The future of 'factions'

[ElectricPaladin]

On 9/10/2016 at 8:33 PM, Veterannoob said:

Man, when Settra comes ahead of a new faction...

 

Honestly, I'd like to see a little more disorder in the ranks of Death. Nagash as the only power on the top of the heap is much less interesting than there being multiple powers with their own agendas and more room for independent operators.

[Veterannoob]

1 hour ago, ElectricPaladin said:

 

Honestly, I'd like to see a little more disorder in the ranks of Death. Nagash as the only power on the top of the heap is much less interesting than there being multiple powers with their own agendas and more room for independent operators.

yeah, a shake-up, battle for power within Death and would be a nice campaign supplement.

[ElectricPaladin]

If I were writing it, it would involve a revolution among Shyish's mortal population led by a mysterious figure who turns out to be the physical embodiment of a fragment of Morr, the old God of Death. Nagash's rivals use the distraction of dealing with this rebel to gather power, which ends up causing Nagash to lose. He's able to remain the pre-eminent power in the Order Alliance, but his rivals are able to claim chunks of Shyish for their own. And of course, Morr manages to steal back enough divine power to return to demi-god-hood. Although he immediately pledges allegiance to Sigmar, this new Morr is no passive guardian of the dead - he's become darker, more intense, more aggressive, and is willing to use undead servants to destroy Chaos and win his fight to claim all of Shyish as his own - thus making him firmly a part of the Death Allegiance!

[SuperHappyTime]

Order and Chaos have such a massive advantage over Death and Destruction. I think there are a few ways to balance the playing field without ****** over everyone:

1. Spin Aelves off Order to its own faction. They've mentioned that Sylvaneth only tolerate the Stormcast and other Order factions because they are all fighting Chaos. Why not just give all elves this disposition

2. Spin Skaven off Chaos to its own faction. The three brothers and their missing one don't care much for the Skaven anyway, and not to mention Skaven has been ballooned post-ET in the same manner that some of the other previous factions, like VC (Death), O&G (Destruction), and the Aelves (Order), were expanded upon.

3. Reintroduce the Tomb Kings into Death. Why did they kill the Chariot/Archer/Artillery/Monster army in the first place? Oh yea, old unupdated Metal/Resin models and ****** rules that nobody wanted to play with.

4. Spin Beastmen and Monsters off Chaos into Destruction. Kind of the one place where the old allegiances go to hell. Basically Destruction fluff wise needs to spurn off into a bunch of wild half-men (like Beastmen are) and doesn't have quite the monster count (like the Monsters already have). Basically, I'm filling a light hole missing in Destruction while reducing the leftover size of Chaos.

5. Slaanesh: Reintroduce and split in half with "Daemons of" and "Hosts of".

[Tiger]

There is potential for a power struggle (intrigues and treacheries) within the Alliances, there's no need to split them at this point. The lore is still very new so I'd prefer to wait and see what the writers will deliver in the future. From what I've seen from "Beast Arises" books, the authors have more coherent view on how the lore is supposed to grow.

[MechaBriZilla]

Could just give Death and Destruction some battletome love.  Esp Death, which has had only one Battletome.  I'd prefer not breaking up the GA's myself.  I'm just sick of Order and Chaos releases.  When it comes down too it, I don't think it matters how many sub-factions there are in GA Order and GA Chaos, it's how few releases there have been in Death and Destruction.

Anyway, I'd rather see entirely new factions with new models used to buff D&D rather than shifting thing.

As for Aelve's/Sylvaneth, it really doesn't matter if they get along with the Stormcast or not.  Being in the same GA, doesn't mean everyone loves each other.  It's an alliance, it just means they share more common cause than not.  In this case, they have the same enemy Chaos.

I wouldn't mind a Neutral faction, but I'd rather see it filled with Mercs, or armies that really don't fit in the big 4.

As for TK, I'd love to see them back.  I still don't really understand why they are gone, especially since it leaves Death as the smallest GA.  That said, I don't think it's happening. 

As for Morr...  Just not interested.  I'd much rather see them add more mortarchs, Nagash get trounced by Sigmar or Archaon, and be banished indefinitely, then watch the loose alliance of Mortarchs work with and against each other against the other GA's. 

[ElectricPaladin]

10 minutes ago, MechaBriZilla said:

As for Morr...  Just not interested.  I'd much rather see them add more mortarchs, Nagash get trounced by Sigmar or Archaon, and be banished indefinitely, then watch the loose alliance of Mortarchs work with and against each other against the other GA's. 

I like your ideas, too. I'm just a sucker for antiheroes, and a dark messed up angry Morr would fit the bill.

[MechaBriZilla]

32 minutes ago, ElectricPaladin said:

I like your ideas, too. I'm just a sucker for antiheroes, and a dark messed up angry Morr would fit the bill.

Sorry, I realize now I came off a little stronger than I intended.  I have nothing against the idea on the face of it.  The truth is, I found the Old World rather dull...  Personal opinion of course.  But it always felt a bit too much like every other fantasy setting you ever played an RPG in, or read a cheesy novel in...  Sure, a bit more grim than some, but generally boring.  And when it comes down too it, the faction I liked the least was The Empire.  So, the more of the Empire related fluff we divest, and the more AoS becomes it's own thing, the happier I am.  ***BTW: I know a lot of you loved the old world fluff, I'm not trying to argue you out of that.  Just commenting on how I felt about it.   

That said, they've brought back a surprising number of Old World Characters, and have done a fair job with them, so maybe it wouldn't be so bad.

[ElectricPaladin]

1 minute ago, MechaBriZilla said:

Sorry, I realize now I came off a little stronger than I intended

No, no, no! That wasn't sarcastic! I meant "I like my idea, but I also like your idea." You are, of course, free to not find my random ramblings on this particular topic compelling. No sweat - you came off as completely civil.

