I feel like I'm missing something here. Special Issue Wargear are basically just relics that you can give to sergeants and/or characters, right? Most of my notes here are that half of these weapons are basically suicidal to use. Normal daemon weapons convey the feeling that they're sinister and untrustworthy by occasionally doing a small amount of damage in exchange for granting a significant damage boost most of the time. I'm guessing you're trying to put a twist on that theme, but many of the wielder deaths these rules would result in range from the frustrating to the comical. I'll try to avoid reiterating that sentiment on each entry, however, and try to stick to more specific feedback from here on out.
vict0988 wrote:
Blazecleaver of Kurbras
HERETIC ASTARTES KHORNE model with power axe only. You cannot re-roll or modify hit rolls of 1 for attacks made with the bearer's power axe. Instead, these attacks automatically hit a friendly unit within 1". Randomly determine which unit is hit if there are other units than the bearer within 1".
To clarify, do you roll for friendly AND enemy units within 1" to determine who gets hit? I have to assume so, otherwise this actively nerfs the wielder and provides no benefit, but the wording is a bit unclear.
Deathflayer of Gomruk
HERETIC ASTARTES KHORNE model with chainsword only. When attacking the model can make an additional 2D6 attacks with its chainsword if it has an Attacks characteristic of 1 or more. Each time an enemy model passes a saving throw for a wound caused by the bearer's chainsword the bearer reduces his attacks characteristic by 1 until the end of the next Fight phase.
An average of 7 bonus attacks, even if they're just chainsword swings, feels pretty major on paper. Especially if you can give this to an aspiring champion who only has 2 attacks to begin with. At worst, he loses 2 attacks and then gains them right back (snake eyes). Then again, chainswords aren't that scary. Maybe it's fine?
Either way, I'd be tempted to simplify this one. If you swing more attacks with this thing than the enemy unit has wounds, you technically have to resolve your swings in chunks. For instance, if the enemy unit has 3 guardsmen left in it and you roll 12 (box cars) swings with the chainsword, you'd have to resolve the first 3 (in case you killed them in the first three swings), then resolve the rest in batches based on how many guardsmen were left each time because you technically make your attacks one at a time (we just speed roll for simplicity), can't make attacks against a unit that is dead, and the number of saves they make before they die impacts your stats in the following turn. Plus, you have to bookkeep how many minuses to your Attacks stat you have at any given time.
Instead of all that, maybe just give the model +X attacks, roll a
d6 at the end of the fight phase and on a 1 their Attacks characteristic drops to 0 until the end of the next fight phase? It's simpler to roll for, and you just have to track a single binary value.
Edge of Fu'rarsh
HERETIC ASTARTES KHORNE model with daemonic axe only. Add three to hit rolls for the bearer's attacks made with their daemonic axe. Inflict 1 mortal wound on the bearer and the target for each hit roll of 8+ with the bearer's daemonic axe.
Most models that could equip this are already hitting on 2+ or 3+. Assuming 3+ and the enemy has no to-hit modifiers in melee, this is only causing you to hit when you would normally miss 1 out of 6 times, but it's causing you to hurt yourself every 3rd swing (a 5 or 6 +3 = 8+). So you'd need to be really desperate to get a +1 to hit or else have a target with at least a -1 to being hit in melee for this option to be desirable.
Mace of Nidzoc Furywatcher
HERETIC ASTARTES KHORNE model with power maul only. The bearer adds 1 to their Attacks characteristic for each missing wound. At the end of each Fight phase where the bearer fights and does not take damage, the bearer suffers 1 mortal wound.
Feels weird that I can kill your chaos lord by simply allocating my attacks elsewhere. This also weirdly situationally discourages your khorne character from diving into a fight because it might be automatic suicide.
Kunzon's Bloodreaper
HERETIC ASTARTES KHORNE model with power sword only. The bearer can make one additional attack for each unsaved wound caused with the bearer's power sword, these attacks can be made with any weapon the bearer is armed with. These additional attacks do not generate further attacks with this ability and if the additional attacks destroy a model the bearer suffers 1 mortal wound.
Again, this amount of self damage kind of makes the khorne character want to avoid combat if he's not at full health. Or alternatively, it makes him want to target an enemy that he won't quite kill. Which is also weird.
Skullcrusher of Ughond
HERETIC ASTARTES KHORNE model with power fist only. The bearer's power fist has a damage characteristic of 3 and a Strength characteristic of xD6. Roll once for the Strength characteristic of all the attacks made by the bearer each time they fight, the bearer suffers a mortal wound after resolving their attacks if you roll a 6 for the Strength multiplier.
