Broken Realms: Teclis - SPOILER Discussion + Lore Summary

[stratigo]

Alright, here we go!

On 3/27/2021 at 7:12 AM, Dreddships said:

Honestly DEEPLY disappointed this is the way they went. GW knows how to write a narrative that isn't 'the bad guys fail at everything everytime'.  

Like not a single success. Not a single battle won. Nothing.

And that ending? 

Nah. Not for me. 

It feels like Death, after finally getting something worthwhile narratively, got shafted so hard to show 'big hat Aelf strong' to the extent that literally everything that could go right for them just goes right for the sake of 'theyre GW's favourites now'

So, GW has historically favored elves in both their major settings, in both rules and fluff. As a non elf player (and, for fantasy a dwarf player) I have always been kind of sick of it, but with Phil kelly at the head, this isn't going to change. I hope that the elfapolooza has enough room to squeeze something satisfying for my faction (KO) out of it, but, honestly it is looking like kharadrons are gonna get a big ol' skip for a minimum of three elf focused books plus bel'akor (which could have a surprise elf focus). I do find this disappointing, but not unexpected as a dwarf player in the face of the elves.  But at least they aren't space marines.

 

 

On 3/27/2021 at 7:28 AM, mojojojo101 said:

At this point why would anyone be scared of Nagash? The guy is a total loser who gets his ass handed to him every time he turns up and the one time he did achieve anything meaningful with the Necroquake the Skaven still messed it up basically by accident.

It does feel weird that after this long period of Death being in ascendancy they have practically nothing to show for it.

Also, from the Sprews and Brews summary it sounds like Arkhan is just gone for good?

 

Death faction characters can always get super murdered and pop back up a day later (hyperbole) none the worse for wear. It's a strength of the faction that can become a narrative weakness as being beaten hard repeatedly drains a narrative of tension when your antag's history is that of failing and dying 

 

On 3/27/2021 at 7:44 AM, Dreddships said:

Kragnos being 'Orion' has been thrown around quite a bit too to give us Kurnothi who are distinct from Sylvaneth.  

I still reckon Kurnothi will be an order-aligned faction, but the same way IDK and DoK are.

Nagash has become a Saturday morning cartoon villain whose existence is purely to give the good guys something to beat up again in the same edition where he became a genuine threat. 

Everchosen and Soul Wars gave Nagash an actual level of threat just for it to be written off immediately.

It's clear it's to set up the SBGL power struggle, but we know from the same book that Neffy and Manny are still trying to get rid of eachother regardless.

I hope GW redeems themselves - because rn, the Lumineth rule and lore wise feel like such a favourite child it's uncompelling.

 

Nagash was always skeletor though. I mean I can almost here him shouting "I'LL GET YOU NEXT TIME SIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGMAAAAAR!" after reading the third time of legends book. This is the long history of nagash and why, as a long time fan, I couldn't take him serious as the antagonist even in the AoS 2.0. Cause, I mean, it's nagash guys. He's just Nagash. He's been the whiny self entitled cartoon villain since his inception. It's not intimidating, no matter how hard you try and wite the bony boys as scary. Vlad always impressed me more as death daddy. Heck MANNFRED used to impress me more before he became the memetic traitor, always there to backstab at the worst time that he is now.

 

On 3/27/2021 at 1:23 PM, Jator said:

 He lacks a supply of nieces to sacrifice, but Im sure he'll find a way around it.

Based on the summary, it is true that LRL victories seem to come  easily, and Death  seems portrayed as too inefficient. The thing is, it didn't need to be writen like this: Manfred or neferata (or both!) could have succeded in their missions since Teclis ultimate victoriy would prevent any dire consecuence that could come from the vampires victories.

Anyway, I'm eager to read how Nagash -fourth- death (or is it fifth?) impacts the setting.

 

 

I'd rather not have manny or neffy succeed in regions that are primarily the focus of other factions with them not getting play in the narrative. 

 

 

On 3/28/2021 at 8:16 AM, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

Could you imagine GW releasing those new DoK endless spells just to remove endless spells entirely a month later? The fan meltdown would be insane!

I mean... GW sometimes makes some really bone headed descisions

 

On 3/28/2021 at 10:34 AM, Paladin of Khorne said:

I mean death just is. Nagash needs to take a more wait and let life come to him, rather than being a moustache twirling conquer the world because ‘Nyah’ type villain. Hades in mythology was ‘evil’, but he was content running his own realm knowing everything would go there eventually. 

 

God I wish.

 

On 3/29/2021 at 1:26 AM, Cronotekk said:

I think the biggest downside is that this marks the end of death as the main villain. A good 3 years of lore saying that death is the most badass scary faction ever only for the entire grand alliance to be decisively defeated on every front by a new order faction. Always thought the Soul Wars would end in Sigmar or another god finally waking up to fight Nagash, instead we got Teclis who not only hid while his army killed Nagash for him, but undid the last 3 years of setting development is dissapointing.

