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So I'm still new to the game, and I have managed to read the first Realmgate book, and am currently working my way through the second one. One of the things that seems to stand out is the way the Factions are done: Order, Chaos, Death, Destruction. I understand the point was to make things a bit more simplified, but there are several armies tied to Order that make me scratch my head a bit. Fyreslayers and Sylvaneth do not strike me as "Order" in any way, one being a mercenary faction and the other being bi-polar nature lovers (as a friend of mine described them).

I also found it odd that we have separate factions for Death and Destruction (two things generally lumped together). I get that they wanted Orcs, Goblins, Ogres, Giants, and Trolls (all previously linked to one another) together as one big faction, and all the various flavors of undead as one faction, so maybe I'm just hung up on the faction names. I just think that the current 4-faction set up is odd, as you have Order and Chaos directly opposed to each other, and then you have Death and Destruction just kind of hanging out, picking fights with everybody. To me, it would have made more sense if they were done up in this manner (or something like it):

Order (Sigmarines, Sarafon, High Aelfs, maybe Dark Aelfs) / Chaos (all Chaos)
Life (Syvaneth, Wood Aelfs) / Death (all Undead)
Creation (Duardin, Empire) / Destruction (Orruks, Grotts, Ogors)

Dark Aelfs are really the only army I have trouble fitting in to this break-out. While they certainly don't fit with the others in this faction, their demeanor really fits better under Destruction and it would add an Aelf army to the Creation/Destruction opposition.

This makes a lot of assumptions. We have no idea what the new dark elves are going to be like, for example.

Sylvaneth as order makes perfect sense to me. Being bi-polared nature lovers does not make them closer to destruction, certainly not death, and certainly not chaos.

I like the simplified much better than trying to over complicate things myself.

 auticus wrote:
This makes a lot of assumptions. We have no idea what the new dark elves are going to be like, for example.

Sylvaneth as order makes perfect sense to me. Being bi-polared nature lovers does not make them closer to destruction, certainly not death, and certainly not chaos.

I like the simplified much better than trying to over complicate things myself.

That's why the 4-faction set up seems off to me. A lot of stuff gets shoved in the Order faction that really doesn't fit, but because it doesn't fit anywhere else, that's where it goes. Nothing about a Nature-based faction or a Fire-based faction screams "Order" to me. Of course, the GW version of "Chaos" is evil-based, so something that is naturally chaotic but not inherently evil (such as fire and nature) doesn't fit there.

 ClassicCarraway wrote:

 auticus wrote:
This makes a lot of assumptions. We have no idea what the new dark elves are going to be like, for example.

Sylvaneth as order makes perfect sense to me. Being bi-polared nature lovers does not make them closer to destruction, certainly not death, and certainly not chaos.

I like the simplified much better than trying to over complicate things myself.

That's why the 4-faction set up seems off to me. A lot of stuff gets shoved in the Order faction that really doesn't fit, but because it doesn't fit anywhere else, that's where it goes. Nothing about a Nature-based faction or a Fire-based faction screams "Order" to me. Of course, the GW version of "Chaos" is evil-based, so something that is naturally chaotic but not inherently evil (such as fire and nature) doesn't fit there.

IMO it's just you not looking properly at things.
The Fyreslayers are actually extremely order oriented: their two main drives are oaths (promises) and gold, which is intended to restore their deity and fulfill an ancient promise and avenge the wrongs they suffered. Grievances borne of infractions to their moral code. That strikes me as a fairly order aligned thing.
Sylvaneth are a bit more finicky... up until you think of the ying and the yang. They are bipolar but they'll turn angry and then saddened and keep it a stable loop. They keep a constant flow, an intense one mind you but constant nevertheless. A cicle is ordered, regardless of how drastic its changes are, for it keeps patterns.

Dark Elves being moved to the 'order' shelf in my local GW when AoS hit, with no one able to tell me *why* was one of the things that turned me off the game when it launched. I hate the idea of them being turned into some sort of anti heroes or 'Lawful Evil' under sigmar... I like my dark elves as evil sadistic bastards dammit!

I love the 4 grand alliances. If the Sylvaneth were to be aligned under the D&D system (good idea Jono) they would be Chaotic Good and that fits fine with Order, although they may come to blows from time to time with other factions (just like they did with the Ironweld over the construction of Greywater Fastness).

I see it as:
Order - the good guys
Chaos - the evil guys
Destruction - not good or evil but instead a force of nature
Death - again not evil per say, death befalls all mortals no matter where their allegiance lays*

*unless that allegiance is either a Stormcast Chamber or to a Chaos God I guess. But that's why Nagash is angry.

