Warhammer Fantasy Battle Thread

Knife ear will forever be a shit insult.

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Dafuq?

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Going to a tournament and we're allowed one free monster up to 250pts. Torn between a Hellcannon and a Hell Pit Abomination. Which would be best to take?

Let's try and save this mess.

>pic related
Suppose right now my PCs embarks in Altdorf or Marienburg or L'Anguille and go to Albion. What are they going to find there? Is there any human civilization, however primitive? Is it just a land of giants, bogs and possibly malignant fey folks? Fimirs maybe?

Let's try it without the Dark Shadows campaign, and after Lizardmen and Empire (and Druchii too? Can't remember) take a hold of the island.

Using the same box, how do I make my Big uns look big'un-er than normal orc boyz?

>Let's try it without the Dark Shadows campaign

Why? Dark Shadows is cool as shit.

The Truthsayers are an order of druids tasked with protecting the land there, while the Dark Emissaries are fallen Truthsayers turned to worshiping Chaos.

Yeah there are humans on Albion, Dark Shaddows had some art of celtic-barbarian looking peoples. Older Warhammer Fantasy material (The Tragedy of McDeath) went into some detail about there being kingdoms there.

Wait...Skaven can take Hellcannons?

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I think GW really relaxed the rules on Dogs of War and other such things before Warhammer went belly up. Even Brets can take shit now.

End Times rules? Or Storm of Magic rules?

Pretty sure it was End Times.

Well, i did say also
> and after Lizardmen [etc] take a hold of the island.
I was trying to differentiate from basically a virgin untapped land, to a conquered island.

I think I did read something non official around the internet some 15 years ago, regarding actual arthurian-like kingdoms on the island, but I feel there would be too much likeness to current Bretonnia, and personally I don't really know how to make generic celtic-germanic barbarians interesting, since we should have Beastmen for that. Any ideas about that?

>The Truthsayers are an order of druids tasked with protecting the land there
The Old Ones gave them the task? What exactly were they protecting? Got any information about the relationship between them and the local population, or even how Truthsayers are created?

Albion is basically Ulthuan. They both have waystones, they both drain dangerous amounts of magic from the world, and they're both shrouded by fog and mist. Only in Albion's case, they've become muddy and rainswollen, and the people have gone from advanced to primitive tribes.

The Truthsayers are pretty powerful mages though, and they try to make sure no one fucks with the island.

Who built the Waystones though? Elves built all of those after the invasion of Chaos but before their civil war.

The humans did. Albion is basically a human version of Ulthuan, since at one point it was an Old One summer palace.

Why have an empty backward Ulthuan, if we already have an alive and interesting Ulthuan?

Is there nothing more to Albion than being the target/battlefield of Dark Shadows?

Wait.

How did that happen? Humans migrated away from their Ulthuan, Nehekhara, and crossed the world until they reached the Warp Gates. Be'lakor became the first human to discover religion, when the humans were still simple.

Who the fuck taught the humans who reached Albion how to be civilized? Let alone High Elf tier?

Waystones are built by the Old Ones, High Elves or Humans.
The oldest are Old Ones craft, made to basically teleport around the planet. The High Elves repurposed most of them and then built more going with their architecture and knowledge to siphon magic into Ulthuan and the Great Vortex. Humans built Ogham stone circles around old Elven Waystones, either working or broken, because they recognized their power and somehow the stone circles allowed them to tap it.
I guess they could have built some more waystones too, menhir-cromlech like, but immensely less powerful than elven ones.

There are also the Waystones around Athel Loren, which I think could be the work of Wood Elves, but I don't know what they do apart from warn trespassers.
And there are Herdstones, made by beastmen corrupting existing Waystones.

Is Long's G&F any good?

None of the G&F books are bad, if that's what you're asking. Quality does ebb and flow.

So are we considering Storm of Chaos canon now, since we aren't considering the officially canon direction canon?

What reason would Tomb Kings and Lizardmen ever have to fight? They're both defensive factions who care only about certain things that live worlds away from each other.

Gold. Dwarfs steal from both, get it mixed up or smelt it, now they both want that one thing.

Also, Nehekhara was the designated habitat and birthplace of humanity, and would have Old One relics. Plus TK believe all gold is theirs by birthright.

