Mod: Warhammer Nation: Lizardmen - v0.75 minor update

[Sombre]

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-- version 0.75

-- TWEAK - remove 1 astral income

-- TWEAK - major reduction of magic weapons, now only on the Temple Guard halberds (it was severely limiting options vs Lizards, which was lame)

-- FIX - Salamanders now animals!

-- TWEAK - Stegadons considerably higher cost in res and gold



-- version 0.7

-- TWEAK - Poison res values changed across the board to better match dom3 styling

-- FIX - Crest plate for warchiefs, no crest plate for skink scouts

-- TWEAK - Temple Guard now spawned by Slann when they first arrive in their 'awakening' state

-- TWEAK - Both 4th and 5th gen Slann more expensive to recruit, but same upkeep

-- TWEAK - Sacred spawnings now have armour for e9 bless, but still no helmets

-- FIX - 3rd gen shapechange further fixed, doh

-- FIX - flood of serpents cost bug fixed


-- version 0.6

-- FIX - Skink Warchief given swamp survival

-- FIX - 3rd gen Slann shapechange fixed

-- FIX - One who fathomed the depths now amphibious as intended

-- FIX - Tail Spines now ranged attack


-- Version 0.5

-- CONTENT - Nakai the Wanderer national hero added

-- TWEAK - Temples now cost 600

-- TWEAK - Sweeping morale changes to reflect effectiveness of 'cold blooded' in the warhammer tabletop - effectively it's +2 ldr - so skinks have same ldr as humans

-- TWEAK - Repriced commanders according to new scheme

-- TWEAK - Spawning of Huanchi moved to conjuration, descriptions tweaked

-- TWEAK - Blowpipes no longer ignore shields, do more damage, skink hunters better prec

-- TWEAK - Skink costs reduced significantly

-- TWEAK - Slann can no longer ever be empowered in blood

-- TWEAK - 4th gen Slann slightly more likely to get nature, another 10% on elements

-- CONTENT - Terradon summon added

-- CONTENT - Stegadon recruitable added with placeholder graphic, no attack sprite

-- CONTENT - Added flood of serpents, rain of snakes and serpents of sotek spells

-- CONTENT - Added Third Generation Slann

-- CONTENT - Added Second Generation Slann of the Seas

-- CONTENT - Added watershape to Tzunki spawning

-- CONTENT - Added Nightscale of Huanchi, Bloodscale of Sotek, Deepscale of Tzunki, Sunscale of Chotec

-- Version 0.4

-- TWEAK - Tepok spawnings now teleport (fly)

-- TWEAK - Temple Guard gold and resource cost raised

-- TWEAK - Terradon mount attacks att improved

-- TWEAK - All summoned sacred spawnings now upkeep free

-- FIX - Resolved weapon ID conflicts with CBM and my other MA mods + Tomb Kings


-- version 0.3

-- Changed salamander breath to avoid conflict with cbm

-- Added Skink Shamans

-- Reduced cost of skink cav and terradons, made terradons size 3

-- blowpipes more accurate, less damaging




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Ok, these guys are now out of beta and into version 0.2

They have a lot of their stuff ready and are essentially playable. They still need more spells, the stegadon troop, heroes, a better flag, some graphical tweaks and of course the 2nd and 3rd generation slann summons. These will all come in time.


------------------------ ORIGNAL POST --------------------------


Today I started work on the Lizardmen from Warhammer Fantasy Battle. I'm still working on Empire and other stuff, but I really like the look of lizardmen and feel inspired to do their graphics.

Before that though, here's a rough overview of the nation. The thing that makes them unique is basically their crazy powerful Slann mage priests. The /weakest/ of these guys are basically the best mages in warhammer and I'm going to translate this to dom3. The downside being their ridiculously high costs. Lizardmen will not have massed battlemages because they will lack the steps between basic mage and uber mage - you either get a skink priest or you get an incredibly expensive Slann. There's no all purpose middle guy.


STRENGTHS

Extremely potent Slann magepriests
Access to all paths but death with top tier astral
Specialised troops like kroxigor, stegadons and salamanders
Excellent morale across the nation
Devastating and relatively easy battlefield communions

WEAKNESSES

Below par skink province defense
Temples and forts very expensive
Slann are most expensive mages in the game
No real mid tier combat mages
Somewhat weak against missile fire

[Shovah32]

Sounds like fun. To me, it seems like the Saurus troops wont be as good as they should be. If they are only getting weak armour then that protection 8 will be killer. Natural protection of 10 or so seems better to me. Slightly higher strength, maybe 13(perhaps even 14), also seems more appropriate - right now they're barely above tough humans. I know that they shouldn't have too much armour thematically, and I don't think they should in game, but they will need something to keep them a little above alot of the heavier human troops in terms of survivability with all the missile weapon love that exists.