I guess Dark Elves are the odd fit. I think they are placed into Order because at the end of the day there is another divide where Order and Death stand for civilization and law whereas Chaos and Destruction stand for decivilization (if that's a word).

Dark Elves are pro civilization even if it is one built on slavery.

 jonolikespie wrote:
Dark Elves being moved to the 'order' shelf in my local GW when AoS hit, with no one able to tell me *why* was one of the things that turned me off the game when it launched. I hate the idea of them being turned into some sort of anti heroes or 'Lawful Evil' under sigmar... I like my dark elves as evil sadistic bastards dammit!

I was definitely a bit happier with Dark Elves once we got the Order Battletome that has them in it.

 Bottle wrote:
I love the 4 grand alliances. If the Sylvaneth were to be aligned under the D&D system (good idea Jono) they would be Chaotic Good and that fits fine with Order, although they may come to blows from time to time with other factions (just like they did with the Ironweld over the construction of Greywater Fastness).

I see it as:
Order - the good guys
Chaos - the evil guys
Destruction - not good or evil but instead a force of nature
Death - again not evil per say, death befalls all mortals no matter where their allegiance lays*

*unless that allegiance is either a Stormcast Chamber or to a Chaos God I guess. But that's why Nagash is angry.

I guess Dark Elves are the odd fit. I think they are placed into Order because at the end of the day there is another divide where Order and Death stand for civilization and law whereas Chaos and Destruction stand for decivilization (if that's a word).

Dark Elves are pro civilization even if it is one built on slavery.

Pretty much, order does not mean good if you read the grand alliance tome sigmar is not that good of a person at times. Imagine Malerion? They even make the point when Alarielle was reborn in her war aspect sigmar sent the celestant prime to "aid" her in securing the all-gate(which he did). But she knew that he also sent the celestant prime to make sure she was not corrupted by chaos or bear's any taint of it. Plus the sylvaneth and more than happy to abandon their allies if the war they are fighting does not serve their cause any longer.

If you read the sliver tower novel Aelves are not nice people when they decide to kill you. A mist weaver killed one group by having them tear out their eyeballs and tear away their skin.

 Bottle wrote:
I love the 4 grand alliances. If the Sylvaneth were to be aligned under the D&D system (good idea Jono) they would be Chaotic Good and that fits fine with Order, although they may come to blows from time to time with other factions (just like they did with the Ironweld over the construction of Greywater Fastness).

I see it as:
Order - the good guys
Chaos - the evil guys
Destruction - not good or evil but instead a force of nature
Death - again not evil per say, death befalls all mortals no matter where their allegiance lays*

*unless that allegiance is either a Stormcast Chamber or to a Chaos God I guess. But that's why Nagash is angry.

I guess Dark Elves are the odd fit. I think they are placed into Order because at the end of the day there is another divide where Order and Death stand for civilization and law whereas Chaos and Destruction stand for decivilization (if that's a word).

Dark Elves are pro civilization even if it is one built on slavery.

My understanding is more like this:
Death - You are undead and/or serve Nagash.
Chaos - You serve the Chaos Gods for some reason or other.
Destruction - You want to cause destruction and fight etc but do not serve Chaos.
Order - You want to have some form of order throughout existence whether its honour, law, your tyrannical rule over all or just following nature.

There is no good or bad involved. You can be evil and serve order or be good and go with Chaos for some reason.

Flesh Eater Courts from Death are rather finicky to. Nagash is their god, even though a lot of the courts detest him. There are a lot of courts that hate Nagash and instead fight for the Dark Gods. Hell I think the Carrion King might be in the Chaos Realm in hiding.

pm713 wrote:

My understanding is more like this:
Death - You are undead and/or serve Nagash.
Chaos - You serve the Chaos Gods for some reason or other.
Destruction - You want to cause destruction and fight etc but do not serve Chaos.
Order - You want to have some form of order throughout existence whether its honour, law, your tyrannical rule over all or just following nature.

There is no good or bad involved. You can be evil and serve order or be good and go with Chaos for some reason.

