- Added bookmarks to the PDF, so you can more easily find whatever section you are looking for. This will be included for all future updates as well.
- Vampiric no longer gives Regen, instead makes you re-roll successful To Wound rolls (does not apply to magical attacks, flaming attacks, or killing blow).
- Removed Luthor Harkon (he will appear in the Vampire Coast expansion instead).
- Gashnag has Multiple Wounds (D3), not poisoned attacks.
- Black Coach is pulled by Nightmares.
- Strigoi Vampires may not take magic weapons or armour.
- The Brothers Ghorst have WS2 and S4.
- Skeleton Warriors may take medium armour.
- Corpse Cart have T5, Vigour Mortis gives Regen (6+) in addition to +1 A.
- Included cost for Flag of Blood Keep.
- Crypt Horrors have Ld7.
- Varghulf have Ld7.
- Mournguls are no longer Etheral, have 4+ ward against non-magical attacks, have Killing Blow.
- Increased the cost of bows and crossbows for Skeletons and Peasant Levy.
- Vlad's Blood Drinker restores lost Wounds on a 3+.
- Summon Ghouls are 20 pts.
- Transfix tests are no longer taken at -1 Ld.
- Invocation of Nehek cannot heal characters more than 1W per casting.
- Sylvanian Peasant Levy have US 10+ (so you are not forced into taking huge units of archers). May take additional hand weapons.
- Lahmian Vampires are 5 pts cheaper.
- Coven Throne 200 pts.
- Fixed multiple bugs with incorrect statlines and missing special rules.
If there any anything I've missed to fix that you think is important to add, let me know in the comments. Ideas for new units and the like are likely to be included in future expansions rather than being mainline units.
One one hand I'm happy that we are getting the Vampire Coast as a separate faction (also irony of all ironies, despite Death being one of the "grand alliances" of AOS, somehow Warhammer Fantasy has more armies than that game does), I am saddened by the fact that this means Warhammer Siege has been pushed back because that's the one I'm excited for the most.
ReplyDeleteYou should not have to wait too long though, those projects will go pretty quick compared to the army books.
DeleteThe link is still 1.0
ReplyDeleteThere was an issue with Google Drive, it's fixed now :)
DeleteThe vampiric regen is necessary for long battles, possibly a vampiric upgrade to get the regen?
ReplyDeleteThere is a Vampiric Power for Strigoi and Necrarch that give them Regen, Curse of the Revenant.
DeleteIn the army list Vargheists haven't "The Red Thirst" special rule
ReplyDelete-I think that one of the issues of the list still is ho compariatively weak the Strigoi are represented in comparison to the other Bloodlines Mathias.
ReplyDeleteIt is also a bit strange that they have access to more lores of magic than the Von Carstein & Lahmians. It would seem a bit more natural if they were on par with Blood Dragons in that regard. I suggest removing Lore of Shadows.
I realize the contradiction of telling you they are too weak and then asking for removal of one lore, but I think they need to be more "beasts" and less wizards.
-Corpse Cart zombies are still Ws 1, S 2.
I don't know if you read my comments so I'll post again, with some amendments.
ReplyDelete-Since Vampires on Monsters use the toughness and wounds of their mount, the Vampiric special rule should get an amendment to say that Vampires mounted on a Monster don't benefit from forcing opponents to re-roll successful To Wound rolls and The Red Thirst shouldn't help the Mount recover either. However, the undead nature of the mount does mean that the model can recover wounds with Curse of Undeath.
-Wight Kings are more the equivalent of a Tomb Herald than Tomb Prince so I think they should be Leadership 8.
-Peasant Levy are redundant with all the better tarpits that Vampire Counts have such as Zombies and Skeleton Warriors. Total War Warhammer has Sylvanian Crossbowmen/Handgunners so they would fill a niche that the Vampire Counts lack in (ranged combat) You could make them WS2 BS3, Ld5, sorta like an evil counterpart to Bretonnian Longbowmen. It's also stated in the Tomb Kings book that the Skeleton automatons used by Vampire Counts lack the intellect for ranged combat so I don't think you should give the Vampire Counts ranged capabilities in the form of Skeletons. The Sylvanian ranged units would be a Special choice I think.
-I still think the Asp Bow should be a Lahmian only magic item for Lahmian Vampires and Vampire Ladies.
