AoS [SBWiP] Asoteka - Followers of the Old Ones

@Carnikang, you don't need to pay me for art. You just tell me what I should draw and hope I don't make it ridiculous.

 

We've got no behemoths so far?

 

I could probably help design some. Would a chariot pulled by jaguars be completely out of the question?

 

Ive got them in my head. But it will mostly be Birds, snakes, and statues.

I do hve a chariot i need to write a warscrollfo tonight @PhoenixTheCat . Birbchariot. A jaguar one might do well to add to it though. Will have to think.

 

I have feeling trying to get a cat to pull anything would be a massive pain in the ass but that sounds pretty cool. Do we want them to feel like a separate army or should they have dinosaurs too? I think maybe a giant orangutan or gorilla would be pretty cool as a tank type unit.

 

Or a huge cat. (My mind is all catted-up because of the internet.) Maybe all the wizard have kittens to accompany them!

 

Giant monkeys sounds cool! Something like kroxigors but with coconuts!

 

Those are all pretty great ideas. But thematically, the focus would get muddled if too many animals are added here and there.

Im not keen on mammals per say.

 

hmmm... then maybe a kind of giant condor or eagle (guess the condor fit better) instead of gorillas? something that's flying around on it's own without a rider... maybe with some rocks to drop on the enemy... give it a low save cause of just feather instead of scales but make it hard to hit in cc and give it an ability to make it difficult to hit it with shooting... something like that?

 

Pictures should be fixed. A good thing I did it and spotted a few discrepancies this go round. Now you see an improved version of the units.

 

Added a Behemoth to the mix. I need some feedback on the Warscrolls, especially if anyone knows about balancing them a bit against similar units.

 

Couple of remarks:

• Why do the skirmishers only wear melee weapons? Skirmish troops usually employ some form of easy to carry ranged weaponry (javalins, slings, short-bows).
• Why do the Bow & Arrows they use have such abysmall range? I'd suggest changing them to javalins, or increasing their range.
• Chotec raiders have a sworn protector rule, I don't see raiders protect much
• The behemoth is really freaking fast for a hulking stone monstrousity.

I like the warriors, they feel very much like something the seraphon are currently missing. At 2 wounds/model and 10 in a unit they make a nice tar-pit. Though the save is probably a bit much. Also, their ranged weaponry might allow to output a bit too much damage with a D3 that can be doubled.

I like the ideas of having their special troops largely be golemns. Gives a nice aesthetic.

Some other suggestions:

• Additional rule:
  • The great plan coming together: Whenever te Asoteka and Seraphon join forces their combined understanding of the great plan allows them to fight with greater purpose. Asoteka forces near Seraphon allies have 10 bravery, Seraphon forces near Asoteka allies gain +1 to hit.
• Have them wield banners similar to the ones the seraphon wield. This will help tie the armies together in terms of aesthetics & feel.
  

That's it for now I think. Most of it looks nice enough for a starting point

 

Some interesting concepts, these are just a few thoughts after my glance through the list:

Asoteka Skirmishers:

• Cool concept, a bit like melee skinks. I like the option of cheap battleline.
• The Fireblood Totem is really really cool, and I think more could be made of it- due to their battlefield role of harassing and interrupting, you could perhaps give them barbed nets or something with which to tangle enemy units. Something like "When this unit successfully charges, they may cast out their barbed nets at a single enemy unit within 1". Until the end of the next combat phase, both this unit and the targetted unit have -1 to hit". I feel like this exemplifies their role as a support unit, and can make them an amazing tool for controlling the battlefield in your favour.

Huanchi Warriors:

• I feel like they're interesting, but confused. They could probably be separated into two separate units- a bulky, tarpit unit and an ambushing short range missile unit.
  
• Talking of ambushes, I love the ambush rule, very creative. As i mentioned above, I just feel like it might be a bit overpowered when considering the staggering statline they have.
• I echo @Canas ' point that the damage on the bows is a tad high. I appreciate that the range is low to compensate, but I feel like that the damage coupled with the fact that they are super bulky (and come in units of 10!) is too much.
• A+ name

Chotec Raiders:

• Everything screams "aggressive saurus guard" which I like, but Sworn Guardians rule seems super out of place.
  
• I am unsure if the banner is too OP. Maybe restrict it to only applying the turn they charge? A blanket -1 to hit with no requirements or fail state on an infantry unit seems a bit much.
• To be perfectly honest, this looks nearly tabeltop ready. Cool name, cool concept- just tweak them to push their tabletop role in a clear direction and I would be queing up to get me several boxes.

Ripbeak Riders:

• This is the only unit I just don't really...get. They seem on face value to be worse terradon riders?
• You could really run wild with these in terms of battlefield identity. You could give them the shadowstrike starhost ability of dropping from the skies, or you could give them the nets ability I suggested for the skirmishers above (now that would be interesting...), or you could give them stronger short range missile attacks (maybe swap the bow profile from the Huanchi Warriors to these guys?), there are a bunch of possibilities.

Idol of the Vengeful Sotek

• Super similar to the Ork Rogue Idol, so I imagine it would have similar points cost.
• It is fairly quick- which when coupled with its obscenely high damage profiles, might make it a bit too much of a "stat stick"
• Venom seems pretty powerful, its the Bastiladon weapon without the rend. Bearing in mind the Basti is 300 points and doesn't have the statline that this does...could be costly.
• I like the buff field a lot, and the concept of a debuff when it dies. I think then current debuff you have is open for abuse (it's basically a free retreat with zero consequences), so maybe something like -3 to Bravery for that turn?

