Seredain's 2nd 7th Revision - Shiny New and Playtested

[tiekwando2]

I would say that DPs take 1 rare slot, or you make it so eagles can be used for special or something. Even at the moment its only 2 rbts and 1 eagle with a unit of DPs. I think the fact that DPs are a rather tame rare (in comparison to say Blood knights) makes it ok for them to essentially be a one half rare if that makes sense.

Also making them two rare slots means i cant have two units of them and a star dragon

while it does slightly balance it, i think one rare would be enough. People will still want their RBTs and Eagles.

[Seredain]

They'd be pretty good value at 33 points... and I don't think 2 units should be allowed in a 1000-point army, nor 4 in 2000, but I can see your point. I really don't want them as single rares because they are pretty awesome, but, there's a solution:

It could it be fair to make the first unit a single Rare Choice, and every other unit 2 rare choices? Edit: I've changed the OP to include this - I think that's pretty fair - allows flexibility for DP lovers but doesn't allow spamming.

magical bolt throwers

Hell yes! I was thinking of giving RBT's an 'alchemical fire upgrade' but didn't want to just 'keep revising' until I broke the whole thing. Then I realised this little revision was staring me in the face! makes sense, still fine for 15 points, fluffy.

[geoguswrek]

ok, why do cavalry of caledor get the heroic charge, but not characters from caledor ?

[Seredain]

ok, why do cavalry of caledor get the heroic charge, but not characters from caledor ?

Why don't characters from Chrace get to wear Lion Cloaks and be stubborn? It's just the way the cookie crumbles. Plenty of things mitigate the oddity: Caledorian Princes worth their salt are likely to be on a Dragon anyway; they and their nobles are also more likely to want to ride with their legendary cavalry and so benefit from the rule (unlike Chracian stubborn).

The idea is that the collective courage of a massed group of individuals (combined with the fact that they're very famous and know everyone is looking), inspires each to great displays of legendary bravery. To pick up on this "vibe" the character will just have to ride with the unit or go it alone and rely on his own high leadership.

There are people out there who give Lion Cloaks to their characters for +5 points or whatever - if you wanted to create a dedicated Caledorian you could always do something similar. For simplicity's sake, though, I'm not including 'honours' in this list - characters have received enough of a boost in the Magic Items department.

[geoguswrek]

i understand mate, i was merely complaining because that is what i do.

I am sure that i would try to find someway of getting something fun with magical attacks... possibly veteran seaguard (i think i decided these were pretty good?), because that would be fun.

[Seredain]

i understand mate, i was merely complaining because that is what i do.

Ha ha, that's true! I utterly dispair of ever getting you to love my dear Silver Helms... But then where would Progress be without Complaint?

I am sure that i would try to find someway of getting something fun with magical attacks... possibly veteran seaguard (i think i decided these were pretty good?), because that would be fun.

Veteran Seaguard totally kick ass - 14 points, WS5, fight in 3 ranks and shoot in 2 ranks, AS3+ in CC and 4+ vs missiles. Magical arrows would be a nice cherry on the cake, really.

[geoguswrek]

Never gonna happen. I used to loathe silver helms in 6th, when it was necessary to use them, now i won't take them unless you pay me. (or its a soft friendly game, in which case out come the rubbish cav)

[Seredain]

Dragon Prince Question


These are the revised rules for Dragon Princes as they stand*:

Dragon Princes: follow their existing rules but instead have STR 4 and cost 33 points. In addition, they have the Heroic Charge special rule.

Note that the first unit taken will take up a single rare slot. Each subsequent unit will constitute not one but two rare unit choices.

Heroic Charge:

During a charge against any enemy, a unit of Dragon Princes and any mounted character with them will be Immune to Psychology. If they successfully complete a charge the unit will remain Immune to Psychology for the duration of the player's turn.

I introduced Heroic Charge to make them a bit more 'rare choice' and settled that the first unit should take only one rare slot, since they're not as badass as some other rare choices. But with the addition of the HC rule, perhaps they are a little cheap at 33 points per model.

