BTB - Black Dwarfs and Mechanical Suit

Hey,

Two questions...

Can a Bull Centaur be equiped with a Mechanical Suit? The Black Dwarf warband in our Border Town Burning campaign has a Bull Centaur leader. The warband player is wanting chaos armour so that the Bull Centaur can cast spells as well as wear armour and then noticed the Mechanical Suit which would add +3 Movement to his Bull Centaur in addition to adding the benefits of chaos armour. Is this allowed? It sounds funny but in many ways I do not really have a problem with this.

Also, the Mechanical Suit is rare 14. Is this rarity reduced by taking enemies OOA in the preceding battle similar to normal Chaos Armour or can this rarity only be reduced by the Chaos Engineer skill and other traditional means (e.g. Street Wise skill)?

Thanks,

Ben

Hehe-- the mechanical suit is made for the sorcerer to compensate for his lose of movement from "the stone curse" - so i think no, the bull can not buy it....

But again i let it go in my group, just for fun

-Skavenslayer

@Skavenslayer... yes I think that it is a funny thought too (a mechanical suit for a Bull Centaur!!???!!) but I believe that it is still a valid question.

Remember that once the Bull Centaur becomes the leader then it gains access to the spell list that the Sorcerer could cast (the Rituals of Hashut) so this means that the Bull Centaur does actually become a sorcerer. Therefore it is logical then to assume that "the stone curse" would start to apply to the Bull Centaur in time also. I'm not familiar with the fluff behind the curse but I assume that it comes from dabbling in this dark sorcery rather than being of the chaos dwarf race otherwise the other chaos dwarfs would also become afflicted by the curse which is not the case (or not mentioned in what I have read which is limited - perhaps Werekin can help with some fluff here ).

Let's take this a bit further. If a Chaos Dwarf warband with a Bull Centaur as leader is following the Lure of Fortune objective then surely the Bull Centaur will actually be afflicted by the "curse of stone" once the warband reaches the 25 achievement for the Lure of Fortune objective (refer quote below). It would seem odd if this achievement becomes meaningless if the original Sorcerer dies (especially if the original Sorcerer dies before the achievement is reached).

Quote :

25 Curse of Stone: As the Sorcerer’s body is afflicted by the curse he suffers -1 to Movement. If a Chaos Engineer is with the warband, then a Mechanical Suit can be purchased at the reduced cost of 125 gc.

In our campaign though the Chaos Dwarf warband is following the Scourge of the Realm objective so this achievement will not occur but does not negate my original question since the Bull Centaur wants to equip himself with a Mechanical Suit in our campaign.

Yeah.. like you say it a grey area... It was the curse of stone i was thinking of... But the objective the warband is following should not dictate the rules, is still say: We (my group) would it pass, but then again we let "every thing" pass

Like you i dont know very much about chaos dwarf fluff...

-Skavenslayer

More confusing still, in CD fluff, Centaurs cannot cast magic. They are reserved as "temple guards" for that reason.

1. When the leader dies then another warrior is nominated as leader. When a sorcerer dies then everyone apart from the Chaos Dwarf player jumps for joy! There is no sorcerer's apprentice in this warband.

2. All of the rules for Chaos armour apply to a Mechanical suit. Therefore the rarity and the cost of the item is variable.

Quote :

Suited and Booted: A Sorcerer equipped with a Mechanical suit receives +3 to Movement.

3. There is only one legal wearer of the mechanical suit. As described in the rules, this armour would have to be worn by the Sorcerer.

Regards,

Werekin.

So Black Dwarfs are the exception to the Mordheim errata that allow the new leader to become the spell caster or is it simply a case the the new leader can cast spells but is not a "Sorcerer"? You must mean the latter.

This errata only affects the three warbands named.

Quote :

OFFICIAL Mordheim ERRATA: Page 117, Death of a Leader; Add the following paragraph at the end of this section:

"If the leader of a Sisters of Sigmar, Possessed or Carnival of Chaos warband dies then their successor will be entitled to learn to use magic in their stead. The new leader may choose a prayer/spell from the appropriate list, instead of rolling on the Advance table, the first time they are eligible for an advance. After this they are considered to be a wizard/use prayers as appropriate for their warband and use the advance table as normal."

I don't see any mention of Chaos Dwarfs in here.

werekin wrote:

This errata only affects the three warbands named.

