Baron Klatz

I imagine the implication is Gordrakk's hordes will keep Sigmar too busy in Ghur to deal with Morathi-Khaine's rising empire and Godhood in Aqshy. It's kinda the only way her coup doesn't get put back in line from the Stormhosts. But we'll see! I imagine Teclis' story will illuminate with what's going on in the realms.

I think they confirmed it's an all Order force so Ogors and Orruks wouldn't fit. (And he seems too monstrous for a barbarian, but a Death realm tribesmen shouldn't be fully ruled out) My 3 hopes on why he may be a Gholemkin: 1. He's very close to the Kharadron in his picture. That could hint they're both a team. The Gholemkin could be his bodyguard from Chamon as they arrived from the city's sky port and the Kharadron looks to be more a accountant that stays at range with his aether harpoon gun. He lacks a balloon so has the Gholemkin tank for him instead of floating away. 2. basically the Man of Iron. He was hugely popular and another surprise release like that fleshing out the new races of the realms would be hype. 3. He's wearing a finely crafted pauldron with a face and what looks to be a bit of clothe on his chest. That smacks more of his Kharadron employer crafting things for him and dressing him as the Destruction races lack both those fineries. (Only Ironjawz like pauldrons so far and they hand bash those from looted chaos armor, so wouldn't be baroque) So BIG hope here for Gholemkin appearing here.

Surprised no one's talking about this prophecy from the Gloomspite short story. "You seek prophecy, wretch? You go to your death!’ he boomed. ‘The gate will shatter! The earth will tear! The sky shall eat the storm, and the serpent’s tide will rise! The Changer’s riddle is born anew by the splitting mirror of the Dark Prince!’" The Storm is obviously God-king Sigmar and his forces. If you recall the "The Clobbering" story the Orruk at the end saw something massive moving through the skies of the realm of beasts. Could be something new for Gordrakk's horde or the God-beast skull he has was locked away for a reason besides being big.

"However, those within the city would like nothing more than an escalation in conflict, and will do whatever it takes to trigger a war." I really like the Death champions serving Nagash are after this bit. Me thinks there'll be players happy to push that trigger to please their god of Death.

I think it's a safe bet we're getting more monstrous vampire creatures. Flesh Eater Courts took a bunch and put them out of Nagash's general control. He's gonna want replacements and there's rumblings of Death realm God-beasts he's using in the White Dwarfs. I wouldn't be surprised if they mirrored the Lumineth for the coming battle. Soulblight infantry to match the Lumineth troops while giant Death realm "spirits" battle Hysh's with some deadwalkers & deathrattlers on the side but also under their own control like in "Soul Wars" so you can run like all zombies with zombie commanders. Edit: Also, i'm with the people betting a wolf monster focus. You can see a black cat on Cursed City map when the denizens were still good. Nagash would push for wolves and dogs (one of which there's a Shyish God-beast known as Hrunspuul) which be opposed to cats as they ones in the Realm of Death are very useful to the living: "Small, black cats are native to Shyish and few of the living bother them as besides dealing with vermin, they can detect unseen things and hence many a haunting shade or alleyghast has been revealed by the warning hiss of a cat. A cat is even a part of the city of Glymmsforge’s amethyst-and-sable heraldry in recognition of their importance to the city defences."

One way people get around it is to kitbash the Shadespire Fyreslayers. 3 packs of them with suitably long weapons behind a Hearthguard looks fine and let's you put a lot more character into them without setting your wallet on fire. Dude! You blasted that explanation out of the boiling Aqshy water. That's definitely something I hope they build on for the faction. With their focus on magmapikes, key blades and javelins rather than axes they can convey a lot of great character that way. Especially if they start mixing the Celtic & Japanese tones the fire realm and their recent icons have then they can expand to fyresteel naginata and more exotic lava weapons to keep giving them both an edge at range and against monsters with their burning attacks.

I believe reclaimed started with the 2017 "Shadows over Hammerhal" warhammer quest supplement in describing the hordes of refugees taken in from the over-expanding city and how much ground Order was retaking from Aqshy in between the Realmgate Wars and Seeds of Hope, the latter noting the Cogforts did a lot of the work as the mobile fortresses took so much ground from chaos. After that the term Reclaimed pops up in a number of books. We get to know one in "The Red Hour" novella as a golden tattoed Chamonian tribesmen works as a scout for an old Freeguild fortress. He tells of some harrowing tales living under chaos, his rebelling tribe on the run with light sleep to where any injured were mercy killed as they couldn't afford to ever slow down. Then came the Stormcasts that lightning'd down and freed all his people. Many then swarmed the freeguild offices stationed there to sign up out of gratitude. Their positions are mixed sometimes though as some freeguild generals don't fully trust tribal people that lived under chaos corruption for centuries. Edit: It's a good showcase of that Nobledark grey area AoS has. Things start horrifyingly, get better by heavenly saviors and then settle in a grey area of things being both good with some bads stumbling it but can get better and build towards a brighter future. (Or stay dark if you prefer, like in Shyish the weird time flows means there's still places unchanged since the Age of Chaos and won't move forward on their own)

