shinros Posted September 4, 2016 Share Posted September 4, 2016 Right going over the general fluff the free guild has barely been in the fluff at all they only got a few lines in the season of war. Yet the devoted of sigmar have been appearing a lot lately in the fluff in comparison. They got a new sliver tower model and his little story, a story in a dominion of chaos book, The candlemen in a campaign book and they are mentioned in the season of war fluff. Plus on facebook I also recall when asked about the sliver tower warrior priest they said we will hear more from them and I got a Soon TM kind of response when I asked if we could see more of them in the aftermath of the season of war fluff. One more thing I don't know if this is coincidence but Karl Franz got turned into a generic character, many character models got turned into generic lords. Yet the war altar model is called "Volkmar the grim on the war altar of sigmar". Why would they simply not go with Arch lector on the war altar of sigmar? Or a generic name like Karl? I would not put it past sigmar to bring back volkmar. Maybe I am thinking too much about it but overall I think the devoted of sigmar, how they play(nails against chaos and possibly undead in the future) and their general style fits with the theme AOS is going for. It would not surprise me if they get the new crusader knights and templars. Heck they paint the warrior priests in golden armor similar to the stormcast. I don't think it will be any time soon but I do think they are in the pipe somewhere. In the grand alliance order book it's also noted when the stormcast take a realm gate the devoted of sigmar come in next. What do you guys and gals think? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
polarbear Posted September 5, 2016 Share Posted September 5, 2016 I think they'd make sense for all the reasons you say, but I have no knowledge of rumours and whatnot. Would sure love it. They fit the scene much better than the other old humans/elves/dwarves/orcs in my opinion. Quite like the religious zealot theme. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shadowspite Posted September 5, 2016 Share Posted September 5, 2016 If they do make the Devoted more prominent, I hope it comes alongside a shift in the fluff to make Sigmar more morally ambiguous. The idea of a genuinely goody-two-shoes deity being served by a bunch of insane religious fanatics with a masochism fetish doesn't fit at all well. Logically, this could work in conjunction with a shift in focus on the Chaos side from the pretty unambiguously evil Khorne to Tzeentch and Slaanesh, who have always been portrayed as having at least some followers who were well-meaning but deluded rather than genuine bad guys. It would be cool to see a story with a fanatical, borderline-psychotic witch hunter pursuing a sorcerer who believes he's fighting to keep mortals free of the authoritarian domination of Sigmar, with massive innocent/civilian casualties along the way as both characters are gradually pushed into more and more extreme actions. (The twist ending would reveal that the sorcerer has unknowlingly been guided by Sigmar all along, while the witch hunter is a puppet of Tzeentch.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shinros Posted September 5, 2016 Author Share Posted September 5, 2016 4 hours ago, Shadowspite said: If they do make the Devoted more prominent, I hope it comes alongside a shift in the fluff to make Sigmar more morally ambiguous. The idea of a genuinely goody-two-shoes deity being served by a bunch of insane religious fanatics with a masochism fetish doesn't fit at all well. Logically, this could work in conjunction with a shift in focus on the Chaos side from the pretty unambiguously evil Khorne to Tzeentch and Slaanesh, who have always been portrayed as having at least some followers who were well-meaning but deluded rather than genuine bad guys. It would be cool to see a story with a fanatical, borderline-psychotic witch hunter pursuing a sorcerer who believes he's fighting to keep mortals free of the authoritarian domination of Sigmar, with massive innocent/civilian casualties along the way as both characters are gradually pushed into more and more extreme actions. (The twist ending would reveal that the sorcerer has unknowlingly been guided by Sigmar all along, while the witch hunter is a puppet of Tzeentch.) Actually we have already seen this, I recall when he closed the gate's to ayzr there was civil unrest and a lot of fighting he decided to vaporize people until they stopped. Also the very existence of the devoted of sigmar and that fact that they seem to be one of his main forces after the stormcast since as I said in the grand alliance book they note after a realm gate is taken the stormcast move on and they come in. To start "cleansing", also going by the lord of undeath novel there is most likely a case of brain washing going on. Oh and he also sent the celestant prime to kill the everqueen just in case she was corrupted by chaos when she was reborn. Plus the fact he wants to work with nagash even though they make it clear he is pretty evil. The thing is Sigmar is anti-chaos he wants to win this time. Chaos is largely always bad the point is now the length's sigmar is going to win this time. He still gives the devoted of sigmar awesome divine power that's approval in itself. This is just my opinion but during whfb I found the empire kinda plain but volkmar the grim and his armies made them interesting. Funny enough we had this discussion in my local GW that people said the normal empire does not "feel" like a fantasy army in a fantasy world. Yet the warrior priests, religious zealots and the knights of the blazing sun(with flaming lances in total war warhammer), templars and witch hunters feels more like a "fantasy" army. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Veterannoob Posted September 5, 2016 Share Posted September 5, 2016 In the RGW campaign books we keep getting lands ruled over but not much about the mundanes, be they food or fodder. Yeah, they're not top priority now but I think it's an excellent opportunity to address the people of at least 1 -3 realms when the devoted come out. Just like we knew Empire soldiers were drawn from folk or Bret peasants and such. