Broken Realms: Teclis - SPOILER Discussion + Lore Summary

[JackStreicher]

Speaking of Broken Realms: Teclis:

I need to point out that 2+ Though over on YouTube has a BR: Teclis Lore Summary which has been ace so far!

very inspiring and relaxing to listen to!

[NinthMusketeer]

I do like the idea of a Nagash who is still Nagash with the dark sense of justice, the vindictive streak, the conviction that he is right, but without the megalomania. An entity that still feels he has a right to Shyish & all souls after death and is fully willing to take them by force, but is not aspiring to take over all of existence and can still be brought to the table and bargained with... somewhat. Like the version of himself he displayed during the RGW. But I like that idea because it would be coming after he did all this.

Sigmar would be like 'Heeeeey Nagash, noticed you've resurrected again and... aren't trying to kill literally everyone. Can we be allies again?'

'You remain an infuriating moron, get out of my realm before I force you out.'

'Okay I'll just back off then...'

[TheTaintedSpud]

This was.... extremely poorly written. Like, 40k in the past decade bad. Bad fanfic level bad. 

I get wanting to have the Lumineth look strong. And I'm good with Nagash taking the fall in the end. But reading this, the Lumineth racking up win after win drained the ending of all tension. By the time of the Teclis v. Nagash fight, I had completely checked out because the writers had done nothing to make me think that Nagash could win, and even if he somehow did, it didn't feel like there was any danger. Everyone one of his plans had failed. His minions had been routed, his rituals had failed, he had nothing. And you never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, lessen the stakes before the climax! That's just... writing 101!

And it would have been such a simple fix too.

Make it clear that nothing will happen until all 3 realmgates are corrupted. Have Neferata and Mannfred succeed. They drive off the defenders, do what they need to do, and the realmgates are now flowing with Death Magic. If the final realmgate falls, the realms get sucked into the Shyish Nadir. Now there's urgency to the Arkhan/Eltharion battle. Eltharion blows up Arkhan, you think there's cause for celebration...

Then Nagash arrives. With Neferata and Mannfred, and a legion of the dead. Everything seems lost.

See? Right there, now things are tense! The stakes are high, if Nagash, who's a much more powerful threat than Arkhan succeeds the realms are doomed. And he has backup! And the Lumineth are depleated and exhausted from the campaign, they're in the darkest hour and need to pull through for the good of all the realms. Isn't that so much better than Pointy Boiz win lolz?

[Sception]

As an alternative, starting with lower stakes might have been better, since then you can actually allow the villains to win some, raising the stakes as you go.  Instead of these realmgate rituals threatening to suck entire realms into the nadiir, maybe they just extend death's influence, let nagash draw power from them.  Then you can also let one or two of the mortarchs succeed.  Maybe Mannfred fails on purpose again, that's in character, but let neferata succeed in Chamon.  Let her go into the new soulblight battletome with a major victory and a gleaming new golden city as a monument to her greatness, with a gate at it's center leading to the now up-for-grabs heartlands of Shyish.  Let her defeat and capture the twins, and put a sidebar story in the new LRL book detailing their daring escape.

But ah, whatever.  It is what it is.

Again, Nagash had a good run, for an entire edition.  And one thing that can't be taken away by Teclis, Nagash's edition was the one where AoS finally moved past the blunder of its initial release and actually got good.  The 'Age of Sigmar' was a half backed, unfinished mess, but the 'Age of Nagash' was, by and large, a really great game, and whatever is achieved in whatever the Age of 3rd edition turns out to be, it will owe thanks to Nagash for making Warhammer great again after Sigmar trashed it so badly.

Edited April 2, 2021 by Sception

[Whitefang]

2 hours ago, TheTaintedSpud said:

See? Right there, now things are tense! The stakes are high, if Nagash, who's a much more powerful threat than Arkhan succeeds the realms are doomed.

Muh No that’s a trope repeated more than ten times in the warhammer history which just seems really boring if you got used to it.  Vigilance Ablaze two years earlier is the most recent edition of that trope. 
Having a reasonable step-by-step strategy leading to victory is more interesting and a fresh breeze to the setting, far better than the “actually nothing happens” or “win and win but lost at the last second” old drama.

[TheTaintedSpud]

42 minutes ago, Whitefang said:

Muh No that’s a trope repeated more than ten times in the warhammer history which just seems really boring if you got used to it.  Vigilance Ablaze two years earlier is the most recent edition of that trope. 
Having a reasonable step-by-step strategy leading to victory is more interesting and a fresh breeze to the setting, far better than the “actually nothing happens” or “win and win but lost at the last second” old drama.

