I mean... from a purely logical, objective standpoint they CANNOT just drop us. we are in the storyline and still active in it. the mentions to us in hammaerhall news, the canon "adjustment" in malign sorcery, and the continual references to us in other books is all nice evidence.... but the objective part is $$$. seraphon models are pure profit. we has humans are fascinated with the mythical beats of lore and even more so with the actual beasts of yesteryear... If I was a betting man, I would say we will be the last book of this edition. logically speaking our army is difficult to balance. and with the plethora of complaints they have received about us when they went to aos 2, and from the books that have caused power creep they are going to be FORCED to take extra time on our faction... just because we are complicated from the get go.
DoK build cities, gitz build lairs. DoK have a formal hierarchy & laws. Gitz have the rule of the strongest. The various "civilized" factions have developed things like (magical) science and art. Closest thing Gitz have to (magical) "science" is a shaman high on mushrooms and in terms of art they don't get much further than tribal markings. That's the basic difference. Sylvaneth are a bit of an odd one out as well. They're on the very edge of civilized. They do have some form of laws. But apart from that they're more a force of nature. They lack the balance the old wood-elves provided to actually bring them into a civilized state. Well then the "civilized" factions need to become of the grand allegiance "civilized" and we keep the allegiance "order" Minor detail though. True, hence why giving us some friends with the excuse "we found an old one floating in space and he made us some" would be great. In principle I agree, but I haven't seen any releases for spin-off games for a faction at roughly the same time as that faction being removed from the main game. Imho it'd be weird as hell to do that.
As far as I see, we have three lists: For us staying in, Against us staying in, and items that appear to be fo or against, but I think have no useful info. FOR: We are represented int he lore. See the comic above. I don't recall many comics that contained direct references to "vanilla" dwarves nor Grugni, or Dragon Lancers etc. Big Holiday sales boxes: i mean, GW likes to sell models, so i'd be a bit skeptical here, but repackaging them into large kits is a bit different, and has the appearance and effect, of getting more people to play faction <x>. We had a V1 battletome We have some good modern Kits - Big Dinos and the Terradons are as good as any out there. Skink Starpriest, too. But then again, i thought the Warboss of Wyvern was one of GWs best kits. so... Gloomspite Gits - one faction of older models and even some re-sculpts of some classic models - see the Loonboss on Giant Cave Squig as an exemplar. Death as a whole: They have the second most Finecast, and a lot of old weird models , and CLEARLY are not getting squatted. I'd expect them to get redone in the near-ish term as well, despite the fact that the last few story cycles have been around them already. NEUTRAL BloodBowl. As others have said, Bloodbowl is it's own franchise. I think a woodelf team was released not that long ago, eg. HOWEVER: it dos mean that someone is thinking about how to sculpt Saurus. Rules in GHB 2019 - i hate to say it, but MANY of the models listed as LCTB this weekend had rules explicitly written in GHB 2019, and yet now they are gone. GHB is supposed to be a one yer patch/holdover, and rules contained herein are inherently ephemeral. IIRC Greenskins had updates to points in GHB. The spell lore is a potential more-than-neutral sign, but that is what Wanderers thought when they got a decent Faction Ability. AGAINST: We have A LOT of fine-cast. We have A LOT of old sculpts. Now, yo might say "But that just means we are going to get new sculpts!" but then i ask you, what old-world factions have received new sculpts, that were not ground-up REDESIGNS (Fyreslayers and KO come to mind). All other old-world armies that got full AOS2.0 incorporation that did not get ground up resculpts had solid plastic kits. DoK and FEC come to mind as exemplars of this. Our Skinks are fine, but our Saurus (Knights, Warriors) are really old (Guard maybe are ok). Our big dinos are all excellent. Our MAIN general, and arguable the only living entity on the table top (slaan) is finecast. But then again, there are a lot of finecast and older plastic kits in Death... We have A LOT of models. No other faction has as many models as us (SCE aside) and as i just said they are all older. I really do not think GW is going to spend any energy reviving old-world factions. (GsG aside) But, i think over-all they are happy to carry forward the better kits, but all new development has gone towards new faction, or new concepts (See the Kurnothi as the ideological progeny of the woodelves). However, with the combination of the Orruks and CoS, and LoN you could make an argument that bigger factions are more acceptable in AoS v 2.0 versus the very small factions of V1.0. We don't have Underworlds or Warcry teams - not unique to us, or even to thriving AoS 2.o factions, but it is another pillar we don't have to stand on. We have heard NOTHING - we have 2, maybe 3 Rumor Engines that might apply to us. No leaks, no (credible) rumors. Oh don't get me wrong, pple are saying (and have been) "Seraphon is next" for a while now, but that is basic process of elimination at this point. I think Gloomspite Gits are the best-case scenario for us - some resculpts of some classic models, and some fresh, fluffy rules. And, I think LoN as a whole is in a similar position. They have about the same amount of work to do on their faction as we do, but they have AoS 1.5 (LoN) support, clear Underworlds and Warcry support, and feature in all the current Lore storylines very prominently. In that event, the three old-world carryover would be basically GsG, Death (Nagash) and us*. Orruks have changed so much i think they would be better classified along the same lines as the new Duardin - ground-up re-imaginings, rather than the more faithful carry-over of the Gobbos and Undead. *please
I doubt the allegiance is only the for people to know who you can ally with, it is simply stating in which of the 4 categories the army fits best, besides I think the fact that we can't really ally with anyone fits how the army is portrayed, we really don't care about the other races at all, if anything they are a means to an end to the Slann.
then what is the point of being in an alliance if we do not care about any of them and don't work with any of them at the moment it's in name only. i just want lore or meaningful interactions with the other factions. or we just go are own way make a new groop with people we do care about see all previus statements on a 5th alliance.
