Groznit Goregut:
It's a game reason: Chaos Dwarfs are, by their nature, a slow moving army. Their basic troop type has Move 3. When you're selecting a general for your army, which are you going to pick - the combat monster with M 8, or the guy with legs as stumpy as those of his followers? It's a no-brainer, isn't it?
Unless...one has better Leadership than the other. Chaos Dwarf Heroes have higher Leadership, so the choice is a bit more interesting.
Thommy H
I disagree. You have mentioned this before, but I don't agree with it. I think the point difference would be enough. As it is now, BC lords cost 50 pts more and have one higher strength and one higher attack (besides the movement). The CD lord has the higher weapon skill. Would every chaos dwarf player want to spend an extra 50 pts just to get a Bull Centaur lord every time? I say no. That's a lot of hobgoblins at this point. I say a lot of people wouldn't even take the BC lord over the CD lord. Even for fluff reasons they wouldn't take it.
I mentioned before about black orcs and regular orc lords (or heroes). I've been an OnG player for 7 years and I've been on Da Warpath for most of that time. I don't think I have ever heard anyone complain about the fact that you had the choice between regular orcs and black orc heroes. Black orc options are not always a
must have or obvious choice. I often get flak for having a black orc warlord on wyvern. People say that it isn't worth the extra points, and that's only 25 pts! The only time I have ever heard anyone think that there shouldn't be both black orc and regular orc heroes when you said this:
A lot of people think the two Orc character types are redundant (not to mention the Gobbos too...)
Personally, I don't understand it and disagree with it.
If the characters were kept exactly the same as they are now, except BC heroes had the same LD as regular CD, here is what I see as pros/cons:
PROS:
- One more attack
- Higher Str
- Higher Movement
- take up an extra rank slot to fill out rank
CONS:
- Costs 50 more points
- One less WS
- Not much reason to move outside of parent unit.
If they had the same LD score, I don't think you would see everyone taking BC lords instead of CD lords.
I also disagree with your idea that Chaos Dwarfs are suppose to be a slow army. If so, why do they include bull centaur units and also wolf rider units? Wolves are tied for the fastest cavalry mini in the game. Bull Centaurs are one of the fastest units in the game. Most cavalry are only M7, but these guys are M8, which probably makes them the fastest medium cav in the whole game.
As a last note, I don't disagree on a personal level. I like to debate and am challenging your ideas. I hope you don't take them personally. :cheers
Thommy H:
Would every chaos dwarf player want to spend an extra 50 pts just to get a Bull Centaur lord every time? I say no.
But it's not like you can use those spare 50 points to make the Chaos Dwarf Hero M8, is it? Remember you can't mount him on anything. You can't actually put a price on an ability that you can't get in any other way - that's what makes special characters interesting. The point is to make the Bull Centaur Hero not simply "better".
I also disagree with your idea that Chaos Dwarfs are suppose to be a slow army. If so, why do they include bull centaur units and also wolf rider units? Wolves are tied for the fastest cavalry mini in the game. Bull Centaurs are one of the fastest units in the game. Most cavalry are only M7, but these guys are M8, which probably makes them the fastest medium cav in the whole game.
But you
must make up your compulsory Core units from Chaos Dwarf Warriors. That means, no matter what you do with your army, you always need to start with a bunch of M3 troops. There's no way around it. A M8 Hero is a valuable asset to an army like that - valuable enough that hardly anyone would take a M3 Hero if there was no advantage to doing so.
I don't know what to tell you, really. There are many valid reasons for Bull Centaur Heroes having lower Ld than Chaos Dwarf Heroes. There's the fluff that they're the leaders of an elite cadre of religious guardians, and not necessarily used to leading entire armies. There's the fluff that they're aloof from the rest of Chaos Dwarf society, and outside the usual hierarchy. There's the fluff that they're so rare that they can't be deployed in most Chaos Dwarf armies, so don't ever get the opportunity to command entire warbands. There's the game reason that they need to be a valid choice versus Chaos Dwarf Heroes. There's the historical reason that Ravening Hordes represents an anomaly in the way Dwarf Heroes scale up (so they possibly
should have the same Ld as Chaos Dwarf Heroes anyway - 9).
