Make NAGASH great again.

[Sleboda]

In old WFB, huge heroes were problematic. In AoS, they aren't unless you are just playing "kill 'em all" like how WFB used to be.

With the heavy emphasis on objectives in AoS, you can have these amazing heroes on the table and still know the game is won or lost based on the battleplan's victory conditions. It's one of the best things and AoS, in my opinion.

[Ghoooouls]

32 minutes ago, Sception said:

I'm confused where you think Vlad would come into things.  Have there been rumors of his return?  Has he shown up in lore books that I'm unaware of?  Honestly, I would kind of prefer if Vlad be mostly left in the oldhammer past.  I'm all for undoing or retconning pointless, gratuitous deaths of old favorite characters and bringing them back in one form or another for a chance to build on and pay off unresolved character arcs.  I love what we've seen of Drycha, Arkhan, and so on in Age of Sigmar.  But of all the big name characters who died in the end times, I think Vlad probably had the *best* showing in terms of his personal narrative, and the best in terms of paying off his character.  I just don't think there's anything more or better that GW's writers could do with him, and wouldn't want to undercut his End Times swan song just to do smaller and less interesting things with him in AoS.

Then again, I was skeptical of bringing him back for the End Times as well, as I thought his old Vampire Wars story was already complete in itself and bringing him back would only undercut that as well, and I was wrong there, so it's entirely possible that I could prove wrong again if the writers do bring him back.

That said, there are some oldhammer undead characters that I would love to see return, characters who I think had a lot of narrative potential left over that wasn't really fulfilled, character arcs that hadn't been resolved.  Abhorash for one.  Khalida for another.  And there is a Von Carstein who I think has lots of juicy story and character potential that mostly went overlooked, at least by the game lore: Isabella.

buncha pipe dream fancasting in stags cus it's off topic:

  Hide contents

 

She was always a sort of side show to Vlad, we never really got to see her perspective, what she thought or wanted apart from an infatuation with Vlad that itself could have just been a mind-controlled reflection of Vlad's infatuation with himself.  The first time around, Isabella killed herself when Vlad died, but in the end times Vlad killed himself to save her.  Killing herself again, or even just accepting death from the rift, would be a betrayal of that sacrifice.  Imagine an Isabella who chose to live (unlive?) instead to honor that sacrifice, imagine what she might have become in the millenia since?  A lot of potential there, I think.  Doing a gender-flipped version of the classic Strahd / Coppola's-Dracula gimmick of the ancient and powerful vampire recognizing a reincarnation of their long lost love when she thinks she finds an echo of Vlad's soul in some young Cities of Sigmar hero or memory-wiped Stormcast champion, and creepily trying to groom them to match her memory of Vlad while the heroic maybe-vlad-maybe-not struggles to resist her influence, that would probably be the least creative and interesting thing you could do with an AoS era Isabella, and that's already a book I'd absolutely want to read, and Isabella reimagined as an ancient and powerful baroque vampire lord in her own right, if not a mortarch herself, is a model that I would love to field on the table.  Like, that face and hair, but wearing some baroque elaborate armor, and riding some majestic undead monster or flying soul engine throne or the like?  Come on.  Tell me that wouldn't be amazing.

And Khalida's only just behind in potential, IMO.  For the longest time I thought she was a relatively one note charater.  Mummy queen.  Hates vampires.  Hates neferata most of all.  Not a lot of dimensionality to it.  But then came end times, and I got to see a side of Khalida that probably existed before, but that I hadn't seen myself.  A Khalida with other goals than just killing Neferata, Khalida hiding the remains of her not-quite-dead god within her, Khalida willing to serve Nagash in order to preserve that god, and the memory of her fallen homeland, rather than see both destroyed by defying him.  A Khalida who faced the end of the world hand in hand with the cousin who she so hated, their rivalry rendered meaningless by the end of the world.  I'd love to see what a khalida free from the chains of her hatred could do in AoS.  Imagine Neferata subtly undermining nagash - never openly defying him, but still acting to protect the land and people under her dominion from the creeping doom of the Ossiarchs, fighting off invading chaos and stormhost forces and in the process consolidating territory and control in Shyish away from the bonereapers while Katakros's legions are committing all their strength to the fight for the 8 points.  Imagine Nagash raising up Neferata's ancient enemy as a mortarch in order to counter neferata and distract her with an old rivalry - but while they openly fight and oppose each other, behind the scenes they're working together to build and defend a civilization built in Nehekharas image that is as much Khalida's as Neferatas.

