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Does MK II of Warmachine (and I guess of Hordes too) continue the storyline started in the MK I books?

Yes.

Both Prime and Primal summarize the major events of the Warmachine
and Hordes books. It's not as cool as the stories themselves, but the plot
does continue from where it left off.

dragons,

how many are there and there status?

Toruk is the only one you need to know .

We know of one hiding in the Wrymwall south of Cygnar. There is the preserved Anthrac of one in Khador. And a few others that are confirmed hiding or eaten.

Everblight is the only one that is currently active and scheming.

We know of one hiding in the Wrymwall south of Cygnar. There is the preserved Anthrac of one in Khador. And a few others that are confirmed hiding or eaten.

IIRC, the Athanc in Khador was Everblight. The Nyss territories are technically part of the Empire, although not many people head that far north.

Blighterghast is lurking in the Wyrmwall Mountains, watching for Toruk to make a move. Likely to change soon, of course, given that they've all declared war on Everblight for eating Pyromalfic. Not too sure where Scaefang is at the moment, although she did a fly-over the Castle of the Keys to confirm Pyromalfic's death (killing quite a few Skorne on the way). Halfaug is somewhere in the Shard Spires, making her Ethrunbal's neighbor. There's another dragon by the name of Chimera that's currently lurking in the Great Rift. It's quite insane, as it was nearby when the elves went boom. Another two dragons (Ashnephos and Charsaug) live Skorne-ward, being the result of the dragon Edross' Athanc being dismembered by the giants (did not turn out well for them).

Pretty much all of them (possibly excepting Chimera, due to its insanity) recieved Blighterghast's call to war against Ethrunbal, including Toruk, and their pact against Toruk pretty much requires them to respond (or be eaten by Blighterghast). While dragons are immortal and their plans rather labrynthine, the Iron Kingdoms are likely to see another full-on draconic war soon.

Laughing Man wrote:

We know of one hiding in the Wrymwall south of Cygnar. There is the preserved Anthrac of one in Khador. And a few others that are confirmed hiding or eaten.

IIRC, the Athanc in Khador was Everblight. The Nyss territories are technically part of the Empire, although not many people head that far north.

There is another...

The fluff in the Forces of Cryx book has a scene where the Old Witch actually makes a deal with Denny to get the Athanc back to Toruk and away from one of the more ambitious Lich Lords. This results in Venethrax raiding a temple and finding a massive and ancient complex designed to keep the Athanc frozen so as not to regenerate.

It's a cool story and also sets Cryx on a collision course with the cult of Cysus as they're probably the ones who built it.

there's a supposed "good " dragon im not sure who it is it could be blightergast but i believe it hides / masquerades as a human or something

@Gr3y:
Is that the same Cult that Mortinebra came from? Could be one of those additional reasons why Morti is on the mainland and not just a forward push onto the mainland.

Santjud: It is. It's also the most (un)perfect matchup for Cryx as that cult tends to build stuff like Iron Maidens and other advanced mechanika that would deny the Cryxians souls for their magics and flesh for their thralls.

Wouldn't be too surprised if we see a Cysuian mercenary in the next few books as they're not currently represented (the Squire doesn't count).

Morti is on the mainland for a lot of reasons. Most likely is that she may be the new Lich Lord if Gaspy gets his way. She's loyal to him, and already oversees a huge chunk of operations. Plus, I'd need to check the book, but I think her responsibilities overlap with Daeamortus', who Gaspy had assassinated for... some reason or another.

Gr3y wrote: Plus, I'd need to check the book, but I think her responsibilities overlap with Daeamortus', who Gaspy had assassinated for... some reason or another.

dude cheated at cards, he had it coming

Not really, Gaspy really just wanted his eye as bling bling for his walking stick...and needed to accessorize eDenny with Daeamortus' walking stick.

Where is the Denny vs Haley showdown detailed out?