-The fact that Soul Reapers grants Magical Attacks to Hexwraiths is redundant when they already have it due to being Ethereal.
-The bloodline have been mixed considerably so I think several players might represent a Vampire from one bloodline that counts as a Vampire from another. You could give support for this by making Mannfred have the statline of a Necrarch and Konrad have the statline of a Blood Dragon. Mannfred and Konrad are brother, one physically frail but magically powerful and one physically strong but magically weak, an evil counterpart to Tyrion and Teclis. Having Mannfred use the statline of the physically weak (relatively speaking) Necrarch bloodline and Konrad use the statline of the physically strong Blood Dragon bloodline could highlight this relationship.
-I think you should bring back Mannfred's hero version. Konrad should also get a Lord version since he ruled the Von Carstein bloodline for a time.
-Heinrich was restored to his full glory by the Dark Gods so I'd give him the statline of a Sorcerer Lord (WS5, I5, A3). Remove the two additional attacks granted by the Chaos Tomb Blade.
-Walach should have the options for a Hellsteed or Abyssal Terror in case players want him to fly but aren't playing in a game with enough points for a Zombie Dragon.
-Liche Lords should have all the Mount options that Master Necromancers have. Maybe Master Necromancers and Liche Lords should be able to ride Mortis Engines as well since those are directed by a Corpsemaster and they can already replace Corpsemasters on Corpse Carts.
-If Lahmian Handmaidens wear Light Armor than Lahmian Vampires and Vampire Ladies should be able to wear it as well.
-Lahmian and Von Carstein heroes and lords are BS5, perhaps give them ranged weapons to make use of that. Longbows for Lahmians (and an option for their Handmaidens), Crossbows or Handguns for Von Carsteins.
-Coven Thrones are too expensive a mount for a Lahmian Vampire and if Blood Dragon Vampires can ride Abyssal Steeds then Necrarch and Von Carstein Vampires should be able to as well.
-Cairn Wraiths riding a Skeletal Steed should gain Soul Reapers and Soulstriders. You added the option for a Skeletal Steed for them so that a Hero could go with the Hexwraiths right?
Roland:
Delete-That would complicate things a lot and you'd not realy get your points worth like other armies if you paid points for a mount (unless you were a wizard), as you'd loose the re-roll etc. It is no different than other combined profile rules. You can argue it is not very realistic, but that kind of goes for the whole combined profile idea. It is a convenience thing for games and resolves the needing unmounted models in addition to the monster mounted one etc.
-Wight Kings being LD 8 is not unreasonable, I agree. It seems like the Tomb Heralds etc are more "living" than Wight Kings in many ways in the lore.
-I agree with the Sylvanians being tactically pretty meaningless, but making the army a missile army is not the way to go either I think. Yes in Total Wars Campaign, they have Crossbows/Handguns available, but likely this will not be featured in the more balanced multiplayer battles mode (and for good reason). It is also justified in a campaign setting, as by the time you unlock these abilities, you likely already own large portions of the Empire. That said, I completely agree that the Levy needs something to make them meaningful tactically speaking. I also agree with the Skeletal ranged unit, both from a strategic army book perspective and from a lore perspective.
-Disagree with the Lahmian bow being moved. It might as well not be included then.
-The bloodline statline notion on special characters is a bad idea and not justified.
-A Vampire Lord is a vampire that has strong blood and that survived for ages to become even stronger. Konrad was never that just because he briefly ruled Sylvania. Mannfred's hero veriosn is not needed. There are enough Von Carstein special characters already.
-Again, Heinrich Kemmler is NOT a Chaos Sorcerer...
-Tha argument for more steeds for Walach can be made for ANY special character in the game... Not a valid argment.
-I like the idea of a Liche Lord being able to ride a Mortis Engine. Seems fitting.
-I agree regarding Light Armour for Lahmians. I know MAthias had a bit of a spece issue though.
-No Longbow missie weapon unit of vampires. It is not justified in the lore, nor would you invest in the points to make such good fighters into archers instead anyway. If you are quick on your feet and have S5, you're not going to buy S3 Bows... Not even remotely cost-efficient.
-Abyssal Steeds are more laboratory type experiments that they stitch together etc, so it fits the necrarchs very well. Not so much the others.
-The Soul Reaper & Soulstriders idea has some merit to it.