Honestly, Khalida and Isabella were both with Neferata at the end of the end times, and either or both of them could work as allies for Neferata that could help build up her role as a character.  Which is needed because honestly, tie in novels aside, the AoS lore seems not to have any more idea of what to do with her than the oldhammer lore did.  Bringing in some co-conspirators for her to scheme with might help that out.

As for Abhorash, well, I know the Carrion King is implied to maybe be Ushoran, but Abhorash strikes me as much more likely to defy Nagash out of some misplaced sense of virtue, and the FEC's self image as noble crusading knights and the abhorants delusion of being virtuous warrior kings fits very well with how Abhorash liked to see himself.  I think a reveal that the carrion king is actually Abhorash could work really well.  But maybe that's just me.

 

Regardless, back in 1e I complained a lot about how the only important movers and shakers in Grand Alliance Death were oldhammer holdovers, and that we needed some 'fresh blood', so to speak, so that we could have important characters with histories and motivations rooted in the current game.  Then came the Nighthaunt battle tome, and the OBR battle tome, and between the two of them we have enough interesting new characters that I think we could bring back one or two more oldhammer undead without upsetting the balance overmuch.  Again, Vlad wouldn't be my first choice, but even then I've been proved wrong before, and wouldn't be annoyed if I were proved wrong again.

Surely if they DID bring back Vlad, though, it would be in a Soulblight book, not an updated LoN?

 

My preferred format for the death grand alliance as a whole is still to have several faction books - OBR, Nighthaunt, Soulblight, FEC, maybe a deadwalkers/death mages zombie apocalypse + nightmarish necromantic experiments faction, maybe an expanded deathrattle list with some TK elements - though OBR probably forecloses that option, maybe some neat new undead elf faction if Nagash ever gets his hand on a sufficient pile of elf souls, etc, each with their own mortarch or mortarchs as appropriate, and then have a 'Deathlords' book with Nagash, reprinted mortarchs, any other miscelaneous undead that haven't found their way into a specific subfaction yet, and a revised legion rules that combine units from various subfactions.  Like maybe arkhan gets OBR and Deadwalkers/death mages, Neferata gets soulblight + deathrattle, and so on, with Nagash's grand host getting everything and functionally replacing the generic grand alliance death rules.

But honestly, GW seems to have been moving away from integration and interactivity across death subfactions, a trend resulting in the OBR, who can't even ally with any other death faction, and if other death factions could take them as allies there still wouldn't be much reason to what with how much their units rely on their unique relentless discipline rules.

Honestly, I have no idea where GW goes with future Death releases at this point, apart from the seemingly inevitable stand alone soulblight faction, and maybe expansions to the OBR and FEC ranges.

Yeah what I meant by 'updated LoN' is really the focus on traditional vamps I.e soulblight, didn't mean the army will still be called LoN, in fact I think it is much more likely they soulblight will be the focus.

 

I didn't mean I thought or heard that hes coming back, just an example of a cool vamp. I do love vlad and hope he comes back but I doubt it. The reason I mention him is because hes always been a sort of icon/leader for vampires and he could well be this again. If I'm honest though I'm just wanting an awesome vampire character, would be happy with updated mannfred.

 

I would love to see any of the other characters you mentioned as well don't get me wrong. And the death of characters in the end times is a little different when considering characters from the death allegiance. Vlad was a vampire and with rumours that he himself was neferatas husband (forget his name) and supped the elixir from nagash making him immortal in a sense.

 

In regards to heroes that died in the end times, the only ones coming back to 'life' that make the most sense are vampires and similar. Hell arkhan has died and hes still here in AoS. Eltharian was killed by arkhan himself and hes made some sort of appearance. Durthu, allarielle, teclis, hints at tyrion eventually and malekith/malerion, neferata, drycha, skarbrand, kairos, skulltaker, archaon, the changeling, blue scribes, morathi, nagash, thanquol, lord kroak etc. There are so many from the 'world that was' here in AoS, so why not vlad?

 

I understand most of them didn't die like Vlad did, and a lot became Gods, but as I say it would be easy to resurrect a lord of death in lore and have it make sense, it has been done before. I get what you're saying about his story but I think it would be cool.

