Alternate 8th Edition DoC army book, The definitive Daemon re-write.

Well first off I agree with Nimble as the best name for a generic strider-Daemon upgrade.

As to whether it should be limited to forests/woods or all terrain types, I think if it was just forests I would make the upgrade a bit cheaper in some cases as you are never guaranteed to get even a single piece of terrain per game of that type, let alone multiple ones in positions on the tabletop where it would make a difference. While I can see RealVeon's argument for rivers and marshes, I don't see any reason not to include obstacles in the strider rule, or hills even (purely for scree slopes, which are the only dangerous hills on there). Perhaps if it were Forest/Obstacle Strider it would be useful enough to be worth the points, at least for Seekers. For the Fiends and Phantasm though it would be next to useless as only one type of forest is dangerous to them and no obstacles are. So if you want to make it one upgrade that is useful for all 3 types of unit it pretty much needs to be just 'Strider' or the upgrade will be near useless for 2 of those units.

When it comes to getting rid of the Rending Claws, I can't help feeling we are giving mono-Slaanesh a bit of a kicking by taking this away from every unit. Yes, there is a spell that can achieve the same thing, but its not a signature so can't be duplicated and even taking a lvl4 you aren't guranteed to get it. The only reason there was for ditching the claws on the Daemonettes was because it made them a bit similar to Bloodletters, no other reason at all as far as I can see. Since neither Seekers or Seeker Chariots really compete with Bloodletters or Crushers, I'm not sure why they need to lose it too, after all, we all agreed it was quite appropriate for them (brynolf included if I recall).

I also don't see the rules problems it creates either. One works off to hit rolls (Furious) the other works off to wound rolls (Rending). If you need clarification imagine 5 Seekers with both upgrades are attacking a unit of Empire Swordsmen. The riders get 10 attacks and hit with 7, 2 of those on rolls of 6. This means they get 9 hits in total. They then make 9 to wound rolls and succeed 4 times, 2 of these on 6's. The Empire player then makes 2 armour saves on 6+, and if he fails both 4 parry saves. It seems pretty clear to me how it works since the "triggers" for each rule occur at different stages. I don't see this as any more problematic than units that have both KB and poison (which some TK units do) as those rules don't mesh quite so well. If it makes any difference, all Slaanesh Daemons in 40k have Rending which works in a near identical manner (although in their case its probably a replacement for the armour piercing rule which doesn't exist in 40k).

Chariot Upgrades - well I agree with RealVeon here. After all, the only reason the Tzeentch chariot has 2 more expensive upgrades is because there are so few gifts suitable for it (most revolve around spellcasting). I like the Devastating charge as its characterful and enhances its abilities as an elite-troops slayer. On the other hand, I don't think even at 5pts Furious adds much to what the Seeker Chariot should be good at - a fast, hard-hitting (by Slaanesh standards) strike unit.

Classification - well I liked the Scion rule too (it was me that instigated it after all by adding it to Skulltaker, et al) but I think this new way as described by RealVeon is simpler and neater.

Daemon Chains - well DaemonReign has described what the effect of the change is, but what I'm trying to get at is "why is it necessary for Warrior Priests to be included at all?"

I think that covers everything for now. We may need to revise some of the designers notes already covered due to the Scion-change.

EDIT: until I double-posted with DaemonReign of course! I don't have a lot too add reading what he said but would make the observation that we had Daemonic Robes on Seekers before but dropped it for some reason, can't remember why though.

Damn it JonathanC!! We crossed posts once more. I didn't even see you coming this time. I think that means you haven't read my post on the last page.. *haha*

I'll reply to yours in a few hours!

EDIT

I really quick response to JonathanC's post above before I get back to work:

- I'd actually be fine with Seekers and the Seeker Chariot keeping the rending claws after having read the argumentation for this. Daemonettes is what we wanted to fix.

- Why is it necessary to include Warrior Priests? Because it's fluffy. Because in my world of thinking Khorne would despite them more, if possible, compared to normal wizards. Making it about "channeling of Power Dice" will put the focus on 'individuals' that harness the powers of magic.. Those cheating creatures of all kinds that Khorne would despise.