One last thing. Fell Bats aren't much bigger than a Harpy so I think they should have 1 Wound and Attack. Harpies have justification for two since they have claws on their finger and toes.
DeleteWell, by opinions are for the most part the same as Rune's, but I will go through them anyway.
Delete- That overcomplicates things, the whole idea of the combined profil is to make monsters work the same way as MC or Ca in 8th ed, so the rules of the rider takes presidence, and all attacks are resolved against it.
- I'm fine with that, Ld9 is really high when Grave Guard are Ld6.
- The Peasant Levy is a better fit with the background as Sylvania does not have a standing army, as such they will be poorly trained. VC used to have missile troops back in 5th ed, and there are plenty of suitable models for them, so I'd rather tkeep them around. They are plenty weaker than the TK troops. As special units, they could probaly not see much play as you have more interesting units around then. Also, from a logical stand-point, why would a skeleton bowman be rarer than a swordsman? They are both average skeletons.
- I don't want to have any bloodline specific items among the magic items. It's much more useful for the Handmaidens than for a close combat oriented character.
- Will fix.
- Disagree, in that case the idea of bloodlines might not exist. Both Mannfred and Konrad and von Carsteins, so should have that as their base. As Rune said, Konrad became the ruler of Sylvania in a power vacuum, when Mannfred would have also been a Hero choice. Had Konred still been alive, he would have been a Lord by now.
- Disagree; no other book has this for any characters, and the Mannfred that people care about is a Lord choice. Heck, as a hero, his only point of inclusion would be as part of Vlad's army in a campaign.
- Disagree, Kemmler is not Chaos sorcerer in the traditional sense. He was brought back by them yes, but he does not have any mark of Chaos, nor was he brought up in the Chaos wastes with the various mutations that would bring.
- Walach either had a barded nightmare or a Zombie Dragon in the background. I'd rather be fine with skipping the Zombie Dragon as the Doomrider Powers has no effect then.
- I'd be okay with letting the Liche Lord ride upon a Mortis Engine. I don't think the corpse cart is fitting them as the "lords of undeath" (sitting a rotten wagon full of rotting corpses does nto feel like a very noble thing...).
- I'm fine with that, was just a lack of space to include it. I'm working on making that workable though.
- None of them are described as using ranged weapons in the background, and it's pretty useless for such close combat oriented characters, kind of like giving a Chaos Lord a bow...
- Well, they are not really Hexwraiths though. Adding a Cairn wraith does give you 3A though.
- In pure mass, the Fell Bats are bigger. Due to their base size, they would also be pretty bad as you won't be able to get in as many models into combat as the harpies can.
>Also, from a logical stand-point, why would a skeleton bowman be rarer than a swordsman? They are both average skeletons.
DeleteBecause bows are much, much harder to use than melee weapons? I think that the lack of shooting is a pretty important part of the VC's identity as a faction, and it seems to me that the purpose of the addition of skeletal archers is just to make stuff resemble old editions for the sake of it.
In the bestiary descriptions of the vampires it refers to Living hero Swains in the Lahmians and Lance formation knights in the Blood dragons. You could take these references out, but I would prefer if these were added to the rules. Adding a Swain hero to the Lahmians - Human hero - Immune to Psychology that will take the hits that would otherwise hit a Lahmian vsampire in the same unit (infantry only).
ReplyDeleteA note under Blood knights and black knights, if the general is Blood Dragon then these units can use the lance formation.
Can I ask as to why the cost of the missile weapons on Skeletons went up, given they are BS2 and can't stand and shoot?
I agree with Roland that Necrach hero vampire should be able to ride an Abyssal terror - seems right up their street.
I also see the challenge that Strigoi vampires can use more magic than others, odd though it might sound, I'd drop the lore of death for them, and keep them with lore of beasts and lore of Shadow. I'd also have the lores of beasts lore attribute affect ghouls and crypt horrors.
There is a typo in the Undead rule description on p 166, or should be of.
The text uses male pronouns all over the place, which seeing as at least one fifth of vampires are female isn't correct. - I think I found references to assuming the players were male too, which isn't good either.
Mournguls look very very ethereal... what is the logic behind this?
Phillip:
DeleteNot everything mentioned in the lore is fitting for inclusion in an army book by default. This goes for all the army books really. I thie Swains fall into this category tbh, at least as a unit.
