MA Skavenblight 1.15 hotfix

[Sombre]

PREVIEW IMAGE.

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/picture.php?albumid=36&pictureid=271

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/picture.php?albumid=36&pictureid=272

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/picture.php?albumid=36&pictureid=273

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/picture.php?albumid=36&pictureid=274

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/picture.php?albumid=36&pictureid=275

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/picture.php?albumid=36&pictureid=276

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----Uses ID numbers

--armor 318-320

--weapons 660-689

--monsters 2540-2586

--sites 993-5

--nation 73

--nametype 148

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-- version 1.15

-- TWEAK - Plague Priest picks evened out at 100% DB not 50/50, increased second pick to 30% not 20

-- TWEAK - Keeper of Pillars now 125 points, not 175

-- FIX - Thanquol got the correct baseprot

-- FIX - bubonic sceptre no longer lost when equipping arch plaguelord, no longer drains life when it instakills

-- TWEAK - Seerlord gets 5 researchbonus




-- version 1.1

-- CONTENT - Tretch Craventail Hero added

-- TWEAK - Improved Pitbreeding now B2E1

-- TWEAK - Plague Rats now 5 for 7 (were 10 for 13)

-- TWEAK - Rat Ogres now use normal bite and claw and have boosted strength

-- FIX - Warpblades and weeping blades now magical

-- CONTENT - Doomflayer weapons team + summoning spell added

-- CONTENT - Arch Plaguelord pretender choice added

-- CONTENT - Keeper of the Pillar pretender choice added

-- FIX - Doomwheel summon no longer a commander

-- TWEAK - Eshin Shuriken +1 ammo (now 4)

-- TWEAK - Removed the 'mass production' versions of skryre spells and greatly increased magetime requirements

-- TWEAK - Warlock and Warlock Engineer picks made more consistent, warlock now +2 RP (was +1), engineer +3 (was +1)

-- TWEAK - Grey Seer leadership reduced

-- TWEAK - Basic commander/scout costs changed to reflect the opportunity cost of a fort turn

-- TWEAK - No more slave autospawn for chieftains

-- CONTENT - Warp Static 'buff' spell added

-- TWEAK - Moulder blood summons made more mage intensive

-- TWEAK - Packmasters now summon a pack of 10 rats at the start of battle, as well as training them via summon allies

-- TWEAK - Heroes stats further boosted, especially hp - numerous other minor tweaks

-- TWEAK - Single slaves now a recruitable option, with sensible bonus given to groups

-- TWEAK - Plague Rat now has same name as giant rat to allow fooling scout reports

-- TWEAK - Boneripper given recuperation and better prot + now autosummoned in combat + not unique means doesn't carry over injuries

-- TWEAK - Death Frenzy now mr negates to avoid frenzying your casters

-- TWEAK - Skyre troops have boosted mr to deflect death frenzy - slaves etc have less

-- TWEAK - Fortune Teller values brought closer to line with vanilla

-- TWEAK - Warplightning now greenish




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SKAVEN 1.0

-- FIX - Skrolk now in hero slot 6

-- TWEAK - Upped some stealth values

-- FIX - Reordered unit ID numbers

-- TWEAK - Seerlord pretender now cheap

-- TWEAK - Warlords autosummon sword armed clanrats rather than stormvermin

-- TWEAK - Rat Ogres lost a claw attack but also have much lower gold upkeep

-- TWEAK - Made eshin shuriken a bit worse in light of the power of poison missiles

-- TWEAK - Added little bit of head prot for eshin troops

-- FIX - No more screaming bell multiheroes

-- CONTENT - Added Cauldron of a Thousand Poxes commander and spell to summon it

-- FIX - Leadership values sorted out

-- CONTENT - Added Skitterleap spell

-- FIX - Changed name and epithet to better suit dominions

-- FIX - Changed .dm name and mod folder name to fit my new conventions


SKAVEN 0.9

-- removed copystats for the majority of units and stuck in appropriate darkvision values instead

-- removed the stinking fur fix used to get around shields added by now defunct copystatting, freeing up armour slot 321

-- checked IDs against my other MA nations and against CBM complete 1.21, no conflicts

-- Onebattlespells - Snikch (darkness), Thanquol (Twist fate), Seerlord (twist fate), Ikit Claw (Charge Body), Verminlord (divine blessing), Screaming Bell (fanaticism)


SKAVEN 0.8


-- Throt and Verminlord added

-- Many stat tweaks to skaven commanders, some pretty much reworked entirely

-- Death frenzy changed, now smaller aoe, less range, less likely to hit casters

-- Warpfire throwers slightly nerfed, casting costs tweaked

-- Various spell tweaks

-- Lots of other things I can't even remember but are totally rad



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SKAVEN NATION 0.7

Nation now has 5 heroes, one unique heroic summon. They are 1 hero short of being complete on that front, namely Throt the Unclean.

There are numerous other tweaks, most notably to the Poison Wind Globadier and the Plague Censer bearer. I strongly suggest trying these units out, because they are far better/more interesting than in previous versions. Even a small number of Censers with death and nature bless are truly nasty.

The Screaming Bell, Doomwheel and Boneripper all have semi finished but functional graphics, so please don't judge me on the quality of those units ;]


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SKAVEN NATION 0.6

Various tweaks. Skaven are now a slightly better blood hunting nation. They now have appropriate names.

New content: A new hero, Deathmaster Snikch. A1 magic and great assassin stats.

Enjoy.

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I've decided to have a go at bringing the skaven nation from warhammer fantasy battles over to dominions. I will be careful to avoid 'stealing' anything from the games workshop, such as graphics etc. This will simply be a tribute to their excellent games and miniatures.


STRENGTHS

1. Very good magical diversity, research and battlemagic
2. Numbers! Life is cheap to the Skaven
3. Stealth armies, assassins and spies
4. Many powerful experimental summons in construction
5. Good blood summons and solid blood economy


WEAKNESSES

1. Awful troop morale
2. Serious weakness against missile fire
3. Little conventional missile fire of their own
4. Their best weapons and spells are prone to backfire
5. Lack strong expansion elites

[Sombre]

Oh and one important point - I'm going to 'rush' the graphics somewhat to speed up the project. That means when I make the first release, the graphics won't be at their final version - they'll be beta so to speak. They should still be distinctive and look ok, but they won't be as pretty as say, Arga Dis or the Tharoon.

In a way I figure that's ok, since the skaven are supposed to be tattered and grimy looking, not pretty and colourful like High Elves or Empire.

[DrPraetorious]

I think Frank had such a nation half-finished. "Nimh" it was called (my suggestion, ahyuck.)

In one era he would hijack MA C'tis dominion power - but with the exception of some non-inanimate undead (plague monks) none of your units were cold-blooded or disease immune http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

It was amusing, anyway.

Feedback:
Partial poison resistance works as far as I can tell, but I do believe that it rounds up, so poison resistance < 100% is no good against 1 poison damage/turn. Not sure of this, however.
I don't think you can, presently at least (and probably ever) mod negative side effects onto weapons, at least in general terms. A large area of effect melle weapon will occasionally hit the wielder (and often hit allies when used in dense formation.) I think that might be the best you can do.
The plague monk should be undead (but not inanimate or mindless), as should the censor bearer. That way, they are immune to their own disease clouds.
That's a lot of spawning. Frank had his nimhians spawn regular rats, as I recall. Of course, he deviated a lot from Warhammer.

Anyway, look forward to the mod!

[Sombre]

If I give plague monks poison immunity they won't be hurt by the poison clouds of the censor bearers or poison wind globadiers, so there's no need to make them undead.

As for negative side effects on weapons,... which unit did you think I'd need that for?

It is a lot of spawning, but the spawns aren't dombased - most likely something like a summon2 or so. That way you don't build up a spawning machine, it's just something to make the leaders more useful and reinforce that skaven have numbers always on their side. It's good for the AI too, since they like to use lesser commanders.

Slight change to the above list - Night Runners are now the stealthy ones with nets,.. and gutter runners get poisoned weapons/throwing stars instead.

[lch]

Ohhh, and I already have an idea for a national hero, again... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

http://www.actionplanet.com/TMNTPAGE-1s.jpg

(yes, it's Splinter... maybe he could spawn/call Kappas/Rain warriors? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif)

[CelestialGoblyn]

Awesome, I can't wait!
Oh yes, how about making all skaven units have the 'glutton' quality? That way a skaven army will eat 2x as much supplies.
Sure, it's potentially unbalancing, but very in character.

Oh, and the idea of your dominion giving diseases while your troops aren't immune to them is also awesome...

[lch]

CelestialGoblyn said:
Oh, and the idea of your dominion giving diseases while your troops aren't immune to them is also awesome...


True, I like the idea of rats fleeing from their own dominion... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Sombre]

I don't think it's doable without overwriting Ctis MA.

I'm pretty sure the skaven are going to have food problems anyway what with their sheer numbers, lack of nature magic and spawns you can't turn off. I might well give a couple of key units gluttony though. Possibly increase unrest too.

If I get the tharoon beta released tomorrow I should be able to get quite a lot of graphical work done for the skaven and I'll do a little preview.

[CelestialGoblyn]

Say, Tha'roon mod sounds interesting too. But have you ever thought of modding Eaggra from the same game?

[Sombre]

Yeah, I plan on doing all 4 of the warwind races, time permitting. I have eaggra all planned, but the graphics are quite hard - haven't done anything like them before.

[Salamander8]

Yay Skaven!

I love these guys from my old WFB days. They were one of my personal favorites even with friendly casualties to the poisoned wind globes, and the warp-fire throwers, and.... well you get the idea. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

I also like the idea of the warwind races. I had a good time with those, and especially liked the Eaggra. Can't wait to see your work! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

[Shovah32]

*hugs sombre til his eyes pop out* Seriously, thanks for this. Cant wait to try it.

[Sombre]

Attached to this post should be a preview of the graphics I've basically finished so far. They aren't quite up to my usual quality, but the speed/quality tradeoff was worth it I think.

So there you have.

Basic Clanrat (sword, shield, red is basic clan colour)
Night Runner (net, sword, black clan colours)
Gutter Runner (poisoned blades, poisoned shuriken, black)
Assassin (dual baneblades, black)
Packmaster (whip, clan moulder yellow and red colours)
Poison Wind Globadier (Poison tank, globe, gasmask, blue robes of Skyre)

I've picked the colour coding to make the units more distinctive. These aren't 'official' Warhammer skaven clan colours, but I'm sticking to them. Plague Monks will get green robes or possibly purple.

[BandarLover]

This is looking too cool Sombre! And you're right, these graphics may be 'beta' but I love the grimy, dirty look of the units. As far as I'm concerned, they look done. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Looking forward to this like everyone else.

[Sombre]

So what you're saying is, they're doity rats?

[Ballbarian]

Looks very cool Sombre! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Zarkon]

Ha ha! I can't wait to start killing off my rat armies with well placed censor bearers, plague monks & globadiers...is there really any greater joy than friendly fire?

[Sombre]

Attached is a second preview showing a few things I've been working on, namely the Screaming Bell, Stormvermin, Plague Monk and Censor Bearer.

I'm sorry about the size, I have to use .bmp because .gif can't handle that many colours and the units get all messed up.

Most of these units are still a bit rough, but the Screaming Bell is a special case because it's much further from being finished than the rest. I just thought I'd show you the shape of the thing.

The Censor bearer is in there twice because I can't decide if I like the version with a gas cloud around the 'flail' or not. I might redo it.

[DigitalSin]

With the gas, with the gas! Much shinier:D!

[Szumo]

Nice, can't wait for the final version.

[BandarLover]

*Jaw drop*

Freaking.....



Awesome

[llamabeast]

Also very excited indeed about this.

About poison immunity: I haven't double checked, but I don't think there's any reason to think it doesn't work. Check the manual about how poison damage works. Essentially poison weapons apply a certain amount of "poison damage", 10% of which (rounded up) gets converted to real damage each round. So, lets say 10 poison damage is applied to two units: Unit A has no poison immunity, Unit B has 50% immunity. Both of them will start taking 1 damage per round, but Unit B will only take it for 5 rounds (total of 5 damage), whereas Unit A will take it for the full 10 rounds (total of 10 damage).

Hope that makes sense. So you can usefully give them poison immunity.

[Sombre]

I believe you're right when the poison damage is coming from weapons and is like 10 or so damage. It will slowly be dealt until it's all done.

But when it's a poison cloud that does very little damage, just several shots of 1 or 2 points, the immunity doesn't seem to be that helpful.

Anyway, I've been playing around with plague monks right now and I think I might have made them a bit too good. They get three attacks at the moment, which makes them excellent vs high def troops - that's something I may well have to change.

Here are the stats.