So yeah. Lots of good reasons to pick from. But I can't really keep trotting them out if you just disagree for whatever reason. It's your call if you don't like them, but I don't think it's hard to justify the difference with the fluff, quite frankly.
Groznit Goregut:
yeah. Lots of good reasons to pick from. But I can't really keep trotting them out if you just disagree for whatever reason. It's your call if you don't like them, but I don't think it's hard to justify the difference with the fluff, quite frankly.
Thommy H
Well, I disagree in the fact that I don't think they are very good reasons. They aren't even reasons from any official fluff. If you read the official fluff, they are just like regular chaos dwarfs. The reasons given are just guesses from fans to come up with a reason why there would be a difference. To say that it's hard to justify the difference with the fluff is absurd, as the fluff says they are the same.
They are as keen witted and intelligent as Chaos Dwarfs and completely devoted to the worship of Hashut, the Father of Darkness. The Chaos Dwarf Sorcerers trust them completely, and often entrust them with complex or dangerous tasks. Although they are few in number they are more powerful than Chaos Dwarfs and much swifter in battle. Even though there are mighty individuals amongst them, there are no sorcerers in their number.
So, I disagree with you and we have outlined why. Not much more to say on that. I think it's a mistake, but it's not like GW is going to be fixing it anytime soon.
I still say that people would pick regular chaos dwarf lords instead of bull centaur lords more than you believe if they had the same leadership score.
Thommy H:
If you read the official fluff, they are just like regular chaos dwarfs. The reasons given are just guesses from fans to come up with a reason why there would be a difference.
How are they just like regular Chaos Dwarfs?
- Regular Chaos Dwarfs are "bound by ties that all Chaos Dwarfs deem unbreakable" to a particular Sorcerer. All Warriors are the kinsmen and vassals of a Sorcerer. Bull Centaurs, on the other hand, serve as guardians of the Temple of Hashut, which is itself ruled over by a conclave of Sorcerers. Bull Centaurs, therefore, are not divided up between the Sorcerers as Chaos Dwarfs are: they serve the Temple as a whole.
- The Sorcerers "trust Bull Centaurs with complex tasks". But Heroes and Lords are simply their servants. A Sorcerer thinks nothing of ordering his Heroes or Lords to do whatever is asked of them, but it's necessary to entreat or request things of Bull Centaur characters. They don't "belong" to the Sorcerers in the way that Chaos Dwarfs do.
- Bull Centaurs are both "arrogant" and "completely devoted to the worship of Hashut". This does not jibe with the idea of them as successful leaders of independent armies. They're separate and aloof from the rest of Chaos Dwarf society.
- Bull Centaurs are a Rare choice. This is based on their rarity in the background rather than how powerful they are (like Earthshakers). There is only one Bull Centaur Lord. We can surmise from this that there are very few Bull Centaurs, and that they are valuable and elite. They don't command armies as a matter of course, because it wouldn't be practical (or possible) to have a Bull Centaur leading every warband.
So you can see how many of these factors can allow you to make sense of the idea that Bull Centaurs are worse leaders than Chaos Dwarfs. I'm not saying "these are the reasons", just that it makes sense with a minimal amount of making stuff up. It's all there in the book: you just have to piece it together to form a coherent story.
cornixt:
Back in 4th/5th edition, you couldn’t have BC Lords as a general, on CD Lords and Sorc Lords (and the magic user as a general was uncommon at the time). i think they rigged it in RH so that you would be very unlikely to have a BC general.
The reasons Thommy gave may not be explained in fluff, they seem reasonable. It’s not opposed to common sense. There is really too little fluff to make a serious judgement on it. We haven’t even got any with BCs in any kind of leadership role.
BCs and regular CDs fill different roles in the army, so I can see that people would take them for those different roles. If one of those roles is vastly overpriced/underperforming then few people will take one type. At it stands in the O&G army, the BO is so similar to the Orc that he is pretty much a simple upgrade. In the CD army, the CD Lord (apart from his Taurus option) is a simple upgrade of the CD hero, they both have the same leaderhip and role in the army. The BC characters are different because the movement completely changes their role, just as mounting an Empire hero/lord on a horse would.