Commorragh

[Arquinsiel]

If you want to make it compatable with necromunda it's a simple matter of making new gang lists and a few different terrain options. I have the relevant 2nd ed books if you need the weapon rules from in there but I don't have the jetbike stuff.

Tij, Sigil is built on the inside of the ring. A board like that would be hard to play on.

[Tijminator]

Tij, Sigil is built on the inside of the ring. A board like that would be hard to play on.

I know, I was talking about the portals. I imagine it as being some thing as: "If you enter this door, you will use 1" of your movement and appear from the other door, on the other side of the board."

And that was how I thought Sigil worked, you enter one portal (be it a door, a dome or a sewer entrance) and you come out of an entirely other one. Sigil just has keys.

Did any of you play Diablo II? I think the portals in the Arcane Sanctuary are a bit what we should be aiming for. (If we're going for portals, that is)

Anyway, I wrote the Mercenary House thing, it's about finished I think, though I could write some more about the normal warriors..

House Arachnex

House Arachnex is divided in legions that range from a handful of warriors to an entire army consisting of hundreds of bodies and machines. These are parted up in companies and regiments of all sizes, and depending on the need, a number of these regiments will be sent out to deal with the ‘case’, as the Arachnex are known to call their enemies.

House Arachnex is a unique one, for it does not fight other houses in the way others do. They are hired swords, mercenaries to the depths of their being. They will fight for whatever someone has to offer them, but if the payment proves to be less then promised, they will strike hard and fast. They incorporate all styles of warfare, from surefooted, steadfast Incubi to screaming Hellions and Jetbikes. They are used as a political weapon, and by solitary Dark Eldar who want to cripple an opposing Dracon or even Archon and seize their place in the House. This is dangerous buisiness, for, should be fail to grab the power, he will still owe Arachnex a dept. This will often result in the employer dying a cruel, gruesome death and his soul being slowly consumed by the leader of the hired contignent.

They are also the ones hired to raid other worlds, for they are known to be very efficient indeed when offered a certain percentage of the spoils. It sometimes occurs that a legion of Hexylner warriors has to fight it’s own kin, and they will without any restraint or fear, but they are just as likely to help each other if the payer desires so. They are utterly loyal, a rare occurrence among their kind, but their loyalty lies with their House and the highest bid, not a single employer. Thus is the way of House Arachnex.

In ultimate charge of House Arachnex is Narchit. He is incredibly old, and though rumors of his battle prowess are heard throughout the House, few people have seen him in battle. He prefers to have his slaves brought to him by others, while he sits on his throne, surrounded by his weapons and Incubi guard. His face is scarred and old, but still full of youth and power. He misses an eye, but he can stare down every but the most stubborn of foes. He is tall, even for a Dark Eldar, and powerfully built. He typically wears a dark, green cape, and black and green armour. His helm is black, as are his gauntlets and boots. If he is seen with weapons, he is most often told to carry a Punisher and splinter pistol, but other reports say he carries a sword of enormous power, that is said to rip through flesh, armour and even vehicle hulls with ease.

The commander of the Incubi guarding Narchit is Samaulth. He leads the House into battle when Narchit has other duties, and is the second in command, after Narchit. He is the one who voices Narchit’s commands to the masses, and who leads the Council of Twelve should the House be assaulted, as has happened several times already. It is unknown where he came from or how he got into his function, but according to the many tales and stories, he was a extremely skilled Incubus, and he is said to have simply killed everyone standing between him and his current function, to the point of being extremely reckless, taking their weapons and armour as he went. Many wonder why he is so utterly loyal to his master, Narchit, but few have an answer.

A entirely unique character is Regulth, the ambassador of the Haemonculi. He holds great power, for his word can deplete the entire House of the valued skills of the Haemonculi. What is offered him is not known. He looks like a walking corpse, and shows as much of his corpulent body as possible, knowing the dread and disgust it instills. He is the House’s eye and ear out in the Haemonculi circles, and a political advisor concerning who to send on what mission. He is known to have close ties to Narchit, to the great annoyance of Samaulth, who hates the torturer.

The rest of the Council is filled with Dracons, many wanting to grab the power of the House for their own, but none having the power to do so. They try to outdo each other in the arts of combat, tactics and politics, and a lot of unfortunate deaths occur within this circle. Each Dracon commands a number of legions, and the number and size of these legions equals their power in the Council.

