Well that certainly ended up taking longer than I had planned for, but it was a much needed break from the previous months of pumping out 1-2 books every week. This is one of the largest of the new army books, clocking in at 80 pages total, mainly due to the very large number of Special Characters in it. That in turn is the result of all Regiments of Renown now being a Special Character (the regiment's captain) who can bring a special upgraded version of an existing unit from the book, similar to many other armies. This in turn means that you can now equip most of these characters with Magic Items of your choice, meaning they won't just be liabilities that die immediately or are unable to cause any major damage.
For the time being, these Regiments of Renown characters are limited to only Dogs of War armies, with the exception of those characters that are already featured as Special Characters in their respective army books. I have not as of yet decided whether to bring back the For Hire table for all these characters, or if it's better to have players use the Allies rules for Dogs of War.
As for other large changes with this update, Nicodemus' Hedge Magic has been expanded into a Lore of Battle Magic. This lore does not have a Lore Attribute, and is limited to Level 3 spells as of now. This is mainly due to it representing Hedge Magic, which is less powerful than the eight Winds of Magic. This lore focuses mainly on augments, hexes and conveyance spells to improve your chances in combat. In short, it's more focused on tactics than blasting the enemy into pieces.
Another large change is that of the Quirks of Character. For starters it has been expanded greatly to over two dozen, which gives you a lot more choices on how to build your army. You can now also give each unit up to two Quirks to make them a lot more elite, though at the cost of them going up a rarity tier to compensate for it. Lastly, most of your Core Units can be upgraded to Veterans, giving them better WS and access to better Magic Standards while going up a rarity slot.
Lastly, the Paymaster can now go in the second rank of his bodyguard for some very improved protection, thus taking him out of the worst fighting and decreasing the chance of causing Panic throughout your army.
Overall, this update is focused a lot on adding more player choice, while trying to keep the internal balance intact. Anyway, hope your enjoy the update, and a huge thank you to my Patreons for your continued support and patience with this update!
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Patch Notes:
- Updated all units so they are more consistent with the other army books that contain the same units.
- Stand Fast! The unit have the Cold-Blooded special rule on their next Rally test.
- Lords may take up to 3 Quirks of Character. Heroes, Core and Special units may take up to 2 Quirks of Character. Core Units that take more than one Quirk of Character count as Special units, and Special Units counts as Rare Units.
- New Magic Lore: Battle Magic
- Added over a dozen new Quirks of Character.
- Added dozens of new Magic Items.
- Increased cost of great weapons.
- Removed Merchant Price (it's possible to upgrade to better armour through a Quirk of Character instead).
- Paymasters cannot take Warhorses. May be mounted on a Pay Chest or a Pay Cart.
- If the Paymaster is slain, all friendly units suffer -1 to their Leadership for the remainder of the game.
- Assassins can take light armour. Cannot take Killing Blow or Poisoned Attacks outside of Quirks. Costs 85 pts.
- New Hero: Halfling Mercenary Captain
- New mount: Pay Cart
- Removed Forest Strider special rule from all Halflings.
- Veteran is no longer a Quirk. Can be taken by Pikemen, Sellswords and Stradiots. The unit will count as a Special Unit instead of a Core Unit, and may take a Magic Standard worth up to 50 points.
- Pikemen do not have light armour by default, cost 5 pts. Can take bucklers.
- Crossbowmen can take medium armour.
- Sellswords may take shields unless armed with two hand weapons, flails, great weapons or bows. Each unit of Sellswords must pick at least one weapon option and/or shields.
- Duellists may take oriental longswords.
- Stradiots may take bows or javelins.
- Freelancers are now a Special Unit. Barding costs 1.5 pts. Quirks of Character costs 2 pts.
- Gladiators cost 9 pts. Do not have light armour by default. Reduced the cost of shields and additional hand weapons.
- Paymaster’s Bodyguard have medium armour by default. Can take shields.
- When a Paymaster (including any Money Lender and/or Paychest it might have) joins a unit whose front rank contains five or more models with the Bodyguard special rule, they may be placed in the second rank, rather than the first. If the unit's front rank is ever reduced to four or fewer models with the Bodyguard special rule, the Paymaster must immediately move to the front rank (displacing rank and file models if necessary).
- Norse Marauders may take spears. Do not have light armour by default. Have Counter-Charge. Can take fur cloaks. Cost 6 pts.
- Mercenary Elves are a Special Unit. May only be Skirmishers if they are armed with missile weapons. May take additional hand weapons.
- Ogres can take ironfists.
- Orcs can take great weapons or polearms.
- Scorpions are no longer taken in units. You may take 1-3 Scorpions as a single Special choice.
- New Rare Unit: Marienburg Land Ship.
- Lucrezzia Belladonna, Marco Colombo and Morgan Bernhardt may take 50 pts of magic items.
- Marco Colombo does not have a crossbow by default and does not have the Sniper special rule, cost 165 pts.
- All Regiments of Renown are now Special Characters with a unique unit. All previous Captains without Magic Items can now take Magic Items up to 50 pts.
- Bearmen have fur cloaks.
- Cursed Company does not have armour, cost 4 pts.
- Hengus does not let the Giants of Albion re-roll leadership tests. Hengus cost 130 pts.