A Swain Hero doesn't really sound all theat tempting when you have access to Vampires either.
Tbh, I'd much rather see a cheap Hero option be made around the "igor" models (forgot the name) from Mordheim.
Blood Knights are not by definition from Bretonnia. The oder of the Blood Knights is actually formerly an Empire Knightly order. It is also very rarely a good idea to toake another army's special rule and co-opt it into another list.
Missile Weapon cost went up to discourage everyone using their 25% Core allowance on missile type troops instead of traditional hordes of zombies and skeletons.
I don't think a Necrarch Hero being able to ride an Abyssal Terror is out of place either tbh. Seems fitting. It is not too powerful a beast so...
I agree on the Strigoi aspect. No Magic Weapon and Nor armour is very fitting to both models and the lore, but it leaves them severely underpowerd in comparison. They need other buffs to compensate.
The Morngul change came from me bugging Mathias a bit about an Etheral Monster being able to use Stomps. That seemed very odd to me (particularly as it doesn't even have legs in this case). It wasn't Ethereal originally from Forge World. Personally I'm partial to the Etheral version of MAthias, but just wanted the Stomps removed to balance it out a little.
Love the fluff, love the lore, lore and fluff should trump the rules if it doesn't damage them, yes a human hero is less than a vampire, but it is cool and fluffy :-)
DeleteDidn't say Blood knights need to use Lance formation, only that they could if led by a blood dragon, same for black knights, and this used to be the case (although blood knights didn't exist then, when the appendix lists were published.
Would have preferred missile armed skeletons to not count to core, now they are just overpriced.
could add a few more strigoi powers to compensate for the lack of magic equipment, but then, they play differently, might just have to learn to deal with it.
Prefer your solution to a mourngul - remove the stomps, keep ethereal.
- As mentioned in the post, new units like Swains might be included as a separate download. The VC list is pretty full of characters as is, I'd want to avoid making any bloodline-specific characters overall (not counting the vampires themselves ofc).
Delete- Overly complicated since that would require access to another army books. That text is really just there for flavour.
- This to avoid missile spam, they are slightly overpriced to make you pay a premium for including them, meaning you might want 1-2 smaller units of archers, but probably not much more than that. Making them special units would not really do that much though, since there are so many other special units that are better.
- That's fine by me.
- Would Death be the least likely lore for them though? They are called the "beasts in shadow", so those two lores would kinda make sense in that regard...
- Fixed.
- If you point them out, I'll be happy to fix them (at least throughout the rules section, there's a total of 1354 "he"'s in the entire book). I've tried to change all "he"'s to "the Vampire", but it is possible I've missed some.
- Mournguls are only really semi-ethereal. They appear in W:TW 2 as well in the new DLC, and they don't really have that see-through ghost-look to them.
I did a quick check through the rules section, all "he":s I could find have been replaced with "it" or "they".
DeleteI accept that Swains and glooms and strigani will need an extension, the reason I raised the point on swains and Lance formation is that the bestiary description references them, would suggest those references also move to these "extensions".
DeleteI accept the missile spam argument, but would like to suggest you could make missile armed skeletons not count towards core, like you have done for dire wolves and peasants. If we are concerned with missile spam here, why not for empire or anyone else with core archers, if so then the cost of a bow should rise across the board.
The lors on a strigoi I am not really that bothered with, although beasts and shadow would be my first picks. What about my suggestion that the beasts magic lore attribute includes ghouls and crypt horrors?
Appreciate the egalitarian editing.
Mourguls, well they float, no legs... that to me says ethereal. They also don't look very stompy - so changing the rules to enable the stomp to make sense I think is the wrong move, I'd keep as ethereal and remove the stomp
The dregs figures Rune - the mordheim "igor models" would be fantastic super low level hero characters, but I think if other cool extras go to an extension - then these little fellas go that way too.
To support Mathias's point on fell bats, the main issue here is base size. We often appear to overlook base size when working out stat lines and costs but it is hugely important. fell bats have a footprint four times that of a harpy. A cannon crew could be hit by 3 fell bats or 5 harpies. Note this base size issue causes huge problems for the AoS models squeezed into these books, Orc Brutes etc, point for point when you consider their frontage they are really weak.
- I can remove those mentions, sure.
Delete- That might be a better solution, if a bit unorthodox.