Moving forward, I wonder how this will affect nighthaunt, and consequently all death lore, moving forward. Death factions were defined by their role under nagash, and now that he is out of commission (lore wise) for the foreseeable future. How will Nighthaunt, bound to torture by Nagash, change? We already see how Legions of Nagash are changing to become Soulblight led (as Arkhan is out too).

 

I am rather more interested in how the narrative for death shapes up without Nagash ruling them with an iron temper tantrum

 

On 3/29/2021 at 5:56 PM, HorticulusTGA said:

People complains about LRL because P.K. (the big boss of AOS lore in the studio) really likes Elves and Aelves. 

But given the fact P.K. also was instrumental in Malign Portents and the Soul Wars (and literally called AOS 2nd ed. "the Age of Nagash" in the last White Dwarf), it's just baseless fear mongering .   

 

I mean, I remember the way dwarves were treated in the end times verse the prominence of elves (even if a lot of elf players would have rather GW didn't). And I can see where GW's focus on the current narrative is (elves, elves, chaos, what is probably more elves). And, like, LRL probably are going to overtake the seraphon now (that one wind spell is a right kick to the nards of a lot of seraphon tricks) as the best faction in the game with this release, and some flavor of eldar has been the dominant faction in 40k for like seventy percent of that game's history.

 

On 3/29/2021 at 7:58 PM, Eldarain said:

Him leaving 40k for AoS and having Eldar drop from their ascendant perch for the first time in over a decade (and only second time in the history of the game) while the new High Elves get this treatment is at least somewhat suspicious...

 

Nah, Harleys are probably the best or second best faction in the game right now. So craftworlds are out, murder clowns are in. Eldar never go away.

 

On 3/30/2021 at 2:17 AM, Mcthew said:

Since AoS 2.0 I have to agree that aside from Slaanesh, the studio hasn't shown Chaos much love. An awful battletome for Beasts of Chaos, a messy tome for Tzeentch, a substandard tome for Khorne, and no new tome for Nurgle. Slaves to Darkness disappointed many too. Skaven had the best tome but only 1 new model in the last 8 years.

But... We've also seen massive improvements in those anti-pointy-ears boys, the Kharadron Overlords who can shoot LRL off the table, so some things are sneaking through. Let's see what they do with the Belakor BR book to see if this anti-Kelly feeling is justified...

 

KO can't reliably shoot an army that has most of their models sitting at minus 1 to hit off the table. KO vs LRL is a super binary game in my estimation, and if you aren't playing pure cutting best of faction lists, I think LRL trounce KO pretty solidly in the casual competitive level, and the hard edge competition relies on the KO getting their alpha strike through on teclis. And, like, you take away the WLV (and GW should) KO probably just lose most of the time, KO damage output on a point per unit basis is not that good, especially compared to, say, something like LRL or seraphon, and the new units plug the mobility hole that LRL had.

 

 

 

On 3/31/2021 at 4:11 AM, NinthMusketeer said:

Have none of the previews mentioned the Admiral? She plays a minor role but it is still important.

 

  Boy I wish my faction got more play in its home realm than one admiral to play supporting character to the elves. It's flashbacks of the end times dwarf treatment all over again. Always the bridesmaid, never the bride.

 

 

 

On 4/1/2021 at 10:19 PM, NinthMusketeer said:

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...'

 

Man I wish they did this to nagash. The cartoon villain plans to conquer the universe (and inevitably failing because, duh, the game doesn't exist if he wins) just robs him of all narrative tension for me. Like, he can't do anything BUT lose in the end, because his goals are never anything short of "AND THIS TIME! THIIIS TIME I WILL SUCK ALL OF REALITY INTO MY DEATH HOLE!"

 

18 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 not be shocked to see nagash get rules nerfed, but also get a big points drop. He has always been really hard to swing into an army, so using his defeat here to depower him ruleswise so he fits into a smaller points package would, IMHO, be a boon for death players in the game, if a stinging blow to them narratively.

[Causalis]

Biggest "wtf" moment for me was how Teclis just ended the Necroquake as if it were an afterthought. It feels like the writers ran out of time or something and just hamfisted the ending. It took Nagash millenia to craft his black pyramid and assemble everything for the ritual that would unleash the Necroquake. The skeletons carrying the gravesand walked that path for so long and so often, they literally wore down mountains! And Teclis undoes all this with a single rune, because new elves stronk. 

Again: It feels cheap. That's a good summary of the book IMO. Death losing is ok, as well as Nagash getting his boney ass kicked. But it all should come at a cost! Like in Wrath of the Everchosen, where hordes of Chaos Warriors, Priests, Sorcerers etc. were needed just to stem the tide of Bonereapers and Nighthaunt. Here too, Death didn't achieve their goal of taking the Varanspire, but it felt like a hard fought "defeat" and not just a showcase for the other army.

[Sception]

9 hours ago, The Black Marshal said:

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. 

