Warhammer Nations

[Sombre]

I'm making this thread to talk about Warhammer Nations generally, since I plan on doing many/some/most/none/quasar of them,.... over the course of a loooong time, obviously.

I'll post thoughts I have about nations that aren't the skaven (which I'm already working on) here.

My proposed list of Warhammer Nations (not in any order, subject to name change):

Skaven
Dwarfs
Chaos Dwarfs
Greenskins (mountain/badland dwellers mainly)
Savage Greenskins (forest gobs and savage orcs mainly)
Empire
Kislev
High Elves
Wood Elves
Dark Elves
Vampire Counts (excluding carstein)
Traditional Undead (including carstein)
Tomb Kings of Khemri
Lizardmen
Bretonnia
Tilea AKA Dogs of War
Chaos Hordes (tribes, warriors, daemons)
Beasts of Chaos (beastman warband effectively)
Ogre Kingdoms

Have I missed any?

I'll post prelim army lists for them in following posts.

[Sombre]

DWARFS


Warhammer Racial Notes


Ancestral Grudge, Resolute, Relentless

M 3
WS 4
BS 3
S 3
T 4
W 1
I 2
A 1
Ld 9

Dwarfs are slow in combat, very stubborn and hard to break, very tough, skilled, quite expensive per model



Dominions Racial Notes

Hp - 12 (Smaller than humans, but much tougher)
Prot - 4 (tough little sods)
str - 11 (dwarfs are clearly strong given their weapons/armour)
att - 11/12 (all skilled fighters)
def - 10 (skilled, but lower initiative)
ap - 8 (with the armour, this makes them a very slow army)
mr - 13 (dwarfs are famed for resisting magic)
mor - 14 (They have the best morale in Warhammer)
gcost - 12 (Clearly higher than regular troops)
prec - 10/11 (dwarfs like ranged combat almost as much as melee)
mapmove - 2 (although slow in battle, they have great endurance and tunnel systems)
enc - 2 (dwarfs don't tire easily)
size - 2 (though short, dwarfs have quite high mass and do not swarm)

Other abilities

Darkvision 50%
Mountain Survival
Shockres
Siegebonus 1 (All dwarfs have knowledge of siege warfare)
Castledef 2 (dwarfs are experts in defensive tactics)


THE NATION SHOULD

Emphasise defence and patient warfare - good PD and forts
Not outnumber most enemies or win through numbers
Be powerful both at range and in melee
Have top notch forging but not battlemagic (smiths with high enc?)
Have superior equipment and a strong emphasis on resources
Be relatively capital centric
Not take losses lightly
Be totally drain immune


UNITS

Clansman (medium armour, shield, dwarf axe)
Clansman (heavy armour, shield, dwarf axe)
Crossbow (medium armour, dwarf crossbow, dwarf axe)
Longbeard (heavy armour, shield, broadsword - superb morale, standard effect)
Ironbreaker (very heavy armour, shield, dwarf axe - resists various nasty things)
Ranger (medium armour, battleaxe, dwarf crossbow - stealth, forest survival)
Miner (heavy armour, dwarf pickaxe - stealth, siegebonus)
Slayer (no armour, broadsword + dwarf axe - awesome morale, berserk, high str)
Hammerer (heavy armour, runehammer - elite, sacred unit)
Rune Guard (very heavy armour, shield, runeaxe - elite, sacred, mapmove 1)


LEADERS

Thane (basic leader)
Lord (great leader)
Dragon Slayer (ok leader, good thug)
King (sacred, superb leader, rare)
Rune Smith (sacred, E2/3, forge 25)
Rune Lord (sacred, forge 50, E3/4/5)
Rune Priest (H2 only E1, forge 25)
Engineer (EF magic, siegebonus, constructs/researches)



OTHER

Anvil of Doom (the portable old version, complete with Rune Lord, H3)


SPELL

Rune Lightning spell should be at H3 E2 or something, very powerful, used by Anvil
Bolt thrower as a construction spell, available to engineers
Steam Cannon?
Flame Cannon?


HEROES

High King on Throne of Power (Thorgrim Grudgebearer - huge standard effect, spawns hammerers)
Slayer King (Ungrim Ironfist - super thug, spawns slayers)
Master Brewer (Joseph Bugman - ranger who provides supplies, spawns rangers)
Engineer Guildmaster (Burlock Damminson - FE mage, can summon machines)
King and Shieldbearers (Alrik Ranulfsson - traditionalist, summons clansmen and breakers)
Rune Lord with True Doom Anvil (Thorek Ironbrow - traditionalist, summons rune guard, can use the 'Rune of Doom' which creates a force of ghostly dwarfs of vengeance)

There were a couple of others in an older army book version but I don't quite remember them. A king with a horn and a mad runelord I think.

[Shovah32]

Sounds very nice, although i would probably knock their base goldcost up to 15(almost all-round better stats, dark vision, shockres, mountain survival, siege bonus AND defence bonus).