----Plague Monk

#newmonster 2146
#copystats 1010
#clearmagic#clearmagic#clearmagic
#spr1 "./Skaven/Plague Monk.tga"
#spr2 "./Skaven/Plague Monk2.tga"
#name "Pestilens Plague Monk"
#descr "Plague Monks form the bulk of Clan Pestilens' troops. They wear tattered robes and bandages to cover their disease ridden, sore-covered and horribly scarred bodies. So used are they to constant pain and disease that it appears to affect them not at all, indeed it is taken as a sign of their God's blessing and they must be hacked to pieces before they will cease fighting, such is their fanatical zeal. They are constantly surrounded by both putrid stench and clouds of flies which bite and distract their opponents; furthermore they have been exposed to so many toxins and poisons that they have become nearly immune to them."
#hp 13
#size 2
#prot 3
#mor 9
#mr 10
#enc 3
#str 9
#att 10
#def 11
#prec 8
#mapmove 2
#ap 15
#gcost 9
#rcost 1
#weapon "short sword"
#weapon 699
#weapon "Fly Swarm"
#poisonres 80
#stealthy 0
#maxage 30
#berserk 1
#siegebonus 1
#swampsurvival
#end

As you can see, they have 80% poison immunity. Most skaven have between 30-50%. The Globadiers have 70.

Flyswarm is a 1 AN damage capped weapon that counts as poison, so doesn't work on poison immune stuff like undead. Weapon 699 is 'pestilens bite' and is a -1 attack, -1 def, -1 damage (+ strength) bite which has the secondary effect of disease.

The Censer bearer is giving me trouble due to buggy mod commands. Basically I'm going to bite the bullet and just give them a perm poison cloud rather than aoe poison melee attacks ala snake bladder stick. They still whomp all kinds of *** with berserk 3 and great offensive stats (for a skaven) along with a high damage weapon that gets a bonus vs shields. Like the monks though, they do die quick if they get hit/shot.

Right now my favourite unit is gutter runners. They're expensive and pretty fragile, but they can kill the hell out of enemy elites with all that poison and skill.

[Sombre]

The latest cool thing in the mod is a change I made to the skavenslaves.

Now it's pretty clear in warhammer that routing skavenslaves should have no effect on the morale of clanrats, stormvermin etc - they are expendable chaff only expected to absorb fire and tie up units. The problem is that with the Dom3 morale system, which has your army rout once it's taken a set percentage of casualties, losing hordes of chaff to arrow fire etc is very likely to make your real troops scurry off the battlefield.

So faced with this problem I came up with a neat solution, which appears to have very few drawbacks. I made it so you buy the skavenslaves in sets of 3 - 3 of them counts as one monster for purposes of leadership and casualties in game. It has graphics that show 3 slaves standing together. Now when it takes damage, it changes into a set of 2 slaves together, with appropriate graphics. And finally when that takes damage, it turns into a single skaven slave on his own. The group of 3 and 2 slaves has a size of 3 to keep them a bit more spaced out - 2 slaves have 2 club attacks with ambidex to represent the two skaven swinging away, and 3 slaves have the same - 2 attacks because the third skaven isn't close enough to melee attack - just like if you had swarms of size 2 units really.

This causes a slight problem - as size 3, they can't be trampled by minotaurs, maybe some other things. A very minor problem though, I think.

The main goal is, I believe, a total success - you can field these chaff/useless milita which take time for the enemy to kill, but shouldn't end up routing your entire army.

[llamabeast]

That sounds very neat Sombre, nice one.

A couple of minor things: Normally if there are three size 2 units in a square, all three of them can attack (even though one is drawn further back). So your three-skavenslave unit should have three attacks I think.

Also with the sizes: If the three-slave unit is size 3, two of them will fit in a square, giving you 6 slaves in a sqaure, which seems a bit much (I assume skaven are size 2?).

Perhaps you could make them the following sizes:

Three-slave: Size 4
Two-slave: Size 3
Single-slave: Size 2

Then the most rats you could ever cram into a square would be 4, and that would be in unusual circumstances - mostly you would only get three to a square. The disadvantage is trampling though, like you say (although it doesn't affect many units). Also the three-slave and two-slave units will be a little better at arrow-dodging than they should be (since they won't fill the squares), but I think that is less of a problem. To make the arrow catching correct you should make the three-slave unit size 6, but that would make them elephant-immune, which seems much more wrong.

[Morkilus]

This sounds very cool, and the sprites are sweet. I'm looking forward to this!

As far as the rats being trample-proof: Aren't elephants supposed to be afraid of mice? I think it's an old cartoon myth.

[Sombre]

Well you can say that skavenslaves are somewhere between size 1 and 2. Skaven themselves are smaller than humans and slaves are generally the smallest of them and are pretty malnourished.

I had the 3slaves block with 3 attacks and because 2 of them fit into a square they got too many attacks and were a bit too good at killing things. If I keep them at size 3, they can surge forward and fill in a square with 6 skaven, but only 4 attacks can be made, so it's not much better than regular size 2 units. It is better though, slight advantage. You get the same number of attacks with 2 blocks of 2 slaves too.

I think I'll keep it as is (the numbers in the square can be accounted for by the skavenslaves surging forward/backward, keeping close together) and make sure they have crummy attack stats and can't do too much damage.

But in the future I may need to fiddle with it a bit more.

I'll try attaching a picture, just in case the attachments are actually working now. It will be a gif, so reduced quality in a tradeoff for small size.

[Sombre]

Damnit. I can't seem to get this picture uploaded anywhere. Anyway, in game the graphics look really good. I'm also very happy with the way the giant rat turned out - it's slightly bigger than it should be perhaps, but I didn't want them to be too crappy in stats, so I'm happy with the size.

Here's an image of the slaves that should hopefully work. .gif, so reduced quality as always. Shows them on the map, in battle, in recruit, the sprites,.... basic but look good enough.

http://www.mediafire.com/imageview.php?quickkey=84xxx2ydwzj&thumb=4

[llamabeast]

Nice, that does indeed look very cool.

[Sombre]

And here's a little pic of my giant ratties. I might downsize them a touch, they're currently bigger than the skaven. A result of the dom3 wolf I used for a size comparison being very large.

http://www.mediafire.com/imageview.php?quickkey=8tw1dxg0y1n&thumb=4

[llamabeast]

They certainly look nasty. Um, I'm not sure, but I imagined rats being closer to the ground than that, if you see what I mean. They seem to be standing erect on long legs.

[Sombre]

Yeah, they could do with a trim. Still in beta I guess.

[Theonlystd]

I R impatiently waiting for this mod =p

[Sombre]

The first release won't be that far off. It will be out within the month, I'd say. Not finished, just a first version to play.

The finished product will take longer, because it's a very varied nation will a whole lotta stuff and some hard to do graphics.

[llamabeast]

Great, really looking forward to it.

I wonder if the giant rat might be a little thin too. It's definitely thinner than I expceted, but then I guess skaven rats aren't going to be the healthiest.

I know these are just beta pictures by the way, but I figured I might as well give comments anyway. You can always take no notice if I just say something you already knew.

[Sombre]

You picky bastard ;P

It's a starved rat and it's stylised. But I've altered the sprite a bit and it's somewhat smaller, less long legged and thin looking now.

I don't mind comments on the pictures at all. I go a bit graphic blind after spending time making them and can't tell if they look weird.

[llamabeast]

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

Cool cool, can we see the new rat?

[Sombre]

Yeah, ok. Would be easier if attachments worked.

http://www.mediafire.com/imageview.php?quickkey=95rgnzbgonw&thumb=4

Here it is on mediafire. The old one is on the right. As you can see, little bit shorter, little bit fatter. The attack sprite is a bit funny looking, but who cares? They only show up for a brief second anyway.

[llamabeast]

Nice, looks good. I think the attack animation is fine as well.

[Sombre]

Oh and llama you should get in the dom3 irc channel sometime.

[llamabeast]

Why, do you go on it often?

[Sombre]

Yeah, good place to talk about CBM a bit, get some suggestions. It would be good to see more people on there with mod knowledge.

Tonight I'll try to get the code done for the wizards and priests.

Plague Chantor
Plague Priest
Warlock
Warlock Engineer
Grey Seer

The Grey Seer is significantly more powerful magically than the others.

[llamabeast]

Ah now, I've just been having a little think about the kind of magic skaven should have.

I can't remember the details from warhammer (and I think I've probably a few editions out of date anyway), but as I remember skaven are big on things like poison and disease, weakening enemy troops and evocations. Probably they like risky/unreliable things as well. I'm not quite sure about any of this, it's just the feel I imagine them having.

I wonder if they should not have too much earth magic. I say that because almost all the important earth battle spells (apart from blade wind) are buffs. I imagine the skaven as being too callous about their own kind to go to much effort with buffs. Things like Legions of Steel, Marble Warriors and things don't feel right to me. I'm not quite sure I can imagine them making mechanical men and stuff either (although I know they are big on crazy inventions, so maybe I'm not right there). E1 along with fire would be good though (for magma spells, charcoal shield etc). Just a thought anyway.

I think it would be cool if they had a few national battle spells. For example, I imagine they really should have some poison spells, but all the normal poison spells are nature magic. How about giving them some poison evocations in death? Maybe one or two small AOE ones, and a battlefield-wide foul vapours equivalent. Feels kind of skaveny to me. Because they don't have nature they couldn't make their own troops immune to the poison, so they'd kill themselves in droves as well - also feels skaveny!

They could also have an MR disease spell. And perhaps a Weaken spell as well. Generally things to be nasty and unpleasant to enemy troops.

What do you think? I'd be up for having a play with these perhaps. Maybe I can have a little mess around and give you what I come up with, which you can then change/discard.

Looking forward to seeing what you come up with for the mages and priests.

[Sombre]

In terms of national spells, to start with they are going to have at least one warp lightning spell which uses lightning but isn't air magic in any way shape or form, at least one plague/disease/poison spell which doesn't use water or nature and possibly a copy of the crossbreeding spell with slightly different path costs so it can be used by lucky moulder leaders (they will have some kind of rare NB random I think). The plague priests may well also get NB randoms of some kind - I might even allow the nation to blood sacrifice, should they somehow get enough bloodslaves to do so.

Basically though, the main skaven paths are EFDS. The Grey seers get minor EF with good DS. The warlocks get EF with possible but unlikely D. The pestilens leaders get D.

There will be summons in the construction school which are EF, ED, DF etc - the warlock schools. There will also be the high level construction summon The Screaming Bell, which will require Grey Seer magic. The Doomwheel, also in construction, will require a lucky warlock magic selection or the magic of the pretender, or empowerment/boosters of some kind to use.

I might put Moulder summons in death/nature/blood, I haven't given those spells much thought - mostly they are just called in by Moulder leaders using summon allies or auto spawning.

[llamabeast]

Ah, sounds like you've got it well under control, that sounds fantastic.

[Kristoffer O]

I think earth, fire and death sounds nice. Skaven are pretty much into warpstone, warp-fire and stuff that have similarities with banefire and baneblades of dominions. I would probably go for warp-fire national DF spells with decay effects.

Construction of mechanical stuff feels pretty skaven to me. They have warlock-engineers, so acess to mechanical and clockwork horrors seems fitting. Warpstone powered mechanics are quite skavenesque I'd say. Doomwheel is warpstone powered, right?

Clan moulder (is that the name of the mutator clan?) should have B1N1, so they can perform crossbreeding http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif National 'rat ogre crossbreeding' spell on blood magic seems fitting as well, if you don't want rat ogres as recruitables.

Perhaps Blood to get Vermin Lord as well, unless you make them conjuration or pretenders.

I'm not sure about astral. On the one hand skaven are into Morrsleib (or whatever the warpstone moon is called), and predictions of it's course (That might not have been skaven, but other chaos cults. Can't remember. More than ten years since I played WHFRP). On the other hand they seems more concerned with destroying nature here and now, than looking into the stars.

I think I would go DFEBN. Blood and nature mostly to get crossbreds. Poison is fitting, but can possibly be replaced by more fitting warp poison DF spells that causes decay instead of poison. Similar effect, but not possible to resist with ordinary poison resistance.

BTW nice work, I'm eagerly waiting your final product. I have always liked the WH world. Especially the darker parts of it. Come to think about it, it is a bit dominionesque in being quite close to history. I guess that has unwittingly inspired me in my development of the dominion world.

[llamabeast]

Nice post. I guess actually I'm probably wrong about the earth magic, at least in so far as clockwork horrors and stuff might actually be quite in keeping with skaven crazy engineers.

I think I agree with pretty much everything in the last two posts actually. I hadn't realised how much warhammer i'd forgotten. Warpstone and warp lightning had completely slipped my mind! The only thing I'm unsure about is nature magic. Maybe they could have the odd N1 random for cross breeding as you suggested Sombre, but I think more than that would be a bit unthematic, as they're hardly in tune with nature.

This project definitely gets the current prize for "thing llamabeast is most excited about". http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Sombre]

I'll post a bit more tomorrow when I should have more to report - for now I will simply say that the astral is restricted to the Grey Seers and has to do with their famed prognostication and general interest in metamagic.

