AoS NEW *rumor*

seems to become more likely, as long as its a dead faction that opposes Nagash I'm fine with it.

Though I'm not sure how well vampire pirates fit in with AoS.

 

O sure, it's just more that the factions in AoS tend to be entire civilizations, not just a random warband or maybe a nation. Vampire pirates seems too niche to be an entire civilization, seems more like a subfaction of vampires as a whole, and even that is being generous.

 

I mean you can say the same thing about, say, Bonesplitterz. They're just a bunch of mad orruks running around high on delusions of gork and mork. They don't really have much in the way of civilization, but they're still a army. Plus, look at the old world. The Vampire Coast was definitely a civilization, despite being pirates.

 

sure, but privateers/pirates were a sub-faction within a nation, fullfilling the role of navy to greater or lesser extend depending on the exact nature of their relationships with the official goverments. It's rare for them to be a proper independent force, especially the western pirates.

Hence the bonesplitterz got turned into a subfaction, not something fully independent from other orruks.

As for the vampire coast, it works as an army, in so much that it could be say the navy for Nagash. But it doesn't work as an independent civilization as there isn't a whole lot to distinguish them from regular vampires aside from the fact that they're sitting on a boat instead of in a castle.

It worked in WFB because the armies in WFB weren't necesarly civilisations or entire races. Most of them were, but not all. Vampire coasts was basicly just 1 insane vampire lord that happened to like wearing piratehats and raised most of his corpses from shipwrecks who had his base in some remote corner where noone bothered him much. That's not a civilisation.

And in AoS 1 random insane vampire lord simply isn't enough to build a faction around. I mean just look at the other undeath factions:
- Flesh eaters: all the vampires of the strigoi family alongside their followers spread out across every single realm.
- Nighthaunt: like 99% of all the ghosts in every realm.
- Ossiarch: millions upon millions of boneconstructs build by a god specificly to conquer the realms.
- Legions of Nagash: basicly every single remaining undead, necromancer & vampire united under said god.

That's rather a different scale from "insane vampire lord who likes pirate hats" And the same goes for every other AoS faction, it just tends to be a bit of a bigger scale than WFB. And vampire pirates just seems a tad gimmicky and niche to fit in there.

 

Vampire pirates could be a viable concept if given some plot devices to see them spread thru the realm. Coulld utilise a similar concept to deepkin to bring their otherwise sea locked forces to bear. Could even go with a sand pirate theme what with all the death sand in shyish (zombie sand sharks would be cool). Or sky pirates to give the kharadon a run for their money and death's proper air force. Any or all of these variations and more could be envisioned.

Vampires generally have been described as self serving members of nagashs forces and pirates of any variation could fit well into this notion serve various roles in nagashs forces. Ultimately gw could could make a faction out of just about anything if they put their mind to it

 

Although part of me wants to say we don't need yet another Death faction released so soon after OBR, anything similar to the Vampire Coast in AoS would be awesome!

 

meh, I'd say it's too niche a concept to really work as a faction. A big part of it is also that their main characteristics are shared with other factions, which reduces their ability to stand alone as a faction.

- Legions of Nagash already have zombies & vampires covered.
- Deepkin already do the magical nautical raider who wants to consume your soul thing.
- Cities of Sigmar alongside Ogor mawtribes already have blackpowder covered.
- KO already have big boats with big guns covered
- And lastly Gutrot spume already literally covers undead(-ish) pirates with his Drowned men subfaction.

Which leaves very little that makes them stand apart from the other factions and be their own independent unique thing.

Imho if they want to make a pirate inspired faction it shouldn't be vampire based.

 

Since OBR we have had Mawtribes (Destruction), S2D (Chaos), KO (Order), Tzeentch (Chaos), Seraphon (Order) and LRL (Order) coming soon with SoB (Destruction) following shortly after.

Another Death army actually doesnt seem that absurd when you look at the recent releases since OBR.

 

They can literally do whatever they want. You could argue that sky dwarves (KO) and naked babies (Fyreslayers) are too niche and cant stand on their own but instead be subfactions within a general dwarf battletome. Many of the current Death armies could also be argued being too niche and should be subfactions within a general Death tome, but here we are.