[Theonlystd]

That does look like all the Nations/Races.


And the Dwarf stuff sounds good

[BandarLover]

Looks like you covered all the bases, though I admit I'm not familiar with Kislev.

And I bring up this next point only because it was brought to my attention when making my sad little mod: Thane translates into Lord so your basic and great leader are essentially the same thing. Maybe make basic leader chieftain or somesuch. It's semantics though I suppose.

You are making yourself one busy, busy person. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

But I'm like everyone else here, super excited to see you pull all this off.

[Sombre]

Kislev was a supplementary army list for Empire - because Empire, like Greenskins, actually have too much variety I decided to give them their own nation using the old White Dwarf published army list.

Thane and Lord are the titles from the Warhammer Army: Dwarfs book. I generally stick with those.


As for the goldcost - I actually left that in by mistake. It should be higher, like 14 or so per dwarf. The shockres will only be about 25%. It's just there to emphasise how well they resist magical energy. I don't want to make them ultra expensive because the national troops of the nation have to be a focus (as they have pretty crappy magic).

[BandarLover]

Ah I see. And I like using thane and lord myself, just thought I would be annoying.

So what would be the Kislev units then? Are they geared more towards innovative arms and technology? I'm not too familiar with Empire.

[Burnsaber]

Kislev is a cold, barren border-land between the chaos wastes and the empire. They rely on ice magic and polish/slavic type light cavalry. No technology there.

[DigitalSin]

Oo lizardmen http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif Wonderful!!
Plenty of giant lizards running around crushing the warmbloods http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

[Juzza]

Um, The empire is like the 40k verson of the space marines right? if so, someone has got to make them!!! space marines rock.

[DigitalSin]

Empire is sort of like an medieval version of the Space Marines, with the same sort of inquisition styled religion and reverence to the Emperor, but without the fancy high-tech guns and lasers http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[Sombre]

The Empire, like the Dwarfs, lose some of their units because I'm not putting gunpowder into the game. However they do get some replacements. The Steam Tank loses the gunpowder cannon, but will keep a steam based missile weapon it can fire off before trampling - it will be very hard to kill of course.

Generally the Empire are a bit like Marignon - some solid infantry, great knightly cavalry and the capability to have huge missile firepower (they get shortbows, crossbows and longbows).

[Shovah32]

Juzza said:
space marines rock.



*stabs Juzza*

[Valandil]

The forces of chaos might make for a VERY interesting mod.

Marauders-
hp 12 Att 11 Def 10 Str 11 Mr 9 Mor 10 Move 2, Pillage Bonus, flail/axe/morningstar. Furs and leather.
--Domsummoned maybe by powerful lords?

Horsemen with axe+throwing axes and a better pillage bonus.

Warriors- Hp 14 Att 13 Def 12 Str 13 MR 11 Mor 12 Move 1. Greataxe/Axe+shield/Axe+Sword. Full Chain.

Knights- Hp 14 Att 14 Def 13 Str 14 Mr 11 Mor 13 Move 2. Sword+Shield. Full Chain.

Chosen, warriors or knights. Hp 14 Att 14 Def 13 Str 14 Mr 12 Mor 14. Replace full chain with chaos armor (or full plate, for purists) Sacred.

_______________

Sorceror- 210% FDSN Randoms. Otherwise as warrior
Exalted Sorceror- F2 D1 110% FDSN, As Chosen warrior.
Aspiring Champ.- Good leader 25% chance of B or S
Exalted Champ.-great leader, decent thug 25% chance of BB or SS
Lord.-Brutal combatant, great leader. 25% chance of BB or SS

--BB/SS randoms represent possiblities of khorne or Tzeentch champions arising. Same deal with the sorcs randoms.

LOTS of national magic-

Blood 0
-Mark of Khorne AOE 5 Beserk +2
Blood 2
-Hounds of Khorne ritual
Hp 12 Size 3 STR 14 Att/Def 10 MR 16 Move 3 Berserk +2 hunting hounds.
Blood 4
-Bloodletters of Khorne ritual
Hp 20 Size 3 Str 15 Att/Def 15 Mr 15 Berserk +2 hellblade wielding combat beasts.
Blood 8
Bloodthirster of Khorne
Ultratough monster. Extremely hard to summon, given the lack of blood magic- as it should be.

Evo--
Red/Yellow/Green/Blue fires of Tzeentch. (SS or FS)
Mark of Tzeentch at Evo 0, giving MR and twist fate.
Thaum--
Pestilence, Affliction, Buboes.
Mark of Nurgle at 0, Giving regen.
Ench--
Lash of torment, siren call, delicious excruciation.
Mark of Slaanesh at 0, gives (?)

