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Faction Expansion Concept: Bonesplitterz


HiddenElephant

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Just a heads-up, nothing in this list had been statted out; it's more of a list of concepts.  I want to do this with Spiderfang Grots, as I think they have untapped potential.  I also wanted to make up a few Endless Spells for the Bonesplitterz, but I've remembered this a bit too late.

Aim:  Increase the Bonesplitterz’ overall magical potential and what they can do with it.

New Units:

Great Beast Skull:  Some massive monster’s skull being held aloft by a troop of 6 boys wielding simple choppas.  They attack with their choppas in melee. As a natural effect, they are a super-banner; battleshock tests rolled for units close to them get -3.  In addition, during your hero phase, you can say that one of the Bonesplitterz’ unmounted heroes may climb aboard the Great Beast Skull (which is molded to have enough space to actually let you do this!).  If the model is your general and has an innate command ability, they can use that command ability without paying a command point. If the model is a wizard, then you give him +1 to all casting and unbinding rolls as he soaks up the great beast’s power.  As a trade-off, the model on-board gets this units’ move characteristic, and they count as the same unit for purposes of running and charging.

Weirdhedz:  Elite Troops:  Big orruks crackling and shifting with too much Waagh energy; they’re actually former Warbosses who’ve survived long enough to become these things.  They attack with slams and headbutts, which is just one weapon profile, with their leader, a Weirdboss, gaining one more attack. If a friendly Orruk wizard is close to them when that wizard attempts to cast a spell, the unit can take d3 mortal wounds to give +1 to the spell’s casting attempt.

Avatar of Gork:  Behemoth Monster:  A giant orruky monster made out of concentrated Waagh! Energy, and is very chaotic.  Da Smashy One. Attacks with Mighy Slams and an echoing ‘Eadbutt. When the ‘Eadbutt hits, energy arcs to the closest enemy unit and deals d3 mortal wounds to them.  Cannot begin the game on the field, and instead must be summoned by your wizards! Summoning an avatar counts as a spell, and the casting value is quite high. In addition, gives every wizard in the army access to two new spells while he’s out on the field.  One spell heals the Avatar of Gork, while the other spell makes a friendly Bonesplitterz unit immediately pile in and attack in the Hero Phase.

Avatar of Mork:  Behemoth Monster:  A giant orruky monster made out of concentrated Waagh! Energy, and is very chaotic.  Da Cunnin’ One. Attacks with mighty slams and Waagh! Lightning. Waagh! Lightning has a better chance to hit against Heroes.  Cannot begin the game on the field, and instead must be summoned by your wizards! Summoning an avatar counts as a spell, and the casting value is quite high.    In addition, gives every wizard in the army access to two new spells while he’s out on the field. One spell heals the Avatar of Mork, while the other spell teleports a unit to somewhere at least 9 inches away from an enemy.

Avatar of GorkaMorka:  Behemoth Monster: A giant two-headed orruky monster made out of concentrated Waagh! Energy that gets summoned if you blow past the Casting Roll while attempting to summon an Avatar of Gork or Mork.  In addition to more Hitpoints, can Slam many times in melee and ‘Eadbutts like the Avatar of Gork AND shoots Waagh! Lightning like the Avatar of Mork. Can’t begin the game normally, like the weaker avatars.  Either you can try and go really high, higher than possible on two dice, on the casting roll for the weaker avatars, which does not need for you to have the Avatar of GorkaMorka as points spent in your army, or you can try to summon him like the weaker avatars, albeit with a higher casting roll.  This second option requires that you have spent points on the Avatar of Gorkamorka. In addition, he gives all Bonesplitterz Orruk Wizards in the battle access to 3 spells while he’s in the battle: One spell heals the Avatar of Gork, the second makes a friendly Bonesplitterz unit immediately pile in and attack in the Hero Phase, the third spell teleports a unit to somewhere at least 9 inches away from an enemy.

