Legion of Nagash LoN: Update to 8th Edition (VC Book): Army Wide Rules

[Disciple of Nagash]

This thread is to review the armywide rules.

These are what we currently have:

Undead
Ethereal
Wight Blades
Nagashi

Nagashi Special Rule - Updated to 8th Edition
Though they can feel fear like normal men, years spent with the living dead as inured them to their presence. Trained from birth to follow their long dead overlords, their fanaticism knows no bounds.
Any unit with the Nagashi rule are alive and do not benefit from the Undead rule. However they are not affected by Fear that is caused by the Undead special rule.
Whilst the army general is alive they also benefit from the stubborn rule, however should the general die all Nagashi units loose the stubborn rule and must also take a panic check. If failed they must flee towards the nearest table edge. This may mean the unit flees combat in which case the enemy units may pursue or hold as normal.

 

[warspawned]

Looks fine to me, the only thing I can suggest is to add the "Alive!" rule for clarity - if there is such a thing? I don't have the new book and could be making it up, for which I apologise in advance

 

[Disciple of Nagash]

Suggested changes.

Undead > Undead of Nagash
Bound by the potent necromancy of taught by the Great Lord of Undeath, those animated with his touch do not die so easily....
As per the VC undead rule, with the following amendment: "......any units which suffer wounds due to the Unstable rule, suffer one less than they would normally, down to a minimum of one.

Reason: To reflect the more powerful innate magic of the Legion

Ethereal > Keep as per the VC Book

Wight Blades > This rule doesn't exist anymore. Whilst I am biased (I have always liked this old rule), I would suggest we keep it, in its original format (KB plus magical attacks). It will now be a rule unique to the Legion, who will not have that many magical attacks anyway.

Nagashi
This rule is the source of much discussion, due to the stubborn rule it presents. The idea behind is fine for me, however I can see perhaps that it can be too powerful. So perhaps amend to ignoring Fear caused by Undead, and the stubborn is present if within a certain range of a character?

Slain General.
This is an interesting point. Both VC and TK have different rules, any suggestions on what we should do?

 

[Uziel]

This thread is to review the armywide rules.

These are what we currently have:

Undead
Ethereal
Wight Blades
Nagashi

Nagashi Special Rule - Updated to 8th Edition
Though they can feel fear like normal men, years spent with the living dead as inured them to their presence. Trained from birth to follow their long dead overlords, their fanaticism knows no bounds.
Any unit with the Nagashi rule are alive and do not benefit from the Undead rule. However they are not affected by Fear that is caused by the Undead special rule.
Whilst the army general is alive they also benefit from the stubborn rule, however should the general die all Nagashi units loose the stubborn rule and must also take a panic check. If failed they must flee towards the nearest table edge. This may mean the unit flees combat in which case the enemy units may pursue or hold as normal.

-The Special Rule name itself is good, as it is very flexible and can potentially have a wide variety of meanings. A keeper in my opinion.
-I like the "not affected by Fear from Undead touch", but it is really a minor thing as it rarely comes into play (VS. two armies only). Still, that part is a keeper.
The Panic Test when the general is a nice touch as well. Really fluffy and really brings forth how dependent the army should be on the general.

I think it is the all living units get stubborn part that messes things up, especially combined with the 8.ed BSB and so many Core choices getting this benefit. Stubborn is something you only really encounter in Special and Rare sections of other armies, and I personally think that it it for a very good reason that armies are designed this way.

Some changes "could" be (not all at once though):

-Give all living units Hatred when the General was "alive" instead.

-Immune to Panic or Immune to Psychology

-Give the "Nagashi" units the ability to help out with Channeling instead. Allow them to channel, and add +1 to the channeling dice roll for each additional rank of five or more models.
In this case though, I'd most definitively remove the Nagashi special rule from the Favored Ones (something I'd consider in any case to be honest).

The idea her is that a lot of potential necromancers may flock to Nagasshizzar, hoping to learn, others may be enslaved and discovered having a slight magical potential etc, others may just be thought what they thing are the holy words of Nagash etc.. The idea is basically more of a Necromantic Canneling Choir, drawing magic to the Legion's side. Not many has what it takes to reach the top after all, but I imagine Nagash would find use for them all..

I know this is not specifically in the fluff, but take a second look at the Nagashi Cultists/Black Riders/Necrophytes, there is only about 3,5 lines about them fluff-wise. In total. Not really a whole lot to keep one "pinned" down creatively. I dare say there is room to do a lot with these without stepping on any proverbial toes as it were.

Those are the first ideas that spring to mind.

 

[Bishop]

LoN Undead rule: I'm okay with the -1 wound from CR. I'd drop the minimum of one clause, and add in that it stacks with the BSB effect.

Wight Blades: Absolutely keep these as per previous entry! Magical Attacks, Killing Blow.

Ethereal: As per existing rules

Nagashi: Hmm.. Stubborn is really powerful. What if was changed to: Immune to Psychology caused by models with the Undead rule (globally) and Steadfast if within the Generals IP range.

General Death: Definitely should be some side-effect to the loss of the General. What's the rules difference between TK8 and VC8?

 

[Marius]

LoN Undead: I agree with Bishop on this one.

Wight Blades & Ethereal: Yep, no arguments here.

Nagashi: Difficult to get this right. It was always my view that the living elements in the legion were effectively expendabe shock troops. They get sent in to soften up the enemy, either destroying them or doing enough damage to weaken them, at which point the undead legions move in to mop up the remainder. It doesn't matter to Nagash if they live or die - they're still going to serve him either way.

I'd agree with the ItP vs Undead part, however perhaps something like - If a Nagashi unit causes enough damage to negate steadfast on an enemy unit, the enemy unit also counts as being disrupted for the remainder of the combat.

