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

[The Dread King]

Wight Blades: +2 Initiative would drive players away from the beloved great weapons, that grave guard types love to use. I would say magical attacks, flaming attacks and +1 strength. This represents the hellfire on their blades and the strengthening, biting enchantments cast upon them by dark sorcery. Also grave guard with flaming swords look cool (just look at the hexwraiths!).

Dread Armour of Nagashizzar (this sounds pretty awesome): Lords can afford full plate with Immune to KB. Don't forget that this isn't just armour giving protection, but night-black necromantic shadow-daemons flickering around their masters' armour, filling in the armour's gaps while allowing their masters to move flexibly. This works like full plate, but it isn't technically plate, it is dark armour forged in hellfire, riddled with warpstone, and enchanted by Nagash for his greatest servants. This is fluff that justifies the "plate".

Undead of Nagash: I think that we've managed to agree on this!

Undead/ Nagashizzar BSB: I like DoN's idea, but I like the PD/DD idea of Uziel's even more. I will happily settle for Uziel's, but a banner effect selection would be fun (what I mean is, you could purchase one effect for your battle standard, which represents a certain enchantment on it). However, I think that this is taking it too far; if you want an effective banner, why not just get a specific magic banner? I've put up the "Banner Options" for suggestion and contemplation anyway; let's see how everyone likes it.

 

[Uziel]

The Dread King:

I'm certainly not against there being better armour for characters in the list, but I don't think this is something that deserves to be in the army special rules section, especially not in an "ancient" army, with a figuerehead that has traditionally not cared all too much about the well-being of his subjects at all. I think the more "fancy" armours should be treated normally, i.e be one of the 10 magic items allowed to us (both for balance reasons and to limit the number of "unique" special rules etc for the army to some degree). A good army list is defined just as much from what is NOT there, as to what it has after all.

To all those concerned:

What is happening to the project? It seems like no-one has the time or inclination to do anything, and the project seems to once again have stagnated, something which makes it very hard to motivate people to contribute in a meaningful way. Have people given up? Just wondering, because I've always wanted to do a project like this myself, and although I consider myself to be a patient man, this pace makes me consider doing my own project instead at some point. I certainly understand if people are busy due to jobs etc, but it would still be nice to know what is going on.

 

[Chaos_Born]

I think the project has mostly halted due to the business of DoN. You may have noticed that he hasn't been on much in the last...while. Well those real life problems have pretty much ended for him now, so expect for him to blow through here soon enough and re-liven it all a bit.

 

[Uziel]

I think the project has mostly halted due to the business of DoN. You may have noticed that he hasn't been on much in the last...while. Well those real life problems have pretty much ended for him now, so expect for him to blow through here soon enough and re-liven it all a bit.

Ok. I sort of suspected that it was job related for DoN, with his new position and all. I haven't really been that active myself, mostly just dropping in to see if something was indeed happening with the project.

I hope it starts up again soon, and that people start taking an interest again, somewhat regularly

 

[The Dread King]

Actually, my personal theory is that not just DoN's job slowed him down, but his epic finish of the TVC, which has now well and truly ended. All he has to do now is start up the new one (signup thread and looking at responses, etc.) and then he can get down to working on this project. After all, it was onling him GMing in the first TVC, but in the second TVC, apparently Simon von Carstein will be doing some GMing too, which will give DoN the time to work on this project. We may have a bit of a wait beforehand, though.

 

[The Dread King]

The Dread King:

I'm certainly not against there being better armour for characters in the list, but I don't think this is something that deserves to be in the army special rules section, especially not in an "ancient" army, with a figuerehead that has traditionally not cared all too much about the well-being of his subjects at all. I think the more "fancy" armours should be treated normally, i.e be one of the 10 magic items allowed to us (both for balance reasons and to limit the number of "unique" special rules etc for the army to some degree). A good army list is defined just as much from what is NOT there, as to what it has after all.

