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Sir Biscuit
02-05-2010, 08:34 PM
A while ago, a friend of mine asked me to help him come up with some new units and heroes for his Chaos Space marine army. He feels (and I agree) that most heroes and units in the codex tend to feel very one-dimensional, and they're hardly compelling. Hell, most of them aren't even given any sort of motivation!

In order to fight this, he came up with a different kind of story for his fallen chapter, and I've been working on some units for him.

Of course, I'd love input for these units.

Tentative back story for “The Redeemers” I've shortened it, enough to give you the necessary background but (hopefully) not enough to bore you:
In ancient times, the Great Old Ones found a way to destroy the universe utterly, with a device capable of tapping into the “True Void”. The Void is not of the universe, and not of the warp, it is the nothing in between.

Horrified by the potential of a weapon forged to harness the power of the void, the Old Ones locked away all their research in a single tome, and forbid any further research into the Void. Such a weapon could destroy the universe, returning it to nothingness from which it started, to be ruled over by the only one immune... the bearer of the weapon himself.

Millennia later, the chapter master of the Redeemers, who's true name is unknown to all but the inquisition, and who is now known as The Prophet. Through means unknown, he was able to steal a single tome from the Black Library... the Liber Terminatus, the book containing all of the Old Ones research into the Void.

Now, with a corrupt chapter at his back, his lieutenant and voice Ionas the White, and the knowledge of the old ones, The Prophet seeks out the knowledge and resources to complete the ancient work.


Now, on to the meat of this thing!

A Redeemers chapter army may not include any of the following units:
Any unique character in Codex: Chaos Space Marines
Daemon Prince
Chaos Sorcerer
Greater Daemon
Lesser Daemons
Possessed Chaos Space Marines
Plague Marines
Noise Marines
Thousand Sons
Khorne Berserkers
Chaos Spawn
Defiler

In addition, no unit may take any marks, and vehicles may not purchase Daemonic possession. Dreadnoughts lose their “crazed” rule.


A Redeemers army may take the following units. (Rules for these will be posted later. I'm looking for feedback for one unit at a time.)
The Prophet
Ionas the White
Blackguard
Void Knights
Razorback (Found in Codex: Space Marines. Any unit that may take a Rhino as a transport may purchase a razorback instead.)
Land Raider Crusader
Land Raider Redeemer

Sorry for the stateline, the forum hates extra spaces. Just ignore the underscores, they make the spacing good.
The Prophet 240 Points
WS BS_S T W I A LD SV
6__5__4 4 3_4 3 10 3+
Equipment:
Power Armour
Plasma Pistol
Force Weapon
Frag Grenades
Krak Grenades
Liber Terminatus
Psychic Hood

Special Rules:
Independent Character
5+ Invulnerable Save
Aura Terminus
The Prophet carries with him the Liber Terminatus, the Book of ending. It is not an artifact of the warp, but rather something far more terrifying, and holds glimpses into the true void that exists in the universe. It is the foundation of The Redeemer's religion, and can be terrifying or inspirational in equal measure.
All friendly units within 12" if The Prophet gain the Fearless special rule. All enemy units within 12" if the prophet have their leadership reduced to 7. (Excluding any powers The Prophet himself casts.)

Psychic Powers:
The Prophet has the both the Storm of Nightmares and Glimpse of the Void powers.* He may cast up to two powers a turn, but may not cast the same power twice. He may still activate his force weapon after one, or both, powers have been cast.
Storm of Nightmares:
The Prophet calls upon the powers of the Liber Terminatus, and tears reality, sending those unlucky enough to be caught in the blast into the depths of the true void. This is a psychic shooting attack with the following profile:
S:3 AP:3 R:24" Assault 1, Large Blast, Pinning
Glimpse of the Void:
The Prophet shows his enemies visions of the true void, a sight that drives all but the most stalwart men into the depths of insanity. This is a psychic shooting attack with the following profile:
R:12" Heavy 1
This attack hits automatically. Any unit hit by this attack must immediately take a leadership test on 2d6+3, and suffer a wound with no cover or armour saves allowed for every point they fail by. If this attack causes any casualties, the unit must also make a pinning test.


So, harsh masters of the Rules Forum: what are your impressions?

Mizzrym
02-05-2010, 09:02 PM
well on first glance the super hood is a lil op, maybe make it on a 4+ and increase range to 18 or something, tone down the psychic powers a bit too, especially the 2nd one

Sir Biscuit
02-05-2010, 09:11 PM
I haven't had much to throw up against his aura psychic power wise, as we tend to play pretty powerless armies. Though, is it really that bad with only a 12" range, on a hero you don't want getting into melee? What armies/builds do you see this as particularly OP?