 

Again, I do not think it's likely, I merely mentioned his name as an example.

 

Edited July 6, 2020 by Ghoooouls

[El Syf]

My regular opponent loves telling me Abhorash and all the Blood Dragons are just FEC now. Infuriates me beyond belief! 

I know Gotrek is a bit of a special case but I would love the other grand alliances to get a special character in a similar vein; Abhorash for Death, Sigvald perhaps for chaos and Skarsnik maybe for destruction?

 

Also as has been said before, if they made Nagash a shard of (or similar) it wouldn't fill so weird fielding him.

Edited July 6, 2020 by El Syf

[Sception]

34 minutes ago, Ghoooouls said:

The reason I mention him is because hes always been a sort of icon/leader for vampires and he could well be this again.

This is exactly why I don't want Vlad back honestly, and prefer the novelization canon where there was never any such person as 'Vashanesh', because this role by all rights should belong to Neferata, and the fact that GW keep trying to give this role to anyone other than Neferata is a big reason why her character keeps falling flat in the game canon.  Neferata is dramatically more compelling without Vashanesh, while Vlad's core identity and story is rooted in the Vampire Wars and loses absolutely nothing by jettisoning the Vashanesh stuff.  And yeah, maybe it's a bit late to fix Neferata now, but if GW put some effort into it they absolutely could.  If they can rehabilitate Abaddon into a respectable antagonist, then no character is beyond fixing.  This is also why I'd kind of like the Arkhan/Neferata romantic stuff to be left behind in the old world.  Let nef be her own character first and formost.

But yeah, absolute ruler and iconic character for the soulblight should be, imo *must* be, Neferata.  Not Vlad, Abhorash, Mannfred, or anyone else.  Other vampires should be as far below Neferata as she is below Nagash, and that's a big part of why I personally would like to see Mannfred kicked over to the FEC line, leaving Neferata as the only Soulblight mortarch, but that's another wish list fan casting that doesn't matter to anyone but me.

[Honk]

4 hours ago, Sception said:

But yeah, absolute ruler and iconic character for the soulblight should be, imo *must* be, Neferata.  Not Vlad, Abhorash, Mannfred, or anyone else. 

Depends what background story they are able to push put. Olynder or this Katakros dude is not really a huge win, haven’t heard a lot yet. All the „dead“ old world characters are known and easy to implement.

But in the end it doesn’t matter. I‘d like good heroes for all the Death factions, the Ghoulking , maybe the winterqueen from undying king or vlad/Isabella with a living syish faction...

hopefully the creative team is up to the task of all our hopes and dreams 🙈😂

[Doko]

So funny see someone criying about one of the  most overpowered units in the actual meta......

 

100% the typical situation of learn to play to the creator of the post if he isnt trolling and really think nagaha is bad.

 

So comical as if someone says that bonereapers or tzenth are bad

[ACBelMutie]

53 minutes ago, Doko said:

So funny see someone criying about one of the  most overpowered units in the actual meta......

If you think Nagash is overpowered in Legions of Nagash, you are playing another game, not AoS.  Read again the first post. Cid said Nagash is underpowered in Legions of Nagash, a faction which is underperfoming in current tournaments (since a lot of months ago).

Greetings

[Doko]

And who cares??? 

 

So now i gonna cry about how underpower are the battlemague playing as general order,or how pistolliers playing as free people are underpower.......nagash is one or maybe the most broken unit of the game rigth now playing as bonereaper so he never gonna get any buff untill nagash in bonereaper be nerfed.

 

Was the same than the reapers,broken in lon and balanced in nighaunt,what hapened?only nerf to balance them,i hope nagash players be rdy for no buff or even a nerf to nagash following the gw logic

[Sleboda]

Is anyone else having difficulty understanding the new person, other than the double barrelled general negativity, I mean?

[ZLee Syn]

8 hours ago, Doko said:

And who cares??? 

 

So now i gonna cry about how underpower are the battlemague playing as general order,or how pistolliers playing as free people are underpower.......nagash is one or maybe the most broken unit of the game rigth now playing as bonereaper so he never gonna get any buff untill nagash in bonereaper be nerfed.