So far I've taken the nature away from Pestilens - they are majoring in death, minoring in blood. Moulder on the other hand might still get random access to low level nature.

Oh and the master Warlock hero (based on Ikkit) will have completely random other magic to go with his standard FED, because Ikkit could choose any school of magic in the entire game. The Chosen Grey Seer (aka Thanquol) will be more traditional, but will be rocking the astral something fierce.

[Szumo]

Thanquol should have built in luck, if it's possible to mod http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

What about other special heroes? Deathmaster would fit well i think.

I'm a little worried about blood though - making Skaven a blood nation feels somehow unthematic. I'd rather expect them to have air magic instead - to use lightning spells.

What kind of pretenderer chassis do you want to set as available for them?

[Shovah32]

Skaven wont be a blood nation, they will have minor blood capabilities(is MA vanheim called a blood nation?). Air magic just dosnt feel right for a skaven nation(they live underground, crawling in pollution) so, iirc, sombre is modding in some warp lightning spells they will be able to use.

[Sombre]

Yep. Shovah has it.

This is what I'm thinking re: heroes.

Multiheroes:

Warlord Champion (great thug, spawns stormvermin/clanrats)

A Verminlord (very powerful greater daemon of the horned rat - magic and melee, an obvious SC - one of the most powerful things in warhammer, so must be good)


Heroes:

Deathmaster Assassin (3 weeping blades - holds one with his tail, glamour, awesome stats. but costs you high gold upkeep)
Chosen Grey Seer (boosted seer magic and stats, prevents bad events, increases unrest, can summon a rat ogre bodyguard)
Master Warlock (boosted Warlock Engineer, summons warp lightning throwers, some form of availability to every magic in the game - random or maybe 1 level in each)
Plague Lord (powerful thug, h3 priest, great death magic)
Breed Lord (three armed thug, summons/spawns all moulder creations)

[Theonlystd]

So am i reading it right? Will some hire able commanders be able to spawn units or are those just all heros your thinking about? I was going to recommend something being able to at least Spawn Slaves/or whatever fodder unit the race has..

Also donno how closely your going by the books and such.. But was actually reading a Warhammer book that dealt extensively with the Skaven.. And well anyone besides the Plague Monks prolly shouldnt have Poison Resistance .. The Skaven own Gas Weapons killed em in the book rather effectively




Btw did i mention cant wait to play this? :p

[Shovah32]

I dont think they will all have poison resistance as killing friendlies is what skaven do best http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif. A small amount of poison resistance could represent the horrible conditions they live in though. I think he will have recruitable commanders who spawn units which is another very skaven thing, particularly for clan moulder.

[Theonlystd]

Shovah32 said:
I dont think they will all have poison resistance as killing friendlies is what skaven do best http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif. A small amount of poison resistance could represent the horrible conditions they live in though. I think he will have recruitable commanders who spawn units which is another very skaven thing, particularly for clan moulder.



Haha yea.

I just reread his first few posts. He already has the commanders spawning stuff covered guess i should of reread the thread first. And appears he also giving all Skaven 25% poison Resistance which isnt much and could be as you said crappy liviing conditions..

[Sombre]

Work continues,.. slowly,...

I'm real busy for the next couple of weeks. Overseeing oral exams for huge numbers of students.

Anyway, today I was messing about with graphics for the rat ogre. I copied one of the old models, but I didn't like it. Then I tried a fully furred one, thinking it would be easier and it looked like a big brown mess. So finally I based one on some concept art and it's looking ok. Like many of the skaven graphics it's not finished, but a certain rough and ready look to Skaven units seems appropriate anyway.

If attachments work, it should be attached, standing next to a minotaur for size comparison.

[Sombre]

Good, attachments do work now.

Rat Ogres will be called up by Master Moulders and possibly by a blood spell of some sort. Their stats are pretty fierce - claws and bite, str 16,.. problem is only that they have mor 9 and only att 10. They have 17ap too, so they can really shift.

[Sombre]

Here's a few of the graphics I've changed/have been working on.

Council Guard.
Rat Ogre.
Censer Bearer.
Plague Monk.
Plague Priest.
Grey Seer.
Warlord (my favourite)

Let's hope attachments work,...

[llamabeast]

These really are so excellent Sombre.

[DigitalSin]

They most definitely excellent.

[Valandil]

Seconding above, but quite a different style.

Btw, vanilla balanced? Is Est, what should I balance towards when I get around to the .dm for Chaos? I would like the mods to be compatible, so whatever you can give me concerning unit numbers and balance would be nice.

PM me if you can.

Thanks.

[Sombre]

They should be vanilla balanced in the end. I haven't started testing balance yet though really - just giving fairly arbitrary numbers.

Basic clanrat = 8 gold
Spear clanrat = 7 gold
3 Skavenslaves = 14 gold

etc

[Saulot]

Have to say that Skaven looks great so far. As far as Warhammer nations go, Skaven along with the Dwarves and Chaos factions are ones I'm most looking forward to.

Hope it comes out soon. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Theonlystd]

Saulot said:
Have to say that Skaven looks great so far. As far as Warhammer nations go, Skaven along with the Dwarves and Chaos factions are ones I'm most looking forward to.

Hope it comes out soon. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Sombre]

Today I was testing warpfire throwers and god damn they make a mess. Each one has three fire breath attacks for 15ap fire damage AOE1, range 10. They have prec 4 so they spray that warpfire around like crazy. I just sat a handful in with my infantry and they really increased the killing power - they toasted my own troops pretty well too, but hey plenty more where they came from.

[Valandil]

Wouldn't Nratt3 be better, if it works?
The mass execution of skavenslaves by warpfire seems pretty appropriate to me, but it probably shouldn'tcause the army to rout. Is there a way around this?
Oh, what sprite did you use for the warpfire/lightning?

[Theonlystd]

Sombre said:
Today I was testing warpfire throwers and god damn they make a mess. Each one has three fire breath attacks for 15ap fire damage AOE1, range 10. They have prec 4 so they spray that warpfire around like crazy. I just sat a handful in with my infantry and they really increased the killing power - they toasted my own troops pretty well too, but hey plenty more where they came from.

releaseeeeeeeee it allready


tortureee

[Saulot]

Nratt 3 wouldn't help considering Sombre's probably using the unmodded fire breath weapon.

[Sombre]

Yes, I can't use a modded weapon because things like secondary effect always and AOE don't work. Hence I used 3 fire breath attacks - works fine and looks good. It's just regular fire you'll see, not crazy green fire, because again, modding weapon sprites isn't really a luxury I have.

I posted before about the skaveslaves - 3 of them only count as 1 unit so you can feel free to toast the odd one without risking routs. Using skaven without morale boosting of some kind is NOT advised though - you need sermon of courage or fanaticism to back them up.

[Shovah32]

Do they have some commanders with standards(although it would be more the fear of them than their inspiring prescence that would motivate the slaves)?

[Sombre]

A few of the commanders have the standard effect because Skaven are pretty big on punishing underlings. It's not a very big effect though; as soon as the skaven are out of sight/sound/whip range their self preservation instincts become a problem again.

I've had my army rout a lot and I've learned something - trust in the plague priests and grey seers with their sermons of courage (AKA sermons of what's going to happen to you if you try to run, little ratties). The Screaming Bell will also have H4 and will be able to cast fanaticism, plus it will have a large standard effect, so that will be a huge bonus.

[Sombre]

I have released a beta for you kind folks to enjoy.

See the first post for details. It's still a ways from being finished in terms of content.

[Saulot]

Excellent. Time to play.

Also... Curses! This will no doubt delay the release of Urdheim by several hours. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Theonlystd]

wooot *playing*

[Valandil]

Yay!

[Theonlystd]

Really like it so far and look forward to the rest of the units..


Tho id like to see a Grey Seer as possible Pretender choice .. Maybe some kind of ability like various units flocking to the province hes in or if nothing else just make him a basic mage Pretender for thematic reasons

[Sombre]

In later version they'll get the Horned Rat as a pretender as well as 2 or 3 members of the Council of Thirteen - probably The Seerlord, Plaguelord Nurglitch and the master of Skryre (I forget his title/name).

You have a lot of units to play around with already, though the doomwheel and screaming bell would obviously be pretty cool to summon up.

They'll get some sort of Grey Seer castable BIG remote summon in the future too, representing the Skaven love of swarming a city of province out of nowhere, using hidden tunnels. Probably something like 80 clanrats.

[Kristoffer O]

Been playing around a bit with the mod today. Very fun. I always liked skaven, even though it was my brother that had himself a skaven army.

Some initial thoughts:
Great variety of troops. I had a hard time deciding what to build. I want them all. They come with great flexibility. I'm not sure, but it is possible that you should make specialists a bit more expensive, so they are recruited mostly for special tasks and counters.

Consider if you want summonables to be freespawned as well. I found that I didn't really care for research, as I could get warpfirethrowers etc just by recruiting commanders. I quickly lost interest in research. There was probably some higher lvl summons that I can't get if I just summon allies.

Summon allies is generally a very powerful ability that is difficult to valuate, but my initial impression is that the summoned allies were quite cheap. A warpfire thrower might be about as good as a fire drake, perhaps better, considering the larger area attack (but lower survival rate) wich costs 10 gems = 10-150 gold. Or as good as 9 arbalests (3xall hit in an area) that fires every turn and always hits, but has short range and more friendly fire. I would probably pay at least 50 for one of these guys, even with friendly fire. Thus I would gladly pay for the warlock at 250. Only I would then not be able to buy rat-whippers that get lots of cheap giant rats http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

Building as many castles as you possibly can is probably crucial to pump out as many freespawners as possible.

So I had a blast, but whipped the [censored] out of Ulm who happened to be near me http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Another thing you might wanna reconsider. Plague priests' plague scepter. That is an artifact lvl item they got (secondary effect of woundflame, same as the spell plague lvl 7 IIRC). With one successful strike against an enemy (prefferably large or well armored so he survives the whole turn) you can destroy an entire army of say 1000 units (including your own of course). I suggest you replace the plague secondary effect with leprosy or some other nonvirulent disease http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Hmm. I wonder how the AI handles them. Probably very well, considering they have freespawners and great initial troops. The AI is fond of freespawns and summon allies IIRC. More so than moving around in a strategically sound way http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Sombre]

Which specialists were you thinking of? The night runners and gutter runners?

I'm currently having a think about summon allies and how to best balance it, but I will say that choosing to ignore research and go for summoned allies is supposed to be an option with this nation (at least on micro scale) but it shouldn't be an easy choice to go for the allies. If it is currently, I'll have to change things. One thing I've already decided for the next version is that Rat Ogres, Globadiers and Warpfire Throwers will have a high(er) upkeep cost that will be mentioned in their description and make them less of a bargain when 'free' summoned.

If I have to keep them as gem summons only, I'll fiddle around with the spells to cast them and make them so they're still fairly low research level and must be massed by using several casters, with a higer research level of the spell massing them more efficiently. Comparing them to fire drakes doesn't make sense though - who actually summons fire drakes at that gem cost?

The Moulder Packmaster's cost will be up in cost next version. Giant Rats do pretty much suck and run away after a few casualties though.

The Plague Priest's scepter will be changed. I'll give him decay on it probably.

Thanks for the feedback and glad you enjoyed it. Future versions should be much improved, as with all my mods.

[Sombre]

After a bit more testing and playing around, I've made some changes which will be in the next version.

Chieftan - Now only summons slave allies. The autosummoned clanrat was making him hard to use as a scout and was a bit odd.

Warlord - Now only summons clanrat allies, no 1 autosummoned stormvermin per month.

Packmaster - Now summons 4 and not 5 giant rats. Price slightly up, chance of blood magic slightly up.

Master Moulder - Now summons only one Rat Ogre ally, but is magically improved to encourage a bit of blood use.

Plague Priest - No more plague weapon. Slightly improved magic chances. Summons 3 not 4 plague monk allies. The Chantor also has slightly improved magic chances.

Warlock - No more summon allies. Slightly cheaper.

Warlock Engineer - No more summon allies. Slightly cheaper.


I have changed the summong spells so warlocks and engineers can summon either small groups of globadiers/warpfire throwers or larger groups, depending on skill. This should encourage gem gathering and research.

I have also added a new summon for pestilens plague priests - Pestilens Plague Rats - you get 3 of them for 5 death gems, they look identical to moulder giant rats, but they have a secret payload - a plague inflicting bite attack. Mix them in and surprise your friends ;]

There are two new combat spells - warp lightning and the more powerful 'powered warp lightning'. These are low level, easy casting requirement spells that do high damage. The problem is the need 1 and 2 earth gems respectively and are very unreliable.

I've also added in the screaming bell with a placeholder graphic, as a construction summon at level 8. It's pretty badass, but the balance might be way off and the graphic doesn't look too good.