General Death: IIRC the Tomb Kings have the same rule that we used to have - i.e general dies = crumble test each turn. However, they generaly had higher ld to lessen the effect & constructs have a rule which means they suffer 1 less wound from any crumbling.

I'd agree with Nagashi units requiring a panic test - easy to understand their state of mind when they see "Nagash's chosen emissary" i.e the general, get taken down.

As far as the Undead go however I'm a little more divided - If the general was a warrior type (Zenith Lord) then I would argue along the lines of a Init stat reduction for all LoN Undead units (having lost the driving will behind the army), whereas if he were a caster type (DoN) then I argue along the lines of following the VC general death rule, with the addition that you lose the benefits of the LoN Undead rule (the magic holding the army together becomes more unstable).

Perhaps if we were required to take at least one caster, but that they were not required to be the general, then both of those options could work? However, it would probably mean having to have a more clear divide between casters and combat characters (which isn't a bad thing, being that the Vamps were supposed to be the bridge between the two) when they come up for review.

A difficult call to make.

 

[Bishop]

I'd prefer to see something more along the lines of crumbling for undead and a panic for Nagashi units. I'd also prefer to have the General must be a caster with the Lore of Nagash.

 

[Marius]

I'd prefer to see something more along the lines of crumbling for undead and a panic for Nagashi units. I'd also prefer to have the General must be a caster with the Lore of Nagash.

This still means a significant shift in characters - otherwise every army will have to be led by either a DoN or Mortuary Priest as all of the other choices are currently either 'counts as' wizards that don't have access to the Lore of Nagash (just the rituals) or not wizards at all.

I'm not arguing against it, I'm just making sure everyone is aware of the implications.

 

[Uziel]

I have to say I wholeheartedly agree with Bishop in that the army general needs to have the Lore of Nagash. It just won't feel like a proper Nagash army without it.
I don't like the Zentith Lord as a general in any case, because from what I understand he is basically an Wight King on the fantasy equivalent of steroids, but that still leaves him as a slave to a controller, just like normal Wight Kings. I general needs to be able to make decisions on his own merit.

As far as the general army rules go:

LoN Undead: bishops's version sounds fine to me.

Wight Blades: from a fluff standpoint, the Wight Blades should certainly be magical, but on the other hand, since this goes for both the TK and the VC lists, it becomes a bit hard to justify the difference. On the plus side though, the Killing Blow is commulative with magic weapons now, so characters potentially benefit a lot from it by not making them magic weapons. I also think there are plenty of opportunities for magical attacks other places in the list.

Etheral: agreed. Should be as per the rulebook.

Nagashi: Still think the area of effect Crown of Command option is the proverbial big bad wolf from a balanced standpoint. I think any Stubborn special rule should be on a unit by unit basis, and reflected in their cost/place int the army list.

Even just a 12" radius bubble is very much overpowered, and it doesn't make it any better that since this is not an acceptable tournament list (unless you can bribe an organizer I guess) you will not have to ever tailor this list to take on a variety of enemies, and thus you can pretty safely mount your general on a Large Monster steed if needed, increasing this bubble to a 18" radius if it is based on the general's IP..

I'd much rather like to see units within the generel's Inspiring Presence becoming Immune to Psychology. This is more comparable with the Mark of Slaanesh on all units within reach (and let's face it, even with the 12" bubble this will far more often than not include everything we need to be within this bubble). I'd add the Panic Test if the general dies though, as that is a really nice and fluffy touch. Immune to Psychology would also include the Immune to Fear from Undead etc by default..

General & Death of the general:

First off, does the general allow Undead to march within 12", or is movement going to be more handled with magic in this list?

As far as the death of the general goes, I think this should really affect the udead part of our forces. We'll still have a lot of living forces to save the day after all. Since nagash is not a fan of free will in his subjects and so on, I think we could do with a lower LD on many undead units, compared to the TK list.

Any NEW army special rules btw? So far, these are pretty standard (Nagashi excepted) as far as the undead of warhammer.

I have an idea, which I sort of did suggest earlier in another post, but which I have somewhat refined. Looking at the history of Nagash (especially the triology), Nagash has not exactly been known for valuing human life in his subjects, and with an pretty large element of living troops in the list, I personally think it could be very fitting fluff-wise, if our living troops were used primarily to sacrifice themselves to later gain the undead part of the force an an advantage. Here are the main points of how I see this working:

-The living are thrown towards the enemy lines, weakening them somewhat etc, but they are ultimately more often than not doomed to fail.
-Since we have superior magics, we can raise zombies that are somewhat better than the VC ones, but we can not have more zombies on the table than the number of living troops that we have already lost. This will allow us to have better zombies, and still balance out any sort of IoN spam issues.
-We use the zombie idea already in the project, but remove their point cost, make them summon only, and they grant the opponents no Victory Points. Also a small benefit from this is that I personally really hate the idea that zombies can now carry banners, but this could then be remvoed, and we also never had to worry about zombies not having banners in that scenario where banners are a real strategic key.

The most important thing in my opinion is that the LoN army doesn't become too similar to the VC or TK ones, and I really think refining this idea would make the list into something else, and a bit different to handle strategically four our opponents.


Marius:

I think most her knows my opinions on the fighter Lord characters in the list, so in my opinion the implications would be ideal, as it would help balance out the more elite Units + Very dangerous Fighter Characters + superior magics (I'm betting we'll have some good buffs to help us out after all) issue. I think it would help balance the list very much.

 

[Disciple of Nagash]

Ok.

So the Undead of Nagash rule seems ok, minus the minimum wound.

