Storm of Chaos: The Poll to end all polls

[blackseven]

Bohsenfels?

Athelassan covered it. Basically, in the wrap-up/behind the scenes stuff, the guys running the campaign told us that the invasion was scripted to reach Middenheim (which sort of makes sense and I do think Chaos should have reached the city regardless: it would have been a terrible campaign if Order just ROFLstomped the Horde at the Kislev border.) However, what annoyed me greatly was that they decided that ALL the strongpoints/important locations prior to Middenheim were supposed to fall - the only difference Order could make was how long it took to fall, and how "good" the defeat was.

I don't know if people knew about this, but because of the way the Bohsenfels fortress objective was set up (it was a "default" location if people forgot to put the battle location in their submissions), Order flooded Bohsenfels with SO MANY victories that it never fell. The results forced the writers to give Order a significant win before Middenheim. Bohsenfels dropped off in the story, but its last entry was that it was harassing the rear of the horde and became sort of a rallying cry for Order forces.

[TheDungen]

There were 4 ways that disorder could win a location. each location had two.

1. percentage if disorder reached a certain % controll of a location it fell to them. i think this one was always one of the conditions.
2. number of battles disorder wins, if a certain number of won battles by disorder was achieved the location would fall. This togehter with 1 was fortified keeps like Bohsenfels.
3. Number of battles fought. When a certain number of battles had been fought at the location it would fall to disorder. this together with 1 was walled cities, like the provincial capitals.
4. Time passed, when a certain time had passed since disorder had begun assulting a location it would fall to disorder, this together with 1 was everything less than walled cities. Dependign on the location this time could be long or short. (a walled village was longer than a fortified inn).

All in all it was a nicely copnstructed system. but maybee they should've made 2, 3 & 4 a little easier to achive. But hey hindstight 20-20. They should've adjusted th values during the campaign (they could've had a computer do it automatically, depending on the ratio of submitted victories losses for disorder)

The final battle for middenheim should've bene fixed to, chaos didnt even reach the walls.

[Athelassan]

Given the outrage that was generated by the "fixed" nature of the campaign as it was, I can't say I'm sorry that it was so hard for the attackers to capture locations. The attackers did get to spend a week besieging Middenheim, too: if you're going to suggest that the results should have been fixed so they auto-captured it, then there wouldn't be a lot of point in having a worldwide campaign at all...

[TheDungen]

No I suggested that the campaign systme would compensate for how many battles was won by either side and correct the rates so they rougly held the time schedule. It snot rigging the campaign the winenrs woudl still win, but it would make it seem desperate even for the winning side right up to the end. For an example i'd say that in the siege the defenders shoudlnt have been able to push the attacks back just prevent them from gaining ground (if it looked like it would be an issue, which it was). The wya it was now chaos never got to the walls, how fun was that, i was even tempted to start to lose on pupose to my chaos opponent.

[Craze_b0i]

I have read all the material from SOC including the daily reports and lore-masters journal. For all the flaws in it I kinda wish I had been there at the time. I can just imagine in 50 years time bearded warhammer players telling the tale to their grandchildren.

[TheDungen]

Had i known they would take the old website down i'd ahve copied allt hat fluff there was some really great peices especially some of the pieces written by players.

[Urgat]

Of course, there was also the fact that sooooo many people posted fake reports because there was literally zero identity control. All you needed was a mail address.

[Athelassan]

Well, of course, that's going to be a bit of a problem. You just have to assume that each side is cheating an equal amount. If I recall rightly there was a token system in place to stop the same individuals posting thousands of fake battle reports.

[Craze_b0i]

I suppose the issue would be that even if both sides cheated the side with more players probably cheated the most.

[TheDungen]

But you got like three times the credit for a batttle if you wrote a battle report.

[amplebob]

Bah, reading all of the fluff in the write up to storm of chaos in white dwarf (back when it was good), was so exciting. You had the crowning of archaon, the story of crom defeating grimgor, all the build up with luthor huss and valten and the big council with Karl Franz and Teclis. There was the huge amount of attention paid to middenheim and the cult of ulric. All of the variant army lists in the source book were exciting and offerred something new.
It had so much potential, it was just so poorly excecuted.
In the first great war against chaos, there were a couple of real game changers. (new emperor and teclis teaching the humans proper magic). Nothing really changed in the game after storm of chaos. The whole fluff ending was one enormous clusterf*ck.

The whole thing could have been done well.