[Arquinsiel]

That's sort of how it works. The portals rarely lead to another point on Sigil though. Also any enclosed space can become a portal at the whim of the Lady of Pain. They seem to be mostly plot devices rather than exploitable mechanics.

[Tijminator]

Here is a little story I wrote today, I hope you like it:

Roderick ran around the corner, and flinched when he heard a cry behind him. Clearly Melinda hadn’t made it to cover, and she was caught by those animals. He leaped, and grabbed one of the cables hanging overhead. He climbed up, towards the hidden floor where he and other fugitives had been hiding for the last few weeks. It had been relatively safe compared to the rest of the city because the piratical Eldar didn’t know it existed, but they had been followed by one of those shadow-skinned killers he had heard about. He pulled himself up through the wiring and steel construction, and stood up. The place was about as high as the top of a grown man’s head, but they had all been walking hunchbacked since they escaped. It must have been some torture technique that prevented the spine from stretching. He whispered warnings to the others, and everyone grabbed some of the weapons they had looted from the Eldar’s dead bodies when they escaped.

It had been some kind of inter-fighting that broke the walls of the prison in which they were trapped. Suddenly, power dropped out, and the cages opened up when kicked hard enough. They were a large group of at least a hundred then. Now, only twelve of them were left. The first deaths were not caused by the Eldar, but by the weapons they carried. Everyone had taken a few weapons, but they appeared to be trapped against wrong handling. At least ten of them died firing the weapon without getting the splinter core in place. Small knives had cut into their hands, and a colorless slime came out of the recesses in which they had been. The victims had died of muscle spasms, breaking their bones at first, and finally, after a long struggle, crushing their hearts, lungs and other vital organs. When the shots and screams were far enough away to escape unseen, they had wandered around the place they were now for what had felt like a long time. They had found this place by accident, when some kind of strange, doglike animal came crawling through the net of wires. They had shot it, hidden the body, and made their home in its lair. They had lived off raids on small groups of Eldar, stealing their food, wines and ammunition. But not anymore. They would until the bloody end, but they would not be taken. Not again.

Roderick’s mind snapped back to the present. They had all adorned themselves with weapons, and were ready to fight and die. They heard the Eldar speaking in their cruel tongue, and looked at each other once more. Roderick wondered how long he had been in this hellish place. His past was nothing but a vague memory, something about and army and an Emperor that was supposed to protect him. He didn’t remember if he had a name, or where he had heard about him. Still, seen from what was left of his body, it was not so long ago.

Then the Eldar came around the corner. It was as if they knew they had been there. Sprays of splinters flew around, blood spurted from dismembered arms and legs, bodies fell sprawling to the ground. Roderick fired, screamed, and dove behind a humming power generator. He heard splinters embedding themselves into the metal casing behind him, Then, he rolled away, firing at the running, tall shapes. He saw one of them fall, but it still moved. He saw they were close to catching him, so he opened his mouth, and put the splinter pistol’s barrel in it. He squeezed the trigger, but nothing happened. No pain, no whistling sound of splinters flying through his skull. Nothing. Then, he felt a explosion of pain in the back of his head.

When he woke up, he wanted to feel his head, but his hands were kept in place by metal bandings. Suddenly, he heard a voice speak in a tongue he recognized. It was the Imperial language, spoken by Imperials, missionaries from the light that was the Light of Terra.

But it was no Imperial that spoke. It was one of the torture masters, but a different one than he was used to see.
“So, you are this mon-keigh that thinks he can escape from the grasp of a Dark Eldar? “
With the use of the Imperial tongue, the memories came back.

“I am Roderick von Metwitz, and I will not bow to you!”

“Oh, but you wouldn’t be able to bow anyway, would you? It seems you are in a cage of sorts, isn’t it?”, the creature said with a playful tone. “No, you have better uses that just a regular plaything. You will be transformed into my personal pitfighter, my friend. You will only need some slight reforming to be perfectly fit for that role..”

He was back in a cage, back in the horror that was life, but luckily not for long.

Tijminator

[Belial]

Just to hear where we are with this...
-Who's on the project?
-Is there a work plan?
-What is the desired result?

I am now over my most busy period, so I expect to start writing tomorrow, when I've been by the library and picked up the codex.