I've actually decided I like the warlock and engineer graphics, so I'll just clean them up a bit and they'll stay roughly the same in future versions. Not sure about the chantor.

I'll upload 0.3 after a bit more testing today. Maybe in a couple of hours. Let me know about anything before then and I'll probably fix it.

[Baneslave]

I haven't downloaded any versions yet, so I am waiting 0.3 eagerly. I just hope that I remember to download it later.

Great work this far.

[Sombre]

Updated to v0.3 See first post for attachment.

[Kristoffer O]

Just a general consideration about autosummons and why I said they are powerful:

1 castle building 1 autosummoning commander each months gives:
15 critters in 5 months of active summoning.
55 critters in 10 months.
120 critters in 15 months.
210 critters in 20 months.

Make these critters warpfire throwers http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
High upkeep is probably a neccessity.

Imagine having two castles http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif As skaven it will be instrumental to get a second castle ASAP. The second one can make moulders with giant rats to complement the warpfirethrowers.

And you need to get a whole bunch of indie commanders, as you can't afford moving your troops with your skaven commanders. They have summoning work to do http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

---

I'll do some more testing. I know enough now to decide on a strategy and not just recruiting one of every kind http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Interesting to test some warp lightning as well.

---

To anyone familiar with Warhammer. I recommend this mod. It is a lot of fun and you get quite nostalgic http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

Now I want my darkelves http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif. I had a miniature chimeara in my dark elf army that I was quite fond of. Never got me a war hydra, but that should be easy to fix in a mod http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Sombre]

Dark Elves, eh? They have some potentially very interesting and powerful units like Witch Elves, Cold One Knights and if I remember correctly a WS-8 assassin.

They're on my list. Next Warhammer nation I do will probably be Dwarfs or Ogres. Very different and interesting races, though without the crazy variety of the Skaven.

[Saulot]

So I played through about 35 turns against Vanheim & Agartha on a no-indep Silent Seas using a POD pretender. I rolled Agartha over like nobody's business. Vanheim took a bit longer, but I decided to change tactics to mix things up a bit, build temples everywhere, and spit out plague chantors/priests. I then stealthpreached, and won by dom kill. Keep in mind this is concerning v0.2.

First thoughts: Graphically, I think everything looks quite nice. I like the variety and flavor of the troops.
Like KO, I found it difficult to pick what to recruit. I eventually tried 10-20 of everything. Though I didn't bother with the blood school of spells at all. Research also proved rather unnecessary, I didn't bother with much of anything past level 3. Shadow bolt, terror, and globadiers were the sought after spells here.

May be helpful: Commanders that I mostly used, were Packmasters, and Master Moulders. Units that I eventually stuck by, were the globadiers, rat ogres, giant rats, and most of all gutter runners.

More specific thoughts:
1. Rat Ogres and Giant rats are great flankers, with 17 ap. I imagine archer based armies would have a lot to contend with.

2. Skavenslaves are manacled, at least they appear to have both hands and feet, bound together. (They're also weak and malnourished). Yet they move at ap 15, like most every other skaven. Perhaps they should be a bit slower? (ap 12?)

3. Rat Ogres are great (Possibly too great). With plenty of health, multiple highly damaging attacks, and the berserker quality, your Skaven morale problems (along with a host of other problems) are solved in one unit. Is there a reason they have a special bite/claw weapon that does more damage than the standard bite and claw weapons?

Downtweak commentary:
Your v0.3 downtweak of one rat ogre per summon allies instead of two, seems like it will do the trick. Though perhaps getting rid of their special bite/claw weapons might be a good idea too.

4. Eshin Gutter Runners aren't just great (They seem incredibly overpowered). They start off with high attack/defense and high stealth as is to be expected of an elite stealth troop. Their powerful dual melee attacks are overshadowed by their shuriken. It seems somewhat strange that the shuriken are a strength based ranged weapon? So their 9 strength adds to the damage. That seems most odd? So it's quite deadly in itself (it can kill a lightly armoured man in one hit), then the strong (15!) points of poison tacked on is pretty incredible too. The fact that they get 2 attacks, and then another 2 exacerbates the issue. With giant rat chaff, and rat ogres for arrow absorbtion/dealing with high prot units, no enemy army stood a chance. On top of all that, they have siegebonus 3! So hiding from them in a fort does you no good. 15 gold seems a real pittance for what you get.

Suggested nerf:
Increase gold cost, and change the shuriken to dt_cap damage (so it only does 1 damage at most), this will make it realistic, a shuriken may strike you in the face/neck if you're unprotected, or may just bounce off a shield. Either way it won't do too much damage (1 hp) unless you lose an eye. The strong poison can then be left to do the real damage. As for the gutter blade, strong poison seems a bit much on a multiple use weapon. Unless it's a magical weapon (I'm not much up to date on warhammer lore), any weapon that hits creature after creature shouldn't deliver significant amounts of strong poison time after time, swing after swing.

5. Like KO mentioned, the plague ability. I noticed it quickly and was terrified of using the commander in combat. I imagined it would wipe out my own sizeable army. You seem to have fixed that in v0.3

6. I like the Assassin, though the spy ability seems almost extraneous for a 150 gold unit. It seems quite balanced and useful nonetheless.

7. It seems like after the first 3/4 turns I stopped using skaven slaves completely. Giants rats took over the chaff role effectively (despite their morale problems). This may not be what you want, though I think it's good that there are multiple chaff options.

Overall, it was a fun nation to try, possessing graphical and descriptive consistency. Though as is to be expected, it will need some balancing. I look forward to future versions.

Also, can't wait for dwarves and chaos. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[CelestialGoblyn]

I just downloaded and don't even have time to test it fully, but...
Wow. Great work on graphics, perhaps better than the original Dominions 3.
Awesome mages, there's going to be a lot of fun with this.
I'll let you know when I take this nation for a full test drive:)

[Valandil]

The Dark Elf assassin is WS 9 I10!

[Kristoffer O]

Now I've tried 0.3 some.

I still got caught up in the summoning swamp http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif Only researched thau 1 and evo 3. My prince of death just walked around with his armies and couldn't cast a single spell.

I found that I didn't recruit any troops at all, so no gutter runners for me. I spent all my money on Warlords, moulders and castles and then new warlords (some occasional other commanders). I got myself indie commandes to move troops with (feels a bit silly, but it bugged me when I had to stop summoning units). I only used my warlords to move troops when i accidentally had too much chaff.

I thought I was invincible, but with 4 mighty AI's it became hard when Machaka attacked me with even more chaff. Fortunately I spawned troops faster then he got them to the front. But, then an unforseen problem emerged. Maintenance. With Machakas advance my own expansion stopped and my army still grew. I found myself unable to recruit commanders unless I alchemized. And my maintenance continued to grow (as did my army). I find myself unable to start a research, as I can't generate money, and I can't stop getting chaff that costs maintainance. I should get some plague censers and put my warlords in their midst. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

The other balancing factor I discovered were the cave fortresses. In most provinces skaven build 1200 castles. Thats good. I still managed to get 5 new ones rather early, but it made my expansion somewhat slower. I built mainly in forests, as they got 800 hillforts there.

I entirely avoided censer bearers after I played a short game where my armies and commanders got annihilated by my own poison http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif. I got the doom-bell-hero in that game. Hoped he would become unequally obese, but no such luck http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

I got a most amazing assassin prophet, fat as Butterbean (he got himself the heroic obesity), Inberke by name. Eshin assassins are good, very good. They have higher att and def skills than most heroes and more than any recruitable unit I know of. Vanadrotdts got 14-16 right ? What will you do when you make dark elf assassins with WS9 ? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif Eshin only has 6 IIRC.

I also find it a bit strange that the assassins can instill uprisnings.

At first I was ipressed with the skavenslaves and thought that they were the way to go, but I soon realized they they were chaff. The chieftains summoning is probably not an issue. Warlords might be (each warlord generates 32 gold each turn) as clanrats with falchions are quite useful. Since they have high AP they do not suffer that bad from routs (and they do rout).

Turn 36 or something (spring year 3):
6 forts (and one lost to machaka)
27 warlords - 108 clanrats generated
4 chieftains - ? skaven slaves
6 master moulder - 6 rat ogres
1 moulder - 4 giant rats
1 plague priest - 3 pestilence clan
1 Warlock
5 assassins
a handful of other commanders to move troops

Income 1169
Maintainance 876 and growing

Machakas Manticore with Blade Wind is my main concern atm.

BTW - skavenslaves are quite resistant to area attacks http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif. Only one of the three slaves get hit by each area attack.

[Sombre]

Saulot - Thanks for the feedback. I'm not sure why you wouldn't bother with research, since the Skaven are actually quite good at it and can cast an array of excellent spells. Perhaps the allure of summon allies was too much for you, as it was for K O. Certainly I don't want people feeling research is pointless for the Skaven - when I played with them I didn't feel this way at all, but I wasn't trying to crank out a summoning system.

Were you using 0.2 or 0.3? In 0.3 the summoning of allies was nerfed quite a bit - only one rat ogre instead of two, increased upkeep costs, nor globadier or warpfire thrower allies etc.

Anyway, let me address the points you raised numerically.

1. Indeed they are. The Skaven army as a whole is fast and likes to lap around, which makes up for the fact that they tend to get torn to pieces by massed archers and nations like tienchi. Gian Rats, however, aren't the best fighters in the world. In fact they tend to take a few casualties then run away - as one might expect. Rat Ogres have much more staying power and like to berserk, but aren't supposed to be available in numbers unless you're going for a dedicated Moulder strat (which would work best with lots of blood, I reckon).

2. A fair point, but if I made them slower they would lose some utility as frontline/flank chaff. I'll think about it.

3. Originally they used the standard bite/claw, but in order to actually do damage to heavier infantry and properly represent their power in the Warhammer world (where 5 or so can tear up a unit) I wanted them to be better. I could have increased their strength and attack stats, but this would put them well out of line with my methods of stat conversion from WH to Dom3. Basically in WH they aren't penalised at all for not having weapons - their claws are as long and hard as shortswords after all. I felt the dom3 standard bite and claw attacks didn't really make sense as compared with random weapons, at least in the case of the Rat Ogres, so I upgraded them. In my tests Rat Ogres still get hacked to pieces by massed infantry, killing maybe 2 each before they go down. I might make them a bit weaker, but they are supposed to be a real handful for the enemy, so maybe changing their cost and availability makes more sense.

4. Gutter Runners are a unit I haven't changed since I stuck them in, so I'm not surprised they have balance issues. I agree with you in regards to the gutter blades, those will get weak poison instead of strong. Regarding the shuriken, the standard dom3 shuriken has these stats:

Damage - 1 (plus strength)
No. of attacks - 2
Range - strength
Prec - 0
Ammo - 4
Strong Poison

Pretty similar to the Eshin ones. More ammo, but no prec bonus. However this weapon is, as far as I know, only used by Jomonese Ninja, not something you'd be able to mass and not something that comes cheap. Because there's no 'medium poison' I'm going to give the Eshin shuriken 'weak poison' and I'm going to reduce the damage to -1, so they won't be too hot versus armoured troops. I could also push up the goldcost of the gutter runners, who as Eshin troops are supposed to cost a pretty penny, but this will already have made the significantly weaker (the strong poison was the real problem I think).

5. Plague Priest has no plague attack in 0.3. However you can now summon plague rats with a little blood magic, who look exactly like Moulder rats and can really ruin someone's day.

6. I dropped him to 130 gold in 0.3 (mostly by accident), but it's going back up in 0.4 and his

[Theonlystd]

Question


Pestilen Censor Bearers not having 100Poison Resistance .. I understand y the Monks dont have it.. But the Sacred units blessed from the god arent immune to the there own poison clouds? :p


Way of design?



Edit-Summoned the Plague Rats.. I got 10 regular giant rats.

[Sombre]

Oops, you're right. I'd fixed that on my version, but not the one I uploaded. May bad. It'll be fixed in 0.4 and plague rats do indeed kick ***.

Yes, they are supposed to take some poison damage - it sends them berserk more often than not and it's thematic - plague censer bearers are quite capable of killing themselves by breathing in too much incense. I'm not entirely happy with the way poison clouds and poison globes still kill off units with like 80 poison res - I think it's a flaw in the game,.. thus in the next version there will be a nifty spell available to plague priests and chantors (and grey seers, but they generally have better things to do) which for the cost of 1 death gem will grant poison immunity/greatly increased res to your army.

I might release 0.35 tonight, which will have no new graphical content, but will implement the bugfixes and balance changes mentioned in this thread.

[Sombre]

It's up, in case you hadn't noticed.

[Theonlystd]

Sombre said:
Oops, you're right. I'd fixed that on my version, but not the one I uploaded. May bad. It'll be fixed in 0.4 and plague rats do indeed kick ***.

