enemy iirc.  That may be one of the reasons they are gone as an army.  However some of their units might be divided up and return (under deathrattle etc?).

Problem is they can't fight against the death faction nagash is a god of dead/undeath that can override your will once your undead it happens a lot of manny and neferata in the lord of undeath novel. At most I see Khalida bending the knee to nagash being the new leader of TK but having "problems" with Neferata like end times. It's why the flesh eater courts that don't want to serve(looks to be minority) nagash are running instead of fighting. 

Since if they get within nagah's presence they are done they will be his. Hence why they are trying to put a lot of space between them.

[umlaut31]

I second the whole deathrattle vibe - that's where I'm trying to go with my current death force but you sort of have to dabble in other bits (soulblight, death walker etc) if you want a competitive list or one that doesn't require hundreds of figures.

A soulblight book would be awesome though, and potentially really fluffy! I always thought that it would be cool if they had a medieval style militia as a core basic infantry - so the people who live near the vampires and fight for them (albeit likely terrified or coerced into it), like bret peasants or something?

[MechaBriZilla]

4 hours ago, BrAiKo said:

My only thought with TKs as a faction is should they actually fight in the Death faction?  Of course they are undead, but Nagash (+ Neferata) are like their #1 enemy iirc.  That may be one of the reasons they are gone as an army.  However some of their units might be divided up and return (under deathrattle etc?).

I actually feel like they wouldn't.  If they ever came back, I expect them to join Order or remain a truly neutral faction.  I mean sure they are undead, but there is no way that Settra would ever bend his knee to Nagash.  

[mmimzie]

Nah I bet the death rattle lore will be tomb kings were taken over my nagash.

Same as bretonians death was rolled into the flesh eater courts.

That way both factions can stay nice and dead within the death alliance.

[MechaBriZilla]

2 hours ago, shinros said:

Well tell that to beasts of the grave that were merged into flesh eater courts. Death faces the problem that factions either are only heroes and one unit. Or only heroes like death mages their section is only TWO models. What on earth can they do to expand that into it's own faction? Unless we get a whole human death faction but that won't make much sense since they are stated to be necromancers that use the undead.

Or they have poor leaders like nighthaunt. The common trend in the fluff and books I have read that vampires still use mixed undead. Well they mainly use zombies according to the grand alliance death book as basic foot soldiers. 

With elite vampire units etc at most I do suspect they are at least going to get the dire wolves. I feel the deadwalkers(who are noted to be used by vampiers) and death mages along with the soulblight would make a rounded faction that covers bases well. Plus they can give us an elite vampire infantry unit, plastic blood knights and new plastic vampire hero I would call that a day IMO. It still has not changed that necromancers are the vampires Igor's looking for the blood kiss according to lord's of undeath. 

I feel the faction would not be fleshed out just with vampire infantry in my opinion, they make the express point in their section that when they wage war they raise armies of undead AND sire nest's of vampires.

If they don't do this I suspect we are going to get a mixed battelion with zombies, skeletons and a necromancer for sure. 

Problem is they can't fight against the death faction nagash is a god of dead/undeath that can override your will once your undead it happens a lot of manny and neferata in the lord of undeath novel. At most I see Khalida bending the knee to nagash being the new leader of TK but having "problems" with Neferata like end times. It's why the flesh eater courts that don't want to serve(looks to be minority) nagash are running instead of fighting. 

Since if they get within nagah's presence they are done they will be his. Hence why they are trying to put a lot of space between them.

Good point with Beasts of the Grave.  I hadn't thought of that one.  However, over all of the various factions, they really are doing more expanding and less contracting.  

I do know what you mean about the Deathmages.  I'm not sure what's going on their, but as of now, Order as the same sort of thing going on with the Collegiate Arcane.  I'm honestly not sure why mages were pulled out like this, but since none of them have been pulled into another battletome as of now, I don't have a clue what GW's plans are here.