Conj.
Screamers, Horrors, Flamers, Lord of Change.
Nurlings (en masse), Plaguebearers, Great Unclean One.
Daemonettes, Mounted Daemonettes, Keeper of secrets.
Furies.

Maybe a Daemon prince. Maybe Helcannons. Maybe the daemon cavalries.

And Of course the Chaos Powers mod.

[Valandil]

As of right about now, I am seriously considerein doing this mod. Mostly to try my hand at drawing some daemons in GIMP (Which is a great program.)

[Sombre]

Go for it. You can do it on your own if you want, or we can collaborate. I wasn't planning on doing Chaos Hordes anytime soon personally.

As for the above - I'm not sure about nature magic.

I'd probably have gone something like this:

Khorne = BF
Slaanesh = WS
Nurgle = D (with extra diseasey spells)
Tzeentch = SAF

Chaos is pretty demanding graphically, but there's also an opportunity for some awesome looking armies.

[Valandil]

I'm a chaos player, myself.
The nature was there because, well, because I had no idea what to do for slaaneshi magics. Water is a good idea though.

I consider myself an artist, though GIMP isn't exactly my field. I would, of course, be happy to collaborate, and I'm going to start a thread tomorrow anyways. Feel free to assist.

Oh, any opinions on the powers would be nice too- I've only finished a warrior of either khorne or undivided, and a sorc. who could be anything except Khorne, so I'm open.

Thanks!

[DigitalSin]

Nurgle could be death and nature. And the mark of Tzeench could be insanity or something like that.

[Sombre]

I don't think Nurgle should have nature. I know instinctively it seems like DN is the right picks for them, but if you look at the nature magic in Dom3 it just doesn't fit them. D is the closest - with some national spells added of course.

I have the same problem with Skaven from the Moulder clan - they should be BN for crossbreedin, but the nature magic doesn't actually fit them, so I'm making a couple of new national spells for them to use.

[DigitalSin]

I suppose, if you look at it that way.. But still, its all about the corruption and mutation of nature.

[Sombre]

Here's my army list for Ogre Kingdoms. Not quite completed.


WARHAMMER OGRE RACIAL STATS

Bull Charge, Cause Fear,

M 6
WS 3
BS 2
S 4
T 4
W 3
I 2
A 3
Ld 7

Ogres are offensive powerhouses that are very hard to take out - not too skilled but

strong and armed with clubs that give -1 to save. They are a relatively straightforward

army

WARHAMMER GNOBLAR RACIAL STATS

Insignificant, Bicker, Sharp stuff

M 4
WS 2
BS 3
S 2
T 3
W 1
I 3
A 1
Ld 5

Gnoblars are basically goblins and behave in a similar way - use numbers to swarm, absorb

casualties, run away a lot. They often throw stuff.




DOMINIONS OGRE RACIAL STATS

Hp - 28 (big tough brutes)
Prot - 6 (ogre hide is tough and they are large)
str - 13/14 (Ogres are strong, but in Warhammer they are nowhere near giant ability)
att - 10 (Ogres are efficient fighters, but not that skilled)
def - 9 (Low initiative)
ap - 15/16 (Ogres can really move when motivated)
mr - 10 (average)
mor - 11 (The extra morale is because in warhammer they are immune to fear)
prec - 7 (Ogres are far from precise and don't really use ranged weapons)
mapmove - 3 (Ogres are both nomadic and migratory, capable of long marches)
size - 3 (Ogres aren't quite size 4 - only as big as cavalry)

Other abilities

Mountain Survival
Wasteland Survival
Gluttony 1+
Also have an ogre smash attack with a charge bonus representing general punching, kicking,

biting and bullrushing done by the ogres
Coldres 25%+



DOMINIONS GNOBLAR RACIAL STATS

Hp - 7/8 (small, weak, easily stomped)
Str - 7/8 (not exactly strong these guys)
att - 8 (also genuinely poor at fighting)
def - 9 (low skill, but solid initiative)
ap - 12
mr - 9
mor - 7 (gnoblars don't tend to stick around once the going gets tough)
prec - 9 (actually not too bad, considering)
mapmove - 2 (Ogres in a hurry will leave gnoblars behind)
size - 1 (they will actually be 3 'models' to a size 2 'base', with 2 attacks)

Mountain Survival
Throw sticks and stones or equivalent


THE NATION SHOULD

Be all about smashing face with mobile armies - weak PD, ramshackle forts
Be mostly about basic ogre infantry, not gnoblars or support units
Be at a great disadvantage at range, with no traditional ranged weapons
Have effective thugs even without lots of equipment and emphasise low cost leaders
Be nomadic rather than capital centric
Have national troops/leaders that remain useful for longer in the game
Convey a sense of hunger and destruction
Be quite scary to face off against in straight up combat
Have very limited magic