Yes, they are supposed to take some poison damage - it sends them berserk more often than not and it's thematic - plague censer bearers are quite capable of killing themselves by breathing in too much incense. I'm not entirely happy with the way poison clouds and poison globes still kill off units with like 80 poison res - I think it's a flaw in the game,.. thus in the next version there will be a nifty spell available to plague priests and chantors (and grey seers, but they generally have better things to do) which for the cost of 1 death gem will grant poison immunity/greatly increased res to your army.

I might release 0.35 tonight, which will have no new graphical content, but will implement the bugfixes and balance changes mentioned in this thread.



Ah sounds like a good spell

Pretty much atm the Plague Monks,Censor bearers and poison globes guy have to be kept in a seperate army that i use to weaken the enemy army before the main one attacks it cause they end up killing more of my troops than the Enemy does if included with the main army

[Humakty]

I've playtested them on a big map, and they don't seem overpowered to mee.(v 0.35)I used mostly big units of glaive users, with various eshin/moulder/pestilent support, and I think they aren't specially tought : they rout way too easily to be of a great threat to the strongest armies (man, vanheim...).I only crushed agartha, which as usual used indeps, so I think they look quite balanced to me, as most summons they can cast easily have a cold cost. On a small map it may be easy to swarm with summons, but I don't think you can go without the stormvermins in the long run (10 morale !).I don't think you've got much work to do left on this one Sombre, and as usual what as been done is... Whaw. (I'm a warhammer bachground fan, and I've dreamed of a strategy PC game on warhammer for years

[Sombre]

Problems with morale can be offset a great deal by using Plague Priests to spam sermons along with their summoning of undead. I've also found mixing spawn created with the Pitbreeding spell into units does wonders to bring up their average morale (many spawn have mor 16) and of course if you can get plague monks to berserk they do very nicely as well.

In a recent test game I tried going for a Skryre heavy army (I had gone pestilens/moulder in the previous one) and it was very fun mangling stuff up using great hordes of slaves and brown clanrats backed up by warpfire throwers and spells.

[Humakty]

For morale I've used moulder chiefs in support of my main stormvermin group and it works quite well.(even if they die quite quickly) The main advantage I saw was the strategic flexibility they have, with troops having lots of different use. I had a lot of fun getting R'lyeth back to the sea, even if I can't finish them off.(my fault, took no water/air on my pretender)

I think you shouldn't worry too much for the balance, because against armies with some cavalry, their low morale can cause them to get decimated during their retreat. Against slow adversaries, they are pretty hard to kill, as they will have lived the battlefield before the ennemie can just start to move !

I've only started bloodhunting so I dunnot know for blood summons, but what's sure is that my enchantress seems a bit lost among all these rats. Will you do a Horned Rat pretender for the final version ? It will do a lot for the atmosphere.

[Sombre]

Yes, they'll get the horned rat, who will actually be like Baphomet or the divine glyph, just a controlling entity rather than a physical force.

As for physical force, they'll get verminlord summons which will be very powerful indeed, with 4D magic and excellent stats etc

[Sombre]

Today I finished the new Warplightning Thrower + two summoning spells for it, sorted out the Chieftan graphic and began making the Queek hero. I will also start testing the Doomwheel.

The next release will be in about a week and should include a couple of heroes, some slightly improved graphics, a Seerlord pretender, a Doomwheel beta and a finished warplightning thrower.

Meantime I will continue work on the Ogres. Any suggestions are very welcome - I try to give people what they want :]

[Brownoak]

Sombre,

Thank you for the update- this is an excellent mod- the graphics are good too (despite your modesty about their quality) cant wait to see 'Ogre Kingdoms'!

Regards

Brown oak

[Brownoak]

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Sombre]

Here's a pic of my Queek in progress, along with the standard warlord for comparison. I've also included the Warplightning Thrower graphic and the slightly improved warlock graphic.

[Sombre]

New version 0.5 is up.

It has all kinds of fruity goodness. Queek, new pretender, warplightning, doomwheel, fixes, balancing,...

You get the idea, now go get the mod :]

[Morkilus]

Thanks so very much! This is my favorite mod nation (well, the first I've been able to go with beyond 20 turns or so)

[Alderanas]

I dont see the download spot for the newest version. am i blind??

[Sombre]

Blind? No.

Short sighted? Yes.

It's attached to the top of the first post, next to the title and whatnot.

[Morkilus]

I was going over the new stuff and thought Death Frenzy might be better as a Thaummaturgy spell instead. All of the similar mind-influencing spells are there such as Growing Fury, Bererkers, etc. Enchantment seems to be good for more physical army buffs.

I've been having issues with some of the new spells, too. Might it be because I started a game with the old mod version? Here are my bugs so far:

/threads/images/Graemlins/Bug.gifDoomwheel costs no gems
/threads/images/Graemlins/Bug.gifMass Warp Lightning Thrower Production has a truncated name and doesn't appear on my unit's castable spells even though I have Con 6 and at least the 1F2E to cast it. These might not be related, who knows.

[Sombre]

I considered Death Frenzy for Thaum, but I think it makes as much sense in enchantment.

As for the doomwheel and the lightning thrower,..

Well try out the attached .dm instead. v0.55

[Sombre]

Just attaching a new preview image.

Next version should be ready soon.

[lch]

"Chieftan" should be "Chieftain".

I'm trying to hunt down a spelling error I saw in a test game, some word with jumbled letters in a description of some unit, I think female, for a nation, but I haven't found it yet. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[Sombre]

Yeah, someone told me that before, but I was working from an old army list that spelled it "Chieftan" so I assumed that's the way the Games Workshop wanted it.

In the new edition it's "Chieftain" though, so consider it changed for 0.7 -shrug-

[Humakty]

Sombre, you're a rare specimen of frenzied modder lich (you NEVER sleep).Your mods are all very good, AND they are regularly updated.When will you stop ? When will I sleep ?
I would like to conclude with a hard critic on your work, but I can't find anything... Ah, I know, your sprites aren't in 3D.

[Theonlystd]

Nm

[Sombre]

Funny, it was working for me. Maybe I changed it since then though. I'll take a look later.

Be aware it's shortish range.

[Theonlystd]

Sombre said:
Funny, it was working for me. Maybe I changed it since then though. I'll take a look later.

Be aware it's shortish range.




Yea it worked fine right after i made that post..

So no idea what i was doing..

[Theonlystd]

A question.

Was it done on purpose or an oversight. Council Guards with only one map move. Its no more heavily armored than StormVermin and the descrip even says they have similar training as a SV.. As is i dont recruit em since they'll slow down any army and cost twice as much as a StormVermin

[Sombre]

The reasoning is that they don't like travelling away from Skavenblight and they don't trust any non council skaven.

It seems they aren't a very popular unit, though in the current version they do have exceptional morale, considering they're Skaven. They may well be improved in a later update (There are several still to come as I have to do all the Skaven heroes, add a pox cauldron and give the screaming bell and doomwhell proper graphics).

[Theonlystd]

Sombre said:
The reasoning is that they don't like travelling away from Skavenblight and they don't trust any non council skaven.

It seems they aren't a very popular unit, though in the current version they do have exceptional morale, considering they're Skaven. They may well be improved in a later update (There are several still to come as I have to do all the Skaven heroes, add a pox cauldron and give the screaming bell and doomwhell proper graphics).




Ah


Now about Rat Ogres

Rat Ogres. According to there Descrip they are expensive to upkeep and i dont em very usefull esp if they cost alot.

The 30hp isnt enough to keep em alive for long with only 7 protection and 10 DS and only 2 fitting in a square . They cant repell stuff. Only time they do any damage for me is when they get the first attack in on lightly armored chaff after that they usually go down pretty fast . Things like knights and such dont even notice they are there .

Donno if you agree with meh on that.

But maybe up their Berserk? Maybe switch out bite for an Armor Piercing Tail attack so if they manage to hit an armored unit they'll likely kill it and maybe up the As/Ds some?

As is instead of wasting gold on units that get me Rat Ogres its just better to get more StormVermin

[Burnsaber]

Theonlystd said:
Now about Rat Ogres




How you use them? They're not really front-line material, that's for sure. But I found (IMHO, at least) them to excellent flankers. Divide your Rat ogres in two groups and put them on both flanks with Hold and Attack rearmost troops. If it works, thye should succeed in a pincer maneouver and make the enemy rout.

This stragedy can also be complimented by Death Mages casting Frighten/Fear.

[Sombre]

Rat ogres are pretty good I feel - they totally mince up medium/light troops, they can handle high def troops such as cavalry (not knights) better than most skaven and they are quite unlikely to rout. They are best used as either hold and attack shock troops or as flankers.

If you go blood with skaven you can also summon them in quite some numbers - far more effective than going for the one from a master moulder each turn (those are just for shoring up armies, not really for mass production). Bear in mind that they are stealthy (like the rest of your armies) which is rare in such powerful units and they also have a fun graphic ;]

[Theonlystd]

Burnsaber said:

Theonlystd said:
Now about Rat Ogres




How you use them? They're not really front-line material, that's for sure. But I found (IMHO, at least) them to excellent flankers. Divide your Rat ogres in two groups and put them on both flanks with Hold and Attack rearmost troops. If it works, thye should succeed in a pincer maneouver and make the enemy rout.

This stragedy can also be complimented by Death Mages casting Frighten/Fear.



Dont use em as front-line Material . I Use em on the flanks. Y use Rat Ogres for attacking rear and not StormVermin or Eshins .. A couple Ap's slower but same morale and id say more survivability without the hassle of gathering Ogres ..



Sombre said:
Rat ogres are pretty good I feel - they totally mince up medium/light troops, they can handle high def troops such as cavalry (not knights) better than most skaven and they are quite unlikely to rout. They are best used as either hold and attack shock troops or as flankers.

If you go blood with skaven you can also summon them in quite some numbers - far more effective than going for the one from a master moulder each turn (those are just for shoring up armies, not really for mass production). Bear in mind that they are stealthy (like the rest of your armies) which is rare in such powerful units and they also have a fun graphic ;]



Maybe im just having bad luck or using em wrong.. And im going the blood route not the master moulder summoning one .

And yes the graphic is fun :p

[Digress]

I will second the comments of many of the above - this is a particularly fine mod. I don't play SP much at all (no time) - but I remember Warhammer with fondness and couldn't resist this one.

Just a little of the way through a game and have an observation regarding the giant rats - their MR seems high at 10 and it seems strange they lack wasteland survival to go along with mountain survival - if something is going to survive in the wastes you would have to put some money on a rat.

[Sombre]

Good point about the giant rat MR, I'll knock that down to 4 or 5, since they're animals.

[Kristoffer O]

> if something is going to survive in the wastes you would have to put some money on a rat.

Not sure about that. Rats live in cities and sewers. Close to humanity. Human waste perhaps, but not wasteland. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Digress]

Where an normal soldier would not find the supplies required to carry on soldiering perhaps a giant mutant rat might have a bit more luck.

At the very least they are likely to be whole lot less fussy than a human on what constitutes adequate food and shelter.

[Frostmourne27]

Here's a multipurpose post:
1) A shameless bumb of an awesome mod that seems to have gotten lost in the clutter here - too many people with mods, maps and questions, I guess, not that that's a bad thing.
2) A desperate request for an update! We don't have a horned rat pretender yet!
3) A chance to add my puny and insignificant voice to the chorus of praise. I really like this mod. I'm not a huge skaven fan, but you'ved done a great job coming up with a mod that's really, really fun to play. The selection of commanders is great, most of the units have a purpose, and the national spells are awesome. I love the friendly-fire, although I haven't actually had huge moale problems, I certainly see how they could be a major issue.

[Morkilus]

Pro Tip: Mod List stickied!

[Frostmourne27]

Morkilus said:
Pro Tip: Mod List stickied!



I know, that's how I found it, but I didn't really want to ask questions there - just trying to avoid unneeded clutter.

[Sombre]

I'll update Skaven soonish.

Still have quite a few things to do for them.

6 more heroes.
A few more pretender choices.
Summonable Verminlord commander.
Summonable Plague Pontifex + Cauldron.
Few more spells.
Doomwheel and screaming bell graphics.
Balancing.

[Frostmourne27]

Great, sounds like fun. Good to know you haven't given up on the rat peoples.

[mathusalem]

Hi !

I don't know why, but the mod crashed my game when I tried to host the first turn.

I have diseable all mods, the game in 1.08, but it's the mac OS version...

is it a known bug ?

[Sombre]

No, I haven't heard of that happening before. Can you give more details of the crash?

[mathusalem]

Hum, it's well now, I don't know why.

If I can re crash, I'll send the savegame.

[seej]

I am using Mac OS X also and the mod crashes Dominions as soon as I try to pick a nation from the middle ages in the Create a Game menus.

Has anyone gotten this mod working with OS X?

[Sombre]

I know nothing about Macs, but I was under the impression mods worked on them provided they work under windows.