- I think we dropped Daemonic Robes when there were 3 upgrades per unit. It was simply rationalized away! haha But if we keep Rending Claws for Seekers (and the Seeker Chariot) then this problem is solved!

Cheers man, I'll check in again in a few hours like I said.

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EDIT
*Funny how me and RealVeon got into thinking Furious and Rending Claws 'couldn't' work together. Thanks for straightening that out Jonathan..

So with JonathanC's input account for, we're looking at the following set-up of Upgrades for the Slaanesh Units:
Daemonettes - Supernatural Sprint & Furious
Seekers - Furious & Rending Claws
Seeker Chariot - Rending Claws & Luring Fumes

[Notice how there's actually a nice 'progression' in this set-up, where-by every unit 'shares' an upgrade with which-ever unit is 'next in line'.. Kinda neat!]

Fiends and Phantasm keep their 'Strider' upgrade, although renamed to 'Nimble'.

I don't know what JonathanC really meant by asking once more about the Warrior Priests in relation to the Daemon Chains. Am I correct in assuming that this issue really isn't a 'big deal' (for JonathanC) - given that we've changed nothing about the mechanic except for it including Warrior Priests?

I believe that's the summary of the current 'issues' as they stand.

Oh, and one more thing: I'm actually extremely likely to play another testgame this weekend (yay!) and it's gonna be a 3k game where I plan on using Slaanesh Daemons predominantly (vs VC) as a said earlier..
Kinda like in the last game I'm leaning toward not including any "new" stuff. So no Phantasm in this case. Which is a shame, I know.. But I don't have any proxies for that, and besides - there's at least some value in seeing how the List works without the things that we've made up from scratch.

*headdesk*

Yeah, I don't know where I got it into my head the Rending Claws worked on To Hit rolls. My bad. You're right then, and I like DaemonReign's progression of upgrades and would be happy with them. However, I do agree with him that the Luring Fumes gift is better suited to a Herald or Keeper in close combat and not a generic chariot. How about the Aura of Slaanesh instead. It's a bit more fluffy and would fit well with how this chariot works and how devastating charge works with the Blood Chariot.

As for the Skullshrine and Daemonic Chains, at this point I'm happy to concede to Jonathan here. It would be fluffy and fun to have them wound Warrior Priests and (presumably) Rune Lords, but it does seem a bit like we'd be wording the rule in an explicitly convoluted way just to target a couple of units in one (two if Dwarfs go as we're expecting) books. Just saying Wizards is fine and it will target a great deal of models as is. Also the Warrior Priest's function as channellers will already be disrupted by the Great Icon, so it's not like the Skullshrine is just letting them off easy. So I would say the way it's currently written in the pdf is fine.

So is everyone happy with the way the Daemon (*Chaos God*) special rule would work? If so, I'll work on getting it put in and hopefully have a new pdf up tomorrow for your game this weekend, DaemonReign.

Other than these couple of issues, is there anything else? Or are we pretty close to finalizing this thing? I know the Rending Claws issue came up due to playtesting, so I'm excited to see what comes from DaemonReign's next game. But if nothing else comes up, we're pretty close to complete. All we have to do is update the notes and we're good!

Don't stress yourself on account my (likely) game this weekend RealVeon. I'm always excited to get a new update for the pdf, of course, but no stress!

I am happy with the Daemon (*insert God*) 'mechanic'. Sitting here wondering how much 'extra work' it will be to implement that across the entire document, that's all..

'Aura of Slaanesh' would fit better than 'Luring Fumes'. I agree with that. Sopoforic Musk is another 'conservative' candidate I guess. Let's see what JonathanC says about this.

About the Daemon Chains.. Personally I don't think the wording is convoluted because we make it about "channeling power dice". I really think it would be better (more fluffy) that way. Especially after our long discussion on this subject I'd forever feel quite 'meh' every time I faced an Empire Army and happened to be using a Skullshrine.

And hey if Dwarfs start channeling Power Dice in their book they deserve to be effected as well. I just don't see what the problem is here, to be perfectly honest.

That being said, if RealVeon is neutral and JonathanC wants it to be all about wizards (and not models that are wizards in everything but their 'title' - i.e. Warrior Priests) then fine.. I'm not gonna be a child about it. But I do think making it about "channeling power dice" is better.

