- Sep 23, 2009
- 2,714
I do. But at the same time I don't think a whole lore is a phase 1 thing to work on. Also, I'd be inclined to go back even further for inspiration there, by 8th Tomb Kings magic had already been homogenized to the point of just being regular old wizards with the regular old wizard rules. I'm more inclined to draw inspiration from the 6th ed book and it's unique scroll system - though they only had four scrolls while we'd want a full six prayers for a lore... or would we? some allegiance ability sets over the years have had 'lores' with only three spells. A 3 prayer lore +1 'universal' faction prayer would make 4 total.
Anyway, here were the 4 incantations:
1) Sekhubi's Incantation of Vengeance - 18" range 'magic missile' dealing d6 Strength 4 hits.
this could maybe be implemented as a copy of 'Smite' but without the restriction to targeting enemy preists only?
2) Horekhah's Incantation of Righteous Smiting - pick one of your units within 12", if in melee they can immediately fight but with only one attack per model (counting riders and mounts of cavalry and each individual steed & crew member of a chariot separately). If not in melee the unit can immediately shoot.
out of phase attacking seems to be reduced or removed in 3rd, plus 'righteous smiting' is now the signature spell for liche priests, so...
3) Djedra's Incantation of Summoning - 12" range d3 wound heal/revive
I think we can translate this one directly, no problem, though if we make healing construct units a necrotect thing then we might want to restrict liche priest healing to skeleton units.
4) Mankara's Incantation of Urgency - friendly unit within 12" can immediatly make a normal move
I don't think movement in the hero phase is ideal, but increased movement speed in the following movement phase would be fine. However, this would arguably be stepping on the toes of the necrotect, so we might want to either change that or not do this. Also this was effectively a replacement for marching which tomb kings could do. But modern tomb kings can already run, so...
The 6e incantations were set apart from spells by never failing - they were instead treated as bound spells - and being able to be used multiple times, so if you had two liche priests and a liche high priest then you could the same incantation four times in a row to try to force it through. I don't think that's something we'd want to recreate though - even if it wasn't op it was arguably frustrating/unfun for the opponent. The actual effects seem reasonable enough.
...
as for the 8e lore, it was:
0) Khsar's Incantation of the Desert Wind - all friendly TK units within 12" make a free move
This was effectively a replacement for marching, which tomb kings weren't allowed to do. But modern tomb kings can already run. Anyway, way too strong as is for an AoS prayer. You could maybe have a prayer increase the movement of a single target unit, but again that might be stepping overmuch on the necrotect's toes.
1) Djaf's Incantation of Cursed Blades - 12", target unit gains killing blow.
obviously some kind of melee buff would be fine, but the army already has a lot of 'on 6' abilities, so trying to emulate killing blow might not be the best option.
2) 12" range, target unit gains a Ward of 5+
Works for me. Even if we aren't making it a freebie prayer for the whole faction, it makes sense to be in the lore.
3) Ptra's Incantation of Righteous Smiting
+1 attack buff. The current design is already doing this via 'My Will Be Done', and a version of Righteous Smiting is already the signature spell for liche priests, so probably drop this.
4) Usirian's Incantation of Vengeance: 18" range debuff for -D3 movement speed (minimum one) and treat all terrain as dangerous terrain.
A movement reducing prayer makes sense to me.
5) Usekhp's Incantation of Desiccation: -1 strength and toughness (minimum 1)
a penalty on To Wounds debuff makes sense to me.
6) Sakhmet's Incantation of the Skullstorm - remains in play small round template, moves around randomly dealing S4 hits to every model it moves over
remains in play prayers are 'invocations' now, and are purchased separately, not included as part of a lore. Plus they have discrete models rather than generic templates, so if we want to have invocations imo we would need to choose models from the canon range to represent them, removing those units from the roster in the process, basically saying this or that model is purchased and deployed as an invocation, not a normal unit.
the 8e lore had 2 gimmicks, one was that each spell could have increased effects in exchange for a harder casting value, and the second was that any spell that affected a friendly unit also healed that unit d3+1 wounds (or exactly 1 wound if it was a construct unit).
I don't think such gimmickry is needed for our project. A death faction with priests is already novel enough. Others may think differently, though.
...
Again, however, for phase 1 I think a single faction-wide bonus prayer is plenty. As for what it should be, -1 save debuff is fine, but I'm not 100% committed to it.
