Nippon Warband v.6 (Final)

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I'm not sure 'strip away everything unique until its more bland than you human mercenaries' is the best choice either Asp.

+1. from the beginning all youve done is complain about how they compare to mercs and its really been a bit of a pain in the asp (always wanted to do that lol ).


Alright, in regards to spell casting;

1. fire

I have chosen 8+ because of this skaven one;

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Warpfire 8+
The spell has a range of 8", hitting the first model in its path. The spell causes D3 Strength 4 hits

on its target, and one Strength 3 hit on each model within 2" of the target.

3. earth

Yea its ment to be only at the start of the battle, my mistake for not including that.

Gains an extra 4 inches, loses the AOE

6. thought

Nice idea about every model causing fear if they fail a LD test. Ill give it another shot when I get home tonight.

thats two different discussions

1 how unique should they be (no definate answer)

2 how powerful should they be (imo better than mercs is pushing it)

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Hirazuki

The
ultimate killing move of the samurai, the Hirazuki is a single blow
aimed at one of the 9 vital points of the human body. The samurai
replaced all his attacks with a single attack. This attack is at +1 to
hit, +1 to wound and +1 on the injury rolls.

This looks really really powerful to me now I read through it again, given that only having a single attack may not be a huge disadvantage when most warriors in the band have 1 basic attack as is. Perhaps have it so it can only be used once per battle? or take away one of the bonuses (to hit maybe ... in fact maybe have it -1 to hit because they are trying to strike a precise vital point).

I think the Daimyo is worth 70 gold at least.

Was also thinking of an alternative statline for the Ninja, because he seems quite similar to the Samurai except in speed.

Ninja - 40/45 gold crowns

Profile	M	WS	BS	S	T	W	I	A	Ld
	4	3	3	3	3	1	5	2	7

Special Abilities
Loner

Shadow Step: The Ninja may run while hidden and cannot be intercepted when charging.

I have liked your list from the beginning, I think it's pretty balanced.

I mean, they are like elite humans, rather than a slew of mercs.

If anything, just be sure they start with more experience, or cost more, than the average human merc band. Otherwise, great flavorful warband.

Special ability wise they aren't too powerful, and the individuality is what I love.

One special rule for your (sweet) warband tho. Allow the armor its 4+ save only if you lot are playing with the shield houserule. (We do. It makes for a much nicer setting where you actually see shields being used.)

Figgy wrote:

One special rule for your (sweet) warband tho. Allow the armor its 4+ save only if you lot are playing with the shield houserule. (We do. It makes for a much nicer setting where you actually see shields being used.)

The list doesn't have shields >.>

Edit: Oh and one small suggestion, not balance based but more convenience based, include an English name with your skills, say.

Kuzu-rysen "The Wind of Blades"

Hirazuki "The Killing Blow"

Shinsoku "The Speed of the Gods"

I'm afraid poor monolingual slubs like me will probably get confused about which is which after awhile, look at my warband sheet and say "Kuzu-whatsu?"

[quote="Mortimer"]

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Hirazuki comment

I see your point. perhaps losing the -1 to hit makes sense. cheers for that I dont like to have moves that are once3 per battle, as it doesnt make much sense =\.

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I think the Daimyo is worth 70 gold at least.

Possibly, its borderline 70, but a nice round number like 70 sounds a lot nicer.

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Ninja comment

Ninja's were historically elite samurai, so perhaps dropping the I to 4 would balance it out a bit.

Odd, I was always of the understanding Ninja's where peasant rebels and assassins.

Mortimer wrote:

Odd, I was always of the understanding Ninja's where peasant rebels and assassins.

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Despite many popular folktales, historical accounts of the ninja are scarce. Historian Stephen Turnbull asserts that the ninja were mostly recruited from the lower class, and therefore little literary interest was taken in them.^[12] Instead, war epics such as the Tale of Hōgen (Hōgen Monogatari) and the Tale of the Heike (Heike Monogatari) focus mainly on the aristocratic samurai, whose deeds were apparently more appealing to the audience.^[10] Historian Kiyoshi Watatani states that the ninja were trained to be particularly secretive about their actions and existence:

Honestly Its a big iffy, and I personaly like to go with their historic japanese folktales rather that a historians oppinion (im sure there are many who think otherwise).

Fair enough, the Warhammer World's equivalent would of course me more inclined towards the fantastical than the historical as it should be.

I like how its shaping up, I'm even inspired to maybe do an Ind warband

Mortimer wrote:

Fair enough, the Warhammer World's equivalent would of course me more inclined towards the fantastical than the historical as it should be.

