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. The colour scheme is the basic red and blue that the official GW army uses.

Tzarina Katarin

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

Boyar

Model from Citadel Miniatures.

Hetman/Boyar

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. 

Dogs of War 4.21 out now!

[Edited to sound less douchebagery] Due to some negative feedback from tournament players, we at DoW Online went back and re-did certain parts of the list to have a chance seeing the list allowed at more tournaments. Some important issues were brought up and have been fixed accordingly. What follows is a list of changes in 4.21:

• Removed stacking of War Academy abilities like Rapid Deployment, make it 30 pts, general only.
• Only 1 Merchant Prince may be included, including special characters.
• Paymaster increased to 45 pts.
• Paymaster "death-range" increased to 18" with a paychest. 
• Nerf Lucrezzia Belladonna.
  Nerf/reword Stunning Beauty: "Any friendly Human unit within 8" of her rallies automatically during the Compulsory Movement phase."
  Nerf Phial of Poison: "Nominate D3 enemy characters at the beginning of the battle. Roll a D6 for each; a roll of 4 + means that the character has been poisoned and starts the battle with one Wound less than normal. "
  This keeps enemy characters from possibly getting killed outright.
  Nerf Potion of Pavona: "At the beginning of the battle, Lucrezzia may give the potion to any one character, unit Champion, or take it herself. Roll a D3..." 
• Staff of Fickle Fortune: 3+ to work, 2 does nothing, 35 pts.
• Marksmen of Miragliano: removed Marksmen ability. Maximilian gets the Marksman Trait.
• Increase Ogre Great Weapons to 8pts/m.
• Equipment options mandatory for Stradiots to increase their base price, while still keeping available model options at a maximum.
• Increased Merc Elves to 7pts/m.
• Justintine's Paychest gives "cold-blooded" for psychology tests.
• Better clarification for Scorpions as units.
• Ballista/Scorpion cap added to avoid spam.
• Leonardo will only boost units in his vicinity, 100 pts.
• Ghazak Khan is now normal Ca rather than MC.
• Galloper Guns can no longer march, Bronzino's Master Gunner range nerfed to 3".
• Dwarfs updated in accordance with 8th ed. 

I've also edited the background for multiple units, so there's quite a lot of new things to read in the bestiary. For the time being, this update only applies to the Google Drive versions. It includes the RoR book as well.

Aside from this, I haven't been able to work on the books particularly much due to work and having laser eye surgery earlier this month. My sight is improving well though, so I should soon be able to get back to work on more updates at least, though new material will still be awhile off.

Army Builder/BattleScribe Files

Rather than having direct links to each file (which would amount to 40+ files in the end if I have support for both Army Builder and BattleScribe), I've decided to keep them all linked through this post for now. This post will be updated as more files become available.

Albion:

BattleScribe (by Shadow)

Amazons:

BattleScribe (by Shadow)

Araby:

BattleScribe (by Shadow)

Bretonnia:

BattleScribe (by Shadow)

Cathay:

BattleScribe (by Shadow)

Chaos Dwarfs:

BattleScribe (by Shadow)

Dogs of War:

BattleScribe (by Shadow)

Estalia:

BattleScribe (by Shadow)

Hobgoblins:

BattleScribe (by Shadow)

Nippon:

BattleScribe (by Ankhalagon)

Readme (various notes, known bugs, etc.):

Wanted: BattleScribe/Army Builder and Gallery images!

In an effort to grow the site with more content, I want to add a section for list-builder program files available for download to the books. Seeing as there have been quite a few people contacting me about it or writing about it in the comments, I figured collecting all those files in one place would be a good idea. So, if you have made any army builder/battlescribe files to these armies, please feel free to send them to my email, and I will put them up in the download section. If possible, I will try to learn to program for them myself so I can put out updated versions quicker, but as I'm working full time right now, that might not be for quite a while. If I can get a basis for the lists however, I should be able to simply update them whenever a new update is released rather quickly.

I would also like people who have put together armies based on these books to send images of their models to make a gallery section on the site as a means to inspire others with ideas and suitable miniatures. I intend to add a section for my own Dogs of War, Arabyans, Bretonnians and Kislevites as soon as possible to get it started. Any such submissions should also be done through the "contact" option to the right (or by posting a link to your models in the comments section).

In other news, I'm currently working on an update for Bretonnia based on playtest feedback (including my own) that will tweak a couple of rules and improve the layout throughout the book. It should hopefully be out sometime this month. There will also be another update out for DoW when the new Dwarf rules are released which will contain balance changes that makes the army more suitable for [un-comped] tournaments. There will also be a smaller update for Estalia to make them on par with the new DoW update, and a small update to Araby to add some more background to the Crusades and improve the layout throughout.