Escalation then concluded in NQ1 i think

Bakerofish wrote:Escalation then concluded in NQ1 i think

Thanks you, been looking for the full details on the confrontation. Been finding bits and pieces and references but wanted the whole story.

i think the conclusion was in the PP website as well? I found something when i typed in their names on google but work blocks the site so cant confirm

I'm wanting to get into Hordes, playing Circle. Is there any fluff focusing on Baldur I can read to make me like the character more than the model? Preferably something reasonably easy to get a hold of.

All three Hordes books (Primal, Evolution, and Metamorphosis) have Baldur fluff. He doesn't really appear in the Circle book, IIRC, given he got shot to hell by Lylyth and is currently being sat upon by Megalith. Think there's a Gavin Kyle file on him in one of the newer NQs as well.

Is it just me, or is King Leto an abject failure? Pretty much everything that he touches in the fluff kind of blows up in his face.

keezus wrote:Is it just me, or is King Leto an abject failure? Pretty much everything that he touches in the fluff kind of blows up in his face.

Maybe thats just the set up for Vinter's (sp?) Return???

Leto is not a bad king, as even effin' MAGNUS admits, but often hurts his supporters to try futilely to curry favor with people who will hate and work to destroy him literally no matter what he does. This is the long and short of most of the Cygnaran throne's "dirty deeds."

Otherwise, lots of the nobles, particularly in the Fourth Army's country, are a buncha jerks, muttering about how much better things were under Vinter and working to bring him back by killing trolls and destabilizing that situation even worse, funding mercs to assassinate sufficiently competent army officers to create an appetite for militaristic fascism, and just generally being nebulously evil in an effort to get rewarded by a guy who subscribes to the Jaffarian, "your eternal reward" school of gift-giving.

And then poopoo'in ol' Leto when he bends over backwards to try, and I cannot stress this enough, futilely to smear some ointment on the bug they've got up their collective rectums.

Remember too, for every Lord Laddermore, killing trolls to destabilize the northland, there's a Jeremiah Kraye working to try to get them to coexist by helping them out at the expense of things that really deserve it, like the Skorne.

Speaking of ol' Captain Kraye, I really like his appearances in the faction book and the Trollblood faction book my friend let me read. I'd like to know where I should look to try to find more stories about him, whether old rulebooks or issues of NQ. Did he get his own introductory story? What has he done besides kinda be there helping other people out when the s*** gets real?

SpectralTime wrote:Leto is not a bad king, as even effin' MAGNUS admits, but often hurts his supporters to try futilely to curry favor with people who will hate and work to destroy him literally no matter what he does. This is the long and short of most of the Cygnaran throne's "dirty deeds."

Heh. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Nobody disputes that Leto's INTENTIONS are good... but the guy should really learn to not over-reach his ability. He's a naive idealist with no sense of practicality. In that respect, he's the complete opposite of Vinter, who shows ruthless practicality.

Lion's Coup
Ideal: Liberate the people from Vinter's Tyranny.
Plan: Defeat and exile Vinter.
What actually happened: Underestimated, and almost got his ass killed by Vinter. Got saved at the last minute. Exiled Vinter
Why this is stupid: Apart from the almost getting killed part, considering his first hand experience of Vinter's toughness, exile isn't going to hinder Vinter in the slightest.
What he should have done: Brought appropriate force into play against Vinter and then EXECUTED him.
Result: War vs. Skorne, Vinter's Loyalist Insurgency

Trollbloods
Idea: Right injustices inflicted on the Kriels
Plan: Honor the treaties with the Kriels.
What actually happened: If he did as he promised, he wouldn't be King for very much longer.
Why this is stupid: Either he has no idea what his promise entailed, or he vastly underestimated the political clout of the guys he would be offending.
What he should have done: Clarity of thought before rashess of action.
Result: War vs. Kriels

Magnus
Ideal: War with honor.
Plan: Enforce his ideal.
What actually happened: Gets rid of Magnus for being "unethical".
Why this is stupid: He disgraces Magnus for doing stuff that needs to be done, and when he realizes it, makes Stryker into a new Magnus so that those things get done.
What he should have done: Promoted Magnus to Commander of Secret Service.
Result: Insurgency. Direct threat to the throne.