WEAPONS

Ogre Club - high damage one handed club
Ogre Smash - str based damage bonus attack with charge bonus
Ironfist - always used in pairs, lower damage but offer a nice def bonus
Deathbelcher - one shot close range missile weapon, fires a wildly inaccurate spray of

projectiles
Maneater Longsword - a superior quality one handed sword


RECRUITS

Gnoblar Fighters (v.light armour, shortsword)
Gnoblar Trappers (furs, shortsword - stealthy, have net when at full strength)
Ogre Bull (Plate Cuirass, ogre club)
Ogre Bull (Plate Cuirass, ironfists)
Ogre Deathbelcher (Plate cuirass, ogre club, deathbelcher)
Ogre Irongut (Plate hauberk, Half helmet, greatsword - slightly superior stats)
Ogre Maneater (Plate Cuirass, Maneater Longsword - genuine elite, excellent morale)
Yhetee (no armour, dual ice weapons - cold aura, fast, offensive)
Hunter (furs, javelin, Ogre club - stealthy)
Slavegiant (Chains, light armour - size 5 wrecking machine)
Pitfighter (plate hauberk, blade arms - superb fighters, sacred, expensive)
Gnoblar Scrapapult (pulled by Rhinox that charges if it is destroyed - fires a hail of

projectiles over long distance)



LEADERS

Bruiser (basic leader, still thuggy)
Tyrant (good leader, scary thug base)
Butcher (H1 B2 - fear, poison immune)
Slaughtermaster (H2 B3 - fear, poison immune, ok thug and good leader)
Huntmaster (N2 10% random, or nothing. Can call sabretusks. Stealthy. Good thug)
Yhetee Greyback (ok leader, cold immune, only misc slots)



SPAWNS/OTHER

Sabretusk (bite, claw - upgraded big cat, fast, stealthy)
Rhinox (big trampler, berserk 0, only used when scrapapult dies)
Gorger (no armour, bite and claws - berserker, superb morale - BLOOD SUMMON)



SPELL

Various extra combat spells in the Blood School + 2 Gorger summon spells


HEROES

To be completed.

[Valandil]

Bull charge is going to be difficult. I suppose they should have a one use only aoe 1 charge bonus for first strke, but that AFAIK will not be possible with currrent modding commands.

The ogre missile troops are called leadbelchers in warhammer, I think.

Similarily, the maneaters traditonally wield Cthayan Longswords (which are ap...)

I think to represent faithfully the gut magic system, it might be necessary to add some blood combat spells with no slave requirements- unheard of! <actually, not quite... blood boil, leaching touch> (Ideally, these would hurt the butcher), but if we think of slaves as eg. trollguts this little quibble is avoidable.

Ironfists aren't, to my knowledge, used in pairs. They work as either a hand weapon or a shield, and are usually combined with an ordinary hand weapon, given that two shields is illegal.

Ogre bulls maybe shouldn't wear plate armor, given that they're 'lightly armored' and, well, half naked.

Yhetees are obscenely deadly in the newest addition, where they charge though terrain absurdly fast, hit the flank of an engaged, doomed, unit, and overrun into a new combat on the same turn. I therefore suggest mapmove 3, survivals, and big icy clubs.

[Sombre]

I'm not trying to represent the rules of Warhammer 100% faithfully, because I don't think it would translate to Dominions 3 that well. For instance, I'm not giving all creatures that have fear in warhammer fear in dom3, because it would be far too powerful.

With that said - I think Bull Charge is easy enough, just a chargebonus on the ogre's smash attack/club. As long as it makes them more effective on the charge, it's representing bull charge.

Leadbelchers is what they're called in Warhammer, yes, but I'm calling them deathbelchers because I've decided not to have the gunpowder weapons from Warhammer brought over - they don't fit the dom3 world.
Leadbelcher = a crude blackpowder device firing a spray of lead (a material clearly associated with firearms).
Deathbelcher = A crude magic device firing a spray of stone/rubble/random garbage.
Basically I'm giving it a different name to represent that the units are somewhat different. Similarly if/when I do Chaos Dwarfs, they'll get a replacement unit for the blunderbuss.

Cthayan longswords, yes, I just forgot the name when I typed that. Anyway, I don't think they should be AP. The armour system in Warhammer and dominions is very different. They'll just be better than most basic swords and the ogre's strength should take care of the rest.

I'm not planning on trying to faithfully reproduce the various spells from warhammer, at least currently. I think there are too many of them and many of them can't be done or don't fit that well with dom3. Maybe though. In trying to follow the theme of gut magic I will be giving Ogres 0 bloodslave combat spells though, yeah.

As for Ironfists - they don't work as shields vs arrows, which means in dom3 terms they should simply add a def bonus. I could do ogres with one falchion and one ironfist, but that would require giving them fairly good ambi, which isn't very ogrish. Still, could do that. I just figured dual ironfists would make for high def units which were better for slowly grinding in combat vs many small and weak troops.