TK are pissy, Lizardmen refuse to give up on their way. Not all TK are insular anyway, some have outside interests. One loves the Empire, one hates Orcs, one hates Vampires, one hates Daemons, one is a seafarer.

Tomb kings only caring about their homelands and being purely defensive is a meme falsely perpetuated by BL freelancer Josh Reynolds on his ask fm. Tomb kings go out and raid all the time, especially to lands they used to own. Hell, Settra sailed all the way to norsca and skullfucked the chaos warriors on their own home turf at one point.

Lizardmen also go all over the world, being able to teleport along the geometric grid. Kroq-far himself has fought on every continent at some point, and Gor-rok has been to naggaroth, the chaos wastes and the ogre kingdoms.

And both factions have fought many times in the fluff. Tomb kings used to raid the lizardmen of the south lands back when they were alive, and the lizardmen have been counter raiding to get back important artifacts ever since

>None of the G&F books are bad

Let me introduce you to pic related.

The Tomb Kings have a whole 'Reclaiming their Lost Kingdom' schtick. Didn't they hold lands in the Southlands that are now swarming with Lizardmen?

Nothing is canon, all things are permitted.
But honestly, it depends on personal taste. My group use the EndHammer cannon for our games.

That is kind of an interesting point.

As far as I care, everything except End Times itself is more or less canon, or at least up for interpretation. End Times I just forget about if I can. Going Storm of Chaos instead might be an interesting route, since GW abandoned that plotline and we still could let it grow in its own right.

Best Orc lore if I only know the basics of WHFB lore?
Are Orcs as shitty in-game as they are in 40k?
Post ORCS lads

All I know is that the Orcs are a lot less humorous than they are in 40k, and there's a lot more lore with them torturing and eating things just for fun.

i prefer orcs that way. i always thought evil orcs made sense and 40k orcs were dumb

I do like how the Orcs are treated more seriously than Orks, instead of just being a secondary villain to some larger threat, but I liked Orks in how they were somewhat more flexible. They were a bit more like WFB's Ogres in how you could customize them. Not to mention, it's just a little easier to explain Ork mercenaries.

I want to impregnate asur woman.

Sorry user, they probably don't want you.

I liked that one actually.

If for anything else it showed Teclis pissing himself in fear of Gotrek.

OP here, it's an allied monster, so I can take any Forces of Destruction monster or TK/OK.

What if non-chaos races in Warhammer were actually reasonable and practical people with none of that medieval stasis and muh grimdark? Collaborating to stop a bigger threat, not being dicks to each other just because (that is, delaying being dicks until after the victory), not going all "oh muh pride, oh muh honor", etc?
Sharing tech, reverse engineering skaven stuff, at least grudgingly working together, etc?

>Black Arks carrying enormous broadsides of reverse-engineered Skytitan Cannons and whole fleets of dragons and gyrocopters
>Ulthuani fleet bearing arrays of luminarcs, reverse-engineered warp-lightning cannons (using high magic instead of warpstone, obviously) and hurricanums
>Skytitan-cannon-totting Treemen in heavy armour with fireproof coating
>Armoured ogres carrying reverse engineered warpfire throwers and ratling guns, using potent high elf magics instead of warpstone
>Squadrons of enchanted steam tanks, bearing various sorts of artillery and reverse engineered doomflayer rams
>multi-race infantry, decked out in gromril and ithilmar, wielding sharpest asrai weapons and finest dwarfish firearms, trained by elven swordmasters and asrai waywatchers to pinnacle of martial skill
>every free square inch of the above is covered in dwarven runes
>giants decked in inches-thick runic armour with blades and spikes, wielding doomflayer-based weapons, being just pointed in the right direction and released upon the enemy
>armoured dragons bearing ratling guns and rockets

What the hell would they have to be fighting that they'd share all those things so completely?

uhm... Chaos? averting the End Times?

Look, in WW2 the Allies might have been trying to stop Hitler, save a bunch of little countries and their own skins, but there was still a lot of background dealing and plenty of secrets kept. Russia especially wanted to do things their own way, but constantly felt they weren't getting enough support. Britain was still clinging to ideas of imperialism, while America was trying to throw their new weight around and was breathing down Britain's neck about freeing their colonies, going back and forth on giving Britain goods for free and having them pay for it. And this wasn't even a year before the war ended. I think it's more realistic than you think, even during the most series of crises, for nations and peoples to keep secrets and have their own goals beyond immediate survival, because world leaders have to think about their countries and their goals.