I only said the necromantic shadows bit for fluff reasons. The lord would have been able to enchant the armour himself; it doesn't have to be Nagash who does the enchantments. Furthermore, they could use their "locus power" to actually get the night itself to obey and protect them, leading to this cool armour if you don't want it to be enchanted. The shadows would flicker up just when a killing blow was struck to a vulnerable area, and would fill in gaps in armour/make a suit of armour.
In fact, this could lead to armour a bit like a tiny version of the nightshroud, which, when taken by a model with a low locus, would give little protection and be cheap, but when taken by a model with a high locus, give a fair amount of protection and be a reasonable price. There would be a generic rule for all the locus armour though, and perhaps even wizards could take it, due to it being made out of shadows. This would probably lead to the discussion of what the different effects would be, but we would only have to discuss the generic rule in the army rules section-we could leave the rest until we got to the characters section. Note that I don't mind the ideas of this paragraph not being taken into account.

 

[Uziel]

Dread King:

I agree with what you are saying, and I think the "shadows/protective spirits" idea is both a cool and fitting one on a character.
My only objection to it is that I think it is way to "fancy" to be something that we get to see on any non-character troop choices, and therefore it fits better as a magic item as per the regular rules, instead of the army special rules section.

 

[Chaos_Born]

I think with such tough characters as there are already in this list, having free magical protection for them is going a little far. Perhaps you could make a more mundane armour bonus and attribute it to spiritual protection. For example: Nagashizzar Plate could give hero level characters a 4+ armour save and lords 3+ armour save. Give it a fluffy explanation, describing the magical reasons for it as you have done here. An issue with this is thenyou should remove access to shields/barding on steeds and not allow it to take affect in combination with magic armour, so as to not still make it overpowered. Although this is a lot less cool, it seems more balanced since killing blow immunity is pretty rare and should probably only be included as a magic armour option.

Of course, the definite option for not making it OP is to not include it. After all, the toughness characteristic of the characters as they are now could partially from such magical wards and shadowy protections. Adding more special rules like this just brings everything closer to becoming too complicated and too powerful to run.

 

[Uziel]

Chaos_Born:

I'm NOT for having any sort of free magical armour in this list, as we are predominantly talking about ancient characters of some sort, and with the possible exception of Krell in his Chaos armour, none are really known for having had any high-quality armour on par with Chaos Armour, Gromril Armour or suits of Full Plate.
I think going for a 4+ or better armour is really pushing probability too far in my opinion (being predominantly a bronze-age army and all). A Heavy Armour (5+) with Immune to Killing Blow and usable to Wizards is the most "balanced" option in my opinion, both when it comes to the armour being "free" (an option you still have to pay for, but not from the magic items allowance) for characters, as well as the only real option that can also be used on more elite troops in the list without unbalancing things too much, or without unreasonably encroaching upon the strengths of already existing armies, or the well established fluff granting them a 4+ armour in the first place.

The reasons that I do like Immune to Killing Blow in this list, compared against a Full Plate equivalent armour, is:
-I like the synergy it gives against Nagash's favorite enemies, the Tomb Kings. It is also handy when facing other undead, sucha as the Vampire counts. This helps out a bit in the "who's the undead king of the hill" department, without being overly useful against everyone else.
-Full Plate equivalents deserve a really good fluff justification, such as the origin of chaos armour, the gromril used in grimril armour, or the technological level and steel quality of Empire Full Plate. I just don't see this as anything even remotely likely in this ancient bronze-age type army.
-Model-wise, a 5+ armour is much "cooler" on udead models, as a 4+ equivalent would have all joints protected etc, essentially leaving your with Empire Knight models without all the decorations, and that doesn't in any shape or form scream "undead" too me..

I wholeheartedly agree that if we go beyond this, it would perhaps be better not to include it in the list at all. OP is OP, no matter the fluff justification, and with people arguing for "multi-purpose" wight weapons on the other hand as well, we're well on our way up the OP-hill...

