Thursday, March 10, 2016

40k Age of Sigmar: Space Marine & Tyranid Warscrolls

  As you may have noticed if you've read any of my other posts, I have played Warhammer 40k for many years.  I love the fluff and models.  Having gotten excited lately about the newer fare from GW, Age of Sigmar, I thought it would be fun to make some custom warscrolls for 40k armies.  I started by doing some research, which led me to this excellent interpretation of what warscrolls for a few Dark Angels units might look like.  Since I have a Tyranid army getting dusty on the shelf, and my brother plays Salamanders Space Marines, I figured the Adeptus Astartes would be a good place to begin.
  I started by riffing off of the aforementioned work they did on Dark Angels, likening Space Marines to the AoS native Stormcast Eternals, (namely Judicators with 2 wounds & 4+ saves) but with a few important differences.  I diverged from their formula for Dark Angels because I felt like to be true to Age of Sigmar, a unit ought to fit comfortably on a single sheet.  40k is a tricky fit for that because of their myriad weapon options, but I feel that I have made it work well through use of special rules.
  The first thing I did was to strip down weapon options by warscroll, ending up with a Tactical Squad that can wield Bolters, with a single marine carrying a Heavy Weapon, and all of them being equipped with Combat Knives.  The showcase special rule for the Tactical Squad is their Tactical Weapons, which accounts for their special weapon as well as the Heavy Weapon.
  By making the special weapon types into keywords instead of full weapons, I can reduce the number of weapons on the warscroll as well as the complexity of the rules while still capturing the overall feel of the unit.


  I mentioned before that the Tactical Marines are comparable to Judicators.  Judicators with Skybolt Bows have 2 attacks at 24" at 3+, 3+, Rend -1, and 1 damage.  I borrowed this bolter profile from the Dark Angels I mentioned before and added a point of Rend to it, but some analysis shows that this Bolter profile now deals the same average damage as a Judicator Skybolt Bow.

  To show another side of things, I'd like to also share a Tyranid warscroll.



  This was the first scroll I made for the Nids.  I used the Daemon Prince as my guide for the Hive Tyrant.  The damage output from its attacks is comparable overall.  My aim for the Hive Tyrant was to have its ranged prowess be worthwhile, but not the main event.  The overall damage output is comparable to the Daemon Prince on a basis of damage per turn per wound.
  The units I've examined so far show that damage per turn per wound ranges from .08 for Short Spear Ungors to .66 for Great Weapon Grave Guard.  My observation has been that the reasonable range is somewhere around .15 to .4 dptpw though, and I have been using it as a guideline in tandem with comparing similar warscrolls so far.
  Some statistical specifics about how I calculate this are that I divide the ranged attack damage output (vs a 4+ save) by 2 and add it to the melee attack damage output to calculate damage per turn, and then divide by the number of wounds the model has.  Because of Age of Sigmar's loose mechanical tolerances, it is pretty simple to produce rules that are balanced with existing warscrolls using math and then have fun writing flavorful rules.  The only hard part here was making sure that a Hive Tyrant with 'Many Bladed Limbs' was scarier in combat than a Tyrant without.
  I still have to playtest to see how it goes, but it should be a powerhouse while also being not too difficult to take down.

  I'll be back with more Tyranids and Space Marines, and probably some Space Orks (Space Orruks?) soon.





5 comments:

  1. You have breathed new life into my 2 favourite armies!! Thank you so much!! So grateful!!
    Quick question: how should one approximate a Tyrannofex's Acid Spray (Template, Torrent)

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  2. I'm glad you like them! For the Acid Spray, I would probably make it work like the Magma Cannon (Legion of Azorgh), so here goes:

    Range: 18"
    Acid Spray: When you attack with Acid Spray, choose a unit within range and roll a dice. If the result is X or higher, the unit suffers that many mortal wounds.

    X is dependant on the wound levels and would be 3, 3, 4, 4, 5

    Enjoy!

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  3. Thanks! this is great please do more!

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    1. You're welcome :) I've actually covered most of the units in 40k. You can check out the compendiums here: https://hivefleetcharybdis.wordpress.com/2016/03/13/40k-age-of-sigmar-warscrolls

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