............................................
one thing that we maybe should consider sooner rather than later is base sizes. As far as I'm aware, the cannon base sizes are found HERE.
While it's not official, I'll also be referencing some of the base sizes used in Mengel Miniature's unofficial Tomb Kings battletome, since that's the closest the faction has seen to an official AoS update, and can be found HERE.
Most of them are fine, but there are a few I think should be revised:
...
Arguably we don't need to be prescriptive about base size in any sort of external release document. This will be an unofficial homebrew document of rules for a discontinued model line, it's not unreasonable to just let people use whatever bases best fit whatever models they're able to find. But for internal testing I think it's worth having expected sizes, and as I'm rebasing old models in parallel to working on these rules in preparation for actual play testing I figure it's worth discussing now.
Anyway, here were the 4 incantations:
1) Sekhubi's Incantation of Vengeance - 18" range 'magic missile' dealing d6 Strength 4 hits.
this could maybe be implemented as a copy of 'Smite' but without the restriction to targeting enemy preists only?
2) Horekhah's Incantation of Righteous Smiting - pick one of your units within 12", if in melee they can immediately fight but with only one attack per model (counting riders and mounts of cavalry and each individual steed & crew member of a chariot separately). If not in melee the unit can immediately shoot.
out of phase attacking seems to be reduced or removed in 3rd, plus 'righteous smiting' is now the signature spell for liche priests, so...
3) Djedra's Incantation of Summoning - 12" range d3 wound heal/revive
I think we can translate this one directly, no problem, though if we make healing construct units a necrotect thing then we might want to restrict liche priest healing to skeleton units.
4) Mankara's Incantation of Urgency - friendly unit within 12" can immediatly make a normal move
I don't think movement in the hero phase is ideal, but increased movement speed in the following movement phase would be fine. However, this would arguably be stepping on the toes of the necrotect, so we might want to either change that or not do this. Also this was effectively a replacement for marching which tomb kings could do. But modern tomb kings can already run, so...
The 6e incantations were set apart from spells by never failing - they were instead treated as bound spells - and being able to be used multiple times, so if you had two liche priests and a liche high priest then you could the same incantation four times in a row to try to force it through. I don't think that's something we'd want to recreate though - even if it wasn't op it was arguably frustrating/unfun for the opponent. The actual effects seem reasonable enough.
...
as for the 8e lore, it was:
0) Khsar's Incantation of the Desert Wind - all friendly TK units within 12" make a free move
This was effectively a replacement for marching, which tomb kings weren't allowed to do. But modern tomb kings can already run. Anyway, way too strong as is for an AoS prayer. You could maybe have a prayer increase the movement of a single target unit, but again that might be stepping overmuch on the necrotect's toes.
1) Djaf's Incantation of Cursed Blades - 12", target unit gains killing blow.
obviously some kind of melee buff would be fine, but the army already has a lot of 'on 6' abilities, so trying to emulate killing blow might not be the best option.
2) 12" range, target unit gains a Ward of 5+
Works for me. Even if we aren't making it a freebie prayer for the whole faction, it makes sense to be in the lore.
3) Ptra's Incantation of Righteous Smiting
+1 attack buff. The current design is already doing this via 'My Will Be Done', and a version of Righteous Smiting is already the signature spell for liche priests, so probably drop this.
4) Usirian's Incantation of Vengeance: 18" range debuff for -D3 movement speed (minimum one) and treat all terrain as dangerous terrain.
A movement reducing prayer makes sense to me.
5) Usekhp's Incantation of Desiccation: -1 strength and toughness (minimum 1)
a penalty on To Wounds debuff makes sense to me.
6) Sakhmet's Incantation of the Skullstorm - remains in play small round template, moves around randomly dealing S4 hits to every model it moves over
remains in play prayers are 'invocations' now, and are purchased separately, not included as part of a lore. Plus they have discrete models rather than generic templates, so if we want to have invocations imo we would need to choose models from the canon range to represent them, removing those units from the roster in the process, basically saying this or that model is purchased and deployed as an invocation, not a normal unit.
the 8e lore had 2 gimmicks, one was that each spell could have increased effects in exchange for a harder casting value, and the second was that any spell that affected a friendly unit also healed that unit d3+1 wounds (or exactly 1 wound if it was a construct unit).
I don't think such gimmickry is needed for our project. A death faction with priests is already novel enough. Others may think differently, though.
...
Again, however, for phase 1 I think a single faction-wide bonus prayer is plenty. As for what it should be, -1 save debuff is fine, but I'm not 100% committed to it.