 

Was the same than the reapers,broken in lon and balanced in nighaunt,what hapened?only nerf to balance them,i hope nagash players be rdy for no buff or even a nerf to nagash following the gw logic

Compared to new standard of lumineth, tzeentch and seraphon. I would say that nagash is quite ok

[Honk]

38 minutes ago, ZLee Syn said:

quite ok

Please don’t feed the...

one of the tricky things GDubs sadly did, was taking a (tbh) hard to balance centerpiece and used him in two factions... and with different lore access and legion rules and special abilities.
No wonder LoN players are crying about the nerf and the point increase, while petrifex players sip their ice-cold drink 🍸 of fluff players tears and say: nah, it‘ll be fine...
he‘s about 3x10 brutes (840) and I can imagine the OBR Petrifex Nagash with all the spells (protection) to skirt around and grind them to dust... don’t see LoN Nagash standing a chance 🧐

[ZLee Syn]

6 minutes ago, Honk said:

Please don’t feed the...

one of the tricky things GDubs sadly did, was taking a (tbh) hard to balance centerpiece and used him in two factions... and with different lore access and legion rules and special abilities.
No wonder LoN players are crying about the nerf and the point increase, while petrifex players sip their ice-cold drink 🍸 of fluff players tears and say: nah, it‘ll be fine...
he‘s about 3x10 brutes (840) and I can imagine the OBR Petrifex Nagash with all the spells (protection) to skirt around and grind them to dust... don’t see LoN Nagash standing a chance 🧐

That is very true. To be fair I expect LoN to separate into diferent battletomes eventualy so this will not be an issue

[Honk]

19 minutes ago, ZLee Syn said:

To be fair I expect LoN to separate into diferent battletomes eventualy

Well, fudge, do me rightly...

🤾🎱🤕

now here’s an idea! might even be true. 
 

still love to field him, as a centerpiece, even if he usually get torn to pieces

[ACBelMutie]

10 hours ago, Doko said:

And who cares??? 

 

So now i gonna cry about how underpower are the battlemague playing as general order,or how pistolliers playing as free people are underpower.......nagash is one or maybe the most broken unit of the game rigth now playing as bonereaper so he never gonna get any buff untill nagash in bonereaper be nerfed.

 

Was the same than the reapers,broken in lon and balanced in nighaunt,what hapened?only nerf to balance them,i hope nagash players be rdy for no buff or even a nerf to nagash following the gw logic

Nagash is going to be nerfed (confirmed) since he will ve able to use his normal save and then he will have to choose one of the others especial saves. No more 2+R1, 6++, 5++, etc. Anyways, if you think he is so unbalanced it's probably because of your local metal. He has several natural counters, not rare lists.

Greetings

[Honk]

9 minutes ago, ACBelMutie said:

He has several natural counters

His worst enemies are stormy stormcast shooting (ballista or longstrikes) and the most devious and feared of all...

victory points

[El Syf]

Personally I find Gotrek much more of a dilemma than Nagash (in LoN), if I was playing against Nagash and really wanted him gone (and this could be achieved) I'd just charge him with 4 Morghasts with Halberds, -2 rend 4 attacks each in grand host, that's a potential 48 damage and he'd only be having a 5+ save.

The little dwarf can reroll saves, halves damage allocated to him and has a 4+ against everything. 

I'm sorry if people have had negative experiences playing against Nagash but I really do not think he is that strong outside Petrifex.

Edited July 7, 2020 by El Syf

[Ghoooouls]

17 minutes ago, El Syf said:

Personally I find Gotrek much more of a dilemma than Nagash (in LoN), if I was playing against Nagash and really wanted him gone (and this could be achieved) I'd just charge him with 4 Morghasts with Halberds, -2 rend 4 attacks each in grand host, that's a potential 48 damage and he'd only be having a 5+ save.

The little dwarf can reroll saves, halves damage allocated to him and has a 4+ against everything. 

I'm sorry if people have had negative experiences playing against Nagash but I really do not think he is that strong outside Petrifex.

You're exactly right, and gotrek actually had a 3+ FNP save not 4+ so its even harder to kill him.

