The Hardcore Fantasy Battle campaign - An Expansion for Beginning of the End Times

[boatie]

No problem and merry christmas to you and your family!!!!!

Skyrim has sucked all my time. That game totally lives up to the hype. Btw, where is that Warhammer Skyrim mod!

[Kahvipannu]

Yeah, noticed you have been really busy with Sundering Good is worth waiting, tought waiting such thing is never easy

[Reiksfart]

Now 1.5 is released I will be able to start on all the coding really soon. I'm almost done with my work on The Sundering, which is playing really well with the Fantasy Battle Tabletop system plus the Heroes system in place. Fun stuff and quite a challenge on the battlefield on medium difficulty.

I would hope by the end of January I will have something close to a release for testing by a few willing members.

[paradamed]

Good news!

[Ruckulf]

Sounds great! Looking forward to it.

[Reiksfart]

I decided to use the 'Dwarfs of Chaos' army book to replace the orcs and goblins horde used by the CoW team for the chaos dwarf faction.

Tentative list from the book; special rules not included in list

Chaos Dwarf Warriors; Hand weapon, Heavy armour, Shields ; 9 points
Chaos Dwarf Warriors; Great Axes, Chaos Armour ; 13 points
Chaos Dwarf Annihilators; Hand Weapon, Heavy Armour, Blunderbuss ; 12 points
Chaos Dwarf Obsidian Guard ; Chaos Armour, Great weapons ; 15 points

Hobgoblins; Hand weapon, Light Armour, Shield; 4 points
Hobgoblins; Spear, Shield, Light Armour; 5 points
Hobgoblin Stikkas; Hand weapon, bow, light armour; 5 points
Hobgoblin Wolf Riders; Hand weapon, light Armour, Bows ; 14 points
Hobgoblin Wolf Riders; Spears, Shields, Light Armour ; 14 points
Hobgoblin Sneaky Gits; Two hand weapons ; 6 points

Rabble (slaves); Mix of human, elf and whatever else shares the same animation. ; Hand weapon, shields ; 3 points

Plus all the artillery already in CoW.

Then we have units which will be more difficult to model, and animations might be a problem;

Inferno Golems
Daemoneaters (kind of a chariot without beasts pulling it. Would act like a steam tank without gun)
Bull centaurs - very possible to do, will have to take a look in the future. Not likely to be in first release.
Priests of Hashut
Other chaos dwarf and hobgoblin heroes

To me that is more of a chaos dwarf army, even without all the harder to implement models. I dislike the current list that's used in CoW, way too many greenskins. All other greenskins hate hobgoblins, so doesn't make much sense.

Thoughts?

[machotacoman]

I think bringing the factions "closer to codex" is an improvement so by all means. However the CD have been overpowered and in my campaign, I reduced their kings purse from 5000 to 2500 so they don't take over Kislev so easily.

[Tyraels]

Great ..its a good thing to revamp the CD roster ..i hope u will make a release before starting those new objectives ? it's very frustrating not playing for months and months with your job ! (since the last release u deleted) . Continue your good job, it's the best sub-mod with sundering and tomb kings from far

[Reiksfart]

Not sure what will be in first release. Not all models I had planned, that's for sure. Campaign is the priority at the moment and once that is done, balanced and play tested with as many new models as I have working in game, I'll release first version. Then I can work on models again and try to get around some issues with the chaos mammoth due to animation.

Talking of the campaign, would it be worth me adding a sandbox campaign for this mod? No sign of the Real Warhammer sandbox so might be worth adding. I prefer the more frantic gameplay of original CoW, so it wouldn't be for myself. Removing scripts is simple but I'd have to learn the rest.

Machotacoman, what the chaos dwarfs need is a real enemy, one that hits them hard like the orcs do the dwarfs. Keep them busy. Sounds like CD wern't given many or any scripts for their campaign. I'm not so sure CD should be allied with chaos undivided either. Some would be, but not the main faction. They worship Hashut who is a lesser chaos god and likely to be bullied around by the big four.