Ogre bulls get 'plate cuirass' to represent the gutplate. In dom3 terms it isn't very heavy armour and the armour system in the two games is very different. I'll probably make a new armour with stats similar to the cuirass called 'gutplate' though.

All Ogres have mapmove 3. Yhetees will have mountain survival and dual ice weapons. Since they live at the peak of mountains, they probably shouldn't have forest survival, but could do I guess.

Thanks for the feedback :]

[Valandil]

Thanks for the clarification. I didn't mean to sound confrontational, but reading my post...

I agree with your stance on black powder, but I'm worried. After all, dwarfs empire chaos dwarfs skaven and ogres all use it to some degree.

Faithfully reproducing warhammer isn't, of course, the goal. Nevertheless, things like gut magic and runic magic are fairly important, IMHO, to getting the right impression across.

Yhetees, of course, thematcally shouldn't have forest survival- exactly right. On the other hand, the warhammer RULES (which are slightely flawed, naturally) give it to them. Lord knows why.

[Xietor]

A question on the dwarves,

Most of their racial traits I agree with, but why are they shock resistant? They typically have high magic resistance,
but protection from lightning strikes is new to me.

[Sombre]

Well with the Skaven I've cut the ratling gun and jezzail from their armory and kept the warpfire thrower, warplightning, poison wind globes, doomwheel etc. It's really just firearms that represent a problem and they can be substituted in many cases. For example with the Chaos Dwarf Blunderbess, I can make heavily armed grenadier troops instead who hurl handfuls of spiked naptha bombs or magical explosives at close range. The earthshaker/hell cannon/death rocket can either be removed (dom3 doesn't really 'do' such artillery weapons) or turned into lower tech magical versions.

And the regular dwarfs, for instance, will get a nice super high prec high damage bolt thrower for killing large enemies very reliably and they'll get a flame cannon unit for wiping out hordes as well. Just no mortar, cannon, stone thrower etc.

Empire has a lot of missile firepower (3 kinds of bow) without gunpowder and they can still have a steamtank without a cannon, a war wagon without gunpowder weapons etc.

Don't worry about sounding confrontational - I love feedback :]

Really looking forward to seeing how your Hordes of Chaos turn out. They would make good opponents for my Skaven - I imagine the battles would be incredibly bloody - hordes of skaven dying to take down small numbers of chaos troops.

[Sombre]

Xietor said:
A question on the dwarves,

Most of their racial traits I agree with, but why are they shock resistant? They typically have high magic resistance,
but protection from lightning strikes is new to me.



I could remove the shock res - I put it in there for three reasons.

1. Dwarfs use rune lightning and this reduces friendly fire damage.
2. Dwarfs resist magical energy - lightning in dom3 is usually magical energy, unlike fire or poison.
3. Dwarfs are low to the ground, very solid, associated with earth. Scientifically they'd probably be good targets for lightning because they wear lots of armour, but still, they give a sense of being 'grounded' in the sense that they might dissapate such energy without getting fried too bad.

It would only be 25% res anyway, nothing major. But like I said, could easily get rid of it.

[Theonlystd]

*eagerly waits*

[DigitalSin]

*waits eagerlyer*

[Sombre]

-overeagerly outwaits everyone-

.....

Oh, crap, I'm supposed to be making them, aren't I?

[DigitalSin]

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

[Valandil]

Hnmm. Yes. ME too.
Unfortunately, my computer keyboard has gone psychotic and is replacing every key with french ones.
I hate windows.

[HoneyBadger]

Note on the Yheetees:

I don't know how experienced the posters in this thread are with the tops of mountains, but their are dense forests even on the lower areas of the Himalayas, not to mention the tops of the Rocky mountains, and Appalachians-both of which I've lived close by. Infact, I can see high, snowcapped mountains from my house, and yep, their are trees all the way up. Now, not every mountain is going to conform to this, ofcourse, but it really depends on whether you're talking just plain climbing/traversing ability, as in snow and rock, and the not-falling-off-of, or survival on a drastically sloped, wooded, forest.

[Valandil]

I also live beside(?) some mountains (Olympics, in my case). Yhetees probably live below the tree lineand are therefore familiar with alpine woods. Whether that would be useful in eg. a tropical rainforest, or even a temperate one, is hard to say. Nonetheless, you are quite correct.

[llamabeast]

I've just spontaneously been thinking that Tomb Kings would make an awesome Dom3 army. They're sufficiently different to Ermor to be very interesting, and somehow C'tis just doesn't hit the spot for an Egyptian theme for me.

Sombre, if I coded up a version of Tomb Kings, would you be willing to help me out with the graphics? I suspect I will prove pretty talentless on the graphics front.

[Sombre]

I would, yes. I think you can do some yourself, but I am indeed willing to help out, especially with the trickier stuff like the Tomb Scorpions.

Right now I have too much work, but in two weeks I have a holiday - I thought it was going to be a nice long holiday, but I'm now being told it might be more like two weeks than two months, which hasn't exactly made my day.