Yeah we should just say that we're *done* really. There will be changes with every major playtest-run I imagine, we could continue refining and perfecting forever. And indeed we shall! But we should get moving on finnishing the "primary package" that we're sending to GW as well.

Finnishing work now. Will be back in the afternoon. Cheers!

EDIT
With regards to the playtest game I'm planning tomorrow, we decided to lower the game size from 3k to 2,5k. Keeping notes and taking pictures (for the batrep) steals a lot of time and the guy I'll be playing this time around is a lot less patient compared to Brynolf I'm afraid.

From the bright side, perhaps 2,5k is a more normal game-size. So perhaps a bit more relevant, I don't know.

Anyway, it'll be against Vampire Counts with the new Army Book - but keep in mind that there's not gonna be any Coven Throns, Mortiis Engines or Terrorgheists (because I haven't had time yet to paint those models up!), and like I mentioned before I'm leaning toward not using any models I don't have either..

I would like to go Slaanesh heavy, however. I'm thinking DPoS for general (see how that works our!) and I guess the main point of this edit is simply that if JonathanC passes by here later tonight (as is usually the case) it would great if he could give me some pointers for how to make a well-rounded (in his opinion) Slaanesh-oriented list that will have one or two decent counters against the sort of stuff VC is likely to bring..

This invitation for giving advice is naturally open to anyone who might be reading, naturally RealVeon as well if you have any input you want to share. I'm just afraid that the lower game-size will render my own list-building rather useless. It's been a long time honestly..

I'll post a draft for an Army List later tonight. Cheers.

Well thats good to hear that you have another practice game planned. I'm not sure what to advise since I don't use Slaanesh stuff that often apart from Fiends. If you could proxy a Chariot of Phantasm (using a chariot model perhaps) that would be great of course. Also, do you want it to be mono-Slaanesh or just mainly Slaanesh? Could throw in some Nurgle or Tzeentch units for a bit of variety. I'll try to give you some more advice once you have come up with your inital list.

On the other issues....

Seeker Chariot - Aura of Slaanesh may be better, it would help it break through Steadfast units. I'd rather avoid Soporific Musk as it is already a standard gift on 2 units (Fiend and Phantasm), plus an icon.

Daemon Chains - I haven't read the new fluff for Warrior Priests, but based on what I know about them I'm struggling to make the connection you are DaemonReign. I get that the mechanics they chose to give them does mimic normal spellcasting quite closely, but to me thats just convenience rather than wanting to make a deliberate connection. If Warrrior Priests could be affected, why not devotees of other gods too, like a Gork-worshipping Warboss or a Skink Chief devoted to Sotek? Maybe I'm missing your point here, but you can probably see the one I'm making. If anything, the fact that Warrior Priests preach hatred and worship a warrior-god should mean Khorne respects them in a way (as a side note, I expect Khorne is a big fan of Witch Hunters ).

Anyway, this is hardly a make or break issue for me and I think we have debated it enough probably. If you still feel its really important then it could easily be implemented. The wording of "any model that can channel power dice" doesn't trip off the tongue as easily as "any wizard" but its hardly difficult for players to figure out how it works either.

I'm sitting here making a draft for tomorrow's game as I write this. I have decided to include a Phantasm in the list - as I realized I actually have a decent proxy for that unit (you're gonna laugh your socks off!).

So - as is usually the case - I will be editing this post, and in doing so I will comment on JonathanC's post *above* as well naturally.

For the time being I just wanted to point out something I found in the PDF as I was building this list:
Enrapturing Gaze is listed in the 'Undivided' Gift Section. Is this correct? Up until now I've always concidered it a Slaanesh *specific* Gift. I could be wrong of course. Just thought I'd point it out while I had in my head, as it were..

***********************************************************************

My draft for a Slaanesh Oriented Army List for tomorrow's TestGame is looking like this:

I think we'll be playing "random scenarios" this time. Naturally this list is colored by the fact that I 'know' which opponant (VC) I'll be facing.

