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Sception

Master Necromancer
True Blood
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:

1) Settra the Imperishable.

Canon: 120mm oval
Project 202208161438.png

Mengel: 120mm oval
Project 202208161548.png

Proposed: 130mm Circle
Project 202208161440.png

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
Project 202208161434.png

Mengel: 100mm circle (I think?)
Project 202208161543.png

Proposed: 100mm circle
Project 202208161436.png

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
Project 202208161445.png

Mengel: 105mm oval (I think)
Project 202208161621.png

Proposed: 105mm oval
Project 202208161446.png

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
Project 202208161608.png

Mengel: 120mm oval for the war machine + 3x 25mm circle for the crew (I think?)
Untitled.png

Proposed: 120mm oval for the war machine and crew
Project 202208161612.png

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
Project 202208161628.png

Mengel: also 105mm oval?
bonegiant.png

Proposed: 60mm circle
Project 202208161627.png

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:

bonegiant2.png bonegiant3.png bonegiant4.png bonegiant6.png

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.
 
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The Sun King

Moderator
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True Blood
Aug 22, 2012
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Regarding base sizes I agree with all your suggestions however I think the original bone giant would be too small to field on a 100mm.
 

Sception

Master Necromancer
True Blood
Sep 23, 2009
2,714
Regarding base sizes I agree with all your suggestions however I think the original bone giant would be too small to field on a 100mm.
oh, absolutely. the question is whether we should favor the original or the 3rd party models that are most available now.
 

Sception

Master Necromancer
True Blood
Sep 23, 2009
2,714
Ok, time to wrap up the statues. I'm not going to keep posting the original warscrolls. It's a pain in the butt and you can look them up HERE.

Ushabti thoughts -

War Statuary: I think I'm going to try going with the petrifex version of stone bodies for now, and see how that plays out on the table.

Likeness of the Ancient Gods: We're cutting necrotect-tied abilities under the theory that what a necrotect does should be on the necrotect scroll. I'm just increasing the Ushabti's base save to 4+ instead.

I think there's an open question of whether Ushabti's offense is high enough, particularly for the great bows, but that can wait for playtest feedback.

Also, should Ushabti be Elite - ie able to use command abilities on themselves? I kind of feel like they should, aren't they animated by the spirits of great heroes? Or did I just make that up? If they're just big stone automatons in the lore then it would make more sense for them to have to rely on nearby heroes for command abilities.

Ushabti

MOVE: 6"
WOUNDS: 4
SAVE: 4+
BRAVERY: 10

MISSILE WEAPONS
  • Great Bow: Range 24", Attacks 1, To Hit 4+, To Wound 3+, Rend -1, Damage D3
MELEE WEAPONS
  • Stone Fists: Range 1", Attacks 3, To Hit 4+, To Wound 3+, Rend -, Damage 1
  • Ritual Blade-stave: Range 1", Attacks 3, To Hit 3+, To Wound 3+, Rend -1, Damage D3
DESCRIPTION

A unit of Ushabti has 3 models. Some units of Ushabti are armed with two-handed Ritual Blade-staves. Other units of Ushabti carry Great Bows and pummel foes in close combat with blows from their Stone Fists.

ABILITIES

Sacred War-Statuary: Reduce the rend of all attacks that target this unit by 1.

KEYWORDS: DEATH, TOMB KINGS, REANIMANT, USHABTI
 

The Sun King

Moderator
Staff member
True Blood
Aug 22, 2012
4,989
Copenhagen
Ok, time to wrap up the statues. I'm not going to keep posting the original warscrolls. It's a pain in the butt and you can look them up HERE.

Ushabti thoughts -

War Statuary: I think I'm going to try going with the petrifex version of stone bodies for now, and see how that plays out on the table.

Likeness of the Ancient Gods: We're cutting necrotect-tied abilities under the theory that what a necrotect does should be on the necrotect scroll. I'm just increasing the Ushabti's base save to 4+ instead.

I think there's an open question of whether Ushabti's offense is high enough, particularly for the great bows, but that can wait for playtest feedback.