- That would require giving ghouls and crypt horrors another special rule just for that purpose, I don't think that's needed.
- Appreciate the use of the word egalitarian!
- They rather crawl forward with their long arms instead of floating, at least of the Vampire Coast trailer is anything to go by. I think they "hover" a bit, but they seem to be moving forward. In the art, they are not really ethereal looking either, instead having more of a grey flesh tone.
- The Dregs are really just used as assistants for buying equipment and operating during the day in Mordheim, as far as their stats are considered, they are on par with peasant levies. I don't think they would fit as heroes for that reason.
I think the not-counting as Core is actually a good solution, as you will then have to compete with special and rare options in all but name, so you are not very likely to do a missile spam. The "do not count as core" is already well established in the list due to all the mobile, weak chaff etc... It would stop people from choosing 25% missile units from core.
DeleteRegarding the lore of skeletons and shooting, I can't recall exactly where It is stated atm, but somewhere it says that skeletons have sort of a limited range witchsight and hence wouldn't know where to aim after a certain distance. The TK list gets around this with their "homing" missiles though.
I like the lore of beast idea as well, but If implemented, I think it would be best implemented through the rulebook. With the changes to the rules, I wouldn't mind seeing a page with new and generic special rules being added. Feral could be one. "Intelligent Beast" could be another (that would allow units like dragon ogres to be affected by the bsb). I might have some other ideas as well.
The dreg models could be used to represent a more "Igor" type hero, or alternatively an amysing special character. :-)
I agree with The Rune, If having the lore of beasts affecting ghouls is desired then I'd change the main rule book to have the lore attribute affect "Wild" units (rather than have the longwinded description it has now. Then give the mainrule book a rule called Wild which is basically a non rule but enables you to apply other rules by choice, a little like "intelligent creature" would enable you to define which monsters / monstrous beasts could use the inspiring presence and hold your ground rules.
DeleteThen give all beastmen the "wild" rule, all warbeasts the wild rule and then add it to ghouls and crypt horrors.
The Dreg Igor type models would be funny, yes a rubbish stat line but could have some nice bonus's to necromancers in range - a little like chaos familiars used to do in 4th ed. A necromancer could have an Igor type person, a Von Carstein have a black suited white glove wearing butler called Jeeves - come on - how cool would that be?
I clearly need to see this vampire coast trailer...
I was thinking about thie potential for an "Igor" type special character yesterday. I'm imagining him being some necromantic experiment from ages ago and that he has sort of remained in the shadows over the millenia (being rather unremarkable), helping an assisting Vampires and Necromancers in various ways (but obviously not receiving any credit) in return for perhaps vampiric blood to sustain his existence? I see some potential and room for such a special character at least, and it does fit with the warhammer setting sense of humor and parody etc... :-)
DeleteJeez, how did the Lizardmen get up to 95% so fast! I figured they'd be shorter then the Vampires, but that was still much quicker the I was expecting (a pleasant surprise)
ReplyDeleteA bit surprised at the speed too.. :-)
DeleteI use a combination of magic and coffee ;)
DeleteMust be some coffee... :-P
DeleteFunny thing is; I don't actually drink coffee. Guess that just leaves magic then?
DeleteMathias. Have you got in mind to include the aracnodon and roaring lizard? It would be fantástic incorporations
ReplyDeleteYou mean the Voxasaurus? Not really, they both lack background material and official models. Possibly as future downloads.
DeleteI meant the thunder lizard instead of roaring lizard. Mmm... Interesting... Or maybe they fit better in monstrous Arcanum expansion because these creatures are not dominated by lizardmen
DeleteThat would be more likely, Thunder Lizards can normally speaking not be controlled by the Slann to work in battle. They are also so huge that I'm not sure they would be workable on a normal battlefield.
DeleteI would be very interested in how you are able to provide more colour on Lustria and the SouthLands so that we open up more opportunities to other races in the area, also how we ensure clear distinction between the Amazons and the Lizardmen.
