Athel Loren Campaign

[Master]

So, as Toms forum is mainly dedicated to modelling, I thought it would be a better idea to make the brainstorming and stuff on this forum.

Therefore I've posted this placeholder for the campaign, and will give more info when I have more time  . But I'm still looking for volunteers to help.

[StyrofoamKing]

Considering how useful he was with the Wood Elf warband on Tom's site, I'd love to shang hai... *cough* er, recruit Identity into this.  Although, his profile's been inactive for a month, so we might have to throw him a PM.

Anyone else? Baiken? Ram Rock?  Ethlorien? 

[Ethlorien]

Hey Folks,

Sorry - I've been so busy at work and such lately that I haven't been here too much.  Hell, it seems I even missed a Devil's Den for the first time (apologies).

Yeah, I'm always up for helping out and hashing out some ideas.

[Master]

Considering how useful he was with the Wood Elf warband on Tom's site, I'd love to shang hai... *cough* er, recruit Identity into this.  Although, his profile's been inactive for a month, so we might have to throw him a PM.

Anyone else? Baiken? Ram Rock?  Ethlorien? 

All of them! We need all of them!

Identity was surely a help, try to get a message through to him

[StyrofoamKing]

Sent him a pm.  If you get the time, try to repost the Tom's posts here, so we can pick up where we left off.  That cool?

[Master]

I suggest adding another warband to Athel Loren:

Halflings. They fit in nicely, and could be quite fun to make, they would however be very missile based, which I dislike.

Also, Beastmen, should we just re-use the existing one which IMO is quite good, or should we create another one?

[Ethlorien]

With so many warbands on the works, I'd say just keep Beastmen the way they are.

[StyrofoamKing]

Halflings:  If so, lets do the 'Halfling Forester" warband I'd been hoping to do.  Although, truth be told, it's almost the exact same as the Halfling warband available on the Mordheimer site, with the Ogre replaced with a Treekin.

Beastmen: the existing band is fine. Although, this is a great setting to promote the Beastmen HSs, remember?

[Master]

Aye, Beastmen hiries it is matie!

[StyrofoamKing]

Just to reprint some of the stuff from the Boring Tom site:

THREE 'HOME' LOCALES rather than 5/6.
>Bretonnian Town - Brets, Averlanders, Slayers
>Woodland Camp - Wood Elves, Dryads, Bowmen
>Black Forest - Greenskins, Beastmen, Undead

There is also a Fourth locale, that is the Battleground. This is how it works: All warbands fight in the Battleground, roll for exploration, then return back to their locale in the post battle. (Allowing them to buy henchmen, equipment, hired swords, etc.)

However, if a warband wants to dare, it can, instead of retreating back to IT'S locale, may attempt to raid another person's locale. If they do, they could use the 'Emcampment' rules, and get a chance to steal their opponent's stash (as well as some extra stash items), but at the challenge of fighting extra guards and/or possibly two warbands at once. Likewise, two warbands could decide to Raid the same locale in the same post-game, resulting in a two-on one battle (and maybe a Siege scenario too.)

There's also the possibility of sneaking into another locale (to be honest, this idea just hit me while typing). If you go undetected, you can buy certain items (ex. drugs & poisons in the Black Forest), or certain Hired Swords (Bretonnians hiring Amber Mages in the Woodland Camp). Of course, if you sneak in, there's a chance of being discovered, resulting in scenarios like 'breakthrough'. Whether you sneak in or raid, you obviously can't buy any henchmen or items in the post (so, good luck finding good stuff!)

To me, this is easier than the 'map-based' campaigns, as there is no constant bonus of territories (which can make the gap between strong and weak wider), and is slightly simpler than the Relics campaign. Also, the vast majority of the fights themselves would be in the Wood-based battleground anyone, definitely aiding in the Athel Loren feel.

Also, we'd add in the 'hard to find' henchmen rule, giving them a challenge to restock their warband.  Identity's list:


Hench Cost 0-15 16-25 26-45 46-99 100+
Hench Rarity 4     5      6        7       8

Although, maybe add a 'Send For Help' adendum:
"Once per campaign, a player (who cannot be the highest rated warband), may appeal to the rest of the group to buy henchmen/heroes without searching.  This should only be requested in the direst of situations (ex. you have four deaths in one game, two of them heroes).  If the entire group allows, he may have one post game free of the 'search rule', signifying the hero's pleading to his higher-ups on his hands and knees for reinforcements."

Other thoughts:
~Changing the term 'Locales' to 'Encampments' avoid confusion with 'Relics.' (I know there are 'Encamp' rules... we'll adapt them to fit the three styles.

~Break up the numbers if one camp is too heavy. 
"After every player in the gaming group has decided upon a warband, divide the warbands into their three separate camps.  There should be a relatively even split, with no more than two or three in any given camp.  If one camp is particularly heavy, it is right to break it up into 'different' camps.  They follow the same rules, but are considered a different place.  It is best to split these up as best as possible along the lines of 'flavor' and background.
Example: A campaign has one Outpost Warband (Bretonnians), four 'Woodland' warbands (Horned Hunters, Outlaws/Bowmen, Dryads, and Wood Elves), and two 'Black Forest' warbands (Beastmen and Savage Orcs).  Rather than leave the groups in 1-4-2 format, it would be fairer to split the 4 group up. So, the Woodlands are divided into two separate camps: a Woodland-Human (Hunters/Bowmen) camp, and a Woodland-Fey camp (Dryads & Elves).  They both have the exact same rules, hired swords, and trading lists, only they are in different 'places'.

