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I'm not sure if I'm posting in the right forum, but here goes.

Recently inspired by this image to come up with a fluffy/fun game.


Both players bring their own armies at a certain points level... e.g. 1600 points. Then there are 3200 points worth of umbra orbs.
The Umbra Orbs get split into two groups, A and B.

Player A controls his army and Umbra group A.
Player B controls his army and the Umbra group B.

So to win, you have to out-last your opponent when it comes to surviving the Umbra Orb assaults.
Hell, you could put a hill in the centre of the map with a lighthouse etc. -- so it could be fought over and then used in order to defend your army from the orbs.

Therefore i'm trying to come up with fun and fluffy rules for an Umbra orb.

So far I'm thinking:

400pts per Orb

WS 6
BS 6
S 6
T 1
W 10
I 6
A 2D6
Sv -

3+ Invulnerable Save
Leadership 10
Eternal Warrior
Feel No Pain
Hit and Run
Beast
Mutilator Weapons
Adamantium Will
+1 Bonus to Deny the Witch rolls
Always night fighting in effect when there are alive Umbra.
Can teleport only from and to locations not in LOS of the enemy.
Auto Casts Psychic Shriek to all units within 8" upon death.

What do you think? Are the Umbra orbs too overpowered and do you think this would be a fun/fluffy game?

 Otto Weston wrote:
I'm not sure if I'm posting in the right forum, but here goes.

Recently inspired by this image to come up with a fluffy/fun game.

Spoiler:

One player would play a normal army, IG or SM etc. and the other player would play as the Umbra. The IG/SM player won't expect to win, it's more of a Last Stand type game with epic xenos.

Therefore i'm trying to come up with fun and fluffy rules for an Umbra orb.

So far I'm thinking:

400pts per Orb

WS 6
BS 6
S 6
T 1
W 10
I 6
A 10
Sv -

2+ Invulnerable Save
Leadership 10
Eternal Warrior
Feel No Pain
Hit and Run
Beast
Mutilator Weapons
Adamantium Will
+2 Bonus to Deny the Witch rolls
Missed Attacks generate 1 Attack. (Generated Attacks cannot generate more attacks if they miss)
If Night fighting is in effect, wounds double and the orb gains the ability to teleport.

What do you think? Are the Umbra orbs too overpowered and do you think this would be a fun/fluffy game?

What are Mutilator Weapons?
I can't say I've heard of them before if they already exist in 40K. (Just point me to a 'dex if they are in one)

"Missed attacks generate" is that yours and the enemy's? Just yours? Would that include other Orbs if multiple were in one combat?

'Mutilator Weapons' from the CSM codex.
Like obliterators with shooting weapons, it allows them to switch melee weapons.

Just that single Shadow Orb's missed attacks would generate more attacks.

 Otto Weston wrote:
'Mutilator Weapons' from the CSM codex.
Like obliterators with shooting weapons, it allows them to switch melee weapons.

Just that single Shadow Orb's missed attacks would generate more attacks.

Ohh!
Yeah. I know what you mean now. (Brain fart, methinks).
Edit: I'll have to pull out my Chaos 'dex and take a look at exactly what weapons, etc. Would they follow all the rules for it too?

Okay. So basically re-roll all failed to hits?

Now it's my turn for a brain-fart XD... yep, Re-Roll failed to hits... knew there was a simpler way to phrase it.

Edit: Yeah they'd follow all the rules for it.

Fluffy: Probably
Fun: No
Even though these things are 400 points, a 2++ Invun save and 6 wounds is huge. Toughness 1 was okay, until I saw Eternal Warrior, AND Feel No Pain. It's fairly immune to psychic attacks, with a 3+ to Deny the Witch, and can tailor it's loadout to whatever it is fighting. You can't tarpit this thing, 10 reroll attacks, and can't pin it down due to Beasts.
And a 50% chance of this being even more powerful on the first turn (and I understand the Wounds stay the same after) and can teleport.
Not exactly my idea of fun. But hey, at least my flyers are safe.
I might suggest making this a bit more like a FMC, but perhaps nerf the Invun to a 4++, make it only a 4+ DtW, buff the Toughness. You could maybe lower the attacks or remove the rerolls?

Okay, removed the re-rolls.
4+ DtW.
I don't think it would be fluffy to buff the toughness, they are shadows after all and should be hurt by everything... but I can understand if the Invuln is too good.
Sooo 3++ Invuln

Would those changes work?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
What I'm looking for is to strike a balance where the Umbra are still overpowered, but not to the point that its impossible for the defender to win.

I want it to be hard, with only a slim chance of victory for the defenders.

Lots of people do not know the fluff for Umbra, they think they are just shadow monsters, they aren't, and they have some great fluff around them as well.

The closest thing i could relate an Umbra to is to an Avatar of Khaine. The Umbra are the shattered remains of the Old One Qah (Still worshiped by the Hrud) after Slaanesh broke him, each shard becoming an Umbra. That's why when an Umbra dies it releases a Psychic Shriek with the work 'Linger' telling how Qah still Lingers.

With that out the way, i think you are going about it in the wrong way. You are making a stat-line then throwing half the special rules in the book at them, instead i believe you should have 2-3 unique special rules that are characterful and showoff the fluff. For example fluff wise they can be killed by a Searchlight, so a 2++ invul is probably overstating it. Stealth + Shrouded and a 4++ invul would fit better.

I would reduce the wounds to something reasonable and change the attacks to 2D6 rending attacks. Maybe when you kill one it auto casts Psychic Shriek to all units within 8''? Maybe they could teleport from one part of the board no unit has LOS to another. Maybe any mission including Umbra is ALWAYS night fighting until the last one is dead.