The realms are each their own separate plane, most taking the form of disc worlds, floating in a kind of void in the greater dimension of chaos.  Each basically the scale of a planet on its own, with multiple continents and different biomes.  While it is theoretically posdible to just physically fly from one realm to another, the interplanetary distances involved, and relative lack of magical power sources (or air) between them means very few things do so.  The gods can travel directly between, though even they generally dont.  Stormcasts can travel directly from Azyr to the other realms on bolts of Sigmar's Lightning, but once on a realm they're stuck travelling normally, at least until they're 'killed', which causes them to bolt back to Azyr.

There'd hardly be any interaction between the realms if not for the Realm Gates, ancient arcane portals of various sizes and shapes that connect two places on the same or different planes.  Many of these are known and many more remain to be discovered or re-discovered, and every Realm is connected to every other Realm by such gates.  These gates are crifical points for travel, trade, or invasion, so the known gates frequently contested, usually heavily fortified, and occasionally form the center of powerful city-states that span two different Realms.

Larger civilizations, such as the Ossiarch Empire, will consist of or control multiple such city states within their territory, allowing their empire sprawl over several realms while remaining effectively contiguous.

Because the Realms are effectively planet sized, they are not generally held by just one faction, and in fact most factions have at least some presence in most realms.  Orcs are far, far more common on Ghur, but there are orc tribes native to Hysh.  One of the minor plot threads in BR:Teclis involves a ghoul civilization not invading from Shyish, but that had been present in the hidden places of a mountain range in Hysh for centuries, and that joined up with the larger undead incursion after it started.

In addition to normal realms and realm gates, there is also a mini-realm, the size of a small continent instead of an entire planet, called the 'All Poins' or the 'Eight Points'.  This mini realm has 8 super massive gates, each large enough for an entire army to mive through shoulder to shoulder, one leading to each of the other 8 mortal realms.  The 8 points is currently heald by Archaon, it is the seat of his power and the reason chaos control throughout the realms is so widespread.

Sigmar managed to close the allpoint gate to Azyr before Archaon took control, which is why Azyr alone is largely free from chaos.  In the Realmgate Wars, his stormcast eternals worked with other factions to seal off some of the other gates, which allows the peoples there to fight back without chaos reinforcements streaming through.  Still, though, the best the Stormcast ever managed was closing gates, they could never fight through the gates to take and hold territory on Archaon's side.

More recently, a combined force of Nighthaunts and Ossiarch Bonereapers managed to do exactly that, taking and fortifying both sides of the Death gate while Archaon was busy elsewhere, and forcing him to abandon his goal and return before Nagash's forces could threaten to take control of the 8 points altogether.  When he returned he repelled an exploratory assault on the Varanspire, his personal fortress and the seat of his power, but at the moment the Death Gate remains in Ossiarch hand bones.

Since the formation of the Shyish Nadir, the echoes of the necroquake have reverberated throughout the realms, saturating them all in death magic, empowering necromantic spellcasters and undead armies in all the realms, causing once peaceful resting spirits to rise as armies of twisted Nighthaunts.  While the full effect of Teclis's new rune are yet to be seen, this flood of death magic is gone and those wild nighthaunt armies put to rest.

There will still be nighthaunts, but not as many and not everywhere, as the death magic that creates and sustains them is no longer dominant everywhere, just in the places it normally would be - in Shyish, near realmgates to Shyish, mass graves, etc.  Likewise there are still Ossiarchs, but the expansion of their empire will slow as the magic of their mortisans weakens and other factions, without the pressure of random Nighthaunt assaults, have their armies freed up to fight back.  Without Nagash's Iron fist to keep them in line, the various mortarchs will also descend into infighting and battles over territory in Shyish, which means the realm of death will no longer be unified in funneling resources through the various realmgates controlled by the ossiarchs to supply their expansion in other realms.

[Mcthew]

Trying to work out who on here has read the actual book (not a summary of it).

Waiting to pick up a copy but before that an honest review of the book from the TGA community? Cheers 👍

[Sception]

2 hours ago, Causalis said:

Death didn't achieve their goal of taking the Varanspire, but it felt like a hard fought "defeat" and not just a showcase for the other army.

Death's goal in Wrath of the Everchosen wasn't to take the Varanspire, it was to take and fortify the Death Gate, and then to scout and test the defenses of the Varanspire so that Katakros could start planning ~how~ to take it.  Archaon starts WotE in control of all of the 8 points and about to free slaanesh.  He ends WotE back at square one in the hunt for Slaanesh, and having lost the death gate and its surrounding territory to the undead.  Archaon may have won the final battle depicted in Wrath of the Everchosen, but the campaign as a whole was absolutely a loss for Chaos and a victory for the forces of Nagash.

This is what I mean when I say people don't give Nagash (or GW's writers) enough credit for the undead's accomplishments in 2e.  Yes, Nagash always shoots for the stars, but that doesn't make him a failure when he lands on the moon, not when his peers in other factions are being celebrated for climbing a tree.