Also, should Ushabti be Elite - ie able to use command abilities on themselves? I kind of feel like they should, aren't they animated by the spirits of great heroes? Or did I just make that up? If they're just big stone automatons in the lore then it would make more sense for them to have to rely on nearby heroes for command abilities.

Ushabti

MOVE: 6"
WOUNDS: 4
SAVE: 4+
BRAVERY: 10

MISSILE WEAPONS
  • Great Bow: Range 24", Attacks 1, To Hit 4+, To Wound 3+, Rend -1, Damage D3
MELEE WEAPONS
  • Stone Fists: Range 1", Attacks 3, To Hit 4+, To Wound 3+, Rend -, Damage 1
  • Ritual Blade-stave: Range 1", Attacks 3, To Hit 3+, To Wound 3+, Rend -1, Damage D3
DESCRIPTION

A unit of Ushabti has 3 models. Some units of Ushabti are armed with two-handed Ritual Blade-staves. Other units of Ushabti carry Great Bows and pummel foes in close combat with blows from their Stone Fists.

ABILITIES

Sacred War-Statuary: Reduce the rend of all attacks that target this unit by 1.

KEYWORDS: DEATH, TOMB KINGS, REANIMANT, USHABTI
Thoughts on Ushabti. Yes I think they should be elite. We should also split them into two units: those with bows and those with melee - as the 3.0 way is not having different weapon options in the same unit and it is easier to balance the units this way (think of Kurnoth Hunters).
 

Sception

Master Necromancer
True Blood
Sep 23, 2009
2,714
Original warscrolls HERE

Bone Giant thoughts -

unstoppable assault should be on unmodified sixes.

Colossus of War - we're pulling necrotect based effects, but what about the rest? Activating twice in combat is unusual but not unheard of. A random chance of doing so is very awkward and swingy. Should it just be all the time? Maybe activate if it made a charge in the same turn? Should we just drop it entirely, or replace it with something else?

For the moment, in the name of simplicity, I'm trading it for an attack with the gigantic blades and the war statuary rule, and changing the name back to Necrolith Colossus to emphasize that it's supposed to be a statue unit.

Plus I always liked the name. Necrolith just sells the idea of 'stone form animated by the necromantically conjured souls of the dead. Personally I like Necrolith way better than 'reanimant'. Maybe we should change the keyword?

Maybe 'Necrolith Knights' instead of 'Necropolis Knights'?

Eh, that can wait.

Necrolith Colossus

MOVE: 6"
WOUNDS: 9
SAVE: 4+
BRAVERY: 10

MELEE WEAPONS
  • Gigantic Blades: Range 2", Attacks 4, To Hit 4+, To Wound 3+, Rend -2, Damage 3
  • Heavy Footfalls: Range 1", Attacks 4, To Hit 4+, To Wound 3+, Rend -1, Damage 1
DESCRIPTION

A Necrolith Colossus is a single model. It is armed with Gigantic Blades that it wields to devastating effect, and can crush those that stand before it beneath its Heavy Footfalls.

ABILITIES

Sacred War-Statuary: Reduce the rend of all attacks that target this unit by 1.

Unstoppable Assault: Whenever you roll an unmodified 6 for a melee attack made by this unit, you can immediately make one additional attack using the same weapon.

KEYWORDS: DEATH, TOMB KINGS, REANIMANT, MONSTER, NECROLITH COLOSSUS


Does that look ok? More attacks? or bring back some form of the colossus of war? Are the name change and war statuary rule appropriate, or sould we go back to the pre-8e lore where it really was a Bone Giant, not a big statue?
 

The Sun King

Moderator
Staff member
True Blood
Aug 22, 2012
4,989
Copenhagen
Original warscrolls HERE

Bone Giant thoughts -

unstoppable assault should be on unmodified sixes.

Colossus of War - we're pulling necrotect based effects, but what about the rest? Activating twice in combat is unusual but not unheard of. A random chance of doing so is very awkward and swingy. Should it just be all the time? Maybe activate if it made a charge in the same turn? Should we just drop it entirely, or replace it with something else?

