Tossed into the Mawpot! Soup Armies Thoughts and Feelings?

[DoctorPerils]

I think there's another aspect relevant to this discussion that has yet to be bought up, and that's the design language of the models themselves, what assembles the models into a singular faction. Many "soup" factions do this well (Ogors all are big, wear trousers, a gut plate, some furs and little else; the mono-god chaos factions have big divergences between the daemons and mortals, and yet there are big design cues bringing them together). Others... just don't: though I love Cities of Sigmar conceptually (though really wish they weren't named after a single Order god...), freeguild and dispossessed don't look like they belong together out of the box; Bonesplitterz look like they'd fit better with some of the savage warcry warbands and chaos marauders than with Ironjawz, as they wear the same bone trinkets and rawhide clothes.

Fyreslayers and Kharadron lake any type of visual narrative coherence, and neither share all that much with Dispossessed for that matter - to me, that's yet another reason to not merge them under a faction heading. Instead, I'd rather they languished separately for another couple of years with no new releases, and updated dispossessed to fit into the renaissance theme that freeguild have (and do the same for the other CoS subfactions). If you absolutely 100% had to soup some of the dwarves together, make it Kharadron and Ironweld, since both have the steampunk theme. On the other hand, Fyreslayers have a sort of celtic aesthetic to their helmets and body paint, which might (ironically) fit in better visually with the likes of Wanderers (the old Wood Elf models).

Bear in mind I'm not advocating for any of those options (apart from renaissance dwarves which would look rad!) - I just think they could make more sense than an all-dwarves tome, and be more interesting a set of combinations to boot.

 

Edited May 26, 2021 by DoctorPerils

[Duke Eligos]

What I want in an army is for it to represent a coherent culture/civilisation that tells a captivating story that lets my imagination go wild.

The problem with souping everything for convenience sake is that those things are often the first things to be affected.

There's a big difference between souping factions whose models were designed to be of the same culture/civilisation (like Skavens and Ogors) and doing it with factions who were designed on their own with no concern about fitting in other armies (like KO, FS, IDK and DoK). 

The closest thing to uniting the Duardin that GW has done in the past is merging all the Old World Elves in End Times: Khaine... and I expect the fans of the factions to react similarly to how Elf fans reacted to ETK. Those who don't care about the lore and aesthetic identity will be happy to have more things to play with, while the rest will be fuming for years to come.

Tldr; I want factions to be divided by culture instead of their race.

[Clan's Cynic]

3 hours ago, Greybeard86 said:

Are KO going to get new units though?  Because, no offense, I think lots of people are willing to throw FS under the bus because hardly anyone plays them.

In my opinion, the point is whether many factions with narrow ranges can be sustained over time or whether they ll just languish and die from neglect. This is not new to AoS, chorfs and dogs of war suffered that fate in WHFB.

It seems that now AoS is going back to large releases with wider ranges. Now, the previous design iteration of narrow ranges can either fold into a wider faction or...what? What do you think will happen? How long can KO continue to operate with 1 battle line and now new minis? Not to speak of FS since that’s been discussed to death. 
 

I think there is room for actual bigger alliances that work, and we have to allow for some time to GW to write the lore to support it. Likely, this will lead to some retconning. Usually, I dislike that. But between death from moth or retconning, I guess I’d choose the later.

None plays Fyreslayers because their range is almost identical and they haven't seen a new model in almost the start of AoS. Oh, and that they're eyewateringly expensive even four years on.

It's the same vicious cycle that WHFB got into. GW don't bring out new models, so almost none buys the old models, so GW kills the army because none bought the models. 

Kharadron are extremely popular, at least now they have rules that don't punish you for bringing airships. A new wave of models would go down a storm and just because GW hasn't released them yet doesn't change that. Are you going to suggest Idoneth be merged with Lumineth because they've not received a new model since 1.0 as well? Should Maggotkin and BoKhorne go into Slaves to Darkness?

Since the Idoneth/Lumineth analogy's going to have me sounding like a broken record, I'll use the one of Bretonnians and Empire - they're both human nations, with very different visual, gameplay and in-universe cultures. Should Bretonnia have been merged with the Empire because GW hadn't given them models for twelve or so years?