I know I am low on 'chaff'.. I just hate playing games this size because I can never fit all the stuff in the list I actually want to bring! *lol*

Daemon Chains

You're right JonathanC, the Priests confer hatred to their unit so Khorne ought to be all cuddly with them really.
However, that remind me of Dark Elf Wizards that worship Khaine (who may in fact be Khorne in another disguise for all we know!).

If we make the Daemon Chains about "Channeling Power Dice" we will ultimately target this Special Rule against 'anyone' who tries to harness the winds of magic in defense against the legion of Khorne!

That's what I'm getting at. Making it about 'Wizards' is fine really, but it is more general, and specifically Warrior Priests (in my opinion) will sort of 'fall to the side' in an ugly way simply because they are not Wizards (by definition) but still operate as such in every relevant way (ok.. they can't Dispel.. I'll give you that! haha).

In the end, I am fine either way we do this.. I think "Channel Power Dice" would seem more appropriate, more specific, more targetted at the kind of 'individuals' Khorne would want to punish a little extra, but yeah we've discussed this bit quite enough and so I'll leave it to you to tell RealVeon how to resolve this one in the final cut of the PDF.

And I don't have a proxy that comes even near a Slaanesh Chariot I'm afraid. It's the only model I don't have in my collection alas. But there will be a Phantasm at least! And it's gonna make you smile!

Well here I am interrupting DaemonReign. It's a new pdf with Slaanesh upgrades and the Daemonic (Gods) rules put in. I would recomend checking over the changes to see if anything needs to be reworded. I'm a bit to literal minded at times, so I worry that the rules themselves come off as very dry and poorly worded at times.

http://www.mediafire.com/?lf78gxf4x2ds3j9

As for Enrapturing Gaze and several other gifts which seem to fit better with specific gods (Many Armed Monstrosity, Immortal Fury), they are listed in the Shared Gifts section because they can be taken by an unmarked Daemon Prince.

Finally, as for the Warrior Priests and the Skullshrine, I finally understand what Jonathan is talking about here. In the Warhammer roleplaying game, priests use a completely different system for casting 'spells'. It's totally unrelated to how magic users cast spells. They get a completely different sourcebook and everything. For Warhammer battles, the designers didn't want to come up with a completely new way for handling priest spells, so they developed some shortcuts. The priests channel power dice to build up their 'spell' power and their 'spells' are all bound abilities.

None of that means that they are doing the same thing that a wizard is doing. GW simply adopted the terminology and system of magic casting because it was already there and easily understood and it meant they didn't have to come up with a totally new system. That's why they shouldn't be treated as Wizards, because 'in world' they're using completely different abilities from arcane casters.

I'm downloading this now and will show it to my group. They won't have a problem with playing against something like this so when my Daemon stuff arrives I'll try to get a few games in with it and offer up some feedback.

dp

Well that would be great deathphoenix. If you have any thoughts (good or bad) when you are looking through it then let us know, we appreciate all the feedback we can get.

@RealVeon - thanks for the new version of the pdf, I'm downloading it now. I'll check it over the weekend and let you know if you've missed anything. Also, I think you explained what I was trying to say about Warrior Priests better than I did!

@DaemonReign - Your list looks pretty decent apart from one thing, DP's of Slaanesh can't take Spellbreaker, so you'll have to replace that with something else. Masochistic Vigour, Chaos Forging or Rending Claws would be potential replacements. Also, for the Heralds they both have gifts that haven't changed in cost or effect, so unless you think you need them to remain competitive I'd look at other upgrades you could take instead. The HoS could do with some protection as being a level1 with the BSB she is very expensive. Allure of Slaanesh or Luring Fumes perhaps? Number of units is OK for 2,500pts but if you feel you need another you could split the Flamers in two.

Yeah, that's right. I'm back again with another updated pdf.

http://www.mediafire.com/?r75u5ws2r9a8w02

See if you can spot any changes.

I've been away too long. Had a night free from work so I was actually sleeping. haha

I added your latest edit of the PDF to page 1. Downloaded it already. Yeah I noticed some differences! Nice front! Over the next week I'm gonna enlist my wife (she says she knows how to get in touch with good Printers!) while we wrap up the last odd ends of the Designer's Notes.

I have not had time to check through every page of the new PDF naturally, but I did read the part of the Daemonic Special Rule that has 'changed' - it think the way it's written is just fine, I mean the part on the 3rd page where you exempify how 'Daemonic' can be specificied or (as in the case of the DP and Furies) unspecified etcetera.

