Our Special Characters represented how they should be.

[Endra divini]

Greetings all.
I have always thought that GW, should they make a full large battle suppliment like apoc, should make upgraded rules for all current special characters to help them fit their fluff better.

Here I have designed upgraded rules for our current druchii characters to how powerful they should be in the fluff.


Lord: Malekith

Stats: +1 to Weapon skill, Wounds and Inititive.

Magic: Malekith knows all 6 spells from the dark lore.

Mounts: The black chariot is pulled by four Cold ones. (+20pts)
-Seraphon gets +1 Weapon Skill and Strength. (+50pts)

Magic Items: Destroyer auto destroys a power, not on a 4+.
-Armour of Midnight: Full plate armour.
-Circlet of iron: +2PD and DD instead of +1.
-Hand of Khaine: Addtional hand weapon. +1 to Malekiths str and ignores armour saves.
Malekith can choose to wield destroyer as well in combat which overall gives Malekith 5 attack which can destroy magic/magic items (Full Destroyer effect), give +1 to his str and ignores armour saves. If he chooses this though he may not use the spell shield while he remains in the combat. (I.e no shield armour save, giving him a 4+ armour save)

Rules:
-Controlled Hatred: Normal Rules for Hatred but he and his unit are not forced to pursue. (Fluff on this: Where before he would have flown into a beserk rage, now he calculates the demise of his enemies with chilling ruthlessness)
-Master Tactition: When both sides have deployed their units, but before any scouts are deployed, the player controlling Malekith can re-deploy upto D3 of his units.
-Causes Fear.

Points: 845


Lord: Morathi

Stats: +1 to Strength.

Rules:
-The first Sorceress: Morathi gets +2 to cast her spells instead of +1. She is also immune to her first miscast, though the spell still fails. In addition all ranged spells from the dark lore have their range increased by 6" when she casts them.

Points: 540


Lord: Hellebron
Rules: Shield of Khaine: Hellebron, and any unit she joins get a 4+ Ward Save.

Points: 395

Lord: Malus Darkblade

Stats: +1 to his Weapon Skill, Toughness (I could see him possibly being T 4),Wounds, Inititive, Attacks and Leadership.

Equipment: He gets a SDC.

Points: 380

Lord: Lokhir Fellheart
Stats: +1 to his Weapon Skill, Wounds, Inititive, Attacks and Leadership.

Points: 325

Lord: Shadowblade
Stats: +1 to his Wounds. +2 to his Attacks.

Gifts: Dance of Doom gives him a 4+ Ward save (Represents shadowblades extreme swiftness.

Rules: Supernatural skill: Shadowblade gets +1 to hit in close combat, he is also at a -1 to hit in close combat. This is in addition to Hatred.

Points: 400

Lord: Kouran
Stats: +3 to his Weapon Skill, +1 to his Str, +2 to his Wounds, +2 to his I, +2 to his attacks and +1 to his Leadership.

Rules: Captain of the Black Guard. Kouran and any Black guard unit he joins is unbreakable.
-Unparralleled General: Whenever a scenario asks a player to determine something (I.e rolling for table sides, who deployes firist, who gets the first turn, etc) the Dark elf player gets +1 to these dice rolls in addtion to any other modifiers.

Points: 220

Lord: Tullaris
Stats: +2 to his Weapon Skill, +2 to his Wounds, +3 to his I, +2 to his attacks and +2 to his Leadership.

Rules: Killing Blow: Tullaris's killing blow works on a 5+.
-Tullaris the dreaded: Tullaris and any Executioner unit he joins causes fear.

Points: 190

So what do you think? Do these upgrades represent them better fluffwise?

cheers.

[Yemeth]

Morathi gets +2 to cast her spells instead of +1?

[Endra divini]

Morathi gets +2 to cast her spells instead of +1?

Yes, I thought is was only fair since she used to in 6th ed anyway.

cheers.

[Drainial]

Well I think that if this were for an apocalypse style game it doesn't go far enough, Malekith and Moraithy certainly should be more poweful, or have the potential to be.

For example I might consider giving Moraithy an option of having a covern, several sorceresses representing her position at the head of the convents. Prehaps something like

Covern: Moraithy may purchase a covern of two level 2 sorceresses mounted on dark pegasi for - (I haven't got the book handy so I can't realy work out a fair price). Once per turn the covern may perform black horror using the largest template (apocolypse has some realy huge templates right?) at casting value 16. Aditional sorceresses may be purchased for - (must be on pegasi) and each one adds +1 to the score when casting the great horror. The sorceresses may move independently but only Moraithy may be used as a focus point for the Geat horror (for distance and line of sight purposes). Moraithy's +2 cannot be used for this spell.

I just think that if you are going epic, then you should do it properly and have some serious carnage and not less than 4000 points aside.

[Red...]

Here I have designed upgraded rules for our current druchii characters to how powerful they should be in the fluff.

While on the one hand I agree that our special characters (in fact special characters in warhammer generally) are weak for their fluff, this is a dangerous path. In 4th and 5th edition Warhammer became dominated by uber characters and lost it's way, shedding both players and fun in equal amounts.

In 6th, they recognised their error and made Rank and File much better, downgrading characters and special characters accordingly.

So, personally, while I would like in many ways for Malekith to live up to his fluff, in other ways I am glad that he can be killed by a hero with the sword of biting, because it makes the game ten times more fun. To be honest, I think some of the current special characters in warhammer are over-powerful anyway (Archaon with his 3+ unmodifiable (and unbypassable) armour save and 3+ ward save for example). We need GW to scale these behemoths back again, not raise the other special characters to match them.

I'm also kind of against giving Warhammer apocalypse style rules. I don't think it will add desperately much. But even if they do go ahead, I'd like to see them emphasizing mass infantry more and characters less.

Of course, one other way around the problem of special characters not living up to their fluff is to downscale their use and encourage players to create their own characters from the main character list areas (e.g blackbeard the corsair dreadlord).

[Drainial]

While I don't realy see much point in appocalypse (though I can't realy judge having never played it) if they did do something simliar in fantasy it would give an oppertunity to have these kinds of characters without unbalancing the game, in a 2000 point game I agree special charactors are often two dominating and powerful, in a 4000 point game on the other hand you can let them out of the cage a bit, six or seven cannons pointed at your draggon might make you glad of your magic armour in a whole new way.

[Noble korhedron]

You all raise good points, but what about if you simply changed the fluff...? Or had two seperate profiles - one would require the opponent's consent, while one would not?

@Vesidel: But how much extra would they pay? Or would it not be easier to allow them to use any Lore(making them choose each game) and know all six spells from that one Lore?!

[Vesidel]

I'd kind of like to see Malekith and Morathi know the spells from the other lores as well. After all they have pretty much mastered the entire range of magic known to the Druchii over thousands of years!