Make sure you're only running this mod (no others enabled) and that you installed it correctly, with the .dm in the mods subfolder of dom3 and all other files in mods/skaven.

Let me know if you get it working.

[Theonlystd]

cant wait for the next update i cant wait to see the Summonable Plague Pontifex + Cauldron......

[Mordici]

I love the nation mod so far. Its feel is very much the way the army books for warhammer fantasy portray the Skaven. Swarms and swarms of rats that can run if things get a bit tough :-)

I cant wait for the Horned Rat pretender, the new heroes and the additional national summons.

[Alderanas]

It should work fine on your mac i have a mac and it works fine

[Sombre]

I've been working on this mod today. I will release an update tonight or tomorrow which will hopefully give the Skaven all 6 of their heroes.

Warlord Queek - Already in the mod.
Deathmaster Sniktch - Already in.

Throt the Unclean - Three armed thug and BE caster who can summon up rat ogres and rats.

Chief Warlock Ikit Claw - Ubercaster warlock with F3 E3 D2 S2 N2 and a 25% forge bonus. He's the prize hero, obviously.

Plague Lord Skrolk - Strong terror causing thug and D3 B2 H3 caster.

Grey Seer Thanquol - Comes with augmented three armed Rat Ogre bodyguard. S4 D3 H3 caster with strong fortune teller ability.


As for the Horned Rat pretender,....

I'm thinking 2 forms.

Harbinger of Disease and Horned Rat. Horned Rat is an immobile symbol dealie, harbinger of disease is stealthy and causes,.. you know,.. disease.

[Humakty]

Nonot finisheded yet ?
Whipip him haarder, 'nd giive him MORE warpstone!

[Sombre]

I got distracted by actually playing Skaven in Dom3 and I haven't done as much as I was expecting to. I did do some balancing though.

Release by the weekend anyway.

[Mordici]

I will pray to the Horned Rat that this comes out before the end of the weekend :-)

[Sombre]

Unfortunately there's no chance of that happening.

I've decided to take a break from modding new content to concentrate on playtesting and balance for a while. When the new patch comes out, several mods might need updates anyway.

So don't hold your breath waiting for content updates to this or to Empire. It'll be a while.

Sorry.

[Sombre]

This WILL be updated tomorrow. It WILL include at least:

6 Heroes - Warlord Queek, Plague Lord Skrolk, Grey Seer Thanquol, Boneripper the Rat Ogre Bodyguard, Deathmaster Snikch, Chief Warlord Ikit Claw.

Major changes to Plague Censers (they rock now, especially with N9 bless) and globadiers. Minor changes to many other units, including Warplightning Throwers that aren't parried by shields.

Many other tweaks and balance changes etc


It MIGHT include

7th hero, Master Moulder Throt the Unclean.

New Pretender - Bell of the Horned Rat.

New summon - Verminlord, Daemon of the Horned Rat.



Some of the graphics might not be 100% finished and chances are I still won't have gotten round to finishing the doomwheel or screaming bell graphics, but nevermind the placeholders look ok.

[Mordici]

Awsome....this mod is so fun to play. With all of the additional heroes I cant wait for the update.

I hope the verminlord summon is included. It was such a powerful and useful addition in the tabletop game that kept the furry ones from running so easily :-)

Again hats off to a great mod that totally captures the feel of the Skaven!!

[Sombre]

Ugh,... I /really/ wanted to get these buggers released today. But I do have a good excuse - I unexpectedly had to go to the hospital today and have to go in for an upper endoscopy tomorrow.

4 of the 6 heroes are 100% finished, the remaining two need a bit more work. WILL be out very soon, believe me :]

It's great fun getting thanquol and sending out boneripper chewing people up - you can use him as a bodyguard too, but I've found he's more useful as a recurring charger. He has a form of limited immortality - as long as thanquol is alive he can always summon him back up using summon allies.

[Szumo]

Wouldn't it be more thematic for boneripper to be unique non-commander (assuming that can be modded), so he would indeed be only used as (Thanquol's) bodyguard?
Unique so there can be only one, would propably need recuperation to avoid collecting afflictions (though i think recuperation for all Rat Ogres might be thematic too).

What kind of paths will Vermin Lord have? (assuming it will be non-unique high level summon, right?)

[Sombre]

He is unique and is a non-commander. That's basically what I was just talking about. If you try to summon allies more than one, the one you have vanishes and reappears where thanquol is. You don't /have/ to use him with thanquol, he can go off with another commander, or be GOR'd or something, but I like to use them together.

Vermin Lords will probably be death, astral, earth. They will obviously have pretty amazing stats, being one of the most powerful things in warhammer. I haven't really started work on them yet.

[Sombre]

The update is here. I didn't finish the boneripper graphic, so he looks a bit crummy, but you get the idea. Go download it in the first post of the thread, as usual.

I will upload a pic here to link to in the first post, providing a preview of all the graphics. Note the new heroes.

[Morkilus]

Awesome, Sombre! Perhaps soon we will have enough nations for a 2-on-2 Warhammer mod game. Perhaps Sylvania and Teutanian would be good opponents for the rats and ogres.

[Mordici]

Excellent update Sombre! I was lucky to get Thanqual early in a large SP game (400+ provinces) and he is proving to be as deadly and hard to kill for the opponents as I would expect him to be. Having Boneripper close by doesnt hurt either :-) I also got Plague Lord Skrolk but havent done much with him atm. Wanted to get more construction research done first so he has a few items to beef him up.

I found what I assume is a bug. When I get special characters their actual names arent what they should be. For example, Thanqual in my game is actually called Raddit.

I decided to play the Skaven with a N9 bless and its working good except for the occasional Gray Seer who gets angry and runs in to hit folks with his staff and quickly dies in the ensuing melee :-)

[mathusalem]

Excellent update !

But I'm still novice with Skaven.
What sort of Dominion / Bless do you suggest ?

[Theonlystd]

mathusalem said:
Excellent update !

But I'm still novice with Skaven.
What sort of Dominion / Bless do you suggest ?


Know your not talking to me but thought id give my 2 cents anyhow http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

I've never really bothered with a Bless for em its a pain to set up so you blessed units dont kill all the others by the boatload and such.. I go for good scales and A rainbow pretender.. Your Skyre Warlocks make some very nice battle mages after a bit of research.. If you can survive the early game without falling to far behind your looking good..

[llamabeast]

Quick comment: Chieftan is spelt Chieftain.

[Sombre]

Yeah it's fixed for te next version. I was copying what I thought was a GW spelling, but it turns out it was some typo from the source I got the unit stats originally.

[Mordici]

Shameless bump for my favorite mod nation atm....Looking forward to the Verminlord, a new pretender or two and the additional hero.

Enjoy the holidays Sombre and thanks again for an awsome nation that captures the feel of the Skaven in the WH world very very well :-)

[Sombre]

This one will get an update soonish.

I've done something fairly exciting with the heroes; they now come with their warhammer magical stuff/rules built into their stats/equipment and far less item slots.

Anyway, next version will have the vermintide spell added as well as (hopefully) Throt the Unclean and the Verminlord Greater Daemon. There are also a lot of stat tweaks, with far less sitting around spawning stuff coming from the commanders, with the bonus of a reduced cost.

[Sombre]

I'm having trouble with the 2 new graphics for version 0.8. They're both quite large and impressive and I'm just out of practice,.. but they'll turn out ok in the end I reckon.

Anyway I wanted to release 0.8 tonight, but it doesn't look like it's going to happen, so here's a preview of the unfinished Vermin Lord graphic. It's quite likely he will remain unfinished in the 0.8 release then be completed at a later date, somewhat like the screaming bell and doomwheel (which look ok anyway, just not great).

I figure by the time I go through feedback and do more tweaking and balancing, reaching 1.0, all these graphics should be of finished quality.

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/uploads/576271-Verminlordc.png


Oh and just so everyone knows, the next version is AWESOME. Seriously. I don't like to toot my own horn (at least in public), but it represents my best work. I'm having so much fun playtesting it that I keep forgetting to make notes and changes.

[Morkilus]

Can't wait, dude!

[Sombre]

It's here! It's here!

Ok so it isn't that big a deal. But it is friggin awesome ;]

-- Throt and Verminlord added

-- Many stat tweaks to skaven commanders, some pretty much reworked entirely

-- Death frenzy changed, now smaller aoe, less range, less likely to hit casters

-- Warpfire throwers slightly nerfed, casting costs tweaked

-- Various spell tweaks

-- Lots of other things I can't even remember but are totally rad

Go to the first page to download.

[WraithLord]

Awesome.

Thank You!

[Digress]

Nice work mate.

Had meant to suggest a AoE nerf for death frenzy given its ability to overcome some of the morale problems of the Skaven.

Looking forward to trying it out - but given I tend to only play MP games I might have to set one up myself to ensure that I get to play the ratties as the deserved popularity of this mod will ensure a queue of players begging to give it a run.

Will have to download the thing to get myself a dose of "rad"

[Sombre]

Death frenzy and a few of the other spells (vermintide particularly) might still be a bit good, but we'll see. I always think national spells should be markedly superior to generic spells to encourage their use. Favour of Nurglitch for example is waaaay better than poison ward, but is quite niche in use and isn't anything balance breaking (especially since poison doesn't get much love in dom3).

[Morkilus]

Thanks, Sombre!

[llamabeast]

Digress - if you get round to setting up an MP game let me know first, as I want to get in with either Arga Dis or Tomb Kings! Also you are of course welcome to use the LlamaServer if you want.

[Digress]

Just signed up for another game and have hit my maximum. However my stay in one particular game might be short so I will start to prepare a game in the nearish future.

Your offer of the llamaserver is noted and will more than likely be taken up. Cheers.

[mathusalem]

I had a crash, just after conjuring a vermin lord (conj lvl 9) http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif when I click on the province where he should be (near 112 and 124), the game crash every time

[Mordici]

Wow...........just wow Sombre. I know I already said that this is my current favorite nation mod, but at this point I think the only thing that would make it better would be a finished Zepath Warhammer World Map.

Playing Skaven on that map with all of the special sites would be Dom 3 Heaven for me at this point.

[Mordici]

I had a similar problem mathusaiem. I finally got the ability to summon a Verminlord and when I did it with one of my casters the game now crashes when I try to load it.

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

[Sombre]

Ok I think it's a very simple fix.

Go into the skaven.dm using a text editor and search for vermin lord. Find the bit that says:

#spr1 "./Skaven/Verminlordc.tga"
#spr2 "./Skaven/Verminlord.tga"

and change it to say

#spr1 "./Skaven/Verminlord.tga"
#spr2 "./Skaven/Verminlord2.tga"

Should sort it out. I will update the Skaven for 3.14 soon enough.

[Amos]

Just so you know Amos, you can make a unit unique with the only side effect being either regeneration or stealth 0.

If you're interested I'll tell you how later.




So how about those uniques? I'm posting here since thats the thread you're most likely to read http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif.

[Sombre]

Quickest way is just for me to post code.

------ this one has regen 1%, min 1 per turn

#newmonster 2488
#copystats 648
#clearmagic
#spr1 "./Warhammer Empire/Grandmaster.tga"
#name "Master of the White Wolf"

#descr "Master of the White Wolf description."
#fireres 0
#regeneration 1
#end



----- this one has stealth 0



#newmonster 2489
#copystats 650
#clearmagic
#spr1 "./Warhammer Empire/Grandmaster.tga"
#name "Master of the Knights Panther"
#descr "Master of the Knights Panther description."
#end


That's from an old warhammer empire dm. The point is you can get unique with the least possible side effects by copystatting 648 or 650.

[Amos]

Thank you.

[Amos]

I cant use them http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif. They both have armor. I'll use 649 instead although he has glamour.

[Sombre]

You can replace their armour though. Or give them #armor "nothing"

[Amos]

Or give them #armor "nothing"



I didnt know that. Learn something new everyday http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[vfb]

The Skaven are nothing if not industrious. An earthquake struck in the Skaven capitol, destroying the temple. But, not to worry ... the people here have raised a temple in honor of their God! All in the same month. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Thanks for making this mod, Sombre, I'm having loads of fun with it. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

[Sombre]

Version 0.9 is up. It isn't really a major update, but it cleans things up nicely and makes use of onebattlespell a bit.

-- removed copystats for the majority of units and stuck in appropriate darkvision values instead

-- removed the stinking fur fix used to get around shields added by now defunct copystatting, freeing up armour slot 321

-- checked IDs against my other MA nations and against CBM complete 1.21, no conflicts

-- Onebattlespells - Snikch (darkness), Thanquol (Twist fate), Seerlord (twist fate), Ikit Claw (Charge Body), Verminlord (divine blessing), Screaming Bell (fanaticism)

[Sombre]

Pox Cauldron is the main content in the next version, which is coming soon. Also you get a version of gift of flight called Skitterleap.

I might have a go at doing an Arch Plague Lord pretender too for you Pestilens fans, but don't hold me to that.