Daemon Chains
Well excuse me for not even really knowing there was a Warhammer roleplaying game. haha Anyway, without really weighing the reasons for or against I'll just concede the point now that we got a clear 2vs1 situation on this issue. No hard feelings of course. It was always a really minor detail - I guess I just thought after our new version of the 'Siren Song' was decided to be totally worthless against Counter-Charging Detachments I didn't want to cut them damn priests any slack as well..

@Deathphenix:
That sounds great! Between you and me your friends should be happy to play against this re-write (rather than the official book) becayse *all things concidered* I sincerely believe our rendition is 'more balanced'. Not that Daemons in 8th Edition are necessarily 'unbalanced' - but we've really tried to neuter the handfull of 'nobrain/too-cheap' items in the current book.
Then again that's exactly what playtesting is meant to decide, of course. And like JonathanC said we thouroughly welcome any serious feedback we can get!

Today's Game
Right. No Spellbreaker for the Slaanesh Daemon Prince. Wtf was I thinking.. haha Made the classic mistake of simply looking at the shared Gift Section. This is what happens when you're used to the point-and-click exercise of Army Builder I suppose. I'll be revising the Army List *now*, and add an updated version in an EDIT of this post in a little bit.

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Here it is.. Basically, I just did pretty much exactly what JonathanC suggested. The reason I originally gave the Heralds old (unchanged) Gifts was actually because I wanted a healthy mix of 'old' and 'new' stuff to sort of get a feeling for how it all comes together.. And the Etherblade I had for the HoS BSB was actually meant for 'protection' seeing as I'd be able to challange her out of general combat and hopefully kill whatever I was fighting.. Well no matter! Check out the list I guess!

*I'm in a bit of a hurry now to catch the next buss out to the gaming club. If anyone has any further commments on the Army List posted above I guess it'll be a couple of hours before the actual game starts.

Cheers!

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EDIT!
And HERE is the complete BattleReport from the Game.

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EDIT
You're right JonathanC.. 'Allure of Slaanesh' is not a 'shared' Gift for the 'unmarked' Daemon Prince. I confused it with 'Enrapturing Gaze'.

Quick Reflections from the Game
- This is the second game in a row where I have a Herald of Slaanesh that is almost unable to wound another Character in a Challange (at all!). If you remember the last game I was fighting a Captain for the longest time without wounding it, and in this game it was a Wight King.
- The protection of 'Allure of Slaanesh' turned out to be really good though. It's clearly 'worth' roughly the 45pts we have it pinned for.
- The Furious Upgrade for Daemonettes also got some combat-rounds in the limelight. Both me and my opponant was pretty 'pleased' with how it performed. It seemed really random (awesome in one turn, meaningless in the next) but over-all a decent upgrade for making Daemonettes better at fighting 'cannon-fodder' troops.
- Nurgle's Rot and Cloud of Flies worked fine on Plaguebearers. Killing Blood Knights with Nurgle's Rot was a lot of fun! My general feeling about these upgrades is that they are 'fine as is' really.

Over-all, all the upgrades we've given Daemons will present players with a completely new dimension of choice when making their Army List. This has become very noticable for me in these two games I've gotten so far with the re-write. Simply put: If you slap on Upgrades for 'everything' in the Army you will be burning a lot of points there, and while your Daemons become 'better' in various ways you may also find yourself desperately outnumbered (this last game was a good example of that).

Now, for Playtest purposes where it's more interesting to actually try out new mechanics (compared to actually winning!) I have no problems with this - but the 'new' and quite exciting prioritizing that one will have to do 'in the future' is actually something I find rather interesting!

The guy I played against in this game argued that he suspected the most competative build of Daemons would probably be to simply forego all these upgrades and simply try to put as many bodies on the table as possible(!) - and I sincerely hope he is wrong, which is why I've decided to run the next playtest completely without upgrades in order to test his theory.

There might have been some small rules-loop that we thought of during the game, but I'll have to recap things with my opponant in order to remember what that was.