Edited May 27, 2021 by Clan's Cynic

[Eldarain]

I could see it being Dispossessed and Fyreslayers being combined with possibly a kit or two alongside Grungni.

Add in a Cities Style 1 in 4 rule for Kharadron and the Sky Dorfs can continue to be a standalone book that can be further developed which makes sense for the more popular of the new Dwarf factions.

[Chikout]

I think there are a lot of factors going into this discussion especially the idea that a soup book means a particular thing. It's worth looking that GW's past behaviour to see what actually happens.

First we have the idea that soup means no new models. If we look at the evidence we have a mixed bag. Mawtribes combined a got a new hero and a scenery piece. Warclans combined and got nothing, but later got 2 underworlds warbands. Legions of Nagash got nothing but later got unsouped into three different books with more than 40 new kits. Cities got nothing until now. 

From this we can assume that the decision to soup a book means there won't be a large number of kits for that faction for a while, but it doesn't mean nothing. 

Second is the idea that one or more of the subfactions will lose their identity. In warbands both armies are able to play as they did before but with improved rules and the get to combine together. Mawtribes is similar. Cities of Sigmar took a bunch of old kits and gave players a wide variety of interesting ways to play with them. Some legions of Nagash players are unhappy that they no longer get to mix nighthaunt and Soulblight. From a rules perspective almost every army has either stayed the same or improved when souped. 

From a lore perspective it's true that some things might be lost but all battletomes are not the same length. The sons of Behemat lore section is 33 pages while the Slaanesh section is 51 pages. So there may be some lost lore but not a huge amount. As for the identities of the factions nothing really changes. The Ironjawz didn't suddenly start running around naked when the books combined. 

Based on all of this the decision to soup a book is likely due to the fact that there aren't any miniature updates coming for those factions for a while, as we know that minis always come first. 

The sad reality is that gw doesn't do big updates for every faction every edition. In second edition gw put out 11 major waves of minis. So that's less than half of the current factions. Over in 40k we are almost a year into 9th edition and we still have only had major updates for marines and Necrons. On current pacing that's an update for every army every six years. Fyreslayers are currently 5 years old so they won't qualify as an abandoned army until the end of next year. 

With a new destruction update and more Stormcast that leaves 10 or so battletomes which will get big updates this edition. That means most factions will get a hero or two and maybe a warcry or underworlds warband. It's sad that your favourite faction might go without updates while the stormcast get a lot of attention but it's an unfortunate fact of the way gw  (or indeed any company; where's my waverace switch) do business. 

I personally would love every subfaction to get its own book. I would love a battletome troggoths or a battletome Clan Eshin or a battletome Devoted of Sigmar but it would mean the wait for updates would get even longer. 

I think soup books can give a lease of life to factions that aren't due for new minis. 

 

[Bayul]

I might be on the extreme spectrum and prefer soup without racial constraints. That's why i liked mercenaries so much. I actually once had an idea to combine Anvilgard with Tenebrous Court Crypt Flayers as core unit to abuse bravery reduction with Death Scream. I am still completely convinced that those Forbidden Power rules are matched play legal and a coherent colour scheme would look great among Dark Elves and Crypt Flayers

While Legion of Grief is a great example for a soup army by itself, it doesn't need to end with undead units for me. With GHB 2019 you could bring mercenary Organ Guns! I thought about rusty cannons accompanied by ethereal dwarfs, but their model was squatted and GHB 2019 is invalid now.

Speaking about this silly dwarf controversy: Lady Olynder bought Fyreslayers for the invasion of Lake Lethis with gold. I wouldn't mind such combinations in official campaigns at all and it should be possible to balance it for matched play.

[Public Universal Duardin]

I know everybody hates fence-sitters but this is one of the few situations where I must quote Futurama.

On one hand I don't believe in Fyreslayers ever getting an update - there is only so much you can do with Fyreslayers (sorry, FS fans) and having collected Bretonnia back in the day I know all too well the pain of never getting new models (or even a battletome!). Soup-ing would fix that and give the FS range a chance to get a second life, so that all of us can avoid the pain of seeing another dwarf faction getting squatted.

