Age of Sigmar: Slaanesh Is Back – Now What?
After the events of Broken Realms: Morathi, the Dark Prince is free. Slaanesh is back – but what now? Spoilers and speculation ahead.
Okay – this is your last warning. Spoilers ahead.
Still here? Let’s dive in.
If you missed our first spoiler filled installment, you might want to give that a quick once over just so you can be on the same page. Or read the lore in Morathi (which is actually quite game changing for the Mortal Realms). The big shocker at the end of the story is that Slaanesh has been freed from the chains that bound him.
After GW revealed that Slaanesh was captured and imprisoned in the Hidden Gloaming we all figured it was only a matter of time before the Dark Prince returned. Anyhow, the final step in this breakout was inadvertently Morathi’s plot to become a god. While it worked (mostly) Slaanesh broke out as well and is now a swirl of the stuff of chaos:
“The Hedonites of Slaanesh flock to their reborn god, still a formless, protean swirl of brilliant colours and light. This Slaanesh-thing finally settles down to recover and gain strength, protected by throngs of ecstatic followers beyond number. “
This is the image we have of Slaanesh at this point – a ball of chaos and color, surrounded by it’s followers who are probably going to have to protect him while it reforms. There are lots of questions about what happens next. In fact, GW even posed some themselves:
“While Morathi has gained power and broken her alliance with Sigmar, the return of Slaanesh changes everything. Will Archaon add the patronage of yet another god to his name? Against all odds, Morathi has forged an alliance between the Daughters of Khaine and the Idoneth Deepkin – it’s not yet clear how Teclis will react to the rise of his shameful creations. What powerful aelven souls were released from Slaanesh’s embrace, and how many new followers will the Dark Prince amass? “
What’s the next phase in the Age of Sigmar? Is GW setting up a 5th grand alliance? If Morathi really has broken her alliance with Sigmar, are the Daughters of Khaine going to get kicked out of Order? Are we going to see a new sub-faction within Order? How are the rest of the Aelves going to respond to Morathi known what she’s done – having just freed their greatest foe. And what about Malerion?
In Slaanesh’s current state, we’ve got to wonder how the force of Order are going to react. Could they not just attack now and try to destroy Slaanesh again? If the Aelves overpowered him once, why not again? That last one has been answered – the last time they fought Slaanesh, he was full of those Aelf souls and they were able to defeat him due to his gluttony. This time? The Dark Prince is going to be a lean, mean fighting machine and probably hungry once again.
The BIGGEST question is “what’s next?” Aside from all the other implications, what’s the next step for Slaanesh? What’s next in terms of the models or a new battletome? What’s next for the players of Age of Sigmar? Games Workshop is teasing out something pretty massive in terms of shaking-up the status quo here. Order has been very disorderly lately. Chaos has been dealing with Nagash and Death after the events of Wrath of the Everchosen. And the Destruction faction has just gotten some MASSIVE reinforcements with the Mega Gargants. Plus, there was that short story focusing on the Orruks…change is coming and I don’t mean Tzeentch.
What do you think is going to happen next with Slaanesh in the Mortal Realms? What will the fallout be for the Daughters of Khaine? Will GW have to re-work all the battletomes for Cities of Sigmar now? Let us know what you think in the comments.
Massive shake-up for the Mortal Realms or will this be a blip on the timeline and things will go back to “normal” afterwards?