This one feels fun (hooray for stupid high strength), but the math is weird. 1/6th of the time, you'll actually end up with a lower strength than a normal power fist. 1/6th of the time you'll just have a D3 power fist. Rolling a 3 or 4 is great because it grants you a better to-wound roll against vehicles and knights, but a 5 or 6 is basically no better than a 4 because there are almost 0 units in the game that can get up to toughness 9.
Qraingac's Obsidianbrand
HERETIC ASTARTES KHORNE model with hellforged sword only. The bearer's hellforged sword is damage is increased to 4, against models with a Leadership of 6 or less it is increased to 8. The bearer suffers 1 mortal wound each time it causes an unsaved wound to a model that does not destroy that model.
Again, this encourages a khorne character to pick his battles carefully. Also, auto-killing any W4 or less character feels a bit more powerful than is the norm for relics. I'm not sure what models have a Leadership of 6 or less and more than 4 wounds. I guess this is really good at punishing tyranid players for fielding
MCs?
Staff of Skag'ill Amberkeeper
HERETIC ASTARTES TZEENTCH model with force staff only. At the start of each Fight phase, you may select an enemy unit within 6" of the bearer. That unit cannot fight until all other units that are able to have done so, but the first time it fights the bearer suffers 1 mortal wound. If the unit has an ability that allows it to fight first in the Fight phase, it instead fights as if it did not have this ability. If both players have units that cannot fight until all other unit have done so, then alternate choosing which of those units to fight with, starting with the player whose turn is taking place. You can re-roll hit rolls for attacks made by the bearer using their force staff against the selected enemy unit.
Mostly fine. Just a quick note that most abilities that let you force the enemy to swing last pretty much only do that and sometimes don't work automatically. So doing this effect automatically and also granting to-hit rerolls is a bit of a hat on a hat.
Blazing Shadow of Agbun
HERETIC ASTARTES TZEENTCH model with force sword only. At the end of your Fight phase, each model that suffered one or more unsaved wounds from the bearer's force sword this game suffers D3 mortal wounds, then if any models suffered damage from this effect this turn the bearer also suffers one mortal wound.
Note that this potentially requires you to book keep a bunch of different units throughout the game.
Fatebreaker of Skushuz
HERETIC ASTARTES TZEENTCH model with power maul only. The bearer's power maul has a Damage characteristic of D3. Once per game after your opponent re-rolls a dice you may choose to force your opponent to ignore the re-roll and use the orignal result instead, if you do the bearer suffers D3 mortal wounds.
I feel like it could be really easy to forget what you just rolled when you're scooping up dice for rerolls. I also feel like it would be super annoying to pause and ask your opponent if they want to use this once per game ability before every single reroll until they use this power.
Karmax' Cleaver
HERETIC ASTARTES TZEENTCH model with daemonic axe only. Enemy units gain 1 Karma counter for each unit they destroy. You gain 1CP for each Karma counter on a unit destroyed by the bearer's daemonic axe. The bearer suffers one mortal wound at the end of each battle round if one or more enemy units have a Karma counter and no enemy units with Karma counters were destroyed that battle round.
Fun, but you're talking about bookkeeping a ton of counters for a rule on a single axe. Killing the last model in a unit with one specific model is surprisingly difficult, so you're potentially doing a lot of bookkeeping for something that will never actually come up.
Plumepoxer's Pruner
HERETIC ASTARTES NURGLE model with hellforged sword only. You may subtract 1 from hit rolls for the bearer's hellforged sword, if you do, increase the Damage characteristic to 7. The bearer suffers 1 mortal wound for each hit roll of 1 made with their hellforged sword.
7 is pretty severe. I get that it's nurgly, but you'll be two-shotting most vehicles in the game. One-shotting a bunch of lighter vehicles too.
Stronziz' Gutbloater
HERETIC ASTARTES NURGLE model with force axe only. Wound rolls of 2+ with the bearer's force axe automatically wound non-VEHICLE units. The bearer suffers one wound at the end of your turn if they did not Advance or successfully Charge this turn, even if the bearer is inside a transport.
Getting some thematic whiplash here. Why is this Nurgle guy punished for moving slowly while his buddy with the other weapons is actively slowed down or punished for charging?
Overall, you have some flavorful options here, but most of the self-damaging effects are kind of over the top.
