New Estalia update out now!

After many delays, here's the promised update for Estalia. It's not particularly big in terms things added, but it does make a large number of balance changes:

• Tercio Formation (finally) fixed. It now works like a cross of Pirazzo's Lost Legion and Empire detachments.
• Pikemen may be upgraded to Aventuros for +1WS and Initiative. Aventuros may form Tercio Formations with Rodeleros. This way, you have to pay a premium since it's a more effective fighting unit.
• Most Infantry units dropped in price. Pikemen, Crossbowmen, Handgunners, Almogavars, Marines, Mountain Bandits, Sisters of Fury, Black Watchmen and Conquistadors are now 1-2 pts cheaper.
• Improved text formatting in the background section.

Dropping support for Issuu and Scribd

Due to the annoyance of having to manually upload updates to these two sites, I've decided to drop the support for those versions. This won't affect the majority of you since downloading from Google Drive is easier anyway, and minor updates are often only uploaded here to begin with. Plus, Scribd have an annoying tendency to delete some documents by mistake due to them being similar to previously removed official GW publications, so you can't even find the whole collection there anyway. All books will still remain on these sites since they still show up very high in the search results, thus making it easier for new players to find them, but they will be marked as outdated.

Along this, I'm also dropping the support of two existing documents, Fimir and Classic Regiments of Renown, which are not available on this site at the moment anyway. Fimir will of course return as an Allied Contingent down the line in an updated 8th ed format, but I don't think I will be working more of the Classic RoR's. This is due to many of them simply not fitting with the current background of Warhammer, and several already have official updates as Special Characters or current RoR's. More than that, most of them were never mercenaries to begin with, so the term "Regiment of Renown" isn't all that fitting as it would allude to them being Dogs of War, which they in most cases are not. The rules will still be available online for those who might be interested in either using their rules or read their background, but they won't see any new support beyond that.

BattleScribe files for Albion, Amazons, Araby, Bretonnia and Cathay out now!

Many thanks to Shadow (Alethea Emyth) who put these together. They have all been added to the rest of the BattleScribe files under "Other Downloads".

New DoW and RoR update out now!

Some minor tweaks to improve internal and external balance between Sellswords and Pikemen:

• Pikemen are now 1 pt cheaper (also includes RoR). Mathematical playtesting (as well as practical) shows that Pikemen will on average lose against other troops of equal cost, be they halberdiers or spearmen. Only against swordsmen will they have a small advantage, as long as they get to strike with a maximum number of attacks every round (requires a minimum of 25 models).
• Sellswords halberds/flails increased to 2 pts each. This is because high strength attacks are so much more effective in 8th ed compared to 7th ed. This slight increase puts them on the same level as the Empire.
• Sellswords armed with flails/halberds or great weapons must take an additional piece of equipment. This to improve the internal balance between these choices and pikemen. High strength attacks now pays a premium price in the form of mandatory additional equipment to improve parity.

Google Drive only.

Nippon update out now!

I know, I know, Estalia should have been first, but I've yet to come up with a decent way to make the Tercio really work. I will discuss this thoroughly my with gaming group this Sunday though, so hopefully I can have it out by then.

Anyway, this new Nippon update does the following:

• New Hero choice - Kensai. I originally planned to have these guys as skirmishing special units, but skipped them since they would be too similar to Kabuki Dolls/Ronin. Instead, they are more similar to Estalian Diestros, as characters that specialize in fighting in Challenges. Like the Diestro, they can also make use of different duelling techniques, and wear no armour whatsoever. This gives Nippon a little more of the archetypical Samurai duels that are so present in Japanese culture, without changing the primarily historical base of the main list.
• Ronin now starts without LA and can purchase it as an option instead. This allows players to use unarmoured Samurai in their army for more model variation.
• Tengu may now buy optional naginatas (halberds).
• Batake Clan Mon now allows Samurai Warriors to carry handguns. This was done to give players a bigger incentive to use this Clan Mon.
• Ashiwara Clan Mon nerfed. It now only removes the penalty for firing at long range, not re-rolling 1's To Hit. Can't remember if I fixed it earlier already, but that's the way it works now regardless.
• Fixed a large number of spelling/grammar issues in the history section.

Annoucing: Mordheim for Warhammer!

One thing that I (and I'm sure many others) have a fondness for are the models from Mordheim, now unfortunately discontinued (thanks, GW!). Seeing as I don't play Mordheim per say, but own quite a few of the models, I would very much like to see adaptations of their rules into Warhammer. So, what does this mean exactly?

Well, for starters, I intend to allow the Hired Swords (not all of them, but the more interesting ones) to be used as Hero choices for Dogs of War. Some are already included in the DoW book, but I want to expand upon the theme and add more characters that are not in the main book. Secondly, I intend to make all Dramatis Personae available for their respective armies as normal Special Characters, meaning you'll be able to field Johann the Knife, Bertha Bestrafung and all the others in your normal games of Warhammer.

Not going to put a date on it, but it should be a reasonably quick affair, though I intend to finish both the current Bretonnia and Estalia updates first.

Gallery: Kislev

This post will be dedicated to my personal Kislev collection, hopefully giving you players some inspiration and ideas for your own army. If you would like your own models to be showcased, feel free to send me an email with links to your models and you will also have your own entry in the site's gallery section.

This post will be updated regularly with new photos as more of the army is completed, so I recommend checking in rather often if this interests you.

The colour scheme is the basic red and blue that the official GW army uses. This will then be complemented with red and white for the Winged Lancers, giving it more of a Polish Hussar look.

Tzarina Katarin

The now very old GW model. Still holds up reasonably well despite a static pose.

Boyar

Model from Citadel Miniatures.

Hetman/Boyar with Battle Standard

A Hussar from the now defunct Dwarf Tales Miniatures. Wish I would have picked up some more of their minis while I had the chance.

Ice Witch

A little steampunkish perhaps, but this Ice Witch from Wyrd Miniatures still looks the part with her furry hat.

Priest of Ursun

 The classic Ar-Ulric from the Storm of Chaos campaign. Wolf, bear - big difference, pff.

Ranger

The official Kislev Ranger from Mordheim. Was lucky enough to find it tagged as just an "Elf Ranger" so didn't have to contend with any other buyers. Still cost me close to £20 though!

Dogs of War v.4.22 out now!

Seeing as I'm actually getting email-requests to work more on the books, I figured I'd better add at least something!

So, this new update is actually a pretty big one; Broken Lances are gone. Yup.

Instead, they have been replaced by a unit called Sellswords - a generic, build-your-own-mercs regiment! This means that you now have the option to make deserters from the Empire or Bretonnia, Kislevite Kossars, mercs from the Border Princes, Araby, Estalia, Cathay, Nippon, Albion - you name it. This unit can then be upgraded to Veterans, giving them +WS and optional heavy armour, as well as a magic banner.

No longer are you restricted to just Tilean humans, you can now put together a DoW army with units from the entire Warhammer World.

Oh, and crossbowmen can replace their weapons with handguns, so you can finally build those pavise handgunners that some of you wanted.

And for strict tournament players who don't want any of that extra stuff - here's a "lite" version of the DoW book, containing only the Ravening Hordes units and official add-ons, updated for 8th ed: Dogs of War: Tournament Edition

Note: this update is only available on Google Drive at the moment.