For the most part, it was a just crazy experience to keep track of all the negative and positive buffs that occured in Close Combat:
The Cloud of Flies of the PB's, the Banner of The Barrows, the BaneStone, 'Allure of Slaanesh', 'Beguile', and then a couple of Augments cast on top of that.. it all really made for some 'hard thinking' in some close-combat rounds.

I think we did most of it 'by the book' though. The first round of combat we forgot about the BaneStone's effect on ToWound-rolls but that was about all of it.
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EDIT
Now I remembered 'one thing' that my opponant brought up in the game that I at least want to mention, although I actually think my opponant is 'wrong' in his interpretation.

It has to do with the Slaanash Lore Attribute (Whispers of Seduction) that lets you lower the casting value by -1 for each character is in the unit you're targetting with the spell..
My opponant simply noted that it says in this mechanic that the casting value can be reduced to 'a minimum of 1' and he started arguing that we should change this is to 'a minimum of 3' since a natural '2' (i.e. snake-eyes) is always a failure.

Now, my personal interpretation of this is that one thing doesn't exclude or contradict the other. You CAN have a casting value of 1 or 2, it's just that you're still going to fail to cast if you actually roll a 1 or a 2..

My friend is interpreting this more in the way of '3' being the lowest possible Casting Value - pointing to the fact (of course) that there are no spells with a Casting Value lower than 3.

I promised him I'd bring this up. But yeah I think he's getting the 'relationship of rules' wrong here somehow. The fact that a natural 2 is a failure doesn't mean the casting value can't be lower than 3 - it seems to be he was mixing things up. What do you guys think?

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EDIT

All right, today I worked through the rest of the Designer's Notes on my third post on page 1. I basically abbreviated them quite a bit, only mentioning the 'main punch-lines' instead of shadowing the pdf at every word. The Gift Section is still a bit more specific when it comes to the really important Gifts that we have changed.

I also added the (in my mind) necessary changes of wording with respect to Daemonic Rivalry and the new 'formalization' that we have implemented of late.

Further Reflections from PlayTesting:
After the game I played, and after concidering Slaanesh Daemons 'as a whole' I believe we have been a bit too carefull when it comes to Slaanesh. Essentially, with the loss of the current Mechanic for Siren Song, and with the loss of the detrimentally low casting values that we have in our current book, the "monoslaanesh" army simply feels under-balanced compared to other sections.
This is something we need to playtest more, of course, but at this point I really feel that the upgrades available for Daemonettes ought to be 1pts/each rather than 2pts/each as we have them listed now.
I feel this rather strongly about the Furious upgrade (yeah sure they "hit a lot maybe" but they still SUCK at wounding), and frankly I believe we should reduce the cost of Supernatural Sprint to 1pts/model as well (all though this I am not as certain about).

Well, we need more playtesting of course. No panic about making these changes and uploading a new version of the PDF! haha But still, it's been eating at me for the last 24 hours and I really think at least the Furious Upgrade should only be 1pts/model. (!)

As far as I am concerned the Designer's Notes are pretty much *done* now. If JonathanC goes through the 'rest of them' (the parts he hasn't corrected yet) we're pretty much good to go!

The 40k Appendix and the Appendix of the Legion Lords probably don't need any further work either. If TheRealVeon feels inclined he could implement these appendixes in some 'simple' printable format as we discussed earlier. Or I just print them out through Word in raw text pretty much.

Cheers!

Well first off I had another look at the rules for casting in the BRB. It says any natural roll of 1 or 2 is a faliure, even if the casting total is reached, so I don't thing having spells with a casting value of less than 3 overrides this in any way.

I think your friend does have a point about 'basic' Daemons being the more competitive option, as quantity is a quality of its own of course. Nevertheless, I can certainly see some of the upgrades being popular in competitve lists (Cloud of Flies and Windcatchers to name just two) and others will be popular too if your army is set up to exploit them to the full with Herald gifts and magic. For example, how about Furious Daemonettes + Wyssans Wildform/Flaming Swords? Would make a mess of nearly any enemy infantry and some monsters too. Or a pair of Battle-hardened Bloodletters hordes with a LoC (Metal) nearby to cast boosted Glittering Robe on them (bumping their saves up to 3+). Or Speed of Light on Plaguebearers with Cloud of Flies (anything with WS4 or less will need 6's to hit them in combat). The possibility of some really powerful combos if you can get the spells off is probably worth the extra 40-60pts per unit. Personally, I'm tempted to field a unit of 12-18 Daemonettes with Supernatural Sprint as a flanking force. Enough numbers and static combat res to hold up powerful enemy flanking units like Knights, but fast enough to catch and destroy weaker enemy units deployed on the flank before turning towards the centre in the endgame. Of course a lot of players will just be playing for fun and they will enjoy trying out as much stuff as possible.