[llamabeast]

Yep, I'll definitely have a go at doing some myself if I get anywhere with the mod. Would be cheeky to not even try. I just have a feeling that I might not be very pleased with the results (I'm a bit of a perfectionist generally, which is unfortunate in areas in which I have no skill).

Exciting, think I will go and buy the Army Book on my way home (there's a GW not far out of my way happily - haven't been in one for years).

Bummer about your holiday, that sounds very annoying. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif Bad news for the Dominions community too. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Valandil]

Looks like we might have enough interest to actually finish a few nations. Great news, and thanks for the help, llamabeast!

[CelestialGoblyn]

If you need me, I can help with following:
- writing text descriptions
- editing text files(drudgework)
- playtesting
- making unit stats

I can devote about an hour per day to this.

I really want to see those nations be completed;)

[Valandil]

Well, I'm sure playtesting will be a terrible chore, but someone has to do it...

[Theonlystd]

Valandil said:
Well, I'm sure playtesting will be a terrible chore, but someone has to do it...




I would sacrifice my precious time to do play testing.


Yes i am a saint http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

[llamabeast]

I for one may well take you guys up on your kind offers, once I get started.

[Sombre]

This is just something I was writing notes on in a break period between lessons. I typed it up exactly as I wrote it, so it's still sort of in note form :]

Anyway, it's my thoughts on the subject of the Imperial Colleges in Warhammer - basically the Empire has all kinds of magic available - too many schools to fit on the recruit screen, so I've decided to give them a completely new magic system based on summons.

---------------------------------------------


Schools

Fire - Bright - F+ - Evocation
Wizard - Higher precision, lower research
Lord - Strong fire shield


Metal - Gold - E (F) - Alteration and construction
Wizard - Alchemy (?), higher upkeep
Lord - Forgebonus


Shadow - Grey - AD - Enchantment, alteration
Wizard - Stealthy
Lord - Flight, spy


Beasts - Amber - N+ - Conjuration
Wizard - Forest survival, shapechange to wolf
Lord - Shapechange to giant bear, useful summon allies ability in this form


Heavens - Celestial - Equal AS - Evocation and thaum
Wizard - Research bonus, prevent bad events
Lord - Better bonuses


Light - Light - FS - Alteration and Evocation
Wizard - Heal?
Lord - Better heal?


Life - Jade - N EWA - Alteration, Evocation
Wizard - Decrease unrest? Heal?
Lord - Better versions of above?


Death - Amethyst - D (W) - Alteration, Enchantment
Wizard - Drain life attack
Lord - ?


Each school will have 2 summons available - one for a standard Wizard such as "Bright Wizard" and one for a college lord, "Bright Wizard Lord". The standard wizards will basically be 2 in one path then have some kind of secondary path, or a chance at lvl3 in their main path if from a focused school like Bright.

The Wizard Lords will be lvl 3 average, but some lvl 4. They will kick ***, but they will all be old.

The whole thing will be started off by the College Acolyte recruitable which has lvl 1 random in NEFADS.

N1 summons Amber, Jade
F1 summons Bright, Light
A1 summons Grey,
D1 summons Amethyst
S1 summons Celestial
E1 summons Gold

The summons will have to be researched and will be found with one version in each of the schools favoured by the mages, at level 3 and 6 perhaps?

[zepath]

On this very topic, three of my nations mods built last year were entirely inspired by Warhammer armies. Teutanion combined the Empire and Bretonnia, Sylvania combined the Wood and High Elves, and Sanguinia was a shot at the Vampire Counts. The intent here and now seems to be creating direct translations of the WH Fantasy nations so my previous work doesn't fit perfectly. Still, if y'all are curious how I portrayed those armies, take a look at my old mods. Also, feel free to swipe sprites or code from them if you think they apply to the current effort.

[Calchet]

Rather than create a new thread for (another) in-progress mod of mine, I figure I'd use this one until I have something worthy of release.

Zharr-Naggrund, Fire and Desolation.
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=7901&d=1236679335

Or, well, Chaos Dwarfs.


Overview:
- Capital-centric faction, accentuated by a sizeable production bonus on one of their capital sites.
- Very low numbers of actual dwarves - all of them, excepting a slaver commander, are capital-only and quite expensive. On the other hand, they all wear heavy armour, and are barely encumbered by it - not to mention their high health and innate magic resistance.
- Mighty blunderbusses able to turn hordes of unarmoured enemies into nothing but so much red paste and shrapnel.
- Casters ranging from cheap and solid battle-mages to powerful sorcerers with extreme encumbrace issues - they're gradually turning to stone!
- Sacred Bull Centaurs add a more mobile option than regular foot-slogging dwarves.
- Powerful siege weaponry, from the lowly hobgoblin-crewed bolt thrower up to the mighty Earthshaker Cannon - and beyond.
- Summonable sacred beasts like the Great Taurus, a winged red demonic bull, and the Lammasu, a manticorean monstrosity.
- Outside the capital, a good variety of greenskin slave chaff, from goblins all the way up to black orcs.
- Battle evocations that turn the skies dark with smoke from the great furnaces of Zharr-Naggrund.
- The massive crimson form of Hashut, the Great Red Bull, the Father of Darkness, joins the ranks of pretenders.
- Fancy hats.
- And more. Probably. If I get around to it.