Archaon could still have failed to take middenheim (it is one of the most impregnable fortresses in the old world, so there's no real shame in it), but they could have had him and valten actually fight properly (perhaps on one of the causeways). Archaon destroys valten brutally in front of the most of the empire defenders and vows he will return again (the empire's armies could match his, but no hero could match him). With the symbol of sigmar destroyed, it could leads to a crisis of faith in much of the empire, couple this with a proliferation of agents of chaos using the storm as cover to infiltrate, and the enemy within is firmly established. Grimgor could have taken down a couple of side players, say garragrim ironfist and maybe banish belakor, before realising like he did with crom, that his army was decimated and leg it. Manfred could have stayed and waged bloody war on the remaining empire, bretonnian, elf and dwarf forces, but would have been in a slightly weakened state from the effort required for the spell (same thing happened to nagash), thus a lot easier to single out by good characters and with concentrated attacks on him, would be forced from the field. You could still have him extending the borders of sylvania with his new massive army. I think the skaven doom hemisphere is best forgotten, I also reckon if they wanted to establish an over kingdom, they'd have done it in a part of the empire miles away from where the largest armies were fighting (they are skaven afterall). The storm would actually give them time to rise up unmolested and establish a small, but fortified footing somewhere else in the empire).
That's my best thoughts on it for now...
As it was written, i guess the fluff is better without it. But if the fluff included the original storm of chaos build up, then it'd be better.

[Spider-pope]

The Storm of Chaos was brilliant...at least at the start and duration anyway. We had years of build up, with Huss tracking down the reincarnation of Sigmar, Archaeon striking down Volkmar as he desperately tried to prevent the coming war. Then the invasion happened, the Empire faced annihilation, councils of allies were called, the Dwarfs and Elves marched together. Absolutely brilliant, fantasy stuff. I urge anyone to seek out James Wallis' 'Mark of Chaos' duology, released during the build up, that tells the story of Valtens journey to Altdorf and the forces arrayed against him, particularly if they have a fondness for Chaos Cults.

And for the duration it was enjoyable, who knew what could happen? We were fighting for the fate of iconic cities and to determine whether this was truly the apocalypse for the Warhammer world.

And then it built up to the final showdown, we all waited for what the conclusion would be, who would win, could anyone vanquish Archaeon, would Valten fulfil his destiny? Tons of build up was met with the figurative screech of brakes before the setting was slammed into reverse.

That legion of undead Mannfred was raising? Stopped by Volkmar, back from the dead. The snuffing out of the Flame of Ulric that would doom the world? Didn't happen. Archaeon facing down the reincarnation of the Empires God? Interrupted by an Orc. And then to add insult to injury, Archie was left to run off, Grimgor decided not to keep fighting and Valten, a great new character that had shifted the dynamics of the Empire was quietly assassinated.

Its no wonder that the army books that followed stopped their timelines before it occurred.

It has to go down as one of the most disappointing events ever to occur with GW products. So much build up, so much potential, wasted by the last minute change of heart that returned everything to the status quo .

To conclude isee it as the communities fult that SOC failed and not GW, but we just cannot admit it.

Sorry but that is nonsense. The annoyance expressed by the "community" was not that the Storm had occurred or even that the majority of its background was bad, it wasn't. The annoyance was the end result that nothing anyone did in the entirety of the campaign mattered, not even the battle reports of the studio staff themselves. Even events from the preceding run up were overturned.

The "community" didn't change their minds at the last minute and abandon all plans to alter the setting. The "community" didn't write a half assed ending that allowed every existing special character to survive while quietly getting rid of a character who's existence would require the Empire to change slightly.

Even if the entire campaign was set to a fixed progression and ending, there wouldn't have been nearly the amount of ill feeling if the ending we'd received was actually any good at all.

[snottlebocket]

An event like a major chaos incursion only works if you're willing to progress your game world. GW isn't.

GW has kept the warhammer world in this time bubble where nothing really changes. It's got a past and a present and there's always some minor stuff going on to make it feel like every single race is either threatening the world or saving it. But really, it's stuck in a rather impossible balance.

You can do two things with that. You can take this setting and use it as a backdrop for numerous events that ultimately don't affect the world in any way. Or you can move forward and have your world changing events. Let nations rise and fall, let characters die or go through dramatic changes.

Storm of Chaos was an attempt at doing both of those at the same time. GW initiated an event that by it's own description should have been world changing. A chaos incursion, the time bomb behind everything warhammer is based on. But they also wanted to control it. Didn't work out so well.

GW really isn't that good at creatively managing it's game worlds. By and large nothing much has changed since warhammer's inception decades ago. Most new material is just rehashing, rephrasing or sometimes just reprinting verbatim what's been written in the late 80s. There's the occasional experiment to change that but usually they back paddle pretty fast if it looks like something might actually have to change.

Which is a shame really. Privateer Press's game world has a storyline that is thundering forwards like a runaway train. A world at war, nations rising and falling. Their characters achieve and fail, live and die and sometimes go through dramatic personal changes. All of which is reflected in the game. I'm not a huge fan of the games them selfs but looking at what privateer manages to do with story driven wargaming, GW's attempts are looking very weak indeed.