I'm thinking about making these DP's 34 points per model to account for HC, but I'm not certain yet. Since DP's have LD 9 anyway it may not make a lot of difference in the long run, making 33 still ok. On the other hand, they cost 33 to account for the +1 Strength boost, adding something else on as well should add cost, say +1 point. I haven't had a chance to playtest them with the new psychology rules yet, so I'd be grateful for any comments on this little problem!

*Edit: Also note that that Dragon Armour (see OP) now only provides a 3+ Ward Save against fire and breath, not immunity.

[geoguswrek]

the itp on the charge is a huge deal. when i declare dragon princes into fear causers, there is a chance that i don't go anywhere. This buggers up more combo charges than you'd think.

[Seredain]

the itp on the charge is a huge deal. when i declare dragon princes into fear causers, there is a chance that i don't go anywhere. This buggers up more combo charges than you'd think.

Yeah that basically sums it up, and decides that we need to take the cost of these bad boys over 33 points.

I wanted to add something else on to the strength boost, though, since these DP's are now (after the first unit), taking up 2 rare slots. I like the ItP rule, but do you think 34 points per model is ok for Str 4 ItP DP's?

[geoguswrek]

i don't know. Probably, but remember that they are a rare choice.

[Seredain]

I've played a few more games testing out various bits of the list and other bits of the wider game. Made some notes and together my gaming partner and I came up with the following tweaks and changes.

Dragon Princes - now cost 34 points per model instead of 33- see above.

Princes/Nobles: High Elf princes (and all other fighting elf lords), have WS 8. A prince may ride in a Lion Chariot for + 140 points and will displace one of the crew. A noble or prince may ride in a Silver Helm Chariot for + 100 points and will displace one of the crew.

For an interesting discussion on the virtues of WS 8 elvses, see the 'Lords and Heroes: what's so special...' thread in the Warhammer Fantasy forum.

Spears - now grant chariot riders +1 Str on the charge but otherwise, like other weapons, work as if the model was on foot.

War Machines: are often massive but also very fragile contraptions, depending upon the smaller parts- springs, ropes, axles and so on- to function as well as the largest. Strong impacts are likely to shatter this delicate balance!

A single wound suffered from an attack of Strength 7 or greater will destroy a war machine completely. Remove the model from the game as if it had lost all its wounds.

Cannon: are great smoothbore guns, not rifles. Getting one of these unreliable machines to fire in an exactly straight line is not something the best engineers are expecting to see in the next thousand years!

After choosing a line of fire, guessing the range and firing the cannon, the player must determine where exactly the ball lands. Place a marker at the point determined by the range guessed, then roll a D6. On a roll of 1 or 2 the ball has veered 1” directly to the left of the marker (perpendicular to the line of fire). On a roll of 5 or 6 the ball has veered 1” directly to the right. If the ball veers then, on the bounce, it will travel along this new line of fire rather than along the line as determined initially by the player.

Flames of the Phoenix: completely immolates the unfortunate target, whether it is a unit of enemy infantry or the greatest of beasts!

The spell will inflict as many hits on every model in the target unit as matches that model’s unit strength; so man-sized models receive 1 hit, ogre-sized models 3 hits and so on. The only exceptions are cavalry models who each suffer one hit as normal.

Vaul’s Unmaking: will negate daemonic gifts and icons as if they were magic items.

Spear of the Noble Sentinel - now not restricted to models on foot.

Balanced Blade - now not restricted to models on foot.

There's quite a lot here so I won't break down each decision in turn, but as always C&C will be greatly apprecitated. The change to the rules for cannons has been a long time coming I feel! Character-sniping is one of the cheesiest aspect of the game.

One thing I will highlight is that Spear of the Noble Sentinel has now really found its place among the other magic weapons. It's the perfect weapon for a chariot rider since the character will follow all the rules for fighting on foot with spears (so for High Elves that's +1 AS in CC and +1 Str when charged by cav and so on), and he gets +1 Str on the charge. So, in a fast-moving charging chariot you're looking at 4 Str 5 armour piercing attacks which re-roll failed hits and wounds. With Helm of Fortune and a shield he'll have a re-rollable 2+ AS in CC (1+ vs shooting), and you'll still have 40 points to spend. Consider Sacred Incense (25) and Ring of Lileath (10) to protect him and his newly acquired Lion Chariot.