Stormcasts barely close a few of the gates to the 8 points?  That's a huge victory for sigmar!  Nagash takes and holds *both sides* of his, invading and claiming ground within the 8 points, something no other non-chaos faction has even come close to doing since Archaon first took them at the dawn of the age of chaos?  Well, they didn't kill Archaon, claim the varanspire, and topple the central power of chaos in all the realms overnight, so I guess somehow that's a big L for 'perpetual failure' Nagash.

Edited April 3, 2021 by Sception

[Causalis]

An interesting observation regarding the timeline of this all:

BR:Teclis seems to take place at the same time or shortly after WotE. We know this becasue Lady Olynder and Katakros are both still away on their campaign in the Eightpoints. I wonder how things would have went if all five Mortarchs would have been available.

I also like the thought proposed in this thread that Nagash may change his character a bit after he inevitably revives. From Nagash: Undying King we know that being destroyed by Archaon splintered his psyche and it took some time for him to reform into a coherent being. Maybe now we will see a more diplomatic shard of Nagash taking the lead. And to be fair, even though Death lost in BR:T, as a faction they are in one of the best positions! Apart from Azyr there isn't a single realm completely under the control of one faction, with the exception of Shyish. So Death have a strong homebase, since they own Shyish and have effectively gotten rid of any other faction there that would try to claim their lands. They also managed to build strongholds in other realms!

Quick question: Do we know if the undoing of the Necroquake has any influence on the Shyish Nadir? I think not? At least to me it reads like Teclis fixed the ripples of death magic distorting things in the other realms but the main effect of Nagash's ritual - making the Shyish Nadir a power-black-hole that funnels souls into Shyish - doesn't seem unmade. 

[The Black Marshal]

40 minutes ago, Sception said:

The realms are each their own separate plane, most taking the form of disc worlds, floating in a kind of void in the greater dimension of chaos.  Each basically the scale of a planet on its own, with multiple continents and different biomes.  While it is theoretically posdible to just physically fly from one realm to another, the interplanetary distances involved, and relative lack of magical power sources (or air) between them means very few things do so.  The gods can travel directly between, though even they generally dont.  Stormcasts can travel directly from Azyr to the other realms on bolts of Sigmar's Lightning, but once on a realm they're stuck travelling normally, at least until they're 'killed', which causes them to bolt back to Azyr.

There'd hardly be any interaction between the realms if not for the Realm Gates, ancient arcane portals of various sizes and shapes that connect two places on the same or different planes.  Many of these are known and many more remain to be discovered or re-discovered, and every Realm is connected to every other Realm by such gates.  These gates are crifical points for travel, trade, or invasion, so the known gates frequently contested, usually heavily fortified, and occasionally form the center of powerful city-states that span two different Realms.

Larger civilizations, such as the Ossiarch Empire, will consist of or control multiple such city states within their territory, allowing their empire sprawl over several realms while remaining effectively contiguous.

Because the Realms are effectively planet sized, they are not generally held by just one faction, and in fact most factions have at least some presence in most realms.  Orcs are far, far more common on Ghur, but there are orc tribes native to Hysh.  One of the minor plot threads in BR:Teclis involves a ghoul civilization not invading from Shyish, but that had been present in the hidden places of a mountain range in Hysh for centuries, and that joined up with the larger undead incursion after it started.

In addition to normal realms and realm gates, there is also a mini-realm, the size of a small continent instead of an entire planet, called the 'All Poins' or the 'Eight Points'.  This mini realm has 8 super massive gates, each large enough for an entire army to mive through shoulder to shoulder, one leading to each of the other 8 mortal realms.  The 8 points is currently heald by Archaon, it is the seat of his power and the reason chaos control throughout the realms is so widespread.

Sigmar managed to close the allpoint gate to Azyr before Archaon took control, which is why Azyr alone is largely free from chaos.  In the Realmgate Wars, his stormcast eternals worked with other factions to seal off some of the other gates, which allows the peoples there to fight back without chaos reinforcements streaming through.  Still, though, the best the Stormcast ever managed was closing gates, they could never fight through the gates to take and hold territory on Archaon's side.

More recently, a combined force of Nighthaunts and Ossiarch Bonereapers managed to do exactly that, taking and fortifying both sides of the Death gate while Archaon was busy elsewhere, and forcing him to abandon his goal and return before Nagash's forces could threaten to take control of the 8 points altogether.  When he returned he repelled an exploratory assault on the Varanspire, his personal fortress and the seat of his power, but at the moment the Death Gate remains in Ossiarch hand bones.

Since the formation of the Shyish Nadir, the echoes of the necroquake have reverberated throughout the realms, saturating them all in death magic, empowering necromantic spellcasters and undead armies in all the realms, causing once peaceful resting spirits to rise as armies of twisted Nighthaunts.  While the full effect of Teclis's new rune are yet to be seen, this flood of death magic is gone and those wild nighthaunt armies put to rest.

