Thematic Faction Keyword Changes You Want to See

[Kyriakin]

With Khorne's and Tzeentch's new additions from the Monsters of Chaos, what other in theme faction keyword changes would you want to see?

Off the top of my head

Arkhan - Deathrattle (i.e. the Start Collecting box!)

Neferata/Manfred - Soulblight

Centigors/Jabberslythe - Breyherd

Carmine Dragon - Collegiate Arcane

Actually, on that note, Monsterous Arcanum could use plenty of re-jigging, IMHO, and Monsters of Chaos should just be dissolved (see ya, Harpies).

 

[obaobaboss]

Fimir should not be Destruction! They were fluffwise allways chaos-worshippers. Never understood why they made them destruction and it bothers me (as a huge fimir-fan) a lot. 

[yarrickson]

Been mentioned on Twitter yesterday but: 

Hellcannon, needs Legion of Azgorgh

Giant, needs at least option of ironjawz. They even sold a box of Jawz with a giant. 

Controversially I'd also like to see the vermin-lords get the Skaven keyword, and Thanquol to get the monster keyword.

Beastmen with access to god keywords is clearly just wish listing, but yeah, that'd be great too. 

 

[Guest]

Good stuff mentioned so far. Mark options for beastmen is a big one for me. It would make the whole range more interesting, more viable, more attractive and ripe for awesome conversions.

[Circus of Paint]

Aleguzzler Gargants need pretty much most of the existing Destruction and Chaos faction keywords.

Destruction;

Firebelly Ogors should also have GUTBUSTERS.

Grot Scuttlings should be MOONCLAN, perhaps even SPIDERFANG? (I'm probably one of few that actually like 'em, so  )

Order;

Bring back the Compendium keywords for the Old World armies to tie particular mini-factions back together, ie. EXILES for "Dark Elves", HIGHBORN for "High Elves" etc.

Lokhir Fellheart doesn't even have the SCOURGE PRIVATEER keyword. A true crime against nature! 

Something that doesn't need changing but I think there certainly should be more of are mixed-faction Battalions that grant additional keywords to units that otherwise would have them, but should do when they fit the theme set out by said Battalion, ie. the "Guardians of the Dawnspire" from Spire of Dawn - adding SWIFTHAWK AGENTS keyword to the two allied ELDRITCH COUNCIL units also included.

Similarly, the Sylvaneth Wargrove Battalions [Gnarlwood, Ironbark, Winterleaf] that allow inclusion of set non-SYLVANETH units are neat, but they don't add the SYLVANETH keyword to those Duardin / Wizard / Order unit(s) selected for good reason!*

Chaos;

Continue adding themed-keywords for the other MONSTERS OF CHAOS. Chuck in broader faction keywords like SLAVES TO DARKNESS, BRAYHERDS, WARHERDS and the god-specific ones. (I have a Cockatrice that probably hasn't been worked on since I got it two years ago, because it doesn't fit into any current faction. - certainly not the Skaven I bought it alongside even though I'm pretty sure waayyyyyyy back Skaven Heroes could ride them!)

Speaking of Skaven, when they eventually get an Allegiance update (including Pestilens), they really should get rolled together into one big ol' Battletome. Then, give Verminlords the SKAVEN keyword (it doesn't matter so much at the moment as there are no-Skaven only Allegiance abilities).

--

*Brings up something to clarify (not sure if this has been answered yet) - If a Battalion has a keyword, but units in it that don't - do said units get that Battalion keyword by default or it is just for Allegiance purposes? 

Looking at the Stormcast & Sylvaneth one ("Guardians of Alarielle"), the Battalion has the keyword SYLVANETH but obviously the Stormcast don't. I assume that you can still take the Battalion in a pure-SYLVANETH army even though it contains units which don't have that keyword. Is that correct?

