Bout Dat Dwarf Soup

[Durgin]

I'm not totally against a duardin soup, despite it would be clearly a problematic affair to handle for GW writers because "being disunited and having chosen each  their own way of life" is basically the centerpiece of AoS duardin lore.

Said so, let's be honest: GW doesn't seem to have big plans for Fyreslayers and Kharadron, despite their huge potentials (at least, KO have an amazing range of minis), so I think that a duardin-soup would be a nice chance to give us players a more interesting way to collect and (above all) play both these factions.

 

BUT.

I use to dream big and make unrealistic expectations, so here is how I would handle the duardin soup, if I work at the GW.

a soup doesn't have to be a downgrade, in my opinion: it's only a matter to choose the right ingredients.

What, at the moment, is lacking for a great duardin soup is, in my opinion, a unifying element, so here is my wish: a kind of orruks warclans treatment. 

Creating a third range to complete the duardin allegiance, and that works as a unifying element: the kin of Grungni, lead by Grombrindal.

Grungni has returned, but as you may imagine it's not so easy to make a duardin forgetting a thing like "oh, our God abandoned us", so the Maker has to earn again the respect of their kins and how better way to do it, than claim the ancient dominions of duardins?

I imagine this new faction as "The Restorers", including all those duardins that, on the contrary of Fyreslayers and Kharadron, never gave up and never lost their hope for a new age of gold for the duardin kin. They wandered for thousands of years, fighting relentlessly to win back their dominions, but despite they have been alone in this quest, as a proper duardin would do they accepted their fate. When Grungni returned to the mortal realms, and saw these indomitable children of his, was moved to tears and decided to earn their forgiveness and restore the ancient duardin civilization.

The Restorers are Grungni's chosen, war-veterans of old ages who never forgot how a proper duardin should be: Grungni gave them new weapons, new powers and worked tirelessly to make them worthy of their new task: to reunite the whole duardin kin!

Lead by Grombrindal, the restorers are now unleashed to the mortal realms, fighting anywhere there is a duardin in need, and the rumors of their shiny armies, crackling with Grungni's power, are reaching the ears of any duardin out there, giving a new hope and, in certain case, cracking the bitterness of many.

(sorry for my English)

 

How I would manage this concept in real? In my mind, the restorers would represent a kind of update of dispossessed.

A small but mighty range of veterans clad in gromril armours, with a strong runic theme (Kharadron incarnate the old dwarf engineering, fyreslayers the slayers-caste, this faction in my opinion should incarnates the runic and metallurgy theme of dwarfs)

CHARACTERS

•Grombrindal: the leader of the restorers, he acts as Grungni's herald. Double kit similar to Morathi to represent Grombrindal in his normal shape and Grombrindal imbued by Grungni's power (I remember that, in a lore extract, Grombrindal literally increase his size, becoming a kind of avatar of Grungni, to fight Morathi).

•Warden King: descendant of the ancient royal blood lineages of duardins. Double kit: on foot or on war altar.

•Standard bearer: a duardin who bears a flag composed by a patchwork of ancient duardin banners, so even those who fell in the age of chaos, can see the new golden age.

•Runepriest (on foot and a kind of new anvil of doom altar)

• the Grudgebearer: a duardin priest who takes note of new grudges, cancels old grudges (if possible) and motivates the troops to put their back on the pitch. classic buffer, with funny lore flavored rules (for example, you can set a grudge-objective before the battler starts, then you gain victory points, or bonuses, if you claim it)

 

TROOPS

• Restorers: conceptually speaking, a kind of mix between longbeards and ironbreakers. Gromril armours and weapons and all the nice longbeards tricks to reflect their experience and the fact their are veterans of many and many wars. 3 weapons choice: gromril shield and gromril axes/hammers, gromril spears and gromril shields, two hands axes. 

• The Fallen: ghosts of fallen duardins of ancient ages, summoned by the anger and bitterness of their living comrades. If you remember, Thorek once had a magic rune-spell on his anvil of doom to summon the ghosts of fallen dwarfs. I would turn this concept into a proper troop, it would be awesome to design. In play, I imagine them work as relentless screens to support the main core troops, with some nice tricks given by their "ethereal" condition.

•The Wardens: ancient duardin statues, brought to life by Grungni's power. I imagine them act in-game as monsters (just like lumineths' cows or dankhold troggoth, with different weapon options and abilities (melee-oriented or support-oriented).

 

Add this element into the duardin soup, cook for 2-3 hours and that's it: my duardin wet-dream, a battletome with some narrative coherence, interesting to play, visually appealing (imagine ranks of shiny armored restorers, flanked by fyreslayers, or towering Wardens supported by kharadron ships!), a joy for eyes, dice and brushes.

 

I know, it will never happen.

 

 

 

 

Edited January 29, 2022 by Durgin

[Baron Klatz]

Now see, that’s the kind of hyping we need. 
 