At the same time some such as @Clan's Cynic have pretty eloquently criticised the idea of soup-ing duardin together, and I think it would be some folly to not pay heed to those arguments.

Volley Pistol to my head? I'd probably end up supporting a big bowl of soup, just because I'm worried that without souping FS are going the way of the chorfs and squats. Yes, it makes zero lore sense and aesthetics don't match, but I can see GW trimming down the faction list even further (expect DoK and Umbraneth be souped up, just my gut feeling) to avoid the Bretonnia (or for 40K players - Dark Eldar before 2011) situation where one faction is lagging behind and hard. I think it was pretty clear GW's original plan with AoS was something similar to Underworlds, where warbands come and go in 'seasons', as all first ed armies not from WHFB were quite small ranges with very similar looking models. And FS is not the easiest to spin out to new model lines - well, unless GW releases female Fyreslayers. Getting every FS player double-dipping, heheh.

[Lord Krungharr]

I like the soup armies as it means less battletomes to buy and search through.  If the subfactions are flushed out enough like the Skaven ones there's no great reason to not have them bound together.  Nice thing is too it would let allies open up when the different duardin (for example) are all under the same Allegiance Abilities.  Plus it's good for the collector type of players.  

In the duardin case, none of them have that many units either, so it would still be a less bloated tome than Stormcast.

[Beer & Pretzels Gamer]

This may be neither here nor there but I do find the contrast between the reaction of combining KO and Fyreslayers in this (and many other threads) and the reaction by Mawtribes players to an expansion of Firebellies perplexing. Absolutely expansions almost always go down smoother.  But the obvious conflict between Fire & Ice (as represented by Beastclaw) in the same tome was largely seen as a feature to be celebrated, not a bug to be fretted over.

Again, I own and play both Fyreslayers and KO.  Again and again I read that you can’t combine the fanatical fundamentalists with the extreme atheists, as if those were the only characteristics these factions had.  Personally an appeal of the two armies is how clearly they form a balanced ying and yang so to speak.  It immediately struck me how both of their fanaticism have resulted in actives so similar in function.  Fyreslayers are obsessed with collecting ur-gold.  KO are obsessed with collecting aether-gold.  Both obsessions are about the pursuit of power.  The Fyreslayers pound the ur-gold into their own bodies to gain personal strength.  The KO inh3ct it into their machines to gain mechanical strength.  Two sides of the same coin.  Reflections in each other’s mirrors.  Pick your metaphor.  

Given this perspective I admit I’m confused when people say they can’t be combined.  Just such contrasting combinations are the basis of some of the most successful narratives whether we are talking books, movies, tv, opera, songs, etc. etc.

But in the end, to each their own.  I have no say in the decision and while I think I would absolutely be better off with a soup in the end I’ll have to work with whatever Nottingham decides.

Edited May 27, 2021 by Beer & Pretzels Gamer

[Doko]

The excuse kharadrons and fyreslayers are diferent style and cant be souped is ******.

In fantasy dwarfs were all together and had old nordic dwarfs with low armor(warrior), heavy armor(actual ironbreakers),slayers,the steampunks gyros and artillery.

So in fantasy the dwarfs were dispossesed,fyreslayers and kharadrons all together and was cool and great.

Im happy to be soup and i hope gw finnally do it because fyreslayers and kharadron should have been in the same book since the beggining

[Clan's Cynic]

34 minutes ago, Doko said:

The excuse kharadrons and fyreslayers are diferent style and cant be souped is ******.

In fantasy dwarfs were all together and had old nordic dwarfs with low armor(warrior), heavy armor(actual ironbreakers),slayers,the steampunks gyros and artillery.

So in fantasy the dwarfs were dispossesed,fyreslayers and kharadrons all together and was cool and great.

Im happy to be soup and i hope gw finnally do it because fyreslayers and kharadron should have been in the same book since the beggining

In Fantasy, the Dwarfs hailed from the same lands, were raised in the same culture and typically were comprised of armies from the same Hold. The 'steampunk' was more or less kept to the Gyrocopter (later bomber) and the Engineer, whilst the Slayers were a single unit. Everything else was relatively typical (lower case) fantasy Dwarfs. Engineer-Guild and Slayers were the exception, not the norm. 