DeleteOh and to do something about cold ones - there have been so many models for them along different concepts, currently the models the saurus ride are very different to those Dark elf knights ride, so are these the same creatures, or different, maybe related etc etc
I actually liked the regen solution better for the vampiric rule. The reroll to wound is just a very powerful conditional ward save in disguise. an attack from a regular S3 equals a free "ward save" of 2+ against a T5 vampire. and then you can have armour saves and regular ward saves from items on top of that...with the regen you still had a chance to slay the vampire as the test was taken at the end of the turn. You could probably argue that you can use magic or fire to circumvent the reroll but I still thinks it is quite on the very OP side unless the vamps get a substantial cost increase for this bonus (And I play VC...) -Lemurus.
ReplyDeleteaddendum: but it could be useful and fitting for strigoi vampires as an upgrade though -lemurus
DeleteI have tested the re-roll a fair bit for my LoN project (on Immortals) and yes, it is powerful againt regular troops etc, but when a Vampire character is killed in a game it is most often due to other characters with magic weapons, magic or miscast... That killing Blows & Flaming Attacks are also equally effective gives most armies some tools to effectivly deal with them in any case.
DeleteAlso, most vampires are T4 by far, which means most armies that have access to S6 attacks with lances and great weapons still have effective tools to deal with them. 2+ to wound with a re-roll with a "mundane" attack isn't OP by any means, especially if the lore is anything to go by...
Regarding the cost of vampires, this is taken into account already. Look at the 8th ed Vampire that was a Wizard by defaul, then compare him with the Von Carstein Vampire that is not wizard by default and you see a significant increase in cost.
The reason for this change is because Vampires, while good at healing, do not really heal as quick as Troll and the like without drinking Blood (which they still can). You were never likely to kill Vampires in 8th Ed with S3 attacks anyway, so this won't change much. Re-roll to Wound seemed like a better way of representing their toughness without going overboard on just boosting their T value. Unlike Regen, this rule also won't be of help against magical attacks, and their cost has gone up considerable compared to 8th Ed. Finally, they also cannot heal themselves as easily as in 8th Ed, so these should more or less cancel each other out in the long run.
DeleteNow that Regen isn't an option for Vampires having it as a power for strigoi would be lovely.
DeleteAlso the summon ghouls is too variable for 20 pts in my opinion, - too unreliable to be worth investing in. I'd set it to 5+D6, for 25 pts, now it is 6-11 equal distribution, as distinct to 2-12 with normal distribution
Also, I feel like every time I refresh the page that Lizardmen percentage goes up by like 10%. :P
ReplyDeleteHaha suddenly 99% :D This series is getting done pretty soon at this speed :O
DeleteThat's kind of the idea, I have about 6000 miniatures to paint, would like to be able to do so before the paints dry up ;)
Delete6000? you have even more to paint than me then and that takes deliberste effort.. :-P
DeleteWell, what else am I going to buy with all that donation money (haha, I wish)? :p
DeleteThe Red Duke's The Armour of Blood looks to work against everything unlike the Red Thirst. Just confirming it should be like that?
ReplyDeleteI will clarify that it follows the rules for Red Thirst instead, won't make any sense to regain Wounds from Undead!
DeleteTrue.
DeleteMaybe remove Necrofex Colossus from the Vampire Counts army, because they are going to be part of the Vampire Coasts army?
ReplyDeleteThe Necrofex fits better in the main army book, it's really shoehorned into the Vampire counts. That said, it will be included in both, but with cannons in the Vampire coast ofc.
Delete*shoehorned into the Vampire coast.
DeleteI think it fits well in both lists. Just give it different upgrades. It is a very nice type Necrarch pet project and fits very well in the VC list :-)
DeleteHaving now seen the Vampire coast trailer :-) I think there is an opportunity to create some sort of augmented undead giant (necrach VC book) and the magical construction thing with cannons from the trailer, they feel quite different.
DeleteThe coven throne is 200 pts for a Lord and 230 for a hero, is that an error or because the lord doesn't gain as many W as the hero does?
ReplyDeleteThat's an error, the coven throne will be made for Lords only.
DeleteWill Saltspite from your Sartosa book be moved to the vampire coast book?
ReplyDeleteNo, she is not Undead at all, so her inclusion in the Vampire coast seems pretty strange.
DeleteI agree.
DeleteI think the main reason she's there is because if they do a Southern Realms update with Estallia/Tilea/Border Princes, the army is too different from a Sartosa Pirate themed army. So they threw her into Pirate Coast since she's also a pirate character and not tied to a main faction like Felheart.
