Monday 25 January 2016

New Araby & Norse updates out now!

Only some minor updates here, changing the following:

Araby:
  • Have short bows instead of normal bows, fits better with their background. Pts values changed to reflect this.
  • Some minor bug fixes.
  • Nomad Hunters have Jezzails instead of handguns (based on WFRP)

Norse:
  • Bondsmen, Reavers, Marauders have no armour by default, can upgrade to light armour.
  • Marauders have great weapons by default, cannot take additional hand weapons. Sets them apart from Reavers more.
  • Whalers are Unit Size 10+.
  • Huscarls are 10 pts default, can upgrade to heavy armour.
  • Some new art.

Also want to give a progress update on 9th Ed. I've finished 132 pages so far, have yet to finish the Lores of Magic, Magic Items, Scenarios and charts and diagrams. If possible, I'm going to try and finish version 1.0 before the end of the month so you can playtest it. After that I will probably make smaller Ravening Hordes style lists for all official army books until I can finish their complete army books, and update all my complete books to 9th ed. So you players who won't have the complete army books out for quite some time will still be able to look forward being able to play using the revised versions rather than the outdated 8th ed books. New units and special characters will have to wait until the finished books are out, however.

38 comments:

  1. I'm a little disappointed that my earlier suggestion to re-work counter-charge wasn't used. Oh well.

    Could you explain how replacing all bows with short bows in the Araby army book fits the background better?

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    1. It's not that I thought your suggestion was bad, but I'm rather happy the way counter-charge works right now actually.

      Short bows are mainly used on horse back, and the saracens in general used short bows. True that they had composite bows that added range, but short bows are so underutilised as it is in the game, so I want the armies that used them historically to use them more in Warhammer too.

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    2. Since they did have composite bows to add range, perhaps you should make it possible to upgrade the short bows to normal bows throughout the army book for a single point or maybe two.

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    3. Not so sure it really fits though, since the models would look the same, which is bad from a WYSIWYG stand point. If the models only have the options for short bows, it's a lot clearer that they also have short bows as an option in the rules.

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    4. I understand. But in that case I should inform you that you forgot to change the Sheikh and Caliphs options from a bow to a shortbow and that the war elephant crew are still equipped with bows.

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    5. Right you are! I've posted a new update with with these fixes.

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    7. OK can I post now finally? I had forget to enable cookies...

      I've tried to say that bow thing for couple of days already but I couldn't post messages. Good that someone else now did it. I wondered if anyone else notice that :D

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    8. Sorry Mathias. I didn't notice that the Flying Carpet Riders are still equipped with Bows as well.

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    9. About the Jezzail's used by the Nomad Hunters. Shouldn't those have a 36" range and ignore long range penalties like the Skaven Jezzail? Historically, in the Anglo-Afghan wars, the Afghans had the Jezzail as their standard weapon and it gave them an advantage due to it outranging the Brown Bess muskets used by the British. In your Estalia army book, muskets have a range of 30" so Jezzails should be longer.

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    10. I will fix the bows on the carpets too.

      The Araby jezzails are notably smaller than the Skaven ones though, so I think a range boost over handguns is enough.

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    11. Fair enough, though I figured that the increased size of the Skaven Jezzail (which is due to it's incorporation of warpstone) is the reason that the Jezzail is S6 instead of S4.

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    12. The S6 is due to the warpstone ammunition they use, the additional length is what give the Skaven jezzail range 36" (similar to a Hochland Long Rifle, which is also longer than an Arabyan jezzail).

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  2. so the army books that you have now for downloading will be the final version for 8th?

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    1. No, not at all. I plan on supporting both versions of the game, since 9th ed might not be everyone's cup of tea. The differences between the army books will be very slim though, just some points cost changes and re-wording of some special rules.

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    2. thats a good idea ^^

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    3. Excellent news! 9th is not my cup of tea, so really pleased to hear you will keep supporting the 8th edition books. Would love to see new areas of the Old World fleshed out by your (8th edition) army books - that's what attracted me to your site in the first place. Anyway, keep up the good work - much appreciated!

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  3. Yay, Eliasson armybooks compatible with 9th edition!!

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  4. Hello, here a french fan of your amazing work. As a roleplayer and a wargamer, you reconciled me with minatures of GW by using the rpg sources, producing a Warhammer setting closer to the historical fantasy that I love than the latest orientations of the cannon universe. I'm following your work ! By the way I have a simple question : Will you release the "Allied Contingents Book" at some point ? It seems you began to work on a complete different project (updating official books) and I'm equally enthusiastic about this, but I was VERY EAGER at the announcement of these minor factions compilation (Marienburg and Khuresh at the top).

    I did not found where to make suggestions, so while I'm on it : what do you think of a mutants units for the Beastmen Book and adding Norses Dwarf in Norsca Book ?

    Again : thank you for your amazing supplements !

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    1. Thanks! At the moment, it does not look like I will have the time to work on the Allied Contingents for quite some time, so I would not count on it.

      I was considering mutant units for Beastmen, but felt they might take the role of the expendable Ungors. I will think on it though.