Basically this. Also the Grand Alliances aren't really factions - that's what the actual factions (Fyreslayers, Sylvaneth, Stormcast, etc.) are for. They are more broad categorizations than actual 'alliances' and the name is more symbolic than anything. Certainly armies within the same grand alliance and even the same faction in many places fight each other all the time. On the topic of Dark Elves specifically; first off there are no longer Dark Elves in the current fluff. There are Thrall Covens, Daughters of Khaine, Order Serpentis, and Shadowblades which are equally separate from each other as they are to Lion Rangers, Wanderers, Phoenix Temple, etc. No faction would identify itself as a High/Dark/Wood Aelf and bringing up such in the mortal realms would be met with confusion and a long stare from anyone short of a survivor from the world-that-was since those divisions and terms never carried over. Again, there's just Aelves and the various sub-factions now, the previous three-way division is strictly historical within the fluff. On the topic of how good/bad they are... well as long as a faction is anti-Chaos Sigmar will overlook nearly any morality/wrongdoing, this is the god that created order within Azyr by literally vaporizing anyone who tried to instigate conflict regardless of the reason, and repeatedly attempted alliance with Nagash of all people!

 The Grumpy Eldar wrote:
Flesh Eater Courts from Death are rather finicky to. Nagash is their god, even though a lot of the courts detest him. There are a lot of courts that hate Nagash and instead fight for the Dark Gods. Hell I think the Carrion King might be in the Chaos Realm in hiding.

Yeah those courts who haven't bent the knee to the nagash are currently being hunted by him. It's great that some courts in their insanity see nagash as a golden and majestic figure to be worshipped and praised. XD


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

pm713 wrote:

My understanding is more like this:
Death - You are undead and/or serve Nagash.
Chaos - You serve the Chaos Gods for some reason or other.
Destruction - You want to cause destruction and fight etc but do not serve Chaos.
Order - You want to have some form of order throughout existence whether its honour, law, your tyrannical rule over all or just following nature.

There is no good or bad involved. You can be evil and serve order or be good and go with Chaos for some reason.

Basically this. Also the Grand Alliances aren't really factions - that's what the actual factions (Fyreslayers, Sylvaneth, Stormcast, etc.) are for. They are more broad categorizations than actual 'alliances' and the name is more symbolic than anything. Certainly armies within the same grand alliance and even the same faction in many places fight each other all the time. On the topic of Dark Elves specifically; first off there are no longer Dark Elves in the current fluff. There are Thrall Covens, Daughters of Khaine, Order Serpentis, and Shadowblades which are equally separate from each other as they are to Lion Rangers, Wanderers, Phoenix Temple, etc. No faction would identify itself as a High/Dark/Wood Aelf and bringing up such in the mortal realms would be met with confusion and a long stare from anyone short of a survivor from the world-that-was since those divisions and terms never carried over. Again, there's just Aelves and the various sub-factions now, the previous three-way division is strictly historical within the fluff. On the topic of how good/bad they are... well as long as a faction is anti-Chaos Sigmar will overlook nearly any morality/wrongdoing, this is the god that created order within Azyr by literally vaporizing anyone who tried to instigate conflict regardless of the reason, and repeatedly attempted alliance with Nagash of all people!

Yup and look at how trying to gain that alliance turned out for him. Honestly I expect that he just used to stormcast to guage nagash's mood, since he still calls him old foe, they still have their beef from the world that was, it's great. Plus sigmar is stealing nagash's stuff as well which frustrate's and angers him to no end.

We will just have to wait for Nagash' epic triumph and call it good

I'm glad we've seen minor elements of existing ranges spun off into their own sphere. If for no other reason than the awesome Flesh Eater fluff. Highlight of AoS so far for me.

 thekingofkings wrote:
We will just have to wait for Nagash' epic triumph and call it good

You can't be unhappy if you're the undead.

Thats why we need NAGASH 2016, why settle for less?

 thekingofkings wrote:
Thats why we need NAGASH 2016, why settle for less?

Ha, indeed his speeches in the audio drama do kinda sound like a president speech for the undead. Can't wait for the next realm gate book since it's called Lord of Undeath. Perhaps we will finally see the first corrupted stormcast? Plus what happens to mannfred as well and considering the name of the book nagash must be in it.

He does say "I will look upon the desolation I have wrought and call it good."

I think what you need to know is that in the beginning, Age of Sigmar I think was a joke to GW that didn't take it very seriously. After all it was Kirby at the helm. Now with Mr Roundtree at the helm I believe it was him and his team who have a real vision now and that is why AoS seems so much better now than it was on release last year.

If Mr Roundtree and team were able to start off Age of Sigmar it would have been very different and maybe even be what the Original Poster suggested. I love his ideas of the 6 factions.

Thing is, with Kirby and team didn't take AoS very seriously and made it very simplified. Even the fluff was way to simplified and generic.

Thing is, Mr Roundtree and team had to work with what is already done. So it's not like they can really change anything right now. Who knows, maybe with these game plays GW is doing, what can happen after a summer/winter/fall/spring campaign is add in the 2 new factions like the Original Posters suggested or what not.

