Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Storm Serpent

M14, T11, Sv2+/4++, W24, Ld6+, OC8

NAME RANGE A WS/BS S AP D
Aeldari missile launcher – starshot 48" 1 3+ 10 -2 D6
Aeldari missile launcher – sunburst [BLAST] 48" D6 3+ 4 -1 1
Bright lance 36" 1 3+ 12 -3 D6+2
Scatter laser 36" 6 3+ 5 0 1
Shuriken cannon [SUSTAINED HITS 1] 24" 3 3+ 6 -1 2
Starcannon 36" 2 3+ 8 -3 2
Pulse laser 48" 3 3+ 9 -2 D6
Wraithbone hull Melee 6 4+ 6 0 1

CORE: Deadly Demise D6+2
FACTION: Strands of Fate

Wraithgate Generator:
During your movement phase, up to three [INFANTRY] and [MOUNTED] units in reserve may be set up within 9" of the Storm Serpent, otherwise using the Disembark rules as if they were embarked upon the Storm Serpent.
Up to three [INFANTRY] and [MOUNTED] units per player turn may be placed back into reserves if all of its models end a Normal, Advance or Fall Back move within 9" of the Storm Serpent. A unit cannot do this if it has disembarked or arrived from reserves this turn.
VYPER, SUPPORT WEAPONS and WAR WALKER units count as [MOUNTED] for disembarking and embarking upon the Storm Serpent.

DAMAGED: 1-8 WOUNDS REMAINING
While this model has 1-8 wounds remaining, subtract 4 from
its Objective Control characteristic and each time this model
makes an attack, subtract 1 from the Hit roll.

This model is equipped with: shuriken cannon; pulse laser; wraithbone hull.

This model’s shuriken cannon can be replaced with one of the following:
- 1 Aeldari missile launcher
- 1 bright lance
- 1 scatter laser
- 1 starcannon

TRANSPORT: See Wraithgate Generator. Before the battle, you may place an additional 250/500/750 (Incursion/Strike Force/Onslaught) in reserves, even if the mission type does not allow reserves.

KEYWORDS: Vehicle, Titanic, Fly, Transport, Storm Serpent

Seems pretty reasonable. I'm a sucker for all things webway, so I'd love to play with or against it. A few things that jumped out at me:

* Seems like the wording on the generator could be polished a little. For instance, instead of the line specifying that some units count as [MOUNTED], you could just add those units to the list of units allowed to embark/disembark from it. I'm also not sure it would be game breaking to just let all vehicles or even all non-titanic units go through the portal. If someone really wants to have some wave serpents show up right in front of the enemy (and doesn't want to just fly them forward normally for some reason), I don't see that creating a huge problem. Even wraitih lords coming out of this thing don't seem like they'd be the end of the world, but you could just allow all non-titanic vehicles rather than all non-titanic units if needed.

*You're mixing the concepts of embarkation and strategic reserves which makes things a bit confusing. If you go into this thing, are you embarked, or are you in reserves? "Embarked" implies that killing this thing will cause the embarked units to perform a forced disembarkation. Also, if units are "embarked" they probably can't, for instance, come on from the table edge or via a webway gate (the fortification) whereas units "in strategic reserves" could. I assume you want this to work off of strategic reserves logic, in which case you can probably just find+replace the words "embark" and "disembark" with "enter" and "exit."

* Embarkation logic also has some slightly weird implications that I'm not sure are intentional. For instance, is it intentional that units be able to move after arriving via the webway if the Storm Serpent held still, but they can't move after arriving if it held still? Intuitively, I would expect this thing to basically be a webway gate on wheels.

* On that note, it feels like maybe units arriving should either follow webway gate or deepstrike rules? That is, either they get out of the serpent way closer to the serpent (similar to the gate), or else they arrive within 9" of the serpent but have to be more than 9" away from enemy units to avoid super easy charges, dropping fire dragons behind enemy lines at point blank range, etc. This would be more consistent with how webway tech is depicted elsewhere.

* I also wonder if allowing units to move and charge after arriving via the storm serpent is intentional. This would, for instance, give banshees a functional average threat range of 27.5" from wherever the serpent is (9" + 8" movement + 3.5" advance + 7" charge). Or a 41.5" threat range if you let things move after the serpent moves.

* Just curious about the T of 11. There don't seem to be a ton of S10 weapons from what I've seen, so compared to T10, you're generally still getting wounded by meltas on 5s and by lascannons on 3s. Do our other superheavies have T11?