It's repeated because it works. I was bored by the end of BR:T because, again, there was no indication that the Lumineth loosing was even a remote possibility. There was no tension at all to the Eltharion v. Arkhan or Teclis v. Nagash fights because Nagash had already lost. in fact, I felt kinda bad for Nagash since he was so thoroughly smacked down, making Death, the villain of the arc, the Underdog. 

And now? Well, you can't really have Death as a credible threat anymore now that we know one faction can put away the entire Alliance. Nagash acting up? Don't worry, Teclis will squash him harder than Brock Lesnar squashing Spike Dudley.  

[The Black Marshal]

Good stories in wargames don’t have resolutions. It should set up stakes, principals, and locales and then leave the resolution open ended. For example, full blow Death invasions through each gate and a continued Lumineth expedition into Shyish

Edited April 2, 2021 by The Black Marshal

[Sception]

2 hours ago, The Black Marshal said:

Good stories in wargames don’t have resolutions. It should set up stakes, principals, and locales and then leave the resolution open ended. For example, full blow Death invasions through each gate and a continued Lumineth expedition into Shyish

The problem with this is that you can't evolve the setting's overall narrative without such resolutions.  You couldn't move into the Soul Wars without having a canon resolution to the Realmgate Wars, and you couldn't move into whatever 3rd edition's going to be about without having a resolution to the Soul Wars.

[Kadeton]

2 hours ago, TheTaintedSpud said:

Well, you can't really have Death as a credible threat anymore now that we know one faction can put away the entire Alliance. Nagash acting up? Don't worry, Teclis will squash him harder than Brock Lesnar squashing Spike Dudley.  

Just as a quick alternative viewpoint, one faction and their god can put away Nagash. This is GW's opportunity to show that GA: Death can be so much more than just Nagash, his dominance was the major thing holding Death back from actually being interesting.

[pnkdth]

2 hours ago, TheTaintedSpud said:

It's repeated because it works. I was bored by the end of BR:T because, again, there was no indication that the Lumineth loosing was even a remote possibility. There was no tension at all to the Eltharion v. Arkhan or Teclis v. Nagash fights because Nagash had already lost. in fact, I felt kinda bad for Nagash since he was so thoroughly smacked down, making Death, the villain of the arc, the Underdog. 

And now? Well, you can't really have Death as a credible threat anymore now that we know one faction can put away the entire Alliance. Nagash acting up? Don't worry, Teclis will squash him harder than Brock Lesnar squashing Spike Dudley.  

To flip the script, where would the tension be if Nagash could just roll into Hysh and win? In the story he was winning over Teclis and, ironically, probably would had won if he had stayed at the location Teclis took the fight to protect the mountain spirit. It was is the OBR and Mortarchs who failed him where Teclis' forces paved the way for victory. There's probably a lesson on humility in there for both Teclis and Nagash. 

Besides, if the villain has the motivation to end all conflict and become an omniscient ruler he kinda has to lose at some point. He is the equivalent of the "Death Beam from the Sky"-trope in superhero movies which means the good guys have to win. The interesting part was always going to be what comes next. Teclis appear to be seriously ignored, for example, and the cost so far is unknown. Moving forward I'm hoping the Soulblight characters will bring forth a more interesting form of Death than Nagash did.

[Nagashfan]

So are they going to remove nagash and arkhan from matched play now? Or nerf nagash’s magic ability since his books are gone?

[The Red King]

1 hour ago, Kadeton said:

Just as a quick alternative viewpoint, one faction and their god can put away Nagash. This is GW's opportunity to show that GA: Death can be so much more than just Nagash, his dominance was the major thing holding Death back from actually being interesting.

People keep saying "Nagash had too much control and it was boring!" But even in this very story we saw that the undead always and already had the will to not only resist him but betray him so clearly his death wasn't necessary to advance them as characters. I'm just really confused by why Nagash physical form being destroyed is a big deal. He's supposed to have multiple of those at a time formed from whatever bones are handy wherever he wanted to go. In the books he literally just throws his consciousness to another place and forms a new body out of nearby skeletons to get around his own pyramid so what happened in the book?