DeleteYays glad you are not doing that
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteFrom the Storm of Chaos Sylvania Army list I can add:
ReplyDelete- One unit of Grave Guard could upgrade to Drakenhof Guard and has access to Plate Armor.
- Sylvanian Levy could be equipped with Shield, Light Armour and/or halberd(Empire Miniatures can be used). It's unit size start with 10.
- The have a Von Carstein magic banner "The Banner of Drakenhoff"(I think that's the name, my book is in Spanish): The Unit has Magic Resistance(2) and can double the number of Wolves summoned by the Invocation of Nehek(in this case combined with the Summon Creatures of the Night trait).
- Maybe for an expansion, I'd like to avoid giving them too much armour.
Delete- The Levy is just peasants, Sylvania do not have State troops anymore.
- That will be included in the Magic Items expansion.
Regarding archer spam and general army composition limits. I have just tried to put together some nice fluffy small army lists - 6 armies 1000 pts each from each blood line plus a Necromancer led force. It has proved to be really difficult because of the restrictions.
ReplyDeleteFirstly the 25% cap on heroes when there is a 35% cap on characters means I can't have a vampire and a wight at 1000 pts, would love that 35% to be applied to all Characters and Heroes and then Lords being 25% (which is taken from the 35%) means that at 1000pts having 280 pts of heroes is possible.
Secondly with wolves, bats and peasants not counting towards core, if we then make Skeleton Archers not count either it forces certain picks especially for Lahmian and Blood Dragon forces that don't lean towards Ghouls and zombies much. Suggest that Archer units can't outnumber other skeleton units instead.
This is the Lahmian force I put together - designed to be fluffy not competitive - which is non legal based on the composition limits, but want to ask if others think this unrepresentative?
Lahmian vampire L1 wizard, lightning reflexes,
Wight King, heavy armour steed and lance
30 skeleton spearmen full command
15 skeleton archers
6 black cats (dire wolves)
15 Grave guard heavy armour full command
5 black knights Heavy armour but no barding
banshee
3 handmaidens.
This has 251 pts heroes
286 from Core but only 256 when cats(wolves removed) and then if the archers didn't count - 175. I am costing bows at 1pts, sorry mathias.
325 pts of Special
138pts rare.
The game isn't ideally suited to make army lists of 1000 pts generally speaking, and that is not just an VC issue. :-)
DeleteThat said, Vampires have beome a fair bit more expensive and offcourse that eats into your percentages at such low pts games.
Regarding the 35% hard cap on characters, I sort of agree tbh. It also severely limits special characters in regular games. I'm not advocating for turning the game back to being a new herohammer type game, but I'd rather see this being prevented through the game mechanics itself, rather than a harsh (for some armies) arbitrary point limit.
When it comes to lore based armies, none of the vampiric bloodlines has any lore where they use skeleton archers as far as I can recall, so they should be sen more as a luxury I think. No missiel weapon has been the defining weakness of the VC list for ages, and now having a way around this is in and of itself a luxury that should not come easily.
I don't think your army example is unrepresentative at all. Looks nice. It does however have lot of points sunk into its special choices, where I'd argue you'd have to reduce the overall cost to get access to more archers for balance reasons. :-)
Oh and the Undead + Steadfast question has not been answered. Can we have steadfast undead units reduce their crumble result (by 1 or 2)? - currently undead units don't really benefit otherwise
ReplyDeleteI think Mathias commented somewhere that he wanted it to reduce damage by 1. I'm for equalt o rank bonus (max 3) myself, but anything is better than nothing :-)
DeleteI imagine this will be applied next time he updates the rulebook itself.
This will be buffed in the next BRB update. Making it -1 plus number of ranks seems pretty fair in my book, though that remains to be seen - with a BSB that means a unit of zombies can ignore -5 models crumbling, which might make them too resilient. For those of you who have played VC lately, how many casualties would you say you are suffering due to crumbling on average? I don't want Steadfast for Undead to turn in pure Unbreakable after all (though it would be negated by flanking ofc).
DeleteI play/played agaisnt vamps we made it that a minimum of 1 model must still crumble.yeah makes fighting mass zombies harder but at least the don't evaporate anymore
DeleteWith regards to Vampires no longer being undead, should they have a addition to their rule saying any rule that affects undead should affect them. I find it extremely strange that Lore of Lights Exorcism doesn't affect them, Tancred's Blade of Banishment and a bunch more. Alternatively you could go add in and models with Vamperic rule to the items/spells.