(tldr, version - more thematic Battalions that add / modify keywords)

[Double Misfire]

Controversial as you'll all tell me Order has enough stuff already, but I've really wanted Maneaters to get the Order keyword instead of Destruction since allegiance abilities were introduced. Ogres (and halflings!) are sorely lacking from nice, cosmopolitan looking Free City forces, so much so that I've had to stoop to including aelves (spit!) in mine. I've never seen a unit of Maneaters turn up in a Destruction force, and they're all already wearing Empire/Freeguild-y outfits anyway, so I'd love to be able to take them as a thematic choice.

I'd love for duardin thunderers and Freeguild handgunners and outriders to have to option of gaining the Ironweld Arsenal keyword (maybe through a battalion), just because I've always wanted to run pure Ironweld allegiance. (that or battleline Organ guns)  

[Circus of Paint]

I think as a rule of thumb, units stick to one Grand Alliance for good reason, but there is certainly scope for some form of small thematic-Battalion to combine Ogor Maneaters with Free Peoples (as a example). 

On another topic, just thought - there are three different Warscrolls for basic Grots - Why don't they just call them Moonclan Grots, Gitmob Grots and Gutbuster Grots / Gnoblars respectively? I know they've got the appropriate keywords already, but its juts confusing to have one type of unit with the same name but three different Warscrolls!

[BaldoBeardo]

Something that doesn't need changing but I think there certainly should be more of are mixed-faction Battalions that grant additional keywords to units that otherwise would have them, but should do when they fit the theme set out by said Battalion, ie. the "Guardians of the Dawnspire" from Spire of Dawn - adding SWIFTHAWK AGENTS keyword to the two allied ELDRITCH COUNCIL units also included.
Similarly, the Sylvaneth Wargrove Battalions [Gnarlwood, Ironbark, Winterleaf] that allow inclusion of set non-SYLVANETH units are neat, but they don't add the SYLVANETH keyword to those Duardin / Wizard / Order unit(s) selected for good reason!*
--
*Brings up something to clarify (not sure if this has been answered yet) - If a Battalion has a keyword, but units in it that don't - do said units get that Battalion keyword by default or it is just for Allegiance purposes? 
Looking at the Stormcast & Sylvaneth one ("Guardians of Alarielle"), the Battalion has the keyword SYLVANETH but obviously the Stormcast don't. I assume that you can still take the Battalion in a pure-SYLVANETH army even though it contains units which don't have that keyword. Is that correct?
(tldr, version - more thematic Battalions that add / modify keywords)

Was answered, mixed faction battalions allow non-faction warscrolls to be taken without breaking allegiance, but they don't get the keyword.

[Double Misfire]

13 minutes ago, Circus of Paint said:

I think as a rule of thumb, units stick to one Grand Alliance for good reason, but there is certainly scope for some form of small thematic-Battalion to combine Ogor Maneaters with Free Peoples (as a example). 

I agree, I think if Maneaters were ever to be given the Order keyword (they won't!) then they should loose the Destruction one entirely. Destruction have a variety of ogors and never take Maneaters out of the garage. That or two versions of the Maneater warscroll, one with the Order keyword, one with Destruction.

Quote

On another topic, just thought - there are three different Warscrolls for basic Grots - Why don't they just call them Moonclan Grots, Gitmob Grots and Gutbuster Grots / Gnoblars respectively? I know they've got the appropriate keywords already, but its juts confusing to have one type of unit with the same name but three different Warscrolls!

I agree, all three having the same name really bugs me. That said I'm constantly having to remind myself that non-Moonclan grots exist.

[Circus of Paint]

2 hours ago, BaldoBeardo said:

Was answered, mixed faction battalions allow non-faction warscrolls to be taken without breaking allegiance, but they don't get the keyword.

I thought I saw that clarified somewhere, thanks!

2 hours ago, Double Misfire said:

I agree, I think if Maneaters were ever to be given the Order keyword (they won't!) then they should loose the Destruction one entirely. Destruction have a variety of ogors and never take Maneaters out of the garage. That or two versions of the Maneater warscroll, one with the Order keyword, one with Destruction.

