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I really don't know how many stories there are of morathi being on a battlefield, but there's tons of references of her being manipulative and scheming.

There's a lot of plausible reasons for morathi to not be the general if you tie it into scheming and manipulation

 Skimask Mohawk wrote:
I really don't know how many stories there are of morathi being on a battlefield, but there's tons of references of her being manipulative and scheming.

There's a lot of plausible reasons for morathi to not be the general if you tie it into scheming and manipulation

Indeed she is more like Neferarta - she can be devestating on the battlefield but that does not mean she will be there. I do think it would be a funs short story to have the two of them sitting down for a drink together - I assume they are aquainted as I would have thought that the Mortatchs would haev atttended upon the Pantheon in the Age of Myth.

Not being the general if she is there I agree is a bit odd but again Neferata had others lead her armies if she felt it was useful, political or they were a sacrfice.

I can see her having others lead her armies. If she was not present on the battlefield.

By those standards, even Nagash could simply not lead his armies and dole it out to a necromancer because politics.

Truthfully anything can be hand waived by writing narrative for it. I can write a narrative now explaining how archaon and sigmar tag team against nagash and their respective forces are allies and it all makes sense.

It still doesn't feel right

Well consider this

Tabletop is a gross missrepresentation. Each unit is representing dozens to hundreds to even thousands of its own kind in the lore. So what is 10 elves on the table might be 1000 or 10,000 in the lore/myth to that battle.
As such if Morathi were leading and knew she was going to get into the thick of the fight she might well devote control of the army to a general who would command the greater part of the battle whilst she was distracted fighting (you cannot command if you are knee, er, tail deep in bodies and blood).

Also whilst she might not be the "general" command of larger and larger armies would often require more than one commander in charge of the forces. So whilst she might be in near total command, a general or two might well command segments of the army itself during the battle.

eh. That numeric representation was given back in like 1997 in a white dwarf by I believe Tumos ... I could be wrong it might have been Andy I don't remember it was 21 years ago... and pertained to whfb.

I don't think current AOS represents that. At least I've never heard any of the designers ever reference one warrior = X warriors for real. AOS on the table doesn't really represent any battle how it would work for real, its so grotesquely abstract anymore with the way movement doesn't matter as much and how the shooting rules work.

Again what you are saying is accurate, but (to me) not apt if they are sharing the same tablespace. If Morathi is on the table with one of her peon generals, she is not taking orders from peon general.

That borderlines the old high elf intrigue at court rule.

That is what it is. It just feels wrong to me. I can't change how it works though. I think there are some named characters that always must be the commander if they are present... unless I'm mistaken. Nagash? Archaon?

*shrug*

 auticus wrote:
I can see her having others lead her armies. If she was not present on the battlefield.

By those standards, even Nagash could simply not lead his armies and dole it out to a necromancer because politics.

Truthfully anything can be hand waived by writing narrative for it. I can write a narrative now explaining how archaon and sigmar tag team against nagash and their respective forces are allies and it all makes sense.

It still doesn't feel right

If she's not on the battlefield of course someone else would lead her army...

There's making up narrative, and then theres extrapolating and plausible inferences. There's been a few snippets in the book about her being in battles and fighting, but nothing about tactical acumen, strategic brilliance, or generalship. She even loses her ability to command when transformed.

In contrast there's so much about her manipulating, lying, scheming and deceiving. She made a religion based on a lie purely to fuel her power. Way more plausible to have minions be the battle commander and the target than her be the general of every force. Especially when she loses control quite often.

Actually in the daughters of khaine book it speaks of in the age of chaos that Morathi was often at the forefront of the battles leading her armies.

Which infers based on Jeremy Vetock's writing of the background that she is a capable general with a lot of experience leading armies that did so a great many times

It could just be she wants to focus on killing things and let someone else be responsible.

Meglomaniacs with large egos tend to not want other people in charge lol. Especially those that are lusting after their son's immortal position and have the need to do everything in their power to prove how awesome they are.

Its a gamey mechanic. Its ok. We don't need to try to justify it.

Technically archaon wouldn't have to lead an army he is in either in AOS despite how ludicrous that is... but his command ability lets all heroes use command abilities so for min/max purposes you'd never do that.

Its gamey in possibly the most literal sense in that its a game mechanic; no faction leader has to be the general.

To contrast your point about archaeon, alarielle is never the general in a sylvaneth force.

And based on his writing of the rules, Vetock thinks shes a less consistent general than a slaughter queen

Regarding the subordinate leaders thing, I always assumed that the big named heroes (in my armies, that's usually Arkhan the Black) might not be directing troops (IE, be the army general) because they have other goals in mind - they might have "Big picture" goals on the battlefield, while the General is focusing on the battle itself. Each to their own I suppose.

I must say, I really like the new aesthetic of Morathi and the DoK - I'm tempted to get a few just for P&M. Very cool looking army.

Speaking of the Slaughter Queen. Does Orgy of Slaughter trigger the Kraith's Deciples of Slaughter ability?

In a broader sense are abilities that say 'when a unit does X in a Y phase' triggered by abilities that say 'unit does X as if they were in the Y phase'?

Wording is pretty specific "if they fought in the combat phase" . So orgy of slaughter or worship through bloodshed wouldn't trigger it because you're fighting in the Hero phase

 auticus wrote:
Meglomaniacs with large egos tend to not want other people in charge lol. Especially those that are lusting after their son's immortal position and have the need to do everything in their power to prove how awesome they are.

Its a gamey mechanic. Its ok. We don't need to try to justify it.