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arkiham Posted September 5, 2016 Share Posted September 5, 2016 i feel that sigmar means good but is going about it in a unethical manner, and is slowly being corrupted by his new found strength; with his desire to end chaos above all else he is going to risk doing what he is looking to prevent. at some point it will be written in that he notices this, then sigmar relaxes his iron grip over those effectively held hostage and they leave. forgoing sigmar for their own deities which angers him and leads to conflict, allowing chaos to survive and persist. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shadowspite Posted September 5, 2016 Share Posted September 5, 2016 3 hours ago, shinros said: Actually we have already seen this, I should have been clearer. I'm not talking merely about having Sigmar do morally questionable things. He's already done some, as you pointed out. What I'm talking about is having the fluff explicitly acknowledge that some of the things he does are questionable, and having 'good' people (i.e. not Chaos-worshippers) recognise that and begin to question his 'good'-ness. Compare AoS to 40K. In 40K, the Imperium does some awful things in the name of fighting Chaos, but the fluff openly acknowledges that those things it does are awful. The stock intro text to the game describes it as "the bloodiest and most repressive regime imaginable" or words to that effect. The Imperium's own propaganda makes it out to be the 'good guys', of course, but it's always clear that isn't the objective truth. My issue with the AoS fluff is that, up to now, it reads like it's all Sigmar's own propaganda. In the case of Sigmar vaporising people to stop the civil war in Azyr, IIRC the text implies very strongly that he was absolutely right and justified to do that. What I'd like to see are things like Azyrites whose loved ones got vaporised starting to turn against Sigmar, maybe even getting pushed into the arms of the Chaos gods by Sigmar's unthinking authoritarianism. Let his more extreme actions start to breed discontent, as they realistically would. And let the 'omniscient 3rd-person' fluff text start to reflect Sigmar's moral greyness. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elfhead Posted September 5, 2016 Share Posted September 5, 2016 Allthough there aren't any rumours on the devoted, the things brought up in this thread are great. Some of the suggested developments, mainly sigmar not being purely 'good', could make AoS less two-dimensional. To see the idea of 'order' taken to far could give the stormcasts some darker edges. Don't wait for GW to put this on the table, but make up your own stuff to form the narrative behind your games I do want to point out though that the volkmar model is probably still called just that, so that it might be sold to fans of the video game. I hate that AoS constantly tries to bring back characters that should be dead for millennia. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shadowspite Posted September 5, 2016 Share Posted September 5, 2016 3 hours ago, elfhead said: To see the idea of 'order' taken to far According to Bryan Ansell, the Warhammer cosmology was originally intended to be far more Moorcockian. The Gods of Law were going to eventually be revealed as much more potentially dangerous than the Gods of Chaos. Because the Chaos Gods, extreme though they are, are ultimately formed from very human emotions, while the Gods of Law are fundamentally alien and cannot even comprehend human frailties, let alone tolerate them. It never turned out like that of course, because Warhammer's version of Chaos ended up being so popular and just plain awesome that GW never needed to actually do anything with the Gods of Law, which faded away into WHFRP and were eventually forgotten altogether. I think on balance it's a good thing that WH diverged significantly from its Moorcockian roots, but what might have been, eh? I find it intriguing that Stormcast slowly lose their sense of individuality, and eventually their humanity altogether, after too many reforgings. I know right now it's suggested that it's all Nagash's fault and not what Sigmar intended. But perhaps it's more interesting if this is all part of Sigmar's plan. Without individual human desires, there's no place for Chaos to take root in such hollowed souls. If all living beings became Stormcast, eventually Chaos would be shut out of the Realms. Definitely sounds like an anti-Chaos solution a God of Law would come up with. Or the C'tan, of course... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shinros Posted September 5, 2016 Author Share Posted September 5, 2016 Well sigmar is knowingly brainwashing stormcast to be loyal to him via the reforging. Still Sigmar is always going to be "goodish" with some grey and chaos is always going to be largely evil with some grey here and there. Same with nagash and his servants, I do feel it's odd that many known characters were reduced to generic lords yet some odd reason he is still listed as a named character. Now the returning characters so far have only been Death and Chaos factions which make sense because they do it all the time. I do think it is within sigmar's character to resurrect someone so pious and represents his virtue's so well. I mean he died pretty early in the end times nagash used his body but what about his soul? I think if any of the order characters should be bought back it's him. Honestly playing him along with the fallgelents and knights of the blazing sun in total war warhammer it finally feels like I am playing a "fantasy" human army. The normal empire felt eeeh or just felt like another total war army even fluff wise I prefered the witch hunters, warrior priests and knightly orders etc. With volkmar and religious zealots and knights it felt more "warhammer" to me. Now as I said before devoted of sigmar have been getting a few side stories here and there I think we WILL see more of them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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