By contrast, Kharadron are literally an entire faction of Steampunk Dwarfs(tm), whilst Fyreslayers are an entire faction of Not!Slayers. That's before even getting into the lore, wherein the two of them are described as being akin to cousins at best, without much love being lost between them over the Age of Chaos - the Kharadrons resent the Fyreslayers almost as much as they do Grungi.

It's like saying Arthurian Fantasy Bretonnians and the Holy Roman Empire... Empire(tm) could be souped together because they're both humans with different themes.

34 minutes ago, Beer & Pretzels Gamer said:

This may be neither here nor there but I do find the contrast between the reaction of combining KO and Fyreslayers in this (and many other threads) and the reaction by Mawtribes players to an expansion of Firebellies perplexing. Absolutely expansions almost always go down smoother.  But the obvious conflict between Fire & Ice (as represented by Beastclaw) in the same tome was largely seen as a feature to be celebrated, not a bug to be fretted over.

Mawtribes was literally combing the two halves of Ogre Kingdoms back together, nothing less, nothing more. The Beastclaw Raiders did 'evolve' their AoS-only lore into being more standalone, but the contrast between them and the Gutbusters wasn't nearly as pronounced as between KO/FS/DP and it probably helped Gutbusters had pretty much nothing penned about them beyond the bare minimum prior to Mawtribes.

Edited May 27, 2021 by Clan's Cynic

[Duke Eligos]

19 minutes ago, Doko said:

The excuse kharadrons and fyreslayers are diferent style and cant be souped is ******.

In fantasy dwarfs were all together and had old nordic dwarfs with low armor(warrior), heavy armor(actual ironbreakers),slayers,the steampunks gyros and artillery.

So in fantasy the dwarfs were dispossesed,fyreslayers and kharadrons all together and was cool and great.

Im happy to be soup and i hope gw finnally do it because fyreslayers and kharadron should have been in the same book since the beggining

In Fantasy Goblins, Orcs and Giants were all together. Why not unite them while you're at it?

Old Dwarves didn't have Magmadroth, their artillery wasn't steampunk in any way shape or form and the Gyrocopters have a completely different aesthetic to Kharadron skyvessels.

The only thing those factions share is their race. The point of the Kharadron is that they AREN'T classic dwarfs. Combining them to be a part of a global classic duardin force ruins what I like the most about them.

I like that they are off doing their own thing and gave up on old dwarf tropes and aesthetic.

The only way to be happy with a duardin soup is to either don't like the current duardin factions, not care enough about lore and model aesthetic or to be desperate enough to settle for garbage.

[Doko]

Its so easy,all those kharadrons haters of soup.

Dont get nothing new and continue playing only kharadrons units the same than ironjaws oe bonespliters can play without big wagg.

I dont get all the problems and ranting,if you like soup play soup,if you dont like then play only monofaction all is posible 

[Duke Eligos]

12 minutes ago, Doko said:

Its so easy,all those kharadrons haters of soup.

Dont get nothing new and continue playing only kharadrons units the same than ironjaws oe bonespliters can play without big wagg.

I dont get all the problems and ranting,if you like soup play soup,if you dont like then play only monofaction all is posible 

Not getting anything new because of a duardin soup is part of the problem believe it or not. The other part is losing the content that has to be removed for 2-3 factions to fit in 1 Battletome.

We can already play with every Duardin model in Barak-Thryng, a duardin soup book doesn't give us anything new. 

[Zeblasky]

As a Cities player, I love well done soups, especially 1 in 4 conditional ones, as those give a lot of reasonably balanced options, and having a reasonably big pool of options is always great for lore and army building. Armies that always fight by themselfs can get pretty boring for me, while having an option to mix it up with some allies that get all the keywords feels pretty great. It also help to show active interactions between certain factions right on the table, which makes the world of AoS feel alive and linked.

