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

[llamabeast]

I think they're already mapmove 1.

Anyway, I reckon you might want to make them more expensive. Or remove their armour again - that'd make people more inclined to use offensive blesses rather than E9. I think that'd be quite cool actually. Yep, that plan gets my vote.

[Sombre]

Ah yes, Saurus are already mapmove 1. Hmm.

I'm not sure I want to remove their armour entirely. Instead I'll probably make it very weak. It's just a pair of gold shoulderguards after all. They could also be more expensive in terms of gold and resources (since they are carrying a fair bit of bling).

[Nasser]

Maybe you could help encourage the use of the sacred spawn summons by enhancing their diversity. I seem to remember not being very impressed when I first summoned my batches of sacred spawns because I'd think "well, these are just normal saurus with slightly more armour, or slightly more magic resistance. I think it'd be neat to make each spawning more unique by giving them something else, different weapons perhaps, or maybe special commander summons for each spawning with their own abilities that mesh well with their given troops. I'm just thinking out loud here, and I imagine that the spawns may become more attractive with the nerf to Temple Guard. Still, unique and diverse troops never hurts

[rdonj]

The temple guards definitely do encourage a bless, and having skink priests and the slann also as sacred gives even more incentive for a high earth bless. But I think the temple guard perform at least on par with something like S9/E6/N4, and with that bless all those sacred spawnings benefit and become a whole lot more interesting. It also gives them an S9 caster which they will otherwise have to spend a lot of gems empowering to get.

But I would also contend that Itza is completely viable even without a bless. Taking an awake research/site searching rainbow pretender could really help boost their magic to reach the dizzying heights of power the slann communions can reach on the battlefield more quickly. Playing without the temple guard does make expansion a bit slower, but saurus warriors and skinks do fine on most indies, and you have things like kroxigor and salamanders to ruin a player's day.

[rdonj]

Also, I think the sacred summons are pretty much fine the way they are. However, having mark-specific commanders is a pretty good idea. The sacred spawnings of huanchi, for example, would be much better off if lead by a lizard with the mark of huanchi, to take better advantage of their terrain survival bonuses.

[Nasser]

I was thinking thematically it would be fun to have, for example (and forgive my shorthand, I don't have the unit names with me at work) the water spawn with tridents or the stealthy ones with spears or javelins or the earth ones with maybe just a claw and a larger defensive shield, perhaps the fire ones with a larger axe or club. Stuff like that.

e: I'm not sure how well any of that fits with the Itza lore, but it would help to spice things up, rather than have hundreds of the same saurus models of a slightly different colour.

[Humakty]

It seems strange blowpipes in the PD start in front of their shielded brethen. They get killed fast, then the shielded ones rout, very sad to watch.

Glamour is really good on chameleon, they tend to survive longer in melee than the red skinks, seems a bit odd. Wouldn't it be better to give them airshield to represent the fact they are hard to spot from a distance ?

The various spawnings spells are really good to rapidly raise armies of sacred buddies,pumping 40 of them per turn can be quite devastating. And some of those fellas are really good (air,earth,astral). So they complement well an army of temple guards.

I wonder how much this faction would beneficiate from a multiple minor bless (F,W,S,N,E). As your armies are hard to replace, and CBM boosts most minor spells, I think Astral 4 or 6 is mandatory.

It's true that temple guards are great, as well as the cap only thug on lizard, but coldblooded is a huge drawback if you don't manage to have second sun up fast. I don't think they are really superior to Mictlan because of this flaw, which is easy to exploit in MP. (can't remember the name of the spell which lowers temperature)

[Sombre]

rdonj: I think that's a good idea about the sacred spawns. I think I'll use nextspell to make sure you get a nice commander version along with your spawning. Probably with the same sprite (or very slightly changed) but with different stats.

Nasser: They are always going to look relatively similar, but perhaps I can do a little more to differentiate them. I'm adverse to creating more graphical work for myself, but there are minor changes I can make, like giving the water saurus a trident and possibly a UW shape. The stealthy spawning (Huanchi) already have spears rather than swords. I'm thinking of giving them poisonous bites too. As for the stat differences - again they aren't /huge/ and you're still talking sacred saurus warriors basically, but there are some major differences, like mapmove, ultra high prot, resistances (which can be a very big deal) and stealth. The one with slightly higher mr iirc also has boosted morale and something else about it - it's a combination of effects. There is one with greatly boosted mr too. You're right I can do a little more with them though.

Humakty: I don't think I can do much about the PD formations. I think I'll be changing blowpipes so they don't ignore shields btw, though I'll have to find something else to make them special. As for Chameleons, I can't give airshield via mod commands and it doesn't fit much better than glamour in battle anyway, while glamour gives the Chameleons their super stealth on the strategic map. I don't mind them being hard to kill in melee, because they cost a lot more than red skinks and don't do any damage back.

Thanks for the feedback everyone, it's really helpful. I'll take a look at sacred spawnings this weekend I think. Give them a few tweaks. I thought it might be fun to have one 'drop' its tail when badly hurt and get a second form (which it retains after battle - they don't grow back).

[Digress]

Originally Posted by Sombre

I thought it might be fun to have one 'drop' its tail when badly hurt and get a second form (which it retains after battle - they don't grow back).

Will they lose their sacred status along with the tail ?

Can that be modded ?

Just asking ...

[Sombre]

Sure that could be modded.

I'm not sure it makes sense though. They are sacred from their spawning onward after all.