 

I havent read it yet so maybe it's not as bad as it seems but the complaints bring to mind the utter sewage tier lore that came with the release of the deathwatch. "This dead guy died facing towards the moon so this entire war must be a ploy let me disobey direct orders and fly straight to the heart of this deception because I am teh smartest ever!" Or how Eldrad couldnt predict the attack because they used a statistic grenade... technology that the ancient Eldar would have had full knowledge of. Or my favorite (paraphrase) "*after having his plasma cannons feed cut* but he had faced the eldar many times and knew their tricks and was able to keep firing..." without ammo. He shot his gun without ammo because he wasnt gonna fall for eldar trickery... it happens whenever they wanna make a new faction look good and I for one hope they don't plan on turning Nagash into the next 40k Avatar of Khaine (every new person beats him up to show you how *tough* they are). Again maybe it's better written than it looks but I for one perfectly understand people not liking their guy being made a whipping boy to make Lumineth look strong if that's indeed what happened.

[Sception]

My complaints are mostly twofold:

Spoiler

 

1) too one sided, not as battles but as a campaign.  It doesn't matter how close the battles are described to be, if every battle is won by the same side, then the entire campaign feels one sided.  In BR:Teclis, the undead only ever win a single small skirmish between stalliarchs and some LRL cavalry that were deliberately sacrificed to allow others to escape.  7 other battles, including every major battle, go to the Lumineth.  IMO the undead should have been allowed to win more along the way.

EG: the statues conflict goes as described, but the cavalry force chased by the Stalliarchs are captured and crushed outright in a pinsir maneuver, and the other force that wins some battles then parades OBR heads to 'bring hope' to a city in Shyish are caught from behind by the victorious Stalliarchs and forced to flee, only to realize they aren't being chased, and when they send scouts to check behind them they find the Stalliarchs are reaping the entire city.  Later, make the consequences of the Mortarchs succeeding in their missions less devastating - they won't tear apart the entire realm, just provide a massive necromantic power source for invasions, and allow at least one of them to succeed.  Preferably Neferata.  Nef claiming territory in Chamon and erecting a new golden city as a monument to her own glory complete with realmgate back to a massive source of death magic would be a great way to lead into the new Soulblight battletome.  Have her capture the twins, and put an exciting little side story in the LRL book of how they escape.

And for that matter, Let Arkhan succeed as well, then push into Hysh only to get cut off from his main force and forced to retreat to the rim where Eltharion still kills him.  Then Arkhan's death can be the final insult that motivates Nagash to come through himself, confident that the power of the Nadiir drawn through the realgate will make him invincible, only for Teclis to destroy the realmgate as soon as he's through, cutting off both Nagash's escape and his access to the limitless power of the Nadiir right before the big fight.

2) As an end to the Soul Wars that drove the entire 2nd edition core narrative, this feels a bit easy & arbitrary, and involved not enough factions, imo.  My impression from initial summaries is that Teclis intentionally drew Nagash into Shyish as a trap and the outcome was planned, but it seems that's not actually the case?  Nagash's invasion took him by surprise and the victory and the final rune calming the necroquake were all spontaneous improvisation.  That feels less one-sided, it wasn't just 'all according to plan' for teclis, but in some ways that's worse.  Causing the necroquake was a labor of millenia, stopping it should have required a deliberate ritual with at least a few centuries prep time.

It /should/ have been a deliberate trap, and more factions and deities should have been involved in springing it and, especially, in setting it up.  Nagash isn't just a god at this point, he's a god bloated on a limitless source of dark magic, and it would have read better if it took more than one god to defeat him, no matter how narrow the margin.  Teclis should be a match for normal nagash, not nagash at the impossible height of his power.

If it were me?  I'd make Alarielle an active and willing participant, not the passive, disapproving character that she reads as here.  Have her see the necroquake as an affront against life itself, have her be the one to convince Teclis that something needs to be done, let her join in the fight against Nagash in person.  Heck let part of the plot be Alarielle manipulating Teclis, using his vanity to convince him to set the trap in Hysh so that the collateral damage isn't suffered by her own realm and people, already so devastated by Nurgle.  And let more deities - all of the major elf gods at least - have been involved in setting up the ritual that would eventually trap Nagash and, with his defeat, quiet the necroquake.  Plus, when Sigmar sees the battle playing out in Hysh, let him send some Stormcast to help out, so that some of the heroes who were most heavily involved in fighting against Nagash at the outset of the Soul Wars can have a hand, however small, in ending them.  Maybe even have Teclis send messages to Archaon convincing him to assault the Death Gate while this is going on, to keep the other two mortarchs busy and distract a measure of Shyish's forces and resources, showing that the threat of Nagash is so great that even the forces of Order and Chaos had to cooperate, in however minimal a way, to end it.