Likewise, if it had been the 'Black Forest' camp that had been the group of 4 (Beastmen, Savage Orcs, Undead, & Forest Goblins), rather than the Woodland, it would be split based on flavor (greenskin camp & beast/undead camp.)

WHY: Prevents a raid on another town resulting in one on three. Still doesn't stop a 3 on 1 raid (if the players conspire), but maybe add enough defence boost, it doesn't matter. Or maybe let other players jump in to help their 'allies'.

ACTIONS: after a game that takes place in the Battleground, a warband may choose 1 of the following actions:
1. Return to home camp (buy items, recruit, etc.)
2. Raid an enemy camp (attack their homes, steal their stash, and so forth.)
~Possible scenarios: Occupy, Raid the Barracks, Encampment Raid, Frenzied Mob
3. Sneak into an enemy camp. If successful, you may recruit from the OTHER camp's equipment list (ex. a Bret hiring an Amber Mage in the woodland, a Waywatcher buying poison in the Black Forest.)  If unsuccessful, try the following scenarios:
~Breakthrough, Ambush, Chance Encounter
4. Rescue a Prisoner: Same as 'raid', but with the 'prisoner' scenario, whenver a hero is captured. Wasn't there a 'save them from being executed' scen too, that would work really well?

One last thing: I took a look at the 'Horned Hunter' warband, and they don't look too powerful... on paper, at least.  They can start with three heroes with Infiltrate, access to longbows, shooting, strength, and speed skills (woah!), but cost 40gc, and have base human stats.  Also, stat-wise, the band similar to Witch Hunters, if not a little weaker.  I saw we let them play in Athel too.

Other neat things: 
~Two new woodland items (1. traps... same as Bergjaeger rules, making me more resolute to use them on the waywatcher, and 2. 'blessed hide', a 40gc item that lets them reroll initiative tests once per turn.)
~More guys who can't wear armor! (not the whole band, but enough guys to include them... tattoos for everyone!)
~They HATE all outlaws and Bandits... making them a FUN mix/contrast with the Bowmen of Bergerac (which count as outlaws... hee hee hee...)

Other ideas:
1. a few new Rewards tables, a la 'Rewards of the Shadowlord'.  Not one per warband, but maybe one per 'religion'.  'Rewards of the Lady' for Brets & Bowmen, 'Rewards of the Hunter', for Bowmen and just about everyone else.  Beastmen can take 'Shadowlord' as normal.

2. We only had a Major Artefact chart for sartosa, but I think we need a Major and Minor chart for Athel. Lots of old, magical items waiting to be seized upon.

[Ram Rock Ed First]

Is there a compiled place I can read the rules? To Beastmen and any warband already officially released, keep the warbands as is, it simplifies things greatly and brings consistency to the game.

To a Treekin with the Halflings, why don't we say no to that idea? Leave them without a big guy, but allow them to Hire 1 more Ogre Bodyguard then usual, or add an Ogre to the Henchmen list instead? Also, I'd throw a skill on them for the heroes as something like: "Master Chef", The Halfling is renowned for his cullinary skill and attracts halflings likes flies. This skill enables the warband maximum size to be increased by 1.

You'd have say a maximum warband size of 15 to start with a cookbook and 6 heroes with it you'd have a respectable 22 Halflings in the warband.

Where you've made comments that they'd be purely shooting orientated, I disagree. Halflings can have the highest initiative in the game (along with elves, vampires and IIRC skaven), I'd be giving most of my halflings spears, go ahead charge me, I'm still striking first.

Throw a special rule in about them only allowed to use shortbows, with bows only with a hero's skill to use say 'Exceptionally Large', which also allows access to strength skills and limit it to 2 halflings per warband (consistent with Shadow Elf rules for powerful build) and you suddenly have a much more balanced warband. Yes they are strong shooters, but they have limited range because they are short. It encourages people to make flexible warbands and to not just power up on shooting as at best they have 2 rounds of shooting before they are engaged.

What do people think of these ideas for Halflings?

Cheers,

Luke.

[Master]

I like the ideas for halflings, we should make a seperate thread for them.

I like the "locales" or "encampments" or "home regions" or whatever idea. Perhaps we should encourage players in the same locale to ally with eachother, even though giving them access to trading with eachother or something like that.

I think raids on eachother should be very very risky, it should be very clear that such scenarios favor the defender, even if there are 3 attackers the defenders should have a definite advantage, there would be nothing worse than getting farmed by an alliance from the black forest boasting 2 savage orcs and an undead warband going bonanza in your bretonnian town, stealing all your pretty heavy armour and stuff.

Also, Bretonnian town needs to be renamed, this is a forest, village will do, perhaps even rename it outpost.

