Design new Warmaster units.

[Paradus]

Greetings everyone.
I have recently got into playing warmaster and so far I'm quite fond of its mechanics.

One thing that bugs me though is that many more specialised units are absent in the rules. (Though many have models but I think rules of their own would make them stand out more)

So I have decided to start a thread where we can design workable and fair rules for the many units absent from warmaster.

He're a couple I have done.

Empire:

Greatswords
-Type: Infantry
-Attacks: 4
-Hits: 3
-Armour: 4+
-Command:
-Unit Size: 3
-Pts per unit: 110
-Min/Max: -/2
-Special: Stubborn: They don't suffer command penalties when they lose stands.

High Elves

Dragon Princes
-Type: Cavalry
-Attacks: 4
-Hits: 3
-Armour: 3+
-Command:
-Unit Size: 3
-Pts per unit: 150
-Min/Max: -/2
-Special: Flame repellent: Dragon Princes are immune to all Dragon shooting breath attacks. They are also immune to Dwarf flame cannon shooting attacks.


cheers.

[mspaetauf]

Dragon Princes
-Type: Cavalry
-Attacks: 4
-Hits: 3
-Armour: 3+
-Command:
-Unit Size: 3
-Pts per unit: 150
-Min/Max: -/2
-Special: Flame repellent: Dragon Princes are immune to all Dragon shooting breath attacks. They are also immune to Dwarf flame cannon shooting attacks.

so, basically you are taking Silver Helms (110 points) and give them save 3+ ALWAYS, which is even better than the Banner of Shielding (which, btw. costs 50 points). And then you add an additional rule (which is a royal pain in the ass for any dwarf player); so, for the army with Ld 10 you add even more powerful cavalry. At a  reduced total cost.

Please eplain!

M

[spiritusXmachina]

It's a long tradition in Warmaster that those alternative units are more or less used to represent units with magic items or to just spice up the look of one's army. It's a generally accepted fact that at Warmaster scale it's not enough difference if a unit has lances or spears, axes or swords or that the number of outstanding fighters with special abilities is too few to get noticed. So only on very rare occasions such special units will find their way into official army lists.

Of course that should not stand in the way of creating house rules or special scenarios where such units have their appearance.

Still it's a very delicate exercise to create new units and to adjust point cost right. A good way for introducing new high quality special troops is to exaggerate the point cost. Take Chaos Knights for example for 200pts. Without a doubt they are one of the deadliest units that exist - but they are more expensive than they should be (~180 pts would be more fair). So they might crash 2-3 enemy units easily and have a good chance to even survive the counterattacks - but if they are destroyed it's a lot of points the opponent gets - so no one complains...

I think it's the same with your Dragon Princes. They are very similar to Chaos Knights, they are very unique with their 3+ armour (which I would hesitate to give any troops except monsters or special machines btw) and even have a special ability (which I would also think is too detailed for Warmaster). This unit as it stands should cost at least 210 points imo.

Greetings,
Gerald

P.S.: By the way there are house-rules for greatswords (and some other units): http://www.sg.tacticalwargames.net/fanatic/

[Lex]

1) If you have access to Fanatic Magazine or Warmag you will find material for this endavour already done

2) Note that there are other threads about this in both this forum AND the Yahoo group and that some of these have been covered by the Alternative Armies.

3) Note that Rick on occasion has specificly stated that those kind of units where left out of the Army Selectors because the comparative rareness of the units on any given battlefield, and that the BATTLEHONOUR option from the rulebook can easily be used to represent this.

[Paradus]

Dragon Princes
-Type: Cavalry
-Attacks: 4
-Hits: 3
-Armour: 3+
-Command:
-Unit Size: 3
-Pts per unit: 150
-Min/Max: -/2
-Special: Flame repellent: Dragon Princes are immune to all Dragon shooting breath attacks. They are also immune to Dwarf flame cannon shooting attacks.

so, basically you are taking Silver Helms (110 points) and give them save 3+ ALWAYS, which is even better than the Banner of Shielding (which, btw. costs 50 points). And then you add an additional rule (which is a royal pain in the ass for any dwarf player); so, for the army with Ld 10 you add even more powerful cavalry. At a  reduced total cost.

Please eplain!

M

Sorry if its too powerful or undercosted. I have just started warmaster and am not yet sure how far one should go when balancing a unit that should be somewhat superior to their non elite varient. But Constructive critisism is needed to make sure the rules are fair so thanks for pointing out the errors with my design.

Here's a revised go at Dragon Princes.

Dragon Princes
-Type: Cavalry
-Attacks: 4
-Hits: 3
-Armour: 4+
-Command:
-Unit Size: 3
-Pts per unit: 150
-Min/Max: -/1
-Special: Flame repellent: Dragon Princes are immune to all Dragon shooting breath attacks. They are also immune to Dwarf flame cannon shooting attacks.

