The Cult of Nagash - A war band

I've been dabbling around with a more Necromancer focused war band lately, with a Liche as the leader. I've got most of my inspirations from Liber Necris, Border Towns Bruning's Restless dead, WHFRP's bestiary and Necrarchs, the soul Stealers from Letters of the Damned 1.

New version out @ http://mordheim.kybernesis.net/cult_of_nagash.pdf

I would love any comments on it, cause I still haven't play tested it.
Keep in mind it's still a work in progress so any constructive comments would be appreciated. and please add some thoughts to what you think could be changed with your comments Smile

I'm playtesting these guys tonight, will update y'all on how it goes

Version history:
Current - v0.4:
- Removed Golem crafting ritual with a cost involving wyrdstones. This reflects that the Necromancer is still crafting it without the randomness of it all.
- Removed Wyrdstone effects, as TimL @ the Mordheim Yahoo groups pointed out, Warhammer undeads don’t get affected by chaos effects.
v0.3:
- "Merged" Wights and Wight Lords into one. So only have Wights as heroes now.
- Made Wraiths capable of gaining XP, they're former necromancers after all.
- Added Dreaded scrolls of Nagash from Necrarchs, the Soul Stealers.
- Added Nightmare and skeletal steed to the equipment list along with description on the latter.
- Added Staff of Undeath to the equipment list along with description.
- Added Scrolls of Nagash to the equipment list along with description.
- Added Magic Weapon Crafting rituals to Forbidden Lore and removed others.

v0.2:
- "Borrowed" the Abomination write up from Necrarchs, the soul Stealers from Letters of the Damned 1 for my Flesh Golem.
- Lowered Liche's woundsfrom 4 to 3 and added Life in Death as a starting ability to
reflect that a Liche is eternal.
- Changed Skeletons to be only 0-5 allowed.
- Lowered the cost of Flesh Golem ritual from 3 wyrdstones to 2, but the Flesh Golem will require a new wyrdstone to be reanimated if he is ever taken out of action.

great idea

though the execution is a trifle too powerful to play with core warbadns

Thanks
I love the Warhammer necromancy and all the story that's published around it

I suspected they were overpowered at their current state. Next phase of the creation process is to tone them down to fit with the other war bands, that's why I'm looking for insight on what parts that could need some nerfing.

You may also be interested in the Necrarch Vampire warband found in Letters of the Damned 4. This warband allows you to use the core Necromancy spells plus spells from the scrolls of Nagash.

If you don't want a direct link then you can find it on Tabletop Geeks:
http://tabletopgeeks.com/downloads/

RationalLemming wrote:

You may also be interested in the Necrarch Vampire warband found in Letters of the Damned 4. This warband allows you to use the core Necromancy spells plus spells from the scrolls of Nagash.

If you don't want a direct link then you can find it on Tabletop Geeks:
http://tabletopgeeks.com/downloads/

It wasn't in LotD 4, but I found it in LotD1

Interesting, although I'm trying to make a war band with a Liche Necromancer as leader instead of a vampire, this is indeed some good inspiration for how to balance my war band out some.

The abomination could easily replace my Flesh Golem, but I still want it to be gained through a ritual instead of spending Gold Coins.
I like the idea of ignoring 1 & 2's on the injury roll better than my ubah version that I based on something I found on a forum

The whole idea of the war band is to add more Necromancy to a war band. As in more summoning/crafting undead, using wyrdstones in rituals etc.

So some changes to come so far:
*Flesh Golem will use the Abomination template from Necrarch war band, but can still only be gained through a ritual.
*Liche Necromancer might have too many wounds, but then again, it's to symbolize that he is eternal. I could lower starting wounds to 3 or 2 and instead make Life in Death a starting ability.
*Life in Death as it is now will never allow the Liche to try and take over any other hosts than his apprentice. I'm thinking of adding the following text: If the Liche is taken Out of Action, he immediately rolls on the Serious Injury table. If the result is Killed his spirit will transfer automatically to his living apprentice.

Will post the new version on my first post when it's ready

Meanwhile, feel free to comment!
I would appreciate if you feel that it is overpowered that you also add some insight into why the band is overpowered

Whoops sorry about the version but I'm glad you eventually found it!

No probs, thanks for the link

I made a band today, and I found that Wights and Wight Lords could probably just be merged into one.
The problem I'm facing then though, is that now I have no Henchmen that can get XP...

Both Zombies and Skellies don't have any probability of gaining XP, but Wraiths are basically just spectral Necromancers. So I guess I could make them able to gain XP.

That would make the band consist of:
Heroes:
1 Lich Necromancer
0-1 Necromancer apprentice
0-3 Wights
Henchmen:
0-3 Wraiths
0-5 Skellies - No XP
Zombies - No XP
Flesh Golem/Abomination - No XP

After last revision I finally had a chance to playtest my warband.

and I got the impression it's fairly balanced!
I really got my ass handed to me tonight, but it was mainly cause of bad luck on the dice and tactical blunders.

We were thinking maybe wights were a bit too overpowered, but due to May not run and an Initiative of only 2, they actually got put down quite quickly by a Reiklander with Sword and dagger. As long as he survived the initial charge from the wight.

So as a starting war band, they are quite balanced as they are now.
Now I need to playtest them with access to the real goods.

A couple of changes I've decided during playtest:
- Immaterial special of wraiths will also give an umodified save of 5+
- Forbidden Lore rituals need 1 more ritual and be randomized when the skill is taken.

Updated with version 0.4!
Check first post for version history and link.

What needs to be done now is to add 2 more rituals to Forbidden Lore, I've been thinking of some more crafting rituals... Maybe crafting of magical armour?

Any suggestions are welcome!