This whole gak about Leto bending over backwards for the Vinter loyalists is stupid in the extreme as well. You state in your own post that his attempts to appease the nobles IS FUTILE. Vinter would have killed them for such talk of rebellion. While Leto is not Vinter, a less violent method of pacifying these guys is to redistribute their lands. This would decrease their holdings while simultaneously raising support for the crown in other sectors. Trouble is, with all this other gak happening with Khador (unavoidable), Skorne (partially Leto's fault), Trolls (partially Leto's fault), Protectorate (partially Leto's fault - threat could be reduced by alowing at least equal recognition to Church of Morrow) and Cryx (business as usual), Cygnar is fighting a 5 front war by itself instead of fighting a two front war with a neutral Troll buffer - and he NEEDS the help of those nobles to hold the country together against his enemies.

You only need to look as far as Khador to see what a ruler with common sense looks like. If Leto ruled Khador, they'd be sitting behind their border fortresses instead of expanding. The Butcher would have been imprisoned for being the Butcher, Berserker warjacks and Doom Reavers would be retired, there would be a war on the Kayazy and Irusk would be busy pacifying a revolt from the Menites.

anyone know where I can find fluff on Protectorate, and Gator-men? Rather new to the game and I really don't know where to find some fluff for anything really.

Technically, Vinter wasn't exiled. He staged one hell of a jailbreak, escaping on Cygnar's only airship prototype with the new queen (who is now presumed dead) as a hostage.

It's worth mentioning that Empress Ayn Vanar stands head and shoulders above her predecessors as a successful politician. She's an incredibly shrewd woman.

Gatorman fluff you can mostly find in their Forces book ( Forces of Hordes: Minions ) although there is a little bit in Domination. Protectorate fluff goes all the way back through the Mk1 books.

keezus wrote:

SpectralTime wrote:Leto is not a bad king, as even effin' MAGNUS admits, but often hurts his supporters to try futilely to curry favor with people who will hate and work to destroy him literally no matter what he does. This is the long and short of most of the Cygnaran throne's "dirty deeds."

Heh. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Nobody disputes that Leto's INTENTIONS are good... but the guy should really learn to not over-reach his ability. He's a naive idealist with no sense of practicality. In that respect, he's the complete opposite of Vinter, who shows ruthless practicality.

That's his reputation, yes. In reality, he was trying to kill or imprison all magic users in Cygnar. ALL of them. Think the nation would be better off without a single warcaster?

Lion's Coup
Ideal: Liberate the people from Vinter's Tyranny.
Plan: Defeat and exile Vinter.
What actually happened: Underestimated, and almost got his ass killed by Vinter. Got saved at the last minute. Exiled Vinter
Why this is stupid: Apart from the almost getting killed part, considering his first hand experience of Vinter's toughness, exile isn't going to hinder Vinter in the slightest.
What he should have done: Brought appropriate force into play against Vinter and then EXECUTED him.
Result: War vs. Skorne, Vinter's Loyalist Insurgency

Not true in the least. He DID bring a massive force of men to capture Vinter, who carved through them all like a min-maxer on steroids. Leo only had to fight Vinter in the first place because Vinter single-handedly killed dozens of Leto's loyalist guards in the process. Again: he didn't EXILE Vinter, and, as he tried to TRY Vinter THEN execute him, to show that HIS Cygnar would be a place ruled by law, not the whims of a tyrant, the Inquisition kidnapped his wife and forced him to release Vinter. Then Vinter, who is a peerless dick, killed her anyway and escaped in a flying machine no one thought would work, into a place no one thought life could exist, where no one could follow him.

