Priests of the Empire

Nice critique VK.

If there are no spells or prayers published elsewhere with a Difficulty of 11 or 12, then all of these prayers should be treated as Difficulty 10.

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What does the term "warrior" mean? 'Warrior' is a generic term used to refer to ALL members of a warband in ALL official Mordheim warbands, or it is a specific term for some types of fighters in human Mercenary warbands. What does 'warrior' mean in this context? Could a different term be used?

The definition of 'warrior' refers to all models which are not animals or inanimate objects. It's a useful term to refer to I find.

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The Wolf Priest is the most expensive priest to hire. Another why? He was the same cost in the old TC rules, but there was no justification for his cost then either. A great improvement would be to make him much cheaper. 50 gc would be fine.

I disagree. The wolf-priest hates Sigmarites and starts with a wolf cloak (see Strictures). He can also learn Speed skills. This is partially offset by a distaste for armour and blackpowder (see Strictures) and -1 BS. The priest cuts an impressive figure and the hire cost justifies this.

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Heart of the Wolf, Difficulty 10. (As Ulric's Howl above. Still harder for Ulric than Sigmar.)

Good point. This isn't fair at all. The prayer ought to have the same difficulty as the Sigmarite version.

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Hoarfrost Thews, Difficulty 8. (Immune to cold weather and magical cold based attacks.) So VERY useful in almost every game. This spell is a throw away unless you are campaigning in winter.

Whoops! See below;

Hoarfrost Thews
Difficulty 8

An unnatural chill ripples through the musculature of the Priest as a frost forms upon the flesh across his entire body. A chilling cold aura surrounds him.

The Priest is immune to exposure caused by freezing conditions for the remainder of the battle. This includes the ill effects of all types of cold weather and the Priest is immune to the effects of any magical attacks or spells which refer to the cold such as snow, frost, ice and hail. All models within 2" of the Priest without a cloak or winter furs suffers -1 Leadership and -1 Initiative. However, Initiative cannot fall below 1. Undead models are immune to the chilling auras effects.

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In a normal game you lose your leader (except Undead) the leader is dead and you promote another hero to "Leader" but the old leader's slot is gone and can't be re filled with the same hero type and thus you can only get back to the same number of heroes with LGT.
With this rule you can lose your leader and and hire a priest and have just rebought your leader.

I don't see a problem with this. Hiring a Priest to replace a fallen Captain may soften the blow of a player losing their original leader. In some circumstances players quit a campaign when their leader dies.

The Priest or another model will take on the mantle of leader. The warband is able to replace the dead Hero.

I may even stick in 'Spiritual Leader/Leadership' as some sort of jazzy keyword/title!

@Pervavita

You're probably right with not messing with costs or adding in now gods. However, instead of those adjustments, who about just replace the stat line with the 'youngblood' stats for the dwarf treasure hunter / shadow warriors warband.

It'd give the priests the lower end of what those races have, showing that in general they are non-fighters. And according to GW, it is what is worth 25gc for those races, which seems to be the baseline for these prices with the prayers/rules added to them. Otherwise we'd get situations where we'd have dwarf priests with Ld6 or 7 and T3, and that just doesn't feel right.

werekin wrote:

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In a normal game you lose your leader (except Undead) the leader is dead and you promote another hero to "Leader" but the old leader's slot is gone and can't be re filled with the same hero type and thus you can only get back to the same number of heroes with LGT.
With this rule you can lose your leader and and hire a priest and have just rebought your leader.

I don't see a problem with this. Hiring a Priest to replace a fallen Captain may soften the blow of a player losing their original leader. In some circumstances players quit a campaign when their leader dies.

The Priest or another model will take on the mantle of leader. The warband is able to replace the dead Hero.

I may even stick in 'Spiritual Leader/Leadership' as some sort of jazzy keyword/title!

I understand exaclty what you mean here. My problem with it though is take any warband that is not effected by these rules (Skaven, Possessed, Beastmen, CoC, ext) and this is a huge boost to the warbands that can do this and I suspect will have major balance issues.
Unless there is a sister set of rules for the "evil" that can also equally effect them in some way.
more heroes = more money and as we all know that is good and this is giving more heroes.

Undead are another issue too with in this that would need addressed as this is one of the undead's largest advantages in game to rebuy there dead vampire.

Grumbaki wrote:

@Pervavita

You're probably right with not messing with costs or adding in now gods. However, instead of those adjustments, who about just replace the stat line with the 'youngblood' stats for the dwarf treasure hunter / shadow warriors warband.

It'd give the priests the lower end of what those races have, showing that in general they are non-fighters. And according to GW, it is what is worth 25gc for those races, which seems to be the baseline for these prices with the prayers/rules added to them. Otherwise we'd get situations where we'd have dwarf priests with Ld6 or 7 and T3, and that just doesn't feel right.

I don't see that as a bad option ether. If you are meaning the Beardlings (weak henchmen) group.
Though I'm not sure that works ether. I understand the T3 Dwarf or low LD elf or dwarf doesn't seam great but it may be the most balanced... think of it as them dedicating so much time to there studies that they didn't develope other skills.

Well, I see it this way. For the dwarfs, they'd have to drop a slayer or engineer to get a priest. Both are M 3 WS4 BS3 S3 T4 W1 I2 A1 Ld9

For the same cost, if not more, they'd get...

M3 WS3 BS2 S3 T4 W1 I2 A1 Ld8 (So -1 WS, -1 BS, -1Ld)

Under the fixes you posted above, they'd get...