I agree, all three having the same name really bugs me. That said I'm constantly having to remind myself that non-Moonclan grots exist.

What I don't get is that Gnoblars had a name change. I thought their name was a GW creation. Why change something you already own the rights to?

(Maybe I'm wrong).

-

Hopefully GW will update their thematic Battalions from GW for Matched Play.

From what I remember, there were some neat multi-faction ones.

 

[aquietfrog]

Add legion of azgorh slave grots, too!

[Kyriakin]

3 hours ago, Circus of Paint said:

Lokhir Fellheart doesn't even have the SCOURGE PRIVATEER keyword. A true crime against nature! 

He does have the BLACK ARK FLEETMASTER keyword though. Doesn't that just transpose onto the regular Black Ark Fleetmaster (who obviously does have the SCOURGE PRIVATEER keyword)?

A similar example is Korhil, who is a WHITE LION but not a LION RANGER.

[Spiky Norman]

Instead of a new keyword, Gargants and Troggoths should get an ability like this one:
 

Quote

 

Driven by destruction

Whenever a large mob of Orruks or Grots march for war, nearby <Gargants/Troggoths> tend to instinctively wander after the mobs, driven by the hunger for destruction. Even though the <Gargants/Troggoth> are not part of the army, they will eagerly participate in the ensuing battles. As such the <Gargant/Troggoth> does not break allegiance requirements for any army they are a part of.

 

That way the Gargants and Troggoths can keep their current keywords, but also be included in grot and orruk armies without causing issues with mono-allegiances such as Ironjawz, Moonclan or Bonesplittas. Same should count for the Rogue Idol of Gork (or Mork) actually.

 

[Circus of Paint]

37 minutes ago, Kyriakin said:

He does have the BLACK ARK FLEETMASTER keyword though. Doesn't that just transpose onto the regular Black Ark Fleetmaster (who obviously does have the SCOURGE PRIVATEER keyword)?

A similar example is Korhil, who is a WHITE LION but not a LION RANGER.

Does the Realm Reavers specify it needing a Black Ark Fleetmaster or a model with the keyword BLACK ARK FLEETMASTER?

Thats the kicker. I prefer it when Battalions refer to keywords rather than specific units and models. A lot of "unique" characters lose out because they can't be taken as part of many Battalions.

On that note, I'm glad Kairos Fateweaver got included into the updated Tzeentch Battalions by use of the LORD OF CHANGE keyword.

[Darth Alec]

I think many of the compendium scrolls don't need changing. There's a certain logic in leaving the old compendiums as they are. If you are playing with the old models, you are essentially playing a narrative battle, so don't feel so restricted by the matched play points. Korhil isn't a Lion Ranger, any more than Tyrion is a Swifthawk Agent. Changing these wouldn't be thematic, it would be a playability issue, which is already solved by playing narrative.

 

Beastmen should have the option to take marks though. We've been shown nurgle-aligned beastmen and khorne-aligned beastmen already. They feel a little left out. It would allow for more thematic lists (Khorne blood tithe ungor sacrifice?) and greater playability. They are some of the new Chaos things that just aren't as thematic as they used to be, largely due to keywords. You could even give them marks during the End Times! GW gave them that ability back, then took it away.

 

The whole Deathlords thing could be fixed by giving us batallions similar to the SCE chambers. 1 Deathlord Hero, Deathrattle/Soulblight/Deadwalker/Flesheater stuff, and as much of (chosen faction) as you'd like.

 

 

[Circus of Paint]

12 minutes ago, Spiky Norman said:

Instead of a new keyword, Gargants and Troggoths should get an ability like this one:
 

That way the Gargants and Troggoths can keep their current keywords, but also be included in grot and orruk armies without causing issues with mono-allegiances such as Ironjawz, Moonclan or Bonesplittas. Same should count for the Rogue Idol of Gork (or Mork) actually.

 

Directly imposing these exceptions into Allegiance abilities is certainly a way for it to work!