Wight Blades, apart from Uziel, everyone seems to want to stick with Wight Blades, myself included.

Nagashi - I like Uziel's suggestion. Any units with this rule that are in range of the general's inspiring presence are immune to psychology. I do however think that units with this rule should ignore Fear caused by undead, regardless of range. They fight alongside the Undead, they don't have the superstitious fear that others do.

General - I personally disagree with having to have the general using the Lore of Nagash. The idea was that you didn't have to have a wizard leading the army, that a Zenith Lord could command troops through force of will.

In addition the Rituals were meant to represent all those that could do so, hence the reason the Zenith Lord has access.

I would suggest that the a new rule is designed, such as:

Locus
There are those in the Legion who are taught the most secret skills of Nagash. Even those who are not magically inclined can still learn through force of will to command and drive forth the dead
A model with this rule knows all the rituals of Nagash. However the number that the model can cast per magic phase is stated in brackets afterwards. For example Locus (2) means the model can cast two rituals per Legion magic phase.

The General rule can the be amended to something like: The general must have the Locus special rule. If there is more than one model with this rule then the model with the highest leadership must be the armies general.

If the general dies and is permanently removed from play, all units with the Undead of Nagash rule must take a leadership test at the end of the phase in which the General died, and subsequently at the start of every friendly turn thereafter. If the test is failed the unit suffers a number of wounds equal to the amount by which it failed the Leadership test, no saves of any kind allowed. The wounds are distributed as per shooting attacks.

Any units with the Nagashi rule must take a panic check.


Now for how this continues in subsequent terms, I would suggest a double edged sword. This represents that the Legion necromancy is more powerful, however it is also harder to gain control of.

So instead of another magic user automatically taking over:

If, at the start of any turns following the death of the Legion general, there is another character present with the Locus rule, they can attempt to take over control. The model must take a leadership test, if passed that model is now the armies general (with all associated rules such as Inspiring Presence), no further Leadership tests are required at the start of each friendly turn. Any Nagashi that are fleeing within the Inspiring Presence of the new general, may re-roll their test for re-roll their test for regrouping for that turn only.
If the model with the Locus rule fails the test, the model suffers a number of wounds equal to the amount by which it failed the Leadership test, no saves of any kind allowed. No further tests can be made that turn to gain control of the army.

Maybe that is something we look at working more into the Legion as well. That magic is much more potent, and as such can be more dangerous to the user in some cases.

 

[Uziel]

DoN:

Wight Blades: I'm not against it either way, just to be clear.
I certainly think they should be magical (they're certainly not skilled enough to justify the rule so..), but the point I was making was that other Undead (VC/TK) players MAY view this as a bit of an unfair advantage, and it might be hard to justify the difference (even though I think all the lists SHOULD have wight Blades with magical attacks, but this is sadly not the case).
I'm on-board either way as far as this goes. It is minor issue balance-wise as far as I'm concerned, and that is where I tend to focus the most.

Nagashi: Complicates the rule a bit, but I certanily think this can be justified DoN.

Locus:

This is a bit confusing to relate to, as I don't really know what we're doing as far as "standardizing" the Lore of Nagash magical Lore etc at this stage.
If we're doing a 8.ed upgrade, to bring the list into "compliance" with the rest of the 8.ed armies, I find it a bit strange that we're getting 4 additional "easy to cast" rituals on top, that are supposedly not spells, on a fighter lord. I don't see how an "automaton" like a wight can have what it takes to perform rituals and so on in the first place, as I imagine you need some form of will, imagination, training to wield the winds of magic etc to get anything of the sort to work. I have a hard time justifying this from a fluff-standpoint to be honest. If possible, then anyone (magical ability or not) could feasibly do the same (not specifically the rituals of nagash mind you), and that doesn't fit the setting very well in my opinion. You'd have people turning up everywhere with abilities comparable to magic if it was just about learning rituals after all.
I'm not saying that a non-wizard could never be the general here, just have an issue with what is essentially just a much better wight King using "spells" and having what it takes to lead an army and so on, since Wights are not that independent minded to begin with. Still not impossible, but it is not a solution that I'm entirely comfortable with either.

To be honest, If we're going to have 3-4 Lord options, I think something like the following would perhaps fit the fluff and upgrades to 8.ed a bit better as far as the Lord themselves go (yes I know it is early, but it is still relevant now without going into too much deatil):

-Immortal: Liches/necromancers much like Arkhan (ref: TK book), Immortals which have drunk from the origianal Elixir of Nagash (as Arkhan did), lvl 1-4 wizard, liche upgrade possible (something like increased toughness/wound, but gains flammable), maybe with a background "kit" option, to represent their various backgrounds, fields of expertise etc.. Most that ancient, tend to have something going for them after all..

-Disciple of Nagash: change fluff slightly, make him more like an "arch-lector of sigmar", but then give him the Rituals of Nagash (can even modify them to make them into something more powerful), living, bound spells, confers Hatred to living units in the army etc, comparable fighter to an arch-lector, etc. This will allow thie Rituals of Nagash to still have their place in 8.ed without compromising what looks to be the new standard as far as magic etc goes in 8.ed. He would also add a nice dimension to the living part of the army

-Zenith Lord: Wight King comparable with Krell (any Wight better than Krell is first of all unhead of, and it really slights Krell and all the official fluff regarding him in my opinion). More of a second Lord Choice option, but also someone that can lead smaller armies etc, with the support of a "Hierophant, a.k.a Locus"

I know that some of what I propose is a bit of a "hard sell", as people are not fond of changing things I have found, but If we're really going to bring the list into 8.ed proper, there will have to made some hard sacrifices here and there. This is pretty much unavoidable as I see it, and I'd rather address/browse the issues early for awareness reasons, and not wait until it is too late to do anything about it.