For the moment, in the name of simplicity, I'm trading it for an attack with the gigantic blades and the war statuary rule, and changing the name back to Necrolith Colossus to emphasize that it's supposed to be a statue unit.

Plus I always liked the name. Necrolith just sells the idea of 'stone form animated by the necromantically conjured souls of the dead. Personally I like Necrolith way better than 'reanimant'. Maybe we should change the keyword?

Maybe 'Necrolith Knights' instead of 'Necropolis Knights'?

Eh, that can wait.

Necrolith Colossus

MOVE: 6"
WOUNDS: 9
SAVE: 4+
BRAVERY: 10

MELEE WEAPONS
  • Gigantic Blades: Range 2", Attacks 4, To Hit 4+, To Wound 3+, Rend -2, Damage 3
  • Heavy Footfalls: Range 1", Attacks 4, To Hit 4+, To Wound 3+, Rend -1, Damage 1
DESCRIPTION

A Necrolith Colossus is a single model. It is armed with Gigantic Blades that it wields to devastating effect, and can crush those that stand before it beneath its Heavy Footfalls.

ABILITIES

Sacred War-Statuary: Reduce the rend of all attacks that target this unit by 1.

Unstoppable Assault: Whenever you roll an unmodified 6 for a melee attack made by this unit, you can immediately make one additional attack using the same weapon.

KEYWORDS: DEATH, TOMB KINGS, REANIMANT, MONSTER, NECROLITH COLOSSUS

Does that look ok? More attacks? or bring back some form of the colossus of war? Are the name change and war statuary rule appropriate, or sould we go back to the pre-8e lore where it really was a Bone Giant, not a big statue?
I like it. I agree that Reanimant is s weird keyword, but maybe we should leave that for phase 2?

The Unstoppable Assault rule however is unclear whether it is to hit or to wound rolls?
 

Sception

Master Necromancer
True Blood
Sep 23, 2009
2,714
fixed the colossus. Still not sure if it should have the war statue rule. Not every necrolith unit has the rule - scorpions don't, necroknights don't, stalkers don't. Maybe drop that rule, and throw on an extra attack or two with the blades?

Or maybe make stone body a universal rule for all reanimant units, and make trade offs or points increases as necessary?

Anyway, here's the necrosphinx.

Necrosphinx

MOVE: *
WOUNDS: 12
SAVE 4+
BRAVERY: 10

MELEE WEAPONS
  • Gigantic Scything Blades: Range 2", Attacks 4, To Hit 3+, To Wound *, Rend -3, Damage 3
  • Stone Claws: Range 1", Attacks *, To Hit 4+, To Wound 3+, Rend -1, Damage 1
  • Bladed Tail: Range 3", Attacks 3, To Hit 4+, To Wound 3+, Rend -1, Damage 1
  • Venom-spike Tail: Range 3", Attacks 1, To Hit 3+, To Wound 3+, Rend -2, Damage D3
DAMAGE TABLE

Wounds Suffered: Move, Scything Blades, Stone Claws
0-2: 12", 2+, 4
3-4: 10", 3+, 4
5-7: 8", 3+, 3
8-9: 6", 4+, 3
10-11: 4", 4+, 2

DESCRIPTION

A Necrosphinx is a single model. It is armed Gigantic Scything Blades and monstrous Stone Claws. Some Necrosphinxes have a Venom-spike Tail, whilst others have a Bladed Tail.

FLY: A Necrosphinx can fly.

ABILITIES

Sacred War Statue: Reduce the rend of attacks that target this unit by one.

Need to Destroy: If a Necrosphinx is within 12" of any enemy unit during your Charge Phase, you must make a charge roll for it, and you must make a charge move with it if you roll high enough to reach an enemy unit. Additionally, when you make a charge roll for this model, roll 3 dice rather than 2 and discard the lowest die.

Decapitating Strike: If a Necrosphinx directs all of its attacks with its Gigantic Scything Blades at the same Monster, and two or more of the To Wound rolls are unmodified sixes, then the target monster suffers 10 mortal wounds in addition to the normal damage.