As for the psychic powers... Storm of Nightmares tends to be not too bad, especially since it's S3. It's worse than, say, a psyker battle squad. How would you recommend toning it down?

The big balancer for Glimpse of the Void is it's short range (18") and the fact that it's heavy 1. Yes, it's scary, but if your hitting things with it then it means that you're going to get assaulted, and soon. We've toyed with making it 12", and assault 1, but then it's definitely OP when cast from transports. Since he can't move or assault to use it, it tends to be a powerful one shot (if it inflicts casualties). What in particular strikes you as very overpowered about it?

Commissar Lewis
02-05-2010, 09:39 PM
I like the fluff myself.

As for the powers, heavy 12" on the Glimpse of the Void is a good limiter IMO. Probably instead of auto-hitting it should be using BS or flame template. I agree that the 12" aura of psychic cancellation probably should be 4+ instead of automatically.

Just my two cents.

Sir Biscuit
02-05-2010, 09:54 PM
My only concern with making Glimpse of the Void 12" is that it will never get the opportunity to go off. (Since The Prophet would have to start his turn within 12" of the enemy.) Is 18" really that broken?

If he cancels on a 4+ instead of automatically, I'm tempted to just give him a regular psychic hood equivalent and make it 24". What would be a fair buff to a psychic hood to compensate for losing 12" of range, in your opinion?

Master Bryss
02-06-2010, 05:52 AM
I like the fluff, but I don't think the Chapter as a whole should be allowed to take Defilers as they are never crewed by regular Marines. If they are, you may instead want to increase their BS to 4.

It says a lot that you've posted this in the 40k rules thread. Hardly anyone seems to know that if you scroll down on the homepage for long enough you find a section dedicated to this sort of thing... whose bright idea was it to put that section so low down?

On the character himself, I'd agree with toning down the Book's psy-cancel powers. Also, for extra powerful psychic powers, has anyone thought of simply making the psychic test harder, like by adding 1 or 2 to your final score (with Perils still occuring on an original double 1 or 6)?

Atrotos
02-06-2010, 07:43 AM
As M.B. there is an entire board dedicated to home-made rules. You should write the rest of your unit entries there.

The first thing I tell everyone that asks me about rules design is "presentation is paramount." It's hard to ingest new material when in this "stack of text" format. Please use Bold, Italics, colors etc. to differentiate sections and use bullet points to make lists easier to read.

Secondly why on earth would you use the Chaos Codex as the basis for anything? It's terribly restrictive and your chapter, I take it, is relatively recently gone renegade so wouldn't they have all the tech from the new Marine dex? The Marine dex is great to work with as it's very well balanced and holds much more variety.

Thirdly all Chapter Masters have WS 6. Unless your guy skipped weapons class at Chapter Master school he should be WS 6 too. Even if you wanted to give him a more 'Librarian' feel he's a Chapter Master first and a Psyker second. Kudos, also, for making the first psychic Chapter Master.

The Book of Ending shouldn't affect psychic powers since its 'not of warp' as you say. Keep the awesome buff bubble and give the guy a hood - as a marine psyker he would have one anyway.

The first psychic power should be 12" range to mitigate it's power (or it should be Heavy 1). The second psychic power would be balanced if you made it just a regular Ld. test (not 3D6). Don't forget that all enemy units that close to him are already Ld. 7 from his aura.

Mizzrym
02-06-2010, 10:09 AM
to compromise on the hood make it 18" on a 3+, thatll make it unique from a regular hood too. Maybe make storm of nightmares AP3 or keep it AP 2 and make it small blast. IDK how to fix glimpse, but i just think a LD 10 marine squad thats unlucky enough to roll around a 15 (let alone a higher roll) or so is gonna kill 8 (because of aura) guys wtih no saves and its auto hit, it just seems a little OP. maybe make it str 5 hits instead of ID , or make it ID with armor saves allowed, or make it regular LD test on 2 dice. idk im kinda stuck on the last one

Sir Biscuit
02-06-2010, 01:50 PM
Thanks for all the replies guys, I'll respond to each of you in turn.


I like the fluff, but I don't think the Chapter as a whole should be allowed to take Defilers as they are never crewed by regular Marines. If they are, you may instead want to increase their BS to 4.

It says a lot that you've posted this in the 40k rules thread. Hardly anyone seems to know that if you scroll down on the homepage for long enough you find a section dedicated to this sort of thing... whose bright idea was it to put that section so low down?