As per the Leadership Test required to take over the control of the army, I did the exact same thing for the Legacies project.
I'd be perhaps more careful with making the death of the general into a smaller issue here though, as we have the possibility of quite a lot of living troops. I'd consider having the old Undead rule where you could use the LD of characters in the unit instead, as that would at least give our enemies SOME satisfaction for being able to kill our potentially epic generals in the first place. They should be revarded for this, and if we loose a lot of our "chaff, they at least get a little bit of a potential tactical advantage, as we could loose some of our "chaff" so to speak. there is also the fact that if you go epic, it has to go both ways...

I think magic as is is quite dangerous in fact, especially considering we could loose not just our general (whom I imagine will cost quite a lot), but also a portion of our army if we loose. I think, at least as far as the general goes, that it could be a good idea to actually make the magic a little safer to be honest. Being able to cast spells with a little more impunity is also a way of establishing is a bit superior in the magic phase.
If you agree, you could take a look at the Necrarch Vampire for the Legacies project and do something similar.

 

[The Dread King]

Ethereal: I agree with what's been said.ses them with deadly magic. I think that it should grant magical attacks and killing blow, but that it should still be a rule and that there should be fluff justification for it.

Nagashi: Again, I agree with the general idea.

Nagashi Undead: They should have something to balance out their 'loses one less wound' rule. If not, the undead will probably be seeing a points increase.

Locus: Cool rule. I think that the army should be led by a Legion of Nagash caster, as its unrealistic that a wight king can go far away from his controllers and control an army with his 'will' (does a wight king have his own will?). This could result in some fluff saying that the zenith lord is not a wight king because he has a servant of Nagash's soul inside him. Then you would not need a caster general. But I think that some wight king leading an army without fluff justification is a little unreasonable.

Also, everybody talks of overpowered Zenith Lords, but I think Revenant Lords are a bit strong for the ghosts of some dead heroes. Shouldn't "soul power" be left to the ancient warriors?

Uziel: An answer to a question from a locked forum: The Dread King is in the 4th Undead army book.

 

[Uziel]

Dreadking:

Nagash's Undead: If we didn't have access to vampire/tomb king lvl warriors, it can be justified, but it also depends on what our magic will look like. I don' see much wrong with this rule to be honest, except that it is not excactly something new and interesting.

Locus: Am I alone in thinking that a wight "emperor" goes too far in undermining Krell and all test he is?

Revenant: as a principle I Am agaist Ethereals being too powerful, as they are very hard to balance. Haven't really taken a good look at him yet though, but you opinion is noted for when we get to that part.

Could I get a page number or something where he is mentioned Dreadking? If anyone should know where, I'd guess you'd be an expert on that perticular subject.

 

[The Dread King]

Legion of Nagash Krell will have to be more powerful, then. GW has toned down Krell's power from the fluff; it doesn't make sense that one of the nine chosen of the Supreme Lord of Undeath isn't at least 250pts. GW tend to tone characters down, whereas the Legion has characters at their fluff leve, which means a higher power level for the Legion, and thus GW special characters that are going into the legion (such as Krell) will have to have a power level increase.

However, I think that wight kings leading armies would have to have really, really justified fluff as most wight kings don't have a will that can command other people.

I heard a dread king quote from the 4th undead army book on this forum (not sure where, I think it was somewhere in a discussion about whether Nagash would return due to the new vampire counts army book or not-I believe DoN contributed to that conversation). On the 'non-dreadlord special characters in the legion?' thread, I put up some of his key fluff. He was a servant of Nagash in Nehekharan times that was faithful to Nagash; however he thought that Nagash would lose the war against Nehekhara and so he entombed himself in a secret location, to be awoken when the time was right and the war was over.

Nagash's Undead: A new aspect for this rule could be that the characters do not suffer from crumble (like old VC army book-why do necromancers crumble now?). This represents Nagsh protecting his most trusted servants with, basically, mini-Icons of Vengeances.

 

[Uziel]

Dreadking:

Gw has more than anything gone in a different direction with Krell as opposed to the fluff. He is by his rules, almost exactly the opposite fighter to how the fluff presents him. In the VC book, he is a superb hero/monster slayer, and he has to challenge his foes etc. In the fluff, he was excellent at slaying rank and file by the dozens.
I agree that Krell should be more powerful in the LoN project, but still not have a toughness more than 5, as that is as far as I know only proper monsters which gets now. The same goes for strength.
I remember when people speculated on what the 8.ed VC book would be like, and the topics of the Wight King came up, there wasn't many whom still believed that he*d keep his T5 nor his 3 Wounds, as he was after all a Hero option. He did however, and the most legendary Wight of all time even got an extra wound.
Not to prattle too long here, I think Krell should become a Lord option in this list, but I still don't think he should have as good stats as the current Zenith Lord, and I also think the Zenith Lord should most definitively not outshine Krell in any way. Krell could very well be a special character Zenith Lord.

As far as fluff level goes, this is wildly open to personal interpretation, and you can't just single out some characters to become epic on fluff reasons alone while ignoring similar references to already existing special characters. There are lots of characters over the years that has had fluff far exceeding their abilities on the battlefield (Gotrek to name one obvious example), yet GW has attempted to give them a certain game balance, because in the end it is a game, and not all a glorious tribute to a special character.
Gotrek had S4, and for reference purposes, there is a lot of complaining that Vampires only have S5 (the equal of a 4000 lbs slab of muscle (and fat) called an Ogre Tyrant) for example, and yet even Vlad's sword attacks was parried by Jerek when he was a mortal man, and you find lots of similar references, yet the same people still insist that Vampires should be stronger, while one hears very few complaints from the OK camp as far as the strength of their Tyrants goes. It just goes to show you how subjective people can be if they are fans of the character's fluff...