 

Meh, as long as it's doesn't pay allegiance to Nagash for once I'd be fine with another death faction. Though at this point I'm not sure what undead creatures are still free to make a faction out of.

I mean, yeah it's their game, ultimatly it's not like I can stop GW from doing it. I can still think it's not a good idea though

KO have steampunk & the focus on skyfaring as unique draws compared to regular dwarves. Especially the skyfaring is quite a difference given the general tendency of dwarves to do the opposite and go deep underground.

Fyreslayers are indeed an example of a (former) subfaction that suddenly needs to stand on its own feet. And imho in its current iteration should be a subfaction of a larger dwarvencivilisation since I don't find them fleshed out enough to be their own faction proper. Though at least with the slayer cult as their basis they have enough of a unique aspect to be able to stand on their own if they further fleshed them out. Religion tends to make for a decent basis.

Seeing as, with the exception of FEC, they all owe allegiance to Nagash & can fairly easily incorperate one another in their armies they basicly are subfactions. Imho undead factions are the least seperated from eachother. Though even here there are at least some differences that can warrant fullfledged factions:

LoN: mindless shambling hordes of zombies & skeletons led by independent vampires & necromancers
Nighthaunt: ghosts, haunted by their past in ironic ways
Bonereapers: an undead mirror to the SCE, organised and disciplined troops.
FeC: a particular strain of vampire all of whom share the same madness & delusions.

There's some clear differences between those four that distinguish them from one another as factions. Whereas putting in the vampire coast would basicly just be LoN but with pirate hats and a blackpowder weapon or two. On top of that, sea-creatures are already covered by the idoneth, so building an army around undead sharks & leviathans would also not be all that unique. And boats are already covered by the KO, so those won't work well as a focal point either. And mad vampires who share a common delusion would encroach on the by FeC, so even a faction of insane vampires who all think they're charming swashbucklers wouldn't be all that unique. Lasltly undead cursed to roam the seas for eternity like the flying dutchman would fit better with the nighthaunt and their focus on ironic punishment.

The only thing I can think of that'd still be a somewhat unique undead faction would be a mix of the undead & the living. Vampires as the captains & admirals, the living as their deckhands, looking for booty and maybe being elevated to vampire so they can get their own ship some day. Though there's no need for the pirate theme in that case, and given the overlap with Idoneth & KO that seems a bit pointless a theme anyway.

 

I think its more a case of you just not wanting such a faction tbh and hence not seeing the possibilities. They can make loads of shit up on the fly, even if it currently doesnt fit into the lore. I mean just because X faction already has Y doesnt mean another new faction cant share some of the same things. By the same token it makes no sense to have multiple Death books because at the end of the day "they are all undead, just with a little twist" and why release LRL when you already have Elves "with a little twist" in IDK, DoK and CoS etc. You could also argue LRL makes no sense because Hallowheart in CoS can be buildt to be very similar - Can be super magic focused with shooting/melee/calvary units.

They could easily make some duo pirate tome with grots/ork skypirates and seafaring vampire pirates, ala Orruk Warclans. Im sure pirates dont discriminate and in the end just want wild explorations/experiences and want to steal some booty.

 

Well I'd like the new stuff to at least fit vaguely into the lore

And if we were working with WFB I wouldn't mind so much. There's no Idoneth or KO in there, at which point the vampire coast can claim the nautical creatures & boats. In AoS however, nautical creatures and boats are already claimed as centrepieces for their armies.

The examples you've given, like IDK vs. DoK vs. Lumineth have more than a little twist as their differences though. They have different religions, cultures, ways of warfare etc. They also don't share centrepieces for their armies nor do they share a look. Lumineth have their cows as centrepieces, and their troops all wear full suits of armour based on hoplites. IDK have nautical creatures & eidolons as their centrepieces, with their troops wearing armour that's reminiscent of seashells or scales. DoK have their shrines as centrepieces, are nearly exclusivly female with their troops being halfnaked with long wildly flowing hair and generally a lot of snake-like imagery (whips, tailes, their hair, it's all whipping around like snakes)

There's some very distinct differences in style, look, culture, way of warfare, philosophies etc. and we haven't even looked at playstyles. Of course there's also overlap, but the overlap usually aren't what defines those factions.