On the character himself, I'd agree with toning down the Book's psy-cancel powers. Also, for extra powerful psychic powers, has anyone thought of simply making the psychic test harder, like by adding 1 or 2 to your final score (with Perils still occuring on an original double 1 or 6)?

Defilers have been taken out, they were there due to my misconception of the fluff. Taken out.

I didn't know about the homebrew section. Why is it not a subsection of this forum, or at least in the 40k lounge? I'll ask for it to be moved, we'll see if anything happens. I would hate to condemn threads like this to such a weird location.

We've played with messing with psychic numbers before, and I do have a character that does just that, though I doubt he'll ever be posted. In short: adding or subtracting from the score rolled works just fine, as long as you don't overdue it. (+3 to -3 works just fine.)


As M.B. there is an entire board dedicated to home-made rules. You should write the rest of your unit entries there.

The first thing I tell everyone that asks me about rules design is "presentation is paramount." It's hard to ingest new material when in this "stack of text" format. Please use Bold, Italics, colors etc. to differentiate sections and use bullet points to make lists easier to read.

Secondly why on earth would you use the Chaos Codex as the basis for anything? It's terribly restrictive and your chapter, I take it, is relatively recently gone renegade so wouldn't they have all the tech from the new Marine dex? The Marine dex is great to work with as it's very well balanced and holds much more variety.

Thirdly all Chapter Masters have WS 6. Unless your guy skipped weapons class at Chapter Master school he should be WS 6 too. Even if you wanted to give him a more 'Librarian' feel he's a Chapter Master first and a Psyker second. Kudos, also, for making the first psychic Chapter Master.

The Book of Ending shouldn't affect psychic powers since its 'not of warp' as you say. Keep the awesome buff bubble and give the guy a hood - as a marine psyker he would have one anyway.

The first psychic power should be 12" range to mitigate it's power (or it should be Heavy 1). The second psychic power would be balanced if you made it just a regular Ld. test (not 3D6). Don't forget that all enemy units that close to him are already Ld. 7 from his aura.

Yes, I'll put the rest there. I've reported this thread and asked it to be moved.

My apologies for the format. I failed to make the necessary corrections when moving from word to forum. I've fixed it, I hope it's easier to read.

We didn't use the marine dex because we wanted to keep some things that the Chaos Codex has, especially in troops selection. A unit of Chaos Space Marines plays very differently than a Tactical Squad. Plus, we wanted it to have a different feel than the regular marine dex: much less of a hammer, and more an army that plays moral games, and attacks indirectly. We played with the idea of making him a marine hero, combat tacticsing out stuff... but in the end, it ended up even messier than going off the chaos codex. Plus, the chaos codex has different options for it's units, and we find that variety quite nice in a SM flooded world. Since people have shown an interest in the fluff, I'll have my buddy clean up the full story, and post it here eventually.

Good catch on the WS. Upped.

I went with the kill the cancel aura give him a psychic hood idea. Fits the fluff, without throwing people into fits.

Psychic Abilities addressed below.


to compromise on the hood make it 18" on a 3+, thatll make it unique from a regular hood too. Maybe make storm of nightmares AP3 or keep it AP 2 and make it small blast. IDK how to fix glimpse, but i just think a LD 10 marine squad thats unlucky enough to roll around a 15 (let alone a higher roll) or so is gonna kill 8 (because of aura) guys wtih no saves and its auto hit, it just seems a little OP. maybe make it str 5 hits instead of ID , or make it ID with armor saves allowed, or make it regular LD test on 2 dice. idk im kinda stuck on the last one

Storm of Nightmares has been perfectly fine in our test games, the big balance is the S3. We did find it a bit too good against regular termies, and other 2+/crappy invuln save units, so we raised the AP to 3.

I removed the Instant Death on Glimpse of the void. It was originally meant as an anti-special character measure, but playtesting reveled how over the top it became, especially against the new nids. I also changed the leadership test, from 3d6 to 2d6+3. Sine units it fires at are always ld 7, it averages 3 kills, with a maximum of 8. It's a nice balance. With a range of 12" and being heavy 1 as well, it tends to only go off about once a game. Then he tends to get splatted by a powerfist.