............................................
one thing that we maybe should consider sooner rather than later is base sizes. As far as I'm aware, the cannon base sizes are found HERE.
While it's not official, I'll also be referencing some of the base sizes used in Mengel Miniature's unofficial Tomb Kings battletome, since that's the closest the faction has seen to an official AoS update, and can be found HERE.
Most of them are fine, but there are a few I think should be revised:
1) Settra the Imperishable.
Canon: 120mm oval
Mengel: 120mm oval
Proposed: 130mm Circle
Reasoning: imo the oval base is just not wide enough for settra's 4 horse chariot. Mengel used the 120mm oval, but they also ditched the 4 horse design, which imo just shows that 120mm isn't the right size here. In our book, Mengel's exalted chariot would be a Tomb King on Royal Chariot instead.
2) Casket of Souls
Canon: 120mm oval
Mengel: 100mm circle (I think?)
Proposed: 100mm circle
Reasoning: I don't think 100mm circle existed at the time, or else I think it would have been the cannon base size to begin with. The casket isn't particularly wider in any given direction, it just feels better on a circle base rather than an oval.
3) Skeleton Chariot
Canon: 120mm oval
Mengel: 105mm oval (I think)
Proposed: 105mm oval
Reasoning: 105mm is a bit of a tight squeeze, 120 has more breathing room and I'd definitely keep it for the hero version. But skeleton chariots are a unit, probably a battleline unit, likely to be fielded in multiples and/or reinforced. 12 in a single army would be a lot, but not exactly unexpected, and imo that many 120mm ovals takes up just too much table space, especially on 3e's smaller board sizes.
4) Screaming Skull Catapult
Canon: 105mm oval for the war machine + 3x 25mm circle for the crew
Mengel: 120mm oval for the war machine + 3x 25mm circle for the crew (I think?)
Proposed: 120mm oval for the war machine and crew
Reasoning: the 105mm is very cramped for the catapult, it only kind of barely fits. 120mm is more comfortable, but also large enough that you chould just mount the crew right on there, which is more common with modern AoS war machines (see the lumineth bolt thrower, the ossiarch crawler). There are AoS war machines that mount the crew separately (the stormcast bolt thrower), but single base seems more common, and is a better fit for modern AoS warscroll design, which treats the war machine and the crew as a single model even when they are on separate bases.
5) Bone Giant
Canon: 105mm oval
Mengel: also 105mm oval?
Proposed: 60mm circle
Reasoning: I'm not sure why oval bases were ever considered for this guy, he stands straight upright, very much a round base guy, and fits the standard 60mm like a glove. The mengel mini to me looks wonky on its oblong base. That said...
Counter-Proposal: 100mm circle
No picture for this one, but the idea here is that while 60mm circle fits the last official bone giant / necrolith colossus model perfectly, by AoS standards it's an extremely small monster. Like, Morghast size, only without the wings, and they aren't monsters at all. Or Vargheist size, again not a monster. Most of the readily available 3rd party alternatives, at least apart from the mantic model, are significantly larger, and imo while most of them can fit on a 60mm base, they would look better on a 100mm. Here's some examples:
From left to right, I believe these are armies of the sands, lost kingdoms, reaper minis, and a 3rd party conversion kit to use the necrosphinx upper torso as a heirotitan or necrolith colossus (if you use the necrosphinx blades instead of the staff/scales). I don't remember who used to make them, but they were common enough back in the day that you still see these here and there. I actually have one somewhere - bone giant with the necrosphinx blades, sadly no staff/scales.
the reaper obviously doesn't fit on a 60mm circle, and would be awkward on the canon 105 oval. The other three are all pictured on 50mm squares, I think, so you could fit them on 60mm circles, but imo they're big enough that they'd look better on 100mm circles.
So do we go by the official but near impossible to get these days model, or the 3rd party alternatives which are much easier to come by, and better scaled to what constitutes a 'monster' in modern Age of Sigmar?
...........
The rest of the cannon base sizes are probably fine fine imo - 105 ovals for snakes, 32 circles for infantry heroes, 25 circles for the infantry, 50 circles for ushabti and swarms, 60 ovals for the cav. I could see an argument for putting the horse-mounted heroes on 75mm ovals, but I don't think that's really necessary.
One other that's maybe worth thinking about is carrion - the canon size is 60mm circle. Off the top of my head that feels too large, but I don't actually have any official carrion models, so I really can't say one way or the other.