Attached is beta preview of pox cauldron. Like the screaming bell and doomwheel, it is likely to be a beta graphic for a long time. I just don't like doing the graphics for these big things, it seems.

[Salamander8]

I had to download the latest version and finally give them a serious try in an SP game. Skaven are one of my warhammer tabletop favorites so I had to try this puppy out!

All the construct spells are really cool although I haven't been able to get a bell up yet. At first I saw all these nasty artillery troops and was concerned about how powerful they appeared until I started fighting other nations rather than just the indies. I have just started getting my blood economy rolling, so have not tried any of those summons as of yet.

The doomwheels are nasty, if vulnerable due to their low health compared to their size. So they definitely remind me of my tabletop uses of these things. Nicely done.

The warp firethrowers also fit the tabletop version well. Adding the damaged immobile version was a nice touch.

Are the warp lightningthrowers your own invention, or were they added after I stopped playing WFB? Either way they certainly fit the Skaven theme quite well.

I didn't see the Jezzail teams. Not sure if they are no longer part of the official canon or if you had not, or were not going to include them. Either way is fine,just an observation. I did enjoy some luck with them, taking down my friend Dave's dryads at long range with my Jezzail teams will always have a special place for me. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Ah,the poisoned wind globadiers. I have a fond recollection of these guys from a massive good vs evil game of WFB we played back when a bunch of us had a wargame club back in Michigan. I was Skaven and Chaos Dwarves mixed, allied to 2 friends that were the Dark Elves and Orcs & Goblins. We were matched against 3 other friends playing the Empire, Dwarves, and the Wood Elves. At one point I had asked Nelson if he would be ok with me hurling some globes over his cold ones, informing him of the possibility of deviation. He gave me the ok but of course 1 globe had to hit his riders. Gotta love the random Skaven war machines! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/stupid.gif

The army truly feels like the skaven army as I tend to do more casualties to myself than my enemies do! I tried not using melee troops or setting them on hold and attack, since they get hammered by my own warpfire, warplightning, and the poisoned globes, but then the enemy just slammed into my vulnerable artillery and I'd rather lose my easily replaceable melee than my artillery pieces. Setting them on fire rear(for the doomwheels) and fire archers or cavalry isn't helping a lot and I cringe every time I watch the mass fire land squarely on my my melee blocks and watch my poor little rats fall to our own twisted inventions! This is spot on for the Skaven so again well done! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/beerglass.gif

[Sombre]

I'm glad you enjoyed the mod! :]

I kept Skaven tactics in mind at all times when making the nation. Hence most armies are plenty of cheap but fairly effective melee troops backed up by extremely powerful but unreliable magical and experimental weapons. The skavenslaves are particularly good for this purpose because they can only lose 1 guy from 3 each time a jet of fire or blast of warplightning falls on them, due to their usage of secondshape. They do suck at fighting, but you can always cast death frenzy on them.

2 units that I chose to leave out of the game were the ratling gun and jezzail teams. I did this because I felt gunpowder weapons don't fit in dom3. They don't work very well under the combat system and there aren't any gunpowder units in the base game. The warplightning throwers are based on the warp lightning cannon weapon from WHFB, but again I don't think big high firepower warmachines fit that well with dom3 (which doesn't feature catapults, mangonels, trebuchets, ballistas etc) so I converted it to be similar to the warpfire thrower.

Doomwheels were simply too fun for me to leave out. I don't know if they're really worth the cost in gems and research and stuff, but they're a lot of fun. If you manage to buff them (body ethereal being the classic) they can be very nasty indeed.

[ronjon]

I am new to dominions and have no idea how to install the mods. I did look around some but cannot find obvious instructions

[Wauthan]

1. Unpack the mod.
2. Move the Skaven folder and the Skaven.dm into the folder called "Mods", which in turn is located inside the main directory for Dominions 3. For example C:\Program Files\Dominions3\mods.
3. Start Dominions 3 and select Preferences, then Mod Preferences. Enable the Skaven Mod.
4. Start a new game, the Skaven nation should be available for the middle era.

[Aezeal]

unpack the file in the mods map

the .dm file should be directly in the mod map, usually the graphic files are in a map inside the mod map.

[ronjon]

I cannot believe I did not unpack the mod but just copied the folder into the mods folder. I don't know much but even I know that is wrong. Thanks for the help sorry to waste your time.

[Sombre]

You mean the zip? Because all you need to do with the /folder/ and .dm file is what you did, put it in the mods directory.

[Ferrosol]

Posted A Skaven Strategy guide feel free to check it out and pull it to pieces.

[Zentar]

Ferrosol said:
Posted A Skaven Strategy guide feel free to check it out and pull it to pieces.



The strategy guide is very helpful and rare for MOD nations.

One thing that I noticed (that came as an initial shock) was that mercenaries attack first, then a second battle is fought using your Skaven troops. Why does this happen? Did I miss it in the strategy guide? Obviously I wanted both troop types fighting as a team. Is this unique to Skaven?

I started a new game with mixed armies (mercenaries and nationals) and it worked like normal i.e. they both were present in a single battle. Now I have no idea what is happening or if it is even unique to Skaven.

[Sombre]

It's nothing to do with the nation. It's possible you moved mercs and skaven and forgot that the skaven were sneaking. The mercs attacked first, then the skaven sneaked and were caught.

[Zentar]

Sombre said:
It's nothing to do with the nation. It's possible you moved mercs and skaven and forgot that the skaven were sneaking. The mercs attacked first, then the skaven sneaked and were caught.



That had be what happened since it never happened again. I probably re-clicked the attack and forgot to take it off auto-sneak mode.

This is an extraordinary masterpiece mod. Good theme, great unit graphics, best looking national banner, diversity in playing options, no ridiculously overpowered capitol mages (I have seen soon mods with mages having 7 magic picks plus 2-3 holy - not balanced I will not mention the mod), and good pricing.

Sombre, early in this mod's development you choose to use earth and fire for Warplightning summons. Earth and air would have seemed more consistent as all lightning is air related. Perhaps you could help me understand this choice or possibly change it if you update again.

Thanks again for this wonderful mod gift.

[Sombre]

Well the idea behind warplightning is that despite the way it appears in the game, it actually jumps from the caster to the target, not from the sky. Unlike regular lightning or weather magic, warpstone is the power behind warplightning, which is essentially just a release of warp energy. I decided early on that warpstone based magic was a mixture of fire/death/earth in dom3 terms - earth/death is the poisonous aspects of it, fire/death is the warpfire and earth/fire is the raw warp energy or warplightning.

Besides that the earth and fire spells native to dom3 all make sense more or less for skaven warlock engineers to be using. The air spells don't fit them at all. Like Agartha they're largely a subterranean race and weather magic isn't their bag.

Ikkit Claw has air magic because he's travelled all over the world collecting arcana. He's a hero available to Skaven. One of the strongest heroes in the game I'd say.

[Amhazair]

LoloMo said:
Hi. I've been using this nation [Tomb Kings] in the TigerCat MP game, and have been very happy with it.

The new patch have removed all magic paths from my recruitable mages and priests though. Hope llamabeast can rework this soon. Thanks!

I've seen the same thing happening with the Arga Dis and Skaven mods, so I'm guessing this is a general issue. (Games that were already started luckily aren't affected, but any new game is)

[Sombre]

Weird. I'll test this and hopefully fix it tonight.

I hope the new patch hasn't ruined mod mages entirely.

[Sombre]

Just had a look and you're right - it's broken in all mods.

I've reported it in the bug thread. I can't see any sensible workaround. You could copystats existing mages I guess,.. but basically it seems like the mod commands to do with magic are all broken.

I imagine as a result of the odd linked randoms added for the new nations.

[Zentar]

Sombre said:
Well the idea behind warplightning is that despite the way it appears in the game, it actually jumps from the caster to the target, not from the sky. Unlike regular lightning or weather magic, warpstone is the power behind warplightning, which is essentially just a release of warp energy. I decided early on that warpstone based magic was a mixture of fire/death/earth in dom3 terms - earth/death is the poisonous aspects of it, fire/death is the warpfire and earth/fire is the raw warp energy or warplightning.
Besides that the earth and fire spells native to dom3 all make sense more or less for skaven warlock engineers to be using. The air spells don't fit them at all. Like Agartha they're largely a subterranean race and weather magic isn't their bag.
Ikkit Claw has air magic because he's travelled all over the world collecting arcana. He's a hero available to Skaven. One of the strongest heroes in the game I'd say.


Wow, thanks for the insight. It makes sense to me now.

[Sombre]

I'll release a 1.0 or 1.1 version of this real soon with various little tweaks and bugfixes.

The addition of a sixth hero slot is very useful for this nation - my workaround was having one hero as a multihero and making him unique so you couldn't get two.

I don't think there will be any new content,... though I am considering making a couple of warhammer racial magic items into spells. Fellblade for instance could be a unique summon of a regular warlord with perma berserk/insanity wielding a sword that harms him, but is very, very powerful.

[DaveCG]

Just dropping a line to say great mod Sombre (like all you mods I've tried, really loved the exile one myself) and hope you carry on all the fantastic work you do.

P.S I don't mean to sound rude, so I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but are you going to finish that war wind mod you were working on? I remember going through the mod forum and seeing it, and looking at the last post date and thinking "damn, I don't want to raise this one from the dead...hopefully he hasn't forgot it"... it's just I really used to love war wind when I was a kid, great game, infact I think I've got the second one somewhere, I'll have to dig it out.

Anyway hopefully that doesn't come off as rude or anything, trouble with words and the lack of writting abillity, yeah like I said great work and I'm looking forward to the day I can load up dom3 with rats, chaos, orcs, empire, elf, dwarf and all that jazz.

Once again thanks for the great mod.

[Sombre]

You don't sound rude at all. It is kind of ridiculous that I've left in untouched for so long and sort of shelved it. I made a pretty good start on it after all.

The next modding I plan to do is just updating Skaven to 1.0 with reordered unit IDs and a variety of tweaks. Little bit of new content too. The nation will then be 95% finished in my eyes. This will probably happen by the end of today.

After that I will go back to the Tharoon mod and I will have a serious try at adding more content (rogues, assassins and jump troops at least). That said I am currently NOT planning on doing the 3 other warwind races. Though I do hope to do them some way down the line, I have to prioritise work on warhammer nations that I've already started above them, as well as needed updates to already released mods.

So if anyone has comments on Skaven make them ASAP before I update, as usual.

[Digress]

Sombre said:
So if anyone has comments on Skaven make them ASAP before I update, as usual.



Ummm ... it remains superb.

[HoneyBadger]

Yes, jolly good. Keep the Pretender, but jolly, jolly good. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif

[Sombre]

Don't worry, I haven't deleted the seerlord, just dropped his price to 0 :]

Just going through ID numbers now.

[HoneyBadger]

Sombre, you make Pretenders like Stradivarius made guitars http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/Sick.gif

[Sombre]

Version 1.0 is up and at them.

If there's a problem let me know.

-- FIX - Skrolk now in hero slot 6

-- TWEAK - Upped some stealth values

-- FIX - Reordered unit ID numbers

-- TWEAK - Seerlord pretender now cheap

-- TWEAK - Warlords autosummon sword armed clanrats rather than stormvermin

-- TWEAK - Rat Ogres lost a claw attack but also have much lower gold upkeep

-- TWEAK - Made eshin shuriken a bit worse in light of the power of poison missiles

-- TWEAK - Added little bit of head prot for eshin troops

-- FIX - No more screaming bell multiheroes

-- CONTENT - Added Cauldron of a Thousand Poxes commander and spell to summon it

-- FIX - Leadership values sorted out

-- CONTENT - Added Skitterleap spell

-- FIX - Changed name and epithet to better suit dominions

-- FIX - Changed .dm name and mod folder name to fit my new conventions

[Mordici]

Sombre your Skaven mod is a work of Dominions art!!!!

[HoneyBadger]

Yep, Sombre's one of our Forum national treasures.

[Sombre]

I have to say I am really, really pleased how well both Ogre Kingdoms and Skaven have turned out. I have probably spent too much time on them rather than doing more Warhammer nations, but I feel like it's worth it when I get feedback or go back and try them myself. Skaven in particular really captured the feel of the race I was after.

[rdonj]

I really do love what you've done with the Skaven. It just feels so... right.

[whiplashomega]

Great mod, plan to use it for my Dom 3 LAN party tomorrow. 'twil be awesome.

[Sombre]

Redid preview image. Thanks Shrapnel for your arbitrary filesize limits.

[Digress]

I really do love what you've done with the Skaven. It just feels so... right.

That because it just is so right.

[Joelz]

I know this is "kind of late", but I just noticed a conflict with the Magic Site Mod and the Skaven mod.

The Undercity allows recruiting of Wizard, and the site Council Chambers allows recruiting of Longbowman.

