"Costing" alternative units

[calmacil]

Just for comparison purposes a unit of Empire Knights would cost 135pts using WMA against the rulebook cost of 110pts, whilst Chaos Knights would be 155pts opposed to the 200pts in the rulebook, monsters come out roughly about the same cost.

It's not quite 135 points. The cavalry you're referring to also has the extra rule "knights" which gives a +1attack in first rnd of combat, regardless of whether they charged. Only applies if facing the front..... Basically it's the same as the Cold One Knights bite rule.

For the 155 point cavalry i assume you're looking at the Brother Knights in the Teutonic Order army list. I may be wrong, but i don't think those lists are as black and white as they seem. Certain troops may be cheaper to encourage the wargamer to take a list close to historical accuracy. You also have to take into account their opposition, the Polish-Lithuanian Union has extra rules for nobles and leaders (for no cost) On that table the results for 1 & 2 are a disadvantage (but not too bad), 3 is nothing, 4 is okay, but 5 & 6 are brilliant (+1 command and a reroll for a failed cmd) That army also has cannons etc. I think they've reduced them to 155 to give that army a chance of winning.

There isn't really a formula for the stats in warmaster (unfortunately) but roughly it seems to be +25 for an extra Attack or an extra Hit, and +15 for an extra Armour. Obviously the reverse effect for reductions of stats. It doesn't quite work out, using this method Orc Warriors are actually undercosted, but i think the Orc army has a hard time as it is. 

In warmaster ancients they have many cavalry units that are 3,3,5+ costing 110 points. Seems to be about right. For the chaos knights it's hard to judge, personally i'd say 155 is a bit too cheap. I'd have them at around 175-180 (+1 attack=25, +1 hit=25, +1 armour=15) Using the above method Chaos Warriors cost 135, and hvy cav 3/3/4+ costs either 125-130




Using this method i was thinking of adding rules for units that aren't in the lists. Such as swordmasters, phoenix guard and executioners. I didn't want to get bogged down with extra rules, i just wanted basic stat lines to reflect their abilities (ward save of the PG is all in their armour save. The swordmasters don't have shields like spearmen but they can deflect blows, hence 5+ armour) It's not a perfect equation, but not bad. 

Swordmasters ...4 / 3 / 5+ ....cost 85
Phoenix Guard ... 3 / 3 / 4+ ....cost 85
Executioners (same as swordmasters)


EDIT... not sure 4 attacks is enough for swordmasters, those stats might be good for empire greatswords...... maybe this instead;
Swordmasters .....5 / 3 / 5+ ....cost 110

I gave this discussion its own spot, as it was not on "Monsters"  anymore, but well worth keeping !

Lex

[jchaos79]

5 Attacks for a elite infantry? wow, what makes swordmaster so special? (for telling the truth I am not really familiarized with high elves background)

don't you like swordmasters have the same stats than empire greatswords?

last question, what is a executioner?

thanks for the patient

[Spectrar Ghost]

Swordsmasters appear to have two Great Weapon attacks base to the Greatswords one, so an additional attack seems appropriate. However, if we were to have Great Weapon armed Elites represented with seperate profiles, I'd prefer to see them have an armor mod like Skaven Jezzails instead of just extra attacks.

So the Great Sword profile would look like:

3/3/5+ *-1 Save in CC

and Swordsmasters:

4/3/5+ *-1 Save in CC

However, the chances of the Empire fielding an entire Regiment of Greatswords are incredibly slim; I'm not even sure there are 300 Swordsmasters. I feel they're better off as part of a Regiment of regular troops, and represented by that profile.

[calmacil]

I'm not sure i'd want to go the road of warhammer and introduce armour mods. (i know there's a few already rare ones, such as empire handgunners) My reason is when i played warhammer i found armour to be ineffective in most games because so many things reduces armour. I prefer the way that warmaster plays at the moment with hardly any armour reduction.

I can see why you'd reason that armour isn't as good against a 2-handed sword. But surely you could argue the same point for a chaos knight charging you with a lance, a giant swinging a tree at you, or a massive dragon stamping on you. I personally wouldn't like to reduce armour saves for warmaster. 

.......that's a good point about the numbers of swordmasters. I think if i ever included them in a HE army list i'd use a rule i've been thinking about for a while, a simple one. The max would be  /0.5  Which means you can take one unit for every 2,000 points
 

5 Attacks for a elite infantry? wow, what makes swordmaster so special? (for telling the truth I am not really familiarized with high elves background)

last question, what is a executioner?