And besides that, how easy do you really think it would be to reverse-engineer Skytitan Cannons, or warp-lightning cannons without the warpstone, and to build fleets of steam tanks and gyrocopters and wake up tons of dragons, and to put runes and well-crafted armor and the most elite weapons made out of the most rare materials on everything? There's a limit to everything, most especially time. I don't remember how long it took within the universe for the End Times to begin and wrap up, but some of the stuff you're proposing would take decades.

And even ignoring all that, it's just absolute overkill. You're not taking into account the inertia that accompanies invention. You don't make that kind of shit unless you're sure you're going to need it against whoever you're fighting, and Chaos has been beaten back by much more traditional methods. If the current ways are working fine, there's no need to change anything until it needs changing. Usually, people develop new weapons and tactics in response to new developments in the warfare of their enemies, and Chaos hasn't changed its tune in millennia, ironically.

Germany was precedented. Russia has beaten off the might of whole Europe a few times before, Britain has beaten off it too once or twice, so while Hitler was dangerous and caused much death he wasn't world-ending. In fact, it was pretty obvious that Germany would lose once its blitzkrieg failed - you can't beat USSR by attrition, it's absurd.

Chaos is game-ender though. It can beat anything by attrition, it never stops, it will unmake the world if it wins.
But if you need more justification, let's say it happens at the start of End Times. Mannfred sees his vision of enormous daemonic legions, doesn't catch an idiot ball, goes to world leaders and tells them in gandalfy tones "We unite or we will fall." They use divination or whatever, see he's right, and that it's time to stop petty squabbles. Then you can add undead to the mix. Armoured undead troopers that feel neither fear no pain and do not tire? Runic necromancy, that doesn't require an active wizard to mantain?

I want to violently sterilize Beastmen.

before the chaoswank completely ruined the lore, Factions doing their own thing and doing it their own way was good enough to hold off chaos

if chaos is beefed up to the point you'd need those cooperations, the setting would turn to shit anyways.

post more Elfs

>what if all the non-chaos races suddenly acted completely out of character to the point where it changes their faction identity?

FTFY. Even allied races in canon don't tech share on that level. Dwarfs don't share all of their inventions, like the steam engines used for their ironclads and gyrocopters, with the empire for the specific reason that they don't want them turning around and biting them in the ass with it. Same reason why The elves only teache the colleges their basic elementary school level spells.

>Mannfred, not Teclis or literally anyone else
>anyone trusting Mannfred ever
>dwarfs using necromancy
>anyone cooperating beyond the level of marching side by side in battle

>what if all the non-chaos races suddenly acted completely out of character to the point where it changes their faction identity?
well, that's what "being reasonable" means. especially in Warhammer cases.

I'm just wondering whether WHFB universe has at least potential to beat Chaos, if petty differences didn't get in the way. i'm not proposing a new edition, duh.

Well you have to admit that you can't have 16 factions in a stasis/balance of power if they are sharing technologies.
Not even talking about factions who just won't be sharing technologies, like Dwarves or High Elves. Or Lizardmen for that matter.

since what i'm talking about is "surviving onslaught of Chaos in End Times and taking the offensive" there won't be a balance of powers

If you beat Chaos for good you won't have any Warhammer setting anymore. The Warhammer setting stands up on exactly the balance between factions AND the looming threat of Chaos.
The same case applies for Chaos gaining the definitive upper hand and winning. You have the Age of SIGHmar.

And if you ask me, the End Times is just events having to unfold like they did, because GW decided so. Not because any true rationality.

Actually, if you remove Chaos from the setting and kept everything else the setting would be better.

>A plaque of the old ones says go fuck up Numas
>A batshit-crazy Tomb King decides he wants a new rug made of skink-hide
There you go.

>Skaven
>Reasonable and practical
>Dark Elves
>Reasonable and practical
>Dwarves
>Reasonable and practical
>Wood Elves
>Reasonable and practical

Pray tell, how you would explain such sudden and jarring shifts in their character

I would actually be completely fine with chaos being pushed back as society becomes more advanced, moving past the pike and shot phase.

