It’s no surprise that some sort of end is coming for the Old World, but what exactly is it?
We’ve seen all sorts of speculation on 40k crossovers, heard about daemons that step between the two universes, but no one’s really put a thumb on the big red bow that may just wrap this thing all up.
I read this today over on Warseer, and while it doesn’t hold a lot of water it may just point us down the right path what COULD happen in the Warhammer world in the Archaon book and beyond.
Again this probably 100% speculation, BUT it good brainstorming material IMHO! It definitely got my gears turning for sure.
Via Dagron on Warseer 02-23-2015
Quote Originally Posted by Turgol
Alright, I think I have this. I have been thinking about the rumoured 6 factions, Harry saying no one has gotten it right, and where the fluff seems to point to. I said a couple of days ago that the new factions might not be race aligned, but “theme” aligned, meaning by that incarnate-wind of magic aligned. Lots of people seemed to agree with this, but the problem remained: 8 winds of magic does not make for 6 factions, specially if you consider we have not counted shaven and chaos. I think it will rather be a mix of both criteria. The new “bubbles” (I will try to explain the concept right after this) would be realms whose identity is made up by the winds of magic who sustain them, which generally coincide with races. Let’s see for example elves. The elf-bubble would be the Realm of Shadows, Life and (maybe) Light. Fluff-wise the bubble would be sustained by three different powers, making up for three different regions, which generally reproduce the difference between high, dark and wood elves. Troops would evolve according to these criteria. Let’s look at the “human realm”.Here you have heavens and metal for sure. Who knows, maybe fire or light (the light battle scroll includes imperial units) end up in this realm. This reproduces two of the three concepts around which imperial military is made of: faith (heavens), steel (metal) and gunpowder (which would disappear, unless fire ends up here). Bretonia is also made up of faith and steel, so it fits here as well. This indicates an evolution towards a more elite, divine and less steampunk army, just like we heard from the rumours (Darnok’s original and then Whispereroftruth, despite most commentaries ignoring this and claiming it will all evolve towards steampunk). Dwarfs would be here, in Gelt’s realm, just like we saw in Gelt’s picture with dwarfs around. Better armoured dwarfs does not sound bad to a dwarf player like me! Then you would have non complex bubbles, made up of simple concepts: beasts and death. Undead and death are almost synonyms, so no surprise here. The beast realm would be made up of more bestial O&G, ogres and feral lizardmen, instinctively drawn to the wind of beasts after the Slann disappearance. That makes up 4 bubble-realm-factions, which fits perfectly with chaos and skaven making up two additional factions.
Fluff-wise. Nagash and Teclis/Lileath have insisted that final victory is only possible by facing the chaos gods. Their mission is not only to defeat Archaon; the real enemy and the real mission of the avengers project.. errr incarnates plan, is to destroy the chaos gods. I thought at first this was part of the End Times. But what if it is not? What ET is really only about Archaon? The Incarnates do not get to face the Chaos Gods during the ET, because you actually cannot face them in the WH world. You have to do it in the Chaos Realm. This is exactly what the bubbles-incarnates concept makes for: the factions survive in chunks of reality (aka bubbles), which exist in the Realm of Chaos, allowing for a WH world which is now in the Chaos Realm. Not the ET, but Warhammer itself would be about Incarnates and generally other armies fighting the chaos gods. Of course, this does not mean that after ET all remain allied. There is always the possibility of betrayal by death, beasts is uncontrollable, and maybe even a civil war between the order factions is possible, much as it is today.
If 9th edition ends up more or less this way, it does seem to have potential.
Nice piece of theorycrafting, but you failed to include the most important key piece of the puzzle from Harry…
Quote Originally Posted by Harry
The faction thing is the Warahmmer World post End Times. The bubble thing (however they try to sell it) is how you still get to play with your lovingly collected and painted Empire/Bretonnian/Lizardman/High Elf/etc …. army post End Times. The new factions can not exist in the same world as the original armies.
Back to Dagron Your theorycrafting could be very close, just backwards. Bubblehammer, it seems, will be connected to Warhammer as we currently know it, not the new Post-Endtimes universe of 9th Edition. This seems to be panning out, given rumours that the Lizardmen range will no longer be added to, and that they were the first confirmed race in the End Times background to float off in “Bubbles” (the bubbleverse allowing people to continue to play their Lizardmen forces in some other setting).
So what say ye? Seems like the Lizardmen are off somewhere regardless, but this explains some ways they can go with it I think.
Full Fantasy End Times Roundup
What is the big red bow that GW can put on this thing to wrap it up (and sell more Fantasy Minis)?
About the Author: Rob Baer
