Legion of Nagash Legion of Nagash Review

[Dreadgrass]

My apologies DoN, and all, I didn't mean to undermine the project and all the hard work's everyone's put in.

My concerns stem from being involved in similar projects in the past, I really like where you've gone with the army and don't want to see this project go the way of so many others... I was just trying to get my views across and I guess I got a bit overzealous.

So again, Im very sorry, and I'll try a playtest or 2 before sticking my nose in again...

 

[Bishop]

IMO, everyone's opinion could yield some valuable insight into something that may have been missed, really does need to be changed, etc... I haven't exactly been around since the start either!! I think this project is 2ish years old.

Anywho, I agree that before anything is drastically changed (like your idea regarding Rituals and Lores) that some playtesting is definately in order.

I do see the point regarding your idea, and actually it does make a bit of sense... it's simply too big of a change (to the project) to make without having some significant playtesting first.

 

[Disciple of Nagash]

Deadgrass – You mistook my tone in my last post. I was not having a go or saying your input is not valid – of course it is. There is no need to apologise or get worried because you are a new member. I value everyone’s input, however it is just my way to be blunt when it comes to disagreeing / having a different opinion.

Basically all I am saying is that this review is for “tweaks” or in the case of something being obviously OP, adjusting it to make it work. However other things, such as the Lore / Ritual thing you mention is more just a new idea of yours, which should not really supersede the effort that was put into the original rules. If during the course of playtesting it is discovered that such a change is necessary then fair enough, I just don’t want to start changing stuff when there is no valid reason to.

 

[Dreadgrass]

Okay, thanks DoN, for clearing that up, as you say, Im new here and Im not yet used to the nuances and peoples ways of expressing their opinions.

I'll stand by my statement though, and get some playtesting in before making any further suggestions. Chances are the lists fine as is and Im just over-concerned with it being accepted. My local group loves custom lists like this, but we're always very concerned with balance. The ladz'll probably be happy to give it a test run though so I'll hopefully be able to give some feedback after this weekend. It'll be good to get some input from people who don't play VC....

 

[Disciple of Nagash]

Just a note - I am going to be implementing the discussed revisions in the things that are certain thread shortly. It will be the confirmed list in the first post of this thread.

In regards to the Touch of Ages - does anyone else feed we should use the alternate version offered, or playtest the original?

 

[Disciple of Nagash]

Ok, I have updated the Things that are Certain thread with the changes, however I realised these were never discussed. These were my suggestions:

Ancient Warrior – This is my baby as I designed this when I first joined However looking at I think it needs a couple of tweaks:
Remove Killing Blow on Ogre sized creatures – is far too powerful in OK.
In its place allow him to re-roll to hit or wound with basic attacks. (this will be lost if the Controller dies)
Power Strike: Change to one S10 attack (benefits from the above re-rolls), that causes D3 wounds

Books of Nagash - Book 1 - The Book of Summoning – Needs clarifying, as currently it could be interpreted to allow a cast to re-roll all dice when casting the Great Awakening on various units. Possibly change to: Once per magic phase the bearer may re-roll all dice when casting a summoning / healing spell to see how many models / wounds are raised or healed. In the case of the Great Awkening, you may only re-roll the dice for one unit.If re-rolled, you must abide by the second result.

 

[Bishop]

DoN... I'm okay with all the changes that you listed above.

Also, something came up here regarding the mixing of unit types.

DoN and myself both feel it'd be best to disallow the mixing of unit types (ie. no Undead characters in Alive units)

Figured I'd post a link to get others thoughts on the matter...

 

[Capt Rubber Ducky]

Ancient Warrior – This is my baby as I designed this when I first joined However looking at I think it needs a couple of tweaks:
Remove Killing Blow on Ogre sized creatures – is far too powerful in OK.
In its place allow him to re-roll to hit or wound with basic attacks. (this will be lost if the Controller dies)
Power Strike: Change to one S10 attack (benefits from the above re-rolls), that causes D3 wounds

Are you removing killingblow completely or just on US3+ if its the later rerolls to hit or wound is quite a lot better then killing blow on US3+ if it was the for-most it would be about right.

I think the killing blow on creatures of any size would fit well on the power strike ability (as well as above suggestion).