 

[Chaos_Born]

Just for clarification here, since reviewing the previous posts again I'm not sure if I'm on the same page as everyone else, is the intention of the plate to make it available to both characters and the pinnacle guard/knights? I think immune to killing blow could be okay, as long as it's limited to just characters as an upgrade. Giving it to say the knights and I think you're bring in horrific balance issues as often armies use killing blow specifically to kill knights.

Uziel is making a very good point about the plate and it's power on wizards, talking about chaos and how they are meant to be exceptional and so on. I think a way around this is to scale the plate more so that it benefits the combat characters but isn't too powerful on the wizards. How about this, on wizards it grants merely light armour, but still the immunity to killing blow. This way it doesn't tamper too much with the idea that armour disrupts magic since it is as light as the nightshroud, which could always be worn by necromancers. There must be a clause somewhere stating that this doesn't grant them the ability to take magic armour or else we once again enter the realm of OP.
Then those characters that don't have to worry about magical interference could have heavy armour and immunity to killing blow. Gifting both immunity to killing blow and anything more than a 5+ save combines to make the characters too tough IMO. Immunity to killing blow at all could be broken, but play testing could always prove otherwise.


On the subject of another special rule: I think for the wight blades, magical attacks, flaming attacks AND +1 strength is a bit much. I think magical flaming attacks as it is would be fine, making these guys the bane of regenerating monsters and such, but to make them S6 when they're only wielding halberds? Too much.


Finally, the BSB. If you want another special rule to make the battle standard unique in some way, which again isn't strictly necessary, it could grant the unit it is in a 6+ regen save. This isn't too powerful that it makes the BS OP, but it does reflect the sustaining power of it.

 

[The Dread King]

Chaos_Born:

I'm NOT for having any sort of free magical armour in this list, as we are predominantly talking about ancient characters of some sort, and with the possible exception of Krell in his Chaos armour, none are really known for having had any high-quality armour on par with Chaos Armour, Gromril Armour or suits of Full Plate.
I think going for a 4+ or better armour is really pushing probability too far in my opinion (being predominantly a bronze-age army and all). A Heavy Armour (5+) with Immune to Killing Blow and usable to Wizards is the most "balanced" option in my opinion, both when it comes to the armour being "free" (an option you still have to pay for, but not from the magic items allowance) for characters, as well as the only real option that can also be used on more elite troops in the list without unbalancing things too much, or without unreasonably encroaching upon the strengths of already existing armies, or the well established fluff granting them a 4+ armour in the first place.

The reasons that I do like Immune to Killing Blow in this list, compared against a Full Plate equivalent armour, is:
-I like the synergy it gives against Nagash's favorite enemies, the Tomb Kings. It is also handy when facing other undead, sucha as the Vampire counts. This helps out a bit in the "who's the undead king of the hill" department, without being overly useful against everyone else.
-Full Plate equivalents deserve a really good fluff justification, such as the origin of chaos armour, the gromril used in grimril armour, or the technological level and steel quality of Empire Full Plate. I just don't see this as anything even remotely likely in this ancient bronze-age type army.
-Model-wise, a 5+ armour is much "cooler" on udead models, as a 4+ equivalent would have all joints protected etc, essentially leaving your with Empire Knight models without all the decorations, and that doesn't in any shape or form scream "undead" too me..

I wholeheartedly agree that if we go beyond this, it would perhaps be better not to include it in the list at all. OP is OP, no matter the fluff justification, and with people arguing for "multi-purpose" wight weapons on the other hand as well, we're well on our way up the OP-hill...

Like I said before, I'm not saying that this HAS to be a 4+ armour save. All I'm saying we should discuss here is the generic rule for the armour; the rules for chars and specials can be decided when we get to the chars and specials. I think that the special rule here should be that the armour is immune to KB. This is a fairly balanced generic rule for the armour, and we can make sure that it doesn't get OP when we get to the chars and specials sections. We can discuss if it's light, heavy or full plate later on, all we need to know now is that it's immune to killing blow for everyone who will be taking it.

