Path to Glory Overhaul: Road to Renown Edition

[NinthMusketeer]

Welcome to the thread for Road to Renown, a remaster of the Path to Glory system as it existed in the classic days of 1st and 2nd edition. It aims to smooth out the 'rough edges' of the classic Path to Glory experience while still maintaining enough random factors to keep things exciting, as well as vastly expanding on the options available to players. This includes a restructuring of the basic rules around two campaign options, a complete update to all warband tables, and an overhaul of follower rewards. Other features include making non-battletome allegiances available for use, transferring bonuses earned in Warcry campaigns to Age of Sigmar, incorporation of the Anvil of Apotheosis rules, and more!

 

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/kx6abv0am12rx9k/AADIA301VDdAigp7AkvNbTN6a?dl=0

 

Edited July 9, 2021 by NinthMusketeer

[NinthMusketeer]

Some minor updates based on preliminary playtesting;

-Varghulf Courtier went up to 3 initial followers

-Plague Monks went down to 10 per follower choice

-Several changes to the Stormcast tables; split hero options into regular and elite, removed 10-vanguard option but added 5-man to 3-4 on the regular retinue, and moved 5-man castrators to the regular retinue.

[MKGipson]

Thanks!  I like it!

[NinthMusketeer]

Two weeks into running a full campaign at my flgs and things are going pretty well. I'm also fitting in test games here and there with one-off warbands, trying to get as much testing/data in anticipation of doing an update once the campaign is over. 

Some planned changes:
-KoS can't take the Sinistrous Hand
-DoK Medusa on Foot added as an elite hero option
-Plague Furnace moved to grand champion
-Look through champions without spellcasting ability and give them higher starting followers on a case-by-case basis.

On the fence about:
-Making a GUO with Bell a seperate champion option from one with Blade, with one less starting follower. The difference in performance is pretty big.
-Reducing the starting followers of all the Lord-Arcanums by 1, due to having three really good abilities on top of solid stats (Cycle of the Storm, Spirit Flasks, and Prime Electrids).
-Reducing the Wrath of Khorne thirster's followers by 1 because he can shoot MWs and has a great command ability.
-Make Stormfiend units spend an extra renown to include models with warpfire projectors.

I'm also specifically looking for feedback from any Idoneth players. Namarti are in a tricky spot where a 10-man unit is too strong for normal retinue but also a bit weak for an elite retinue, while also being the main line troops for the army. I am still trying to figure out a hybrid approach to address this.

[Greyshadow]

This looks fantastic! We have a Path to Glory campaign on the cards in the not-too-distant future and have been thinking about house rules along the lines of  what you have come up with here. A Path to Glory: Road to Renown edition campaign could be just what we are after. Thank you for posting this!

[NinthMusketeer]

Glad you like it!

 

Also FYI to any readers: my own campaign is finishing up soon and I will be doing an update next week. No major changes planned, just balance tweaks here and there. If you have any feedback please let me know!

[NinthMusketeer]

The second update (and first major update) for RtR is out! Version 1.2 focuses on refining the initial follower numbers for champions as well as updating the Orruk charts to account for their their new battletome, and finally a completely new set of warband tables for Cities of Sigmar!

Chaos

BoC: Beastlord initial followers increased by 1

Khorne:
-Bloodthirster of Insensate Rage, Skullmaster, Bloodmaster, and Exalted Deathbringer initial followers increased by 1
-Bloodbound Follower & Elite Follower tables reworked

Nurgle:
-Great Unclean One split into two options; doomsday bell with 0 followers (down from 1), and massive bilesword (unchanged)
-Soilpox Scrivener, Sloppity Bilepiper, and Lord of Plagues initial followers increased by 1.

Slaanesh: Keeper of Secrets can not longer take the sinistrous hand equipment option

Skaven:
-Arch-Warlock, Warlock Engineer, and Warlock Bombardier initial followers reduced by 1
-Screaming Bell and Plague Furnace moved to grand champions

Slaves to Darkness: Darkoath Warqueen initial followers increased by 1

Death:
-Wight King initial followers increased to 5
-Soulblight elite follower table reworked.

Destruction

Gloomspite Gits: Loonboss on Giant Squig, Loonboss with Giant Squig, Loonboss [on foot], and Scuttleboss on Gigantic Spider initial followers increased by 1.

Orruk Warclans:
-Warband tables updated to reflect the new battletome & warscrolls.
-Greenskinz have been left in as they are still an official force as of GHB 2019 and can be part of the Great Waaagh! allegiance.

