If you could write rules for CD special characters…

Chaos Dwarf Discussion
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Because, as a matter of fact, that’s what I’m currently at.
As some of you know, I’m playing WCE, and it is about to get a “narrative” expension containing all the special characters, with less strict balancing and testing requirements than the main rules and lists. So I politely asked it there was help needed…
If you have never heard of WCE, think of it as a fork from 6th edition, or rather 7th without powercreep, maintaining the balancing from 6th in its better times.

And since I’m not in this forum for nothing, I thought I could let you have a look, maybe I’m missing some good idea.

First of all, the selection.

  • Astragoth
  • Zhatan
  • Gorduz
  • Drazhoath
  • Shar’tor

Four of them had models, and Gorduz as the token greenskin, there are no others.
Am I missing anyone important?
There are a few heroes mentioned here or there but there is little info on them and no historical rules from GW. There is also Ghorth, but this would be just another redundant Prophet with no model or rules history.

Second, the sources.
4th ed “White Dwarf Presents” army book, Tamurkhan, the usual wikis, Total War videogame (or rather it’s wiki) for some newer impulses on the chars.
Any important white dwarfs worth reading on the chars? Some wiki articles were mentionen 1-2 WDs in their sources, but at least one of them was some army creation commentary with a quotation referring on the characters for flavour, nothing really helpful unless I missed it.

(I have the concepts on the first four of the characters mainly finished in a first iteration, I’ll tell and ask about some details later.
Just posting what I have is not that easy since the expansion, unlike the main rulebook, is being written in German first, English second (if translated), not the other way around.)

For full desclosure, I don’t have the last word on the characters, but I’m writing PNs with the main author and he is not that invested into CDs or their special character’s fluff, so we have some freedom.

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I think that the WD battle reports that featured CDs were the only places with background not in the WD Presents book.

You’ll want to check out this wiki page:
https://www.chaos-dwarfs.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chaos_Dwarf_References

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Which battle reports could that be? The description there isn’t telling if they are featuring special characters. Or do you mean CD fluff in general?

In any case, thx for the link, haven’t been looking there before!

Now, for a more detailed question…
I said I had something 4 out the 5 characters…

Do we have anything on Shar’tor other than this old AoS1 warscroll we got instead of the Tamurkhan successor? The wiki articles seem to only quote the warscroll’s content (with or without working links).

Oh, also:
Any of you know if in the Total War game the individual names were translated into different languages? Take “Cinderbreath”, this is an English word construction, is it still “Cinderbreath” there in all translations?

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He has been included in the Warhammer Armies Project and I made rules for him for my Arcane Journal. But there never was anything official besides the very sparse AoS warscroll sadly.

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Yes, WAP more or less identically translates the AoS rules into WHFB. I’m not convinces this is the thing to do.

I’ll have a look into your Journal.

Edit:
I already like your take better, I was also considering making the mask effect a bound spell.

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Alright, let’s look into some details.
I have a draft on all of them now, and will ask about particular choices made in the notes over the last week or so, for you to have an opinion on.

Astragoth:

How defining do your consider his “if he hits all, he gets 3 attacks again”? It appeared to me too much of a YOLO random generator, not fitting the mechanical device it is supposed to feature, so I’m suggesting a rule representing a machine powering up on deaths, accumulating extra attacks for the next turn.

Also, his aspect of being the most influential but no longer most capable of the Prophets. Taken his original rules from the 4th he is just more CC able level 4, missing the point. So I was trying to give him something „about politics“, which is neither casting, fighting or commanding.
What I came up with, was allowing other Daemonsmiths and Prophets +25P of magical items. (They are sufficiently expensive in WCE, so this is not the power spike it would be in WAP, for example.) Good or are there better ideas?

Considering the above, does he really need an aftersave (ward or regen) or is leaving him somewhat soft would play into not being the frontline monster important characters tend to become? He is already at T6 and Sv3+.

