End Time thoughts

[Tepogue]

For the first time in several years I am actually entertaining the thought of dusting off my old Warhammer Fantasy Battles armies. The reason for this is The End Times. I have not bought the book, but hope to snag a 2nd reprint. Meanwhile I've read and listened to every podcast I can listen through my work's firewall.

Regardless, as I listen and form opinions, I cannot help but draw comparisons to The Hours Heresy. I'm thinking that the new army structure (50% Lords) is designed for us to see a wave of Primarch-like models. I consider Nagash to be the first of these. He is a huge kit. He is game changing. He has good durability. How different is Nagash in WFB to a Primarch in a Hors Heresy army? My opinion is there is not much difference at a fundamental level.

What does this mean? For me it means we are likely to see a new large kit Archaeon for the second book. This will include a combining of the three chaos army lists similar to the new Undead Legion. I also suspect book 2-3 will be the dark times. Book 3 will probably see an elf collaboration. Whomever draws the Sword of Khaine will be the big kit for that book. If book 4 is the end of the cycle then I suspect a Sigmar reborn. This should bring about a combined Empire, Brettonian, Dwarf and perhaps Ogre army.

If the above are true, then players are will be encouraged to expand their armies and pick up these center piece models. This will of course increase sales.

Now this is pure conjecture, and may not pan out. I know this path leads down the "forge a narrative" path. Tournament players will try and "fix' the system. I believe this is folly. I hope to see fantastic armies with awe inspiring centerpieces. More narrative players will have many high and lows, much internet complaining will ensue. I think these will be interesting times.

The other problem with what I have written is that not every army is accounted for. I see Skaven and Orcs & Goblins being wild cards. The Fell Blade is gone so how the Shaven will proceed is unknown. I could see a new large Vermin Lord coming, but that's perhaps more wishlisting than reasonable hope. The O&G as always will get in the way, win some, lose some and in the end fall apart.

[Anthrax ion pusscabe]

As someone that tends to creat their own narrative for linking battles with friends into campaigns over just having standalone battles, I'm very excited about the end times providing me with what is essentially a groundwork to build my own end of the world scenario to play through in, I plan to combine it with elements from the "warhammer battlefields" digital campaign expansion series in home rules for a bit of fun with a couple friends, and the 50% lords and 50% heroes as long as 25% is core means I can use thanquol and boneripper in 900Ish point games (I don't have the army book in front of me and just know they are more then 450points)

[Reldane]

I'm not a fan of encouraging players to sink so many points into a single model, as it leads to very binary games. either your opponent can deal with it (cannons for example) and you lose half your army in the first volley, or your opponent can't deal with it and a giant unstoppable character rampages the board. in that regard Nagash is closer to a knight than a primarch in 40k, I just don't see how such things lend themselves to fun games for both players.

[joosterandom]

It's probably worth noting that, unlike 40k, Fantasy actually has a narrative that doesn't depend on being stagnant. The history of the Fantasy universe isn't as rich as 40k, but the fact that it's on a much more local scale means that major characters are more likely to cross paths and create their own history in the moment.

[Mr Mystery]

I feel End Times trumps Heresy simply because the outcome is unknown.

[Reldane]

I would have to disagree regarding the richness of the warhammer world. not only does each race have a detailed history reaching back from 2000 years to the dawn of the world but it also has many unique aspects. for example, high and dark elves although associated to order and destruction, their disagreement is purely political two people both with reasonable claims to the throne, add in wood elves who split from the high elves to avoid the political nature of the elf world. Tomb kings give not only non evil undead but also one of the best representations of the Egyptian faiths interpretation of death. we have the stone age ogre kingdoms forced to endure a mass migration due to the arrival of a god that has imprinted itself in the minds of every ogre.

with some of the more recent army books a lot of the flavour and uniqueness of the Warhammer world has been lost, most notably the most recent Ogre Kingdom's book which attempts to change them from a primitive culture trying to make sense of the world and compelled to wonder the world to a low intelligence culture that likes to fight cause fighting is good. (and don't get me started on the sudden inclusion of Slaanesh eating elf souls)

[Brother Sutek]

I would have to disagree regarding the richness of the warhammer world. not only does each race have a detailed history reaching back from 2000 years to the dawn of the world but it also has many unique aspects. for example, high and dark elves although associated to order and destruction, their disagreement is purely political two people both with reasonable claims to the throne, add in wood elves who split from the high elves to avoid the political nature of the elf world. Tomb kings give not only non evil undead but also one of the best representations of the Egyptian faiths interpretation of death. we have the stone age ogre kingdoms forced to endure a mass migration due to the arrival of a god that has imprinted itself in the minds of every ogre.

with some of the more recent army books a lot of the flavour and uniqueness of the Warhammer world has been lost, most notably the most recent Ogre Kingdom's book which attempts to change them from a primitive culture trying to make sense of the world and compelled to wonder the world to a low intelligence culture that likes to fight cause fighting is good. (and don't get me started on the sudden inclusion of Slaanesh eating elf souls)

Didn't like how they ,not so subtly, changed the fluff of the WE's myself. Most of the new books have had things changed to make the army have more drama but IMO adds unwanted drama that often makes no sense other than a new writer wanting to put their own spin on established fluff.

