combiend final; heroes and legendary units rules

[gull2112]

Condensed Heroes and Legendary units post

Heroes
Cost is 150 points per hero hit.
A hero may have up to 3 hits.
A hero is considered elite.
Place the hero marker on a unit and the unit does that many hero hits anytime it rolls to hit in combat.
On any combat round that the unit recieves a wound the player may prevent that wound by sacrificing the hero.
If a unit with a hero is eliminated roll a die, on a six the hero is also eliminated and causes one additional wound on the attacking unit, on any other roll place the hero on the nearest friendly unit.
During the movement phase the hero may switch to another unit.
Name your hero. Add as much fluff as you want, have fun!

Legendary Units

Only core units are eligible to become Legendary Units.

Cost is 100 points and the unit is considered elite.

A legendary Unit may reroll any dice roll. The second roll must be accepted. Additionally, a command card may be played that allows another dice roll.

Mark the unit with an L or make a marker with the units unique name. Play it up and have fun!

I will be playetesting this and would be very interested to hear about other experiences with these rules.

[gull2112]

After some playtesting and thought, I nerfed the heroes a bit. They were a little too uber and the game was almost as bad as WH40k second edition. Heroes are still significant, but not a must have and don't change the feel of the game. Too powerful heroes tend to detract from the tactics and strategy of the game by placing an all or nothing feel on the battle. No single unit should be so important that if you lose it and nothing else you might as well concede. I also decided heroes should not be so unkillable in a game, having a chunk of points that can't be eliminated and could practically teleport around was too much. You can decide which unit the hero is associated with, but that decision stays for the game. You'll note that I did add a little flash when a hero is eliminated, because every hero's last breath should be epic.


Heroes
Cost is 150 points.
A hero is considered elite.
A unit with a hero gains +1 courage and does one extra hit anytime it rolls to hit in combat.
When a unit with a hero would mark its last damage box, it instead eliminates the hero and does one damage to the opposing unit. This is done regardless of how many damage points the unit would have taken.
After deploying all units, the players deploy heroes in the same turn order (when the last player deploys his last unit the opposing player deploys a hero and they continue alternating placing heroes).

Even if a hero is eliminated in a game he can always make a heroic escape and return to do battle another day, witness Kenny, Krychek, Kahn, esentially any name starting with a K is a good indicator of survivability.  Add as much fluff as you want, have fun!

Legendary Units

Only core units are eligible to become Legendary Units.

Cost is 100 points and the unit is considered elite.

A legendary Unit may reroll any dice roll. The second roll must be accepted. Additionally, a command card may be played that allows another dice roll.

Mark the unit with an L or make a marker with the units unique name. Play it up and have fun!

I will be playetesting this and would be very interested to hear about other experiences with these rules.

[lazyj]

Wait, so we moved away from the permanent Command card idea? That's the one I liked best! 

[gull2112]

Wait, so we moved away from the permanent Command card idea? That's the one I liked best! 

I thought it would be too quirky. This is simple and straight forward. I've also further de-quirked it to say that only core units are eligible to become Legendary Units.

[Mexico]

I thought it would be too quirky. This is simple and straight forward. I've also further de-quirked it to say that only core units are eligible to become Legendary Units.

Elite units are legendary enough on their own, wouldn't you say?

[gull2112]

Quote from: gull2112 on Today at 06:33:32 PM
I thought it would be too quirky. This is simple and straight forward. I've also further de-quirked it to say that only core units are eligible to become Legendary Units.


Elite units are legendary enough on their own, wouldn't you say?

Exactly. I want a unit to be different, I don't want to take a unit that is already exceptional and make it exceptionaler, heck, that's not even a word. But take a line of core and one of them is a Legendary Unit...Well, songs will be sung!

[lazyj]

The part I liked about the Command Card aspect is that it forced tough decisions. There's a trade-off for bringing heroic dudes - in the loss of a command card for other units and/or command actions.

Here, why wouldn't you bring one of these guys? It's not that hard to find that amount of points, and there's no downside. So every battle will probably have a Hero or Legendary Unit in it, which feels cheap. If I see something "heroic" on the table, it shouldn't just be because there's extra cash lying around.

Even if we stuck with these rules, what if we made it so you couldn't *buy* these guys, but you could promote them? Or at least limit how often you could buy.

Legendary Unit
Any non-elite unit that survives a battle after eliminating two enemy units may be marked Veteran.
Any Veteran unit that survives a battle after eliminating two enemy units may be marked Legendary.
Eliminating an enemy in this case means that the unit was the only unit that dealt damage to the enemy on the turn it was removed from the battle.
Once per turn, a Legendary unit may re-roll one die on any courage or combat roll. This is in addition to any Command Card effects.
Your opponent may also name a unit as Veteran, or a Veteran unit as Legendary, if they feel it justified. 

Hero
Cost is 200 points. You may only buy a new Hero on "even" rounds of a Campaign.
If a Hero survives a battle you may take them on the next battle at no cost.
A unit with a hero deployed is +1 courage and does one extra hit in combat.
Anytime unit with a Hero deployed is about to lose a Red damage box, you may remove the Hero to prevent that damage. This does 1 additional damage to an engaged enemy unit.
Heroes are deployed after all units are placed, but before standing orders are determined.
If two opposing units with Heroes are ever engaged, the Heroes duel. The units fight as if there were no Heroes deployed until the duel is over.
Dueling Heroes each roll one two dice. If one Hero beats the other Hero's roll by 3, that Hero wins the duel and the losing Hero is eliminated with no other effects. If one unit routs before the duel is over, the duel ends in a stalemate.
Only two heroes can duel at once - others wait their turn.

[gull2112]

I like the promotional aspect. If a unit destroys two units in combat it gets promoted to LU status.

I want to play with the bare bone rules I have already listed. You have a lot of good ideas, but I want to get a basic feel and go from there. I agree that most battles will probably include a LU, but a 2000 point army could have two. Suddenly a 2000 point army with max heroes and LU's has got 500 points wrapped up. Now, if that is the obvious choice, then we need to up the cost of these units. At this point it is all speculative. What we could do is try a campaign with your suggestions facing my suggestions and see, not which one is stronger, but which one feels better and is more fun.

I didn't do the tracking of unit records for two reasons, the first is that I dislike bookwork, and the second is that in BG you have high unit motality, but that does not indicate total elimination, only that the unit was reduced to a point in that battle which rendered it ineffective. I also try not to keep track of too many things in a battle besides, by the time a unit achieved legendary status the battle would be over. To recap, I want to keep it as abslutely simple as possible and if we find it is too bland we can add more.

The reason I don't think the ability to reroll any dice roll will be used all that often, even though on the face of it it might seem way too powerful, is that you have to keep the second result. I think you would have to roll pretty bad to want to reroll and risk getting even worse. This would often be a difficult decision, which I hear, means more fun. The only exception is a courage check which is one roll, and you wouldn't reroll it unless you had failed it. That is something that might prove to be way too powerful, though I don't think so. What it will reduce is the likelihood of failing a courage check that "should have" been passed. This would represent the sturdier troops being more reliable and more likely to fight to the last man (box).

But enough speculation, lets put our ideas where our dice are!!! To the gameboard!