Return of Reckoning

There's that old critique of the original WAR that it should have had three faction grouping, instead of two, so when one side gets stronger/more-numerous the other two can team up against it in the face of the overwhelming threat. I don't bring this up as a criticism of WAR (I played and loved it back in the day) or ROR (I think ROR is one of the wonders of the modern internet ), or to argue there should be three factions groupings. I only bring it up because I have always been interested in: *IF* it was decided that it was necessary (or overwhelmingly helpful) to have three factions (which I know would require a fundamental re-design of huge parts of the game), lore-wise what would make most sense.

It seems to me that the biggest challenge lore-wise to having the three factions fluffy enough is what you have some factions that *hate* another faction (eg Dwarfs hate Greenskins, Empire hate Chaos) so it seems the only way to deal with that depends on which of these two scenarios is happening:
* when one factions has only one faction that it hates (may be this is Empire hating Chaos, and may be Dwarfs hating Greenskins but this isn't the case anymore for the last edition of WFB see below?) split up the hated faction (so Chaos gets split into its most common alliance: Khorne and Nurgle versus Tzeentch and Slaanesh, OR if we want to go for Chaos Undiviided then Chaos Warriors versus Demons of Chaos)
* when one factions has multiple factions that it hates (this would be if we agree that Dwarfs hate: Greenskins and Skaven as per the last edition of WFB, and I think to some degree Chaos Dwarfs) then they should be split into evenly hated blocks (which I think would be: Greenskins because they seem to be hated as least as much as the others, versus Skaven and Chaos Dwarfs).

To me, this would suggest these groups (but there may be other hatreds that conflict with this scheme, and this would put an emphasis on some, over other, particular aspects of: each Chaos god, and Chaos Warriors and versus Chaos Demons):

* Order/Preservation/Goodish Block: Empire, Dwarfs, High Elves, Wood Elves, Lizardmen, Bretonnia.

* The Destruction/Entropy/Exterminaton Block: Khorne + Nurgle Or Chaos Warriors, Greenskins, Beastmen, Ogres

* The Corruption/Domination/Scheming Block: Tzeentch + Slaanesh OR Chaos Demons, Skaven, Chaos Dwarfs, , Dark Elves

Be coold to hear others' ideas and better ways to divide the factions!

Empire barely accepting Elves already. Siding them with Lizardmen would be outright heresy.
Ogres are already part of Empire since they are present in game in AD for example as harbor deckhands, bodyguards and mercenaries in general, similar to Ogrins in 40K.
Skaven have no business with Chaos. They have their own Gods and own goals and would not submit to work under Chaos Dwarfs and Dark Elves.
That's why we already had them as the third party option in the live game. It was limited numbers of 3 Archetypes of Skaven to players who won the SCs events to unlock them.

And that's where the next problem came into play. It was never a third faction. It was only a limited amount of bonus Chars players could turn into and work together with their faction.

A real Third faction would also pull player numbers from the existing factions, what could lead to the total domination of the already stronger side, since it would instantly pull all those players to the new faction that are currently playing those classes that got gutted by nerfs over nerfs into a state of pure gimmic classes without any real impact onto the melee blob meta.

A third faction would need a mechanic similar to Rune priest/Zealot heal to dps switch button, to decide by their own what other faction they want to attack or heal. Then at the same time, the other factions would need that same thing to, to be able to react to a sudden loyalty shift and be able to attack the third party, when they suddenly decided to turn against them.
A system that only sets the loyalties of the third faction based on AAO % would fail instantly when one side suddenly looses a big chunk of player numbers, while the other side was on good terms with the third faction during a keep attack and then suddenly became hostile to each other.

To sum it up. A third party faction would be literal HELLMODE to balance in a game that already struggles to balance factions because of balance teams being part of the factions themselves.
A third party faction would never work in a free state without the possibility that one side suddenly gets absolute dominated to a state where they simply have to give up and log out. Imagine you already get stomped by 5 to 3 org WBs and then the 2 org 3rd faction WBs decide to turn against your 1 org WB.

What the game would rather need is a sytem of divine intervention, where a Dev, Gm, or player would be able to intervene when one side is 100% outnumbering and dominating the other side by pure player numbers to a point where defense is straight out impossible. So they then Spawn into the lakes as for example a greater Chaos demon, or Hero unit the size of those city 2. stage Lords and support the outnumbered side.