I have the 4.ed undead book, and I've browsed through it a few times recently and having read it all years ago), but I remember when the Dark Omen game came out, that I didn't have the faintest Idea of whom the Dread King was. I remember having read that same dicussion, but I still can't recall it being in the book.

I agree. since we have both living and undead troops, we need to find a way to handle this. Remember, that technically, Undead are Unbreakable, and thus cannot be joined by characters without this rule as well. This can easily be fixed with a special rule however.

We could perhaps need an "alive" rule in the army special rules as well, with a bit more details of how this was handled as far as living characters joining undead units go, and the other way around as well. any thoughts?

 

[The Dread King]

Arachnarok spiders are toughness 6 with 8 wounds and 8 attacks, so I wouldn't worry about Krell being too good for the monsters. However, I don't think that he should be as powerful as the current Zenith Lord any more, after all there's only so much a runed corpse in armour can do. The new Zenith Lord could compare to a Wight King like an Orc warboss compares to an orc big boss, and Krell would be wight grimgor.

Good point about the fluff but it's still cool to have an epic character to boot even if games workshop tone him down.

O.K., maybe I should drop the dread king character; he was probably from some non-GW source.

When I said Master of the Dead, I didn't mean that we should have had a legion equivalent, simply that something allowing you to increase the unit size would be good.

I can see your point about not going over the 50 model limit on the skeleton legion though.

I will post my suggestion for the 'alive' rule soon-I had that in my legion campaign; it basically allowed undead characters to join alive units (or vice versa) due to a clever little special rule.

 

[Disciple of Nagash]

I think we are going off tack here with some elements - we really need to stick to the rules were are discussing or we can be here for ages. The discussion on characters needs to be done in those sections, not here.

So please, no more discussion here on the Zenith Lord / Krell etc.

Now, in response to the pertinent points.

I think we can agree in the following:

Undead of Nagash
Bound by the potent necromancy of taught by the Great Lord of Undeath, those animated with his touch do not die so easily....
As per the VC undead rule, with the following amendment: "......any units which suffer wounds due to the Unstable rule, suffer one less than they would normally, down to a minimum of one.

Wight Blade
Champion's of men when they were alive, many still bear the powerful relics they were buried with. However the touch of dark magic has perverted their nature, leaving weapons that can strip a man's soul with a touch
Any model with the Wight Blade rule has the Killing Blow rule and magical attacks. These bonuses are conferred to any non-magical weapon the model carries.

Nagashi
Though they can feel fear like normal men, years spent with the living dead as inured them to their presence. Trained from birth to follow their long dead overlords, their fanaticism knows no bounds.
Any units with this rule that are within range of the General's Inspiring Presence are immune to Psychology. In addition all units with this rule across the board are immune to Fear caused by the Undead, Nehekharan Undead or Undead of Nagash special rules.


For the ones still being discussed:

General's Death: From what I can see we agree on:
-Armywide crumble on General's death > OK
-Use units leadership or leadership of character in unit > OK
-Characters immune to crumbling > This is new and personally would want it this way. I have always detested that Undead characters crumble, they should have enough strength of will to keep going. With that in mind I propose the new following rule:

Will of the Great Necromancer
It is no easy task to become a lieutenant in the Legion's of Nagash. Having scoured the lands of centuries, the Great Necromancer has chosen only those who are the strongest, the most powerful. Even those normally controlled such as the potent wights are imbued with a portion of his will, to ensure they never falter, never fail in the path of their master. However such sentient means they know when it is folly to remain......
Any characters in the Legion of Nagash with this rule are exempt from wounds inflicted by crumbling as per the Undead of Nagash special rule. Instead if the character looses combat, he will take a break test as normal however he will count as Stubborn.
If the character is in a unit that has the Undead of Nagash rule, resolve all crumbling wounds as normal. If the unit is fully destroyed, if there are any wounds remaining to be allocated, they are discounted however the character with this rule must take a break test as described above.

-Takeover of Army: Leadership, failure inflicting wounds > Are we agreeing this is ok?


Locus: The idea of this rule is to provide us with a rule that we can apply to a variety of characters to they can be the armies general. In regards to Rituals, yes they are very different (and will be discussed elsewhere), however unless there is a good reason they won't just be dropped. More feedback is needed on this.

In regards to an Alive rule, it is not needed. Anything that doesn't have the Undead of Nagash rule is as per the normal rules of the BRB, and infact all our alive units will have the Nagashi rule anyway.

 

[Disciple of Nagash]

Oooh double post.

I do have a suggestion for our own little rule, based on Nagash's own fabled Black Armour

Black Armour (open to other names!)
The Great Liche's armour is of legend, said to be forged from meteoric ore found in Nagashizzar and almost impenetrable to mortal weapons. Whilst none have ever come close to this creation, various pieces of armour have been forged with what remains of this ore, gifted to those who Nagash deems most worthy
This rule can only benefit models which already have armour or a shield of any variety. The model's armour retains all normal rules, however it also benefits from the following:
Any attacks made at that model are a -1 strength. This rule has no effect on attacks which cancel out armour saves, or do not have a strength value.

 

[Uziel]

DoN:

you are right, we did go out of bounds there for a bit. Back on topic:

-"Undead of Nagash": I think you forgot to remove the last sentence. The "minimum of one". It was mentioned earlier I think. Shouldn't the Fear, Unbreakable, Unstable rules be included here as well btw?