There will still be nighthaunts, but not as many and not everywhere, as the death magic that creates and sustains them is no longer dominant everywhere, just in the places it normally would be - in Shyish, near realmgates to Shyish, mass graves, etc.  Likewise there are still Ossiarchs, but the expansion of their empire will slow as the magic of their mortisans weakens and other factions, without the pressure of random Nighthaunt assaults, have their armies freed up to fight back.  Without Nagash's Iron fist to keep them in line, the various mortarchs will also descend into infighting and battles over territory in Shyish, which means the realm of death will no longer be unified in funneling resources through the various realmgates controlled by the ossiarchs to supply their expansion in other realms.

I could kiss you

[Sception]

1 hour ago, Causalis said:

And to be fair, even though Death lost in BR:T, as a faction they are in one of the best positions! Apart from Azyr there isn't a single realm completely under the control of one faction, with the exception of Shyish.

This isn't true, because with Nagash in time out death is no longer 'one faction'.  Civil war has already broken out between Mannfred & Neferata, and neither of them are going to just quietly go along with Katakros harvesting their food stocks to fuel the expanding Ossiarch empire without Nagash forcing them to do so.  The Flesh Eaters were unreliable allies at the best of times, and nobody knows what Olynder will do now that she's off her chain, but from what we know of her life among the living, she isn't going to be serving anyone's interests but her own.

Death isn't alone in this, either.  If the Broken Realms campaign series is about anything, it's the break up of the old grand alliances.  The elven gods have largely abandoned Sigmar.  Morathi has betrayed them both, and taken the Idoneth and one of Sigmar's cities with her.  Be'lakor seems poised to shatter the unity that Archaon's unchallenged rule has managed to impose on the otherwise fractious forces of chaos.  And destruction was never really depicted as an 'alliance' in the first place.

1 hour ago, The Black Marshal said:

I could kiss you

not during covid, you couldn't.  😛

Edited April 3, 2021 by Sception

[NinthMusketeer]

I'm seeing this idea that 'the Necroquake is over' which is partly a misunderstanding; the Necroquake, like an earthquake, was not an ongoing constant but rather the event that happened when Nagash first activated the Black Pyramid. Then it had aftershocks. The whole upsetting of magical law and endless spells--that's the Arcanum Optimar. That has not been affected. What Teclis seems to have done is halt the continual expansion of the Shyish Nadir, that giant black hole created by Nagash's ritual, but Death is still the supreme force in Shyish and a force to be reckoned with.

Teclis' plan of inspiring the other forces of Order, to grant them hope, is based entirely around the concept that the Lumineth have no hope of beating Death in a straight fight.

[idn0971]

After having read through all of broken realms teclis I think the losses and sacrifices of the lumineth have been understated a bit in this thread. Yes they won the battles and the war but it reads like a phyrric victory. Nagash is defeated and death is pushed back but the lumineth took many losses and seem to be incapable of taking any further actions for the time being. The book seems to be setting up for a new narrative and tying up loose ends from soul wars and I don't think that lumineth will feature prominently in any of the other broken realms books or the new narrative for a while. Teclis comes off as an arrogant fool who decides to invade shyish and destroy nagash because he got annoyed by the necroquake and he ignores everything else that is happening in the realms to his own detriment. I'm really excited for the new broken realms books as well as the new path for death that will hopefully be shown in soulblight gravelords. The writing is meh but warhammer lore has never been well written and the larger narrative has definitely been advanced so I am happy with the book from a lore standpoint

[Sception]

20 minutes ago, idn0971 said:

Teclis comes off as an arrogant fool who decides to invade shyish and destroy nagash because he got annoyed by the necroquake and he ignores everything else that is happening in the realms to his own detriment.

But that's worse.  You get how that's worse, right?

That framing presents the threat of Nagash and everything he achieved in 2e as just that, an annoyance, a distraction, not even worth the other gods attention.  It reduces Nagash from the existential threat he should be to a side bar.  Nagash was poised to snuff out all life, Alarielle should have been desperate to convince the other gods to deal with him, not admonishing Teclis for bothering to so much as take notice.

This framing, that Nagash posed so little danger that even paying attention to him was a waste of resources is utterly at odds with how the Soul Wars has been presented to this point.  He upended the fundamental nature of Shyish, nearly consumed all that power directly which would have made him as strong as the gods of chaos, but even failing that he succeeded in disrupted the other gods control of the souls of their followers, drenched the realms in death magic, drowned their people in hungry, angry ghosts, raised the largest and most powerful sinhle empire apart from that of archaon since the age of myth practically overnight, and came a few hours shy of taking the Varanspire & with it the eight points with an army that /wasn't even trying to do that/.  Nagash had already begun the slow march towards the extinction of all life in the Realms, but this book wants us to think the goddess of life wouldn't consider that worth bothering with.

At no point before this book was the Age of Nagash portrayed as a 'season' that would 'pass' on its own.  Again, I do not object to BR:Teclis ending the threat of Nagash, for now at least.  But the implication that Nagash never was a real threat to begin with is a finger in the eye to anyone who invested in the core plot of AoS 2e.

