Lizardman Blood Frenzy

[TCB4bfw]

Hello, eveyone.

A newbie here, with his first question.

Does it seem reasonable that lizardmen would bet blood frenzy vs. undead (specifically bloodless things like skeletons)?

TC

[ApokalypseTest]

No fluff counts in this game (luckily) so:

The Lizardmen get the benefits from bloodfrenzy whenever they are fighting a unit that is not in the green.

No matter if skeletons or zombies or treeants (which also do not have blood) or any other unit.

[Forevernyt]

Think of it more like they smell the weakness of the enemies and it spurs them on to fully destroy them. It's their blood that gets into a frenzy.

[TCB4bfw]

Many thanks for those replies - I suppose a "sense weakness" rather than the actual smell of blood will do.

Tim

[Chad_YMG]

It might be fun sometime to have a thread of "flavor oddness" that comes up in situations like "blood lust vs. bloodless".  Ultimately we've decided to avoid "solving" flavor problems with lots of rules exceptions, so they will come up but we do try to think of them in general term.  With the Lizardmen they notice when their opponents are feeling the damage done and begin to smell victory in the air...victory that may smell like blood, napalm or what have you.

[Forevernyt]

So, would this be a case of "Richard was right"?

[Chad_YMG]

*ahem*  What Richard said.

[Shadow_Hawk2h]

Another example of flavor oddness might be the Orc Marauders. All the other units with either two hand weapons or two-handed weapons get a defense of 1 while the marauders get 2. They are priced accordingly IMHO but sometimes it feels like the unit is almost too good, having high offensive skill, lots of attacks and very good defense.

[Niko White]

Soooo expensive, though!  Still, they're one of my favorite units, just for being so very hard hitting.

Presumably they're 2/3 for mostly mechanical reasons: flavor wise, the idea is probably that they are so awesome they can parry arrows and do other ridiculous things meaning their swords act like shields, which is cool, but I feel like they'd be pretty disappointing mechanically if they were cheaper and less defensive -- they'd feel very similar to axes, rather than the unequivocally most elite and powerful actual Orcs on the field, which is what they feel like now.  Most Orc main line units are 2/3, so it makes sense for their elite beater to have those stats; it'd be sad to have a headlining "champion" unit like that that is less hardy than the rest of the line.  It would also be pretty disappointing to have them get shot up so badly before they got in to combat that you couldn't capitalize on their awesome punch, which is really what you pay for.  Even as is, they're like 100 points or so more than the Orc cores and aren't any more survivable (aside from higher courage.)  That's fine in guys like axes and crossbows, but these guys are a cut above.  I love them as is, even if the flavor is a bit odd.

That said, I find the idea of a bunch of psychopathic dual wielding orcs blocking arrows with their swords completely sweet

[Chad_YMG]

Another example of flavor oddness might be the Orc Marauders. All the other units with either two hand weapons or two-handed weapons get a defense of 1 while the marauders get 2. They are priced accordingly IMHO but sometimes it feels like the unit is almost too good, having high offensive skill, lots of attacks and very good defense.

That was a very deliberate choice.  Most units in Battleground start with a set of vanilla stats for that type of unit and are modified for weapon type and/or elite* status.  Thus, a typical Hawk infantry unit is O(5)5/5 and D 2/2.  Great Swordsmen move to offensive power of six because they've got two-handed swords, defensive skill of 1 because they have no shields and toughness 3 because they are in plate rather than chainmail.  Because they are elite we also gave them an offensive skill of six.  Orc Marauders get +2 attacks for having two weapons and +1 offensive skill as an elite unit.  Normally they would have gone to defensive skill 1 (like Dwarven Hammermen) but we decided that as part of their elite status they would be skilled at parrying and would thus have the same defensive skill as a unit with shields.

* I'm using 'elite' in the general sense here, not the core/elite rule which should really have been common/rare.

[Shadow_Hawk2h]

Sorry for hijacking the tread.
Are there any plans to "name" non-core, non-elite units?

[Chad_YMG]

It seems likely that they will get named as part of the campaign system that is under development.

[Dan_Morey]

I wouldn't say that the orc marauders are affecting the flavour, far from it. As Chad said, they got a bonus to both skills for being elite/veteran rather than the usual one. I like to think of them as super elite. Another case of this are the High Elf Celestial Guard that get +1 offensive skill AND +1 defensive skill (as well as the +1 to courage) for being elite/veteran.

It's also possible for the the elite/veteran units to recieve a +1 defensive skill rather than the usual +1 offensive skill. Just look at the Men of Hawkshold Heavy Infantry.

I think this is very consistent and gives a few different options when designing units that are better than standard.