Finally managed to download the pdf, took about a dozen attempts though. Looks good so far, if I spot anything wrong I'll of course bring it to your attention.

I'll also take another look at the revised designer's notes and see if I can contribute anything there.

I have to agree with Jonathan. In my experience, a lot of gamers tend to quickly develop very firm opinions on various rules and the values of units/upgrades. If something doesn't work out one game, then it's never going to work and is thrown aside for another strategy/combo/whatever. This kind of mentality tends to settle in the more bodies/fewer upgrades camp because that's the most reliable, least risky army build.

But, as Jonathan said, risky builds are fun and potentially very powerful. But since Warhammer is very much a chance-based game, those riskier builds will fail some of the time. But when they do work, they really shine. So I think it will be nice for there to be something for both types of players.

As for Furious being 1 point, I'm fine with that. The whole point of doing playtests was to see what needed tweaking specifically in the points department. As for Swiftstide, I don't know if this is worth 1 or 2. I mean, you could just be rushing that much more quickly to your death, but then again, hopefully you've not put yourself in a bad position. Let's see what Jonathan thinks.

I don't disagree with either of you guys. Really. That's very true what you say about 'mentalities' that develop for certain players, becoming 'holy writ' to the point where they invest prestige in not even looking in the other direction.

For example, I could recount pages of text telling you about how much I have been trying to convince my friends to bring their 'shooting' units against (for example my Daemons). Ever since 8th Ed came out, and in particular after the new Empire book was released, they have banded together and all I hear is how 'useless' and 'overcosted' and utter 'rubbish' shooting definately is - to the point where they wouldn't field any archers or crossbow Dwarves if I paid them money for doing it!

It doesn't matter what I say. What reasons I bring up. 'Hey guys, lots of S3 shooting is pretty nasty on my cheesy Bloodletters... pretty damn scary for lots of other things too... It's just 'no, no way, never, they suck, stop trying to fool us into bringing this crap to the table!'.

I digress... Anyway..

I love the upgrades (as we have them written), and what I said was very particularly aimed at the status of the Daemonettes. I concider them being that one unit that needs, perhaps, something a little extra. It's hard to put into words, but it's like the other three core-troopers excell in their fields of specialization where-as Daemonettes just plain needs Occam's or some other shennanigans like that in order to really 'shine'.

Originally I wanted to be carefull about the Furious upgrade. So we set it at 2pts/model despite knowing very well that "on average" two hand weapons (a 1pts upgrade!) would be slightly better - and only when lucky, when rolling more sixes than statistically likely, would the Furious upgrade actually be worth anything near 2pts/model.

I guess the utter and total defeat against VC plays into this to some extent. That's true. At the same time, like I said, they might hit a lot but even against T3 opponant they just lose out on 50% of those "To Wound" rolls. Like those Skellies I was fighting in the last game: I attacked with "half of horde" and got about ~30 hits (which was great, and actually more hits than I had attacks to begin with), but then at the end of it only just over 10 Skellies actually got wounded.

So I'm saying if we're keeping 'Nettes at S3 (which we are, of course!), and if we're gonna nerf Siren Song as we have done, give the Slaanesh Lore "fair" casting values, nerf the Despair Icon, nerf the Masque, then I believe the least we should do is concider cutting Daemonettes just a little bit of slack with these upgrades (keeping their total cost down, since they are supposed to be good at fighting stuff like Goblins that are worth about 1/3 of them anyway!).

So Furious I'd say definately a 1pt upgrade. When it comes to Supernatural Sprint JonathanC may be right that 2pts is the more 'fair' cost - and we should perhaps playtest this more - but I would lean toward making it a 1pt upgrade as well (simply because I fear Slaanesh will become the laughing-stock of those silly interwebz-wisdoms of Warseer otherwise).