 

[The Dread King]

Just for clarification here, since reviewing the previous posts again I'm not sure if I'm on the same page as everyone else, is the intention of the plate to make it available to both characters and the pinnacle guard/knights? I think immune to killing blow could be okay, as long as it's limited to just characters as an upgrade. Giving it to say the knights and I think you're bring in horrific balance issues as often armies use killing blow specifically to kill knights.

Uziel is making a very good point about the plate and it's power on wizards, talking about chaos and how they are meant to be exceptional and so on. I think a way around this is to scale the plate more so that it benefits the combat characters but isn't too powerful on the wizards. How about this, on wizards it grants merely light armour, but still the immunity to killing blow. This way it doesn't tamper too much with the idea that armour disrupts magic since it is as light as the nightshroud, which could always be worn by necromancers. There must be a clause somewhere stating that this doesn't grant them the ability to take magic armour or else we once again enter the realm of OP.
Then those characters that don't have to worry about magical interference could have heavy armour and immunity to killing blow. Gifting both immunity to killing blow and anything more than a 5+ save combines to make the characters too tough IMO. Immunity to killing blow at all could be broken, but play testing could always prove otherwise.


On the subject of another special rule: I think for the wight blades, magical attacks, flaming attacks AND +1 strength is a bit much. I think magical flaming attacks as it is would be fine, making these guys the bane of regenerating monsters and such, but to make them S6 when they're only wielding halberds? Too much.


Finally, the BSB. If you want another special rule to make the battle standard unique in some way, which again isn't strictly necessary, it could grant the unit it is in a 6+ regen save. This isn't too powerful that it makes the BS OP, but it does reflect the sustaining power of it.

We have already sorted out the problem of the BSB, we just need DoN to clarify it.
I'm not even sure if the pinnacle guard will get halberds any more; seeing as their mainly reserved for empire now, I think that, sadly and unfortunately, they may be deleted from this army list (though I will try to stop that from happening!). If we made the rule for the blades magical and flaming, then the bearers would be quite similar to hexwraiths. I can't decide between magical and flaming or magical and armour piercing. I suppose we can argue about how powerful these wights will be (strength 6 with halberds sounds reasonable for the bodyguards of Nagash) when we get to the specials and rares section. I think we should have a grave guardy/wight option in special, and then have the ones sworn to guard Nagash (who would be totally awesome with loads of battle prowess and skills rivalling swordmasters or chosen) in rare.

EDIT: they don't have to be AS strong as swordmasters or chaos. Just enough to pose a threat to them.

 

[Chaos_Born]

Ah yes I missed that. The storing a PD/DD is a much better idea. Stick with that

At this point I'm starting to feel that I'd be more comfortable making the wight blade rule into simply magical attacks, rather giving them a greater bonus. After all, there are special effects flying about all over the place in this army, far more than any existing one. I think if we started to think more about limiting stuff at this point so that the necessary things get rules representation without further improving everything

 

[The Dread King]

Ah yes I missed that. The storing a PD/DD is a much better idea. Stick with that

At this point I'm starting to feel that I'd be more comfortable making the wight blade rule into simply magical attacks, rather giving them a greater bonus. After all, there are special effects flying about all over the place in this army, far more than any existing one. I think if we started to think more about limiting stuff at this point so that the necessary things get rules representation without further improving everything

The reason I suggested flaming or armour piercing was because we ditched killing blow (our wights don't have it , except for Krell). The idea was that we'd have another rule instead, to replace Killing Blow. I suppose we could stick with magical attacks, but our wights wouldn't be as good as GG anymore, unless we increased their stats (like I want to do). I think magical and flaming are cool, as they give us an excuse to put hellfire on our wights' blades and allow us to make some cool conversions on these wights by taking hexwraith weapons on them when the wights took great weapons. Magical and flaming are also a good, but not too powerful, combination.
I suppose we could just increase GG stats, give them their own rules when we get to them, or give them special weapons. We could just stay with magical attacks at this point. I think we need more opinions (from other contributors, like Bishop, DoN and Uziel) to really decide what we are going to do with this rule.