So the only changes are the rarity of the princes, the extra attack and their flame repellent rule.

Is this one more balanced?

cheers.

P.S. True most of the specialised units a fine detailed as a common unit with a magic item. I just thought it would be fun to just give them a tiny bit of personality to serperate them (If only slightly from the basic units)

[Lex]

Make then -/1 per army.

[spiritusXmachina]

P.S. True most of the specialised units a fine detailed as a common unit with a magic item. I just thought it would be fun to just give them a tiny bit of personality to serperate them (If only slightly from the basic units)

Sure. I did not want to scare you off .
And the above rules are much better.

Greetings,
Gerald

[Paradus]

He're a few more units for the High elves that I plan on testing out. Please tell me what you think.

Sea Guard
-Attacks: 3/1
-Hits: 3
-Armour: 5+
-Command:
-Unit Size: 3
-Pts per unit: 100
-Min/Max: -/3
-Special: +1 to hit like all HE archers.

Swordmasters
-Attacks: 4
-Hits: 3
-Armour: 5+
-Command:
-Unit Size: 3
-Pts per unit: 100
-Min/Max: -/1
-Special:

Phoenix Guard
-Attacks: 3
-Hits: 3
-Armour: 4+ (To represent their ward save as well)
-Command:
-Unit Size: 3
-Pts per unit: 100
-Min/Max: -/1
-Special:

White Lions
-Attacks: 3
-Hits: 3
-Armour: 5+
-Command:
-Unit Size: 3
-Pts per unit: 80
-Min/Max: -/3
-Special: The unit rolls one less die when working out drive backs from shooting.

Shadow Warriors
-Attacks: 4/1
-Hits: 3
-Armour: 0-6+
-Command:
-Unit Size: 1+
-Pts per unit: 35
-Min/Max: -/3
-Special: +1 to hit like all HE archers. Skirmishers.

cheers.

[azrael71]

Hi,
We concocted some house rules for these a few years back.
We did them for most of the armies as well as characters for the armies.
I may even have the spreadsheet somewhere

I will address each unit in turn:
Lothern Seaguard - yours are too expensive, there are rules already published for them (in a warmaster mag) the stats are the same but only 75 points and I would limit the to 2 per 1000 points.

Same goes for swordmaster (published) stats are right only 1 per 1000 and they are fearless and 90 points.

Same goes for phoenix guard (published) stats are right only 1 per 1000 and they are disciplined  and 90 points, no such thing as a ward save in this game.

White lions look ok, try not to make up new special rules though! Stick to the ones described in the battle honours article (hopefully soon to be available on this site, but it can be found elsewher). Min/max too high.

Shadow warriors, no such thing as skirmish in WM, but if you mean like empire skirmishers (I think you do) then they look fine.

You did forget lion chariots though

Lion Chariots
-Attacks: 4
-Hits: 3
-Armour: 5+
-Command:
-Unit Size: 3
-Pts per unit: 120
-Min/Max: -/2
-Special:

An important thing to remember (it took me ages to do this) is that this is not a straight port over of WHFB so even though alt models may be available there will probably never be any rules for them. But house rules are great, you could even run a tourney with amended army lists including these rare units.

Just my 2 penneth.
Mick

[Stomm]

I'd stay clear of designing any 'new' Warmaster units for two reasons, the previously stated 'at Warmaster scale there is little difference between a halberd and a spear' argument, and actually my second reason is more of a reason to design 'new' units.

Basically if you are going to add a new unit, then add it as part of a whole new, or 'variant' army. For example I've been toying with the idea of a Nuln Empire army list for a while, which would have limited access to knights, no crossbows, handguns as a minimum, maybe no Flagellants, but mortars as well as cannons, and maybe even increased numbers of these. I did even come up with rules for the mortar when the model first came out. It was so long ago that I have subsequently lost the file through computer changes, crashes and the like. But IIRC it was very similar in effect to the Skaven Lightning cannon, in that it caused confusion to nearby units as much as it caused actual damage.


Actually I've just thought of a novel way to represent the large area hit by a mortar without resorting to templates. Basically when a unit is targeted by a mortar, the number of attacks against it is equal to the number of stands that the unit has remaining, and in addition to this any adjacent units get a single attack against them. With a two stand unit this would equate in many instances to the same kind of attacks as with a cannon, but of course only with the -1 gunpowder save mod rather than the no save allowed from cannon fire. Hmm, might be worth writing that up properly some time...

[wellspring]

Stomm, I like that idea of alternative army lists instead of individual figures.