Discussion Have the Stormcast Eternals "usurped" the Lizardmen's place in the setting?

[Stormscales]

From a meta perspective, would you agree that the Stormcast Eternals make the Lizardmen/Seraphon kind of redundant? (Or rather, I guess it would be the Stormcast Eternals who are the redundant ones.)

All in all, Stormcast Eternals and Seraphon have a very similar role in the setting: they act as the Ultimate Good of the series. I don't mean that they are the most moral and virtuous (the Seraphon are pretty ruthless and brutal, no argument there), but that they are the ones most dedicated to battling Chaos and protecting the existence of the world, by contrast with other "good" races who are more self-centered or short-sighted. They are warriors from the stars, who were created by gods solely to fight daemons and have no ambitions beyond their duty. They are the guys focused on the big picture, with no time for nonsense like worldly power or glory or money.

Unlike the Seraphon, though, the Stormcast Eternals are being actively promoted by Games Workshop. Books are written for them, and new models keep coming out. I hope this is not a bad sign for the Seraphon's future. I hope this will not result in our scaly old friends being sidelined like the Tomb Kings and Bretonnians were: still technically playable, but not really part of the new setting.

Anyway... if I ever write a fluff piece where Seraphon meet Stormcast Eternals, you can be sure it will include a battle-scarred Saurus Oldblood sneering at those arrogant, overdramatic upstarts who think they invented coming down from the stars to whoop daemon ass.

 

[Wolfwerty33]

Yeah, they are pretty much the same. I think Sigmar got "influenced" by Dracothian/Sotek to make some more warriors.

 

[Bowser]

Maybe and maybe not. The thing about order Daemons means that they are kind of the dark counterparts to the Golden angels of Sigmar. The Seraphon live on a higher plane of Azyr, that even Sigmar can not enter without permission. The stormcast are the face. They come in and fight and are heralded as heroes. The Seraphon are whispers and legends. The clean up crew. Working in the background.
The stormcast can slaughter the chaos, but the Seraphon can actually remove the gifts of the chaos gods. They actually deal with the problem.
There can be no shadows without light. The stormcast cast the light so that the seraphon can work in the shadows ro clean up the mess.

 

[PhoenixTheCat]

What @Bowser said. In my own fluff, the Seraphon inhabit a pocket realm near Azyr, that happens to be above it. Stormcast don't fill the place of the lizards from the stars, but rather are just another ally in the Great Plan.

 

[Otzi'mandias]

Stormcast are the attention seekers. They're the idols, the ones the ordinary people can point at and gasp and hope to be like. The seraphon are literally unreachable unless you're mid battle, and then you've got other things to worry about.
I disagree about them being a cleanup crew, but I do think they don't bother with the PR that the storm cast eternals do, the whole saving maidens from dragons thing etc That'd be like me saving a weetabix from my girlfriend.
The seraphon literally exist to fight Chaos, they have no other purpose and so would be much more elusive in the fluff - again, unless you're mid battle against chaos - simply because soldiers are the only ones who ever see them.

 

[Workschmock]

Oh dear, gotta tell my tzeentch skyfire mortal wound casting main enemy that I am supposed to wipe him off the table and scrap up the remains as a scaled waste removal operative =)

I like the role of the Seraphon though. If that would not exist, the slann just could hop on their starships and stop caring about battles at all. Interesting point on becoming the new AoS Khemri. The Lizardmen in Total War Warhammer 2 give me hope..

 

[tom ndege]

I think there's a main difference between storm casts and seraphon in the way they are trying to reach their goals... storm casts are more the guys standing against evil and always on the side of free people or even other not so closely related Order fractions... always pro Order and hoping to be always against Chaos...
Seraphon instead are always against Chaos and if necessary fight Order fractions, too... if it helps bringing down Chaos they're fine fighting the good guys if necessary...
For example if there is a force of Order marching against Chaos and a Slann foresees that it's going to loose the battle and thus strengthen the forces of the enemy (by feeding souls to Daemons or new forces by Order troops changing sides when facing total destruction or how ever) there's no problem (no inner conflict) if he sends troops to destroy the Order force before chaos does so...
Storm casts instead would try to help the forces of Order by joining the fight on their side...

 

[Scalenex]

I have trouble looking at the Seraphon/Stormcast Eternal divide in purely fluff terms.

The very concept of Age of Sigmar was literally built around the new armies in general the Space Marines Stormcast Eternals especially. I believe Age of Sigmar metaplot was built around their new armies and ways to incorporate popular old armies were concocted later.

 

[Scalenex]

I guess I should not have struck down decent conversation with general negativity. Where Games Workshop leaves blanks, our fluff writers can fill them. I believe the best way to differentiate the Stormcast Eternals from the Seraphon is to give the two differentiate strategies and priorities.

This is probably a flawed metaphor. But both Stalin and Churchill had different strategies to fighting WWII and didn't coordinate much, but they did share a common enemy.

At this point, I don't know how the Slann and Stormcast leaders approaches would differ, but if we don't differentiate them, differentiation won't happen.