Path to Glory rules modifications

[Spiky Norman]

My gaming group are starting up a Path to Glory campaign, and we wanted to change the rules from how they are listed in the Generals Handbook. Mainly to adresse two problems - The Followers table in the GH makes for some very unbalanced Warbands, and the size of the Warbands are way bigger than what we wanted. Plus we wanted to mix it up with some additional rules from Matched Play.

So these are the rules modifications we are planning to use:
 

Quote

 

STARTING A WARBAND
A Warband must consist of warscrolls from one (1) Grand Alliance.
Each Warband gets 300 points starting out.
Each Warband must compose of a minimum of 1 Hero and 3 Non-hero models, and a maximum of 1 Monster/Behemoth, Warmachine/Artillery and Hero per 300 points.
Named characters and Battallions are not used.
The leader of a Warband must be a Hero.
The leader can choose a (1) Command Trait. This trait is permanent, unless the Warband changes leader.
Each Warband have a (1) Battle Trait from the chosen Grand Alliance or a suitable Battletome.
A Warband uses the Rewards table based on their Grand Alliance:
Grand Alliance: Destruction = Ironjaws
Grand Alliance: Death = Death
Grand Alliance: Chaos = Pick one from the Chaos tables
Grand Alliance: Order = Pick Stormcast, Seraphon or Fyreslayers

UNITS IN WARBANDS
When buying new units, you can buy single models for their individual price. Example: You can buy 3 Skeleton Warriors for 3/10 of the price of the Warscroll, even if the Warscroll notes that the minimum unit is 10. Prices are rounded off to nearest whole point.
If the Warband have units with less models than the Warscroll minimum, you have to fill those up before you can buy new units of the same kind - That is no duplicate 'under-strenght' units at a time.
If a unit contain less than the Warscroll minimum, none of the models counts as unit champion, but can still be musicians, carry banners etc.

UNDERDOG BONUS
Each Warband that have less than 40+ points of the opponent(s), can roll once (1) on the Triumph table. The effect from the table last only for one battle.

AFTER THE MATCH
After each battle each participating Warband gets 1d6 x10 points added to their Warband. If the battle was a draw participating Warbands can reroll their 1d6 once. If a Warband got a Minor Victory they get to roll 2d6 and pick the highest, and a Major Victory awards 2d6+3 and pick the highest.
A Warband can choose to pay 60 points to roll once (1) on a (1) Rewards table.
A Warband can save up points to a maximum of 300 points.
If a leader of a Warband died in battle, you can nominate a new leader (Must be Hero). It can be the same as before, or a new Hero. If a new Hero is chosen as leader, the leader can pick a new Command Trait.

BATTLEPLANS
Each Warband must win the Battleplan: The Monolith with a Major Victory to win the campaign.
Opponents agree with their opponents on what battleplan to play. If they cannot agree, roll 1d6 and the highest pick the Battleplan, the lowest roll get to pick sides.
If a Warband is 1 Glory point from winning the campaign, and have not yet won a Major Victory in the Battleplan: The Monolith, then the Battleplan is automatically 'The Monolith'.

 

 

Do any of the above modifications seem to be unbalanced or easily lead to snowball effects of one Warband running away from the others and getting way more powerful?

Are there any other aspects of the rules, that we should look into modifying or some adding to the above?

In general I'd also just like to hear what your general thoughts on it? :-)

[mhsellwood]

Have you had a look at the Regiments of Renown event pack from Warhammer World? Aimed at 100 points but in general seems to cover off most of the aspects you have covered. In general the downside of your modifications is that you lose that potential for random outcomes and letting the dice create a story, but I think the upside of not having one player start with two stardrakes while another may have nothing but basic Fyreslayers makes up for that.

Looking at the long term, the only question I would have is whether anybody will choose to roll on a rewards table? In general my feeling is that people would rather increase the size of their warband in preference to rolling a reward.