Bonus Battle Trait:  A new battle trait that you gain in addition to your old ones:  Morpaint:  At the start of battle, choose 1 unit for every wizard in your army to gain the effects of a type of Morpaint (More warpaint) below:

  1. Red:  Da speedy paint:  When this unit runs, it always counts as 6 inches, and when it charges, you only roll 1 die and add 6 to it.
  2. Blue:  Da luckiest paint:  Any unit with this warpaint gets to reroll any 1 die once per turn for any reason, but must accept the new roll.
  3. Yellow:  Da richest paint:  Any hero unit with this warpaint gets to choose an additional Artefacts of Power item from the list.  Any non-hero unit with this warpaint gets +1 to hit from unusually high-quality weapons.
  4. Purple:  Da sneakiest paint:  Any unit equipped with this warpaint can start the game off the board.  During your first hero phase (an orruk can’t stay quiet for longer), you must set them up wholly more than 9 inches away from an enemy unit.
  5. Black:  Da goffest paint:  Any unit with this warpaint always passes their battleshock tests
  6. Green:  Da best paint:  Any unit equipped with this warpaint adds 1 to the attack characteristics of all their weapons.
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Some interesting ideas for sure. I quite like the idea of the great beast skull, though it seems to really only benefit the Wurrgog Prophet who has both a command ability and casts 2 spells and unbinds 2 spells. At that point I think it mind as well be a Wurrog Prophet mounted variant.

Not sure how I'm imagining the Avatars. Honestly seems more appropriate to just have Bonesplitterz allegiance Rogue Idols. I don't like the idea of having to rely on summoning through magic, a knight incantor could make you waste a critical turn.

Morpaint sounds neat...but I also fear it heavily incentivizes bringing as many wizards as possible. I think it should be independent of wizard numbers, but not sure how (or just based off of Hero numbers in general? I mean there are 3 wizards and 1 non wizard for heroes anyways within bonesplitterz). Plus the upgrades do seem a little lopsided. +1 to Hit is ok, but why take that when you can take Green Paint. Especially on Morboyz or Arrowboyz! Poor normal savages are looking really redundant (granted Bonesplitterz on a whole could use some tweaks).

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10 hours ago, HiddenElephant said:

Bonus Battle Trait:  A new battle trait that you gain in addition to your old ones:  Morpaint:  At the start of battle, choose 1 unit for every wizard in your army to gain the effects of a type of Morpaint (More warpaint) below:

  1. Red:  Da speedy paint:  When this unit runs, it always counts as 6 inches, and when it charges, you only roll 1 die and add 6 to it.
  2. Blue:  Da luckiest paint:  Any unit with this warpaint gets to reroll any 1 die once per turn for any reason, but must accept the new roll.
  3. Yellow:  Da richest paint:  Any hero unit with this warpaint gets to choose an additional Artefacts of Power item from the list.  Any non-hero unit with this warpaint gets +1 to hit from unusually high-quality weapons.
  4. Purple:  Da sneakiest paint:  Any unit equipped with this warpaint can start the game off the board.  During your first hero phase (an orruk can’t stay quiet for longer), you must set them up wholly more than 9 inches away from an enemy unit.
  5. Black:  Da goffest paint:  Any unit with this warpaint always passes their battleshock tests
  6. Green:  Da best paint:  Any unit equipped with this warpaint adds 1 to the attack characteristics of all their weapons.

This would be so incredibly overpowered, I'm all for it.

 

Especially in lists like mine with 3 wardokks and a wurrgog prophet.

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The problem I have with my Bonesplitterz army is that there is not a great center piece model and many of the models are too similar, just different variations of dudes.  I have never loved the old Rogue Idol so if they came out with a newer one that might fit the bill.  The fluff slanted against having monsters also limits the amount of new stuff that can be added that is not just different versions of a primitive green orruk dudes.