I like how its shaping up, I'm even inspired to maybe do an Ind warband

Would be awesome to do up mate, With any luck we may convince cianty to post em on BTB to complete the nations to the east

Real world ninjas weren't the black pyjama clad fighters that were portrayed in films, they were apparently just samurai operating without their clan symbols and in blackened armour for attacking at night against rival clans.

The assassins (hashashin) were closer to the ninjas as people picture them.

At least, that's what I was told by historian friends who researched Japanese culture and history.

As has been stated, taking the fantasy route as opposed to the historic route fits better with Mordheim. I just thought I'd throw all that info in because I can't sleep and have nothing better to do.

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I have liked your list from the beginning, I think it's pretty balanced.

in the beginning it was quite unbalanced, but perhaps thats not what you were saying

Hey, just wanted to chime in to say: i think part of the bushido code should include something about never using blackpowder. I don't know how historically accurate that is but in every Japanese Samurai movie/game i see, the samurai do indeed use longbows, while the ashigaru are the only ones with guns. Having a list with BS 4 heroes and acess to shooting skills can cause many players to skip the whole close combat thing and make a shooty warband from hell, which i'm assuming is not your intention...

And as for the Harizuki, i'd say that the closest thing we have currently in the Troll vomit attack. A troll trades 3 strength 5 attacks for a single strength 5 automatic hit. Comparisons can now be drawn.

Here you trade all your attacks (which could only be one!) for a all those bonuses. +1 to hit is much better than +1WS as fans of the diving charge will tell you! How about trading extra attacks for a +1 strength and +1 to injury roll for each.

Example: samurai jack has 3 attacks and strength 4. His katana makes that strength 5. He trades 3 strength 5 attacks for a single strength 7 attack with +2 to the injury roll, with which he still needs to roll to hit. My version suddenly seems even more powerful if you have high stats so i'd drop the injury roll business (just take the skill strike-to-injure, thats what it's for!) and make it a strict one-to-one trade of attacks and strength.

Other things to watch out for; how does this interact with frenzy or extra arms/tail attacks from random mutations? Can it be used with a diving charge making it even more powerful? Examine every situation that could throw a monkey wrench into your design and decide if you need to re-word the rule or change it completely.

BTW, i like the list so far (besides a ninja working with samurai but this is the warhammer world), but i'm not one to comment on whether it's balanced or not.

Pathfinder Dubstyles wrote:

Hey, just wanted to chime in to say: i think part of the bushido code should include something about never using blackpowder. I don't know how historically accurate that is but in every Japanese Samurai movie/game i see, the samurai do indeed use longbows, while the ashigaru are the only ones with guns. Having a list with BS 4 heroes and acess to shooting skills can cause many players to skip the whole close combat thing and make a shooty warband from hell, which i'm assuming is not your intention...4

Historically from what I've glanced out of interest, Samurai where indeed against the use of guns, taking it as a point of honour, so that makes sense.

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BTW, i like the list so far (besides a ninja working with samurai but this is the warhammer world), but i'm not one to comment on whether it's balanced or not.

Again, historically (ick bad word) it was known for Daimyo to hire ninjas for various tasks, some even going on to become bodyguards among the Samurai.

Just reading over the spells list, it seems like every spell is good. If I remember correctly *and it's been a while* but at least 1/3 of the spells on the normal spells list are "cool.. but pretty useless"

Pathfinder Dubstyles wrote:

Hirazuki comment (dont want to quote it all again )

Hey mate, cheers for the time you put in and comment.

Firstly, I'll add that the model cannot parry in the turn he uses the hirazuki. Secondly the troll will always need at least 4's to hit. this means he is really trading 1.5 attacks at S5 to inflict one at S5 that ignores all armour. If a samurai had 3 attacks and chararged, he would be re-rolling and normaly needing 3's. meaning 2 should hit. Assuming he got a S boost, he would also be at S5. In this light, with a fair trade off of attacks (after a long campaign however) the hirazuki is a tricky one to decide on and will become bad if it lost any of the bonus'. Models with frenzy still only get one attack (as they trade all their attacks for a single) and it can be combined with a diving charge (take a real nut to not see it coming though ).

I can see that its a bit iffy, but its similar to skaven, good in the beginning then starts to get worse.

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ashtons spell comment

Really? Looking at orcs and goblins and skaven right now I cant see anything bad. In fact [size=9]Oi! Gerroff! is like wind, but better.[/size]

Commenting on balance, I quite like it now, I think it is severely a limiting factor that they have a very limited equipment list compared to mercenaries.