[Spiky Norman]

4 hours ago, mhsellwood said:

Have you had a look at the Regiments of Renown event pack from Warhammer World? Aimed at 100 points but in general seems to cover off most of the aspects you have covered. In general the downside of your modifications is that you lose that potential for random outcomes and letting the dice create a story, but I think the upside of not having one player start with two stardrakes while another may have nothing but basic Fyreslayers makes up for that.

Looking at the long term, the only question I would have is whether anybody will choose to roll on a rewards table? In general my feeling is that people would rather increase the size of their warband in preference to rolling a reward.

The base PtG rules in the GH does say that you can choose or you can roll when taking followers, so depending on how you play, these modifications are no less random, but hopefully a little more balance, as you won't see warbands consisting of Stardrakes vs Zombies.

 

In terms of the rewards table - Do you think that the price is too high at 60 points? If so, what would be more appropriate?

Or do you think that no matter what, players would always choose the points rather than the rewards?

[JokerLord]

I think it looks great.  I was thinking of running a PtG campaign, but you're right, super unbalanced and very restrictive.  I like the idea of breaking points further down to individual models.

My only comment would be to have something to entice painting.  I can see how that might rub people the wrong way, but at my store we have a lot of gray plastic.

Thanks for posting this, I might run something similar.

[mhsellwood]

13 hours ago, Spiky Norman said:

The base PtG rules in the GH does say that you can choose or you can roll when taking followers, so depending on how you play, these modifications are no less random, but hopefully a little more balance, as you won't see warbands consisting of Stardrakes vs Zombies.

 

In terms of the rewards table - Do you think that the price is too high at 60 points? If so, what would be more appropriate?

Or do you think that no matter what, players would always choose the points rather than the rewards?

Yeah, offering the choice aspect to some extent makes it worse - if we played and I happened to randomly roll up a Stardrake, fine. But if we choose how could I in good conscience take a Stardrake? Anyway, that is my issue.

Re. adequate points to pay for an upgrade.

Imagine playing a game of 8th Edition Warhammer. You have 2,500 points. I then give you a choice - give one magic item to anything you like, or you can have 500 points to spend on non magic items, so a massively potent unit. At what point would you choose the magic item? Maybe if it was 100 points on units, but probably only once, so probably more like 50 points before you would have to make a regular decision between the two. So, a very small percent increase in army size before a minor boost to one unit is a valid alternative?

Generalising to AoS skirmish, which would you have - a clanrat or +1 wound on your boss? To be fair in certain circumstances either would be a good option, but in general that would be about where I would see the balance - either a minor boost to one unit and a minor increase in overall army size. Obviously there are a lot of variables and not a consistent investment/return matrix for either choice (i.e. +1 wound is good, but how much better is it if you are a strong character, or if you stack lots of rewards. A clanrat is worth a different amount if you are playing a pure skaven army, when it takes a unit up past certain bonus levels, in a warband of 300 points versus one of 500 etc) but this would hold true for most I would suggest.

Overall then rewards are probably only worth about 5 - 10 points. Given the low points value, I would suggest that just allowing everybody one automatically would be easiest - everybody gets to improve their warband after every game, no small values floating around, and a consistent rate of acquisition for all warbands.

[Jeffrey_Lewis :}]

I can't for the life of me find a warriors of chaos follower table!

 

[Miniac]

1 hour ago, Auticus said:

The thing that gets me is I wanted to do Nurgle next year, and Nurgle is mostly demons with a couple mortal champions and blight kings.  You don't get the option of taking warriors of c haos or knights.

The only restriction as to what can go in your warband via RAW is what you start with. When generating additional followers, you can pick any followers table in your grand alliance, so as a Nurgle warband, Slaves to Darkness (where I presume Chaos Knights/Warriors are), are totally fair game.

[Ragequit]

At least the number of Initial followers allow you to take purely mortal ie Blightkings if you have a mortal Champion

After that you can take Slaves