So in the perfect world for me most factions could go for some subfactions with rules for pure armies as well as for certain subfactions with 1 in 4 or even 1 in 2 with other closely allied faction. Besides promoting loreful ties, it also promotes having or carefully expanding into multiple armies (those 30 Dryads are still waiting for me...) as well as giving a greater build diversity.

Kharadon and Fyreslayers issue though... Both were born out of the extremes of a single faction, which went even further. Kharadon became popular, Fireslayers did not. And at this point, I am not sure that you can reasonably fully bring then together once again. May be as 1 in 4 in certain subfactions at best.

It would also be wrong to think that Fyreslayers thematic is all completely exausted - just because they are a magical berserker faction, does not mean they can't have something done with it. You could add new lava shooting big beast, that is long ranged focused, heavily armoured and slow big transport beast, Flaggelant-like no save going mad Berserkers (hello Death Company!), that explode into lava on death, Fireslayers that are fused with magical lava or fire or kinda looking like beasts themselfs and do more damage, the more damage they absorb, lava beasts cavalry.. Honestly, this is just what I've created on the fly in like 20 minutes, I'm sure GW can do better. The question though is probably about if this army is popular enough for such a model investment for GW.

[Baron Klatz]

Yeah, the Fyreslayers aren't dried up for creativity in expanding them. The books and Soulbound rpg do it all the time with mentions of living volcanoes they make deals with, Hysh Lodges that use moon powered forges to make Fyresteel weapons out of crystal, herds of Firespitter lizards that do their name sake to where herders wear their scales as cloaks to protect themselves from the flames, herding fiery Aqshrams(literally rams made of fire), and the magma queen counsels who go to war with guards wearing special plate mail.

That's not getting into the Chamon ones that own lodges inside a  Nexus of gates allowing them to mercenary everywhere, ghyran Fyreslayers that stake claims on floating mountains and Ghur ones that excel in raising monster cavalry and allying with ogors.

It's just a matter of resources more than anything if GW can work on them now or soup them and split them apart later when they have a good second wave to go.

Lastly, can people please stop saying Fyreslayers = Slayers and they work that way. They ain't suicidal warriors and regular duardin(Dispossessed, Kharadron, etc) can't become a Fyreslayer anymore than a city aelf can become a Melusai, Deepkin or Lumineth. Fyreslayers are literally Grimnir's children and have smoke and fire in their veins to where they use metal Braille orbs to record things as paper can't stand their touch for long.

Edited May 27, 2021 by Baron Klatz

[King Under the Mountain]

19 minutes ago, Baron Klatz said:

 

Lastly, please stop saying Fyreslayers = Slayers and they work that way. They ain't suicidal warriors and regular duardin(Dispossessed, Kharadron, etc) can't become a Fyreslayer anymore than a city aelf can become a Melusai, Deepkin or Lumineth. Fyreslayers are literally Grimnir's children and have smoke and fire in their veins to where they use metal Braille orbs to record things as paper can't stand their touch for long.

Your last line reminds me of how interesting Fyreslayers could be if they went all in on the fire "elemental" aspect instead of focusing on the mercenary ur-gold hunt.

 

Fire skewing heavy artillery. Fire elementals (think Ragneros from WoW) and walking mini-Volcanoes.  The army dosent have to be all half-naked Dwarfs, that's just what GW has chosen to do so far.

After rereading the Fyreslayer battletome recently I started thinking that a major shakeup both for the Fyreslayers and the Realms as a whole would be the resurrection of Grimnir.  The art of him is beautiful and I could totally see GW doing him justice as a massive centerpiece with Flaming hair and beard. 

[Baron Klatz]

Indeed! There's also the Aqshy pseudo-eastern influences to play on with Fyreslayers using more Samurai-like attire along with naganata flame spears to go with their lodge icons based on that:

And when Grimnir's physical form re-emerges those with pieces of Ur-gold in them can be transformed into Norse fire titan-like beings to bring a new scale to the army and show off their connection with their fire god/father.