Commeting on fluff, though, there are still things to be seen:
Well, basically you need to decide what kind of samurais you want to potray, the first samurai were little more than educated noble-men, swearing feudal allegiance, which is when they started to make war training, most of these samurai were horsemen first and sword-armed warriors second. Before the ashigaru came to existence, there was no need for broad training as the samurai would mainly face other horse-mounted warriors (other samurai mainly) and therefore weapons used were those best used from horseback. The ashigaru system actually revolutionized the need for samurai as an elite cadre of troops, commanders, or bodyguards.
As Japan (or Nippon in WHF) became a more peaceful region the need for an elite mounted cadre of high nobility grew less important, and therefore they started on other things, most samurai took to many art forms here-after. Later duelling became common among samurai, and as such many Dojos that taught sword-techniques were founded, through loads of generations the duelling art were perfected, until it was clearly written down in the book of five rings, which was followed by most samurai afterwards, basically the book of five rings details fighting with two swords, which was the favored technique for samurai after this book, who would carry three swords (one for seppukku as well).
The samurai also evolved with technology and adopted gunpowder, even though it seemed the end for the samurai, by the end of the 16th century arquebuises were actually more common in Japan than in most european countries. This was just before the time of the shogunate wars, in which it is difficult to truly now whether samurai did any actual fighting or whether they were more like generals and duellists.

So you need to decide whether you will reflect the samurai, as archers, swordsmen, riders, tacticians or poets. You could highly doubt whether any one samurai knew all these skills, though they might have had some understanding and general knowledge of all of them through all periods.
You need to decide whether you want samurai to wear two/three swords in for of the Daisho, whether you want to include this option, or whether you want to keep the Katana rules simple.

Oh and by the way, the parry on equal rules could be called "mizu-tai" or "Sui-Tai" Meaning body of water (correctly Mizu no Tai or Sui no Tai but no one will object either way), this was the idea introduced in many duelling scripts.

Hope you can use this for anything.

Hey, just read through the warband and wanted to pipe in. Overall I think it looks pretty good, and seems that any potential balance issues have been sorted out. Just one thing:

mrbretonnia wrote:

Unamed Skill - ???

The warrior has mastered the art of using the katana defensively. He may re-roll a failed parry attempt made with the katana and only needs roll equal to or under their highest to hit roll

Emphasis mine. Is this skill really supposed to allow the warrior to parry by rolling equal to or under the attacker's "to hit" roll? That would mean that a "to hit" roll of 6 would automatically be parried. It seems to me that it would make more sense to either a) emulate dwarfs' Master of Blades skill, and roll equal to or over, or the duelist hired sword, and simply have to roll under the parrying warrior's weapon skill (always fail on a 6). Or maybe you could simply give him a flat parry roll of 4+, or something like that.

It just seems weird to have the parry roll be easier against a higher "to hit" roll.

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Master's comment

The samurai are really based on folktale as well as history. They are shortly after the wide spread use of ashigaru. The samurai that I and many others view are masters of the bow as well as the sword, so I feel its acceptable to reflect it in mordheim. They are pre-BoFR simply because it is easier (and less over powered) to be using a single katana. I have tried playtesting with a katana and a wakazashi daisho, but it was just rediculous (besides, the rules for the katana were made by cianty).

cheers for the suggested names for the skill, I have added that to the main roster now

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myntokk's comment

Fixed that up mate, was meerly a typo. Cheers for pointing it out for me

Cheers both of you,

Tom

I know infiltrate was an innate Ninja ability to begin with but wouldn't it make sense to add it back in as a Ninja only skill?

Mortimer wrote:

I know infiltrate was an innate Ninja ability to begin with but wouldn't it make sense to add it back in as a Ninja only skill?

Yea, im going to drop sniper for it, as I imagine the ninja as a melee character. Otherwise, does everyone think it looks the biz?

Looks very nice to me! I'm curious about you playtesting it. Let us know how it goes

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Dude I was saying what I wrote was stolen. Sorry if that wasn't clear; I copied most of it out of an HTML file I wrote a while back and that was part of the disclaimer at the top.

Ah, on second thought I'm gonna just remove the whole list. Maybe I look like an ass coming into your thread where you've already developed an warband and just tossing another list in. It's a list I personally prefer but it's not my thread so I don't want to be overbearing. I just got excited and wanted to share, but I can keep it to myself. Apologies all around.