I don't know, but something about the ones you made just isn't unique enough. They just seem like monsters, there is no special rules showing them to be the unique Shadow Daemons they are.

Alex

A good few years ago gw did a "how to" build a scenario an imperial guard vs tyranids thing for the latest sci fi film... Starship Troopers! The concept was fairly similar. It made the point that unbalanced games like this aren't fun as they rely on dice rolls. Better to make it turn more on a user controllable element of the game, not random.

Sure, it's possible for a single gretchin to kill five dreadnoughts, but not likely, and unless you roll 1200 sixes in a row, not much fun.

 ALEXisAWESOME wrote:
Lots of people do not know the fluff for Umbra, they think they are just shadow monsters, they aren't, and they have some great fluff around them as well.

The closest thing i could relate an Umbra to is to an Avatar of Khaine. The Umbra are the shattered remains of the Old One Qah (Still worshiped by the Hrud) after Slaanesh broke him, each shard becoming an Umbra. That's why when an Umbra dies it releases a Psychic Shriek with the work 'Linger' telling how Qah still Lingers.

With that out the way, i think you are going about it in the wrong way. You are making a stat-line then throwing half the special rules in the book at them, instead i believe you should have 2-3 unique special rules that are characterful and showoff the fluff. For example fluff wise they can be killed by a Searchlight, so a 2++ invul is probably overstating it. Stealth + Shrouded and a 4++ invul would fit better.

I would reduce the wounds to something reasonable and change the attacks to 2D6 rending attacks. Maybe when you kill one it auto casts Psychic Shriek to all units within 8''? Maybe they could teleport from one part of the board no unit has LOS to another. Maybe any mission including Umbra is ALWAYS night fighting until the last one is dead.

I don't know, but something about the ones you made just isn't unique enough. They just seem like monsters, there is no special rules showing them to be the unique Shadow Daemons they are.

Alex

I get what you're saying and agree with parts of it. I spent a while trying to come up with rules to suit their fluff, and I do know they're not just shadow monsters. They're orbs that can manipulate shadows as weapons and its believed that they're just the physical manifestations of entities that exist between the warp and our reality. Perhaps another dimension etc.

I thought about making them cover based... but really, a cover save represents hiding in cover or being hidden and I don't think they are. You would see massive shadows and occasionally glimpse orbs in the centre. They're not hiding and they're not taking cover. That's why I chose to represent their shadowed nature as an Invulnerable save - weaponfire and ordnance passing straight through the shadows and doing no damage to the orb whatsoever.

The auto-psychic shriek is a good idea and does suit the fluff.
Also I know searchlights supposedly kill them - how would you add that in rules-wise?
I love the idea of always night-fighting till the Umbra are dead. That is brilliant.

I also agree 10 attacks seem too set in stone. Therefore 2D6 adds a bit of randomness that suits shadows.. but I don't agree with rending. Considering that the shadows are changing forms, the Mutilator Weapons idea suits better.

Sgt_Smudge wrote:Toughness 1 was okay, until I saw Eternal Warrior, AND Feel No Pain.

Out of interest, why does that matter?
If you're S2+ (and what isn't?) or cause Instant Death at all, you're ignoring the FNP regardless.

 Ond Angel wrote:

Sgt_Smudge wrote:Toughness 1 was okay, until I saw Eternal Warrior, AND Feel No Pain.

Out of interest, why does that matter?
If you're S2+ (and what isn't?) or cause Instant Death at all, you're ignoring the FNP regardless.

So why is FNP even there if it won't be used? Because I don't see many Strength 1 weapons in the game.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

 Ond Angel wrote:

Sgt_Smudge wrote:Toughness 1 was okay, until I saw Eternal Warrior, AND Feel No Pain.

Out of interest, why does that matter?
If you're S2+ (and what isn't?) or cause Instant Death at all, you're ignoring the FNP regardless.

So why is FNP even there if it won't be used? Because I don't see many Strength 1 weapons in the game.

That is a key point that I overlooked.

Okay, what if I replaced FNP with IWND?

Keep FNP if you want to. Maybe it is *nearly* useless, but those few times (poison & Grav weapons come to mind) it isn't, it might help a bit.

You may as well compress Adamantium Will and +1 to DtW into "4+ DtW", for what it's worth.

This may open a can of worms, and I don't mean to, but Psychic Shriek has the issue of "do we roll to hit or not?". I understand fluffwise, but tabletop wise might cause problems. Unless we actually come to an agreement on that?
If not, I would recommend elaborating on how it would work in this particular instance so there are no ambiguities.

I am definitely liking the idea of these Umbra Orbs. For now, I can't think of much more (it's 11:20 and I have college tomorrow).

Ffyllotek wrote:
A good few years ago gw did a "how to" build a scenario an imperial guard vs tyranids thing for the latest sci fi film... Starship Troopers! The concept was fairly similar. It made the point that unbalanced games like this aren't fun as they rely on dice rolls. Better to make it turn more on a user controllable element of the game, not random.

Sure, it's possible for a single gretchin to kill five dreadnoughts, but not likely, and unless you roll 1200 sixes in a row, not much fun.

You make a good point... and I've been thinking about it for a while today, which led me to changing the idea a bit.

Instead of just having one army on the defense and one player getting fethed over (in effect). Both players bring their own armies at a certain points level... e.g. 1600 points. Then there are 3200 points worth of umbra orbs. The Umbra Orbs get split into two groups, A and B.

Player A controls his army and Umbra group A.
Player B controls his army and the Umbra group B.

So to win, you have to out-last your opponent when it comes to surviving the Umbra Orb assaults.
Hell, you could put a hill in the centre of the map with a lighthouse etc. -- so it could be fought over and then used in order to defend your army from the orbs.