• It's time once again to ferret out those murderous vampires in a new VAU - Vampires Amongst Us. A cross between Cluedo and a roleplay, sometimes gory and often hilarious! Find out more and sign-up! here.

Should specific undead get which special rule to demonstrate their resilience to damage?

  • -1 Strength to enemy attacks

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Re-roll rolls to wound them

    Votes: 2 15.4%
  • "Feel no pain" save

    Votes: 7 53.8%
  • Neither

    Votes: 4 30.8%

  • Total voters
    13

gilbo12345

Skeleton
Oct 20, 2012
98
Vampire Counts Core sucks... We all know it, there is no use denying it.. We must come to grips that our core cannot fight itself out of a paper bag, and are as tough as cardboard to boot.

I've been sitting on this idea for a while now and I think its quite fluffy / logical and may seem like a good idea when VC gets redone.


Whilst our core are bad fighters that doesn't mean they have to die like flies as well, perhaps there could be some kind of rule or save that reflects the fact that there are no lethal attacks that can "kill" a skeleton or zombie.. You can whack an arm a leg or a head off and whilst this may stop a flesh and blood person its not likely to stop their undead counterparts.

This could be in the form of either re-rolling successful rolls to wound, -1 to the Strength of attacks against them, or a 5+ "save" (feel no pain anyone?)... This may be limited to affecting non-magic attacks since it could be said that magical attacks can better interfere with the magical binding of the skeletons, wights and zombies.

Now this may be applied as an army wide bonus (like how High elves get ASF etc), or be attributed to skeletons, zombies and wights... not sure about ghouls and vampires or the other gribblies.


What this means is that whilst our skeletons and zombies are bad at causing damage they are a bit more resistant to it and thus leading to more grinding, and less crumble deaths since the unit won't lose by a huge amount now. Considering that our units are meant to grind, yet armies now have many things that can literally destroy a 30 odd unit in one or a few turns (including crumbles), it would make sense to somehow beef up the defense of our units.

It makes sense for wights too since whilst they can do a bit more damage they lack WS and I (and sometimes Armour) of similar enemy units so this would go a ways into making them an actually 'elite' unit again, whilst not taking away from the traditional VC flaws being bad WS and I.


What do you guys think? And which one do you think fits best fluff-wise and rules-wise? Should it be limited to non-magical attacks?

-1 S to enemy attacks
Re-roll rolls to wound
"Feel no pain" save (5+)
 

Adam_Barrow

Sleepless Knight
True Blood
Dec 25, 2010
3,068
Nashville, TN
I'm fine with Core how it is nearly top to bottom (who do I gotta hex to get some kind of Ld debuffing howl from Dire Wolves?). Points cost, statline, Invo respawn rate. But I admit, bumping Zombos up to T4 would make for a killer tarpit with fluff justification to boot. Remove the head or destroy the brain.
 

Blutsauger

Vampire Count
Apr 10, 2013
1,089
Personally, I think our core are fine. I think there are some problems with the core rules, and how psychology and Steadfast interact with undead troops (namely we don't get any benefit from Steadfast and fear is completely nerfed), but despite that we are still able to get a lot of utility out of them.
 

gilbo12345

Skeleton
Oct 20, 2012
98
Blutsauger said:
Personally, I think our core are fine. I think there are some problems with the core rules, and how psychology and Steadfast interact with undead troops (namely we don't get any benefit from Steadfast and fear is completely nerfed), but despite that we are still able to get a lot of utility out of them.

I agree that some more synergy with the core rules would lessen the need to prop up our core.

We do get utility however it seems that we're constantly fighting an uphill battle.
 

Blutsauger

Vampire Count
Apr 10, 2013
1,089
DominicJ said:
Undead arent "resistant to damage"
Its warhammer, not resident evil.

Well, they're certainly no harder to injure than other creatures, but at the same time a thrust through the chest isn't going to slow down a zombie, and hacking off an arm isn't going to slow down a skeleton. And we all know that Vampires need a stake through the heart to put them down.

For the sake of simplicity and balance, T3 infantry with no save is fine with me. But I wouldn't feel like it was out of character for zombies or other units to have a built in regen save.
 