 

One thing I've overlooked in that past that makes gotrek even better is the damage reduction affects each attack, so abilities like 6s to hit splitting into 2 hits doesn't matter, as they stem from the same attack so even if you rolled 4 6s to hit and 8 wound rolls that all wounded, those 4 original attacks are what hit 8 times and so can only do 4 damage max

[Sception]

Thou gotrek isn't anywhere near as fast as Nagash, nor dies he have Nagash's arcane abilities.  There are stronger casting armies in the game now - hallow, tzeentch, teclis, maybe kroak, but if you're not playing one of them, if you're playing a regular army that maybe has one or two wizards in it with cool signature or faction spells but little to no casting bonus?  Nagash shuts down those sorts of wizards entirely, and laughs off their unbinding attempts, and that's frustrating and unfun.

Nagash isn't the only army that foes that now, and he pays a lot more for the privilege than some of the other, stronger casting armies.  And there's a lot more out there that can just murder nagash straight up these days - especially after losing layered shrugs.  AND even if you can't kill him outright, he's so expensive, and his direct damage output relatively limited relative to that expense, that most armies abdolutely can ignore him, focus diwn the few retinue units you can take with him, and win on objectives, even in petrifex.

But even if its very possible to beat him these days, a 900 point model skews games in ways that aren't going to be fun a lot of the time.  IMO, he really does belong in 3k+ narrative games, not 2k matched play games.

Even so, I'd still like to see him (and Arkhan, and Mannfred & Neferata for that matter) get LoN updates to match his OBR rules.  Let them use their invocations to heal anything, including themselves.  Give arkhan full deathmage lore access, neferata full vampire lore access, manny choice of several spells from either lore.  Make mannfred and Nef triple casters.  Give Nagash full access to both lores.

would be nice, but i don't see it happening.

[LordPrometheus]

36 minutes ago, Sception said:

Thou gotrek isn't anywhere near as fast as Nagash, nor dies he have Nagash's arcane abilities.  There are stronger casting armies in the game now - hallow, tzeentch, teclis, maybe kroak, but if you're not playing one of them, if you're playing a regular army that maybe has one or two wizards in it with cool signature or faction spells but little to no casting bonus?  Nagash shuts down those sorts of wizards entirely, and laughs off their unbinding attempts, and that's frustrating and unfun.

Nagash isn't the only army that foes that now, and he pays a lot more for the privilege than some of the other, stronger casting armies.  And there's a lot more out there that can just murder nagash straight up these days - especially after losing layered shrugs.  AND even if you can't kill him outright, he's so expensive, and his direct damage output relatively limited relative to that expense, that most armies abdolutely can ignore him, focus diwn the few retinue units you can take with him, and win on objectives, even in petrifex.

But even if its very possible to beat him these days, a 900 point model skews games in ways that aren't going to be fun a lot of the time.  IMO, he really does belong in 3k+ narrative games, not 2k matched play games.

Even so, I'd still like to see him (and Arkhan, and Mannfred & Neferata for that matter) get LoN updates to match his OBR rules.  Let them use their invocations to heal anything, including themselves.  Give arkhan full deathmage lore access, neferata full vampire lore access, manny choice of several spells from either lore.  Make mannfred and Nef triple casters.  Give Nagash full access to both lores.

would be nice, but i don't see it happening.

And for God's sake, let Nagash lead the Nighthaunt too!

[El Syf]

21 minutes ago, LordPrometheus said:

And for God's sake, let Nagash lead the Nighthaunt too!

Would that mean he would have to be Ethereal?! 🙂

[Sception]

7 hours ago, LordPrometheus said:

And for God's sake, let Nagash lead the Nighthaunt too!

Iirc think you can take him in Legion of Grief, even if that seems more like an oversight than anything else based on how the other legions work.  Still, if that hasn't been fixed, then there you go.  Still would need rules letting him get the allegiance spells, though.

[El Syf]

So now that Mr. Hat has been thoroughly hit with the Nerf Stick, due to combination of losing the save bonus in Petrifex and losing access to all the nice realm spells. What are everyones thoughts? Personally I'd argue there no way he is 880 points now, back down to 800 or perhaps less. But hey.

[Sception]

It's hard to say until COVID passes and the competitive scene is back in play to reinforce gut reactions with some actual numbers, but yeah, between the slight nerf to layered saves and the massive nerf to petrifex, on top of several recent factions that haven't really had the chance to show their strength yet but that seem like they'd have a relatively easy time countering the big guy....  Yeah, I expect Nagash will not fly at 880 points anymore.  But I've been wrong about a lot of things when it comes to the AoS competitive scene, so time will tell.