[Reldane]

new writer wanting to put their own spin on established fluff.

I believe Matt Ward said he wrote all the elf books at once (possibly one reason they all play like high elves now) even though he is only credited on the high and dark elf book. I suspect however from reading the fluff of my new dark elf books that he had only a basic understanding of the Druchii lore, most of it is copied over from the Grav Thorp army book, only removing credibility to the prophecy of demise as well as another 2 lines.

I end up keeping a lot of my old army books due to their for the most part vastly more detailed lore.

[Archon Charybdis]

Didn't like how they ,not so subtly, changed the fluff of the WE's myself. Most of the new books have had things changed to make the army have more drama but IMO adds unwanted drama that often makes no sense other than a new writer wanting to put their own spin on established fluff.

I'm curious how you think this was the case in the WE book?

[Erik Setzer]

I'm not a fan of encouraging players to sink so many points into a single model, as it leads to very binary games. either your opponent can deal with it (cannons for example) and you lose half your army in the first volley, or your opponent can't deal with it and a giant unstoppable character rampages the board. in that regard Nagash is closer to a knight than a primarch in 40k, I just don't see how such things lend themselves to fun games for both players.

In the past week, I've played a game with Nagash, and I've heard of a game with him, that kind of highlights how "messy" he can make games.

In the first one, a friend wanted to try playing against my Undead Legions (I am ecstatic about being able to use Undead together again). We went 2500 points, to have a nice battle. He borrowed someone's Empire, had a decent list (big block of Halberdiers using a banner that doubles their rank bonus, big block of Knights, two cannons, some other various units, and three Wizards, including a Light Wizard and a Death Wizard). He wanted to try playing against Nagash and even offered to put in his half-built Nagash model, so I agreed to modify my list for that. I had Nagash, a level 4 Liche Priest (Lore of Nehekhara, baby!), a Wight BSB, large block of Skeletons, two blocks of 16 Skeleton Archers, a Terrorgheist, and four Morghast Archai. The first thing I immediately noticed is that Nagash left a hole in my army and would need to summon stuff to fill it quickly. This wasn't too bad, I managed to bring in a block of Black Knights (right beside the cannons) and a level 3 Necromancer. Terrorgheist took out a cannon but got hit hard by the other before the Black Knights could charge it. Thanks to the scenario's random army placement, his army was actually in a perfectly split formation with mine being in the center of the table, so he was able to come at me from two sides. Purple Sun of Xereus killed off the Terrorgheist and snuffed some Skeletons and the new Necromancer. In the next two turns, Nagash couldn't get off a spell (either rolled too low or was dispelled), and I watched as most of my army started crumbling. The one thing that saved me was that I saved up a couple tokens and managed to use them to summon Mannfred onto the table. Nagash and Mannfred managed to scare the Knights right off the board (yay, Terror!), and Mannfred got into combat with the large block of Halberdiers, pretty much the only thing left on that side. Mannfred was losing combat but Nagash kept him in the fight, and I finally just threw Nagash into the combat knowing that with Mannfred's help they could actually take out the unit. At that point, knowing the result, we ended the game so someone else could have the table we were using.

If I hadn't summoned Mannfred in there, I think I would have lost, with a nice chunky of my opponent's army still left. It wouldn't be normal wounds doing him in so much as combat res, because a large block of Halberdiers with double rank bonus (+6), standard, and BSB (total of +8, until they start losing rank bonus) is not easy for Undead to cope with, you have to kill a LOT of guys to beat that res, and Nagash alone isn't likely to do that. After that battle, I decided Nagash was too hit-or-miss for me. In the 1-on-1 games I've played with a "standard" Undead Legions army, it was over a lot quicker, as I had an entire army from the start, and was only relying on magic to bring guys back and buff them.

The second game, I wasn't able to witness personally, but I did hear of the result... and the result of that result. A player was using Nagash against Chaos Warriors, and was in great shape to win the game. The Chaos Warrior player, in desperation, threw out Purple Sun of Xereus on Nagash... and the Undead player ended up rolling a 6. Poof! 1000 points snuffed out like that, victory completely torn from him. He didn't take it nearly as well as he usually takes defeat. (Again, I didn't witness it, but he actually felt the need to apologize publicly to his opponent. Normally, if someone actually beats him, even the local tournament beatstick player, he just shrugs it off merrily and figures out how to come back with a better strategy.)

So... yeah. Nagash is very much all-or-nothing. It's not as bad with a character like the Mortarchs, and Archaon might not be so bad. But WFB is a game where a single die roll can wipe out a massively expensive character. They will help you either win big or lose big, not much room for in-between.