Quote :

OFFICIAL Mordheim ERRATA: Page 117, Death of a Leader; Add the following paragraph at the end of this section:

"If the leader of a Sisters of Sigmar, Possessed or Carnival of Chaos warband dies then their successor will be entitled to learn to use magic in their stead. The new leader may choose a prayer/spell from the appropriate list, instead of rolling on the Advance table, the first time they are eligible for an advance. After this they are considered to be a wizard/use prayers as appropriate for their warband and use the advance table as normal."

I don't see any mention of Chaos Dwarfs in here.

That is an interesting interpretation. RAW means that you are definitely correct. I was under the impression though that the reason why those three warbands were explicitly mentioned in the official errata was because they are the ONLY official warbands with leaders that are spell casters. It is not possible to mention unofficial warbands in an official errata. Therefore I assumed (incorrectly?) that the errata was transferrable to other warbands with spell casting leaders. This must be one of those rules that I have always interpretted incorrectly.

RationalLemming wrote:

This must be one of those rules that I have always interpretted incorrectly.

No, I don't think so, Ben.

There must be enough reasons to justify the published errata; to explain why another Hero from those example warbands would step up to replace the spell caster. To me that rule sound suspiciously like somebody house-ruled it out of pity for a player with a dead wizard-captain. Subsequently the rule has stuck.

Perhaps another relevant example which isn't covered by errata is this:
Take the Skaven Eshin warband. The leader can die and be replaced by a spell caster in the role as leader. If that warlock-chieftain subsequently dies, then if you're applying the same logic promoted in the errata then another Hero becomes a leader and a wizard at the same time!

I'm not calling one way of dealing with this right or wrong. Limitations need to exist somewhere or else campaigns can go to pot.

Back to the warband in question, these Fire Dwarfs then. It's plausible that another Dwarf might step up to become the next sorcerer-priest. I've never come across an example of a Bull Centaur spell caster so that one remains a myth.

I'm too tired to read the entire thread ( ) but I think the errata refers to warbands which have a spell-caster as a leader and thus couldn't normally buy back their spell-caster if their leader died. Clan Eshin can always hire another sorcerer if their dies. In your example the leader-sorcerer-rat would die, another warrior would step up to claim leadership and the player can just hire a fresh new sorcerer.

Quote :

I'm too tired to read the entire thread...

You and me both old man. I'm too hanging to rewrite what I added to this thread the other night. I spent the best part of half an hour writing it and wrestling with bizarre reformatting issues.

"No post mode selected."

No mode, oh really? That is new one on me. [End of my forum system rant]

What I wanted to add of any value can be bullet-pointed as;

1. Ignore my tangent-like example from before. It's worthless in this discussion.
2. The only other non-Undead spellcaster-leader which I can think of is the Runesmith in the Dwarf Rangers warband.
3. If the Runesmith in either the Dwarf Rangers or the Sorcerer in a Fire Dwarfs warband is killed, then yes, promote another Dwarf to become leader caster of runes/rituals as per the Mordheim warband errata.
4. There is no precedent I am aware of for a Bull Centaur to use magic spells in Warhammer lore. Anyone caught trying to this is clearly taking the piss and the usual penalties should apply. ie, Buy everyone a pint of Bugman's.
5. There was going to be spellcaster-leader in one of the new Marienburg warbands. I am sorely tempted to swap this around now to avoid the same question.

@Werekin and Cianty... thanks for your responses.

What you have said Werekin about the Bull Centaur makes sense. I'll discuss with my gaming group adding a warband special rule to the Black Dwarf warband saying that the Bull Centaur is the exception to the rules for spellcasting and leaders and does not learn spells because Bull Centaurs cannot cast magic.

Adding a warband rule would be all that is required if you wanted your Marienburg warband with a spellcaster-leader to behave differently (e.g. "no new hero can become the spellcaster" or the "leader can be repurchased" or "only a specific hero type can become a spellcaster if promoted to leader").

My gaming group is greatly enjoying the rules that both of you are producing. We're hanging out for more MiM rules (especially the opposing article to Corrupted Characters for holy/good warbands (come on Shallaya Cloisters) and Black Dust (our Beastmen players are always eager for more corrupting influences) and circles of summoning to summon Daemon Princes from former BTB campaigns (as if our Beastmen players need MORE help - they're already at the top of the campaign table)... ok maybe we just want everything! ).

Thanks man. We appreciate your giving kudos. Shallya willing, I dare say we will get this treatise on holy Heroes to you pretty soon Rational. Salvation is at hand my friend!

Malign abominations thwarting the forces of light won't know what hit them...

Regards,

Werekin.