What SHOULD he have done that he didn't do? Say, "feth it, sure, kill my wife, I don't care"?

Trollbloods
Idea: Right injustices inflicted on the Kriels
Plan: Honor the treaties with the Kriels.
What actually happened: If he did as he promised, he wouldn't be King for very much longer.
Why this is stupid: Either he has no idea what his promise entailed, or he vastly underestimated the political clout of the guys he would be offending.
What he should have done: Clarity of thought before rashess of action.
Result: War vs. Kriels

A gross oversimplification. Leto and Ironhide are friends and bloodbrothers, and the kriels would have been in trouble from the war with the Khadorians, especially with all the racist Menites and body-hungry Cryxians running around in Khador-occupied Thornwood. He ARMED the kriels to act as a military buffer against the Khadorians, and it worked fine. The problem came when the skorne, who, I cannot stress enough, NO ONE knew about, came out of a place NO ONE thought life could exist, and started killing them too.

The war with the kriels came when a) Madrak tried to ask for more land and, instead of immediately decapitating Lord Laddermore and giving all that traitors lands to him, Leto tried to curry favors and ask for more time and b) that old racist bastard Doomshaper saved Madrak's life from the blackclad assassins and got too much clout over the kriels in the process.

Leto's faults lie in trying to curry favor with greedy Vinter loyalists who will NEVER support him, not in failing to aid the kriels.

Magnus
Ideal: War with honor.
Plan: Enforce his ideal.
What actually happened: Gets rid of Magnus for being "unethical".
Why this is stupid: He disgraces Magnus for doing stuff that needs to be done, and when he realizes it, makes Stryker into a new Magnus so that those things get done.
What he should have done: Promoted Magnus to Commander of Secret Service.
Result: Insurgency. Direct threat to the throne.

Magnus was offered a PARDON for his crimes and REFUSED IT to wander as a disreputable mercenary in Vinter's service. Since the impetus is all Magnus's, what more could he have done? Magnus CHOSE not to work for him.

This whole gak about Leto bending over backwards for the Vinter loyalists is stupid in the extreme as well. You state in your own post that his attempts to appease the nobles IS FUTILE. Vinter would have killed them for such talk of rebellion. While Leto is not Vinter, a less violent method of pacifying these guys is to redistribute their lands. This would decrease their holdings while simultaneously raising support for the crown in other sectors. Trouble is, with all this other gak happening with Khador (unavoidable), Skorne (partially Leto's fault), Trolls (partially Leto's fault), Protectorate (partially Leto's fault - threat could be reduced by alowing at least equal recognition to Church of Morrow) and Cryx (business as usual), Cygnar is fighting a 5 front war by itself instead of fighting a two front war with a neutral Troll buffer - and he NEEDS the help of those nobles to hold the country together against his enemies.

You only need to look as far as Khador to see what a ruler with common sense looks like. If Leto ruled Khador, they'd be sitting behind their border fortresses instead of expanding. The Butcher would have been imprisoned for being the Butcher, Berserker warjacks and Doom Reavers would be retired, there would be a war on the Kayazy and Irusk would be busy pacifying a revolt from the Menites.

No, because the Vinter-loyalist nobles (and they're ALL nobles and upper-class elitists, the common people hated Vinter) ARE the Kayazy in this situation. Lazy, entitled bastards who grow fat on the lands they never earned. The Empress Herself thinks so, and the only reason she gets anywhere is by moving over their heads. Leto, stuck in a five-way war, has to work with the economy he's got and Leto is (as MAGNUS HIMSELF claims) a shrewd economic ruler. Unfortunately, unlike the Khadorians, the Cygnaran throne has historically not had a strong central army, and building one as part of his New Cygnar has been a drain on the nation's coffers. He can't just drop the nobles overnight, because he needs their military support til he can finish his own.

As to the Protectorate... dude. That one's ALL Vinter. It was only HIS cruel oppression that led to them arming up in earnest.