 

[Disciple of Nagash]

I have amended in some more of the agreed changes.

Now it seems we have not yet agreed on the following:

What are we going to do with the Touch of Ages? Put it to playtesting or use Deadgrasses version?

Also we need to decide on what to do in regards of alive / undead units & characters mixing. Thoughts please?

 

[Dreadgrass]

Regarding Living/ dead units I've been working under the following:

LIVING CHARACTER IN DEAD UNIT
Crumbles as per usual, if the unit crumbles away the character takes a LD test (he's stubborn so no concerns with modifiers) and will break/ stay as normal, obviously crumbling wounds cannot be allocated to the character, nor will and rituals targeting the unit affect the character.

DEAD CHARACTER IN A LIVING UNIT
Is bound by the units response, they can use his LD but if they run, he has to go along, probably whipping them to turn around... The character may be healed/ affected via rituals but the affects will not extend to the character.

Only problem I see is movement, technically, unless their a Zenith Prince or Lord, the undead characters can't march, I'd be inclined to allow them to act as the unit, so dead in alive can march but no ritual movement, can flee as a charge reaction etc. Alive in dead cannot march but can move with the unit via ritual.

 

[Danceman]

I think Dreadgrass got the alive/dead rule spot on except I do not think the undead should be able to march along. You're already have a stubborn unit with a powerful character. Keep stick to the rule that the slowest model dictates speed.

-

The list is starting to take form but there are some thing I am worried about.

The first issue is special rules. While not nessecarily being too powered, they're too many, too long, make too many exceptions and generally make up for weaknesses that could have given the army character instead of power and reliability.

The second issue is piling on of special rules into one unit. This become a rather grave issue with magic I think where even without items the wizards in the lists packs an incredible force. Second is, and also in a way my problem with the shade dragon, deadly ethereals. Ethereals is a very powerful rule and the majority of units in the game cannot even deal with them. To add impressive stats and boast powerful rules. Like the revenant, who is ethereal, hits hard, have good protection with an innate 4+ ward(!!!) and instantly his ethereal rule gets a failsafe with a 50% save. Ontop on this he is a tomb king in the ways of casting and adds dice to the army just by being there.

It is also quite scary how easily accessable killing blow is. Same withe ethereals. While I can see the presence of ethereals the general patterns is; Ethereal = Poor Ws, S and T and no save at all. It seems the ethereals are getting the best of both worlds here(hehe).

The forth issue of piling on rules are magic;
Level 1-4
+ rituals
+ books
+ arcane items
+ bound spells

EDIT;

Oh right, I feel abit douchy here. Forgot to include some prospositions to mirror my critique.

Magic users; A more defined prescence. For example, we could have a DoN who's on the path of to priesthood or sorcerer which will in turn reflect abilities and access to particular books.

Ethereals; Reduce their profiles somewhat, and in some cares I advocate the removal of certain failsafes.

Special rules; Like the wisps, who have both frenzy and hatred. Hatred would be enough.

But mostly it isn't that I dislike the feel of the army, not at all but rather that in some cases 'less is more'. In some places the there is abit too much synergy.

 

[Capt Rubber Ducky]

Special rules; Like the wisps, who have both frenzy and hatred. Hatred would be enough.

I think the wisps would be even better without the frenzy as they wouldn't be forced to charge and as they have 4 attacks per base anyway the +1 attack doesn't add as much as it does to some things.

 

[Dreadgrass]

The Danceman's hit the nail on the head, I think a streamlining of some of our rules would be a good idea, theres a lot of very fluffy stuff, that may tend to bog down the game, I'm fine with having a lot of options, the more the better! But the way I see it is this is a list for friendly play, we need to make it as user/ opponent friendly as possible, the idea being to have opponents keen to face our characterful and creative force.

I agree with having a lot of Ethereals in the army options, I'm planning on creating an army based around possessed armour like the revenant, but our Ethereal options are all very potent:

Revenant: as Danceman said, 4+ ward (that isn't part of their magic items allowance) and ethereal is very potent, was thinking maybe remove the ward armour and instead have certain options in the magic armour section that are "Revenant only" or "may be used by Revenant" I'd be fine if they had access to a ward, but I think it should be a seperate entity. Would also allow a bit more customizability in a lord who, at present has only Talismans and Enchanted Items (and Dispel scrolls) to choose from... Alternately, bring him along the lines of Spectral cavalry, not ethereal per-se but protected by his incorporeal nature...