Then you have Death and Light fighting back and forth, with victories on both sides, with the final defeat of Nagash and grand alliance death coming at the hands of Teclis, Alarielle, LRL, Cities, Sylvanneth, and Stormcast, with Tyrion and Malerion having lent their powers to help set the trap even if they weren't personally there to spring it, and maybe even Archaon helping to distract some of Nagash's forces.  Mostly the same outcome - Soul Wars over, Necroquake over, Nagash and Arkhan temporarily out of the picture, but it feels like it was harder to do because 1) it's actually on purpose and 2) it takes a heck of a lot more planning and set up and the active participation of more factions and deities.  Alarielle comes out feeling like a stronger character, Neferata gets to go into the Soulblight Battletome on a victory instead of a defeat, the OBR get to be more threatening and more cruel, etc.

But all that's neither here nor there.  As is, it's not as bad as I initially thought, (the 2+ tough videos have been nice), and even if it were that's not all that big a deal.  Even if you think a bit of fluff is lackluster, you get over it and hope the next bit is better.  Regardless of how well it does or doesn't wrap up the main 2e storyline, the endpoint is still more or less in a good place to tell some interesting new stories in 3e, so I really don't mind all that much.

Edited April 2, 2021 by Sception

[The World Tree]

45 minutes ago, Sception said:

My complaints are mostly twofold:

  Reveal hidden contents

 

1) too one sided, not as battles but as a campaign.  It doesn't matter how close the battles are described to be, if every battle is won by the same side, then the entire campaign feels one sided.  In BR:Teclis, the undead only ever win a single small skirmish between stalliarchs and some LRL cavalry that were deliberately sacrificed to allow others to escape.  7 other battles, including every major battle, go to the Lumineth.  IMO the undead should have been allowed to win more along the way.

EG: the statues conflict goes as described, but the cavalry force chased by the Stalliarchs are captured and crushed outright in a pinsir maneuver, and the other force that wins some battles then parades OBR heads to 'bring hope' to a city in Shyish are caught from behind by the victorious Stalliarchs and forced to flee, only to realize they aren't being chased, and when they send scouts to check behind them they find the Stalliarchs are reaping the entire city.  Later, make the consequences of the Mortarchs succeeding in their missions less devastating - they won't tear apart the entire realm, just provide a massive necromantic power source for invasions, and allow at least one of them to succeed.  Preferably Neferata.  Nef claiming territory in Chamon and erecting a new golden city as a monument to her own glory complete with realmgate back to a massive source of death magic would be a great way to lead into the new Soulblight battletome.  Have her capture the twins, and put an exciting little side story in the LRL book of how they escape.

And for that matter, Let Arkhan succeed as well, then push into Hysh only to get cut off from his main force and forced to retreat to the rim where Eltharion still kills him.  Then Arkhan's death can be the final insult that motivates Nagash to come through himself, confident that the power of the Nadiir drawn through the realgate will make him invincible, only for Teclis to destroy the realmgate as soon as he's through, cutting off both Nagash's escape and his access to the limitless power of the Nadiir right before the big fight.

2) As an end to the Soul Wars that drove the entire 2nd edition core narrative, this feels a bit easy & arbitrary, and involved not enough factions, imo.  My impression from initial summaries is that Teclis intentionally drew Nagash into Shyish as a trap and the outcome was planned, but it seems that's not actually the case?  Nagash's invasion took him by surprise and the victory and the final rune calming the necroquake were all spontaneous improvisation.  That feels less one-sided, it wasn't just 'all according to plan' for teclis, but in some ways that's worse.  Causing the necroquake was a labor of millenia, stopping it should have required a deliberate ritual with at least a few centuries prep time.

It /should/ have been a deliberate trap, and more factions and deities should have been involved in springing it and, especially, in setting it up.  Nagash isn't just a god at this point, he's a god bloated on a limitless source of dark magic, and it would have read better if it took more than one god to defeat him, no matter how narrow the margin.  Teclis should be a match for normal nagash, not nagash at the impossible height of his power.