ReplyDeleteThat is a very good point
DeleteWe had a discussion about this and we came to the consclusion that since Vampires can't benefoit from the augment spells of the necromancly lore, they are not really affected by spells targeting undead either. You either are undead in rule terms or you are not.
DeleteThat said, I can see the argument from both sides, but ther ewas a concern of having tougher vampires and also vampires that you could buff more with lore of necromacy. This is partially why Red Fury was nerfed as well.
I still dont feel this is right when an undead dragon mount is now not affected by items that affect undead. I think the correct way to add Vamperic into the rules that should affect undead. At least from a lore stand point Lore of Light should affect a vampire.
DeleteAlso one of the reasons why I personally started follow Warhammer armies projects was it got rid of the rules that didn't make sense. This is the type of rule that plagued 8th ed and will either cause confusion in new players that the undead dragon isn't affected by spells that in the Cannon affect Undead.
DeleteAnother Issue with this is when do you determine whether a unit is undead now? If half the unit is vampires and other half is undead what rule do you now use? When aren't they undead and when are they? This type of rule slows the game down as players scan books and tends to sap the fun out of the game when that happens. Competitive setting or not, the game should be fun to play.
I think adding Vampiric to those particular spells would make the most sense.
DeleteThe case of the Dragon might seem a bit strange, but it's really just the same if the Vampire was mounted on a skeletal steed - you always target the rider, and its the rider who control the mount, so all psychology rules apply to them.
A spell that effects Undead units only affect the models that have the Undead special rule. In the case of Vanhel letting models move, I've not quite decided which would be the best course of action there; the unit can already march due to the presence of the wizard, so it would be better used at those Undead units that cannot march themselves. Or if people prefer, I can just clarify that non-Undead models in the unit may also move with the unit when the spell is cast on them.
Hey Mathias, what i meant in regards to spells that target undead, is Say I cast Shems burning gaze on the unit that is mostly vampires or vise versa. How many dice would I roll? Would I get the Extra D6?
DeleteThe ordinary spell can effect every model in the game. Its just the lore attribute that changes the spell.
Glen:
DeleteAs per right now, you don't get an additional dice against vampires.
That said though, since these spells are light based in nature and vampires not being overly fond of sunlight etc, there is a good argument for the additional dice from a lore standpoint.
One of the issues with Vampires not being Undead is offcourse them not being affected by things that particularly harms undead & demons, which I'm not a big fan of. Vampires should not count as Undead for ressurection/lore attribute purposes though, as that directly contradics the lore on vampires and removes their need for blood (or incentive to take some risks instead of hanging back with constant full health due to playing wizards)... Raising back Blood Knights on the spot as if they were zombies was a bit OP and didn't make sense either.
I understand that, and agree on the bringing back vampires on a lore point. I'm just curious on the Banishment lore attribute. Would it be if the unit contained any undead model(it says unit) you'd get the additional d6.
DeleteI'm saying this cause we now have mixed units and there will be a case of only 2 models left one vampire, one undead. I hope this is clear what I'm asking
I will add Vampires to the Lore of Light spells so they are affected by the extra hits as well.
DeleteI think having the bats/peasant/swarms not counting as core would résult as the same as never been chosen. Players will make their 25% points of core with zombies/ghouls/skeleton, and then have the choice of taking special/ rare / héros... Or dire Wolfe and bats. I think this will make these units an obvious never-picked ones. Instead, I think a rules like the skaven one "you must have a unit of zombie/skeleton/ghouls for each other core unit" be far better.
ReplyDeleteI disagree, them not counting as Core is an improvement compared to 8th ed when they were special units. Back then, they would eat into your 50% of special units allocation, now you can field as many of them as you want plus 50% special units, only that you also need to field 25% of other core (which again, is the same as in 8th ed). Only the Dire Wolves are slightly worse in the regard that you cannot take 25% dire wolves and then put the rest of your points in special.
DeleteMaybe I didn't understand: Vampire are not Undead? Or I misunderstand?
ReplyDeleteI'm not very practical wuith Vampire Counts :)
Yes, they are no longer Undead in the sense that they have are Unstable or Unbreakable.
DeleteSo, they didn't regain Wounds through spells that target Undead units
Delete