Wraithwisp - I'm definately backing the removal of frenzy, or just decreasing their profile by 1 A, they can shred a lot of base infantry/ support units at their current level...

Again, Im just spinballing ideas, these are units I haven't tried yet, but they're also ones Im hesitant to try as is...

 

[Dreadgrass]

Sorry about the double post, just perusing the army list and saw that the Pinnacle Guard/ Knights have a banner allowance of 65pts... is that to deliberately stop people putting the Hunger stone (at 70pts) on thses units? There doesn't seem to be any other reason to have greater than 50pts of banner allowance.... Maybe we need to re-shuffle the banners a little so some fall into the 50 - 65pts bracket?

 

[Bishop]

I would very much prefer to keep undead and alive units seperate. There's no mixing of Daemons/Mortal (well, at all any more), no mixing Forest Spirits and Elves, etc.

The Banner allowance just follows the formula of "normal" allowance +15 pts. So instead of 25/50/75 the Legion units get 40/65/90.

I think that playtesting could sort a lot of the rest out... I'm sure that a few things will very likely come back as too powerful (example: 4+ Ward Ethereals..)

 

[Dreadgrass]

Ahh, fair enough, but there's no banners above 50pts and below 65pts... and theres nothing between 75pts and 90pts... the only unit thats affected by the extra banner totals is the skellies.... maybe we could tinker with some existing banners or make a couple of new ones so the rules are worhtwhile to all the units?

 

[Disciple of Nagash]

Well I have read through the comments, and one thing I still stand with at the moment is that we need more playtesting. Some tweaks and changes we all agree on is one thing, however some the above suggestions we don’t all agree on, for example I think the D0N’s and Priests are ok, potent yes, but I think you pay for what they can do.

However a couple of points I would like you all to take into consideration when thinking things through:

Magic Potency: Yes I fully agree that the army has very potent casters and magic, however it was designed with this in mind. The is after all the Legion of Nagash, one of the most potent casters ever to have existed. However I do agree that some things may need to be adjusted to make sure it balances properly, again which I think playtesting needs to look at.

Over Simplifying : Perhaps this is just my pet peeve, but I hate that GW have dumbed some things down because they want to make it easier for little kids. I think having rules that work fluff and rules wise are fine. However on that note I have noticed that there are perhaps too many different special rules in the Legion.

On the note of Ethereals, by my count we have two ethereal characters and two ethereal army choices. Three of them also have extra limitations on how many you can take, and also have high points cost. Yes they are nasty, but I am not convinced they are too much. The Spectral Cav have been toned down enough, the Wraithwisps are more than fine for their points to me, remembering that frenzy has quite a steep downside. I think the Reaper is fine. The only one that does make me look twice is the Revenant with its Ethereal and 4+ ward. However basically the idea behind that was his armour was chosen for him, and he was pointed appropriately.

So to sum up, there are some points that may be valid, however I think we need something to justify more changes, i.e. playtesting results.

 

[Danceman]

Yes they are nasty, but I am not convinced they are too much.

That is my point, it is. The current ethereals gets alot of flack from non-daemon players because of the rule itself, if you add in extra nastiness spiced with 10 special rules, killing blows, wards and other stuff players will just throw in the towel and leave. There is a line between fluff and game-balance which must be preserved. They are also inherantly quite weak to mitigate the 'Rock-Paper-Scissor' effects. The ethereals in the list does not share any of these traits.

Magic Potency: Yes I fully agree that the army has very potent casters and magic, however it was designed with this in mind. The is after all the Legion of Nagash, one of the most potent casters ever to have existed. However I do agree that some things may need to be adjusted to make sure it balances properly, again which I think playtesting needs to look at.

My point here was rather that the army list have so much going for it that the extra power boost in magic tips the balance. For an army to have 'an area of expertise' it needs to have a flaw somewhere else. No, I do not think it is enough to say the army has less raise/healing spells than VC. The VC healing/raise capability is one of the aspects in warhammer that is considered fundamentally broken.

