End Times; Nagash - Spoilerific discussion.

[Mr Mystery]

drachenfels wasn't a vampire, he was a discorparate spirit which would possess a body until it rotted away, and then he would possess a new host.....

Hmmm now to think about it, how do you truely kill a spirit?

kick it in the face with enchanted steel toecaps!

[eldargal]

Heard from a friend who has her copy (><) and was a bit unimpressed with a few things related to the female characters, though she still says the book is brilliant and amazing and other superlatives:

-Eldyra gets vamped and then isn't mentioned again once
-Neferata gets treated like ****. She gets defeated and saved by Krell.
-She only doesn't die permanently because Nagash awakening gives her an influx of power
-Her senior handmaiden from her novel, Naaima, is demoted to make way for a new senior handmaiden who exists only to get destroyed by the Anvil of Doooooooom
-She loses more of her senior lieutenants (female) than any of the other mortarchs
-Khalida is brilliantly portrayed, but at the expense of Neferata because you can't have two badass female leaders in the same book?
-Neferata disposes of potential handmaidens that she thinks may be smarter or more cunning than she is, undermining her own abilities in a way none of the other Mortarchs whose abilities are never questioned

So, kind of puts a dampener on it. On the bright side, I should have my copy this evening so yay!

[Mr Mystery]

Ah, but you have to look at the character of Neferata.

She is not a Warrior. She isn't a War Leader. She's a master spymistress. That is/was her power over the world. Suddenly being forced to act (weighs up options of standing up to Nagash, makes the right if indeed not outright only decision), without the time to properly formulate a plan.

The above synopsis, whilst not exactly inaccurate, simply does not do justice to her story within the book.

Also - Eldyra....well, she's been told she's been Vamped. But being told anything by a Von Carstein, and then what is actually true are of course radically different things!

[eldargal]

It was still a choice by the authors to write her that way. They could have had her manipulating things and using her skills that way, using her strengths but instead they wrote her in a position where she was at a disadvantage unlike the other Mortarchs and she is the one who suffers the most setbacks by the sound of it.

I think the issue is that once her role as potential rescuer of Aliathra is wrapped up her character is dropped, not that everything we have heard about her is accurate.

[Mr Mystery]

See, Neferata is in the same boat as Mannfred and Vlad.

Exactly none of them particularly want Nagash up and about - they're too selfish. Mannfred followed because he thought to turn things to his advantage. Vlad - well he didn't get much choice being ressurected and all. He's been promised help finding Isabella, who apparently did not join him wherever he went. Neferata? Saw how things were going, and realised she had to bend the knee for continue survival, particularly as she is one of the only survivors from the original Vampires, and had already majorly failed Nagash.

Give it a read, and see what you think within the wider setting

[eldargal]

But were Mannfred and Vlad put into situations that didn't suit their strengths though? Also Neferata isn't exactly rubbish in a fight, I mean she took a Dwarf fortress in a siege in her novel.

[Mr Mystery]

Mannfred was. Again, he prefers his political schemes, only taking to the field when necessary.

Vlad - not so much. He's off defending the North, and doing it very much in his own intimable style.

For my money, it's the Mortarchs who will take down Nagash. I wouldn't be at all surprised if Mannfred buys the farm, leaving Vlad. Neferata? She might be okay, hard to tell really.

[Cap'nSmurfs]

That's not quite fair on Neferata. I think she could've done with a competence boost in the book; but, again, she isn't a warrior or a general. She's a master manipulator. She knows about Aliathra; Mannfred and Arkhan don't.

Even with all that, it's worth pointing out that both of Neferata's campaigns as part of the war are successful. She achieves her goal of providing Nagash with the awesome power he needs to achieve his great work, defeating a whole host of goblin hordes, rock-hard dwarfs, and the sundry denizens of the depths into the bargain. Later, she successfully draws off and holds a big chunk of Settra's army, preventing them from reinforcing Settra. Khalida's army is a serious deal; it's serially stated that Nagash's army is an outnumbered rabble against the masses of lock-step troops the Tomb Kings possess. Doing as well as they do against it is quite a feat.

Also, Mannfred loses lots of his servants. There are plenty of useless Von Carsteins who get killed. Mannfred has to be saved from being killed by one of them, too, then that servant falls foul of the Tomb King's Curse. Worst of all, Mannfred realises that he's actually... not very good. Not as good as he thought he was. Not as powerful, not as smart, not as cunning, not as important. I wouldn't portray it as a bad time for Neferata and a good time for Mannfred, exactly. (Arkhan is having a whale of a time, though; he and Vlad are the big winners).

Helsnicht has been eating the brains of his minions the whole way there.

As I said initially, it isn't all it could be, and I'm still hoping later volumes will continue and reinforce the trend they've started. I thought that there was a bit too much damselry in the book. I would have liked Neferata to be a bit more independently powerful (and she is a beast in combat as depicted, to be fair), but she actually fits well with the other Mortarchs, who also suffer similar setbacks. Neferata is almost killed, yes; Krell gets his head cut off by a Tomb Scorpion, of all ignominious fates; Mannfred is almost killed by a Tomb King; Arkhan gets cut in half and dragged around behind Settra's chariot; Vlad fails, ultimately, to stem the tide of Chaos, even as he manipulates Walach Harkon's dragon into tearing the Blood Dragon apart.

The *positive* is that it's absolutely bursting with female characters. Like they've really made an effort and, hopefully, will continue to do so. Plenty of them get to be Big Damn Heroes, just not necessarily without problems. Eldyra is still around, and she goes out swinging (literally!). Much better than Belannaer gets. Infinitely better than Zachariah the Everliving!

For a GW book - for a wargames book - it's right up there with the best. Does a dance on the grave of most 40k game books (not necessarily novels).

I think things will pick up even more when Morathi comes into the limelight.

[eldargal]

Well that's good. She said they were basically nitpicks against an otherwise 10/10 book. She did say what happened to Zacarias was hilarious.

I just hope they follow through with models for more of the women. The Tsarina, Eldyra, Morathi (she so needs a new model), Countess of Nuln of they decide to do anything with her.

[Mr Mystery]

Oh, and even Nagash himself gets all stabbed up off Prince Apophas wielding Destroyer of Eternities...