Order

Stormcast:
-Lord-Celestant [on foot] and Lord-Ordinator initial followers increased by 1
-Lord-Arcanum [on foot] initial followers reduced by 1
-A large number of new champion options have been added to both allow for more theme options and for use with Cities of Sigmar
-Slight changes to the Sacrosanct and Extremis retinue & elite retinue charts, and to the hero & elite hero retinue charts.

DoK: Bloodwrack Medusa added as an Elite Hero Retinue option

Idoneth: Namarti follower tables reworked

Seraphon:
-Oldblood [on foot] and Skink Priest initial followers increased by 1
-Elite retinue chart inverted

Sylvaneth: Elite retinue chart condensed

Cities of Sigmar: Warband charts added, replacing the old free city charts.

[NinthMusketeer]

Small update:

-Ossiarch Bonereapers added

-Ogor Mawtribes tables updated

-Main rules for summoning updated & reworded to be more understandable 

[Maier666]

@NinthMusketeer

Do you have an order for which Missions to play first?

I am trying to figure out in which order to play the 7 Missions, with the last being Trial of Champions of course.

 

Would really appreciate some input.

[Kramer]

On 11/5/2019 at 7:09 PM, NinthMusketeer said:

Small update:

-Ossiarch Bonereapers added

-Ogor Mawtribes tables updated

-Main rules for summoning updated & reworded to be more understandable 

Thanks for adding Ogors. It looks really good, probably won't be able to find the time to play it but would really love to. Hopefully one day! 

[NinthMusketeer]

On 11/9/2019 at 12:18 PM, Maier666 said:

@NinthMusketeer

Do you have an order for which Missions to play first?

I am trying to figure out in which order to play the 7 Missions, with the last being Trial of Champions of course.

 

Would really appreciate some input.

For one, don't feel restricted to the Path to Glory scenarios; GW has released many supplements and even the older campaign books that have fun narrative-styles scenarios in them. I would say in general that for 1v1 battles in Path to Glory it is good to slim the board size down to 4x4 (instead of 6x4) and adjust scenario measurements accordingly. Using that technique pitched battle scenarios from matched play also work quite well provided the number of objectives is cut by about a third; a 6-objective scenario goes to 4, a 4-5 objective scenario goes to 3, a 3-objective scenario goes to 2. The semi-ambiguous way GW does measurements for scenarios works in players' favor here since it makes them intuitive to adjust.

But to answer your question more directly, assuming you want to use the scenarios from the PtG supplement specifically:

Early scenarios: Cornered! and Beast's Lair. The former can seem like it is bad for early small forces but what it actually does is force the champion to fight since he is unlikely to have enough backup for ablative bubble-wrapping. Highly recommend a 4x4 table for this one. Beast's Lair is nice early on because the beast itself will be more of a threat whereas late-stage warbands will have little trouble obliterating it in short order (just ignore the bit about adding the beast to your warband).

Middle scenarios: Monolith and The Sacrifice. I can say from experience that both of these play better when each side has a decent size warband to throw around. Small warbands rarely have the units to allow for strategic maneuvering of defense, offense, and outflanking that makes these scenarios shine.

Late scenarios: The Vendetta and Altars of the Gods. The Vendetta actually works pretty well at any time, but can be fun to delay until later because by that point you as a players may very much have vendettas against certain enemy units and that makes the whole scenario much more fun. Altars of the Gods is a four-objective scenario where victory requires holding three of them, something that obviously favors larger forces being used as opposed to smaller ones.

Hope this helps!

[NinthMusketeer]

Destruction and Death have seen some small updates. Gloomspite got a few changes to the basic retinue making them more user-friendly and to have boingrot bounderz moved to elites. Ogors saw similar adjustments on their charts, and both icebrow hunter options gained one additional follower.

On the death side Ossiarch Bonereapers had some significant adjustments. Most notably taking the Petrifax Elite subfaction reduces initial followers by one. The gothizzar harvester's follower cost was increased by one. The boneshaper has had his initial followers reduced by one and been moved to the elite hero table. The Elite tables were condensed into one and the 10-man mortek guard option was removed entirely. 

I am on the edge as to if the liege-kavalos should be dropped to 2, but left it at 3 for now. Feedback would be greatly appreciated.