Having said that, until a faction gets Allegiance abilities, it might as well declare as being its standard Grand Alliance, so it can play around with picking things outside its sandbox.

[Circus of Paint]

28 minutes ago, Darth Alec said:

I think many of the compendium scrolls don't need changing. There's a certain logic in leaving the old compendiums as they are. If you are playing with the old models, you are essentially playing a narrative battle, so don't feel so restricted by the matched play points. Korhil isn't a Lion Ranger, any more than Tyrion is a Swifthawk Agent. Changing these wouldn't be thematic, it would be a playability issue, which is already solved by playing narrative.

 

Beastmen should have the option to take marks though. We've been shown nurgle-aligned beastmen and khorne-aligned beastmen already. They feel a little left out. It would allow for more thematic lists (Khorne blood tithe ungor sacrifice?) and greater playability. They are some of the new Chaos things that just aren't as thematic as they used to be, largely due to keywords. You could even give them marks during the End Times! GW gave them that ability back, then took it away.

On your first point, that's fair enough. It's good enough that GW even gave us legacy rules for these - they could of easily of just said "that special character is just a generic hero now".

Mind you, pretty much all the Special Characters in the Old World which have plastic models have now been superseded with generic Hero profiles in AoS.

Its the OOP ones in metal / Finecast that have been left in the dust.

Second point, agree on the Beastmen. Certainly could do with a "patch" to allow access to SLAANESH and NURGLE until GW ever do Slaangor or Pestigor (again).

I wouldn't allow everything for though, perhaps just Gors, Beastlords and Bray-Shamans,

OR

Couple bespoke Battalions with SLAANESH, NURGLE or KHORNE keyword, similar to the Tzaangor ones in Disciples of Tzeentch.

1 BRAYHERD HERO, 1 BRAYHERD WIZARD, 2-4 Gors. Add a special rule or two, simple!

[BobTheKnight]

Agree with the beastmen, I would love to add some Warherds to a khorne list. The warherd models are amazing but with only 3 kits I couldn't see myself ever buying them.

[Urbanus]

Nurgle and khorne marks for beastmen

[BrAiKo]

How about making Verminlords summonable? Then my LoC can summon all his greater daemon buddies and still remain in faction ?

[AGPO]

Centigors into Brayherds please. Ideally warheads and Brayherds should be combined too.

[someone2040]

I'll focus perhaps on another angle, the Compendium.

I actually think there's a great deal of value for older players in the compendium, and GW shouldn't be afraid to update those scrolls to co-exist in the mortal realms. They've shown they're not afraid to sell finecast/metal models with up to date armies.

The other reason is that there's a fair bit of disparity between the armies that were migrated into the mortal realms. Why do Gutbusters or Free Peoples or Dispossessed or Wanderers keep the same keyword, but Dark and High Elves were split seven ways to sunday and are a collossal mess with a bunch of stuff left behind as Exiles or Highborn? Problems that are easily solved in the digital age!

 

So here are my low hanging fruit that would only add to the game and make some of the armies more interesting:

Markus Wulfheart - Rebrand him as a generic Freeguild Huntmaster. 

Korhil - Rebrand as a generic Lion Ranger lord. 

Dreadlord on Cold One - Add into the Order Serpentis faction.

Dreadlord on Foot - Add into Darkling Covens faction.

Empire/Dwarf War Machines - Add into Ironweld Arsenal faction.

Lokhir Fellheart - Use his rules to make a new generic character for Scourge Privateers.

Handmaiden of the Everyqueen - Rebrand and make into a Wanderers hero.

Reaper Bolt Thrower - Add into Darkling Covens faction.

Repeater Bolt Thrower - Add into Swifthawk Agents faction. (given the Seaguard are now part of the faction and aren't particularly swift, this could easily go in here to make a cohesive army)

Lothern Sea Helm - Rebrand as Skywarden on Foot and added into the Swifthawk Agents faction, (or whatever name you want to give him).

Master Engineer on Mechanical Steed - Change to Ironweld Arsenal faction.