 

[Chaos_Born]

The pinnacle guard are already better than grave guard because of rules like Nagashi Undead and the marching effects of locus. That plus they are in an army with core which can do things other than tarpit competently. In all honesty, if they had the same stats and options as GG, I think you'd have to price them a point or two per model higher.

But okay, for cool conversions and stuff flaming attacks are the biz I suppose. I'm just think because right now EVERYTHING has extra special rules that it will all end up working far too well. You'll just win through an avalanche of abilities which your opponent cannot control

 

[Uziel]

The Dread King:

Have we ditched Killing Blow? It's been a while I admit, but I didn't think that this was decided. The last I remember, were that Magical Weapons and Killing Blow was the major consensus from people, but then someone suggested a more "build-your-own-wight-blade" solution, and then the discussion came to a halt more or less (at least if we take time into account).

Everyone:

One thing we could do was to tie it together with the Locust rule as someone suggested above, so that we kept it more balanced when it came to troops etc, yet also make it exiting when it came to the characters (who could pay for it in their base cost).

Example: If we let the "Wight weapons" be as normal, with just Killing Blow, then we could let characters with the Locust quality (which I imagine to be be proper undead "nexuses" for the horde) get additional bonuses such as magical attack and armour piercing/flaming attack on top of this. This would prevent the more OP combinations from becomming much of an issue..
I think we should have the more flexible and powerful options granted to us from augment spells, as that is pretty much how a necromancer type army ideally works..

I'm not for increasing the stats of the GG equivalents, as they are already quite high, and it is also difficult to really justify from a fluff perspective. I know you wish for some chaos warrior like undead bodyguards for nagash, but we haven't even determined that Nagash is actually be featured as part of the proper list or not, and it is also straying from both the fluff a bit too much in my view, but I also imagine that if Nagash was in need of a "bodyguard" (and his immense hubris and already established fluff suggests not), we wold more than likely be talking about Hero equivalents, i.e Characters...

But, this touches on something I find a bit conflicting about the project as a whole to deal with, as the theme loosely seems to be Vampire Counts/TK, but more "Elite"; but when one reads the fluff about Nagash and his wars etc, the biggest threat has been his sorcery and Legions upon Legions of troops, as well as their cunning and ruthless use. There has never really been much "elite" in the fluff, apart from the Vampires (or the predating Immortals in the triology), as Nagash has typically rolled up his sleeves and engaged himself if the need was great (since he basically never trusts anyone ha can't mentally enslave and dominate). The Legions of Skeletons has been Nagash's bread and butter in all the fluff, which makes it a bit odd that the project is going more "elite", yet still retaining the cheaper troop options as well.

So far, it seems as we're getting cheap and useful troops, and more elite troops (measured against the VC/TK counterparts), melee characters that put the TK list to shame (it's hard to say without the magic items list being complete, but I suspect and really hope we don't eclipse the Vampires as well), Wizard characters/magic that are most likely going to put both the VC and TK list to shame, "lots" of ranged support, a mortal element granting us more tactical options, special characters that are just plain incredibly nasty, better base army special rules (or at least being in danger of eclipsing both lists here), etc etc.. So far, it seems like because there is so many people involved, and with the only general guideline so far seeming to be "better because it's nagash", everyone wishes for a slightly different focus as far as the power of the overall list goes, and the "elite/better" becomes a bit of an license of excess. It doesn't help that there are no built'in weaknesses of the list either. I know I've said it before, but I dare say it again. If this is going to work (by that I mean something that people at some point think it is fun to both play and play against), then I think we need a stronger, more well defined theme as well as some real built in weaknesses that will affect the overall army selection etc. Every playable army has weaknesses that has to be overcome for success on the battlefield, and this army needs them too.

