Tomb Guardians Revisited

I've had a very quick and dirty bash at houseruling a version of the Tomb Kings that I am happy with. I must explain that this is, primarily, for me to make use of some of a Tomb King army that I'm going to get rid of. It's my initial thoughts on a potentially playable warband for this faction - open to constructive comments as this is my very first attempt at cobbling together a set of warband rules. My main concern is keeping it fluffy, while not horrible for Mrs 5pointer to play against!

Tomb Guardians Revisited v0.4 - .doc format

v0.4 - Revised to take account of Horatius' second comments.

v0.3 - Revised to take account of Von Kurst's comments.

v0.2 - Revised to take account of Horatius' comments.

v0.1 - Original draft.

A good list, here are my comments:

- The prices seem to be fine except for the Ushabti which is overpriced. With toughness 4 and 2 wounds he will tend to die quickly and often once the opposing warbands have picked up some advances and equipment. Either make him more durable or make him cheaper.
- I would add a flail to the list of weapons, after all the WFB Khemri have them.
- I don´t think the warband is so strong that it can only be allowed to have 4 heroes at the beginning. I would allow one more Sanctum Guard.
- The spells are nice and fluffy, but i think their casting difficulties are off. The summoning and damage-dealing spells have too low a difficulty and the -1 to shooting spell is too difficult for it´s effect.
- The Ushabti should be a large target. The model is not exactly small .

Overall a very good list - and i like the look of the Khemri miniatures very much, so keep going!

Thanks for taking the time to read and reply Horatius, very much appreciated! I'll take your comments one by one if I may:-

Horatius wrote:

- The prices seem to be fine except for the Ushabti which is overpriced. With toughness 4 and 2 wounds he will tend to die quickly and often once the opposing warbands have picked up some advances and equipment. Either make him more durable or make him cheaper.

I've bumped his Toughness to 5 and kept the cost the same - I've compared it to the Rat Ogre and as the Ushabti has mostly beneficial special rules I'm not sure how else to tweak the entry. Will the bump to 5 be adequate? Or should I add a Wound as well?

Horatius wrote:

- I would add a flail to the list of weapons, after all the WFB Khemri have them.

Agreed - I've added this in.

Horatius wrote:

- I don´t think the warband is so strong that it can only be allowed to have 4 heroes at the beginning. I would allow one more Sanctum Guard.

I'd fallen on the cautious side here - I'm more than happy to have an extra Hero!

Horatius wrote:

- The spells are nice and fluffy, but i think their casting difficulties are off. The summoning and damage-dealing spells have too low a difficulty and the -1 to shooting spell is too difficult for it´s effect.

Thanks for this, while fun to write, the spells are important to get right (being so imporant to WFB Khemri, I wanted to translate that across somewhat to this warband). I've rejigged them a little, do they fit better now?

Horatius wrote:

- The Ushabti should be a large target. The model is not exactly small .

a complete oversight on my part, of course they should be Large!

Horatius wrote:

Overall a very good list - and i like the look of the Khemri miniatures very much, so keep going!

Thanks for the encouragement! I'm used to writing RPG rules where the balance isn't quite so important, this is quite another beast!

Ushabti/Tomb Guardians--why not use the WFB profiles? Or why is the Ushabti St5 T5 since WFB is not? Why 2 wounds?

I guess for the Ushabti I would recommend a St 4 armed with a great weapon T4 3W 3A. (Since that's what we use in our campaigns.)

The Liche Priest and the Tomb Prince need more special rules. Does the Tomb Prince start the game knowing his incantation? Does the Liche Priest begin the campaign knowing 1 incantation?

The Tomb Prince's profile is too weak for his points even if he gets one (not so great) spell to start. S4 T4

The Tomb Prince, Liche Priest and Sanctum Guard should have the rule flammable.

Great work on the incantations.

Thanks Von Kurst for taking the time to read and comment. Again, I'll take your comments one by one.

Von Kurst wrote:

Ushabti/Tomb Guardians--why not use the WFB profiles? Or why is the Ushabti St5 T5 since WFB is not? Why 2 wounds?