Soup or independent tomes, Demand More. With the insanely vast potential of every AoS army and the infinite Realms of godly Epic Fantasy proportions it’d be a disservice to the setting and game to do otherwise.  

New armies and units are a must if they’d pull that and a big variety and Lumineth-style overhaul on the old outdated Dispossessed like that would be perfect. Give them large ally options too so we can get awesome stuff like Restorers and Vindictors forming spearwalls of crackling energy as shining Kharadron ships and Prosecutors soar overhead, in Ghyran the Fyreslayers battle over the sky island volcanoes that orbit the Realms vs Skaven that want the resources(actually canon) and as they smoke the Chaos fiends out there’s  swarms of ethereal Fallen & Sylvaneth spite-Revenants quickly flank the Skaven with their supernatural speed and connections to the spiritual planes while at the wild Realm edges of Chamon the Wardens and rune-guarded Heroes battle Ossiarchs under clockwork moons & shifting mountains of quicksilver as Seraphon begin to beam down on starlight to aid them in a battle to protect their realm in a place no mortals could survive.

That’d be the crazy units and fun narratives that the generals of the Realms want!

Edit: oh and heck the color swaps and kitbashes so the armies fit together better would be sweet like fiery red/Magmic Fallen for Fyreslayer summoned lava spirits, Wardens with more steampunk add-ons to be Kharadon robots and Restorers given either sky-pikes & high-tech aether-shields or flame-brazier javelins & razor slingshields to match either faction.

Edited January 29, 2022 by Baron Klatz

[Baron Klatz]

Huzzah! The threat of Soup is dead! Call up the Chosen Axes and tell them to throw some Shadeglass towards the Scriptor Mortis’ way for writing that soup to the afterlife!  

 

[PJetski]

This thread has aged like a fine wine

[Lord Krungharr]

On 1/28/2022 at 12:27 PM, mojojojo101 said:

I mean my biggest issue with Dwarf soup is that, aside from being Duardin, KO, Fyreslayers and Dispossesed really have absolutely nothing in common.

They are stylistically very different, they are culturally and ideologically very different, they fight very differently both on the tabletop and in the lore and really the only thing that would be pinning them together would be Grugni/Grombindal telling them to.

 

 

Dang it, not confident about that new FS tome at all.  United Duardin would have been better.  Just because a menu has multiple items that CAN be gotten in a single bowl if desired, doesn't mean it's watered down soup!  FS would certainly work with other dwarves....dwarves can smell gold and find it!  Only the FS know that the isotopes of Ur Gold hold their wonderful secret.

[Baron Klatz]

53 minutes ago, Lord Krungharr said:

United Duardin would have been better.  Just because a menu has multiple items that CAN be gotten in a single bowl if desired, doesn't mean it's watered down soup!  FS would certainly work with other dwarves

They literally can get that just by throwing in Coalition options like Kharadron have(and still mixes better than Warclans). 
 

Even better if Greyfyrd or a new Lodge gives even more Coalition options for the other Order forces that can pull triple duty in fleshing out their options, fluff out their mercenary lore and advance the Dawncrusade narrative.

Even if this tome isn’t the best it’s still better we got the Maggotkin treatment than just a white dwarf update. Now we’ll get some really choice armywide buffs and Path to Glory rules.  

[Lord Krungharr]

Oh duh, forgot about the Coalition route!  That actually would be pretty acceptable, though it's just a bit tougher to dish out armywide synergies doing that.  But I guess the Big Waaagh subfaction synergy is pretty meh, and Skaven don't really have any all inclusive buffs do they?  Seems like Cities have the best army wide inclusive buffs.  Maybe they'll surprise us and have one or two heroes in FS that grant some things to all friendly Duardin units, though they seem pretty stingy as a race.

[Baron Klatz]

5 minutes ago, Lord Krungharr said:

That actually would be pretty acceptable, though it's just a bit tougher to dish out armywide synergies doing that. 

I imagine it’ll depend on what the buff is, like Maggotkin don’t let coalition Clans Pestilens or Brayherds use their Disease power but the large numbers they can bring compared to Maggotkin being more pricey elite now means Coalition mix is still viable to offset that weakness.(disease the enemy up with some Blightking vomit and then send plague rats to hold them up as they weaken)

Same could go for Fyreslayers if they get something like armywide bodyguards, then it’s sending a buffed up Fyre priest with a gunline of Auric magma bolts and allied shooters making the enemy regret charging them as they can’t kill the priest with all the Auric sacrifices and now they’re Cursed and in heavy counterfire range.

[Lord Krungharr]

It will be enjoyable if FS becomes even more of a thinking-army.  I mean, it's already more-so than the average Sons of Behemat army (which is definitely a chill army to play because there's not much we have to remember 🤓)  Trying out my Bonesplitterz tomorrow; eager to see how much brain energy I need to activate them.