Drazoath:

His ability in 8th of giving everyone nearby +1CR is totally unfounded (and would be vastly over the top for WCE) or am I missing anything?
Giving him a bonus for K’daai would be more likely what he is missing? E.g. making them crumble less or sth., but for this draft I’m suggesting to them treat him like an ASB.

Zhatan:

In 4th he got Hatred, and Hatred back then included something similar to Stubborn.
I’m giving him (the more modern and familiar) Hatred again, but his other special rule will be giving his joined unit Fear (if he is taken on foot – the monsters cause Terror anyway).
An option would have been ditching Hatred altogether and going with Fear as described and Stubborn – what do you think?
He already has a lot magic items associated with him in TWWH, making him already quite expensive so I’m trying to avoid giving him all 3 of the special rules, avoiding a super character at the same time. He is not even the faction leader, just a rich slave hunter.

What I am also going for, for giving him some unique feature, is translating back his “sadistic snare” from the video game to TT. There, snare effects are a thing. Here, I had several different versions of how to tailor such a thing, two of them being bound spells, but now I’m tending towards a non-dispellable once per game effect, enemy unit has to pass Ld test with 3d6 or reduce M and I to 2. What do you think?
But first, how would you even interpret such a slowness inducing item? In a video game, sure, nearby enemy gets a snare animation for a set number of seconds, but lacking a further description, what would you imagine happening there? (It is not even an item in TWWH.)

Shar’tor:

The mask won’t be a bound spell after all, instead giving it a rule consistent to the Mortis Engine and the Khemri Casket of Lost Souls. Their description matches the mask’s, and they function in WCE via Ld tests, not spells.

But the more open question concerning him would be whether he needs any psychology rules. Normal Bull Centaur Renders in WCE don’t have Stubborn, nor do their leader characters, only Fear. I’d make him cause terror, but would you say he should be also ItP and/or Stubborn if the others aren’t? I’m leaning against it, Stubborn in WCE is a quite rare and expensive rule for keeping morale and CR in particular as relevant as possible, but would like to know your opinion on this.

Gorduz:

TWWH is giving him the Dagger of Malice. But his older depictions and his 4th ed generic weapon choice is an axe. I’ll suggest giving him a two-handed weapon AND the magic dagger to make him make relevant situational choices between both. Good or bad idea?

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Yeah the rules for Astragoth really are like they did rules for special characters in 4th edition and it shows. It really is a shame we never got a proper 6th ed treatment, for many reasons. I kept them in for my TOW Arcane Journal as a hommage, also there are other instances like this in the rules, like that Slayer tattoo or magic items which give additional attacks, so it’s not too far off.

Sure that works! I’m always in favour of special characters giving some benefit to the army you cannot get otherwise. And since this benefit is spent at the level of army creation, he indeed wouldn’t need to be too tough :wink:

I haven’t played Chaos Dwarfs in TWW3 yet so can’t comment on Zhatan there. What you’re proposing seems good! Same thing as with Astragoth: Having him have some unique effect on the army should be preferrable than just a set of powerful magic items.

As for Shar’tor, if regular BC and Taur’ruks don’t have ItP or stubborn I also probably wouldn’t go that route for him. Is there something like furious charge or so? One could event think about frenzy. Something that makes him and his BC hit harder seems fitting. And I gave him Killing Blow - he’s a henchman afterall :wink:

Yeah I couldn’t make his 4th ed version work. Axe and Shield while being named Backstabber when Sneaky Gits are a thing didn’t work for me. I straight-up made him into a Sneaky Git. And since I didn’t want to give him the existing Dagger of Malice he just got his own set of magic paired weapons. Rule of cool.

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Yes, I gave him Killing Blow, too. In WCE the 6s only ignore armour, don’t autokill, so he got multiple wounds (d3) on successful KBs, for avoiding a monster with 5 S5 or S6 even multiple-wounding attacks.