I'll get cracking on editing the OP.

Edit I wanted to put in an ammendment to bolt throwers which meant they'd go through the unit at the angle they were shot at (ie unless your BT was directly looking at the flank of an enemy cav unit it wouldn't be able to hit all models with a flank shot.

The problem is that the only way to do this is to have BT's draw a line of fire from their position through the enemy unit. I made it so they would be forced to target the centre of the unit to prevent character sniping, but is doesn't really. Also the "line of fire" technique doesn't make much sense alongside the ranged "To hit" chart. So I've dropped the idea and left BT's as they are. Any ideas on this issue welcomed.

[geoguswrek]

Cannons:
After choosing a line of fire, guessing the range and firing the cannon, the player must determine where exactly the ball lands. Place a marker at the point determined by the range guessed, then roll a D6. On a roll of 1 or 2 the ball has veered 1” directly to the left of the marker (perpendicular to the line of fire). On a roll of 5 or 6 the ball has veered 1” directly to the right. If the ball veers then, on the bounce, it will travel along this new line of fire rather than along the line as determined initially by the player.

What are left and right? i'd scatter the hit. (ie you guess range, roll an artillery dice, mark the point of impact, roll a scatter dice, move an inch in the direction indicated, then resolve bounce in a line through the cannon and the new impact.

Edit I wanted to put in an ammendment to bolt throwers which meant they'd go through the unit at the angle they were shot at (ie unless your BT was directly looking at the flank of an enemy cav unit it wouldn't be able to hit all models with a flank shot.

The problem is that the only way to do this is to have BT's draw a line of fire from their position through the enemy unit. I made it so they would be forced to target the centre of the unit to prevent character sniping, but is doesn't really. Also the "line of fire" technique doesn't make much sense alongside the ranged "To hit" chart. So I've dropped the idea and left BT's as they are. Any ideas on this issue welcomed.

first off, you can probably hit quite a few in the flank anyway (ie the 5 that matter) and secondly you can now hit 2 in the front.
You don't need to prevent sniping by changing the rule to "draw line of fire through the bolt thrower and the unit it targets, for each model hit, the bolt thrower does a single hit to the unit, as described below"

[Seredain]

Cannons:
After choosing a line of fire, guessing the range and firing the cannon, the player must determine where exactly the ball lands. Place a marker at the point determined by the range guessed, then roll a D6. On a roll of 1 or 2 the ball has veered 1” directly to the left of the marker (perpendicular to the line of fire). On a roll of 5 or 6 the ball has veered 1” directly to the right. If the ball veers then, on the bounce, it will travel along this new line of fire rather than along the line as determined initially by the player.

What are left and right? i'd scatter the hit. (ie you guess range, roll an artillery dice, mark the point of impact, roll a scatter dice, move an inch in the direction indicated, then resolve bounce in a line through the cannon and the new impact.

Ie 90 degrees left or right from the line of fire. 1" scattering is an idea- probably will make the cannon more accurate. Not sure if that's a good or a bad thing, but I'll run some tests. Thanks.

Edit I wanted to put in an ammendment to bolt throwers which meant they'd go through the unit at the angle they were shot at (ie unless your BT was directly looking at the flank of an enemy cav unit it wouldn't be able to hit all models with a flank shot.

The problem is that the only way to do this is to have BT's draw a line of fire from their position through the enemy unit. I made it so they would be forced to target the centre of the unit to prevent character sniping, but is doesn't really. Also the "line of fire" technique doesn't make much sense alongside the ranged "To hit" chart. So I've dropped the idea and left BT's as they are. Any ideas on this issue welcomed.

first off, you can probably hit quite a few in the flank anyway (ie the 5 that matter) and secondly you can now hit 2 in the front.
You don't need to prevent sniping by changing the rule to "draw line of fire through the bolt thrower and the unit it targets, for each model hit, the bolt thrower does a single hit to the unit, as described below"

That's a very good idea- I'll definitely try that out.

[Giladis]

I weap every time I read topics like these.

So many interesting magic item ideas that now we are not going to see in the next GW published book.