[NinthMusketeer]

Chaos Warband tables have been updated to bring them in line with the new battletome! To eliminate redundancy the daemon prince champion listings from mono-god tables have been removed, but like all champions can still be taken with whatever allegiance they have the keyword for. On a related note the gaunt summoner on disc has been left in the Tzeentch chart rather than appearing on the StD chat, it has also dropped one initial follower to compensate for summoning a free unit.

I have tentatively put the Sorcerer Lord on foot as three followers, the difficulty being that while he is a mere 5-wound, single-cast wizard he hands out a re-roll save buff to an army with very good saves and I cannot understate how powerful that is. He also has a 4+ save himself and an obscenely powerful warscroll spell. But I would love to hear feedback on the matter.

Daemon princes have been moved to grand champions but left at three initial followers for now since they are very vulnerable to MWs and don't have ready access to healing, but the potency of their command abilities might justify certain ones (looking at you, Nurgle) going down to two. Again, would love to hear feedback.

Edited December 20, 2019 by NinthMusketeer

[NinthMusketeer]

So in other news, I am still struggling with the third iteration of horror splitting and how to manage it... But the tables will be updated this week for KO and Tzeentch, along with tables for the legends rules of Bretonnia and Tomb Kings.

[NinthMusketeer]

Warband tables have been updated! This means major updates to Kharadron Overlords and to Tzeentch! In addition, where possible a handful of 'quality-of-life' changes were made on various tables in order to prevent players getting 'stuck' with a unit option only available in resin when attempting to roll for an option available in plastic.

Tables for Brettonia and Tomb kings are on their way and will be in a separate legacy document, probably tomorrow. EDIT-Up now, enjoy!

In other good news the main rules have been updated to 1.2! A number of wording changes were made to (hopefully) make rules easier to understand, and the rules for using Awakened Artifacts were tweaked.

Edited January 21, 2020 by NinthMusketeer

[plavski]

I am soon starting a club campaign using these rules with a wide variety of players and forces. I'll update with any feedback!

[NinthMusketeer]

Please do, I would love to hear it!

[Arzalyn]

Thanks for the awesome work! Some of my friends started in AoS last month and we are thinking in start a Path to Glory campaing to get them used to the game and while they build/buy their army. Your system looks much more balanced, so we will try to use it for the campaing. Do you thing it would be possible to used named heroes as a starting champion? One of my friends started with a Nighthaunt battleforce and will want to use Kurdoss some how... Maybe setting his starting followers to 1 or 2?

[NinthMusketeer]

I feel the narrative point of Path to Glory involves writing the story of your own champion, instead of a named character. At the same time named characters often have some of the most fun & thematic rules. It is something I will have to think on. In the meantime I would recommend 2 as his starting followers.

[plavski]

Our first round is almost complete and we've been having a great time. Everything feels fair. I found a minor issue tho - Fyreslayers don't have a magmic invocations table to roll on.

[NinthMusketeer]

Extremely happy to hear things are going well! Magmic invocations is an oversight on my part, thank you for bringing it up. I will get to work on them right now, hopefully they will be added by the time you read this.

Edit: Done! Also, Dropbox weirdly made me re-upload everything; please let me know if there are any formatting issues. 

For quick reference:

1-2 = Molten Infernoth

3 = Runic Fyrewall

4 = Zharrgron Flame-Spitter

5+ = Choose result

Edited February 15, 2020 by NinthMusketeer

[NinthMusketeer]

Updated Seraphon tables coming tomorrow. Some notes:

-Initial followers for champions will be divided into two columns; one for Coalesced and one for Starborne. Fortunately the differences are small.

-Not sure how I am going to do bound endless spells yet.

-If you have any observations or ideas let me know!

[NinthMusketeer]

New Seraphon tables are up! Unfortunately it may be some time before I get a chance to playtest them due to coronavirus shutdowns.

[brocktoon]

Hey, just wanted to say this is really nice, especially those reworked warband tables. My group plays a lot of PtG, but we flit from army to army. This upcoming go we're going to commit for a good while and are trying to tweak the rules some. While probably not ready to commit to wholesale changes in the basic structure (two of our players are pretty casual and it helps to keep the rules to what they're comfortable with) those charts for sure have my attention.

[NinthMusketeer]

Thanks! The charts should have no problems being used with conventional Path to Glory rules; gameplay elements affecting the balance of champions & followers are the same between PtG and RtR.

I also have a big update in the works which will overhaul (and replace) reward charts, add Lumineth, and perhaps most excitingly incorporate the Anvil of Apotheosis rules for designing custom champions!