KEYWORDS: DEATH, TOMB KINGS, REANIMANT, MONSTER, NECROSPHINX


Not too much changed. New standard stone body rule. Decapitating strike needs unmodified sixes - though the requirements on it are a bit awkward.

Need to destroy, though... the requirement to charge is awkward. in 3e just because you make a charge roll doesn't mean you're required to charge even if you roll high enough to do so. I tried to reword the requirement to make it work, but at the same time it's kind of awkward and I wonder if a more simplistic alternative might be better - eg 'may not retreat' or the like.
 

Sception

Master Necromancer
True Blood
Sep 23, 2009
2,714
very slight rework on royal warsphinx re: stone body rule.

Tomb King on Royal Warsphinx

MOVE: 6"
WOUNDS: 12
SAVE: 4+
BRAVERY: 10

MISSILE WEAPONS
  • Fiery Roar: Range 8", Attacks 1, To Hit 3+, To Wound *, Rend -1, Damage d6
MELEE WEAPONS
  • Stone Claws and Teeth: Range 1", Attacks 6, To Hit *, To Wound 3+, Rend -1, Damage 1
  • Bladed Tail: Range 3", Attacks 3, To Hit 4+, To Wound 3+, Rend -1, Damage 1
  • Venom-Spike Tail: Range 3", Attacks 1, To Hit 3+, To Wound 3+, Rend -2, Damage d3
  • Glaive of Kings: Range 1", Attacks 3, To Hit 3+, To Wound 3+, Rend -2, Damage 3
DAMAGE TABLE
  • Wounds Suffered; Fiery Roar; Stone Claws and Teeth
  • 0-2; 2+; 3+
  • 3-4; 3+; 4+
  • 5-7; 4+; 4+
  • 8-9; 5+; 5+
  • 10+; 6+; 5+
DESCRIPTION

A Tomb King on Royal Warsphinx is a single model. It consists of a Tomb King armed with a Glaive of Kings and mounted on a Royal Warsphinx, which attacks enemies with its Fiery Roar, Stone Claws and Teeth, and a choice of either a Bladed Tail or a Venom-spike Tail.

ABILITIES

The Tomb King’s Curse: If a Royal Warsphinx is slain, the unit that inflicted the final wound upon it suffers D3 mortal wounds after all of its attacks have been made.

Sacred War Statue: Reduce the rend of any attacks that target this unit by one.

COMMAND ABILITY

My Will Be Done: This model may issue this command ability at the start of any shooting or combat phase. It must be received by a friendly DESERT LEGIONS unit. Add +1 Attack to all of that unit's weapons until the end of the current phase.

KEYWORDS: DEATH, TOMB KINGS, EMBALMED, REANIMANT, MONSTER, HERO, TOMB KING, ROYAL WARSPHINX


sidebar: should there be a keyword for 'tomb king' units - settra, khalida, tomb king, royal chariot, royal warsphinx - separate from EMBALMED, which also applies to Necrotects, who are not themselves kings?

And if so, what should it be? TOMB KING is currently used for some of those units (tomb king, tomb king on royal chariot), but not others We could apply it to the rest, but imo it's confusing with the faction keyword, unless we change the faction keyword to somthing else.

Potential alternatives to TOMB KING for the kings - DYNAST-KING, NECROPOLIS KING, PHARAOH, KING.

Potential alternatives to TOMB KINGS for the faction - NEHEKHARAN KINGDOMS, NECROPOLIS KINGDOMS, LEGIONS OF NEHEKHARA

At the moment, I'm partial to PHARAOH, but I don't think that term has ever been used in relation to the tomb kings, so it might not be a good choice? I'm certainly open to suggestions.
 