[Tyraels]

Sandbox is campaign without scripts ? if its this thing , will the merceneraries and exceptionnal units be recruitable on barracks ?

[Reiksfart]

No, those scripts would stay. Sandbox would be free diplomacy and war/ally with who you want with no scripted invasions. Not what I find fun, but might as well cater to those who do enjoy it.

[Tyraels]

hmm ok , thanks for precisions .

[Reiksfart]

Post 2 updated

Change log, progress and plans

Current Fantasy Battle EDU Version 0.9 100% complete for 1.44, in the process of building and testing 1.5 version with the newer updated ruleset.

Orc Spears removed from game due to animation which makes them useless without ramping up their attack value to massive levels, which then in turn can easily kill units which they should not be effective against.

Regiments of Renown no longer recruitable once you hire their services. They are supposed to be one off regiments, but for gameplay purposes they come in varying numbers, from a small army for the Grudgebringers to just a few units or even just a single unit led by their powerful leader. These will all be free of upkeep since you already paid for their services when they offered it.

Mage units for all factions are no longer ridiculously overpowered. New 'spells' for all. Very effective, but will not win any battles on their own. Possibility they will be recruitable in a new building at capitals. Needs testing for balance.

Elements of TWMadman's High Elf and Dark Elf enhanced mods added. Thanks for the permission.

Ideas for artillery effectiveness, improved by myself, from RedDwarfs Dwarven Forge mod.

Taking inspiration from '1648' mod, new smoke and firing effects for all gunpowder units. Nothing will be copied and may not be as good, so will look forward to the time we can use their effects in CoW.

Replacement textures for Nurgle and Tzeentch by myself. Now I have seen the new textures in CoW 1.5 I am confident mine are an improvement. Still yet to decide about the khorne textures.

New banners (those held by a soldier, not the huge flag above a unit which I turn off) for Tzeentch, Khorne and Nurgle.

More new custom battle maps to add to the collection of 30 I released last year. Included in mod.

Kahvipannu's mercenaries and other work either included in this mod or compatible and required to install first.

New faction in subsequent release; Ogre Kingdoms.

Sandbox campaign.

Alliance between Chaos Dwarfs and other chaos factions removed. Dwarfs of Chaos army book is used for their army list. No more orcs, goblins or black orcs in their roster. Replaced by slaves.

New music.

[Peltast]

I don't see why mercenaries of all people should be free of upkeep as what you pay is just an up-front retainer and they should require refreshers for continual services. Doesn't make sense that they'd just fight for now to annihilation after the initial payment, though with no recruitment that shouldn't be a terribly long time.

If it's a gameplay balance decision it's a different matter.

[Reiksfart]

Added my previously unreleased textures and some older ones from my old stinkers mod. Dropping some until I can make new models, such as daemon slayers and dragon slayers.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Will add old unit cards or make new ones too, the new chaos cards all look too similar. In my opinion. At least they saved me a lot of work implementing all the different textures and battlemod.db info by using my old submods ideas. Saved me a lot of time, so much I wasn't even going to add separate DB, buildings and EDU entries for the chaos warriors/marauders for 1.5.

Must say I do like their new slaanesh warrior/chosen textures, so I don't feel the need to ever finish mine. Might include the helm textures which I'd already made previously. That's if I can match the colouring.

[Reiksfart]

An old banner I never released. Need to do some modelling to improve the top of those chaos banners.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[paradamed]

It would be cool if all the slayers would have the new hair you created.

[Reiksfart]

I don't know yet, I need to test it. Adds a lot of triangles to the model which might hit the frame rate. If it does lower frame rate with half a dozen slayer units I'll just have to add the new hair to slayer characters.

[Gryffon]

This is stunning Reiksfark
But is it planned for 1.4.4 (Gigantus version?) or 1.5 ? And do you have an aproximative first release date ?

[paradamed]

I don't know yet, I need to test it. Adds a lot of triangles to the model which might hit the frame rate. If it does lower frame rate with half a dozen slayer units I'll just have to add the new hair to slayer characters.

Maybe is it possible to lower the polygon count and add a similar effect with some transparent areas in the texture.