[Archive] Slave hunters updated

Archive [Archive] Rules Development
1

Grimstonefire:

In their fervent wish to provide sacrifices to Hashut, some Dawi Zharr choose to become Slave Hunters.  The Slave Hunters spend most of their lives outside of the great cities, traveling the Dark Lands in search of victims to enslave.  

When summoned to war the Slave Hunters select their deadly weapons with a specific race in mind.  Those they cannot enslave will have battlefield executions, their bones crushed under the immense pressure of these specially designed weapons.

CORE UNIT

Slave Hunters  …  11pts/ model

M WS BS S T W I A Ld

3  4 3  3 4 1 2 1 9  Slave Hunter

3  4 3  3 4 1 2 2 9  Skull Crusher
Unit Size: 5-10

Weapons and Armour:

Slave Catcher (Armour piercing Great Weapon)

Hand Weapon

Heavy Armour  

Options:

- May be equipped with shield (+1 pt/model)

- Upgrade one Slave Hunter to Musician (+5 pts)

- Promote one Slave Hunter to Skull Crusher (+10 pts)

- May be upgraded to Skirmishers (+3 pts/ model), but will no longer count towards the core minimum units required.

And to put it in overall context:

CD Army Rules:

Iron Will

As harsh as the environment they control, Chaos Dwarfs flee and pursue 2D6"-1 instead of the normal 2D6".

Damned

Chaos Dwarfs gain the Hatred special rule against Dwarfs, as described in the Warhammer Rulebook. The Chaos Dwarf army will only generate the 2 basic dispel dice.

Slavers

Chaos Dwarfs must re-roll successful restrain pursuit leadership tests.  They will not move the full pursuit distance, their maximum pursuit is only equal to the flee distance if they catch their enemy.  They may overrun as normal, but at 2D6"-1. Chaos Dwarfs also receive +25 VP for captured standards.  War machine crew can choose not to pursue.

DESTROYERS (upgrade)

* Units of Warriors or Slave Hunters can be upgraded to Destroyers for +4 points/ model.  

* Destroyers have +1 Weapon Skill and +1 Strength.

* Their Damned special rule is increased to a Hatred of everyone.

* You cannot have more units of Destroyers than Chaos Dwarf Warriors and Slave Hunters combined.

The way I have justified removing the 0-1 restriction on them is to have 10 as the maximum unit size, an enforced balancing factor of sorts.  So seeing as this will always be a relatively fragile unit, I didn’t think it was worth it to force skirmish into their rules (if you want to run cheaper MSU).

If someone chose to run 3 core, then 10 units of skirmishing MSU it wouldn’t be that bad imo, as they are not elite troops that are hard to kill, they are just regular warriors.

2

Revlid:

Slave Hunters

Grimstonefire
I'm conflicted.
On the one hand I love the concept. I've always had a soft spot for the idea of a unit of Slavers, travelling from Chaos Dwarf hold to hold, helping out in exchange for whatever slaves they can capture during and after the battle. A dark reflection of Rangers, in a way.

On the other hand, they have no rules that help them actually enslave or capture things, they're not really worth 11 points, I'm leery of Dwarf Skirmishers, and they're well suited to fighting small units of armed elites, as opposed to weak, enslavable hordes.
Damned
The Chaos Dwarfs have a deep Hatred for Dwarfs, as described in the Warhammer Rulebook. The Chaos Dwarf army will not generate any dispel dice.

Grimstonefire
...Er? Chaos Dwarfs having Hatred for Dwarfs is kind of odd, depending on your interpretation... But not generating any Dispel Dice is weirder! How do you expect Chaos Dwarfs to put up a decent magical defence with -2 Dispel Dice? We've gone from 4DD as regular Dwarfs to just 2PD, so we've actually got less magical with our turn to Chaos?
Slavers
Chaos Dwarfs must re-roll successful restrain pursuit rolls (as they mark wounded enemies as their own slaves), but their maximum pursuit distance is only equal to the fleeing unit's flee distance, they cannot overrun. Chaos Dwarfs also receive +25 VP for captured standards.  War machine crew will not leave their machines to pursue.

Grimstonefire
Bolded for emphasis - I don't understand what this means.
And surely this rule (from what I've got as the gist of it) is better suited to individual slaving units, and not the whole army - I can't imagine Immortals, or the Brotherhood of Hashut, or even Chaos Dwarf Warriors spending time capturing slaves in battle - their job is to kill the enemy, slaves would be taken from civilians, surrendering troops, and those captured later on. Making Chaos Dwarfs less restrained than Orcs is odd.
DESTROYERS (upgrade)
* Units of Warriors or Slave Hunters can be upgraded to Destroyers for +4 points/ model.  
* Destroyers have +1 Weapon Skill and +1 Strength.
* Their Damned special rule is increased to a Hatred of everyone.
* You cannot have more units of Destroyers than Chaos Dwarf Warriors and Slave Hunters combined.