General Thoughts:

I really like this army concept. If we get an unofficial Battletome together for this, I would absolutely kitbash some of these units and use them in friendly games.

Golems have so much empty design space for you to use- they could work like troop carriers, or totems, or artillery... I'm excited to see the possibilities.

I also just want to congratulate you on the naming, it's spot on.

I look forward to more updates!

 

@InfamousBeany a blanket -1 to hit could actually be very interesting. Stick it on a difficult to kill unit, but that themselfs has very very little offensive value & you can get some very intersting zoning abilities. Admittadly the unit as a whole is too strong for it to be honest.

 

Quick note, ill address all feedback at a computer rather than phone.
@InfamousBeany on the Riders. I wantthem to be quick cavalry. Ill likely switch thw ranged profiles and give them an ability. I was intentionally underkittng them to try and compliment the rest of the army. As for the Idol, take a look at the Chaos Gargant damage profile. I had some inspiration from that after fighting one.

@Canas , Bow range is short intentionally to try and balance them a bit with th Ambush rule. I want it to b a risky movethat could pay off. Theyre also technically short bows, ued primarily in a jungle environment. Hence tight quarters.

Again, feedbac is appeciated an ill address more later.

 

@Carnikang I get the trade-off, and that's fair enough, though I think they currently are a bit too damaging with D3 that can double.

But, back to my issue with them, they just have an awefull range for bows when compared to other ranged weaponry in AoS. Skinks can throw a javelin nearly as far as this bows can shoot. The one-handed crossbows of the stormforged on dracoths shoot further. Hell the fyreslayers' throwing axes are 8", that means this bow barely has a larger effective range than a freaking throwing axe. For illustration, the world record for thomahawk throwing is 80 feet (24m) according to google. The effective range of most historical warbows is somewhere around 100-300 meters. Either those fyreslayers have an amazing throw, or these bows are really really really bad and the asoteka are better of just throwing the arrows at their enemies

Hence I'd suggest to not make them bows but javelins, or throwing axes or some other shorter ranged weapon.

 

That makes a bit mote sense. I suppose Throwing axes would be better. I was waffling heavily on the damage when i was putting them together. I didnt wan it to be just a flat 1, and i wanted somw oomph from somewhere. The poison does that, though its still a chance of .4 something to get a single six in one roun of shooting if my mathnis any sorts of correct. (Likely not.)

 

I'm not sure what sort of ranged weapons the aztec's/Inca's historically used, but they might have some interesting throwing weapons for flavor.

As for the damage, it's a D3 which can be doubled with minimum unit size being 10 of which half attacks hit and half the hits wound. They'l be reliably doing quite a lot of damage. On top of that they have decent melee cabilities, and they are firly sturdy with 2 wounds and a 4+ save and rend protection. They're going to be both difficult to kill, and put out quite a lot of damage. It's that they don't have rend or mortal wounds, so they won't perform that well against armoured opponents, but they'l kill rapidly.

Also, can we remake rend protection to just be "reduces rend by x amount" instead of this weird mechanic we now have where it protects only against specific values of rend, but if the opponent has better rend the entire protection is lost.

Edit:

By the way, the likelyhood of a attack that deals 6 damage is:
10 * 0.5 * 1/6th * 1/3th = 10/18 = 5/9 =0.55555555, so just a bit more frequent than every other round you'd get an attack that deals 6 damage. On average a 10-model unit would deal about 6-7 wounds with their bows per round assuming no saves. With saves it gets a bit messy to calculate since the save could be Lucky and save the attack that deals 6 wounds, or save the attack that does only 1.

 

Too true. Aztecs do have something interesting for ranged that i was thinking of applying. They also use bows to great effect.

I was debating th save as well, but puttin i at a 5+ would likely be best. As fo th rend protection, i think it works out fairly well. Rend -2 isnt all that common and its a fairly unique mechanic t Seraphon i wanted to share with the Asoteka.

 

Just did a quick search, aztec's and Inca's used bola's & this thing called an atlatl for throwin weapons, and probably javalins since every half decent civilisation used javalins and spears at some point . Admittadly, it's similar to a javalin and those can reach up to a 100m. At least the atlatl will look better than a puny bow. Those fyreslayers have an insane throwing arm given that they equal javalins... or well, range is just slightly weird in tabletop games I suppose with archers outranging artillery

I think a 4+ save is fine, if you significantly decrease their offensive capablity. A 4+ 2 wound 10 model unit makes a briljant tarpit. If all they have is their melee weapon and a weakish ranged weapon in combination with their poison they'd be quite good and amazing for the meatgrinder.

As for the rend protection mechanic, it just annoys me to no end that it only works in very specific situations. It's the only shield mechanic that I've seen that doesn't work in the majority of cases. Would much prefer it to just be "reduces rend by x" preferably with negative rend giving a save bonus (possibly with a worse base-save to make up for it, especially in the case of the sunblood which protects upwards of rend 2 or 3). Would make the shield actually feel relevant. Instead of something you don't realize you have half the time but is secretly saving some wounds here and there.