[Bowlzee]

I would very much like Chaos God specific factions.

A book for ALL Khorne models etc. With allegiances coming out, I don't want to be punished for taking Khorne Daemons with my Khorne Bloodbound, because narratively it works. Perhaps having different artifacts/allegiance abilities if you took Pure Daemons, Pure Mortal or Mix Daemons and Mortal all in one book. 

[RuneBrush]

21 minutes ago, Bowlzee said:

I would very much like Chaos God specific factions.

A book for ALL Khorne models etc. With allegiances coming out, I don't want to be punished for taking Khorne Daemons with my Khorne Bloodbound, because narratively it works. Perhaps having different artifacts/allegiance abilities if you took Pure Daemons, Pure Mortal or Mix Daemons and Mortal all in one book. 

That would be pretty cool, I'd love to see the option to add in aligned beastmen units too which would open up some interesting possibilities.

[Jamopower]

One god themed books would be really cool. They could be themed really well and be very beautiful books on their own right just by the fluff perspective alone. I believe black library made something like this back in the day, but this would add rules on top of that.

 

It has by the way felt bit strange in AoS that for other gods, the daemons are their own factions, but for Slaanesh they are all under the Host of Slaanesh.

[Bowlzee]

1 hour ago, RuneBrush said:

That would be pretty cool, I'd love to see the option to add in aligned beastmen units too which would open up some interesting possibilities.

Yes, for sure add some Bray and War herd options

I want my Khorne champion sending mass ranks of Gor's at the foe to soften them up  

[RuneBrush]

30 minutes ago, Bowlzee said:

Yes, for sure add some Bray and War herd options

I want my Khorne champion sending mass ranks of Gor's at the foe to soften them up  

Completely agree, I'm not even bothered about the bigger beasts (such as minotaurs), but hordes of gors and ungors before the Blood Warriors push though

[Wolden Spoons]

If Tzeentch gets a proper book before Khornes is fixed we riot !

[Wundlesprut]

On 08/09/2016 at 4:53 PM, ElectricPaladin said:

I rather like the four big grand alliances. While I personally find myself wanting to focus in on specific factions, I think that four big alliances is just flexible enough to provide some interesting narrative possibilities without too much mess, fuss, and cheese.

Right.

The four big alliances don't necessarily have to dictate the actual motives of smaller factions within those groups.

You could, for example, focus on the microcosm of a random Fimir warband within the alliance of destruction, but the allying of them with destruction is more about what the outcome of their actions goes towards, rather than a specific aim to advance that alliance.

Their own motivations and goals remain theirs and they hardly have to shack up with orruks and ogres in order to do that. In fact they could quite easily find themselves in conflict with them.

The alliances are the result of how we break down information. We might talk overall about what a country does, but it's an implicit acknowledgment that this doesn't mean we assume that all those who find residence in that country are of the same mind (though some do think like this).

In short: The larger the overview you are attempting to perceive, the more generalised the groupings tend to become, as the minutae and details become too much to follow.

It's not reality, but it works better for our purposes.

[tjgreenway]

18 hours ago, MechaBriZilla said:

I wouldn't mind a Neutral faction, but I'd rather see it filled with Mercs, or armies that really don't fit in the big 4.

Man, this thought has me longing for a return of Dogs of War/Regiments of Renown. Always wanted those miniatures as a kid, would be awesome to see what GW could do modelling wise these days with truly unique units that don't fit it anywhere else.

[MechaBriZilla]

31 minutes ago, tjgreenway said:

Man, this thought has me longing for a return of Dogs of War/Regiments of Renown. Always wanted those miniatures as a kid, would be awesome to see what GW could do modelling wise these days with truly unique units that don't fit it anywhere else.

That is EXACTLY what I was thinking about.

[shinros]

6 hours ago, MechaBriZilla said:

That is EXACTLY what I was thinking about.

GW have already done it in the All-gates book they made a regiments of renown tables for your armies to use in a campaign if they survive a battle. 

Even general traits. 

[MechaBriZilla]

2 hours ago, shinros said:

GW have already done it in the All-gates book they made a regiments of renown tables for your armies to use in a campaign if they survive a battle. 

Even general traits. 

Awesome!  I even have that book....

It's just waiting for me to finish Godbeasts.

[shinros]

9 minutes ago, MechaBriZilla said:

Awesome!  I even have that book....

It's just waiting for me to finish Godbeasts.

Yeah they have tables you can role for unit types that give them bonuses after a battle if they survived. Each table has different things in there. 

[tjgreenway]

12 hours ago, shinros said:

Yeah they have tables you can role for unit types that give them bonuses after a battle if they survived. Each table has different things in there. 

Awesome, looking forward to seeing this! Just finished Balance of Power, so got Godbeasts to go yet, but good to know it's there waiting  Completely individual units that don't fit into any current faction as neutral mercenaries would still be cool, though. Maybe I'll just hit up ebay for some old school Dogs of War 

[Jamopower]

I do hope that some day they will release an allegiance book that would have three layers of allegiances. First the grand alliance, like Order, then the "race", like aelf or Slaanesh and thirdly the faction, say swifthawk riders or Daemons of Slaanesh. It would give a lot of options and flavor for army creation.

[Sennyo]

2 hours ago, Jamopower said:

I do hope that some day they will release an allegiance book that would have three layers of allegiances. First the grand alliance, like Order, then the "race", like aelf or Slaanesh and thirdly the faction, say swifthawk riders or Daemons of Slaanesh. It would give a lot of options and flavor for army creation.

while i could not see GW doing something like that for the army's of order or death, i could really see them doing it for the chaos god so you have an alliance table for army with the khorne keyword, and then tables for pure khorne bloodbound or deamons of khorne.