It's probably on par with them having to fight lightning demigods encased in magic armor so potent that even chaos knight lances at full tilt glance off their chestplates. Bone/rusted weapons, mass numbers of fearless warriors and their own unique dark magic to disrupt Nagash's. It'd still be a terrifying costly fight though so it's sensible for even these mad courts and their kings to try and stem the undead tides as you pointed out.

It's Nobledark, this glorious inbetween because unlike the other two settings those people can still be saved and redeemed instead of "their souls are tainted, killing them is the only option!". That's the case of many "Reclaimed" in the setting as former chaos tribes or those who had to live in their lands are reintegrated into society and the cleansing powers of realm magic & the demigod armies can purify their souls. That's certainly a freeguild unit they could make too. Former chaos marauders that bear the symbols of Order to protect their new homes. Heavy Aqshy, Ghyran & Chamon focus would be most lore appropriate for the advances there. Stuff like the mixed tribesmen having details like fire weapons, Ghyran spite famaliars or clockwork weaponry from the realm of metal would be ace. Also using Dobkine(cow bugs) as Freeguild Duardin insect cavalry or fire variants (like the Soulbound rpg Aqshy spider pets) for Fyreslayer cavalry would be a magnificent addition fitting the Mortal Realms armies too. "Dobkine are a variety of bovine that are covered in chitinous armor. The duardin of Clan Halgrimm use them as beasts of burden, pulling large carts and wagons laden with war gear and supplies, as well as their field artillery. They are squat, bovid creatures with chitinous armor and long antennae"

Oh yeah, the Mortal Realms and numerous gods are vast enough for any abnormalities to happen, so go crazy. Heck, in that very story(the second ever AoS book) that Tzeentchian's fortress had giant skulls he embedded in the sides to suck the souls out of the nearby town of Chamonians. And to the Stormcasts concern when they died their reforging lightning arced right into the skulls too where it was using them as batteries until they were destroyed by the army and released the souls. If you need justification just say the Stormcast's souls were captured in such a manner and a greater daemon/powerful shaman entrapped them in those bodies under a convergence of chaos realm energy so they're constantly got a ensorcelled barrier around them to stop the Azyr lightning (maybe use that to explain a greater Save value or if they're your elites like Ogroids or even something for the Anvil of Apotheosis). Best of luck with your army too!

It happened in "Warstorm" when a Tzeentch wizard unleashed all his magic to slow down their advance on his fortress in Chamon. Some mutated, some broke apart into the native clockwork fish, one split into black & white daemon halves and attacked eachother while the leader turned into a living statue of Sigmarite and kept fighting until the end. He and the others were reforged into pure bodies at the end to give vital information. If they're not destroyed by battle to send them back then the affected are zapped back up to Azyr and purified or their souls reforged into a new body. The mutation would only stick if they're somewhere like the Eight-points where the God-king can't reach them but even then their soul (which is infused with Sigmar's essence, extremely chaos resistant) is just trapped in the body until it can be removed from the Chaos sub-realm blocking it.(There's Stormcast souls trapped in a lot of chaos places, like Dorghar's stomach, that Sigmaron keeps planning to one day save if they get the opportunity)

I know it's mostly to support the new Hedonites release with hype but I hope future short stories keep getting new art for the covers.

I think i've seen darkling to describe some chaos territory in the lore during Realmgate Wars but it's likely just a catch-all term here instead of being the new word for Druchii(Scourge, Covens and Serpentis have all been called Darklings). That the card artwork shows the device wreathed in darkness is probably the reason. It's turning into a blackhole of sorts to "absorb life and magic". (and fits their star theme further) Edit: And yes to King Brodd. Evil Blade or enslaved Vampire Hunter D are my hopes.

He might not be self-respecting but enslaved to do it and just get a glimmer of joy killing fellow undead. Similar to Nagash's approach to NightHaunts, punished while being practical, like the former poachers who get their heads replaced with horse skulls. Could be the reason for commonplace clothes too, very simple as a mild mockery of his profession so he doesn't get any fancy stuff. Just a theory of course. Certainly would be interesting if true.

