We're getting some OBR content in the next white dwarf (
warcom article)
The Ossiarch Bonereapers kick off a new Flashpoint series, hammering on the gates of Lethis and wielding the bone-shaping powers of the Petrifex Elite Army of Renown.
Their skill at manipulating ultra-hard bone allows them to create even tougher phalanxes than usual, commanded by a mysterious shape-changing figure known as the Grand Necromystic – an iron-willed ruler who inhabits the bodies of his constructs on the battlefield. Nobody has ever seen his true form and he often swaps between his creations, making him a great conversion project for the avid Ossiarch general.
On the one hand, I'm always hype for new OBR content, and in particular new lore on the boss of the Petrifex Elite sounds interesting.
On the other hand, I can't help but be somewhat disappointed by this. Partially because these rules look bad to me - No boneshapers? No archai? What are the harvesters supposed to be doing with no mortek guard? How is this AoR supposed to score battle tactics at all without kavalos or teratics? Plus the battle traits just look kind of bad overall. Even with 1/turn fight twice on the charge I still think the same units would be more effective with the standard relentless discipline rules. But Whatever! These rules are going straight to legends, they're not competitive legal anyway. Honestly I wouldn't want OBR players to need access to a random issue of white dwarf to be able to play a competitively viable army variant anyway, so that's fine.
If that were my only complaint, then I'd still mostly just be hype for new Petrifex lore. The bigger problem imo is that the premise of the Flashpoint article - the City of Lethis in Shyish is rumored to have developed new weapons that are super effective against the undead, and so the Petrifex have been sent to smash the city before the technology can spread - just doesn't fit. For one, the Petrifex operate in Ghur, where all that petrified giant monster bone is, not Shyish. More importantly, if the enemy might have weapons that are super effective against the undead, then you don't send your most expensive and hard-to-reproduce undead warriors. No, you send your most expendible warriors, the ones that happen to be so unstable that they tend to spontaneously combust when they die - so that even if the rumors of special weapons are true they'll only result in the defenders destroying themselves and their city faster as they destroy and detonate more of the attackers.
Basically what I'm saying is that this is the Crematorians' whole deal. This exact situation is the reason that Nagash and Katakros kept them around instead of binning them for being defective and recycling their raw materials to try again. And the Crematorians are also a cool and popular OBR subfaction with a cool paint scheme and mechanical gimmicks that aren't well represented by the current index rules so they would have benefitted from this sort of white dwarf treatment. And the Crematorians also have interesting leaders that could have been expanded on with new lore. So I think potential OBR readers would have been equally excited for Crematorians content.
Basically, if this article started with the story premise, then it should have used the Crematorians and not the Petrifex Elite. But if the point of the article was to expand on the Petrifex Elite specifically, then they should have crafted a premise that fit them - something set in Ghur, something revolving around prehistoric arcane secrets or petrified monster bones -maybe the stone walls of some Ghurish city turn out to be quarried from ancient godbeast remains.
I mean, overall I'm still hype, and I'll still get the issue, but the lore mismatch feels frustrating. Like the folks in charge of adding new story content for the OBR just aren't that aware of or invested in the content that already exists.
But maybe they'll show me good. Maybe the special weapons will themselves turn out to be forged from petrified monster bone and we'll hear how the PE boss specifically forcemarched his legion to get to a realmgate back to shyish to come claim it before the Crematorians could get there and destroy it all.
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