As for the rest of the Upgrades, I have no doubts like this what so ever. Everything from Cloud of Flies to Battle-Hardened is stuff where the player is presented with a "hard choice" that's interesting and brings a dynamic to listbuilding that I really like. With Daemonettes however, it feels almost as though you will feel forced to get at least Furious for them - making them actually very overcosted most of the time.

I hope that clarifies my opinion on this a little better. And again, we needn't do anything rash here.

EDIT
I read through the Designer's Notes again today and there are a couple of simple spelling errors that I can spot myself. I might have time to clean them up over the coming night, or tommorrow afternoon.

EDIT
Today I worked through the Designer's Notes once more. Starting to feel increasingly *done* with them to be honest.

Next thing I'm gonna do is set up a deal with a printer's office. Not sure what it'll cost but I will be making a very "nice" glossy copy of RealVeon's PDF and I'm actually planning on sending JonathanC and RealVeon a copy each (so that'll be 4 copies in total, as one goes to GW and one I keep myself!). That's if you guys want a copy, of course, and also it depends a little bit on whether or not I'll get totally robbed *haha* I have no idea what this is likely to cost at this point.

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EDIT
If you happen to come through here RealVeon.. How many colors is in the PDF document? I'm contacting printers now and I'm not sure how many individual colors is in the document.. It seems to be more than 4 (which seems to be some kind of standard).. Anyway, I'm sure I'll figure it out either way..

-- So I've sent out a bundle of requests to more or less local printers here in Sweden. The replies ought to come in over the next two days. Hopefully I'll have this show on the road by the end of the week.

EDIT
Today (Monday 21 May) I recieved some offers from various printing places. I decided to move forward with one of them that seem very competent and also has their offices pretty nearby where I live. Right now it's looking as though 4 copies of the PDF will cost roughly 2000 SEK (I guess that's about £180 or $250 - something along those lines!) which really isn't too bad.
I've asked them about the final details (such as the quality of the paper, glossy cover etcetera) but the 'net result' is pretty much that I'll be sending the PDF off to the printer's 'any day' now.

For the rest of our Appendixes I actually think that a 'normal' print-out will be quite sufficient! I will sort that from my work when the time comes!

This means, of course, that it's 'now or never' if we're gonna make any more changes to the PDF that actually gets sent in to GW. The only change I would really like to make would be to reduce the cost of Furious for Daemonettes to 1pts/model as discussed earlier. But perhaps that's not 'enough' to warrant a new version of the PDF after all.

But you guys (RealVeon, JonathanC) haven't come up with any changes or found any errors have you? It's been awfully silent in this thread for the past week, I guess you're both busy.. Should I be making new posts so as to point out that I am making these edits? *lol*

Sorry, I've been really busy the past week. I have made a few minor edits/corrections. For example, I changed the Behemoth's Onslaught rule from:

Whenever the Behemoth charges,... to

The turn in which the Behmoth successfully completes a charge,...

As well as other minor, minor things. Also, since Jonathan didn't object, I changed the Swiftstride and Furious upgrade to 1 point a piece. I also specified the rule as only affecting Daemonettes/Alluresses so that the Steeds in the Seeker units wouldn't benefit as well.

For stuff I didn't change, but thought may be important: would it be a good idea to add a little note into the Nurglings's Borne Aloft rule that if their rider is slain, they are removed from play? I know it's pretty obvious, but as Infantry troop type, they are explicitly covered under the character mounts section of the main rulebook.

N'Kari's Revelation of Darkest Desires says that if the unit takes 25% casualties, it must take a Panic test. Isn't this statement unnecessary as they would have to anyway based off of the standard rules?

Anyway, here it is. There are a few more tweaks I want to make with the cover image, so don't print it out just yet.

http://www.mediafire.com/?qoc2sjp5xl49j6q

As for how many colors are in it? Um, a lot? I don't really know how to count it. All of the solid fills have a gradient, so while the Bloodletters skin looks red, it actually flows from dark red to light red with every shade in between. I don't really know how the number colors in there are determined.

So, how many colors? All of them.