-"Wight Blades": Looks good. just a thought though we might do well to keep powerful magical weapons very scare in the hands of characters on top of this. Not that nagash is exactly famous for creating magic weapons in the first place..

-"Nagashi": Non-Undead of Nagash models take Panic Test if general dies?

-"The Will of the Great Necomancer": I like the non-crumbling, stubborn solutions for characters. I think that first Nagash's superior magic well (and I've always hated characters crumbling, it is so profoundly un-epic..).

In this army however, with such a potentially strong living component, I don't think there should be a "take-over" option when the general dies. I personally think that a unit could only take a LD test to prevent further crumbling (after the initial one) if they have a Character with them, and then let all the "chaff" suffer..
With more "elite" troops, we don't have to get stuck in with any kind of a fighter lord as the VC army is often forced too, t win a combat, so we can already stay more safely behind the lines as it were. With characters not crumbling as well, even though Vampires still does (curse you GW!), we have this comparable advantage as well. I don't think we should make the death of a general into too small a thing in this army.

-"Locus": It more or less depends on whom can potentially have this special rule, and how it combines with being a caster etc in my opinion. The rule itself is fine as such.

-"Alive!": It is perhaps mostly an issue if we're going to have mortal characters wanting to join Undead units, as they can't joint a Unbreakable unit in the first place. ther is also the issue of what would happen if the unit was destroyed, and the mortal character was left alone. Not an issue if this is not going to be an option though..

-"Black Armour:" Who is this intended for? If it is an elite troop option (thinking pinnacle guard or the like here), it is too powerful in my opinion, as they will then have the equivalent of T5, which is more or less unheard off in normal Infantry (aside from Vampire Lords and the like).
I do however like the idea of having another piece of armour for the Nagshizzar army list, a non Full-Plate one (as I think Nagash's followers don't have near that level of skills as smiths, and I generally don't like it when we borrow too strongly from other lists, especially stuff that makes them somewhat unique in the first place.
How about a 6+ Ward save instead, cumulative with the "parry" special rule. Heavy armour. This is what I'm going for for the Drakenhof guard for the Legacies project, and one of the nice benefits to it is that it will actually make you consider and use the hand weapon + shield option.. Armour made in castle drakenhof could have much in common with armour from Nagashizzar after all (both places of dark magic/warpstone)...

 

[The Dread King]

Undead of Nagash- great, but I think that the 'minimum of one' should be removed.

Wight Blades- I think that this rule should apply to magical weapons too, otherwise there's not much point in wight characters taking magic weapons. I really want to be able to keep Killing Blow (and magical attacks if possible) if my wight character gets a magic weapon. For example: I want to give my Zenith Lord the Sword of Strife. But is it really worth 40pts if I lose killing blow when I get it?
That's just my opinion on the wight blades special rule.

Nagashi-I second Uziel in the panic check thing.

The Will of the Great Necromancer- Great! However, I can't quite see Krell running away- then again, neither can I see Grimgor running away, so this rule is good.

Take-over option: Well, I think that maybe the Ld test thing is a good idea, but it needs to be modified. After all, while it's easy to control a small unit, it's harder to take control of a whole legion! Maybe you should try to take over multiple units and for each unit you try to take over that turn, you get a - 1 to your takeover test. What I mean is that the player can choose how many units s/he wants to stop crumbling, choose a character to take over and then make a -1 modifier to the test for every unit s/he wants to take over that turn. This represents the necromancers struggling to regain control over such large forces.

Locus- it seems like a good rule, I just don't think that wight kings should have it. I agree, the rituals do need to be looked at (but elsewhere).

Alive- well, it's kind of sad if a character can't join his alive counterparts. I made up a rule for that to be stopped:

Characters with the Undead of Nagash special rule can join alive units and vice versa. When characters with the Undead of Nagash special rule join an alive unit, that unit gains unbreakable until there are no more Undead of nagash in them. If crumbling from combat resolution results in there being no more Undead of Nagash in an alive unit, then that unit does not take a break test at the end of that round of combat. When alive characters join units with Undead of Nagash in them, the characters become unbreakable until they are not in a unit of Undead of Nagash any more. If a unit of Undead of Nagash is destroyed from crumbling to combat resolution, then the character does not take a break test at the end of that round of combat.

Black Armour: The power level of this thing really depends upon who it is designed for. It also depends on how who it is designed for will change. I, for one, think that if you want to give the Pinnacle guard amazing armour, you'll have to give them amazing profiles. I think that the guards of Nagash should be far superior to grave guard, I think that the Pinnacle guard should have chaos warrior type profiles. It is my opinion that the black armour could be 4+ armour and +1 to the ward save and, if you were to have the pinnacle guard on a really high power level, 4+ armour and 5+ ward. My opinion on the black armour and the pinnacle guard may be controversial, but I still have it nonetheless.

New army rule: Hungry for Souls? If my whole Soulflayer idea (or even only part of it) was accepted, then there would be soulflayers in rare, core and heroes. The creation of this rule really depends upon whether the Soulflayers join the legion or not, but if they do, I think that this should be a rule. The rule is that all models with this rule have +1 to wound in combat.

 

[Disciple of Nagash]

So amended rules:

Undead of Nagash
Bound by the potent necromancy of taught by the Great Lord of Undeath, those animated with his touch do not die so easily....
All units with the Undead of Nagash special rule are Unbreakable, Unstable and caused Fear, as described in the Warhammer rulebook. However any units which suffer wounds due to the Unstable rule, suffer one less than they would normally.
In addition, units with the Undead of Nagash special rule cannot make march moves. Lastly when a unit with the Undead special rule is charged it can only elect to hold unless specified otherwise in the unit's descripton

Note: I think we should retain marching like this, as thee Ritual's Nagash has a movement spell which should work with this.