[Drongol]

Which is a shame really. Privateer Press's game world has a storyline that is thundering forwards like a runaway train. A world at war, nations rising and falling. Their characters achieve and fail, live and die and sometimes go through dramatic personal changes. All of which is reflected in the game. I'm not a huge fan of the games them selfs but looking at what privateer manages to do with story driven wargaming, GW's attempts are looking very weak indeed.

PP is also a very different company than GW and even with the dynamic storyline, nothing of value is accomplished. We know that when two named characters get into a fight, both will walk away somehow. We know that none of the playable factions will be destroyed, conquered, assimilated, or otherwise messed with overmuch--a few borders might change, and the guys that aren't a part of the game might get conquered, but at the end of the day, it's not like the Skorne are going to take over Caspia.

I'll also point out that the Iron Kingdoms are far less calamitously balanced when compared to the Warhammer World. There's far less of a "if this faction wins, everyone is screwed," and while Cryx, Everblight, and Skorne are all bad dudes, the rest of the factions are nowhere near as disastrous. And even then, comparing those guys to, say, Chaos is rather silly.

[snottlebocket]

I'll also point out that the Iron Kingdoms are far less calamitously balanced when compared to the Warhammer World. There's far less of a "if this faction wins, everyone is screwed," and while Cryx, Everblight, and Skorne are all bad dudes, the rest of the factions are nowhere near as disastrous. And even then, comparing those guys to, say, Chaos is rather silly.

The iron kingdoms do see a great deal of change though. The story of the iron kingdoms is moving forwards at a tremendous pace. It's very much a living story. I've been playing warhammer since the late 80s and really nothing changed. I mean the nature of it's description changed to keep up with changing fads but pretty much all the major characters and nations are completely unchanged.

The problem with warhammer is that they keep harping on that calamitous balance that apparently isn't especially precarious at all. Storm of Chaos was that big threat, Chaos was in ascendance, a new incursion occurred and nothing much of anything happened. Which ofcourse got ret conned.

Tamurkhan could have been the greatest thing that ever happened to warhammer. An actual progression of the world and they pulled the plug on that.

[Drongol]

Tamurkhan could have been the greatest thing that ever happened to warhammer. An actual progression of the world and they pulled the plug on that.

You make it sound like the setting has to change for anything to matter.

Here's the point: the setting is a setting. The Iron Kingdoms haven't changed in any particularly important way beyond technology progressing as army books were rewritten and added to--something that, mind you, happens each time GW revisits a book as well. In either case, the changing or stagnant background in no way hampers your ability to paint and play with the models provided.

The biggest problem with an evolving storyline is that it provides a barrier to entry for new players. Out-of-print books provide history to the game that they simply cannot access, or have to find second-hand (or just buy for the background, since the Mk 1 rules are no longer valid). Then there's all the background that was printed, once, in No Quarter and has not been duplicated. And so on.

Having played the game that put evolving storylines (and player participation in such) on the map, I much prefer a static background to work with.

[Craze_b0i]

Actually Tamurkhan is part of the official timeline. See Warhammer armies: Empire.

As it stands the timeline has about 10,000 years or whatever. I don't really see how tacking on an extra 2 or 3 years at the end makes it any better. As Drongol says you also have the fact that no special character can ever be allowed to die and no faction ever allowed to destroy/conquer/assimilate another. Not to mention that if you have an apocalyptic world-changing battle every 12 months everyone soon runs out of manpower (not to mention steamtanks), thus stretching credibility.

[woodster17]

Can be kind of depressing if you select an evil army to represent that they will never actually achieve any significant. For all the talk of 'chaos will inevitably rule the world' it's never actually going to happen in the GW timeframe fluff wise. Storm of Chaos (while having a garbage ending) did throw up some interesting talking points. What is Archaon up to now? Fill he just decline in significance? For 'the lord of the end times' that's a miserable ending. I'd rather die in battle if I were him. Also, Mannfred has returned to power and is surely accumulating strength in Sylvania? What is Karl Franz going to do about that? Is the Mannfred story ever going to go anywhere or will Voklmar simply bring out the Liber Mortis every time Mannfred pops up? I would genuinely enjoy the background evolving slowly on a year by year pace. Characters could die, that would be fine, we can still use characters from the past in numerous books and nobody complains about it.

[Urgat]

Tamurkhan could have been the greatest thing that ever happened to warhammer. An actual progression of the world and they pulled the plug on that.

It would have moved to "chaos wins, end of Warhammer". That's not that exciting, if you ask me.
Oh, and GW used to kill characters in Warhammer, Azhag, for instance.

[woodster17]

It would have moved to "chaos wins, end of Warhammer". That's not that exciting, if you ask me.
Oh, and GW used to kill characters in Warhammer, Azhag, for instance.

It is possible for there to be some middle ground you know Some irrevocable damage to an are of the Old World that doesn't quite amount to 'Empire flattened' would be ok. Killing off characters is fine by me- it makes sense that war like hero's aren't going to survive every single battle they take part in.