I know making magic items is great fun, trust me I know, but I would advise that when revisions are made new magic items are not added.

I am talking from experience here.

Cheers

[Dargon]

So many interesting magic item ideas that now we are not going to see in the next GW published book.

I know making magic items is great fun, trust me I know, but I would advise that when revisions are made new magic items are not added.

Just to be clear, are you referring to GW designers not being able to directly use ideas that have already been published elsewhere (such as here)? Do you know the specifics of what GW can and can't use (might be useful to know the details in a forum like this for people who are really GW will notice and use their ideas)?

Just a thought...

[Giladis]

So many interesting magic item ideas that now we are not going to see in the next GW published book.

I know making magic items is great fun, trust me I know, but I would advise that when revisions are made new magic items are not added.

Just to be clear, are you referring to GW designers not being able to directly use ideas that have already been published elsewhere (such as here)? Do you know the specifics of what GW can and can't use (might be useful to know the details in a forum like this for people who are really GW will notice and use their ideas)?

Just a thought...

Yes I am refering to that and I will go dig up the word text where I got it saved.


The IP rules are so strict that I couldn't use my own magic items ideas that have been published on a secret forum not available to public visible only to a handful of people.

[Seredain]

So many interesting magic item ideas that now we are not going to see in the next GW published book.

I know making magic items is great fun, trust me I know, but I would advise that when revisions are made new magic items are not added.

Just to be clear, are you referring to GW designers not being able to directly use ideas that have already been published elsewhere (such as here)? Do you know the specifics of what GW can and can't use (might be useful to know the details in a forum like this for people who are really GW will notice and use their ideas)?

Just a thought...

Yes I am refering to that and I will go dig up the word text where I got it saved.


The IP rules are so strict that I couldn't use my own magic items ideas that have been published on a secret forum not available to public visible only to a handful of people.

Thanks I'd be very interested to read that.

I studied a bit of IP law at Uni and I remember it being a principle that, once an idea was in the "public domain" (eg this website), it couldn't be protected and owned as intellectual property. If I wanted to "protect" all the ideas in this revision, I couldn't.

So there's nothing to stop GW from simply nicking 'my' ideas and shoving them in their own army book. I guess, therefore, that the point is GW wanting to protect the exact descriptions of items themselves? So, now I've shoved these items into the public domain, GW can't use them now because they can't be protected as 'their' ideas?

I put 'my' ideas into inverted commas because really their all GW's already. Take my version of Sword of Hoeth, for example: +2 Str, Auto Hits in CC. The stats are GW concepts exactly. +2 str is simply an ogre blade, GW's invention and the name 'SoH' is likewise GW's.

All I've done is taken little bits of Games Workshop's game system and re-configured them to make "new" items. So the only thing that needs changing by GW are the names? I mean I'm sure they'll introduce over the course of time a couple more +1 DD items in some army book even though I've just 'invented' one and called "Jewel of the Dawn". What's to stop GW from taking that item, changing the name and calling it a new item altogether? It's not like I can say I invented the concept of +1 DD. And that goes for every item on this thread.

Take my "Orb of Stars" - an exact copy of armour of stars but without the AS and in the Enchanted section instead. I can't believe GW would disallow themselves from ever taking the effects of that armour (their own invention) into the Enchanted Items section (also theirs), just because I did it first. Perhaps in order to draw a distinction they could rename the item "Cheese of Moons" instead?

I'm not sure GW's IP policy, if I have it right, stands up to logical scrutiny. A massive part of this hobby- it's heart really- is the invention of characters, stories, army themes. White Dwarf's long-running mantra has been that inventing new house rules, scenarios, characters and (yes) items, is what players should do to make games and campaigns more fun and unique. GW do it themselves all the time. Now that the internet is here, of course we are going to share these stories, scenarios and house rules that we've made and found enjoyable. That's what makes the wider gaming community flourish, and it's probably where a lot of GW staff started off. That GW's IP policy disallows them from taking advantage of this culture surely stunts the growth of the game as a whole?


Giladis, there's no doubting you've raised an interesting issue, but let's hope one that GW will eventually work around in response to the changing face of modern communication. At least you found the items interesting enough to make this issue annoying. That's something.