Also, as I have to wait 'till the new CSM comes out to conitinue any 40k hobbying, I am considering doing a few models that could be used in the Commoragh game... Just a few easy convertions, that will set standard for some unit types. I'm mainly thinking non-eldar units here.

[Arquinsiel]

My two cent:

We need four to six "houses" with distinctive preferences in equipment and troop choices.These should not be limitations but preferences towards this type of style. Examples could be:

House "Generic" - favouring shooting and speed.
House "Wytch Cult" - favouring close combat and speed.
House "Rich gits" - more starting money, less skill options. More Hired swords?
House "Slave horde" - grotesques as optional "equipment" for leader? Warp-beasts?

Incubi, Wytches, Mandrakes etc available to all houses, possibly as hired swords, possibly as a limited number based on style.

I think that ammunition rolls might be removed entirely from the game and instead make all splinter weapons "Sustained Fire - 1 Dice" weapons. This will cause jams but not for warriors to run out of ammunition. I can provide the rules for basic power weapons and the like from 2nd ed and we can extrapolate from basic weapon stats (bolter, lasgun etc) what the dark eldar shooting weapons would be like.

[Belial]

When you say "Slave Horde" you mean gladiators consisting from the other races, right? I had something in my mind about doing some fig's based on the catachan jungle fighters.

[Arquinsiel]

I mean grotesques and or warp-beasts. Just like I said. I just don't know how they would work out. Alternatively we could go more like Mordheim and make entirely different lists for different houses.

[Belial]

That would be the more interesting, if complicated, way wouldn't it? So wach house has very different mechanics in terms of pros and cons.

I still would like to see a house using "outsider" races. Like prisoners were used for gladiators in old rome.

[Arquinsiel]

It honestly looks more complex to have the old necromunda "standard gang" format really. There's not much variety possible there without careful consideration. It'd be much easier to say "this house is wytches, this one warriors, this one rich so lots of Incubi" etc. Outsiders are easily covered under the hired sword/gun rules.

[Almundis]

was having a thought. i ran this past tij but he said it sounded complex and possibly undoable, but here goes:

i thought about slaves and how the DE love torture and experimentation. i was thinking whether it would be plausable to do something similar to the 'nids' army book, where you can pay to add an extra limb-set for an extra attack.

i figured that we could incorperate this into a list by paying credits/pts/gold or whatever the established currency is, for upgrading a slave.

you could make it quite in depth; as in you cant mutate/drug a slave unless you have a haemonoculus or something like that. or you could pay for stimms that last a single game to improve strength or initiative etc. but of course these are all experiments so then you could have an "ADVERSE EFFECT" table where you can roll to see if that +1 str stimm you gave your slave puts him into a coma or (more interestingly) mutates him into a crazed beast.

it seems to me that this has alot of potential to add alot of variation and unpredictability to gameplay.

also, tyranids?

from what i know tyranids function like regular animals when out of the hive mind, so perhaps lesser nids like gaunts could be used as guard dogs or hunting packs o something like that.

thoughts? criticisms?

[Belial]

It honestly looks more complex to have the old necromunda "standard gang" format really. There's not much variety possible there without careful consideration. It'd be much easier to say "this house is wytches, this one warriors, this one rich so lots of Incubi" etc. Outsiders are easily covered under the hired sword/gun rules.

Ah, allright, now I understand. And approve of it, too.

We still need someone to take a leader role for the project, and have a working plan.

[Almundis]

also a mention of space marines in the game, i noticed a post aboutthem earlier. if theywere to be in the game they could under no circumstances be actual marines- thats just silly. but i was thinking that it isnt entirely unlikely that the DE would experiment with the odd captured gene-seed, possibility for a unique to this game unit?

[Arquinsiel]

In general it's best not to have any "difficult" slave types in the game, basic humans with experimental mods is the best way to do it.

[Lordofthenight]

I think it's an awesome idea - I love Dark Eldar. You can definately count me in.

I think as a starting point, getting the basics going would be best. For instance, if you used the Necromunda gang roster - then you've already got gangers, heavies and leaders. Juves could easily be juves still - inexperienced warriors. There's enough heavy/special weapon choices availible to make it work.

Maybe a seperate list for wytches instead - using the same template as for gangs.

Once that's worked out, then start introducing more complex rules - hirelings/mercs/slaves ect.