Wight Blade
Champion's of men when they were alive, many still bear the powerful relics they were buried with. However the touch of dark magic has perverted their nature, leaving weapons that can strip a man's soul with a touch
Any model with the Wight Blade rule has the Killing Blow rule and magical attacks. The Killing Blow bonus is conferred to any weapon (including magical) that the model may carry.

Nagashi
Though they can feel fear like normal men, years spent with the living dead as inured them to their presence. Trained from birth to follow their long dead overlords, their fanaticism knows no bounds.
Any units with this rule that are within range of the General's Inspiring Presence are immune to Psychology. In addition all units with this rule across the board are immune to Fear caused by the Undead, Nehekharan Undead or Undead of Nagash special rules. Should the general due, then any units with this rule within range of the Genera's Inspiring Presence must take an automatic break test if not in combat.

Note: I amended it slightly, so the unit only has to take a break test if within the Inspiring Presence range. Makes sense that only those that can see / be affected by the general would break.

Will of the Great Necromancer
It is no easy task to become a lieutenant in the Legion's of Nagash. Having scoured the lands of centuries, the Great Necromancer has chosen only those who are the strongest, the most powerful. Even those normally controlled such as the potent wights are imbued with a portion of his will, to ensure they never falter, never fail in the path of their master. However such sentience means they know when it is folly to remain......
Any characters in the Legion of Nagash with this rule are exempt from wounds inflicted by crumbling as per the Undead of Nagash special rule. Instead if the character looses combat, he will take a break test as normal however he will count as Stubborn.
If the character is in a unit that has the Undead of Nagash rule, resolve all crumbling wounds as normal. If the unit is fully destroyed, if there are any wounds remaining to be allocated, they are discounted however the character with this rule must take a break test as described above.

Locus
There are those in the Legion who are taught the most secret skills of Nagash. Even those who are not magically inclined can still learn through force of will to command and drive forth the dead
A model with this rule knows all the rituals of Nagash. However the number that the model can cast per magic phase is stated in brackets afterwards. For example Locus (2) means the model can cast two rituals per Legion magic phase.

Note: I think we can agree on this rule in general, however which characters in applies to can be discussed at the appropriate time

So the above all look ok yes?

---

Now items still under discussion

Slain General. I don't like the idea of units without a character being stuffed. Depending on the size of the army this could mean loads of units. Yes the player may have access to units which are alive, but that doesn't mean they are going to take any.

I agree that with the Legion's troops and magic being of better calibre, that it needs to be more difficult, hence the alternative test I suggested. On hero level characters you run the risk of killing your character outright and suffering another turn of crumbling. Only if you have another Lord level character can they easily take over, and if we limit the Focus rule further, then this could be few and far between.

So I personally think that the rule I proposes before is the best option.


Black Armour: This is intended whoever we want it for. I was thinking for some characters, and may an upgrade for one unit of Pinnacle Guard / Knights. The ward save does make more sense I agree. To work with other equipment I would suggest the following rule:
This rule can only benefit models which already have armour or a shield of any variety. The model's armour retains all normal rules, however confer's +1 to any ward save the model may have. If the model does not have a ward save, then a 6+ ward is conferred on that model.

Yes I know that a model could get a 3+ ward with this, I suggest in those instances we just cost it appropriately.


Soul Eater - I need to look at the unit first. At the moment new units need to be justified, not just added for no reason. So I will have to come back to this.

We are Legion! - There are at least two proposed units with this, and I am thinking that the mentality behind the "Legion" type units could be applied to some others. So I would suggest that this is made an army wide rule:

We are Legion!
Controlled by the ancient collective spirits, such dead are jealously guarded. Any interference or outside influence confuses and infuriates the controlling spirits, rendering the warriors no more than normal mindless automatons
Any units with this rule cannot be raised past it's starting size. In addition if any character joins the unit, the unit looses the ability to use the options as described under Tactical Options in the unit's entry.


I think we probably should have a character (maybe a special one) who can join the unit without disrupting them, but we can discuss this later.

 

[Uziel]

DoN:

-Undead of Nagash: Shouldn't the marching issue be addressed here as well?
How does this list handle Marching btw? Marching within the IP of the General? The advantage of this wold be that we could to a larger degree place our general further back on a large monster to increase the range.

The Dread King:

-Wight Blades: I see your logic here, and I had a look at the GG/BK fluff for the VC list today, and it is clear from a fluff perspective that the weapons are magical (even though this rule is gone from both the TK/VC lists). I'm ok with it either way, but I'm unsure if we can justify both the magical attacks AND the bonus carrying over to magical weapons on characters as well.

-Take over option: I don't think we should make it overly complicated, and we can't forget that unlike the other two undead armies, we might only suffer half the effect (on our undead troops only) of loosing the general/hierophant compared to them.

-Locus/Rituals: Agreed

-Alive!: Have you considered what your really proposing here? Making living troops Unbreakable with an undead character in them? That is probably more potent than the Stubborn AOE rule that was initially...
Would Crumbling affect characters in a living unit, in addition to a normal Break Teest?? That would make it quite suicidal to enter a living unit for an undead character to begin with..
It all depends on our characters, but I'm fine with if if Undead can't join the living and vice-versa. Don't really think this will be a problem, if we allow ourself to make some changes to the characters etc.

-Black Armour/Chaos Warrior type GG's: I don't see the justification for a 4+ Full plate. Being a mighty sorcerer has no bearing on what it takes to create a proper full plate, and also, would we wan't our GG/BK equivalents to look like Empire Knigts etc? A proper Full Plate covers nearly everything, and how the joints are protected and so on is quite a technical accomplishment (hence the dwarfs make the Empire Full Plates).