Canon: 120mm oval
Mengel: 120mm oval
Proposed: 130mm Circle
Reasoning: imo the oval base is just not wide enough for settra's 4 horse chariot. Mengel used the 120mm oval, but they also ditched the 4 horse design, which imo just shows that 120mm isn't the right size here. In our book, Mengel's exalted chariot would be a Tomb King on Royal Chariot instead.
2) Casket of Souls
Canon: 120mm oval
Mengel: 100mm circle (I think?)
Proposed: 100mm circle
Reasoning: I don't think 100mm circle existed at the time, or else I think it would have been the cannon base size to begin with. The casket isn't particularly wider in any given direction, it just feels better on a circle base rather than an oval.
3) Skeleton Chariot
Canon: 120mm oval
Mengel: 105mm oval (I think)
Proposed: 105mm oval
Reasoning: 105mm is a bit of a tight squeeze, 120 has more breathing room and I'd definitely keep it for the hero version. But skeleton chariots are a unit, probably a battleline unit, likely to be fielded in multiples and/or reinforced. 12 in a single army would be a lot, but not exactly unexpected, and imo that many 120mm ovals takes up just too much table space, especially on 3e's smaller board sizes.
4) Screaming Skull Catapult
Canon: 105mm oval for the war machine + 3x 25mm circle for the crew
Mengel: 120mm oval for the war machine + 3x 25mm circle for the crew (I think?)
Proposed: 120mm oval for the war machine and crew
Reasoning: the 105mm is very cramped for the catapult, it only kind of barely fits. 120mm is more comfortable, but also large enough that you chould just mount the crew right on there, which is more common with modern AoS war machines (see the lumineth bolt thrower, the ossiarch crawler). There are AoS war machines that mount the crew separately (the stormcast bolt thrower), but single base seems more common, and is a better fit for modern AoS warscroll design, which treats the war machine and the crew as a single model even when they are on separate bases.
5) Bone Giant
Canon: 105mm oval
Mengel: also 105mm oval?
Proposed: 60mm circle
Reasoning: I'm not sure why oval bases were ever considered for this guy, he stands straight upright, very much a round base guy, and fits the standard 60mm like a glove. The mengel mini to me looks wonky on its oblong base. That said...
Counter-Proposal: 100mm circle
No picture for this one, but the idea here is that while 60mm circle fits the last official bone giant / necrolith colossus model perfectly, by AoS standards it's an extremely small monster. Like, Morghast size, only without the wings, and they aren't monsters at all. Or Vargheist size, again not a monster. Most of the readily available 3rd party alternatives, at least apart from the mantic model, are significantly larger, and imo while most of them can fit on a 60mm base, they would look better on a 100mm. Here's some examples:
From left to right, I believe these are armies of the sands, lost kingdoms, reaper minis, and a 3rd party conversion kit to use the necrosphinx upper torso as a heirotitan or necrolith colossus (if you use the necrosphinx blades instead of the staff/scales). I don't remember who used to make them, but they were common enough back in the day that you still see these here and there. I actually have one somewhere - bone giant with the necrosphinx blades, sadly no staff/scales.
the reaper obviously doesn't fit on a 60mm circle, and would be awkward on the canon 105 oval. The other three are all pictured on 50mm squares, I think, so you could fit them on 60mm circles, but imo they're big enough that they'd look better on 100mm circles.
So do we go by the official but near impossible to get these days model, or the 3rd party alternatives which are much easier to come by, and better scaled to what constitutes a 'monster' in modern Age of Sigmar?
...........
The rest of the cannon base sizes are probably fine fine imo - 105 ovals for snakes, 32 circles for infantry heroes, 25 circles for the infantry, 50 circles for ushabti and swarms, 60 ovals for the cav. I could see an argument for putting the horse-mounted heroes on 75mm ovals, but I don't think that's really necessary.
One other that's maybe worth thinking about is carrion - the canon size is 60mm circle. Off the top of my head that feels too large, but I don't actually have any official carrion models, so I really can't say one way or the other.
...
Arguably we don't need to be prescriptive about base size in any sort of external release document. This will be an unofficial homebrew document of rules for a discontinued model line, it's not unreasonable to just let people use whatever bases best fit whatever models they're able to find. But for internal testing I think it's worth having expected sizes, and as I'm rebasing old models in parallel to working on these rules in preparation for actual play testing I figure it's worth discussing now.