* I feel like the price tag on this thing is going to depend heavily on where you land with the ability to arrive from it. If it's just a webway gate that moves around, you can probably price it somewhere in the ballpark of a gate + a falcon. If it instead lets you spit units out 9" away and then lets them move and charge normally, that's significantly more powerful and will need to up its price tag quite a bit.

Thanks for the feedback! I'll do some clarifications, and and take some of the comments for the next revision (especially where the wording might be confusing)

* Generator wording:
For the restrictions, I wanted some vehicles but not tanks or larger. Unfortunately, because of the limited keywords given [in the index], I just chose the lightest vehicles - I would ideally want to allow anything smaller than the Falcon chassis (non inclusive) but I didn't want to make a massive list of everything.

* Embarking wording as confusing
I used the embarking and disembarking rule to indicate restrictions and mechanics on removing models, but it may be less confusing just to type out he parts needed verbatim, and using enter and exit as suggested. Because it's mobile, and the gate it makes is smaller, I didn't want to to be as 'free' as the webway gate where you can drop straight into combat from a mobile platform but because it projects a gate, more room than a normal transport

* Embarkation logic
I might be better off rewording the entire thing (just copy things out verbatim where needed) to avoid confusion in this case

* arriving should either follow webway gate or deepstrike rules?
See embarking wording - I think deep strike rules would be too restrictive as they're walking on rather than teleporting or dropping down (9" from enemy), while the webway gate is too free (can drop straight into close combat). The disembarking from transports (but with a bigger projection range for both fluff and practical model reasons of multiple units) seemed like the best compromise - but for clarity sake I think just copying out rather than referencing the embarkation might be less confusing.

* move and charge after arriving
It should follow the vehicle disembarking in this case (maybe a case of it not being clear) - if it moves, they drop out and count as moving with no charging; if it stays still, they may move and charge as normal. The reason for this is that there will still be a reasonably change in speed of the departees from coming out of a moving or yet to move portal in the same way as if they were on a transport - so this in effect would be the same.

* T11
This is copied from the Scorpion and Cobra

* Pricing
Not sure where to price it yet

I agree that the overall transport mechanic could be refined. I think it would make sense to reduce the disembark range however; assuming this is based on the Cobra/Scorpion chassis, a 9" disembark radius would give a pretty big bubble to deploy in.

In terms of points, the Cobra is around the 400 mark but this thing is very lightly armed. If it were me, I would keep it around 350 and give it a better default weapon such as the Lynx Pulsar.

 Valkyrie wrote:
I agree that the overall transport mechanic could be refined. I think it would make sense to reduce the disembark range however; assuming this is based on the Cobra/Scorpion chassis, a 9" disembark radius would give a pretty big bubble to deploy in.

In terms of points, the Cobra is around the 400 mark but this thing is very lightly armed. If it were me, I would keep it around 350 and give it a better default weapon such as the Lynx Pulsar.

I think it should/could be worded in the template 'set these units aside in Strategic Reserves and mark them as TRANSPORTED' and then 'TRANSPORTED units arriving from reserves may set up from the (or: a) Storm Serpent as if disembarking from a transport' - no need to reinvent the wheel. This also collects the case that there are multiple Storm Serpents (it would allow disembarking from any of them if you chose the 'a' wording).

Also, i think you should have a reminder sentence what happens when units are still in reserves and the Storm Serpent is destroyed, especially when the mission does not allow Reserves - as per the normal rules, Reserves that can not or have not been set up at the end of the game count as destroyed.

Tsagualsa wrote:

 Valkyrie wrote:
I agree that the overall transport mechanic could be refined. I think it would make sense to reduce the disembark range however; assuming this is based on the Cobra/Scorpion chassis, a 9" disembark radius would give a pretty big bubble to deploy in.

In terms of points, the Cobra is around the 400 mark but this thing is very lightly armed. If it were me, I would keep it around 350 and give it a better default weapon such as the Lynx Pulsar.

I think it should/could be worded in the template 'set these units aside in Strategic Reserves and mark them as TRANSPORTED' and then 'TRANSPORTED units arriving from reserves may set up from the (or: a) Storm Serpent as if disembarking from a transport' - no need to reinvent the wheel. This also collects the case that there are multiple Storm Serpents (it would allow disembarking from any of them if you chose the 'a' wording).

Also, i think you should have a reminder sentence what happens when units are still in reserves and the Storm Serpent is destroyed, especially when the mission does not allow Reserves - as per the normal rules, Reserves that can not or have not been set up at the end of the game count as destroyed.

The Night Scythe used to have a similar ability; you had your units in Reserve, and they could arrive from any NS they desired. Perhaps that wording could be tweaked to fit?