Say, Archaon's big crusade was the high point of the chaos raids, and it's a gradual decline from there. Eventually things are contained, and Chaos is mostly a threat for cultists, arguably Skaven if you count the Horned Rat.

You might want to go play another game then, I guess Warcraft or D&D can be more of your liking.

So you agree that removal of Chaos is the right thing.

Chaos brings nothing that other factions can't. It's superfluous.

>Warcraft or D&D
Pretty sure they have their own version of Chaos. The Burning Hells and the Burning Legion.

But Chaos is the big evil in WFB. What are you going to have creepy cults about without it? You can have vampires be all sneaky and corrupting, but not in the same way a Slaaneshi noble might be. Without Tzeentch, you only have Nagash to turn to for heretical forbidden tomes of lost lore, and necromancy as the evil magic would turn stale.

Without Chaos, there's no Beastmen, no Northmen, no Daemons, no Chaos Dwarves, and you strip some stuff away from the Dark Elves. You basically take away some of the most magical and weird things in the entire setting, like greater daemons and weird monsters and the just downright evil races.

Skaven are a chaos race. Being reasonable for Dwarfs implies picking up wrecked skaven tech and reverse-engineering stuff.

And I never said "become". I said "were". All along.

>But Chaos is the big evil in WFB.

No, Nagash is. Just remove Chaos and put Necromancy and black magic in its place. There done. The setting would be better for it.

Beastmen? Black magic experiments. Northmen? They are better as just simple barbarian tribes. Daemons? Just spirits or mage constructs. Chaos Dwarves? No need for them to be Chaos anything. Just make them asshole dwarfs who broke off the dwarfen kingdom for political reasons.

>Chaos brings nothing that other factions can't

It's an enemy very readily identifiable as such, in a world where "grey" is the best kind of white you get.
And most other faction that can compensate for the same role are the spawn of chaos as well, like beastmen or skaven. Yes, you have undeads, but they don't pose an existential threat to the world like chaos do. Also, you can have both and get variety, and a richer setting given that they might have no reason to work together.

Pretty sure Skaven things run on warpstone which is pure solidified Chaos.

The problem with WHFB is not the existence of Chaos. It's the fact that Chaos is poor-fuck written. It's ain't gotta be removed, it's gotta be rewritten on a fundamental level, and then maybe it will be ok. maybe.

>compensate for the same role are the spawn of chaos as well
They don't need to be.
>but they don't pose an existential threat to the world like chaos do.
One name. Nagash.

>you can have both

On ruins the setting by its existence. The other does not.

oh right, you can constitute warpstone for gunpowder and reverse engineer ratling gun from that
or use clues from warpfire thrower to make portable flamethrower just using different fuel. right. sorry. my bad.

DELET THIS

I feel Long is a bit better than King.

So you agree that Chaos is the problem and should be removed?

There is no fixing it. You will just create a whole different faction with the same name.

>warcraft
>literally introduced DarkChaos

The burning legion is not something you risk bring into the world as long as you don't use fel magic or rape arcane in your quest of power though.
In WH world you can try and cast "magic light" to read better at night and get Tzeentch Curse if you're not careful. And of course, if what you read is not approved by the Holy Order of the Burning Heart or whatever witch hunters call themselves today, you get burned at the stake. Because Chaos makes you paranoid like that, it's a very real threat.

I don't remember paladins executing villagers on a whim, the only paladin who burned a city - and one full of certified infected people, mind you - become the BBEG after being shunned by everyone else.

>I don't remember paladins executing villagers on a whim, the only paladin who burned a city - and one full of certified infected people, mind you - become the BBEG after being shunned by everyone else.

The Scarlet Crusade. Look them up.

>In WH world you can try and cast "magic light" to read better at night and get Tzeentch Curse if you're not careful. And of course, if what you read is not approved by the Holy Order of the Burning Heart or whatever witch hunters call themselves today, you get burned at the stake. Because Chaos makes you paranoid like that, it's a very real threat.

In other words, it ruins the setting and limits it.

in the 5th edition lizardmen book, the lizardmen hire a guide from araby to take them across the desert, because the tomb kings had taken one of their mummified mage priests

I don't get why people want some great threat for setting. Give scrap the whole concept and just leave it as world where different races interact and grow with each other.

not really. it will be as different from current chaos as current chaos is different from Moorcock's Chaos.