Swordmasters are elves that spend their entire lives perfecting how to fight with any weapon, including unarmed combat. Elves live for a long time (think it's over 200 years in warhammer background) so you can imagine how good they are. They are elite infantry, a bit like troll slayers for dwarfs.
I remember in one edition of warhammer they had a rule where they could deflect arrows with their swords. 

Dark Elf Executioners are similar to swordmasters. They are ruthless killers that try and hack down foes with lethal strikes from their double handed swords.

[Happymcclap]

Just for comparison purposes a unit of Empire Knights would cost 135pts using WMA against the rulebook cost of 110pts, whilst Chaos Knights would be 155pts opposed to the 200pts in the rulebook, monsters come out roughly about the same cost.

It's not quite 135 points. The cavalry you're referring to also has the extra rule "knights" which gives a +1attack in first rnd of combat, regardless of whether they charged. Only applies if facing the front..... Basically it's the same as the Cold One Knights bite rule.

Sorry but i must disagree, its 135pts:

Extremely Heavy Cavalry (page 135 WA)

At3 hits3 arm4+ sz3 pts125 slow & shock

ie identical to empire knights, except the special rules, but:

removing the slow rules costs +10pts( see Warmaster medieval pg 5) thus 135pts, and shock simply means they are based to the short edge as per standard warmaster. Also looking at the lists in Warmaster medieval shows that most of the later period heavy cavalry which are statted as per Empire Knights cost 135, the slight bonus that is the Knights special rule is free as per page 5

As for Chaos knights i built them the same as above, but with the elite & bodyguard bonus(+1 attacks +1 hits) +20pts

[calmacil]

Sorry but i must disagree, its 135pts:

Extremely Heavy Cavalry (page 135 WA)

At3 hits3 arm4+ sz3 pts125 slow & shock

ie identical to empire knights, except the special rules, but:

removing the slow rules costs +10pts( see Warmaster medieval pg 5) thus 135pts, and shock simply means they are based to the short edge as per standard warmaster. Also looking at the lists in Warmaster medieval shows that most of the later period heavy cavalry which are statted as per Empire Knights cost 135, the slight bonus that is the Knights special rule is free as per page 5

As for Chaos knights i built them the same as above, but with the elite & bodyguard bonus(+1 attacks +1 hits) +20pts

Yeah you're right. I see where it says the knights rule is free, i didn't notice that. I guess their reasoning is that all medieval armies that are going to be fighting against each other in that book will have the same rule, so every army gets the same benefit. But it does need a cost in warmaster fantasy. If you did the same in warmaster Cold One Knights would cost the same as empire knights (i'd love that for my Dark Elf army but my opponents wouldn't  )

Maybe 125 and the slow rule is the way to go. I was going to go with 130 and no extra rules. I'll have a think about it.

I still think 155 is a tad too cheap for Chaos Knights myself. Those rules for the Elite and Bodyguard units are often maxed at one unit in the entire army (for example the Mongols may upgrade a max one cavalry unit to guard cavalry) Chaos Knights don't have a restriction of one chaos knight unit, so i don't think it would be fair to use those elite and guard costs for them.

Saying that though, i do think i'm going to have a go at changing the point costs. I might introduce it at a big multiplayer game we're having and give it a title like "legendary armies" or something like that. (i'm not going to tackle every list, just the six we'll use)

Thanks for your reply Happymcclap, and putting me on the right track 


PS. Sorry if i offend anyone by the way, i'm not having a go at anyone. Sometimes people can take things the wrong way on the net. Just thought i'd say this in case it gets heated later on 

[Happymcclap]

No offense taken here

To keep things simple and without adding any of the special rules from the various supplements, i would simply boost all standard knights to 130 (5pts cheaper for loss of "Knights" rule) they really are too cheap as it stands.

You are right about Chaos knights though 155 does seem too cheap, you could tie in some point increase due to them being a multiple selection elite unit ie any unit which is elite & guard cost +10 per max unit on the min/max stat making chaos knights 195.

[Happymcclap]

Oh, and just to point out the Cold One Knights rule differs from the Knights rule, the Knights bonus is a one off ie once per game, whilst the dark elf rules applies to potentially all combats

[Geep]

As silly as it seems your swordmaster stats (with 5 attacks) are a pretty fair representative of how they currently are in Warhammer. 2 Str 5 attacks each, usually hitting on 3's with re-rolls to hit. Always hitting before the enemy too.

Swordmasters are elves that spend their entire lives perfecting how to fight with any weapon, including unarmed combat. Elves live for a long time (think it's over 200 years in warhammer background) so you can imagine how good they are. They are elite infantry, a bit like troll slayers for dwarfs.

