Legion of Nagash I did a little playtest...

[Sephiroth Von Carstein]

So, I tested out some of these rules today in a 1750pts battle against a Dark Elf army, and it was a success! My army was as follows.

Zenith Prince, Daggers of Arachnos (2 HW, Poisoned Attacks on 5+), Talisman of Protection (6+ Ward Save), my army General

Reaper, Rendering Blade (Killing Blow), Ghoul's Fang (Frenzy + 1 temporary wound), Gauntlets of Dread Intellect (re-roll to hit or to wound)

Mortuary Priest, Level 2, Lore of Nagash, Book of Control, Power Stone, Dispel Scroll

19 Skeletons with HW+Shields+Light Armour (I whacked the Priest in here, some disposable cover)

20 Zombies + Launcher (Wanted to test this out)

19 Pinnacle Guard with basic HW+Shields (Put my general in here)

3 Bases of Wraithwisps

2 Bonethrowers

and finally, a Black Shard thingy (<3 this)

So, the battle was a solid victory for Nagash :devil2: and I personally found (particularly the magic phase) very enjoyable compared to VC or TK.

Some of the bits that stood out:

- The Black Shard was very powerful, although possibly due to getting some decent rolls to determine it's power level. Maybe this was because (since I don't have a Black Shard model yet) I used Nagash himself, with some Tomb Guard 'crew'.

- The Mortuary Priest's breath attack wiped out a nice chunk of corsairs. His book was very handy, giving +3WS and +1I to the pinnacle guard when they were in combat was very nice, similar idea to the Helm of Command when you boil it down though.

- The wraithwisps were quite powerful, although I noticed they are restricted. Their frenzy makes them a slightly unstable unit to screen your other troops with.

- Dark Elf Assassin's are mean and vicious :|

If you have any questions about it I'd be happy to talk about it some more - or if you have any requests about things to playtest next (Von Carstein army list is also on the agenda)

 

[doombunny666]

can i just say that im suprised someone let you use the rules or was it a friend at my local GW everything is frowned upon even bringing a non GW model within 50 yards...

 

[Disciple of Nagash]

Woohoo!

Thank you very much for the feedback. I am very personally interesting in you thoughts.

So a couple of questions:

The Black Shard - would you feel it is too powerful, bearing in mind it does cost 275pts which is a heck of a lot of points. Or do you just think you was lucky with your rolls. In other words would it have been a different story if you rolled low for the spells power level?

The Mortuary Priests Jar - Was this fair, how did your opponent react?

Do you feel the frenzy balanced out the offensiveness of the Wraithwisps?

What spells did you cast and how do you feel they were - balanced, underpowered, overpowered?

What did you opponent think?

Finally, would you recommend any changes?

Oh, and thanks for doing this, after all the hard work we put in, it makes it worthwhile.

 

[Sephiroth Von Carstein]

Doombunny - Yes it was a friend, I think if I tried to point at the OOP nagash model and say "that's a Black Shard" in a games workshop someone would open a bunch of snotling blisters and pelt them at me.

DoN - The Black Shard I think is fairly reasonable, but with a 2D6 Power Level it's always going to be one of 2 extremes, if that's the way we want it (I don't mind either way) then it works. An alternative could be basing the power level on the remaining wounds so (like a steamtank) it becomes weaker once damaged, although I'm not certain how. All of the other functions seemed to work nicely.

My opponent is a good friend, so even if I thrashed him with unfair rules he wouldn't have really reacted too badly, but a one-use breath attack is never going to be too unbalancing. Perhaps the hero could have a S3 breath and the Lord a S4?

The wraithwisps work fairly effectively, the frenzy isn't a major problem, although I'm sure with some dirty tricks (which my opponent didn't pull out of his sleeve in this particular battle) could bait them out of position.

Notice I didn't use any of the living troops yet, because they're not all finalized as far as I can tell, would be interesting to try them out soon.

 

[Disciple of Nagash]

Hmmm, perhaps D6 plus the remaining number of wounds as the power level for the Black Shard?

 

[Sephiroth Von Carstein]

That could work, it's not impossible to destroy it, but it's hardly fragile, so the fact that even wounding it would slightly reduce it's power... I think is a good thing.

 

[Disciple of Nagash]

Great. Well just to show your comments are welcome, I have created a new playtesting list.

Now, how do you feel the spells were? Did you use Possession?

 

[Sephiroth Von Carstein]

I only had the one real wizard - one Mortuary priest, he had Posession, True Gaze of Nagash, he rolled The Great Awakening - but since he didn't really have many dice at his disposal I decided it was a bit risky and swapped it for Whispering Spirits. I did use posession a couple of times to extend my gaze of nagash, and to use it from behind the wraithwisps. If I'm not mistaken Slann Magepriests can do that too right?

 

[Disciple of Nagash]

Something similar yes.

So you felt the spells were ok then?

 

[Sephiroth Von Carstein]

Yes, they seemed quite fair upon first impressions, my next battle will probably have to include a lord to get more of a feel for the spell-list - on another note all the points values all seemed approx. correct, because I didn't overwhelm my opponent with sheer numbers or vice versa.

 

[Disciple of Nagash]

Excellent. That is great news. Well I look forward to hearing your next report. If you like post up an army list in advance so we can see what you've come up with.