In udder words, not fantasy chaos. Which means you removed it from the setting and that you agree with me.

Just take away the 4 chaos gods, or bump them down to the level of other gods like Ulric or Asuryan and not multidimensional beings who can't lose. Then Warhammer becomes a lot more complex than "everyone vs chaos"

You still have Orcs, goblins, ogres, dark elves, wood elves, lizardmen, tomb kings, vampire counts and Nagash for potential primary antagonists to the "good guys." You could even have the "good guys" go to war with eachother. You know, how they do all the time whenever there isn't some major word ending chaos invasion, which has only happened a few times

Don't have ass it. Just throw Chaos out.

I got that's your opinion. It's not like you're really backing it up though.
> Chaos does not ruin the setting, in fact it makes it pretty recognizable among other more generic fantasy settings
See? I can do it too.

>Nagash
One target, personified, ex-human, and maybe even directly targettable with spells and cannon fire instead of a faceless, mysterious, uncontainable and nonetheless way more subtle threat.
He even wanted to be Chaos, himself.
Ever read about Cosmic Horror? I definitely like it more than the average BBEG every setting can provide.

The main problem is that the people who wrote Chaos in 40k, which is fine and fits into the powerlevels of it's own setting, decided to adapt it almost 1:1 into Fantasy with all the overblown endless hordes shit you can pull in 40k, but leads to major balancing issues in Fantasy.

That's why they had to redo the whole setting (AoS) to balance it somewhat against their overblown Chaos faction, instead of Gimping Chaos to improve the original Setting.

Turn the Chaos wastes into a form of "Eye of Terror" area where the Chaos Warriors and Knights hide before picking up marauders and beastmen on their way south, instead of it being the most highly populated place on earth with quadzillions of nomadic tribes.

not really. it still would be a force beyond the world, it still would seek conquest, it still would corrupt, it still would consist of barbarians, dark knights and daemons. daemons would be different, yes, vastly different, but only them.

it wouldn't be a source of magic, but that's not necessary at all. magic can corrupt and go boom even without being daemonic in nature.

> Scarlet Crusade
I know those guys thank you very much, they are just a very minor part of the setting, like the Grimtotem Taurens. The setting is not defined by them, they don't even define their race or culture, and nobody thinks what they're doing is the right way to go.

>In other words, it ruins the setting and limits it.
Seriously, it's quite clear you just want to play another setting. Go do it and be happy.

>> Chaos does not ruin the setting, in fact it makes it pretty recognizable among other more generic fantasy settings

Burning Legion and Burning hell, insert "generic hellspawned threat". There the idea that Chaos makes fantasy special got disproved.

>faceless, mysterious, uncontainable and nonetheless way more subtle threat.

You mean an overbearing shit of a faction that chokes and oppresses the entire setting by its existence.

>it's quite clear you just want to play another setting

No, I want to play WH minus Chaos please.

>faceless, mysterious, uncontainable and nonetheless way more subtle
that's not WHFB chaos. WHFB chaos is four overpowered guys commanding lesser guys. they are basically greek gods. nothing faceless or mysterious.

>chaos
>burning legion

They're not the same. Stop strawmanning your way like this.

>overbearing shit of a faction that chokes and oppresses the entire setting by its existence

I'm sorry a fat neckbeard playing Chaos sat over your miniatures and broke them. You can let it go though.

I know, right? After having tons of books explaining Chaos I wonder how can anyone claim they are faceless and mysterious. They are the most explored and personal faction by far.

I don't play WHFB, I play WFRP. In WFRP you can be subtle, you know, you don't need to field an army that screams KHAYOS to have Chaos in your campaign.

>They're not the same.

Both are multidimensional hellspawned threats that destroy and corrupt races and worlds. So different.

>I'm sorry a fat neckbeard playing Chaos sat over your miniatures and broke them. You can let it go though.

I am sorry that Chaos killed my setting.

sadly, WFRP is "Expanded Universe". Chaos is still a bunch of demon-god-jerk dudes, not anything lovecraftian (except the tentacles)

>he doesn't scream KHAYOS
ASININE MORTAL.