Technically archaon wouldn't have to lead an army he is in either in AOS despite how ludicrous that is... but his command ability lets all heroes use command abilities so for min/max purposes you'd never do that.

It makes total sense to me. First off, from what I see in the fluff there is no way Morathi (or almost any special character for that matter) is going to show up for a battle of as small a scale as we actually play in AoS. This even extends to a huge number of elite units and monsters, and has been that way going back to WHFB. If we look at novels and how battles are depicted it's reasonable to assume that the average AoS battle is simply one part of a larger one that at the 28mm scale would take up an entire store or more. Each side probably has at least a half dozen 'generals' around directing different parts of the battle. Morathi simply happens to be at this part of the battle and isn't being directed by the 'general' but rather the other way around, along with a bunch of others. Morathi doesn't have general status in the context of the board because she isn't commanding the troops directly--she's directing her lieutenants that are serving as the army generals. If anything that almost makes more sense because Morathi wouldn't lower herself to commanding each individual individually unit anyways.

Having read Malazan Book of the Fallen I'm totally open to having several generals of vast world renown and mystical power who'd never want to give up command working together on the same battlefield


Also my khinari and snakes are finally sent out, looking forward to them arriving (hope for tomorrow but more likely that they'll turn up on Monday). So I've been trying to work out a paint scheme - any DoK fans who are painters got any views/thoughts
https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/752346.page

So having seen quite a few lists already, I'm noticing that they are all kind of samey.

Particularly that none use Morathi as the general, and Pit of Shades is everywhere. Highlighting once again how important mortal wound spam is wherever you can get it.

I think it's still a bit early to call trends myself. Morathi as not-general makes sense though, because she loses her awesome command ability when she transforms.

Yeah. They migiht as well have not given her a command ability. or gotten rid of the rule that says she loses it when she transforms. I doubt anyone will ever use it and they've created a waste of ink/rules by giving a rule that will never be used.

And then there will be snaaaaakes!



... On the plain!

... And then... that will happen... and I will RULE THE WORLD!

In all seriousness I really like this kit, way less finicky than I thought it'd be. There are blocks cut out of the shoulders on the torso which the arm parts fill in meaning right and left arm pairs on the spears always line up.

The ones on the left follow the instructions exactly (except the faces, I preferred the faces, the ones on the right I played with a little bit by giving each set of tails the torso from the previous model and each head from the model before that and it works for the most part.

I suggest building the torso and legs separately as its kind of awkward putting that big head on the model afterwards, and the waist is really the only part that gives you a degree of freedom to change the pose.

Is it possible to have an army of just the flying and snake people? I really like those models but the rest I'm really not a fan of.

Yes. If you make the bloodwrack medusa your general the blood sisters become battleline.

Where's the medusa from? I couldn't find it on the store. Is it part of the Bloodwrack Shrine kit?

Yes, it's only available in the bloodwrack shrine / cauldron of blood kit.

Which leads me to question something: if the battleline requirement for blood sisters is a 'bloodwrack medusa' general, can that general be the medusa on the shrine, or does she have to be on foot?

Likewise, the battalions that require a hag or slaughter queen in them, can they be riding the cauldron of blood?

Ah, I see. That's weird. They don't have a page for it and normally GW has as many pages as possible for items.

I'd see if the shrine version still says bloodwrack medusa rather than just bloodwrack shrine or something like that. Same for the queens.

They might have found that listing a single character for £30 doesn't help them and that its easier to simply list it with the cauldron kit, where instead the price seems like a bargain

 auticus wrote:
Yeah. They migiht as well have not given her a command ability. or gotten rid of the rule that says she loses it when she transforms. I doubt anyone will ever use it and they've created a waste of ink/rules by giving a rule that will never be used.

Eh, I'm not sure she is actually a bad general in all contexts. I think it's more of a perception. The command traits for DoK aren't all that great and I suspect once players try them out they'll find Morathi as a more attractive option. Morathi also benefits heavily from having two huge units to order, something players are unlikely to have right now. I could be wrong but I wouldn't write her off yet. Even if she is non-general material for matched play, bad options are still better than no options.

I guess to me if there's an option but one that is never picked, to me it shouldn't exist at all.

Its like the spells. The old randomized spells existed because GW knew people would always choose the same one or two spells everytime, which is also happening now with mind razor and pit of shades.

GW doesn't seem to like fixing things. Rather than pick an idea and work on it until it's good they'll jump ship at a moments notice. So you get the same problem over and over because nobody fixes it, they just pick a new idea.

 Overread wrote:
They might have found that listing a single character for £30 doesn't help them and that its easier to simply list it with the cauldron kit, where instead the price seems like a bargain

It's also because the Medusae literally cannot be removed from the kit without them reworking it. It is on shared sprues, same with the other 2(yes: 2 characters) that you can make out of it.

This is what I've been referring to as "the character frame".
It has the parts for:


Couple in the fact that you have the Avatar of Khaine that can be built from it and even if you don't want a Cauldron or Shrine it isn't a bad kit by any stretch of the imagination.

 auticus wrote:
I guess to me if there's an option but one that is never picked, to me it shouldn't exist at all.

Its like the spells. The old randomized spells existed because GW knew people would always choose the same one or two spells everytime, which is also happening now with mind razor and pit of shades.

Keep in mind that not-matched play does exist for some of us. Not that I blame you for overlooking that given your community. At any rate if we want to talk options that don't exist is matched play we could get into equipment options and unit sizes where there is literally no reason to take a third of the options available. By comparison this is pretty tame.