In contrast, if we take WFB vampire coasts as a starting point the only difference with legion of Nagash is literally just that they wear pirate hats & have some blackpowder weapons. Everything else is essentially the same. Which makes sense as the vampire coast isn't much more than 1 random vampire settling down on a coast and raising his zombies there instead of raising them in sylvania.

Pirates in general would be an easier tome to make as you can use the romantic idea that pirates look for freedom & adventure to your advantage by making some weird faction that mixes various races who'd normally not work together. But this does require the pirate faction to be predominantly populated with sentient creatures. And not be 99% skeletons and zombies raised by a vampire.

A grot skypirate faction would work better simply cuz it's grots & they generally do insane stuff with ramshackle technology, which gives a lot of freedom in what you do with it. Which makes it very easy to give them a distinct look & feel. Culture-wise they'd require a bit more work though, simply making it goblins in the sky won't achieve much, especially as regular goblins are already obsessed with the bad moon and try to do things like trying to jump over the moon.

 

I’m not 100% sold on a whole new Death faction. I think it’s part of an Underworlds or WarCry warband. To me, Vampire Pirates seem to fit that aesthetic well; unique characters in a small group... IF it is Vampire Pirates.

 

that'd honestly fit a lot better.

Overlap is fine, but honestly vampire pirates as a faction in AoS have very little if anything that'd be truly unique to them. I'd be curious how they'd try to pull it of if they'd tried it but I'd saying making them properly unique is going to be difficult, far more difficult than most of the factions we've had so far.

 

Is there a really shooty Death faction, though? I know that other factions in other allegiances have similar abilities, but I still think they would be able to make them stand out enough. If we take Vampire Coast from Total War as an example, they really only have one decent melee infantry unit in Depth Guard. The regular zombie pirates are chaff, or screens in AoS, and their main strength lies in their ranged firepower and monsters.

The only sea creatures they have are undead crabs, so that's not much of an overlap with Idoneth. They don't actually use boats on the battlefield, so there's really no overlap with KO other than they'd both be good at shooting. KO would be the maneuverable shooty army while Vampirates would be a much slower, artillery and gunline-focused army.

I think it would be a very interesting playstyle to have fast but weak Scurvy Dogs dashing up to slow the enemy down, with more weak Zombie Pirates moving up behind them to continue screening and grabbing objectives, while your gunlines, cannons and giant ship golems blast away at the enemy. I'd make them not super-killy, but focus on grinding the enemy down with ranged fire over time. Give them some limited summoning of the weak melee troops to help keep this up longer. Because their gunline and cannons will also fall quickly if caught in melee. But make the Necrofex Colossus a decent powerhouse with good close and long-range shooting to help defend against stuff that deepstrikes them or makes it past the screens. Make the giant crabs good offensive monsters to give them alternatives to flooding the board with zombies, or for mixing the two tactics. Deck Droppers could come in pistol or bomber variants, making them very similar to our Terradons, with loadouts for ranged harassment and objective grabbing or bombing. And they could have the Depth Guard elite troops as an infantry choice that was actually good in melee to use as either a frontline threat or to defend their cannons in the back.

All that said, I'd still be very interested in a non-undead pirate faction. Honestly, most of the factions in AoS may be fun to play, but are quite boring when it comes to what they actually do in the setting itself. The idea of random outcasts and renegades of different races coming together to seek freedom and adventure like Canas mentioned sounds equally awesome to me, and having a faction that looked a little less ultra-high fantasy and more like classic pirates would be a nice change of scenery. Of course, they'd still have to have some crazy stuff. Maybe give them Ogors that wield anchors and lift massive cannons for weaponry, or go with something along the lines of the Davy Jones look from Pirates of the Caribbean and give them a bunch of mutant fish-people, lol!