Grimstonefire
Okay, quite frankly I'd rather see this
a) Better developed into it's own unit. Or
b) Made a Warrior thing. I know you're going for a Longbeard-style upgrade, but that works because it simply denigrates age and experience - Slave Hunters called "Destroyers" makes less sense, as it sounds more like an elite unit, or one dedicated to, you know, destroying, rather than capturing.

Oh, and you might want to check out your formatting. I thought they had two wounds for a moment there!
And why is the champion called a skull crusher? Surely he'd want to avoid crushing skulls?
3

Grimstonefire:

I guess I could easily tidy up the fluff to just say that they are slave hunters, their whole purpose in life is to seek out and sacrifice/ slaughter the lesser races.  I agree that it does seem confusing for them to be such efficient and brutal killers if they cannot actually enslave! :)  The fluff idea for the skull crusher thing was that he is so skilled with his weapon that they are always able to kill with a single blow to the head (single wound creatures of course ;)).  Sort of like a sniper, one shot one kill.

11 points for (effectively) a warrior with an armour piercing great weapon!  Sounds good value to me.  The choice for upgrade was either scout or skirmish, but I didn’t feel I could justify multiple scouting units in a CD army, hence the (optional) skirmish.

The dispel thing is badly phrased.  I meant that they only generate the basic 2, not any more (edited now).  Ironically I wanted to make it clear there was not confusion over this.

My theory for the pursuit thing is this:

I want to present the basic Chaos Dwarf as being chaotic/ slightly unstable.  Sometimes they will control themselves, other times they will not.  In the heat of battle they just get caught up in their desire to sacrifice for the glory of hashut!  It all gets too much and they feel compelled to pursue.  In the real world, taking slaves actually during a battle is unusual but not impossible. On the warhammer battlefield there’s not really a good way to do this, but by them attempting to take slaves fluffwise as they go along, win or lose they still get the slaves (unless all the CD are killed).

So each time you are able to pursue a fleeing enemy, if you pass the leadership test to halt the pursuit you must roll again (leadership tests aren’t such a problem I find).  Instead of completing a pursuit move, if the pursuit roll is higher than the flee roll the maximum distance the CD can pursue will equal the flee distance.  

I intended the Overrun moves to be allowed as normal (but at 2D6"-1), I will try and edit that.

This was meant to represent an imposed army weakness, but to also make them play more aggressively.  But having Ld9 does mean more often than not you will pass (75%).

4

Revlid:

I guess I could easily tidy up the fluff to just say that they are slave hunters, their whole purpose in life is to seek out and sacrifice/ slaughter the lesser races.  I agree that it does seem confusing for them to be such efficient and brutal killers if they cannot actually enslave! :)  The fluff idea for the skull crusher thing was that he is so skilled with his weapon that they are always able to kill with a single blow to the head (single wound creatures of course ;)).  Sort of like a sniper, one shot one kill.

Grimstonefire
So these guys aren't actually Slavers? They're more like... Slayers who are in it for the kicks?
11 points for (effectively) a warrior with an armour piercing great weapon!  Sounds good value to me.  The choice for upgrade was either scout or skirmish, but I didn't feel I could justify multiple scouting units in a CD army, hence the (optional) skirmish.

Grimstonefire
It's more the low-numbers that hurt them for me - at M3 Dwarf combat units need a few more bodies to get into combat without being shot/charged to the point of useless.
Yeah, only one Scouting unit per army is best. I assume the other is Sneaky Gitz?
I still object to Skirmishing Dwarfs, though. They just don't Skirmish, it's far too Elven. Even Slayers don't Skirmish.
I want to present the basic Chaos Dwarf as being chaotic/ slightly unstable.  Sometimes they will control themselves, other times they will not.  In the heat of battle they just get caught up in their desire to sacrifice for the glory of hashut!  It all gets too much and they feel compelled to pursue.  In the real world, taking slaves actually during a battle is unusual but not impossible. On the warhammer battlefield there's not really a good way to do this, but by them attempting to take slaves fluffwise as they go along, win or lose they still get the slaves (unless all the CD are killed).
Hrnh. I guess you and I are just going to have to agree to disagree on that - I for one feel that the regimented and likely invasive caste system of the Chaos Dwarfs would, along with the absurdly detailed laws of their society, lead to casual sadism and venting in battle, but that this is adequately represented in fluff and in the unpredictability of their greenskin allies and daemonic engines. Making them that much more likely to pursue (from 75% to 50%, if I'm not mistaken) is a bit counter to this, but more importantly is simply unnecessary and overly complicated, in my view. That said, I wouldn't be opposed to it as a unit-specific rule.
Explanation of rules

Grimstonefire
Okay, I get it now. Possibly simplified version:
Slavers: Chaos Dwarfs must re-roll any successful leadership tests to restrain Pursuit.  The maximum distance they may travel in pursuit is limited to the distance fled by the enemy.