What I was trying to convey in my comments, was that, in the process of publishing new battletomes, GW has generally added more factions to the overall list, rather than removing them.  Also, if you look at our list of factions, it is the smallest of all the Grand Alliances.  Obviously, I have no in on how GW operates.  However, I suspect that our number of overall factions within the Death GA will continue to Grow, and not shrink, in the same way the it has happened with the other Grand Alliances.  To me at least, the design ethic in new Battletomes is a small amount of unit variety (as compared to WHFB) with more thematic, and visual coherency, usually achieved through use of a few Multi-Unit kits.

As for TK and their relationship to Nagash.  Remember that the TK leader is Settra, and his will has resisted not only Nagash but the combined Gods of Chaos.  There is something too that, GW can do what they like with the fluff, but we do know a few things.  One, No TK have shown up in any Death army so far in the Fluff.  Hints about TK have been dropped into the various fluff.  Settra did survive the End Times, and to me at least, seemed to be given a strong character, with a destiny.  What that destiny is, I don't know, but it will certainly involve Nagash.

As for Vamps and their use of other undead as pawns.  Don't forget, we are all still the same Grand Alliance.  Having their own battletome that doesn't include units from other factions, absolutely does not mean that can't still do that.  It may still be a very important part of what they do.  However, it also doesn't mean that they can't be an elite style army all on their own that uses a range of heavy hitters to get the job done a lot of times, and then summoning hordes of deathless minions in larger engagements.  Low model count, Elite armies are a thing in 40k (such as Grey Knights), no reason they can't exist here.

[Carnelian]

Not all Order units bend the knee to Sigmar so I don't see why there can't be competing Death factions

Regarding the poster on page 1 who talked about size of models to be releases, Sylvaneth got 1 big monster, 1 smaller monster, 1 multi option big infantry unit, 1 multi option small unit and a new hero.

I think if you added that to any sub faction then it could be a pretty complete army.

Finally for interest, there are battalions in sylvaneth that involve "1 order wizard" or "2 duardin units".

Maybe that's how they'll incorporate different factions in death. E.G.  a death rattle faction with "1 necromancer".

[ust66]

18 hours ago, MechaBriZilla said:

Anyway, why u gotta come in here and bust peoples chops over wanting something?   Why u go and make me write a whole wall o' text about my man love for Settra?

Well I do very much appreciate your wall o' text.  I never played WFB or got into any of the fluff but from what you wrote Settra seems like a very interesting character indeed.

[MechaBriZilla]

3 minutes ago, ust66 said:

Well I do very much appreciate your wall o' text.  I never played WFB or got into any of the fluff but from what you wrote Settra seems like a very interesting character indeed.

Ha!  Thanks! 

Obviously I have a specific love of the character.  True, he'll likely never return to the setting, but I can dream.

[someone2040]

I think once GW figure out what they want the identity and purpose of the various Death sub-factions (And other GA sub-factions as well) to be, then they'll get a battletome.

 

Like at the moment, what's the identity of Deathrattle? How do you add a bit of spice to them other than being hordes of Skeletons led by the Wight Kings. Where do they live? What do they do? That's where a bit of the Tomb King flavour wouldn't go astray. Where you had your Tomb Kings with identity and memories of their previous life, and not wanting to bow down to the others. 

 

I get the feeling that some of the sub-factions are almost there, but are one or two models away from being interesting. Maybe for Deathrattle, it's some kind of bone constructs (Ala Morghasts really, but maybe non-flying ones). For Soulblight, it's probably replacing all those finecast troops with some plastic stuff and some infantry. 

 

I don't think all the factions have to be stand alone, but they should have enough content to be run stand alone if necessary. That puts Deathmages in a semi-awkward spot, but they could bring in Acolytes or perhaps some half-dead unit where Necromancy has gone afoul. Another option is for Battalions to include stuff outside the Deathmage sub-faction (Deathrattle horde-master, Necromancer + 2-3 units of DEATHRATTLE keyword).

 

It'll certainly be interesting stuff, and I hope more sub-factions get the Sylvaneth deal rather than just being re-boxed old stuff without anything new.

[Mirbeau]

Whichever one brings back a tomb kings equivalent or new plastic zombies.