 

[zilberfrid]

4 hours ago, Beer & Pretzels Gamer said:

This may be neither here nor there but I do find the contrast between the reaction of combining KO and Fyreslayers in this (and many other threads) and the reaction by Mawtribes players to an expansion of Firebellies perplexing. Absolutely expansions almost always go down smoother.  But the obvious conflict between Fire & Ice (as represented by Beastclaw) in the same tome was largely seen as a feature to be celebrated, not a bug to be fretted over.

Again, I own and play both Fyreslayers and KO.  Again and again I read that you can’t combine the fanatical fundamentalists with the extreme atheists, as if those were the only characteristics these factions had.  Personally an appeal of the two armies is how clearly they form a balanced ying and yang so to speak.  It immediately struck me how both of their fanaticism have resulted in actives so similar in function.  Fyreslayers are obsessed with collecting ur-gold.  KO are obsessed with collecting aether-gold.  Both obsessions are about the pursuit of power.  The Fyreslayers pound the ur-gold into their own bodies to gain personal strength.  The KO inh3ct it into their machines to gain mechanical strength.  Two sides of the same coin.  Reflections in each other’s mirrors.  Pick your metaphor.  

Given this perspective I admit I’m confused when people say they can’t be combined.  Just such contrasting combinations are the basis of some of the most successful narratives whether we are talking books, movies, tv, opera, songs, etc. etc.

But in the end, to each their own.  I have no say in the decision and while I think I would absolutely be better off with a soup in the end I’ll have to work with whatever Nottingham decides.

Not serving gods isn't the only thing Kharadron have, but it is a thing only Kharadron have.

And it's a big thing to me.

But if GW is unable to make any faction that isn't just a cult, their writing capabilities are even lower than my expectations.

I don't think I'll just have to work with whatever Nottingham decides. I can just close that door behind me and check every few years whether they have made a kit that I think is worth the cost just for the models.

That way, they'll only disappoint me every few years.

Edited May 27, 2021 by zilberfrid

[Beliman]

4 hours ago, Doko said:

Dont get nothing new and continue playing only kharadrons units the same than ironjaws oe bonespliters can play without big wagg.

Thats a big falacy.

If we talk about rules to play, Kharadrons can already play with any DUARDIN keyword (Barak-Thryng). And we can even change our allegiance for Cities of Sigmar (Tempest's Eye) too. In other words, we can play soup if we want and if any other Duardin faccion has new models, we can still use them if they have the DUARDIN keyword.

[Darnok]

I would rather see them split existing books up than merging what is out already.

In some way CoS works for me, but still feels weird - 20 years of WHF socialisation are hard to overcome. Gloomspite Gitz work because they have always been a mix of different Greenskins plus trolls - and I still would love to see a seperate spiderrider faction book. Similar for Orruk Warclans - I applaud the game designers to make both halves play well on their own as well as together, but the models just do not mix well on a visual or background level.

Merging Kharadron Overlords and Fyreslayers would be just a recipe for disaster!

 

No, I would much prefer to see models added in a way that allows for more of the currently smaller factions to stand on their own. They all have potential to do so, it is merely a question of investing the ressources to make it happen.

Edited May 27, 2021 by Darnok

[Greybeard86]

4 hours ago, Clan's Cynic said:

In Fantasy, the Dwarfs hailed from the same lands, were raised in the same culture and typically were comprised of armies from the same Hold. The 'steampunk' was more or less kept to the Gyrocopter (later bomber) and the Engineer, whilst the Slayers were a single unit. Everything else was relatively typical (lower case) fantasy Dwarfs. Engineer-Guild and Slayers were the exception, not the norm. 

By contrast, Kharadron are literally an entire faction of Steampunk Dwarfs(tm), whilst Fyreslayers are an entire faction of Not!Slayers. That's before even getting into the lore, wherein the two of them are described as being akin to cousins at best, without much love being lost between them over the Age of Chaos - the Kharadrons resent the Fyreslayers almost as much as they do Grungi.

It's like saying Arthurian Fantasy Bretonnians and the Holy Roman Empire... Empire(tm) could be souped together because they're both humans with different themes.