Sception

Master Necromancer
True Blood
Sep 23, 2009
2,714
Warsphinx
MOVE: 6"
WOUNDS: 12
SAVE: 4+
BRAVERY: 10

MISSILE WEAPONS
  • Fiery Roar: Range 8", Attacks 1, To Hit 3+, To Wound *, Rend -1, Damage d6
MELEE WEAPONS
  • Stone Claws and Teeth: Range 1", Attacks 6, To Hit *, To Wound 3+, Rend -1, Damage 1
  • Bladed Tail: Range 3", Attacks 3, To Hit 4+, To Wound 3+, Rend -1, Damage 1
  • Venom-Spike Tail: Range 3", Attacks 1, To Hit 3+, To Wound 3+, Rend -2, Damage d3
  • Tomb Guards' Spears: Range 2", Attacks 8, To Hit 3+, To Wound 3+, Rend -, Damage 1
DAMAGE TABLE
  • Wounds Suffered; Fiery Roar; Stone Claws and Teeth
  • 0-2; 2+; 3+
  • 3-4; 3+; 4+
  • 5-7; 4+; 4+
  • 8-9; 5+; 5+
  • 10+; 6+; 5+
DESCRIPTION

A Warsphinx is a single model. It crushes its foes with its gigantic Stone Claws and Teeth and smashes them into the ground with its Thundercrush Attack. A Warsphinx can also immolate the enemy from afar with its Fiery Roar. Some Warsphinxes have a Venom-spike Tail, whilst others have a Bladed Tail. A Warsphinx bears an ornate howdah on its back, filled with a crew of four Tomb Guard armed with long Spears.

ABILITIES

Sacred War Statue: Reduce the rend of any attacks that target this unit by one.

KEYWORDS: DEATH, TOMB KINGS, REANIMANT, SKELETON, MONSTER, WARSPHINX

As with the Royal Warsphinx, this version of the Warshpinx drops thundercrush attack - since that concept is already represented by 3rd edition's monstrous rampage rules, and in exchange the rider's attacks no longer degrade with wounds taken, since the attack of monsters' riders generally don't these days. Otherwise, just the new version of sacred war statue.

It's worth noting that this is a reanimant unit ridden by desert legions models, but while it keeps the reanimant keyword, it loses the Desert Legions keyword, presumably to avoid excessive buff stacking.

Compare to the Necropolis Knights, who are also a reanimant unit crewed by Desert Legion riders, but it kept both keywords and buff stacking on Necroknights very much was a problem in 1e. I'm very much inclined to apply the precedent of the Warsphinx to the Necropolis Knights, removing the Desert Legions keyword, possibly in exchange for the -1 rend stone body rule. Thoughts?

Also, should all reanimants have the stone body rule? Stalkers? Scorpions? Bone Giants? Or should that be reserved for ushabti and sphinxes only? I asked this before, but I didn't stop to wait for feedback, I've been rushing through.

That's through to the end of the warscrolls for first drafts, I think.


There are some variants based on feedback & personal thoughts in THIS POST that are still open for further feedback, as well as multiple takes on the necrotect HERE. I'm going to let these sit a bit longer for any further feedback, then consolidate my first draft warscroll revisions. Once we have that, where will be some preliminary discussion of points adjustments - some things are blatantly getting stronger (eg khalida) and should probably start playtesting at a higher points value, others might arguably be so clearly overpriced as to be worth dropping down a bit.

Once we've got a ruleset ready for play testing, I'm going to try to write it up into a fairly nice looking pdf document, in the style of the current legends compendium.
 
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Sception

Master Necromancer
True Blood
Sep 23, 2009
2,714
Can you attach a pdf to posts here? I'm gonna try just to see if I can. This is my attempt to match the formatting and visual style of the warscrolls in the Nighthaunt battletome, but with Tomb King appropriate colors - sandy browns, dark browns, golden yellow. Legible? Looks good?

The scroll is more or less the resent variant of Settra, minus the 'my will be done' command ability which I'm currently planning on including in the placeholder faction traits, keying it to the 'Desert Monarch' keyword which I'm adding for Tomb King (and Queen) units, since I can't just key off of embalmed like I had planned due to necrotects.

It's a bit of a pain to put it all together. I'm also not sure if I'll be able to find official GW miniature art for all of these units, or if I should be using GW mini art in the first place.