The idea of avatars could help this some, especially if they were some crazy sculpts of swirling energy.  That might be the best way to go.  Maybe some form of captured animal or totem spirit could fill in the heavy infantry spot.  I have also always thought that squigs could fit in the army as the Prophet and Maniak Wierdnob use small pet juju squigs.  Maybe some of those small squigs get a little extra juice and get BIGGGG.

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Interesting ideas, my thoughts are below (they may all seem critiquey but its mostly pushing for more stringent rulings or finding the sweet rules spot)

 

As I'm not a Bonesplitta player its hard for me to comment on the theme of the army so I'll hit this from the logistics point of view.

Morpaint - As above seems to encourage spamming wizards, instead I'd hit it like a mount trait so you get one for a unit for having a wizard, and may select an additional one for every battalion in the army. This way it suffers the same limitations that similar things have in other armies.

For the skull: They count as the same unit for running and charging (totally understand here), what about for combat, if someone makes base contact with the skull the base for the character is going to be unreachable because of how its been mounted higher, so can they hit him if in base contact with the mount (which at this stage is essentially a mount). Furthermore what happens to the character if the mount dies.

For the Avatars, are they being paid points for? (At which case if someone snipes your heroes theyve been wasted) or free (at which point you need to make some kind of summoning point mechanic ala Seraphon, Blades of Khorne etc) they run the risk of being undercosted (free) if too easy to summon or never seeing the field (costly, dead heroes)

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 10/8/2018 at 9:23 AM, HiddenElephant said:

Just a heads-up, nothing in this list had been statted out; it's more of a list of concepts.  I want to do this with Spiderfang Grots, as I think they have untapped potential.  I also wanted to make up a few Endless Spells for the Bonesplitterz, but I've remembered this a bit too late.

Aim:  Increase the Bonesplitterz’ overall magical potential and what they can do with it.

 

Avatar of Gork:  Behemoth Monster:  A giant orruky monster made out of concentrated Waagh! Energy, and is very chaotic.  Da Smashy One. Attacks with Mighy Slams and an echoing ‘Eadbutt. When the ‘Eadbutt hits, energy arcs to the closest enemy unit and deals d3 mortal wounds to them.  Cannot begin the game on the field, and instead must be summoned by your wizards! Summoning an avatar counts as a spell, and the casting value is quite high. In addition, gives every wizard in the army access to two new spells while he’s out on the field.  One spell heals the Avatar of Gork, while the other spell makes a friendly Bonesplitterz unit immediately pile in and attack in the Hero Phase.

Avatar of Mork:  Behemoth Monster:  A giant orruky monster made out of concentrated Waagh! Energy, and is very chaotic.  Da Cunnin’ One. Attacks with mighty slams and Waagh! Lightning. Waagh! Lightning has a better chance to hit against Heroes.  Cannot begin the game on the field, and instead must be summoned by your wizards! Summoning an avatar counts as a spell, and the casting value is quite high.    In addition, gives every wizard in the army access to two new spells while he’s out on the field. One spell heals the Avatar of Mork, while the other spell teleports a unit to somewhere at least 9 inches away from an enemy.

I really like the idea of an avatar of Gork/Mork. The Bonesplitterz could really use a big centerpiece model and it would fit the bill without conflicting with their fluff about hating monsters.  Another out of phase attack might be a little OP. It could be an extra attack in the combat phase like the existing WAAAGH! ability, but without the command point cost. I'd add a bravery/battleshock area buff to it as well, since it is an avatar of Gork afterall. 

I'm not sure about the summoning mechanic though and the spell though. I'd rather see something like the DoK's avatar of Khaine where a priest has to pray to activate so it can move or fight until a specific turn. You could simply add a "pray to Gorkamorka" mechanic to all Bonesplitterz heroes if an Avatar of Gork is present. I also think that it should activate automatically if it is within a short distance of combat (say 6"). That would make for some interesting "taktiks" if you place it somewhere where you know fighting is going to happen. 

Anyway, fun theory crafting!

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