Edited April 3, 2021 by Sception

[idn0971]

23 minutes ago, Sception said:

But that's worse.  You get how that's worse, right?

That framing presents the threat of Nagash and everything he achieved in 2e as just that, an annoyance, a distraction, not even worth the other gods attention.  It reduces Nagash from the existential threat he should be to a side bar.  Nagash was poised to snuff out all life, Alarielle should have been desperate to convince the other gods to deal with him, not admonishing Tevlus for bothering to do much as take notice.

This framing, that Nagash posed so little danger that even paying attention to him was a waste of resources is utterly at odds with how the Soul Wars has been presented to this point.  He upended the fundamental nature of Shyish, nearly consumed all that power directly which would have made him as strong as the gods of chaos, but even failing that he succeeded in disrupted the other gods control of the souls of their followers, drenched the realms in death magic, drowned their people in hungry, angry ghosts, raised the largest and most powerful sinhle empire apart from that of archaon since the age of myth practically overnight, and came a few hours shy of taking the Varanspire & with it the eight points with an army that /wasn't even trying to do that/.  Nagash had already begun the slow march towards the extinction of all life in the Realms, but this book wants us to think the goddess of life would think that not worth bothering with.

At no point before this book was the Age of Nagash portrayed as a 'season' that would 'pass' on its own.  Again, I do not object to BR:Teclis ending the threat of Nagash, for now at least.  But the implication that Nagash never was a real threat to begin with is a finger in the eye to anyone who invested in the core plot of AoS 2e.

I think I might have worded this a bit wrong.  Teclis comes off as an arrogant fool because he is doing all of this on his own and asks for no help from anyone because he is impatient. The necroquake definitely had a large impact and it comes across that way in the book but teclis views it as just an annoyance so he believes he can deal with it on his own with no real consequences. My criticism is of teclis for underestimating death and trying to do everything singlehandedly not of the consequences of the necroquake. It's made clear in the book that large parts of the death factions, especially nighthaunt and ossiarchs are preoccupied elsewhere like katakros in the varanspire and that if those forces were in shyish teclis almost certainly would have lost. The reason the lumineth take so many losses is because they underestimated death and were too aggressive. I don't think death comes out as looking weak. Their failure to take the realmgates is due to them being overcommitted due to their previous successes and the selfishness and arrogance of the mortarchs.

Last point I want to add is that the framing of the story is almost completly from the lumineth view and because of that it takes on their arrogant framing which creates the discrepancy between this books and previous books as the lumineth believe that every problem is merely an annoyance so they disdain their enemies even those that are extremely powerful and treat with great caution such as Nagash. Almost all the other books in soulwars have been presented from death's viewpoint and therefore emphasize their succeses so it can be jarring to see another faction's view on events. The necroquake seems less impactful in this book because hysh has been less impacted by it then other realms due to teclis and the lumineth so the writers focus more on the arrogance of the two factions then the impact of the necroquake which as you have stated has been greatly emphasized in many different books. I also want to agree with @NinthMusketeer here and say that necroquake was only stopped and not reversed so they did not just retcon the entirety of the soul wars rather tranistioning to a new narrative which was always going to happen.

Edited April 3, 2021 by idn0971
Added additional reasoning and critique of the story

[Nagash42]

Also Nagash would have killed Teclis had they not teleported back to Hysh from the battle they were having between the realms. The ossiarch army was mostly defeated so they couldn't help where as the catbird brought allies from the city of sigmar to blast at Nagash with lumimarchs and Teclis had to draw on everyone's aetherquartz. 

[The Black Marshal]

Are Gods in AoS like the Primarchs? They’ve got their hand in everything and people report to them directly while the act as de facto heads of state?

[Sception]

13 minutes ago, The Black Marshal said:

Are Gods in AoS like the Primarchs? They’ve got their hand in everything and people report to them directly while the act as de facto heads of state?

A bit higher up than the primarchs, but that's about the ballpark.  Additionally, several of the realm gods (as opposed to the chaos gods, which work differently) are intrinsically died to the magic and substance of one of the realms, as the wind of magic that would eventually become that realm was bound to that character's soul during the End Times conflict that ended the oldhammer world.  Nagash isn't just a death god in shyish - of which there were once many - or even the god of shyish.  Rather it might be more accurate to say that Nagash /is/ Shyish - a personification of its will.  His soul and identity were bound to Shyish in the old world, and were manifested from Shyish itself in the new (though he was then immediately imprisoned by the Chaos Gods and only freed in the Age of Myth by Sigmar).  It's a similar story with Sigmar and Azyr, Teclis and Hysh, etc.  On a surface level the conflicts in Age of Sigmar are driven by the gods fighting over control of the realms, but on a deeper level it might be more a case of the realms battling for dominance with each other, wielding the gods as their weapons and avatars.  At the risk of drifting into fan theorizing, it cold be that just as Arkhan and the other mortarchs might be merely figments of Nagash's memory, so too Nagash and the other gods might simply be impressions left behind on the substance of the winds of magic once bound to them.