Thoughts/suggestions?

EDIT: added khalida. Scroll is as the revised version, except: 6" move (if she's so fast, why did she walk so slow), 2+ chant prayer (she's the embodiment of asaph after all), but no 5+ ward. I think I was maybe handing that out too freely. Again, the command ability is left off of the warscroll, will be in the faction rules instead.

again, any feedback on appearance, formatting, copy editing, or the scrolls themselves greatly appreciated.

EDIT x2: Also added tomb king on foot & royal chariot. Unfortunately, the mini pictures are limited by the quality of image I'm able to find. I'm trying to use only GW studio minis for consistency, but if I can't find better images online I'm stuck with not so great images copied from a not too high res version of the 8e battletome.

again, all feedback much appreciated. Now I really am done for the night.
 

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Sception

Master Necromancer
True Blood
Sep 23, 2009
2,714
Another side question - should I be putting together a printer-friendly black and white version of the pdf with no images, either in addition to the full color document or, for phase one at least, instead of it?
 

Sception

Master Necromancer
True Blood
Sep 23, 2009
2,714
Added a few more warscrolls.

The more I add, the more unstable the word document becomes, what with all the images and complicated tables. They also start messing with each other when I adjust things.

I'm going to stick to one scroll per page until they're all in and I'm ready to put them together. I also might have to switch to multiple word documents / pdfs, then concatenate the project together when its done.
 

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The Sun King

Moderator
Staff member
True Blood
Aug 22, 2012
4,989
Copenhagen
of anyone happens to know a better program than word for this sort of work, let me know.
InDesign is made for layoutting, but that is not free and does need a little bit of training to operate. If you are looking for something for free then maybe give Homebrewery a look?

The PDF is looking ace so far!
 

Sception

Master Necromancer
True Blood
Sep 23, 2009
2,714
Progress on project continues to be slow this week due to work issues. Even so, here's an updated pdf with the casket. Had to remind myself to stick to the canon fluff instead of replacing it with my own alternative take, per phase 1 principles. As with the tomb kings' command ability, I left off the mortuary cult's unbinding ability as something to put in the placeholder faction rules.

The Sun King - Looking at Homebrewery, I'm not sure I'd be able to use it to recreate the warscroll tables. Definitely something interesting for other projects though, thanks.

Any feedback on the fluff blubs - the little descriptions to the left under the pictures, or the italicized flavor text before ability descriptions - would be helpful. I kind of just slapped stuff in, I'm sure it could be improved significantly.
 

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Sception

Master Necromancer
True Blood
Sep 23, 2009
2,714
Sorry for the month long delay. Work has been a bear, and my steam deck finally came in, so most of my free time has been spent tinkering with that. I'm also taking some time to look into some alterntives to word, because the more of these big wonky warscroll tables I add to the file, the less stable the whole thing gets, and I feel like that's going to tumble off the edge into complete unworkability before I finish the document. If I don't find an alternative that's still fine, just means I'll have to do a separate document for each couple pages then use another utility to combine the final pdfs together at the end, but I'd rather be able to keep everything together in one file, even if it means starting the construction of that file over from scratch, since I'm not ~that~ far in yet. Anyway, the point is that the project is not abandoned and should resume in october.

In the mean time, if anybody wants to help out, the biggest thing I could use help with at the moment is the little flavor text paragraphs that appear under the pictures on the left. Every unit needs one, and while I could write them all they do take me a long time, so any help drafting blurbs would be greatly appreciated.
 
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Sception

Master Necromancer
True Blood
Sep 23, 2009
2,714
It turns out that Gimp does what I need and can output PDFs. Convenient, since I'm in the process of switching my home laptop over to Linux. Though it will probably be easier in the end to do individual pages and connect them all into a single document when I'm done. It will mean starting the warscrolls document from scratch, though I'll be able to maintain the existing graphics files at least. And it will take me some time to get blank generic documents together (minimum 2, 1 for 2 half-page warscrolls, one for a single whole-page warscroll; or maybe one full page template for a for page scroll, and two half-page templates for 2 half page scrolls, one top one bottom?), but once that's done I should be able to crank them out more smoothly, changing out text and numbers without disturbing or changing the various text boxes and alignments and thus without having to waste as much time re-fiddling everything, or agonizing over two subsequent pages being ever so slightly mis-aligned. I won't be able to start again until the second week of october, but yeah, project is still underway, even if stalled temporarily.