      Norse Dwarfs were originally in the Norse book, but they are rather reclusive according to the fluff, so they are not too likely to actually fight in the Norse armies. They are more trading partners than anything else.

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    2. Ok, thanks you.(Maybe mutants could have random factors each turn (as the dryads) to represent a range of mutations ? Just a random idea.) Can't wait for the next books !

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  5. Since you may not have seen my original post I'll post it again:
    *In the case of Killing Blow, I meant to say that it works as current but against targets that it won't automatically slay it will ignore armour saves and wound regardless of toughness on a roll of 6 to wound. Sorry for being unclear.
    *In the case of Magic Missile hits being randomized as an equivalent of rolling To Hit, you could change the spells so that they fire a fixed amount of shots (the number of shots being the maximum possible number of shots from the old version).

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    1. *Give lone characters the skirmishers special rule. They do not have people surrounding them so shouldn't be as restricted as a normal unit.
      *Make characters that are also cavalry have the fast cavalry special rule unless they have a +2 bonus to their armor save (from barding or a special rule) or a base armor save that's better than 4+.
      *Give some units the ability to fire in all directions. Chariots and ridden monsters are an obvious example since one rider can work the reins while another fires but certain more intelligent mounts should allow the riders to do so as well. Maybe a special rule?

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    2. - You already wound on a 6 regardless, so I don't see how that changes anything. As for ignoring AS, a killing blow = decapitation, which why armour saves does not work. If you can't decapitate a dragon, it will still keep it's armour save.
      - I think the magically guided missiles work well as is, don't really see a need to change how they work.
      - Lone characters with heavy armour and barded horses won't be so nimble though, so I don't think that fits.
      - I think that fits better for certain armies like Hobgoblins and the like (as well as ridden monsters with howdahs), in which case this will be specified in the army books themselves.

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    4. *In the case of Fast Cavalry, I meant to say that the lone character isn't fast cavalry if it has a +2 armor save bonus from its mount or a base armor save better than 4+. Characters are more experienced so they should be a bit better at being fast cavalry than their subordinates which is why it's stuck at 4+ even if some armies don't have Fast Cavalry with a 4+ save. This is so that players would then have reason to put a character in a fast cavalry unit since the rules as they are now would make that a bad idea.
      *In the case of lone characters being Skirmishers, make lone infantry characters be skirmishers unless equipped with heavy armor or better.
      *I suggested the change to Killing Blow so that it would still be useful against Monstrous ______, Monsters, Chariots and Swarms because as it is now, it's useless against Ogre Kingdoms and certain builds. And killing blow doesn't just equal decapitation. If it did then hidden blades wielded by assassins wouldn't be killing blows either. I always interpreted it as striking a vital weakspot or a chink in the armor.

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    5. - I will add that to the FC rules.
      - What pros would a lone character have acting as a skirmisher that he does not already have?
      - Fair enough, but it's hardly a "killing" blow unless it actually kills the opponent. That's why I don't think it needs to be changed. Killing Blow is not that common a special rule anyway, and it's not like you cannot kill enemies just because you cannot instantly kill them (compared to Dragon Princes being immune to flaming attacks for instance).

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  7. Not on the topic of these updates, but I wanted this to be seen and was unsure whether you still read replies to old topics.
    In your skaven book, the HPA berserks on any double to move.
    This results in a 44% chance of beserking.
    I think this is far too high, as assuming it takes 2 moves from deployment to reach an enemy unit, the HPA only has a 40% chance of actually getting there without either fucking off in the wrong direction or simply not doing anything.
    So, while i agree with the other nerfs to the HPA, I think it should go back to beserking on triples, as in it's current state it is simply not reliable enough to be worth taking.

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    1. Hi, I usually get an email for every comment posted, so unless I forget to answer, I usually at least see them. You are correct about the HPA, but on triples the chances of actually going berserk is very low, so low that you are only likely to roll on it about 1/6 games. Maybe I could nerf to only go berserk on a double 1?

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    2. Here are the chances of beserking as I have calculated, but you may want to double check as I could be wrong.
      All doubles: 44.4%
      All triples: 2.8%
      Double 1s: 7.4%
      Total 13: 9.7%
      I think perhaps beserking on any triple or a total of 13, as there is no crossover between the two, resulting in a 12.5% chance of beserking, which seems balanced to me.

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    3. Sorry, forgot my manners, have a good one and thanks for all the great work you put in.

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    4. That sounds pretty good, it means you are quite likely to go berserk around 1 time per game, which is fair. Consider it patched!

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  8. Crazy Anon here!
    A practical question - how do you balance your armies point wise? What makes you think: "Ok, so this hero is 160 points, this unit in 90 per unit..."?

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    1. * model. Typo

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    2. I've figured out GW's system by cross-comparing all units from all army books (as well as using plain common sense), which means I can calculate the point costs of pretty much any unit. In some cases this needs to be tweaked a bit outside this formula, but for the most part it's pretty solid.

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    3. Can we see your model. I looked at what's on Doomseeker but by now it's definitely obsolete.

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    4. It's still pretty similar to the article published in the Doomseekers, a few weapon options and special rules needs to be tweaked a bit though. I might republished an updated version later at some point.

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