You're right that Swordmasters spend their entire lives training, but in Warhammer they live much, much longer than 200 years- 100 years is generally considered equivalent to a human teenager. 200 a young adult. They can live for thousands of years (and some, like Morathi, Malekith and Dark Elf Hags, are immortal in regards to age). Even the lives of Dwarfs are fairly short to them (Dwarfs living something like 400-600 years I think?).

[Lex]

EDIT... not sure 4 attacks is enough for swordmasters, those stats might be good for empire greatswords...... maybe this instead;
Swordmasters .....5 / 3 / 5+ ....cost 110

Look at it this way......   keep the number of attacks on 3, as per standard infantry, and cost them accoordingly....   now check our (limited) Magic Item list.....

Empire Greatswords - +1 attack on the first round of each combat, lost when they loose the first stand
Swordmaster - the ability to reroll misses....

WARAH I think those are already "costed" as MI...... ??


On availability, this was also discussed when we did the Alternative Lists with the playtest group, one per 1000 or 1 per 2000 (or even one per army)  are all working to curb these spreading like mushies and creating listescalation. As for there not being "enough" troops around to make up  for the unit, remember that the way WM is setup represents the overall fighting effectiveness of units, rather then the numbers, and as such does not represent a fixed figure-ratio

[Bel]

Magic items and/or battle honours are sufficient tools to create alternative units (IMHO).

[calmacil]

Some brilliant ideas there, cheers guys. Should be fairly easy to add in extra units now.


A friend of mine has a chaos army, he mentioned he wants to include a War Mammoth (i think eureka does a good one) I've seen the stats of the Araby elephant, it seems too weak, so do the elephants in warmaster ancients (i may regret saying that when his mammoth starts smashing into my units  )

For the War Mammoth i was thinking of something like this;

Att 6, Hit 6, Ar 5+
- Terror
- Can't be brigaded with anything else
- Stampeding rules same as Araby (unsure about stampeding rules)
- the badly hurt rules

So we don't have too many big monsters, the mammoth could be 1 per 2000 points, or 1 max.

For the cost, not sure. I was looking at the bone giant. That has similar stats, but 4 hits and 4+ armour.... also terror and -1Cmd if not liche priest. That costs 125

..... so maybe something around 150-175 points for the war mammoth?? (2 extra hits, one less armour an extra 25 points?)
The giant is 8 / 8 / 5+ and has the "uh oh, what's he doing now" rule and that's 150 points ... any more than 150 seems to be too much for a war mammoth

[jchaos79]

Well, my point of view. Background is great to have a representative idea. But this is not warhammer so it is necessary to miss details to get a overview of the army and how it works the units in a battlefield.

As I see in the lists the philosophy is
infantry  3 Attacks
elite   4 Attacks
Fanatics  5 attacks BUT no armour and must charge
bodyguards  4 hits

Making a infantry (swordmasters) unit as fanatics (5attacks and dropping the No armour and  must charge) only for the background of a few warriors not representative as an arm of the army could be unbalanced in warmaster. 
This profile is not typical so I think is not ver balanced for 1000 / 200o points games

As much points do you play it is more balanced to include (only 1 not matter how big is the army) of those  "background" units overpowered.

Try it in your games as house rules and post your opinions.

[Happymcclap]

Have you thought of using the Unit Bonus' from Ancient Armies supplement, these make a unit unique and are pre-costed, "Gallant" or "Valiant" seem apt for Swordmasters, but "Best" which gives +1 attack for the whole unit(not each stand) per combat round for +5 points seems to fit your profile better

[calmacil]

Wow the swordmaster stats seem to have got a few responses 

First let me just say that i'm undecided and was throwing idea around rather than anything definate. Also take into account that i don't have a high elf army, so i'm not trying to cheese my own troops here.

I'll give one of my reasons for "thinking" about having 5 attacks. When i wrote that stat line of 4/3/5+ for the swordmasters i looked at the Black Orcs, they are 4/4/5+.... it just didn't seem right that they are better. That was before i thought any special rules for them.

Making a infantry (swordmasters) unit as fanatics (5attacks and dropping the No armour and  must charge) only for the background of a few warriors not representative as an arm of the army could be unbalanced in warmaster. 
This profile is not typical so I think is not ver balanced for 1000 / 200o points games

But there are already infantry units with the same stat line 5/3/5+ ......Trolls have the same stats and are infantry. Yes they also have -1 Cmd, but this is compensated by their regeneration.

A better example would be Kroxigors from the Lizardmen army. Their stats are even better, they have 5/3/4+ ...... infantry as well, and you can have 2 Kroxigor per 1000 points. Not bad.




I'm not defending the swordmaster stats. As i say i doubt i'll use the 5 attacks, just felt right to me. I might let my friend use the 5 attacks and see how they do.