What I mean by flaw, is when I look at the army list I see an army list who would do perfectly well without magic. When I take a look at the Revenant + 2 MPs I see a dirt cheap and powerful magic phase with a close combat monster of which alot of armies will struggle against(excluding daemons of course, they'll love it). The magic phase is 8pd + 2 bound spells + books. Incredible value point vs effectiveness.

So what I want to highlight is the fact it gets too easy to create synergy or 'break' the list. This is my issue with the list. I love the feel of the list but I think it needs to be more restrained, otherwise we're risking to become Daemons MII.

Cheers, dmn.

 

[Disciple of Nagash]

Ok, so you think the list needs an inherent weakness - what would you suggest as this weakness? I think removing the magic would not be in line with the fluff of the list at all, however I am willing to talk about weakening it somewhere else?

 

[Danceman]

Magic should say in there, but what I am saying is rein in the special rules and profiles of some units. Which units will best be shown in playtesting so I want to hold my tounge on what unit(s) that should be taken into consideration. I claim this 'safe' position due to the 'unforseen synergy effects' we've seen in previous books.

So magic, stay virtually as it is but we need to take a look what the army has.

It has 'unbreakable' infantry, undead hammer and anvil units, it's got alive units which also extend to fast cav and skirmishers, it has uber cavalry, big and killy monster, it has an artillery piece and it got a good selection of flying monsters, as well as a very flexible setup of characters. There is also a general pattern of flexibility in options making it possible to tailor alot of units to further the synergy effect. Solution would be to playtest, see which rules that are problematic(if any) and go from there.

An example here;

The ancient warrior(which is a cool idea). The downside of this unit is that you need to expend power dice and a dispell dice. When you look at the survivabilty of the unit it is quite tough. 8 wounds and 4+ regen save and ASF. T4 makes it better and it has a fair amount of attacks but here comes the kicker which gives it a failsafe of sorts, the flexible re-roll. It already has alot of things going for it but this makes it abit too reliable. Come across a monster, just re-roll to and you will hit of 3s as I do not think there is a single monster with a WS above 6. Then with S10 wound of a 2+ with multiple wounds. Against less enemy units use the re-roll to wound.
The point is, it isn't a weakness if you can eliminate it with a special rule.

 

[Disciple of Nagash]

Why didn't you say anything about that rule when I proposed it? I did post it twice in this thread o.o

However as you have explained things in more detail I can now see more clearly where you are coming from. However I think the issue is going to be where to streamline / remove the rules, introduce weaknesses.

Personally I am still of the opinion that we should do some playtesting before any more changes are made. This isn't to try and stall, I am hoping that doing this will actually highlight things which perhaps we could do without. What I don't want to do is just remove things that could end up up actually making things worse.

Does that sound fair?

Perhaps we could come up with a list of combos / units which particularly need looking at (such as the Revenant) and push them for playtesting?

 

[Bishop]

Yeah, a list of things that "look" broken, that should definately be tested more/first/etc... is probably a good idea.

 

[Danceman]

Why didn't you say anything about that rule when I proposed it? I did post it twice in this thread o.o

Does that sound fair?

I entered this project early on but real life factors kept me busy. When I returned the project had grown exponentially. It was quite alot to take in and to digest so some things went past me.

Yes, sounds fair. Just regard the issues I hightlight as things to look out for rather than a demand to change things on the spot.

Cheers, dmn.

 

[Disciple of Nagash]

Of course Dancey - as I said I do understand your points so I will be keeping an eye out for them anyway.

 

[Danceman]

Ok, going to go through the whole list bit by bit now. Appears I skimmed through it all abit too quickly and missed out on alot of items.

The Hunger Stone - 70pts
Atop this standard sits a massive black diamond that thrums with the power of of the Dark Lord himself. Under its influence the dead are driven relentlessly forwards with a hunger for living flesh
Bound Spell. Power Level 5
If successfully cast 3 friendly undead units within 18" may march move or charge as per the BRB

This item just doesn't work. Too good. Goes off once = Game Over.

Doomrider Banner - 40pts

This feels abit to failsafe-ish, but I am going reserve myself here to see the impact it actually has.

The Pennant of Eternal Death - 45pts

When you cause fear/terror this item just feel abit... Harsh.

Getting rather late, more input later on.