The other conflict happens if you activate the Skaven mod before the Magic Site Mod. When you try to create a new game, Dominions 3 closes down and a "Något gick fel!" window pops up saying "Bad #startsite command".

[Sombre]

Basically the only way to avoid mod conflicts is to use a combiner script or a compilation mod, or mods that were specifically designed to work together.

Other than that, you'll have to fix it yourself. I can't change numbers around to try and avoid conflicts - it's an exercise in futility.

[Joelz]

I don't think I'll bother to change it. I mostly play this mod in SP, so I can simply ignore it.
Good luck with your Empire mod, by the way ;)

[Kheldron]

Hi,

I can't make it work with the single age mod. The nation simply doesn't appear in the list when the mod is on.
Any idea why and how I could fix it?

I love the nation and would like to use it in a single age game with friends

thanks in advance

[BandarLover]

Most likely a nation number conflict? Other more experienced modders can say for sure. To be fair, this mod is really meant to be played with the other Warhammer mods, sans any other mods being turned on (Possible exception is CBM mod but I can't say for sure). It would be an enormous headache for the modders to make sure their mods are compatible with every combination of mods that are out there.

[rdonj]

All current warhammer mods with the possible exception of nehekhara are 100% cbm compatible. But yeah, the warhammer mods are really only worried about themselves and CBM. The reason skavens don't play well with the single age mod is that SA uses nation slots normally used by mod nations iirc. I would be vaguely surprised if any mod nations are compatible with the SA mod.

[Theonlystd]

I've said it before but now its officially done and such..

This really is one of my favorite nations to play as.. Good stuff all around


Look forawrd to your other mods

[Sombre]

All current warhammer mods with the possible exception of nehekhara are 100% cbm compatible. But yeah, the warhammer mods are really only worried about themselves and CBM. The reason skavens don't play well with the single age mod is that SA uses nation slots normally used by mod nations iirc. I would be vaguely surprised if any mod nations are compatible with the SA mod.

There's no reason single age mods should use extra nation slots at all. All they should be doing is changing the era of various nations.

I can't comment on that particular mod, because I've never looked in the dm.

But it should be trivial to get skaven to work with the mod.

[rdonj]

Meh, I'm just not thinking today. Anyway, it is the following that is the problem:

#selectnation 72
#name "Filler 72"
#era 0
#end

#selectnation 73
#name "Filler 73"
#era 0
#end

#selectnation 74
#name "Filler 74"
#era 0
#end

#selectnation 75
#name "Filler 75"
#era 0
#end

#selectnation 76
#name "Filler 76"
#era 0
#end

#selectnation 77
#name "Filler 77"
#era 0
#end

#selectnation 78
#name "Filler 78"
#era 0
#end

#selectnation 79
#name "Filler 79"
#era 0
#end

All of that is at the end of the mod. The easiest fix is just to delete these lines since they don't really do anything useful.

[Sombre]

Yeah get rid of that crap. It's pointless.

[Kheldron]

Sadly, I don't have any kind of mod programming experience...how do I do that pointless thing? :)

[Sombre]

Open up the dm of whatever the single age mod you're using is - use a text editor to do this.

Find the code that reads like the above.

Delete it.

Save.

[Kheldron]

Thanks ! :)

I actually had to add that part to make it work after deleting the rest. It wasnt too hard, even for me, after your advice...

#selectnation 73
#name "Skavenblight"
#era 1
#end

[Kheldron]

Sombre, I'm still testing the mod and you can't know how much I like it. I was a dedicated Skaven fan in my warhammer days and I feel like I just lost 10 years :)

2 things about the national heroes :
- they all seem to get random names despite the text description clearly identifying them
- if I may ask, why did you lock their weapons and other slots ? this seems a bit odd to me. I clearly remember equipping those heroes in my warhammer games (that may have been in older versions, I haven't played for 10 years at least so I don't know about any new rules) and they're the only heroes I know of in dominions who can't equip a slot they actually have...

[BandarLover]

If I remember correctly, you cannot actually mod names into Dominions or rather, you cannot give a specific name to a specific unit. The best you can do is create a list that the game will randomly assign to units as they appear. Just turn Renaming on when you start a new game...Voila!

I'll let Sombre answer why some heroes have no item slots. My guess is he desired them to fill specific roles and thus gave them items that are already superior to anything the player could craft for them.

[rdonj]

It is possible to give heroes specific names... IF you are willing to dedicate an entire nametype to give that hero a name. Since there are only, what, 2? nametypes available without overwriting any of the base nametypes, sombre chose not to waste an entire nametype on one name, and assume that in any game you'll have renaming on so you can easily rename your hero properly.

And yeah, in later editions at least heroes always have specific unalterable euqipment.

[Sombre]

Basically these guys already answered for me!

Since you can rename I don't consider the hero name thing to be an issue. It certainly isn't worth overwriting an entire nametype just because people don't want to go to the length of renaming them. I always rename them to their correct names, it's become a little ritual that makes getting them more memorable.

The equipment issue,... well let's take queek for example. He wields dwarf gouger and a sword. They're both magical weapons iirc and pretty decent ones. They are unique to queek. If I left him with hand slots and just a sword/mace, people would have him armed with a fire brand and a charcoal shield. Or, more likely, they wouldn't arm him with anything anyway, because he isn't actually a very good thug (being a mere size 2 noncaster). By giving him limited slots and replicating the effect of the magic items taking those slots (warpstone armour, dwarf gouger, warpstone charm iirc) he's better out of the box and only requires limited equipment to be something of a badass. Stick boots of quickness on him for instance, and he can kill thugs. Give him a horror helm and a luck amulet, he's better against chaff.

[Kheldron]

thanks for the answers. I didn't intend to criticize, it just seemed odd to me.
Actually, I'm quite fine with them as the national heroes are really nice imo :)

[Kheldron]

I posted a guide to this mod there :
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=44290

thanks again Sombre :)

[HoneyBadger]

I think it's great that people are posting (really excellent!) guides to your mods, Sombre. Yours are the "gold standard" of mod Nations out there, and you clearly put a great deal of effort and thought into each and every one of them.

I'll point out that putting in specific, unique equipment is actually a lot harder and more time-consuming than not.

Maybe at some point, someone will decide to go back to these Warhammer mods and add in sets of alternate sprites for the various units, so that the player could pick and choose what each (mechanically identical) unit should look like. That kind of graphic customization is just about the only thing Dom 3 lacks over real tabletop miniatures, other than the risk of lead-poisoning. :laugh:

[Kheldron]

"Gold standard"

I couldn't have put it any better.

[Sombre]

-- version 1.1

-- CONTENT - Tretch Craventail Hero added

-- TWEAK - Improved Pitbreeding now B2E1

-- TWEAK - Plague Rats now 5 for 7 (were 10 for 13)

-- TWEAK - Rat Ogres now use normal bite and claw and have boosted strength

-- FIX - Warpblades and weeping blades now magical

-- CONTENT - Doomflayer weapons team + summoning spell added

-- CONTENT - Arch Plaguelord pretender choice added

-- CONTENT - Keeper of the Pillar pretender choice added

-- FIX - Doomwheel summon no longer a commander

-- TWEAK - Eshin Shuriken +1 ammo (now 4)

-- TWEAK - Removed the 'mass production' versions of skryre spells and greatly increased magetime requirements

-- TWEAK - Warlock and Warlock Engineer picks made more consistent, warlock now +2 RP (was +1), engineer +3 (was +1)

-- TWEAK - Grey Seer leadership reduced

-- TWEAK - Basic commander/scout costs changed to reflect the opportunity cost of a fort turn

-- TWEAK - No more slave autospawn for chieftains

-- CONTENT - Warp Static 'buff' spell added

-- TWEAK - Moulder blood summons made more mage intensive

-- TWEAK - Packmasters now summon a pack of 10 rats at the start of battle, as well as training them via summon allies

-- TWEAK - Heroes stats further boosted, especially hp - numerous other minor tweaks

-- TWEAK - Single slaves now a recruitable option, with sensible bonus given to groups

-- TWEAK - Plague Rat now has same name as giant rat to allow fooling scout reports

-- TWEAK - Boneripper given recuperation and better prot + now autosummoned in combat + not unique means doesn't carry over injuries

-- TWEAK - Death Frenzy now mr negates to avoid frenzying your casters

-- TWEAK - Skyre troops have boosted mr to deflect death frenzy - slaves etc have less

-- TWEAK - Fortune Teller values brought closer to line with vanilla

-- TWEAK - Warplightning now greenish

[Humakty]

You'll go to paradise, have 66 Hot Virgins and Mod for Eternity !

Oh, yeah, you can have that candy bar too.

[kianduatha]

Ooh, pretty. I know what I'm doing tonight now <3

[Sombre]

Oops, found a little error. The bubonic sceptre weapon used by the arch plaguelord needs the #bonus flag set.

I'll wait until tomorrow to see if anyone spots anything obviously wrong and do a 1.15.

[Trumanator]

Somehow the undercity now allows the recruitment of wizards, and the council chamber allows the recruitment of longbowmen.

[Sombre]

That's either a mod conflict or you need to start a new game as skaven rather than continue an old one. I'm definitely not seeing that problem, anyway.

[Trumanator]

Indeed, its a conflict w/the magic site mod.

Edit: Though now it seems that you have the council guard as a commander rather than a unit. I redownloaded from the OP to make sure and its still there.

[Sombre]

Other problems brought up so far - keeper of pillers is way too expensive, the bubonic sceptre's instant death effect is also a drain attack - so if it kills someone you get 999 health and fatigue restored as far as I can see. I'll change that for a simple soul slay effect.

[Sombre]

Indeed, its a conflict w/the magic site mod.

Edit: Though now it seems that you have the council guard as a commander rather than a unit. I redownloaded from the OP to make sure and its still there.

Not on my version. Are you running just the skaven mod? Have you started a clean game? Have you used any mod combining script or anything on it?

Skaven 1.1 has no overlap with cbm 1.6, bretonnia, tomb kings, ogres, lizardmen, dwarfs, but I didn't check it against the magic site mod.

[Trumanator]

huh, it seems that when I unticked and reticked CBM and the Skaven mod it fixed itself. Oh well, so much for my bughunting :(

[rdonj]

Other problems brought up so far - keeper of pillers is way too expensive, the bubonic sceptre's instant death effect is also a drain attack - so if it kills someone you get 999 health and fatigue restored as far as I can see. I'll change that for a simple soul slay effect.

I'm using the arch plaguelord in a test game and the bubonic scepter is nowhere near that good. I've not seen it restore more than 5 life in one hit.

[kianduatha]

Yeah, ditto on the arch plaguelord. I've gotten 5 hp from bubonic scepter kills, but nothing crazy. And no matter how much I want to thug the guy out, I can't justify taking him over getting a Nature bless on my guys, unfortunately.

On another note, I can't help but giggle with glee when I use Warp Static on Skavenslaves, then suicide them into a pack of Knights. It's just so beautiful.

...I wonder how it works against elephants...

[Trumanator]

heck, I'd use it on the rat spawn from the packmasters :D

[Joelz]

Wonder how well does the packmaster work as an assassin once you give him a black heart...

[rdonj]

I dunno... I think it would either fail miserably or be a fantastic success depending on what you were going after. Most indy commanders will probably die, but anything with decent guards and unscripted mages with decent evoc has a good chance of sending your packmaster running.

[Trumanator]

I had a random event assassin kill _2_ rats, which then sent the rest of them plus my packmaster running. No, I don't think he's assassin material.

[Sombre]

Rats (and packmasters) really do have abysmal mr. And really if you want a cheap assassin, just give the eshin one a skull amulet or one of the stronger summoning items. Or hell, just send him in naked, he'll still kill stuff until they bodyguard up.

[rdonj]

Yeah, the eshin assassins are pretty cool. Almost definitely a safer bet than a packmaster. Even if they die they have a pretty good chance of killing their opponent.

[Sombre]

-- version 1.15

-- TWEAK - Plague Priest picks evened out at 100% DB not 50/50, increased second pick to 30% not 20

-- TWEAK - Keeper of Pillars now 125 points, not 175

-- FIX - Thanquol got the correct baseprot

-- FIX - bubonic sceptre no longer lost when equipping arch plaguelord, no longer drains life when it instakills

-- TWEAK - Seerlord gets 5 researchbonus

[Kheldron]

Wow, it all sounds really exciting :)
I'll give it a run the coming weekend and let you know if I find anything odd.
Keep up the good work :up:

[Mordici]

I'am playing the update and I really am pleased with the new content and fixes. I especially like the new god choices. And I love the fact that you keep adding more heroes to the mix. I've said it before and I'll say it again this is my favorite mod nation!!

The only odd thing I noticed is that the two newest heroes, Grand Chieftain Trech Craventail and Skweel Gnawtooth Greater Packmaster, don't get a heroic ability even though both of them are in the Hall of Heroes in the game I am currently playing.