Stuff that could probably happen but isn't necessary IMO:

Alith Anar - Given the Swifthawk Agents keyword.

Teclis - Given the Eldritch Council keyword.

Prince Imrik, the Dragonlord - Given the Order Draconis keyword. 

Morathi - Given the Darkling Covens keyword.

Sorceress on Cold One - Given the Darkling Covens keyword.

Crone Hellebron - Given the Daughters of Khaine keyword. (Although, better off would be making her a generic character. However, they seem to have done this by giving the Death Hag option for the second blade, but miss out on the good stuff like the command ability).

Malus Darkblade - Given the Order Serpentis keyword.

Shadowblade - Given the Shadowblades keyword.

Shades - Given the Shadowblades keyword.

Beastmaster on Manticore - Given the Scourge Privateers keyword.

Balthasar Gelt, the Supreme Patriarch - Give the Collegiate Arcane keyword.

Valten - Give the Devoted of Sigmar keyword.

Luthor Huss - Give the Devoted of Sigmar keyword.

Volkmar the Grim - Give the Devoted of Sigmar keyword.

 

I literally just went through Empire, High Elves and Dark Elves and rebranded everything I thought should belong to a different subfaction. The only stuff that is a bit troublesome is the Highborn, as there is no 'generic' High Aelf faction in the mortal realms. That's actually fine! Actually with Tyrion, Prince Althran, Spearmen, Archers, Silver Helms (and if you want to keep the generic High Elf Prince scrolls), you actually have a well rounded martial High Aelf faction. I mean, since when did all the High Aelves of the realms suddenly decide they want to be a Swordmaster, Lion Ranger, Shadow Warrior or Phoenix Guard? So in some ways, it even fits as a faction.

Lastly, you could fit Malekith into either Darkling Covens or Order Serpentis. In some ways, I'd just leave him as is and if you want to use his model in a more rounded faction, then use him counts as a Dreadlord on Black Dragon.

 

For the above, I think you could do that with many of the compendium scrolls that didn't make the cut. However, I think the Dark and High Elves got the worst of it (and I added Empire, as it's a little pet project of mine anyway). Most other models kept the same keywords as the new updated versions in the Grand Alliance books. But you could still make some special characters more generic (They already did this with Skrag the Slaughtered for example, Golgfag is another candidate where they could make a Maneater Hero level character).

 

Unrelated to the Compendium though. I would prefer to see them collapse a few sub-factions into a larger one. Shadowblades could easily just be a part of Darkling Covens. Maneaters and Firebellies could just be a part of the Gutbuster tribes. I feel they went a bit too thin in some areas when they did the Grand Alliance split. Those factions could be expanded and made more interesting, but I doubt GW will, so it just makes them not really interesting to use while that's the case.

[RuneBrush]

Largely an echo of everyone else, I'd love to have the missing god-specific beastmen.  Greedily I would have also loved Bloodbound added to the Slaughterbrute if you picked a Bloodbound hero as it's handler   But like I say, that's me being greedy!

[Davariel]

I'd like to see more opportunities to choose keywords in the same way as the marks of chaos mechanic. For example, Dark Riders could pick one of the Darkling Covens, Daughters of Khaine, or Scourge Privateers keywords, since they fit all of those factions pretty well. Would be a good way to broaden the use of some units and encourage exploration of different subfactions. 

And... please do something about all the different aelf keywords that are only used on a handful of warscrolls and have no synergy with anything. Whether that's collapsing them into a more manageable number of factions, adding more ways for the units to serve multiple factions per my suggestion, or reworking them entirely (perhaps working their abilities around the aelf keyword?) I don't know... just do something 

[Jamopower]

I second to the aelf issue. There is huge potential and nice models, but just too many subfactions. Ideally broad aelf allegiance with smaller subfactions would be cool, along the lines of khorne and tzeentch books. That could also work for duardin, humans and some other that are too light alone. It feels bit daft to lose the allegiance if you want to have wizard in an elf army for example.