I am probably going to put them in as additional Strategic Reserves as you should be able to hot-swap different Storm Serpents and the Webway Portal (as described in Epic Stormwind), and the current terrain piece pulls them from Strategic Reserves.

 Daba wrote:
I am probably going to put them in as additional Strategic Reserves as you should be able to hot-swap different Storm Serpents and the Webway Portal (as described in Epic Stormwind), and the current terrain piece pulls them from Strategic Reserves.

I think that's probably the more fun way to do it. As far as I'm aware, it's a little ambiguous whether multiple storm serpents/webway gates would all connect to one staging hub in the webway, but not utilizing strategic reserves sort of just turns the storm serpent into a big, semi-conventional transport. Being able to rapidly redeploy out of one of several webway portals Dawn of War style gives the webway a more distinct feeling.

I kind of wish GW had rules for multiple small, cheap portals. Being able to rapidly redeploy big chunks of your army and letting your opponent reduce your redeploy options by blowing up portals sounds neat. I'm actually kind of surprised they haven't done that already.

Wall of text update (to make absolutely clear what you can an cannot do with deployment, I hope)

Storm Serpent

M14, T11, Sv2+/5++, W24, Ld6+, OC8

NAME RANGE A WS/BS S AP D
Aeldari missile launcher – starshot 48" 1 3+ 10 -2 D6
Aeldari missile launcher – sunburst [BLAST] 48" D6 3+ 4 -1 1
Bright lance 36" 1 3+ 12 -3 D6+2
Scatter laser 36" 6 3+ 5 0 1
Shuriken cannon [SUSTAINED HITS 1] 24" 3 3+ 6 -1 2
Starcannon 36" 2 3+ 8 -3 2
Storm Serpent Pulse Laser 48" 4 3+ 10 -3 D6
Wraithbone hull Melee 6 4+ 6 0 1

CORE: Deadly Demise D6+2
FACTION: Strands of Fate

Wraithgate Generator:
Before the battle, you may place an additional 250/500/750 (Incursion/Strike Force/Onslaught) in strategic reserves, even if the mission type does not allow reserves.
During your reinforcement step of your movement phase, you may select up to three AELDARI [INFANTRY], [MOUNTED], VYPER, SUPPORT WEAPONS, WRAITHLORD, and/or WAR WALKER units in Strategic Reserve and can choose to set it up anywhere on the battlefield that is wholly within 6" of the Storm Serpent and within 9" but not within engagement range of enemy models, and may not declare a charge this turn but may otherwise act normally.
If the Storm Serpent remained stationary this turn, they can instead be set up within 9" of the Storm Serpent, and may be set up within Engagement Range of enemy models. If an Aeldari unit is set up within Engagement Range of any enemy models in this way, it counts as having made a Charge move this turn and is eligible to fight this turn. Models set up from a Storm Serpent that remained stationary can act normally this turn (including declaring a charge).
Up to three Aeldari [INFANTRY], [MOUNTED], VYPER, SUPPORT WEAPONS, WRAITHLORD, and/or WAR WALKER units per player turn may be placed back into Strategic Reserves if all of its models end a Normal, Advance or Fall Back move within 6" of the Storm Serpent. A unit cannot do this if it has disembarked from a transport or arrived from reserves this turn. Any units in reserves at the end of the game count as destroyed.
DAMAGED: 1-8 WOUNDS REMAINING
While this model has 1-8 wounds remaining, subtract 4 from its Objective Control characteristic and each time this model makes an attack, subtract 1 from the Hit roll.

This model is equipped with: shuriken cannon; storm serpent pulse laser; wraithbone hull.

This model’s shuriken cannon can be replaced with one of the following:
- 1 Aeldari missile launcher
- 1 bright lance
- 1 scatter laser
- 1 starcannon

KEYWORDS: Vehicle, Titanic, Fly, Transport, Storm Serpent


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Cost I would say probably ~ 360 points (cost of a falcon+webway gate, though IMO the latter is overcosted in the current manual)

This looks pretty good to me. A couple of things that I noticed:

* As worded, I think you could technically probably jump back into the webway using the Fire and Fade or Phantasm stratagems or any other special rule that causes a unit to make a "normal move." If that's not intentional, you may want to specify that jumping into the webway happens at the end of your own movement phase.

* Not sure if it technically does anything mechanically at this point, but should it still have the Transport keyword given that it doesn't have the Transport rule?

* 360 points is probably about right given that you can use this thing to drop units directly into melee without having to risk charge rolls, overwatch, etc. It's obviously meant for large games where 360 will be an investment but not such a big investment that you're better off not taking it.