If it were me?  I'd make Alarielle an active and willing participant, not the passive, disapproving character that she reads as here.  Have her see the necroquake as an affront against life itself, have her be the one to convince Teclis that something needs to be done, let her join in the fight against Nagash in person.  Heck let part of the plot be Alarielle manipulating Teclis, using his vanity to convince him to set the trap in Hysh so that the collateral damage isn't suffered by her own realm and people, already so devastated by Nurgle.  And let more deities - all of the major elf gods at least - have been involved in setting up the ritual that would eventually trap Nagash and, with his defeat, quiet the necroquake.  Plus, when Sigmar sees the battle playing out in Hysh, let him send some Stormcast to help out, so that some of the heroes who were most heavily involved in fighting against Nagash at the outset of the Soul Wars can have a hand, however small, in ending them.  Maybe even have Teclis send messages to Archaon convincing him to assault the Death Gate while this is going on, to keep the other two mortarchs busy and distract a measure of Shyish's forces and resources, showing that the threat of Nagash is so great that even the forces of Order and Chaos had to cooperate, in however minimal a way, to end it.

Then you have Death and Light fighting back and forth, with victories on both sides, with the final defeat of Nagash and grand alliance death coming at the hands of Teclis, Alarielle, LRL, Cities, Sylvanneth, and Stormcast, with Tyrion and Malerion having lent their powers to help set the trap even if they weren't personally there to spring it, and maybe even Archaon helping to distract some of Nagash's forces.  Mostly the same outcome - Soul Wars over, Necroquake over, Nagash and Arkhan temporarily out of the picture, but it feels like it was harder to do because 1) it's actually on purpose and 2) it takes a heck of a lot more planning and set up and the active participation of more factions and deities.  Alarielle comes out feeling like a stronger character, Neferata gets to go into the Soulblight Battletome on a victory instead of a defeat, the OBR get to be more threatening and more cruel, etc.

But all that's neither here nor there.  As is, it's not as bad as I initially thought, (the 2+ tough videos have been nice), and even if it were that's not all that big a deal.  Even if you think a bit of fluff is lackluster, you get over it and hope the next bit is better.  Regardless of how well it does or doesn't wrap up the main 2e storyline, the endpoint is still more or less in a good place to tell some interesting new stories in 3e, so I really don't mind all that much.

maybe read it first before reaching judgements

[Sception]

1 minute ago, The World Tree said:

maybe read it first before reaching judgements

And pay $40 for a campaign book with next to no crunch for my armies?  Nah.  The lack of Death Crunch in Wrath of the Everchosen stopped me from buying that book too, and my dudes spend most of that book winning.

If there's one accusation that can be pretty fairly leveled at Teclis, and several other recent GW campaign supplements, it's that.  Regardless of how the narrative pans out, a campaign supplement really should have a more even distribution of crunch.  A couple poorly thought battalions doesn't really suffice.  At least Cities got an actual City out of it,  but you can't really expect non-LRL players to buy teclis any more than you can expect non-LRL players to but the LRL battletome.

[leadfoot352]

3 hours ago, Nagashfan said:

So are they going to remove nagash and arkhan from matched play now? Or nerf nagash’s magic ability since his books are gone?

I would highly doubt it. You can still play Anvilguard and that doesn't exist anyway. Honestly we should remove every named hero from matched play, send them to narrative play where they belong, and then turn their scrolls up to 11, but that's a topic for another thread.

[Sception]

4 hours ago, Nagashfan said:

So are they going to remove nagash and arkhan from matched play now? Or nerf nagash’s magic ability since his books are gone?

So for a while, Nagash & Arkhan are 'historical characters'.  No big deal.  And they'll be gone for, what, an edition?  I wouldn't even be surprised if Arkhan's back before that, and I'll absolutely be shocked if they don't maintain current matchedplay rules that whole time.

If there's any game play effect, it might be that Nagash is a bit weaker going forward, and I'd be ok with that.  A Nagash aimed at 600 to 700 points would be a lot more readily playable & easier to balance for typical 2000 point games than one aimed at 800 to 900.

[Causalis]

They won't remove Arkhan or Nagash. I bet they'll get resurrected (or hints toward that) in the next BR. At the very least they will remain playable. With Death having gotten so much attention this edition it would be very strange if GW suddenly pulls Nagash and Arkhan from the shelves and disallowed their continued use in matched play. 

[Sception]

Oh, they won't be back ~that~ soon. 

