Preliminary work is being started for the background of armies in the 9th Age and in order to do that we require the input of the community.
Unlike other topics where commenting other people's opinons is welcome and expected I would like you to not to do so in this topic as each person will be expressing his own view that can't be right or wrong since it is subjective.
The information we are looking for are these:
If you had to choose five adjectives to describe your faction, what would they be?
What special characters do you feel represent your faction the best?
What is your least favourite thing about the fluff for your faction, or the thing you would be most happy to lose?
So please just state your opinion in a single post. In case you remember some things additionaly just edit your post.
Thank you in advance.
Giladis on the behalf of the 9th Age Background team
I'll take a stab at this. I'm basing my answers pretty much exactly off how the Wood Elves were portrayed in their 8th (and 6th) edition books. Ideally, I'd like to see a mix of the two.
"Best representation" Special characters: Durthu, Orion
My least favorite fluff would probably be all the end-times stuff (Araloth traveling through the planes, or whatever). But outside of the end times, I would recommend making it so that Wood Elves don't only come from Athel Loren. Maybe there are multiple great forests across the planet, and the wood elves act independently of each other, focused solely on protecting or expanding their own domain. This could lead to some fun fluff for making each army unique (ex: "my army comes from the XXX jungle in Lustria, and are jungle themed," etc). They kinda did this a bit in 8th edition with the "different parts of Athel Loren are stuck in different seasons" bit, but by spreading the Wood Elves out across the globe, you give more reason for them to participate in far-away conflicts. Maybe the Wood Elves are all working to repair the world roots. Maybe once the wood elves of a local forest have repaired their connection to the world roots there's a random chance that Orion will be born in their territory that year, or something. The blessing/curse of the wild hunt.
Adjectives: Covert, Magical, Archery, Mobile, glasscanons
Special characters: Ariel and Orion
The thing i dislike most about the fluff, is how it tries to build up wood elves to be the greatest shooting army. Sure there is a chance you can make a wound with 10 glade guard, but if the opponent has more than light armour or a ward save, that chance goes down quickly. And if they are such great archers with their "famed" longbows, how come that the real power behind the wood elves now lies in their magical arrows.
Neutral, self-interested, earthy (I.e. Not ethereal), fickle, ruthless.
Drychia or whatever her name is, and Ariel.
Need to reintroduce move and shoot without penalty. Above all else wood elves need to be fluid and mobile... Otherwise they're just high elves without armour.
Special characters that best represent them: The 6th edition depiction of Naestera and Arahan, the 6th/5th edition depiction of Ariel, Scarloc.
Putting aside the stuff from the ET background (which I don't like AT ALL), my least favourite part of their background would probably be Athel Loren being divided up into only 12 areas. The great thing about Athel Loren as depicted in pre-8th edition background was that while there was some skeleton of a layout in place, it was mostly a blank canvas that you could develop however you wanted, with plenty of room to create your own background. Having 12 rigidly defined realms can put something of a straightjacket on creativity, since if you want an army from Athel Loren but don't like any of those 12 realms then you're sort of up the creek. '
By all means keep them if you must, but leave some empty space in between them for hobbyists to slot their own areas and territories into.
It would please me greatly to see the ET series background go as well, but that applies for all of it, not just the Wood-Elf relevant parts.
WANTED: Wildwood Ranger axes. PM me if you have any spare.
The adjectives to date pretty much cover things. On the special characters front I've always enjoyed the fluff behind Scarloc as his regiment contained a lot of character and also alluded to being part of the wider world. The Sisters were always interesting as well. Great to have a choice of mounts.
The least fav. thing for me is being more or less tied to one specific part of the world. There's forests everywhere and it would be more interesting to have WE all over. Guess that's true in AoS. I agree with Rafiki in that the fluff always plays up WE archery and doesn't really deliver but it can be a bit average playing against someone who shoots your army to bits before you've engaged a unit in combat. WE need to have some combat oriented units or there's no incentive to do anything other than shoot/flee which is pretty boring if all your army can do is mash things. I advocate putting dancers into GG units to buff them in combat, something to give a WE player a reason to initiate our invite combat. That said, if they'd made it so that WE could shoot into combat at close range from the start then they wouldn't have had to fanny about amending this for the next 7 editions.
One thing I really liked about the last edition was the strength bonus at short range and no penalties for moving and shooting. It does not necessarily have to be a strength bonus, but could be another incentive.
The point is, it really made you want to play with fire and utilize the no penalty for movement. It made a glade guard list very fluent compared to other gunlines, as you wanted to be close but not too close. A unit of glade guard would never stay in the same position, which fitted well with the theme in my opinion.
EDIT: Ariel and Naith are my favorite characters
Last edited by Mollesvinet on 22 Sep 2015, 21:49, edited 1 time in total.
Adjectives: Fast, Agile, Neutral, Glass cannon, Stealthy
Characters: Ariel, Sisters
The least favorite thing: Inability to start glade riders on the table due to the wording of the ambush rule. The newest version of the 9th age deals with this but i wanted to mention it nonetheless.
Adjectives: Neutral, Natural, Skirmishers, archers, Xenophobic
characters : I like the twins , i don't like orion or the whole sacrifice crap thing that goes along with him .
What is your least favourite thing about the fluff for your faction, or the thing you would be most happy to lose?
can't stand the whole end times revision . don't like that at all loose everything to do with the end times .
I liked the tentative quasi ally with bretonia thing . that had alot of potential that never got explored .
'
ikken wrote:What is your least favourite thing about the fluff for your faction, or the thing you would be most happy to lose?
can't stand the whole end times revision . don't like that at all loose everything to do with the end times .
I liked the tentative quasi ally with bretonia thing . that had alot of potential that never got explored .
'
Ditto.
So it's no longer the BRB, now it's the DERB. (Digital Edition Rule Book) I am all in for 9th Age.
If you had to choose five adjectives to describe your faction, what would they be?
What special characters do you feel represent your faction the best?
What is your least favourite thing about the fluff for your faction, or the thing you would be most happy to lose?
1. Elite, Guerrilla, Archery, Mobility, Hunting
2. I like Naestra and Arahan, the idea of beautiful-twin-archer-chicks shooting explosive arrows from the back of a dragon is fantastic.
3. Not so much fluff, but the terrible misconception that the wood elves are somehow 'sissy communist hippy vegans.' The best hunters in the world obviously eat meat, and trading skins and trinkets (aka the barter system) is a primitive example of the virtues behind capitalism.
"Herald of Athel Loren" Limited Edition Book #0165
AoS is the greatest!