Which units will be capitol only? Temple guard seems likely, and maybe chameleon skinks(although I hope not). Possibly some of the bigger beasties too.

And for commanders? I would guess 4th generation slann, but what about the 5th generation guys? Sure, you don't want them having too many slann, but large cost should handle that. And having both slann capitol only would both really reduce the magical strength of lizardmen and also mean that 5th generation slann would rarely get used, even if they were alot cheaper than the 4th.

I know the second generation slann will be completely badass, but any idea about their actual magic levels?

Just throwing some random thoughts around.

ps: If you don't finish this quickly, you may have to start getting all your anonymous mail scanned.

[Sombre]

I'm actually not planning on making Slann or Temple Guard cap only (they can teleport between their cities after all). Instead they'll be restricted by seriously high costs. Well the Slann will anyway, the Temple Guard will just be an average level sacred.

As for the Saurus, they actually are fairly vulnerable to missile fire in warhammer, where toughness 4 will only get you so far, but you might be right that they need natural prot of 10+. I don't want missiles to be their bane or anything, just one tactic that works ok against them. They will be very cost efficient and powerful close combat troops though. Regarding their strength, in Warhammer they hae strength 4 which is the same as Ogres and strong orcs, humans, dwarfs etc. I gave Ogres str 14 in dom3 because they're size 3 - clearly they're at the top of the group that has strength 4 in warhammer. Meanwhile strength 4 humans, such as those found in the empire, might only get str 11 in dom3. So Saurus will get either str 12 or 13. They're subsantially stronger than humans, but they aren't like ogres or trolls or kroxigors or anything. Also their Obsinite weapons will have nice stats, so they'll do enough damage in close combat I'm sure.

The second generation Slann will probably be rocking something like S6 guaranteed, with 4s and 5s in other magic coming up too and chances of higher levels. I'll need to think about it but believe me they really will have crazy magical powers. They'll be H5 for one thing, being basically the holiest (and oldest) things in the entire warhammer world.

[Shovah32]

I am very glad to here that Sombre, very glad indeed. Now get to work, before I get out the whip.

[samoht]

I just tried out both of the other Warhammer mods you've done and I'm impressed.

I've always thought the Warhammer universe could lend itself well to the Dominions style of gameplay and you managed to really capture the feel of the Ogre Kingdoms and Skaven. I don't know if you're looking for any input/feedback on those mods, but I'd be more than happy to tell you more of what I think via PM if you're interested.

I'm very much looking forward to this one being completed.

Just a couple general questions tho...

How long does it normally take for you to complete a mod like this?

Do you plan on making mods for all of the various Warhammer armies?

[DigitalSin]

Thank god for you, Sombre. I've been kicking around the idea of making a lizardman mod for god-knows-how-long, however never got around to making it due to school and other games distracting me. If you want some input, I'll be glad to help!

[Sombre]

I love any input on any of my mods. I prefer over the forums than by PM, but it's your choice.

It usually takes me ages to complete a mod. I don't have a huge amount of free time to do this stuff and graphics are hard because I'm no artist. Lizardmen are quite graphically demanding too.

I plan on making mods for all the warhammer nations, yes, eventually. That's a matter of years though at this rate ;]

I have Empire about 20% finished, but I was getting a little tired of them and wanted to do something different.

[samoht]

Well sweet. What program do you use to make all of the sprites?

And with the Empire you could more or less just take sprites from the game, maybe recolor them a bit, change a couple stats and give them new descriptions... unless you're going for all original artwork.

I can't wait to see the Dwarves and Orcs/Goblins... you know... ages from now.

One idea for the Lizardmen... I don't know if you've already thought of this but maybe make a new pretender for them and make it an Old One. It would work well with their fluff, and the way the game works. One of their gods coming back to claim dominion of the world.

[Sombre]

I've pretty much decided I don't like doing pretenders for my mod nations. I will try to give them appropriate ones from the available selection though.

I've done quite a few sprites for the empire. I don't like working from base sprites, though I do sometimes use them as templates. I use Paint Shop Pro for my graphical editing.

I might bump the empire thread and put up some preview artwork or something. It's not my best work though.

As for Orcs and Goblins, Okin was working on them. Llamabeast has actually done a nation very close to Tomb Kings too and they play well.

[llamabeast]

Ooh wow, this is really exciting! Lizardmen would probably be top of my personal list of mods I'd like to see, so I was very happy to come home to find this post! I think the Lizardmen are thematically super cool.

I really like the analysis you've done as well, you have a good thorough style of planning things before you get stuck in.

I think I agree with Shovah's comments about the Saurus' prot and strength, though I guess playtesting will really be the best way of find out what works well.

I'm intrigued to see how you do the Slann (cost/magic). The unusual nature of having rare, super-powerful mages may make them quite a different nation to play off the bat.