GW is not going to shake up the game so much as crafting a 5th GA, and they are certainly NOT going to do it for Seraphon alone. The GAs are a loose collaboration, and whatever head-cannon their assembly violates, GW has chosen the members and I do not suspect it will change soon or drastically.
i am well aware of that this is not something we expect to happen. it would just be cool and give seraphon something to do other then sometimes being on the same batle field as stormcast.
Imho this one I don't think is as bad/neutral as you think it is. A considerable chunk of those models up for last chance do not make sense to discontinue and will probably return repackaged with round bases (like many skaven units did when they got rolled into 1 tome) or get some new sculpts. And in some cases it's literally just a matter of getting rid of multiple sculpts of the same unit; several freeguild generals are LCTB. However, there's still 3! other freeguild general kits being sold (one on foot, two on griffon). Similarly, I'd find it unlikely the dispossed would lose their entire core, only keeping their elite troops. Since they stated each subfaction can still be fielded on its own. Which would be a bit akward with no core troops. Nor do I think the only surviving aelven wizards will be the sorceres and sorceres on black dragon given that the various archmages are constantly mentioned in fluff and kind of a big part of (high) aelven lore.
Watching how they handle CoS will be illuminating, since you have to have mastery over he stars themselves to divinate any of GW's plans for us poor bastards; at this point we may as well look for patterns in the aether. Regarding CoS - the wording was a bit of a Rorschach test - "It's your Last Chance to Buy these classic Aelf, Duardin and Free Peoples models! If you've always dreamed of owning these miniatures, this is your final opportunity to secure yours – they're going fast and not coming back." Could mean that the model is simply gone, get it now for old-times sake (with the implication that if it had rules, expect a new model) or it could mean that unit is gone for good. If you have one: play it, if not: you're out of luck. In either case, that wording doesn't really allow for a "repackage with rounds" type interpretation. My mind sorted and categorized the development of armies in general (in my last post), there are four rough buckets of AoS 2.0 armies: (1)Totally new to AoS (eg SCE, Nighthaunts, IdK) (2) Re-imagined from the ground up (eg Fyreslayers, Orruks), (3) Expanded on a niche (DoK, Chaos Gods {Nurgle etc}), (4) Freshed-up (GsG, LoN). Oh and (5): Dead. CoS appears to be following (3). Depending on what we see next, we will know if they also head in the (4) direction or the (5) direction. If they get new sculpts for some of the stuff they cut, then I will let out a sigh of relief. But I can't help but feel like CoS is more of a hospice for old-worlders than it is a new life. They were hemorrhaging WHFB fans, and this is an easy way to be inclusive, let them play, and at little to no cost.
But we are not in fact in an alliance with anyone, hence why it's called an allegiance, an allegiance is more a dedication to a cause rather than to other people, or at least it does not have to be to someone specifically (From what I've gathered)
I can't believe how much traction this BS is getting, lol. You guys must be really bored... like REALLY bored.
1) Yes, we are (I speak for myself) 2) It's not that some loner on the chan is getting attention, it is more to do with the fact that our faction's future is very much in the air, with plausible outcomes ranging from a GsG-like renewal to a slow CoS-like retirement [to be confirmed]. CoS and the subsequent LCTB-aclypse have more to do with this than anything some troll says, but things like that can spark emotions and thoughts none-the-less. 3) Why are you here?
if we are getting into semantics allegiance is worse, by definition it means we are subordinate to and owe fealty to the other factions in our grand alliance. it's also called grand alliance order allegiance abilities aplly to armies not intier factions.
I also think that it is important to make the distinction between a model and a unit when looking at the LCTB models. The models are going away, but they didn't say the units are going away. Perhaps they have new sculpts, and especially the old Empire models can use those. For me it was always weird to see them around, with stuff like their old Imperial insignia and "Karl Franz" (a person not mentioned in the lore at all AFAIK) written all over them. So they might just get new models fitting the aesthetic of the game.
weirdly enough the actual karl franz model isn't discontinued. Hell if I click on it in the shop the URL literally says "Karl-Franz-on-Deathclaw". Which is kind of silly. Though I don't think they've fixed the URL's for any unit. The "regular" general still says empire general in the URL as opposed to freeguild general.
Fair enough, I'll give in then. I still think it fits our army to not have allies, but I get how that we are in an alliance of orderly armies, it should give us more than what it does.
We as Seraphon are only order because we are anti-Chaos. We couldn't care less about how the mortal realms are governed. We don't really have any allies per se. We just kinda go "Oh you're fighting against chaos? Here let's make it easier on you." To that end SCE are the only ones that get mentioned in the fluff of our battletome so in game that translates to allies. (Sometimes I like to ally in 10 sequitors and a lord castellant to represent the last of a failing line of SCE until my Seraphon showed up to save the day.) As far as what I want from a new Seraphon battletome; I want endless spells, terrain, a battletome before summer is out, and I want a big flying dino, and/or big feral dinos with no riders.
Ironically we should even be able to ally with chaos because of this if for whatever reason the slann decided that it'd be better for this particular chaos warlord to win this particular battle. For example, a tzeentchian warlord is attacking a sigmarite force. If he wins he gets an artifact that allows him to defeat a khornate warlord. And in between the assault on the sigmarite force and the following battle with the khornate army the tzeentchian warlord will be weakened enough to be taken down easily. However, the sigmarites are going to be able to fend of the tzeentchian force. A slann should then help the tzeentchian force succeed and slaughter the stormcast as ultimatly it'd allow him to bring down 2 powerfull chaos warlords, instead of one. And ultimatly we don't care about the stormcast, so they'l just be necesary sacrifices.