I had a shower thought on this. What if the vampire hunter is a vampire? It'd suit the Soulblights & Nagash's twisted sense of humor to have a vampire assassin keep their commanders in line by using a turned expert at killing them. Plus it'd be more of that great AoS flavor of crazy twists on old ideas.

Yeah, really helps that vampires are a common race in Shyish to where we've seen monasteries, towns and grand ballrooms full of them in the lore that do some middle-level jobs like musicians. That puts them in a much better place to be a Soulblight army actually made up of vampires acting like bloodthirsty aelven units that are willing to use weapons like guns alongside bows instead of a few vamp lords surrounded by shuffling deadwalkers & deathrattlers to make up their numbers.

Noctilus without his giant pirate hat? The horror! But I doubt it's either. The sword and silhouette are different enough to be their own thing and they could still trip us up by the "pistol" being a boney tail to go with the folded bat wings to show how Ghur is affecting them. Their warband icon not having pirate elements but just being a scary bat doesn't help either. Yeah, the sleek magi-tech design really stood out to me. Even the Saurus armor looks like he copied it from the magi-tech ancient armor from Zelda Breath of the Wild game. (Zonai are Seraphon, can't change my mind on that crossover ). Really love how it contrasts with their new Ghurian monster elements between the carapace spike backs and longer lower jaws with more teeth. Indeed. Was wondering why they're going through all that trouble for a mountain that occasionally lures in adventurers to eat but now we know it's evolving into a new demi-god. I guess the Seraphon don't want to chance a new powerful God-beast falling into the hands of Order's enemies.

Agreed. I'd also like more of their inventions for war. I mentioned before they have only one axe unit because they're pragmatic Duardin that know polearms are their best fit and so the axe unit makes up for it with fyresteel throwing axes and uniquely razor-tipped Sling-shields to break up enemies for the charge. More cool ideas like that for their mercenary nature that combines pragmatic & berserker tactics would be lovely. Oh, also some recent General Handbook lore has a lodge that uses a sapient volcano they make deals with so it forges them new weapons. More sentient fire realm entities like that mixed into their army beyon just the lore would be aces.

I mean that's pretty much everything in the Mortal Realms. Things tend to change after 10,000+ years and relocated to a foreign setting. To say nothing of the god gaining an elemental plane. Yeah, that's why the original Slayers were name-changed to "Unforged" instead. Fyreslayers are their own thing under Grimnir while those are meant to be the lost dispossessed under Grungni, their name being a failing of metal which he is the god of.

Yeah that's just how Aqshyians are. Even in the first books that's why Khorne wanted the Realm of Fire, all it's people being hot-blooded and quick to fight and get their blood pumping fit his legions perfectly. (And now is a suitable target for Morathi-Khaine's bloody empire to grow in) Some other neat avenues Fyreslayers need to explore is the oriental angles that Aqshy has in abundance, it's already in their lodge icons so the next step is to put it in their next wave and combine their fiery berserk Spartans with hot-tempered banzai samurai/oni*. (Credit to Gecktron for the comparison pic) *(Oni's a fun one because that's just Ogors which lodges like Lofnir have already befriended) There's other iterations they can focus on too to fit the other realms. Ghur kin with big axes for monster hunting and the lodges that make their homes in mountain-sized trees ("Spear of Shadows"), flying troops on levitating rocks from Ghyran as one large notable lodge fights Skaven there over sky islands that orbit the realm full of minerals and stuff like the Hysh Fyreslayers who made forges that concentrate moonlight to create heat to smith with which would make great lighter toned Fyreslayers that focus on refined heat and light instead of blazes.

Thank you! It looked old Shyish to me so I was scouring the Pre-Necroquake map to see if that was it. That does likely point to more Death. I'd love the Ulgu bones Morathi-Khaine gave them to be used for new assassin units. Bone Golems ninjas.

Yeah they're in the realm of metal. The two sides battle on the realm edges where the Null's magic immunity from being reconstructed by the Malign Portents undead that were blasted by the gods and the Seraphon's ability to attune their bodies to the realms let them avoid the worst of the wild magics that make the edges lethal. So i'm thinking more Chamon news to follow up Broken Realms, Aether Wars and the stories of Order making good in roads there.

What a great time to drop vs a obsession vs rage story. Right when the FW news hits.

We definitely do.

From people's complaints with the army it's just that it's already loaded with the Slayer aesthetic. No one's looking at Fyreslayers and saying they need more Doomseekers. Going by how many people keep pushing for more Fyre elements like Magmadroth cavalry, lava golems and literal fire duardin it's pretty clear that's the untapped potential they want. They need to take that sweet Yggdrasil aesthetic of the Mortal Realms and make them fit with fire titans.