New units ideas

[Lachdanan]

I was reading the "Armybook Beasts of Chaos" and there the Beastmen have a spellcasing unit: the Bray-Shamans. So I thought it would be good to have them on the Beastmen faction to add more to the fun factor. They are the connection of the beastmen band with the chaos gods, it's through them that they send their orders so that the warherds do their bidding. Source: http://warhammeronline.wikia.com/wiki/Bray_Shaman.

Picture (from same source):

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Also cavalry (centigors or charriots) would be very important, imho, but I already suggested that on one thread on this forum.

[The Holy Pilgrim]

Beastmen may need a ranged unit as you say, but I'm sorry, the Gods did not gift them with that capacity. There are no ranged units in the Beasts of Chaos army book. Making their infantry more capable might be the way to go to balance it out some.

According to the Empire army book (4th through 7th Edition) the southern Provinces including Wissenland, Nuln, and Averland have been heavily influenced by nearby Tilea and include pike units in their armies. These pikes are typically somewhat smaller, although not much, and are amusingly refered to as "half-pikes". Wissenland has so many of these regiments that they actually outnumber their Imperial-mandated Halberd regiments. Since GW never made the official models you have to mod others for it But they are covered in the rules and use the same stats as halberders.

Before anyone suggests more Empire Knights: You don't need to, I think Saladin and I have it well in hand, but I dont think they will be ready by patch 1.4 release if it's gonna be the 2-3 weeks they are talkin about It's my fault, not Saladin's. He's modeling like gang-busters, but I have too many buns in the oven to keep up with him.

I second Witch Elves for the Druchii!

EDIT: OH! Chaos Trolls actually do look a bit different than Stone Trolls, I dont really think a simple reskin is gonna do it.

Here's the differences:

Chaos Troll

Stone Troll

[Vaz]

I've not yet managed to thing up a way around the Centaur difficulties - if you have an invisible steed, if they are the Captain's unit when not lead by a general, then the Champion will ride on nothing. If you have a headless horse and a legless rider, you have a captain with headless horse...

[The Holy Pilgrim]

It may be difficult, but what if they made it all one unit (like an elephant)?

[Kaliaeth Chillblade]

Thank, but I already knew the differences between the two trolls

I'd like to suggest Beastmasters riding Manticores as additional cavalry choice, and Hydra units for the Druchii as well.

The Hydra could prolly be done as an elephant with Beastmaster riders, say two Hydra to a unit?

[derdavid]

Beastmen may need a ranged unit as you say, but I'm sorry, the Gods did not gift them with that capacity. There are no ranged units in the Beasts of Chaos army book.

IN the 7 edition army book they have ungors with shortbows

[The Holy Pilgrim]

Thank, but I already knew the differences between the two trolls

I'd like to suggest Beastmasters riding Manticores as additional cavalry choice, and Hydra units for the Druchii as well.

The Hydra could prolly be done as an elephant with Beastmaster riders, say two Hydra to a unit?

Sorry for the confusion, but I was actually trying to prove your point to the person you were answering.

[Vaz]

Well, the trouble comes with breathing fire for the Hydra.

And we cannot have flying units, which is a bit... blegh. I'm not too keen on either idea, really.

I've not yet got 7th edition Beastmen. I can't find a torrent for it. =/

[The Holy Pilgrim]

Do what TheFirstONeill did for his flying units, make the hover off the ground when they fly.

Like this



Sorry for the bad quality. I had to use a shrunken picture, and I had to resize it.

[Vaz]

Fair enough. I just think it's one of those things that has to be done right - or not at all.

[Kaliaeth Chillblade]

I wasn't aware the 7th Edition Beasts of Chaos book had been released in the US yet. I haven't seen it in any of the shops here. If that's the case that it includes ungors with shortbows, then they should be included in CoW certainly.

Weren't they going to use the flame mechanic for the Flamers of Tzeentch? And if a Hydra is basically a remodeled elephant, which are amed with cannon and other sorts of nastiness, can it not be changed to use a fire-breath weapon?

[The Holy Pilgrim]

It would come out of their back, wouldn't it?

[Kaliaeth Chillblade]

I dunno..there isnt model assignments for that? When I modded for FS2 campaigns you set up "hardpoints" on the models that determined from where on the model weapons fire came from. M2TW models have to work the same, dont they? Otherwise cannon-fire could come out of a crewman's arse instead of the barrel..

I'm not much of a modeler, yet, so I dont really know.

[Saladin]

im thinking it would be in the skeleton or animation files where a projectile releases from. not sure though, just guessing.

[Vaz]

Have a look at descr_mounted_engines.txt

That's where it describes siege engines mounted onto elephant style platforms. The Missile Position is offset from a particular location. I.e the rocket elephant has the offset at +1.0 on the y axis - which if you remember - x is (a)cross, y is up, and z is through. Hence, the rocket firing emanation point originates from +1.0.

The Hardpoint system is pretty advanced - for games like Dawn of War etc, where they had tracking anims, and the like.

[Kaliaeth Chillblade]

Oh yes.. on fighter craft in FS2 there is the same system of setting the points on the models with xyz axis points. I've done that many times. Actual animated hardpoints is something we've only started doing abou 2-3 years when modellers started coming out with warship and fighter/bomber models that had animated or retractable weapons and equipment bays. If that is the case, there is no reason why the flame point(s) cant be moved to the location on the model where the heads would be when the breath weapon is used. It wouldn't necessarily be easy and would require a bit of trial and error, but a competenant modeller could do it. Shoot, I'll have a try at it of someone builds the model.

[Vaz]

Sorry, nope. Doesn't work like that. M2TW is easy to mod basically, but the rest is hardcoded, and severely limited.

There's a huge difference between 40-50 10K poly units on the battlefield, compared to 4000 2K poly's. That's 16 times the poly count, so they went for the simple route with the engine. It's not a hardpoint, merely an emanation cube reference.

The head would need to be timed to fire at that same point each and every time, which would look a bit strange tbh.

[TheXand]

mercenary - Commander Bernhardt general cavalry unit, Grudgebringer sword and shield infantry units as his recruitable mercs.

Some merc units should be recruitable across the good factions and not just culture specific. As mentioned in another place Dwarves employed human mercenaries in both SOTHR and Dark Omen.

In Mark of Chaos Empire could recruit dwarven mercenaries.

I second these suggestions.

[Malanthor]

Abouth units, are all the chaos factions supposed to have just abouth the same units besides chosen of X? I thought they were supposed to not have access to eachothers daemons etc.. but then i could be wrong as i dont have a single rulebook from the old ages.

[Vaz]

They do when they become Chaos Undivided.