My suggestions:

-"Severly" limit melee type characters to the Hero lvl (Wight King). Making a Mummy/Wight King hybrid, which eclipses the Mummy to make a combat lord doesn't sit all that well with me, especially since the fluff is not there to begin with.

-Keep ranged attacks to more medium range, i.e, shorter ranges than the TK list. This means Javelin support, no bows, but perhaps a new sort of roman inspired ballista (much weaker than a Bolt Thrower) for support.

-Keep the "Elite" to a minimum when it comes to the undead. Our strenght should instead come from tactical flexibility, especially when combined with the living part of the army, or the Legion special rules.

-Don't go overboard with characters in general. We have to keep in mind that both Krell and Arkhan is in the army books, and they are the two top non-vampire special characters that has been on Nagash's side. Both Krell and Arkhan could do with a bit of an adjustment (not talking stats here btw), but they are after all the official GW representations of these infamous indviduals, even though most seem to think they are much to underpowered. I myself has issues with Krell to be honest, but not as far as his stats go etc. In any case, characters are most likely the first thing any opponent is going to have along hard look at, and going overboard here is close to suicidal when it comes to the army becoming truly "playable", i.e, someone granting their free time to actually play against us etc). Lower-prised characters are also a lot more easily playable, and it fits better as well, since Nagash's "elites", a.k.a, the Vampires has fled his service, leaving a bit of a "power vacuum" as far as Lord lvl characters go.

-There is many ways to make an army more "elite", but I personally think that upping the stats for an undead army is the wrong way to go. To me, an undead army is one that has its strength in numbers, and this goes doubly so in the case of Nagash. I think making the Legions in the core section work well, is instrumental in actually selling the idea of the power of nagash on the battlefield, and if we go too elite, the points cost will eat up the army's size quite fast (especially combined with the cost of the characters suggested), making us field something that is pretty far from all the nagash fluff there is..

End of Rant II

 

[The Dread King]

You have a point about the guards, Uziel. However, I should like to remind you that after his last two deaths, Nagash has forsaken most of his pride for caution, and when he rides out to take on the world again, it will be with protection. I think your idea about characters and wights is good, we should leave the options bit until we get to characters section, but bear in mind, this will allow people to build one wight for one thing, and another wight for another, with cheap, specialised magical weapons. It's cool, but I wonder if it's OP. Probably not if we make the right choices when defining what options are available to the wights, but even so, we might be careful, or your opponent's army could be staring into the face of an awesome, mission impossible-style team specifically designed to take out certain aspects of it.
That's not to say that this isn't a brilliant idea; I thoroughly support it, but if we are not careful about WHAT options will be available, it could be the 7th ed "charge of the apocalyptic blood knights!" all over again.

 

[Uziel]

Dread King:

We haven't really determined that Nagash will be truly "back" in the list if I'm not mistaking, and so this point becomes moot somewhat. Besides, If he is included in the list, I image he will cost quite a lot and that he will therefore have a substantially large army to hide behind. Off course, this is not so easy in game terms, where armies are somewhat balanced, as opposed to the fluff where the Legions of Nagash were pretty much always outnumbering their foes. Personally I don't want him as part of the official list initially, rather leave him as a background figure (and a perfect campaign focus as we'we discussed previously DK), but I suspect I'll be "voted" down in that department. hehe

As far as the Wight characters (or Locusts to be more specific) go, I was not suggesting a flexible approach to the weapon bonuses gained (although I understand the confusion), rather a specific pre-determined bonus. Those I mentioned were just examples. Just to clear that up. I think a flexible "select your properties" option would be to OP as well.
The nice thing about the Killing Blow + Magical +Flaming Weapon on Locust Characters though, is that although it is not terribly powerful, it is certainly enough to pose a danger to most foes, especially on a tough character such as a Wight Lord, leaving us with the option to forego any army specific magical weapons (of which Nagash is not exactly famed for in the first place) in the ten magic items that are army specific, freeing up more slots for Arcane Items and Enchanted Items, of which will be a much more appropriate fit for the army in my opinion.
Hell, one of our army weaknesses could be that we only had access to "wight blades", and no common magic weapons even. It would fit the fluff pretty good, as Alcadizzar did start to make magic weapons to get an advantage over the Legions of Nagash, and nothing in the fluff really suggests that the armies of Nagash had magical weapons available when he faced sigmar either (axe of Krell and Nagash's own magical sword being the only exceptions I can recall).