[Burnsaber]

- Fancy hats.


That does it. I love it.

Seems good, how do you plan on implementing the blunderbusses? Will they be like muskets (scary, but not that lethal)? We all know Sombre's stance on gunpowder weapons and I kinda agree with him. Gunpowder weapons don't really fit into dom3 world. Perhaps give some magical replacement thingmajig? Chaos dwarves really are so few in number that they shouldn't risk themselves in melee (exception: Bulltaurs). Granades could be sweet, thought.

My Warhammer lore comes from WRFP, so it might not be "canon", but didn't Black Orcs rebel and nearly destroy Chaos Dwarves? If I recall correctly The C.Dwarves won as the hobgoblins backstabbed the Black Orcs.

[Calchet]

At the moment, the blunderbusses are short-range projectiles with pretty good damage and a secondary physical 'shrapnel' random area-of-effect attack - they are frighteningly effective against unarmoured troops, but do little against heavy armour. (That's what the Earthshaker cannons and Death Rockets are for.)

Also, that's pretty much how it went down - they no longer keep Black Orcs among their regular slaves, but rather hunt some down and outfit them when they need them as soldiers. In-game, black orcs will basically be stronger, tougher and more skilled but more expensive in both gold and resources as compared to regular orcs. Orc and Goblin bosses with the exception of Hobgoblins will also likely have a leadership of 0 - they're not trusted to lead armies. (They'll get a standard ability instead, letting them keep the low-morale troops in line... more or less.)

[Burnsaber]

Sorry there. I kinda ninja edited my post before I saw your reply.

I'm kinda worried that you're going to add gunpowder weapons. I really think Sombre is on the right path as he is doing powderless replacements on the weapons (Leadbelcher -> Deathbelcher). You're free to do your own mod, but it just would be kinda nice if all Warhammer mods had same stance on the issue. Chaos Dwarves are just kind of problematic as they are too few in number to be willing to risk themselves in melee. Perhaps go for the cliche "A Wizard did it" explanation? Fire Staffs or something? Firebelchers? Granades are very low tech and easily explained by magic.

I'd just like to restate that you're free to do your mod like you want it, but (IMHO) it would kinda nice if all warhammer mods had the same stance.

[Calchet]

Hm, it would be sort of problematic to have all the rockets, cannons and whatnot the nation relies on without explosives - perhaps referring to the weapons as using unspecified alchemical compounds alongside magic might work, along the 'a wizard did it' lines, like so?


By combining alchemical compounds drawn from the wasteland around Zharr-Naggrond with runic magic, the alchemists and sorcerers beneath the city have created the blunderbuss - a fearful weapon wielded by these Chaos Dwarf warriors. The contraptions are capable of launching flaming metal shrapnel over short distances with a sound as of thunder, mowing down unarmoured enemies and allies alike. The weapons are reasonably accurate, but impossible to use effectively in melee combat and often fail when set against heavy armour.


The Death Rocket is a recent invention by the alchemists of Zharr-Naggrond, and a lethal one, at that. A heavily runed and enchanted metal tube is filled with a highly volatile compound , then pointed in the general direction of an force enemy and released, rushing screaming through the air before exploding. It is not a very fast weapon, as each projectile takes time to prepare, nor is it accurate in the least, but the exploding casing sends shrapnel ricocheting in all direction, mowing down lightly armoured soldiers with no regard for allegiance.


The Earthshaker cannon is the greatest battlefield weapon of Zharr-Naggrond, and the secrets of their construction are carefully guarded. Whether it is thanks to the alchemical compounds within or the arcane runes without, the thundering metal monstrosity is able to launch heavy projectiles long distances, crashing down inside enemy formations to disrupt and destroy any semblance of order. The great cannons are also able to bring down fortification gates with frightening ease.

[llamabeast]

Sounds very good to me! The sprites look good too. Definitely looking forward to seeing a playable version!

[Burnsaber]

That does sound a lot better. Much more sinister than "it's a gunpowder weapon". Once you happen to release a playable version, you can expect some feedback from me.

[Sombre]

Very cool. My only concern is they might be a bit small. Warhammer dwarfs are short but pretty wide, definitely size 2. Put them next to a human and see.