Any kind of a good unit in a home-made list, needs to have some good fluff which to base them on etc, and Chaos Warrior-like Pinnacle guard with a vastly superior armour is something that I really have a hard time accepting. "Borrowing" the Chaos Warriors stats, having some kind of previously unheard of (except of Wallach's Hauberk) on them and letting htem have the benefits that the Grave guards already have, we could easily be talking about Infantry costing 30-40 pts/model here, and the holes fluff-wise would be quite immense..
I understand that you quite like the idea, and there is nothing wrong with that, but I for one would be very much against this kind of power on any kind of Undead Infantry (even a Vampire Unit I think).

-Hungry for Souls: holding off on commenting until I've had a chance to read the fluff and so on.

 

[The Dread King]

I agree with all in the above post, except that I think that all alive units should take a panic check instead of those in the inspiring presence range- the whole point is that the flow of dark magic that comes out of the general is interrupted and the mortal servants can sense the general's death- this is what makes them panic.
My amendment above is only a suggestion; I suppose those out of the inspiring presence range might not be affected, however I do think that you have to be careful not to make the list broken (I can picture it: delibarately putting the stubborn infantry out of the general's inspiring presence so that they don't panic- the mortals are stubborn and don't need the inspiring presence and so they won't suffer from the general's death).

Characters like necros and their units should be able to march-why should a necromancer be slow? Also the general should definitely be able to march (along with his unit).

 

[Disciple of Nagash]

On Marching, I personally think it should be that characters can march. If a Legion of Nagash unit is joined by a character, his will is enough to enable the unit to march.

Anything else can be handled by the Rituals.

Take Over: I am still sticking by this suggestion, unless someone suggest a reasonable alternative:

If, at the start of any turns following the death of the Legion general, there is another character present with the Locus rule, they can attempt to take over control. The model must take a leadership test, if passed that model is now the armies general (with all associated rules such as Inspiring Presence), no further Leadership tests are required at the start of each friendly turn. Any Nagashi that are fleeing within the Inspiring Presence of the new general, may re-roll their test for re-roll their test for regrouping for that turn only.
If the model with the Locus rule fails the test, the model suffers a number of wounds equal to the amount by which it failed the Leadership test, no saves of any kind allowed. No further tests can be made that turn to gain control of the army.

Though perhaps their could be a modifier, like take a leadership test on 2D6+1, or roll 3D6 and discard the lowest.


Alive / Undead mix
I would suggest characters without the Undead of Nagash rule cannot join units with this rule (they are not allowed the honour).
Characters with the Undead of Nagash rule, can join units without this rule though, as they already have a rule ensuring they don't crumble. The inspiring presence of being lead by an undead master makes the full unit stubborn though.


Nagashi
I disagree with the concept put forth there. You say that someone might put a unit outside of the range so they don't have to take a panic check. If they are outside of the Inspiring Presence, they cannot be stubborn. So you either run the risk or you don't.

Uziel - What about my amended suggestions?

 

[Uziel]

DoN:

Its starting to take shape here it seems.

-Undead of Nagash: I think it looks fine now. Can't see anything we've forgotten.

-Wight Blades: Not a big issue, as long as we don't get unfavorable reactions from our fellow players. Looks ok.

-Nagashi: I think the living elements should take a panic tests, regardless of range. You have written break test here btw, instead of Panic.

-Will of the Great Necromancer: This rule is quite a boon, but still good if we balance our characters accordingly. I like it, but it depends on the ones affected more than anything else...

-Locus/Rituals: I don't think I'm alone in wanting to see a change as far as this rule goes. The rituals feel a bit out of place to be honest, since things are now more standardized in 8.ed, and it is also now common with both spells that can be boosted/have more than one effect, as well as the introduction of the Lore ability as a standard as well. rituals on top of this complicates things too much in my opinion, and we get too many easy to cast spells (the army closing the gap to how the 7.ed VC army worked).

I'd remove the Rituals from the Locus description and instead have unis led by characters with this rule being able to take over Undead units with a LD test if the general died. It could be a requirement to be the general as well, i.e the one Locust in the army with the highest LD being the general.

-General? How is he going to be handled as far as marching goes? To me Nagash's Legions seemed pretty adaptable in the various books (more so than in other undead armies). I'm personally for a Inspired Presence ranged marching effect.

-Slain General: My view is that keeping a Legion of Nagash going is only something a powerful necromancer could do, and I think the Locust characters should not be able to be able to take up the slack on an army-wide basis (unless they are themselves a wizard with the Lore of Nagash), but that they could use their force of will to wrest control of the unit they were in.

On the "plus" side, I think it should be quite hard to kill a General in this list with ranged attacks and so forth. I imagine them preferring to stay behind the lines so to speak, directing their forces from the protection of some kind of large monster type steed/palanquin etc.

-We are Legion!: We could have this as a general army rule, but I'm not really sure it's necessary. It all depends on how the army list will look etc. I don't think this is something wee need to address util we see how things are shaping up as far as the other Undead units go when we get to them. I have some Ideas as far as characters being allowed to join the legion (or its auxiliaries) without them loosing their bonuses, but those should be very rare.
The next Auxiliary (and the last one I think, as I don't think we should be too similar to the TK list), is a sort of medium Cavalry unit (heavy armour, no barding), and I would like to be able to let Arkhan (Nagash's old Cavalry commander) to perhaps have a good synergy with them.
I don't want to include characters (apart from a very limited number of special characters) in the eternal Legions etc, as that messes up their inherent points balance drastically.