[Envyus]

Read BR Teclis for the first time. Really liked it (Death Player too) 

 

From reading it, what was said and the pictures. Pretty sure Arkhan is super dead and not coming back.

Edited April 3, 2021 by Envyus

[Icarion]

12 hours ago, stratigo said:

Alright, here we go!

So, GW has historically favored elves in both their major settings, in both rules and fluff. As a non elf player (and, for fantasy a dwarf player) I have always been kind of sick of it, but with Phil kelly at the head, this isn't going to change. I hope that the elfapolooza has enough room to squeeze something satisfying for my faction (KO) out of it, but, honestly it is looking like kharadrons are gonna get a big ol' skip for a minimum of three elf focused books plus bel'akor (which could have a surprise elf focus). I do find this disappointing, but not unexpected as a dwarf player in the face of the elves.  But at least they aren't space marines.

 

 

 

 

You know, ifs funny how entitled that sounds.

Fantasy dwarf players got two faction releases within the first few years of AOS, both of which expanded key sections of the classic fantasy dwarf lines.

Fantasy High elf players had to wait 5 years to see any aos releases, and now suddenly you resent them getting their day in the sun?

Hardly an example of GW elf bias.

Edited April 3, 2021 by Athrawes

[Austin]

10 hours ago, Mcthew said:

Trying to work out who on here has read the actual book (not a summary of it).

Waiting to pick up a copy but before that an honest review of the book from the TGA community? Cheers 👍

After reading it myself yesterday, let me tell you, not many.

[NinthMusketeer]

I did not post discussing it until after I had read the story myself,  I've made a couple summary-ish posts in this thread. Most of it trying to address inaccurate impressions given by online reviews.

[NinthMusketeer]

6 hours ago, The Black Marshal said:

Are Gods in AoS like the Primarchs? They’ve got their hand in everything and people report to them directly while the act as de facto heads of state?

No, I don't think it would be a valid comparison. They are both higher up and less involved in direct management of their factions than the Primarchs were. Most parts of all factions with a god to their name are self-sufficient and will only interact with their associated god sporadically if at all. Now if the god shows up and says 'hey I need you guys to do this thing' then obviously they do it, but factions like Bonereapers or Syvaneth are totally fine being self managed without any oversight from their deity (though they understandably benefit should the god show up to help). Others, like the Duardin factions, at most had indirect guidance from their god. And others still, like Destruction, never had anything resembling leadership at all. Even the relationship between Sigmar and Stormcast, which could be said to have similarity with the Emperor and the Legions (pre-primarch return), is relatively far from the relationship Primarchs had. I would say a lot of that is due to the unique nature of the Primarch-legion bond as well as the diverse array of management styles (and even states of existence) for AoS gods.

[Mutton]

The biggest problem with the narrative is Warhammer books is that a majority of it focuses around the battles. It is a wargame, but when reading fiction, you need strong characters you can relate to, love, hate, or simply understand. You don't get much of that in Teclis. Morathi BR definitely had more interesting characters who you understood and rooted for.

Teclis is the "protagonist" of the latest BR book, but he's not relatable at all---whether intentionally or not, it makes for someone we don't particularly care about. He's too infallible; too "godly" with no personality to make up for it. The other main characters in the book are given brief histories and descriptions, but other than their grand war plans, we experience nothing, and learn nothing from them. Alarielle is probably the most interesting character in the story, and she's not even really in it, only appearing in side-blurbs with Teclis.

There are a handful of fun excerpts: The Archregent who ruined everything, Alarielle's fight against Nurgle, the lands at the edge of Hysh...

Overall, it was alright. Nagash clearly isn't actually dead, so the whole thing does feel a bit like the end of an Inspector Gadget cartoon, "I'LL GET YOU NEXT TIME GADGET!" Too much of it revolved around venerating the Elf-lads, even if it was their book. Not much else happens other than Lumineth v. Undead. The outcome is difficult to gauge; it's more ambiguous than the direct consequences of Morathi's ascension.

The most intriguing tidbit - What is Tyrion fighting against that's worse than Nagash? 

[stratigo]

1 hour ago, Athrawes said:

You know, ifs funny how entitled that sounds.

Fantasy dwarf players got two faction releases within the first few years of AOS, both of which expanded key sections of the classic fantasy dwarf lines.

Fantasy High elf players had to wait 5 years to see any aos releases, and now suddenly you resent them getting their day in the sun?

Hardly an example of GW elf bias.

Which did quite surprise me, but for narrative influence the dwarves have had... none? One of the reasons I was so excited for the lamentations series was that it was putting grungi as sort of the driving force behind it and involved a cast with dwarves as prominent members.  And Reynolds is a great author. But this kinda got sunk.

 

What, exactly, did the dwarves do in those five years? The elves are pretty much THE narrative now, driving it. I can't remember the last time the dwarves were a prime driver of the narrative. Nemesis Crown? I think it was Nemesis crown.