I guess for the Ushabti I would recommend a St 4 armed with a great weapon T4 3W 3A. (Since that's what we use in our campaigns.)

My initial thoughts were to reflect the WFB list entry, but then I tried a lighter version (being cautious) - would you say the gc cost should remain the same if I improve the stats in line with your suggestion/the WFB entry?

Von Kurst wrote:

The Liche Priest and the Tomb Prince need more special rules. Does the Tomb Prince start the game knowing his incantation? Does the Liche Priest begin the campaign knowing 1 incantation?

Yes, the Tomb Prince starts knowing the incantation and the Liche Priest begins knowing 1 incantation. I'll produce some wording to clarify both of these.

Von Kurst wrote:

The Tomb Prince's profile is too weak for his points even if he gets one (not so great) spell to start. S4 T4

I agree with this, also brings him in line with the WFB entry. Again, this was me erring on the side of caution.

Von Kurst wrote:

The Tomb Prince, Liche Priest and Sanctum Guard should have the rule flammable.

I agree for Tomb Prince and Sanctum Guard, but not Liche Priest (as they are not mummified in the way the Princes etc were). I'll add them in later.

Von Kurst wrote:

Great work on the incantations.

Thanks for the encouragement and the constructive advice - much appreciated!

Oh and welcome to the forums!

Ushabti--Cost should stay the same. It brings it in line with the Minotaur which can gain exp. and use more equipment.

Liche Priest not flammable, right.

Von Kurst wrote:

Oh and welcome to the forums!

Ushabti--Cost should stay the same. It brings it in line with the Minotaur which can gain exp. and use more equipment.

Liche Priest not flammable, right.

Noted and agreed on the Ushabti.

And on the Liche Priest, yep, not flammable - at least, that's what my TK army book says...

Hi 5pointer,

i had another look at your warband and noticed some small things:

• The bow costs 15 gc - isn´t that more than anyone else pays? I would make it 10 gc, the skeletons are not exactly sharpshooters so it will not unbalance the list.
  
• The sanctum guards start with 0 xp. Compared to youngbloods, witch hunters or dregs this seems too low. Maybe give them 4-6 XP?
  
• Djedra´s incantation of summoning can bring back tomb guards. As those can get xp and become heroes this is too good. I would limit the spell to summoning skeletons of either type, this brings it into line with the zombie spell.
  

Apart from that the list looks good and ready. From my experience it should be a well balanced list, but only playtesting will give you more insight into it. So go ahead, play a few games and tell us how it went.

Horatius wrote:

Hi 5pointer,

Hello Horatius!

Horatius wrote:

i had another look at your warband and noticed some small things:

Thanks again for taking the time to (re)read and comment, once more I'll take each point one at a time:-

Horatius wrote:

The bow costs 15 gc - isn´t that more than anyone else pays? I would make it 10 gc, the skeletons are not exactly sharpshooters so it will not unbalance the list.

I think you have a point here - they aren't likely to be hitting a barn door too often, so no harm in reducing the cost!

Horatius wrote:

The sanctum guards start with 0 xp. Compared to youngbloods, witch hunters or dregs this seems too low. Maybe give them 4-6 XP?

Also agreed, I've pitched it at 4 XP in the newest version, this might be increased if I practice game a mini-campaign and they get too good too quick.

Horatius wrote:

Djedra´s incantation of summoning can bring back tomb guards. As those can get xp and become heroes this is too good. I would limit the spell to summoning skeletons of either type, this brings it into line with the zombie spell.

I'd agree - it would, of course, be especially a problem when/if they get elevated to heroes. Amended in the new version.

Horatius wrote:

Apart from that the list looks good and ready. From my experience it should be a well balanced list, but only playtesting will give you more insight into it. So go ahead, play a few games and tell us how it went.

I've just spoken to Mrs 5Pointer about running a few test games Can't say when, but I'm going to draw up a list or two and get working on the models soon!

Thanks again Horatius!