[Nagashfan]

2 hours ago, Sception said:

So for a while, Nagash & Arkhan are 'historical characters'.  No big deal.  And they'll be gone for, what, an edition?  I wouldn't even be surprised if Arkhan's back before that, and I'll absolutely be shocked if they don't maintain current matchedplay rules that whole time.

If there's any game play effect, it might be that Nagash is a bit weaker going forward, and I'd be ok with that.  A Nagash aimed at 600 to 700 points would be a lot more readily playable & easier to balance for typical 2000 point games than one aimed at 800 to 900.

I hope not I just finished a collection of obr based on nagash 

[Sception]

Hope not to him bring gone a while from the current setting lore?  Because that's slreafy a thing.

Hope not for him being tuned fown a bit?  I mean, it would let you field more dudes in the army to go with him, that's hardly a bad thing.  Especially when Nagash's current biggest problem in the elite obr army is fitting enough dudes in to be able to play for the objectives.

[Nagashfan]

Sorry ment I hope they don’t remove him from matched play, the lore stuff and possible warscroll changes would be fine I think

[Sception]

2 minutes ago, Nagashfan said:

Sorry ment I hope they don’t remove him from matched play, the lore stuff and possible warscroll changes would be fine I think

oh, then I don't think you have anything to worry about.

[The Black Marshal]

Something I’m having trouble following as I break into the setting is how integrated each of the realms are. For instance, with Teclis healing rune banishing the magic from the Necroquake does that mean there are no Bonereapers or Chaos or Orruks in Hysh? Are there Lumineth nations in other realms? I’m enjoying jumping in during an ongoing but many basic questions that are answered in the other games (40K, 30K, Necromunda, etc) are too ambiguous. If Nagash is banished, he’s probably not dead, but does that mean Shyish is now a realm where people can live and settle and not have a God control their lives? It’s just a little confusing and hard to break in. 

[NinthMusketeer]

21 hours ago, TheTaintedSpud said:

This was.... extremely poorly written. Like, 40k in the past decade bad. Bad fanfic level bad. 

I get wanting to have the Lumineth look strong. And I'm good with Nagash taking the fall in the end. But reading this, the Lumineth racking up win after win drained the ending of all tension. By the time of the Teclis v. Nagash fight, I had completely checked out because the writers had done nothing to make me think that Nagash could win, and even if he somehow did, it didn't feel like there was any danger. Everyone one of his plans had failed. His minions had been routed, his rituals had failed, he had nothing. And you never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, lessen the stakes before the climax! That's just... writing 101!

And it would have been such a simple fix too.

Make it clear that nothing will happen until all 3 realmgates are corrupted. Have Neferata and Mannfred succeed. They drive off the defenders, do what they need to do, and the realmgates are now flowing with Death Magic. If the final realmgate falls, the realms get sucked into the Shyish Nadir. Now there's urgency to the Arkhan/Eltharion battle. Eltharion blows up Arkhan, you think there's cause for celebration...

Then Nagash arrives. With Neferata and Mannfred, and a legion of the dead. Everything seems lost.

See? Right there, now things are tense! The stakes are high, if Nagash, who's a much more powerful threat than Arkhan succeeds the realms are doomed. And he has backup! And the Lumineth are depleated and exhausted from the campaign, they're in the darkest hour and need to pull through for the good of all the realms. Isn't that so much better than Pointy Boiz win lolz?

To each their own, my experience was almost the total opposite and I really enjoyed it. I will point out that not all the rituals needed to succeed, just one of them did. Even one realm getting pulled into the Nadir would be enough to tip the scales over the edge in Nagash's favor. If Nagash had succeeded in using Avenlor as a sacrifice in that final battle, he would have won the setting. The other important factor is the Lumineth did not succeed by themselves; if the humans had not shown up at the final battle, or if Mannfred did not intentionally fail in his mission, Nagash would have won this. Alternatively if Boney Boi from the flashpoint* hasn't pissed off that Abhorrent and his Deadwatch they could have tipped the battle in Nagash's favor.

But I can see how one would interpret the story your way, and if it is/was indeed a case where all the rituals needed to succeed (rather than any of them) it would have blown the tension rather quickly.

*It is awesome that the flashpoint from White Dwarf is totally relevant and actually a key detail in how the plot plays out. Imagine how lame it would be if we got a bunch of flashpoints about some location and events that simply didn't matter, sure would suck to be playing that Warhammer amirite? XD

Edited April 3, 2021 by NinthMusketeer