I like the idea for breaking up numbers.
Where did you find the horned hunters?

I like the rewards but perhaps if we include two tables of artefacts it isn't needed, we might change the game too much if everyone is able to receive rewards, magic items, and recruitment is hard. But perhaps this will work fine, if we only create 3-4 new warbands and make the special rules the interesting thing of Athel Loren.

I think we should make a lot of trinket, like 30 or so to be lying around, with only a very few to actually be very good items, IE I mean swords that give +1WS or weapons with a drawback and a bonus so they kindda balance themselves.

On the traps I agree, lets make everyone do it like the Bergjaeger then, Waywatchers should perhaps be better at it? Their traps have +1 to injury rolls?

I still think we should bump the henchmen rarity by 1 or 2, as it is now it is mostly 1 per hero. If we increase it by a few steps, it'll work just fine.

I really like the idea of rewards of the lady, not so much on the other two (mainly because the shadowlord is not near Athel Loren), this way we could also give the ability for the questing knight to become a grail knight through rolling 12 on the reward table, giving him loads of bonuses (is that boni?) like +1A and all his weapons counts as magical, and perhaps +1 to wound undead or daemons?

[StyrofoamKing]

Keeping Warbands as is:  The only change is that the Outlaws of Stirland will have a tiny 'variant' to make them Bowmen of Bergerac.  Their Priest becomes a Bret Enchantress (same stats/cost, different spell table & gender), and maybe a 'Gives to the Poor' rule.  They always sell treasure/acorns/wyrdstone as one rating higher, but when hiring henchmen, they have an Exp pool of 3D6, and pay only 1gc per exp point when hiring henchmen into existing groups (instead of 2gc per point.)

Ram Rock & Halflings:  Definitely for another thread, but I was basically going to use the Halfling band from the Mordheimer site as a major basis.   They have max 20, I think, with restrictions from 'big weapons' (longbow, crossbow, handgun, etc.) They also have a 'Village Ogre', with the same cost/restriction as an Ostlander Ogre. I just thought, for a woodland setting (that's not far from the moot), why not take the Blood Bowl route and have a warband of Halfling Foresters, paired with a Treekin instead of an Ogre.  Oh, and maybe replace the 'Piggies' with Sheephounds.

Master: Already refer to it as an 'Outpost' (in everything I didn't copy paste). 

Alliances:  Well, maybe if we add the rules for other players jumping in.
"If your Camp is being raided by an opponent(s) that outnumber you two to one (number of warbands OR warband rating), you may call for additional help.  First ask any other warbands in the group that are present if they will come to your aid (it would make sense to ask 'friendly' warbands first, but even bitter enemies can have even greater mortal enemies.)  That player or players may join the battle, though they always set up their warband last (based on the fact that they are rushing to the scene of the battle.)"

Also provide additional bonuses, such as walls, bonus NPCs... maybe arrow-spewing watchtowers that rain death from above.

At the moment, they are only allowed to raid every OTHER game, but if that is still too frequent, we can put a cap on it... or just skip it all together.

Minor Artifacts:  I've never used Minor Artifacts before, but they show up in Lustria, Relics, and I think BTB too. So it's no big deal.  Most of them are pretty mild, like 'Morning Star that's always +1 Strength', or "Sword that grants plus one attack in the first round of combat".

Henchmen: I disagree.  The fact that you'd only be able to buy 3-6 items OR henchmen in the post game is a huge handicap.  Even if the rarity rate is low, it stems the growth of your items a lot.

Rewards: Well, we wouldn't CALL him the Shadow Lord.  As far as the 'Hunter' path, it's a nice Neutral path of the savage warrior.. a Spirit Journey, if you will. One of the higher results, (maybe 12), is that you find a steed, that MUST be sent from the gods (Stag, Boar, Giant Spider, whatever's appropriate for the warband.)  The hero may ride that specific beast without the 'Riding' Skill. May not be ridden by anyone else, or sold.

[Master]

Ok, I'm all for the rewards and the artefacts then, if we incorporate all these special rules, perhaps 3-4 new warbands will be enough.

Ok, we will add the rules for raiding too, however there are two problems:

It will stall a campaign if two players decide to raid eachother over and over again, while the other players don't, and it will also net loads of income/experience to those two warbands.
There must be very little to gain from looting, and it must help the defender a lot.

Will you make a thread for the bowmen so I can see what you mean? Perhaps copy over what we've got from Toms?

Ok, so I'll start a thread for the artefacts.

[StyrofoamKing]

Cool. How's this:  We include the Encampments into the normal, default rules, and include the 'Camp Raid' scenario on the normal scenario table.  We'll also throw in the 'Optional' Raiding rules, which uses several scenario tables, based on whether you're fighting in the forest, raiding, or sneaking in. Sound good?

Bowmen: Sure. Although, I don't think I talked about them much at Tom's, so I'll mostly be reposting the Outlaws with the, like, three rule changes. Oh, and we also decided to give them access to Staffs. (Is the plural staves?)

Speaking of which, I'll soon post a collection of 'foresty/savage' items, both ours and compiled.  Should I post that here, the artefact thread, or open a new thread?