Herald of Nurgle
02-06-2010, 03:26 PM
Are the powers really as broken as those I use in my homebrews?
Thunder’s Call Shooting
Bolts of thunder erupt from your grasp, destroying the foe’s body and soul…
Range 24” / S: 4 / AP: 2 / Assault 3

Gift of Chaos Assault
Using your god-given powers, you sculpt the world in their image… their chaotic image
For this turn, all Force Weapon attacks dealt by the Psyker will transform the targets into Chaos Spawn (no saves may be taken, roll to wound as usual). These spawn may not attack in the turn they are created. The Psyker also gains +d3 attacks this turn for the purposes of this attack. The usual Force Weapon attack may NOT be used this turn to cause further casualties – the Psyker is far too focused on the stuff of chaos.

Wind of Chaos Shooting
A bolt of pure chaos pours out of your mouth, destroying everything with ease…
Make a single template attack. Models under this template are wounded (with no saves) on a 4+. Friendly models MAY be hit by this attack. Vehicles hit by Wind of Chaos and wounded will take d3 Glancing Hits.

Curse of the Machine Spirit Movement
Even the staunchest of spirits may be corrupted by the power of a god!
Select a single vehicle in line of sight. It immediately takes a single Penetrating Hit with an AP 1, Destroyer, and strike.

Daemonic Vitality Movement
Through the power of the warp, even the worst wounds may be ignored
Each player rolls off. For each point that you defeat the opponent by, the Psyker regains a wound (which may bring them above the maximum). Any ‘negative’ wounds are ignored, so the Psyker may not be wounded here.

Rift of Terror Any Phase
Through the power of the gods, the foe’s faith will always be unrewarded
For the remainder of this game turn, all saves that the opponent makes are re-rolled while the Psyker is within 12 inches of the squad which requires the saves

Forced into the Grave Movement
The silence of the grave eventually reaches out for all… even you
Select a single point on the table within Line of Sight to the Psyker. Place a marker there, and roll 4d6x2 and a scatter dice – all models across this line must make a single Weapon Skill test, or they will be immediately removed from the board. Vehicles and innately Fearless units are immune. A 6 always fails.

Warptime Assault
As your opponent tears your head off, you take a small step back in time and proceed to use this knowledge to stop such events from recurring
Use this power at the beginning of any Assault Phase. For that phase, all un-successful rolls to hit, wound, or make an armor save which that Sorcerer makes may be re-rolled

Iridescent Blaze of Tzeentch Enemy Movement
Through faith in your god, the opponent is stunned as a wall of flames erupts from the earth – consuming any and all who try to enter through it.
Declare at the end of your turn that you are using this power – it begins to take effect for your opponent’s next player turn. Select a single enemy unit – this unit may not move, and immediately takes d6 Strength 5 AP – hits, which cause Pinning. The unit may move as normal in further phases, but moves as if in Difficult Terrain.

Ahriman’s Gift of Tzeentch Enemy Turn
One of the last spells that the great Sorcerer Ahriman wrote for the Thousand Sons, this is the bane of psykers
This power may be used whenever a Sorcerer of Tzeentch is within Line of Sight to a Psyker who has successfully used a Psychic Power. Each player rolls a d6. If the Tzeentch player beats the opposing player’s roll, then the Sorcerer who used the power will become a Chaos Spawn under your control.

Creeping Pestilence of Nurgle Assault
The Plague consumes all, and entropy is certain in all things. Best to accept this and die than allow a long death
Use this at the beginning of your Assault Phase. All Nurgle units within 12 inches of the Sorcerer will charge 6+d6 inches this turn. In the next player turn, all enemy units within 12 inches of where this Psychic Power was used will charge 6-d6 inches next turn, and may not Run.

Paramount Plague of Nurgle Shooting
When a master of the plague casts this spell, it is the lucky man who escapes unharmed.
This is a psychic shooting attack. When used, all units without a Mark of Nurgle within 12” will take 7 Strength d6+1 Hits, which ignore the effects of Feel No Pain.

Absolute Justice of Slaanesh Shooting
Freedom from trouble, freedom from zeal. Freedom from groveling, freedom from purity.
Select a single unit within 18 inches of the Sorcerer using this psychic power. It immediately moves 12-2d6 inches straight towards the Sorcerer, and gains the Rage special rule for the next player turn. Then the unit must make a Pinning and Dangerous Terrain test at the end of this player turn.

Exquisite Excess of Slannesh Enemy Movement
Come little children, come on and run. There lies no threat over here…
Declare at the end of your turn that you are using this power – it begins to take effect for your opponent’s next player turn. All enemy units which have line of sight to the Sorcerer’s unit or the Sorcerer himself must use any means possible to charge the Sorcerer’s unit. However, they will all strike at Initiative 1, and gain no bonuses for charging, if they successfully do so.

Personally I like the character.