Then add the overrun bit into Iron Will.

I guess my versions would be more along the lines of:

[/b]
               M WS BS S T W I A LdSlave Hunter   3  4  3 3 4 1 2 1  9Slaver Foreman 3  4  3 3 4 1 2 2  9

[/b] 10+
[/b] Hand Weapon, Slaving Tools, Heavy Armour
[/b]
- Any unit may be given Shields (+1pts per model).
- One unit may be upgraded to Scouts for +1pts per model.
- One Slave Hunter may be upgraded to a Musician for +5 pts.
- One Slave Hunter may be upgraded to a Standard Bearer for +10 pts.
- One Slave Hunter may be upgraded to a Slaver Foreman for +10 pts.
[/b]Iron Will, Implacable, Slavers

[/b] �?" Count as an additional hand weapon. In addition, models with Slaving Tools may re-roll failed To Hit rolls against units with a lower Weaponskill.

[/b] �?" Slave Hunters must pursue if they are able, although the maximum distance they may travel in pursuit is limited to the distance fled by the enemy.
In addition, any enemy units fleeing Slave Hunters must roll one additional D6 for their fleeing distance, discarding the highest result.

The question for me here is whether Slaving Tools should re-roll To Hit or To Wound. Hmm.

[/b]
              M WS BS S T W I A LdDestroyer     3  5  3 4 4 1 2 1  9Skull Crusher 3  5  3 4 4 1 2 2  9

[/b] 10+
[/b] Destroyer Mace (Armour Piercing Morning Star), Shields, Heavy Armour
[/b]
- One Destroyer may be upgraded to a Musician for +5 pts.
- One Destroyer may be upgraded to a Standard Bearer for +10 pts.
- One Destroyer may be upgraded to a Slaver Foreman for +10 pts.
[/b]Iron Will, Implacable, Damned

[/b] �?" Destroyers Hate all enemies, and may re-roll all failed To Hit rolls against Dwarfs.

[/b][/b] �?" Chaos Dwarf units flee, pursue and overrun 2D6-1�?� rather than 2D6�?�.

5

Theory_Man:

Some small grammar things in the opening…

In their fervent wish to provide sacrifices to Hashut, some Dawi Zharr choose to become Slave Hunters. The Slave Hunters spend most of their lives outside of the great cities, traveling the Dark Lands in search of victims to enslave.

Grimstonefire
In their fervent wish to provide sacrifices to Hashut, some Dawi Zharr choose to become Slave Hunters. Slave Hunters spend most of their lives outside of the great cities, traveling the Dark Lands in search of victims to enslave.
When summoned to war the Slave Hunters select their deadly weapons with a specific race in mind.  Those they cannot enslave will have battlefield executions, their bones crushed under the immense pressure of these specially designed weapons.

Grimstonefire


When summoned to war, Slave Hunters select their deadly weapons with a specific race in mind. Those they cannot enslave will have battlefield executions, their bones crushed under the immense pressure of these specially designed weapons.
Slavers

Chaos Dwarfs must re-roll successful restrain pursuit leadership tests.  They will not move the full pursuit distance, their maximum pursuit is only equal to the flee distance if they catch their enemy.  They may overrun as normal, but at 2D6"-1. Chaos Dwarfs also receive +25 VP for captured standards. War machine crew can choose not to pursue.



Grimstonefire
Is the +25 VP for capturing a standard a bonus on top of normal VP for capturing a standard or replaces the bonus?

Combined the first and last sentence.



Chaos Dwarfs, except war machine crew, must re-roll successful restrain pursuit leadership tests.

I know this slightly changes the meaning of the rule but I like it better this way; more simple.

Overall it was well written. Very interesting in terms of fluff too. Play testing will see if the point values work.

6

BOGGO:

Armour piercing great weapon… That is pretty cool. They are a groovy unit; I’d get them. The slaving rules are fluffy enough. I like the idea of buying cheap slaves to add to the unit (mixed unit) which get picked off by shooting as they advance. I should check out your other stuff now.