[Sombre]

I have just had what you might call a cunning idea. It was inspired by what Burnsaber has done with the Runeguard in his Dwarfs mod. Namely, he made them summonable along with the anvil of doom, but otherwise unrecruitable.

So here's the idea: Temple Guard, which were going to be made cap only, should instead be entirely unrecruitable, and you get a certain number of them ONLY when you recruit (or summon) a Slann. That way they aren't limited entirely to the cap, they only come along with Slann and you never have Slann without having them.

So how to do this? Simple. When you first get a Slann (let's say a 5th gen recruitable one), he comes in an 'Awakening' form, which autosummons temple guard. This awakening form turns into a regular Slann the very next turn, which no longer summons dudes. The regular slann behaves in exactly the same way as they have been previously.

What's exciting about this concept is that it so perfectly fits what temple guard are all about. They are directly proportionate to the number of Slann you have, without being a never ending stream of spawned guys. If you want to use them, you gotta buy Slann, if you want to buy Slann, you're going to use the temple guard. It also helps people cope with how crazy expensive Slann are, since you get 'free' bodyguards.

This method might also work VERY well with non mage commanders, the kind no-one wants to buy. Attempts to solve this problem have taken the form of summon allies or autospawning troops, giving them onebattlespell of summoning some guys for fighting, etc. But these methods are, in their own way, somewhat exploitable and a little 'messy'. Instead of these methods, why not have, let's say,... a Skaven Warlord, who when you buy him, appears in a 'mustering' form, which then autosummons a bunch of troops. It then shifts back into a normal skaven warlord and acts normally. So essentially you get a bunch of troops free for the cost of not recruiting a mage, but you ONLY GET THEM ONCE. No more endless summoning of troops, no more economies which ignore gold, no more having to fight 30 commanders who spawn combat summons over and over again with all their losses being completely expendable.

Interesting non?