For his other rule, I wrote one where the turn he declares a charge nearby units of Bull Centaurs and BC Renders get d3 impact hits per unit, and must declare charges as if they had frenzy.
Usually in WCE they neither have impact hits nor trample or anything. And there are normal BCs on cav bases next to BC Renders with obviously less models in the front rank, so normal impact hits or frenzy, which work per model, wouldn’t be equal to both.

Zhatan does have a set of powerful magic items, 2 of them even occupying from the normal list other lords can buy. So I was looking for some speciality different from just vastly exceeding the magic item limit but also giving him character.
But I haven’t played TWWH3 either, only watched some youtube when the DLC was new and read the wiki now, so maybe the snare thing, which is his “unique ability” there, isn’t even his main point.

Fighty characters for Chaos Dwarfs have a bit of a difficult standing anyway.
WCE is apparently taking some impulses from this “Indy GT” army book from 2009 where they were more traditional non-fighty spellcasters with 1–2 attacks, no magic weapons, no Ld10, no Great Taurus.
Which doesn’t appear like the best fitting choice to me, but on the other hand, even if I had the power to change this, what niche would it leave for overseers and castellans other than having 1 more attack and not being forced to buy a minimum of spells?

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Still not happy with this part lacking internal logic. “The guy is so extreme, he can do this ability effect” is an AoS/40k type of abstraction I strongly dislike and would like to avoid in rules I’m even slightly associated with. But I don’t see a good explanation for what could cause such an effect.
Maybe we have to make it a bound spell after all?
Explaining things by magic is alright if it’s explicitely magic.
It has the downside of making Zhatan more effective in magic-heavy lists while he is supposed to be the non-magicy chorf special character.

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Well if you don’t want it to be an innate bound spell or item you can go the LD-test based route, like the stuff undead characters get in TOW. Zhatan has to pass a LD test and then it’s in effect.
Alternatively it could just be a passive ability that enemy units have to pass a LD test if they want to charge him (maybe unless they are immune to psychology?). How is fear handled in WCE?

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Well, there is this rule called Terror, it does just this. ^^

But then we’d have Shar’tor and him both causing terror, and on him his bad reputation would be not that convincing as a reason next to dragons, hydras and magical masks.

Fear is twofolds, for once an Ld test in CC for the enemy to not get -1 to hit agains the Fear causing models, and then when you win with Fear and superior numbers you double your CR.
It appeared well fitting to me and the same as I gave Tullaris for similar fluff reasons (I wrote the few remaining DE characters before taking on the CDs).

But Fear doesn’t stop enemies from attacking the target.

I have no problem with giving him an item, it’s just that a bound spell (which the item would most logically be) would have certain downsides.

Maybe I’m going in a totally wrong direction and letting myself disctract too much by the snare ability from TWWH, and there would be much better ideas anyway?

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Yeah maybe, tbh. It seems like a very powerful ability, maybe not in the game per se, but just from a narrative purpose. At least if it is just an innate ability and not a magic item or spell. If you want him to have it I fear it has to be an item or spell, nothing else would make sense really.

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OK, I almost wrote it into a bound spell.
But what would you think about a magic shooting weapon?
8", you have to hit, do d6 S2 hits or something, and then 3d6 Ld test etc. as before?
Would keep it independant from magic saturation synergies, but still restrictive enough, requiring front arc, short range, not having marched, target not in combat, so you mostly have only 1 use at best, unless you are flying around on your monster and leaning into breath attacks, wasting your combat potential.
Reducing Ini would’t make that much sense then since the target would either not see any combat until next round, or be the attacker anyway.
We could leave it one-use-only, making it a throwing weapon (no penalty for move and shoot and stuff).

Would the item get a good narration this way, or Zhatan’s depictions lack shooting equipment too much, or potentially shift Zhatan into a support role while he is supposed to be an even a-hole on the contrary?

Edit:
Meh, looked at the TWWH concept art, they show him with some scrolls on the belt but not a single shooty thing.
Maybe it has to become a bound spell after all.