Atrophus

Grave Guard
Feb 14, 2014
214
hairyjeff said:
How about any unit within 12inches of a LoV caster automatically gets a regen, 5+?


I'd go along the same lines but not regen, I'd go for a 5+ ward save if a unit is within 12 inches of a LoV caster.
But like the old forest spirits for wood elves, it can't be used against magical attacks.
 

Tou84

Skeleton
Feb 15, 2012
65
give zombies a 6+ regen, but make them have a counter rule "killing blowed by a 5+" so rolling a 5+ would "decapitate" them making no use of of 6+ regen, or make them S2 T4

Skellies are there where they should be, only the ws2 sucks monkeyballs with the 8th edition of "rerolls and imunes". Skeletons could easily have a rule "fighting the own dead" which represents armies facing own dead units as skeletons making them harder to hit, "skeletons cant be hit except on 4+ if enemy is not immune to psychology"

Ghouls... these horribly priced monstrouscities... only good for actually filling the core tax faster than skeletons, not so much at anything else... Ghouls could have a rule "scavengers: when ghouls destroy an enemy unit they gain a 6+ regen, every unit after the first increases regen by 1 up to a 4+" as lets face it how many units have your ghouls actually taken out in game... most likely a 1-0...

Dire wolves well who doesnt love them... but mostly as a suicidal unit... at 4 slaves a wolf excellent... but lookout for 9th... i.e. making their minimum size to a 10 would punish them at those points.
 

gilbo12345

Skeleton
Oct 20, 2012
98
DominicJ said:
Undead arent "resistant to damage"
Its warhammer, not resident evil.

Never said it was Resident Evil ;)

Perhaps consider this, if (say) an Empire Spearman gets his leg lopped off he wouldn't be able to fight on, blood loss and the system shock of losing a limb would render him / her "dead" (incapacitated) and thus in Warhammer is removed as a casualty. Zombies and skeletons on the other-hand do not have to worry about that, they can lose a leg, an arm or even a head (depending on what zombie-lore you use ;) ).. Meaning they wouldn't be incapacitated by such blows.

What I am proposing is a rule that reflects this on the battlefield.

@ Blutsauger: Yeah that is what I was trying to get at, thanks for explaining.

@ Bounce: That is a great idea, I hadn't considered zombies creating more zombies. Though the effect may not be that great since we can raise them up and zombies aren't going to be killing much stuff.

@ Atrophus: I kinda agree with the no regen, we already have too much regen in the book making flaming things MVPs of most match-ups. Yet having a regen save allows more synergy with a Mortis Engine ;)

@ Tou84: Cool idea, though wouldn't it apply to zombies since they would still have some of the facial features of the fallen comrades, rather than skellies which are simply a skeleton.
 

RarerMonsters

Grave Guard
Jul 16, 2013
255
Fluffwise zombies are barely held together. Unlike a human, who can take wounds and blows and be injured yet alive, a strong smack to a zombie sends rotted flesh and brittle bones to dust.

The special rule representing their power is that they can be raised from the dead en masse and cost 3 points.
 

Tou84

Skeleton
Feb 15, 2012
65
RarerMonsters said:
Fluffwise zombies are barely held together. Unlike a human, who can take wounds and blows and be injured yet alive, a strong smack to a zombie sends rotted flesh and brittle bones to dust.

The special rule representing their power is that they can be raised from the dead en masse and cost 3 points.

no one fears the zombies, they much more raise laughter at battle field... they should have a rule

"Slippery slope: unit that destroyed zombies can only overrun 1d6 due to the slippery bodies of zombies underneath them"
 

Count Lupei

Zombie
Feb 16, 2014
36
Alberta
Honestly, all the core would be that much more resilient if unstable effected undead slightly different, as it is an army wide rule.
" undead units suffer one less wound from unstable special rule per wizard level within 10" "
I know it wasn't the question, but I think that would make quite a difference, and fits per GW fluff.
 

About us

  • Our community has been around for many years and pride ourselves on offering unbiased, critical discussion among people of all different backgrounds. We are working every day to make sure our community is one of the best.

Quick Navigation

User Menu