I was planning on doing Chaos Dwarfs myself, but god knows when I actually would. I even wrote a doc for them in advance, maybe I'll post it up later. Basically I replaced all the gunpowder style weapons - the deathrocket and the earthshaker I took out entirely and the blunderbuss I turned into a grenadier throwing handfuls of spiked balls that explode into fire, with a banefire version summonable.

I had planned on extending them a lot, since they were quite bare as an army list and dom3 gives a lot of scope for expanding them with religion etc. The most important thing to get right imo is the feel of the nation - expensive but excellent dwarfs, powerful earth/fire magic and expendable slaves. Chaos Dwarfs are the #1 slavers in the warhammer world, ahead of even Dark Elves I believe and are also extremely mercenary, dealing with greenskins, ogres and chaos in arms, magic etc.

[rdonj]

If you're going to be using greenskins in the mod, you might want to check in with Okin. He was working on a greenskin nation, and you might be able to borrow some sprites from him to help you along. You might want to change them a little to differentiate them, but they would be good base sprites to work from if nothing else, and it would add a bit of continuity to the feel of them to have the sprites built similarly, if Okin ever finishes his project anyway ;)

[Ruefiesty]

I had started a little project for the warhammer nations. With all the compatibility issues that have arose and I will admit after adding the Bretonnian updated mod in I have been noticing conflicts that I didn't have before strangely they were between the Lizard and Chaos. So I got thinking why not make a standard with the nations and dedicate certain numbers to each race.
I have already started and I have decided at the moment to give each nation 60 slots with a 10 slot gap between the start of the next

example Skaven would have 2300-2360 when the Ogre Kingdoms will go at 2370-2430.
and I have gone through this with the rest too
Units 60 + 10 gap
Weapons 30 + 10 gap
Armor 20 + 10 gap
Sites 5 + 5 gap

I also have given the nations a number from the list that was made at the start of this thread.

thats all I have worked up on so far. I dont even know if this will really work as I am quite new to modding anything even if its just rearranging everything in a more orderly fashion.
any suggestions would be helpful

[Burnsaber]

There is now a compiled version of the Warhammer mods, which includes Bretonnia, Ogres, Tomb Kigs, Skaven, Lizardmen and Chaos (with heavy alterations to promote MP balance), and CBM 1.6 mods rolled into one single mod. Thanks to Dr.P for the actual compiling work. If you run into any bugs, alert me. Download from here (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showpost.php?p=711472&postcount=53)

[Radio_Star]

I was looking over the new Chaos build linked here and noticed that the Demon Prince hero and the Unclean One have no chest slot, but also no default armor. Also, the Bloodthirster description seems to indicate that it autocasts Darkness, a la Mandahas, which it does not. WAD?

[Squirrelloid]

The Demon Prince hero should probably have chaos armor. The Unclean One is almost certainly WAD.

[Fantomen]

I got inspired by burnsabers beautiful dwarf sprites and wanted to try myself. Came up with a decent base model for orks which might be useful to someone so I´m putting it up here.

[Fantomen]

Two more variants

[BandarLover]

Why aren't you doing this mod yourself...seriously, those are awesome!! And I love me some orcs.

[Fantomen]

I´m not sure I have the time and devotion to complete a mod.

I thought about it and decided I´ll just make sprites for now. If I end up with a complete set of sprites I might do some code as well.

Anyone who wants to help me writing the mod is welcome to pm me, that would motivate me to complete the sprites. I also read somewhere that there was already a greenskin mod under way, but I can´t seem to find it.

[BandarLover]

There is a Greenskin mod thread out there with a handful of sprites but as far as I know it has been dead for a while now. I'm tempted to take you up on the offer,Fantomen, because I'm expecting to be laid off at work within a month or 2 and if that happens, I suddenly have free time. Sprites have been the most difficult part of modding for me anyways and you do a very good job on them it appears to me.

[Fantomen]

Sounds good. I´ll keep doing some sprites and you just keep me updated whether you´re doing some code or not.

[Burnsaber]

I got inspired by burnsabers beautiful dwarf sprites and wanted to try myself. Came up with a decent base model for orks which might be useful to someone so I´m putting it up here.

Two more variants

I'm honored that my sprites have served as a inspiration. Those sprites are pretty good. I'd love to see more. I'd perhaps make them a bit wider from upperbody and make the legs a pixel taller (unless they're already bigger than humans, it's hard to tell without a comparison sprite). The lags also look a tad akward, but making the skirts a pixel wider from left should do the trick.

I'd love to see some Orcs. My dwarfs have many grudges to avenge..

[Fantomen]

Yeah, they could use a little more work. It´s a draft mostly at this point. I´d also like to vary the pose for different units, especially savage orks.

They are bigger and buffer than humans already, I don´t think I want them even wider or more muscular. I´d like a more realistic look than the WH models. Sure the heroes and big ´uns will be a bit bigger, like the WH lore states greenskins are ranked by their size and fighting skills.

I´ll look into your suggestion regarding the legs too.