[NinthMusketeer]

36 minutes ago, stratigo said:

Which did quite surprise me, but for narrative influence the dwarves have had... none? One of the reasons I was so excited for the lamentations series was that it was putting grungi as sort of the driving force behind it and involved a cast with dwarves as prominent members.  And Reynolds is a great author. But this kinda got sunk.

 

What, exactly, did the dwarves do in those five years? The elves are pretty much THE narrative now, driving it. I can't remember the last time the dwarves were a prime driver of the narrative. Nemesis Crown? I think it was Nemesis crown.

So I mean this with no disrespect, but this just does not line up with the fluff. Fyreslayers were instrumental at several points of the Realmgate Wars, including being key to the sealing of Aqshy's Arcway and were the faction responsible for freeing the Godbeast Ignax from Archaon's control. Those are both tremendously important.

Kharadron currently act as the trade network for the free cities. Because they can readily transport large amounts of cargo by air they can ensure regular trade exists in a lot of locations where it would otherwise be impossible due to just how harsh the mortal realms tend to be. They are a critical economic and support component to the free cities. Dispossed on the other hand are a literal foundation in that they physically build much of the base structure and defenses free cities stand on, as well as their contribution to the Ironweld and construction of cogforts. They also man underground defense where it is needed.

If Lumineth up and vanished the Cities of Sigmar would survive just fine. DoK are the only elf faction/demi-faction that would be a significant loss for humanity if they suddenly dissapeared because of their strong contribution against Chaos. But if Kharadron or Dispossessed vanished? That would be massive. Sigmar's domain would be crippled and non-Chaos humans would suffer tremendously. Duardin have been far more important to humanity's existence than Aelves have. Probably because they never ran off to circle-****** around Slaanesh's bondage display.

If that wasn't enough, Sigmar does not directly forge Stormcast from human souls. The Six Smiths do. And who made the Six Smiths? Grungni.

Edited April 4, 2021 by NinthMusketeer

[NinthMusketeer]

1 hour ago, Mutton said:

The biggest problem with the narrative is Warhammer books is that a majority of it focuses around the battles. It is a wargame, but when reading fiction, you need strong characters you can relate to, love, hate, or simply understand. You don't get much of that in Teclis. Morathi BR definitely had more interesting characters who you understood and rooted for.

Teclis is the "protagonist" of the latest BR book, but he's not relatable at all---whether intentionally or not, it makes for someone we don't particularly care about. He's too infallible; too "godly" with no personality to make up for it. The other main characters in the book are given brief histories and descriptions, but other than their grand war plans, we experience nothing, and learn nothing from them. Alarielle is probably the most interesting character in the story, and she's not even really in it, only appearing in side-blurbs with Teclis.

There are a handful of fun excerpts: The Archregent who ruined everything, Alarielle's fight against Nurgle, the lands at the edge of Hysh...

Overall, it was alright. Nagash clearly isn't actually dead, so the whole thing does feel a bit like the end of an Inspector Gadget cartoon, "I'LL GET YOU NEXT TIME GADGET!" Too much of it revolved around venerating the Elf-lads, even if it was their book. Not much else happens other than Lumineth v. Undead. The outcome is difficult to gauge; it's more ambiguous than the direct consequences of Morathi's ascension.

The most intriguing tidbit - What is Tyrion fighting against that's worse than Nagash? 

I can see that--there was more character and non-combat development in BR Morathi and I agree that is something it did better than BR Teclis. As for Nagash not really being dead, that was a given. GW can't perma-kill Nagash any more than they could kill a Chaos god, that's just not how the setting or the character works. But the last time we was physically defeated it was Archaon and it took Nagash a solid 300-400 years to manifest again, and without him Death got their bony butts handed to them by Chaos.  Speaking of Archaon, that is my guess as to who Tyrion is fighting though Be-Lakor would be another. More intriguing (and entertaining) to me is that there is a traitor in Teclis' ranks and he didn't know about it.

Speaking of anti-elf narrative, my favorite bit of fluff from BR Teclis: 

"It was not only the bodily remains of the aelves that were harnessed by the Mortisans, of course, but also the very souls of those whom they had slain. Taken from the corpses of the dying before they could depart, the aelf-souls were sequestered into flasks and blended with those of choice human prey, forming animating essences that were quick of thought yet bellicose and aggressive in a way the contemplative aelves of Hysh could never be. It was an exquisite form of torture for the aelf-souls so treated; revering purity above all, they considered the blending of human essence with their superior aelven animus to be a ghastly dilution that would trap them in purgatory..."

SUX DOESN'T IT!

 

[novakai]

i think Dwarfs is just one of those things that GW have historically have hard time giving Narrative significance too. it doesn't help that  both their gods where given passive roles at the start of AoS (one was  destroyed,  the other is missing) their two armies are really glorify sidekick in most narrative event to SCE or just straight up made sabotage the protagonist like Forbidden power. their one named character Brokk doesn't have much pull in the narrative .

 

the only thing they really have is just Gortrek and his current adventure.