Mawtribes was literally combing the two halves of Ogre Kingdoms back together, nothing less, nothing more. The Beastclaw Raiders did 'evolve' their AoS-only lore into being more standalone, but the contrast between them and the Gutbusters wasn't nearly as pronounced as between KO/FS/DP and it probably helped Gutbusters had pretty much nothing penned about them beyond the bare minimum prior to Mawtribes.

I think we are coming to discuss from two different perspectives. I am not arguing that, as things stand, the two factions blend well together. They do not! But that was GW going out of their way to make sure they didn’t. They picked steam punk and slayer and pulled them apart; they did so to get two distinct factions with smallish ranges. The goal, much like other 1st gen OS factions likely was to fire and forget them. 
 

However, now mid game GW decided to keep all these factions. But they cannot maintain them because there were never plans to make that many factions into full rosters, likely it isn’t even feasible. So something that doesn’t belong together (because it was designed that way) must be put together. The alternative likely being death by neglect. 
 

What can GW do? Same as they did and end times and killed United dwarves now they can get the White Dwarf to epically reunite the race. Stranded cousins brought together for some big reasons. Then, this separation can be part of the living history of the faction, and those factions integrate like the old guilds. The engineers / traders guild = KO, the fanatical slayers guild = KO.

Is it forced? Yes! Is it likely going to happen? If we are not wrong and this is GW plan to save the factions destined (designed) to perish, then probably it is. 

[King Under the Mountain]

At this point I would rather have Fyreslayers perish then to drag Kharadon down with them into soup hell. 

I say that someone who loves Slayers, think Fyreslayers have a lot of potential and also whose 1st AoS army was Fyreslayers. 

[Beastmaster]

I’m a bit biased: I started collecting Ogors before they were souped. I wanted to create an army like a Stone Age hunting party, so it was clear from the beginning that the core should be a Hunter with his pets for tracking and a bunch of foot Ogors and a Slaughtermaster to do the killing and butchering. It was a risk, if they wouldn’t have been souped later, I wouldn’t have a playable army that fits my idea. So I’m very happy with the souping. 
To generalize, souping makes thematic lists possible that wouldn’t work otherwise. An important plus.

Edited May 27, 2021 by Beastmaster

[Duke Eligos]

3 minutes ago, King Under the Mountain said:

At this point I would rather have Fyreslayers perish then to drag Kharadon down with them into soup hell. 

I say that someone who loves Slayers, think Fyreslayers have a lot of potential and also whose 1st AoS army was Fyreslayers. 

Better dead than desecrated.

16 minutes ago, Greybeard86 said:

I think we are coming to discuss from two different perspectives. I am not arguing that, as things stand, the two factions blend well together. They do not! But that was GW going out of their way to make sure they didn’t. They picked steam punk and slayer and pulled them apart; they did so to get two distinct factions with smallish ranges. The goal, much like other 1st gen OS factions likely was to fire and forget them. 
 

However, now mid game GW decided to keep all these factions. But they cannot maintain them because there were never plans to make that many factions into full rosters, likely it isn’t even feasible. So something that doesn’t belong together (because it was designed that way) must be put together. The alternative likely being death by neglect. 
 

What can GW do? Same as they did and end times and killed United dwarves now they can get the White Dwarf to epically reunite the race. Stranded cousins brought together for some big reasons. Then, this separation can be part of the living history of the faction, and those factions integrate like the old guilds. The engineers / traders guild = KO, the fanatical slayers guild = KO.

Is it forced? Yes! Is it likely going to happen? If we are not wrong and this is GW plan to save the factions destined (designed) to perish, then probably it is. 

There are many hints of new Kharadron units on the way, be it from their battletome (Black Marine and Copperhat) or the more recent BR:Be'lakor (shock-vessel and single-pilot fighter craft). You're straight-up inventing that KO won't get new models unless they get dissolved into a soup tome.

Is it so hard for people to conceive that people can enjoy having factions being their own thing and how merging them with others can ruin their interest in said factions?

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Stranded cousins brought together for some big reasons. Then, this separation can be part of the living history of the faction, and those factions integrate like the old guilds. The engineers / traders guild = KO, the fanatical slayers guild = KO.

I'd rather if they killed the faction I love, both lore and model wise, than having this ****** happen.