Until then, we have what we got and Mr Roundtree and team are doing the best they can. We can see with the new book for the Sylventh (can never spell it properly) how much Age of Sigmar is going to change and how much better it's going to be now.

Davor wrote:
I think what you need to know is that in the beginning, Age of Sigmar I think was a joke to GW that didn't take it very seriously. After all it was Kirby at the helm. Now with Mr Roundtree at the helm I believe it was him and his team who have a real vision now and that is why AoS seems so much better now than it was on release last year.

If Mr Roundtree and team were able to start off Age of Sigmar it would have been very different and maybe even be what the Original Poster suggested. I love his ideas of the 6 factions.

Thing is, with Kirby and team didn't take AoS very seriously and made it very simplified. Even the fluff was way to simplified and generic.

Thing is, Mr Roundtree and team had to work with what is already done. So it's not like they can really change anything right now. Who knows, maybe with these game plays GW is doing, what can happen after a summer/winter/fall/spring campaign is add in the 2 new factions like the Original Posters suggested or what not.

Until then, we have what we got and Mr Roundtree and team are doing the best they can. We can see with the new book for the Sylventh (can never spell it properly) how much Age of Sigmar is going to change and how much better it's going to be now.

It has a lot of catch up to do with other games, but I think it will be a good solid 2nd or 3rd tier game, safe enough for further investment and worth looking for players.

At their beginnings, 40k and fantasy were jokes too.

As many have stated, the forces of Order is fine as is. It shows that Order doesn't mean good and happiness but structure and law.

Basically the trope "Good is not nice". Are Exiles(dark aelves) part of Order and aid it's forces? Yes. Do they have cults and criminal lairs within cities that only the suicidal walk into? Yes.

Baron Klatz wrote:
At their beginnings, 40k and fantasy were jokes too.

As many have stated, the forces of Order is fine as is. It shows that Order doesn't mean good and happiness but structure and law.

Basically the trope "Good is not nice". Are Exiles(dark aelves) part of Order and aid it's forces? Yes. Do they have cults and criminal lairs within cities that only the suicidal walk into? Yes.

Agreed, you do recall the discussion on the total war forums about the forces of order and destruction for WHFB several pages where people said some of the factions under that banner don't make sense. Some were even arguing that dark elves should of been order instead of destruction for the reason you describe here. Then some people came along who said they don't like AOS but feel the grand alliances make more sense. Well what we know is that lots of people have different opinions on this subject. XD

pm713 wrote:

 Bottle wrote:
I love the 4 grand alliances. If the Sylvaneth were to be aligned under the D&D system (good idea Jono) they would be Chaotic Good and that fits fine with Order, although they may come to blows from time to time with other factions (just like they did with the Ironweld over the construction of Greywater Fastness).

I see it as:
Order - the good guys
Chaos - the evil guys
Destruction - not good or evil but instead a force of nature
Death - again not evil per say, death befalls all mortals no matter where their allegiance lays*

*unless that allegiance is either a Stormcast Chamber or to a Chaos God I guess. But that's why Nagash is angry.

I guess Dark Elves are the odd fit. I think they are placed into Order because at the end of the day there is another divide where Order and Death stand for civilization and law whereas Chaos and Destruction stand for decivilization (if that's a word).

Dark Elves are pro civilization even if it is one built on slavery.

My understanding is more like this:
Death - You are undead and/or serve Nagash.
Chaos - You serve the Chaos Gods for some reason or other.
Destruction - You want to cause destruction and fight etc but do not serve Chaos.
Order - You want to have some form of order throughout existence whether its honour, law, your tyrannical rule over all or just following nature.

There is no good or bad involved. You can be evil and serve order or be good and go with Chaos for some reason.

Yes, that's probably a better way of putting it I like my shades of grey and acknowledge that there are many evil types within order. "Lawful Evil" as Jono said as they still work within the status quo of society and civilization. I do think Chaos' corrupting nature would make it difficult to stay good whilst serving the dark lords, perhaps good intentions that led to you doing horrible things all the same.

 ClassicCarraway wrote:
So I'm still new to the game, and I have managed to read the first Realmgate book, and am currently working my way through the second one. One of the things that seems to stand out is the way the Factions are done: Order, Chaos, Death, Destruction. I understand the point was to make things a bit more simplified, but there are several armies tied to Order that make me scratch my head a bit. Fyreslayers and Sylvaneth do not strike me as "Order" in any way, one being a mercenary faction and the other being bi-polar nature lovers (as a friend of mine described them).