As previously mentioned, I would still greatly appreciate help with the small minor flavor text blurbs. If you can find pictures of GW studio models at reasonable resolutions, preferable with blank or mostly blank backgrounds, that would also be a tremendous help, at least a third of the time I spent working on the existing word document was looking for images. It's important that they be the GW studio models, unless they're your personal models, and painted in a fairly typical GW style, so we know we have permission and the end product can still look official/professional. Sadly, my own models, the few that are painted, are no good here, due to my well-below-studio painting quality, all-green-all-the-time color scheme and off-theme winter bases.
 

Sception

Master Necromancer
True Blood
Sep 23, 2009
2,714
BLuh! None! I haven't abandoned the project, but I did got distarcted by video games & holidays, distractions likely to impair visible progress until january.

In the mean time though, I would still greatly appreciate short little discription/summaries for all units of the type that appear on the sidebar of warscrolls beneath a picture of the miniature in modern battletomes.
 
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Sception

Master Necromancer
True Blood
Sep 23, 2009
2,714
Alright, working on this again. Libre office gives me a lot more control putting the pdf together, but it's tedious going, and I'm not sure how much time it will save given how much work adjusting future warscrolls around varried weapon table length will be. Still, progress is progress, however little.
 

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Sception

Master Necromancer
True Blood
Sep 23, 2009
2,714
As I get back into the swing of things it's going a bit better. I've replaced most of what was leftover from GIMP with objects in Open Office, so as to better control positioning and dimensions, & I've worked out the particular height and width of various columns and lines as needed. I know I'm still behind where the project once was back when I was using word, but the lack of control and consistency in pdfs exported from word was simply unworkable. The word file was also becoming increasingly unstable the longer it got, & to avoid repeating that problem going forward each page will be edited as an independent file, & we'll stitch the completed pdf together from the individual pages at the end. I know that's a lot of unanticipated technical bother, and I'm putting a lot of effort at this point into the boring and maybe unneccessary effort of having everything formatted ~just so~ instead of the more fun and interesting work of debating, writing, and testing rules text. But I do think it's important that the final work looks at least semi-professional. I continue to ask for everyone's patience and understanding during this rebuilding & editing phase.

Anyway, attached is what should be more or less the finished page for Settra and Khalida. Please go through with a fine tooth comb, call out spelling & grammar errors, point out places where the formatting or spacing doesn't seem right, call out anywhere that the rules wording seems wrong or non-standard for 3rd edition AoS. In particular I'm not at all satisfied with my fluff blurbs - the small text unit descriptions on the bottom left and the italics bits before each ability or bit of wargear. Please, that kind of writing isn't my area of creative expertise. We want this thing to be prestine. Heck, I want feedback on the color choices Anything you think could improve this - or rather anything apart from custom artwork, which I am absolutely too rusty to provide in anything close to a reasonable time frame, and not in a financial position to commission from anyone else.

We want random opponents to look at it and say "ooh, that looks neat, yeah I'll try a game against that," not "ugh, homebrew, no thank you." And just like they say in Megamind, the difference is presentation, anything that can be improved is worth calling out, no matter how small.

I'm attaching the pdf file only. Unfortunately the Open Office file extension (odg) isn't one of the accepted attachment formats here. However, if anyone here uses open office and wants to get in to look at the nuts & bolts to make improvements or suggestions on how I'm setting the page up, please feel free to ask me for the file, and I'll send it by email or put it up on drop box or something. This is my first time using the program, so any actual expertise would be greatly appreciated.

EDIT: bluh, slight formatting issue I caught on the previous file, here's the correction.
 

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