 

[The Dread King]

Arkhan's tomb blade was an exception too!
I think that unless he is totally awesome and not underpowered for one of his powers, Nagash should only be campaign specific. The wight weapons idea seems good enough; perhaps the wights should only have access to wight magic weapons (you could have a build-your-own-wight instead of magic weapon options) but the other characters should b let off, this could even be an army weakness! Magical+killing blow+flaming seems like an awesome combination, perhaps that should be our final choice for these wights.

 

[Uziel]

Dread King:

I forgot about Arkhan's Tomb Blade. My mistake. I was thinking along the lines of the Nagash Trilology + Sigmar Trilolgy, in which his blade is not featured if I remember correctly. Besides, this might have been something he got his hands on in Nehekhara, and not something made by Nagash in the first place (I just had a look, and Nagash is not mentioned in the weapon's description in the TK book). I also imagine Krell's weapon was the same weapon he used when alive, i.e before the time of Nagash, which sort of leaves Nagash's own sword as the only "Nagashizzar-made" weapon of any certainty that I know of.. It is also mentioned that Nagash himself was a mediocre smith at best in the Nagash trilolgy, which lends itself to the idea that he had in fact not made many weapons at all.

I think that if Wights (and I'm talking characters with the Locust ability here), gets an upgrade on their wight blades (adds magical and flaming on top of the standard killing blow), they can be quite versatile, especially if they have a decent selection of weapon options to begin with. Let's see what the rest say when they have the time to look things over.

 

[Chaos_Born]

This sounds like a good idea to me, but is so army defining that I don't know if DoN would be happy to let it slide into an army which has been worked on for so long already. As for specific wording how about...
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Wight Blades: A model with this rule has the magic attacks and flaming attacks special rules. If the model also has the locus special rule or is in a unit joined by a character with the locus special rule, then they also receive the killing blow special rule.

In addition, characters which have the Wight Blades special rule may not purchase magic weapons.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Something like this? Sounds a little bit awkward but I like having the rules written out, undoubtedly Bishop or DoN will make it sound a lot better if it gets accepted

 

[Uziel]

Chaos Born:

I'd change the description of the witch blades so that Killing Blow was the initial bonus, with flaming and magical being the "Locust" boost.

The reason for this being that magical and flammable are both very conditional benefits, while Killing Blow has a more universal use. It would also bring the Wight Blades more in line with the already established weapons wielded by the VC/TK armies (of which I personally think it is a bit odd to distance us from in this regard).

But, I don't want to spend too much time on this, until DoN has a look at the project again.

 

[The Dread King]

Oooh, this could make characters seriously boost pinnacle guard like never before. GG with magical and flaming would be nasty (yet not OP, this problem could be solved by character sniping. But if it was Arkhan, your opponent would be in deep, undead water!).

 

[Chaos_Born]

I suppose you're right Uziel. Also it makes a lot more sense for the locus to bring the magical fire than them always having the magical fire on their blades and becoming more skilled when the character shows up.

I think it is only balanced if there is a restriction placed as well, like the suggested no magic weapons for the characters. Otherwise magical flaming killing blow attacks is a bit too much IMO.

 

[Uziel]

DK:

I fear there has been a misunderstanding. I was never suggesting that units joined by characters/Locusts also got the buff to their Wight Blades, just the Characters/Locusts themselves.

Chaos Born:

If an option like this is "voted" through, then I agree completely that we can't have these bonuses be commulative with magic weapons, as in the VC book etc. That would make for some really nasty and unfair combinations vs a lot of enemies in the game.