Mod: Mod thread- WH hordes of chaos

[Valandil]

Ummm.. Wow. just wow.
Now, it is impossible to give a chance for S3, AFAIK. I'm worried about the sheer number of comanders available- this is why I was trying to stick them into basically one commander for each of Lord, Champ, Sorc, types.

Now, I'll send you some images and maybe .dm work tomorrow (I'm in GMT-8, BTW.)

[Panpiper]

Valandil said:
Ummm.. Wow. just wow. Now, it is impossible to give a chance for S3, AFAIK.

Actually the 25% chance of S3 is working as designed. The problem is that it is also boosting the holy to 3. What I could do is give the S3 chance just to the champions who do not have holy and so would not suffer that problem. The question then becomes what to give the Lord of Tzeentch (as opposed to the champion). Maybe some sort of special 'violet fire' bonus weapon? I want to keep the lords with holy 1 seeing as how Chaos has little in the way of holy otherwise, that chaos cultist doesn't count for much.

By the way, the domsummon2 of warhounds on the chaos cultist works very much in opposition to their otherwise potential stealthiness. This is deliberate. It was not my intent to give chaos truly functional stealth preachers. Just give them enough stealthiness as to be worth playing with sometimes, maybe.

I want to vary the weapons outfit on the various champions at some point, but I also want the graphic to be appropriate to the change as well, so it may wait a bit. Getting the demons put in and the summoning spells has priority.

Valandil said:I'm worried about the sheer number of comanders available-

Well, in theory the commanders dedicated to each of the powers would have rather different features and therefor flavor. Lords of Nurgle have their disease clouds (I used poison), Tzeentch have their magics, Slaanesh can play havok with the enemy by turning units of the enemy traitor in their midst, and Khorne is just supremely powerful in melee. I really enjoy the idea of being able to play with this variety. Even after building this much of the mod (and playing 30-40 turns in SP several times, testing), I have no idea which of these options I would choose over the others. Likely I would mix them, all but Nurgle, whom I would still keep around in a seperate army of nothing but Nurgle followers (who can deal with the poison) just as an ace in the hole.

Don't worry too much about the variety. The champions on foot I can handle the graphics for (and will once the demons are functioning). The Lords will need a bit more work as they are as yet possessing very inappropriate sprites and it will be some work, but I likely can handle that too if you are otherwise uninspired. Where we most need your artistic talents is with the demon summonables, for whom there are really very little in the way of appropriate graphics in the native game.

[Panpiper]

I'm about to start adding the rest of the demons and am a bit lost with a few of them. There is quite the variety and I am wondering if some are not perhaps a bit redundant. Truth is I don't remember the game mechanics for a few of these units. For instance I recall nothing on Screamers and Chaos Furies. If I include stats for all of these (with placeholder graphics), am I going to give you Valandil, another "worried about the sheer number" concern?

-- Daemonettes on Steeds of Slannesh
-- Nurgle Plaguebearers
-- Nurglings
-- Horrors of Tzeentch
-- Blue Horrors
-- Screamers
-- Bloodletters
-- Bloodletter Champion
-- Flesh Hounds
-- Chaos Furies
-- Great Unclean One
-- Keeper of Secrets
-- Lord of Change
-- Bloodthirster

Edit: Well, they are all in the game now with placeholder graphics. Many of the placeholders will do fine indefinitely. (Some of the placeholders are rather extensive graphics hacks of existing sprites. Check out for instance the daemonettes on steeds.) What really needs work are the greater demons and the horrors. That and a lot of stat tweakage no doubt.

[Humakty]

I'll start testing your mod today, and I will report soon.
To have more downloads and testers, you should put a disquette icon before the thread's name.

[Sombre]

Eh,.. I think if you take the attitude that those placeholders will do fine indefinately you might not get a lot of people playing the mod.

I mean eyecandy isn't everything, but it's pretty important from a Warhammer perspective - half that hobby is just collecting, customising and painting miniatures.

[Panpiper]

You are right Sombre, I just looked at the sprites again in a thumbnail viewer. What I wrote wrote is clearly inaccurate. I should have said, 'some' of the place holders will do 'for quite a while', while other much less appropriate placeholders get replaced with proper sprites.

Sombre said:I mean eyecandy isn't everything, but it's pretty important from a Warhammer perspective - half that hobby is just collecting, customising and painting miniatures.

I hear you. And if I can get a better grip on graphics editing myself (as I've already freaked out Valandil with the sheer number of units) I would actually add several more varieties of differently armed chaos warriors, so a player could 'collect' then into nicely mixed squads.

By the way Sombre, you might have noticed that I used one of your mods, Arga Dis, as a template of sorts to guide me in getting everything filled in properly. Nothing of your mod survives now in Chaos Undivided other than the structure of the DM file, but I thought I aught to acknowledge the debt.

Humakty, thank you. The mod is at the point right now that unless I get feedback or stuff from Valandil, there is not much left for me to do other than graphics (which I have little experience with) or the Tzeentch magics, of which I have little knowledge.

On that note, does anyone want to take a shot at writing the essential Tzeentch combat spells (astral)?

Only Valandil, the thread's starter, can put a diskette icon on the thread I believe.

[Sombre]

This is just how I'd initially approach Tzeentch magic, so it's a bit rough.

Red Fire - An accurate (prec 10) midrange fire ball type spell that does aoe 1 18 damage, but can be resisted by mr.

Yellow Fire - Either a small aoe fire shield buff, or some sort of protection buff. It gives a 5+ ward save in warhammer to mage and his unit, which basically translates into a defensive buff of your choice.

Green Fire - Just a Tzeentch version of confusion, really.

Blue Fire - An upgraded version of red fire. Prec 20, better range, more damage, more AOE. Again, can be resisted by mr.

Indigo fire - In warhammer this spell kills enemies and produces horrors from their ashes. It's nasty as all hell. I guess there are a few options here, but what I'd go for is actually a combat summon of a handful of a special kind of horror which has flying (representing them being cast forward by the caster) and does weak but aoe red fire esque damage as its melee attack, coupled with a nice explosion sprite which will cause them to look 'staggered', going off one by one. Trust me that'd look roughly right, they'd burn a few guys and then probably die. It'd be cool.

Violet Fire - Pretty much a straight copy of the banish to inferno spell

So all 6 Tzeentch spells are actually doable, which is nice.