And... well, Vlad, Irusk, and the rest of High Kommand are all in favor of doing just that to the Butcher and his Murder Playhouse Pals: killing or imprisoning them all. They're only good at MURDERING, not taking and holding territory.

The problem is that you are taking situations that fething NO ONE would be equipped to handle well, and then say Leto sucks for not handling them well. He'd doing the best he can in an absolutely terrible situation, and, really, I can't blame him for that.

Honestly? I'm sorry if I sound mad here, but I've had this argument a million times, and I feel the main point against Leto is not the thing's he's done wrong, but that he's not Vinter, some misguided idea that being a badarse automatically makes you a good king. And, sorry, but that's a load of troll dung.

Vinter will always be the better king.

He gave us Magnus, and Magnus is a hundred times cooler than Stryker, who Leto gave us.


It's an amusing point to note that outside of LOLZGODMODE ( as verified by Seacat ) Vinter would remain king until like, he died of old age or something. Leto and all his compatriots would have been killed and its safe to say anyone else uprising would die over time.


As far a mages go, only certain types of magic were barred by the Inquisition. Vinter had warcasters in his service, such as Magnus himself. These warcasters were used quite extensively through his rule. There were also divine casters like the priests of Morrow.

Most of the "bad" magic people they were hunting down were Thamarites and Cryiss cultists.

Like Lord Hinjo, a fellow beneficiary of divine action, I can only say that it appears not everyone in the Iron Kingdoms agrees with your analysis.

I think its pretty fair to say half my post was just personal opinion, and that personal opinion will vary. People on the right who like Vinter's style of rulership are probably always going to prefer him, while more liberal people probably see Leto as the only sane option. They both operate very differently which kind of polarizes people on the subject.


It's really awesome though, to me, that Vinter has these grand schemes where everything beneath him is 100% disposable. Schemes that are virtually guaranteed to work except when "weakness" infests his ranks. As evidenced in Magnus' first major command Vinter considered the loss of 99% of the forces therein destroyed to be a successful mission just because they destroyed their target. For any other commander staggering losses like that would be a total failure, but for Vinter the death of men is meaningless.

He's rather detached from them like pIrusk. Probably views them as a raw resource or just numbers on an Excel spreadsheet. LOL.



The factual aspect ( to the fluff ) is that the only reason Leto & co are alive is because of a single round of Quickened and such spells. The Primarch ( or w/e ) just dropped a flashbang grenade followed by a full heal on Leto and that's what turned it around. Without that spell intervention no one would ever feasibly beat Vinter. At least not in the realm of swordplay.

So in honorable duel-based combat Vinter would probably never die, and remain king for as long as he lived. Only dishonorable methods have any chance of success, such as intervention, poison, overwhelming numbers, and that kind of thing.



I mean I think we can all personally relate to a time in our life where we see two people want to slug it out to resolve something, and then as soon as the one buddy starts losing his friend jumps in and goes for a sucker punch. That's the kind of visceral disgust the fluff generates in Vinter fans towards Leto. ( and I guess to Leto fans to a point )

Oh, Morrow, don't get me wrong. Vinter climbed out of the wreckage of a flying machine in the middle of a barren, empty speck of nothing and immediately punched people in the face until he became an emperor. Most of the time, when you say someone "single-handedly" conquered an empire, you mean his army did it without support.

Vinter Raelthorne IV SINGLEHANDEDLY conquered an empire.

I may not like him, but that's just plain awesome. My argument's that Cygnar would NOT necessarily be in a better position now if he were in charge. And, considering Morrow appears to agree, eh. Kinda... It's ambiguous, I thought, but don't the Primarch's haters say he did what you described, and his apologists say Morrow himself reached down and reversed their positions?

If the former, I can KINDA see where you're coming from, but, if the latter... well, when the friend in question is Iron Kingdoms Jesus, I think I'll keep from arguing with the guy.