M3 WS2-3 BS3 S3 T3 W1 I2 A1 Ld6-7 (-1/2 WS, -1 T, -2/3 Ld)

That's a huge difference. Especially as we are talking about balance within the warband that the priest is applied. The beardling stats here are meant to represent what a young dwarf with no combat experience would be capable of doing, which in my mind is what an older dwarf who spent all of his life studying would be able to do.

T4 is standard for a dwarf, especially as all dwarfs, regardless of professions, have to serve in the military. By the same token, T2 for an elf seems too low, even for a scholar. Especially as for the Shadow Warriors, you'd be dropping a mage (who arguably wouldn't get out and have that much chances of fighting). For the mage...

M5 WS4 BS4 S3 T3 W1 I5 A1 Ld8

and this would become...

M5 WS3 BS3 S3 T3 W1 I5 A1 Ld7

So a pretty big nerf from mage to priest, which still seems alright to me. Mages shouldn't have combat warrior stats. But if you include -1 T and -1 I to that as well, I don't see anyone taking that option.

The flip side is though it is not the most fluffy to have a dwarf or elf with such low stats it is balanced with in these rules with out making them too complex.
In order to make the elf or dwarf priest "stronger" to reflect there race you then have to up the cost of the priest and that leads to making even more rules with in this rule set.
Would a set +15 gc work? or would it need to be a +30 gc to "upgrade" a priest to be an elf or dwarf (or for that mater +30 for a dwarf and +25 for an elf lets say)? with out the cost hike you are giving way too much away for free.
I'm far from saying simple changes or "swap outs" are perfectly balanced and I fully understand what your saying on the stats over all in looks. I'm just not sure of huge changes.

I see similar problems with hiring a new priest to replace a dead leader as hiring a priest as a sixth hero. This is too powerful and badly disadvantages warbands that cannot get priests (e.g. undead are the main warband type as they get no benefit here or from Corrupted Characters). The priest needs to replace a regular hero slot. An existing priest can become a leader following normal rules for when leaders die. Please don't let a new priest be hired to replace a dead leader.

Edit: using undead is a bad example in this instance as undead can (generally) replace their fallen leader. However this is a balance issue for undead warbands which often are weak besides their leader. Their are other warbands (e.g. orcs and goblins) that would be hurt by allowing a new priest to be hired to replace a dead leader.

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The priest needs to replace a regular hero slot. An existing priest can become a leader following normal rules for when leaders die. Please don't let a new priest be hired to replace a dead leader.

+1

I realize some groups house rule that you may re-buy a fallen leader, but others don't. Perhaps a 'house rule' clause?

werekin wrote:

I disagree. The wolf-priest hates Sigmarites and starts with a wolf cloak (see Strictures). He can also learn Speed skills. This is partially offset by a distaste for armour and blackpowder (see Strictures) and -1 BS. The priest cuts an impressive figure and the hire cost justifies this.

I have never understood the concept of paying extra for Hate, but that gripe is with GW not your rules.

The no armor rule is kind of odd since Warhammer tossed it out. Official GW wold priests come with armor modeled on. But consistency and GW have never met.

The new Hoarerost Thews is nice. Thanks.

Von Kurst wrote:

The no armor rule is kind of odd since Warhammer tossed it out. Official GW wold priests come with armor modeled on. But consistency and GW have never met.

I don't understand the Ulric strictures from Miracle Workers, in WFRP Tome of Salvation it said that Ulric, Sigmar and Myrmidia are warring cults,and these three priests have in Additional Talents Armoured Casting.

Miracle Workers is an awesome article but I think there is a copy/paste from TC wolf priest on weapons & armor issue and a bit outdated how the cult of Ulric should be, in my opinion.

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Miracle Workers is an awesome article but I think there is a copy/paste from TC wolf priest on weapons & armor issue and a bit outdated how the cult of Ulric should be, in my opinion.

Oh yeh. Ulrican clergy do wear armour. I've updated my master file in light of this oversight.

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This is too powerful and badly disadvantages warbands that cannot get priests (e.g. undead are the main warband type as they get no benefit here or from Corrupted Characters). The priest needs to replace a regular hero slot. An existing priest can become a leader following normal rules for when leaders die. Please don't let a new priest be hired to replace a dead leader.

Some warbands can already replace their starting leaders. I would be inclined to suggest that this is a lot more unfair than seeking 'spiritual leadership' following the death of a captain. After reading the comments and theoretical examples I'm not able to take the viewpoint seriously.

In any given campaign, following the death of a leader, I find it totally acceptable to allow a human warband to recruit a human priest to pick up the reins. There is no unfair advantage to be gained because the Hero replaces the dead Hero which was already allowed.

In the case of warbands such as Undead, Orcs & Goblins and Skaven, well I'd like to say that I couldn't really give a s**t! But, (unfortunately!!) these camps are all currently being represented in my local campaign so we have players fighting the corner to see more/better campaign options for these warband types. I can't really say any more than that at this stage as we are testing and developing new ideas.

what warbands other then Undead can replace there dead leader?
all warbands promote a hero to take up leadership but this hero does not change what type it is... so in a Merc warband the dead Captian is replaced by a Champion (for example) and then must fill the now empty hero slot with a LGT hero.
This holds true for all warbands except Undead.
This rule is yes allowing for your leader to not be replaced by a new hero of the same type but it is replacing it with out the need for LGT.

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what warbands other then Undead can replace there dead leader?

I can't think of any beyond the Undead, but with the number of unofficial variants that could count as 2 or 3 warbands.

Lahmians and Necrachs both have lesser vampires hero slots that are to become the leader if the vampire is slain, but I don't know about the other 'blood-line' lists or Restless Dead, etc.

Emissary for the Battle Monks of Cathay. A new one is sent to replace the fallen leader.