I also found it odd that we have separate factions for Death and Destruction (two things generally lumped together). I get that they wanted Orcs, Goblins, Ogres, Giants, and Trolls (all previously linked to one another) together as one big faction, and all the various flavors of undead as one faction, so maybe I'm just hung up on the faction names. I just think that the current 4-faction set up is odd, as you have Order and Chaos directly opposed to each other, and then you have Death and Destruction just kind of hanging out, picking fights with everybody. To me, it would have made more sense if they were done up in this manner (or something like it):

Order (Sigmarines, Sarafon, High Aelfs, maybe Dark Aelfs) / Chaos (all Chaos)
Life (Syvaneth, Wood Aelfs) / Death (all Undead)
Creation (Duardin, Empire) / Destruction (Orruks, Grotts, Ogors)

Dark Aelfs are really the only army I have trouble fitting in to this break-out. While they certainly don't fit with the others in this faction, their demeanor really fits better under Destruction and it would add an Aelf army to the Creation/Destruction opposition.

It is best not to put to much thought into AoS it is a glass world at best. Space station ghost lizards who phase in and out, tin men with robot wings flying around..... just a train wreck.

Space station- Celestial palace of a God who controls the heavens and cosmos of his realm.

Ghost lizards- ancient eldritch beings created by a far older power and were made to shape a world to their creator's will and now use said vast, ancient power to create physical, evolving, phantasms of their race and usher in a new design.

Flying tin men- Warriors reforged by a God and given armor forged by a duardin god from the core of a destroyed world and empowered to use wings made of heavenly magic, which, the very least of what heaven's magic is capable of, grants flight.

Epic, mythical, otherworldly. Hardly seems a train-wreck to me.

For the Seraphon I prefer the theory that they are all in space and teleport up and down rather than being memories manifest. The explanation of them being eldritch azyrite is more so from the point of view of a relatively primative mortal trying to understand the impossible technology he is actually witnessing. When science goes beyond our understanding it is indistinguishable to magic, and all that.

Steve Foote's excellent Slann with a controlling teleporting orb and clever uses of Tau bits represents this high-technology theory really well.

Very good point.

Cold alien minds with powers and knowledge beyond mortal kin do make for many interpretations.

I hate the ghost seraphon idea as well... To me they live in floating pyramids of old time, shielded from space thanks to the Slann's magic. They go from realm to realm to bring their vengeance upon the forces of Chaos, who destroyed their ancient home and stole their destiny,

This is the Slann by Steve Foote I was talking about. The orb represents a teleporter to beam up and down Seraphon from the spacecraft. I think it is a really cool theory for them.

GW draws most of its cosmology regarding Chaos and Order from the works of Michael Moorcock (Moorcock himself describes GW as one of many companies that flagrantly ripped him off, and he's not wrong), so you'll find it makes more sense of you filter it in that lease.

In Moorcock's stories, Chaos and Order are opposite cosmic absolutes and the multiverse is a product of their interplay. The two forces are in constant conflict with each other, with both sides attempting to influence the various alternate universes to their own benefit. Their means can be as subtle as affecting the mood of one person in such a way that their great great grandkid will grow up to lead a fascist dictatorship, to something as overt as a cross-dimensional invasion.

In that context the AoS setting is pretty straightforward: The Realms are a cluster of alternate universes that are extremely 'close' to one another, allowing for easy contact between them in the form of realm gate travel. Chaos has made major gains, relatively, across these universes and Sigmar is pushing back, but they're ultimately arguing tiny nuances compared to the scale of the cosmic forces that are backing them.

The Chaos alliance, backed by the Chaos gods obviously represent Chaos, but even their victory, and the gods themselves require a degree of order to even exist as they do. Likewise the Order alliance struggles against Chaos and is so named, but the ultimate extreme of order is a stagnant nothingness lacking definition of any sort. Neither side represents a complete victory of the very extreme of what they represent, which therefore allows nuance and more factions.

In that case, Death is an order faction while Destruction is a more chaotic one, but they are closer to their opposite faction as one also represents an usurping of the natural order while the other is more accepting of the material world.

Short answer: Chaos and Order are so named because they oppose each other. Death and Destruction are nominally on that spectrum too but take major cues from their enemy's playbook.

Long answer: Read the Dragon in the Sword by Moorcock and finally grasp what GW's authors are trying to say.

 Captain Joystick wrote:
GW draws most of its cosmology regarding Chaos and Order from the works of Michael Moorcock (Moorcock himself describes GW as one of many companies that flagrantly ripped him off, and he's not wrong), so you'll find it makes more sense of you filter it in that lease.

But, but, GW said under oath all their ideas are their own and not taken from anywhere else.