Codex: Hrud - Clan Moulder

[Calixtus]

This is the first part of the Skaven's story, which started with Clan Skyre, followed by Clan Eshin, and finally now the story of Clan Skaven. The story will end with Clan Rictus, the last chapter in this Tetralogy. If the response is great, and there are fans of my work, I will post the remaining half of Clan Skaven's story, which is nearly completed.

[Macmoss]

Surely no reason to ask - love the fluff (natural talent) always read and use your fluff.......

Mossmac

[mellr0]

This is codex: Skavenin40k. Not codex: Hrud.

Hrud have no fur. All hrud are able to cloak themselves from view. Hrud do not have psychic powers, or use warpstone, which doesnt exist in 40k.

This is distinctly not fluffy, and has no grounding in 40k.

other than that, its ok, besides your weapons all have lots of weird rules again that require way, way to many notes to be useful.

rolling over weapon damage to ignore it, things being stunned by weapon shots, being hit means being hit by different weapons... the list goes on.

[Calixtus]

It's all about the creativity of writing rules! Look, would you rather have some bland, run-of-the-mill army that any idiot can come up with? It isn't actually too hard to keep track of the rules. Anyway, the whole point of posting these rules is to open them up to criticism. Most of my Hrud Codexes have pretty standard weapons and armament. There is nothing over the top like the Slann Codex for instance.

[mellr0]

The creativity of writing rules is to develop a mixture of distinct and fluffy armies, while still maintaining rules balance. Its not to needlessly overcomplicate things.

This is codex: Skaven and its not that creative because you obviously know nothing about 40k rules. You have a row based rule in the pawslave section. You refer to an "army General" which is a fantasy rule. There is no frenzy rule in 40k. You keep referencing your Hatred special rule.

I have no problem with you writing a codex about skaven based in 40k.
I have no problem with you writing a Hrud codex.

these 2 things, however, are not the same, which is something i do have a problem with. Its a very common misconception that has developed through the common phrase "space skaven" that is used to describe them.


And yeh, I currently have all 10 of your hrud codex's open on my screen.

so lets see what advantages your packlord has over a.. lets say a space marine captain, since he is only 60 points

your packlord is 20 points cheaper, but has an extra wound, an extra attack, a lower armour save (by 1), has a lower ballistic skill by 2, a point higher initiative and is fleet (or has a cover save), as well as ignores night fighting (while reaching the same level of shooting as the captain in night fighting), has a power weapon by default (that lets him attack at range 4" no less), and you get a bonus for taking 2. He is carrying a pistol that is the same as a laspistol... except that everything wounded by it has -2 to their armour save, and it has a blast template!! Not only that but it can ignore wounds on an additional roll of 6. Oh, and each wound it causes in close combat transforms into D3 wounds.

Congratulations. Your colourful, and wrote lots of colourful rules and fluff for your army. Of course, your games wont be colourful, because you'll be sitting there going:

you: "ok, i just shot at your guy. Take your armour save"
opponent: "kk, terminator armour, 2+ save"
you: "nope, 4+ save because of my gun."
opponent: "WTF?!"

and then

Opponent: "Ok, close combat."
You: "ok, i go first. I6"
opponent: "your not in base contact though"
You: "ah, but i have my whip. i get 5 attacks, at ws 5. 3 hits. 3 wounds. You take.... 6 wounds, no armour saves"
Opponent: "WTF!! hey, wow.. i managed to roll 5 of my invun saves. kk. attack back. power sword. 4 attacks. 3 wounds, ignoring armour saves."
You: "Kk.. 5+ invunerable save. 2 saved. ok.. roling for stillsuit. wow... managed to roll a 6. no wounds taken. you loose the combat."

constructive criticism and feedback? you have it.

[kithre]

calixtus, you have had ample fedback for each and every one of your threads, the vast majority has been very constructive. What i see on this new list is just another list that looks, feels, and probably reads like the others, in terms of complexity, extreme use of Warhammer Fantasy Battle game mechanics and using Skaven fluff ALMOST VERBATIM.

Using Skaven fluff isn't wrong per se - just don;t try palming off long fluff pieces as creative writing, when half the people on this board have faced Skaven on many, many occassions in Fantasy and can recognise a Skaven army with a 40K sheen - to refuse to acknowledge this is insulting their intelligence.

I really suggest that you read Codex: Necromancers thread, for example - that is just "Space Undead" but the amount of effort and thought and balancing is incredible, from what I have read so far. TYour 10 Hrud threads imply a culture, army list and variety that is wider than the entire Imperium of man, Tau septs, Orkdom etc. Even Orks, who HAD distinct tribes in 2nd Ed 40K canon background (Goffs, Bad Moons, Snakebites, Blood Axes, Evil Sunz, Kult of Speed, DeathSkulls) don't have this variety of troops.

Even Space Marines, comparing Codex vs. Codex, does not have this variety...
In fact, the Skaven Fantasy Battle army list doesn't really have such customised rules for each Great Clan either...just one or two flavoursome units and characters.

Your lists look to me like Rogue Trader lists - too many variables to actually solve the boundary condition problems that most armies have in order to create balanced points values. That is not to say that these lists have no merit. Any creative work does, but the direction of the creative work is such that you are asking for critique, and having received the same critique at least 10 different occassions from numerous people, this list still resembles what you posted in iteration 1. And other critique such as using "WS" and "BS" rather than "MS" and "BS", removing "to-hit modifiers" from weapons, not creating new USRs etc etc also seem to have been missed.

[Calixtus]

Hardly, hardly have I ANY feedback at all. No one seems to want to respond to my threads. I admit my Codexes are fairly complex, and you are right that there is much more variation compared to other races...but they work in the end because the Clans have an intricate system of alliances, the units from one Clan can be used in another, with certain restrictions. If you look at it my way, there are only around 3 units for the standard Lesser Tribe, with Tribe Rancour being the model template Tribe, just like how Ultramarines represent the typical Space Marine Chapter. Once you combine the unique units of the Great Clans, then you have around 8 units, still less than the Craftworld Eldar.

You are right to a certain degree that I may have overdone certain rules, and the Point Cost for certain units are imbalanced, but that is the whole point of me posting these threads in the first place. Balancing Point Cost is one of the harder aspects of Codex designing, so you have to forgive me. As to rules like Frenzy, Hatred and about the Army General, they are all explained for in Tribe Rancour. The Army General concept is unique to the Hruds I created. I know you said this is not the Hruds, this is Space Skaven, but I have taken the liberty of bringing the two concepts together, to create my synthetic product. It is a combination of concepts borrowed from Fantasy Skaven and Hrud Fluff.

About Frenzy, I do not know much about the rules of 40K, because my 5th Edition Rulebook hasn't arrived. I have never really been acquainted with the rules before this, so you have to forgive me if my attempt at rulemaking seems imbalanced and out of hand.

Also about the Fluff I have created for the four Great Clans...they are TOTALLY UNiQUE. I have just taken the liberty of borrowing names from Fantasy Skaven, but other than that, everything behind them is my own creation.

[mellr0]

5th edition? you havent even glanced at 4th edition!! Frenzy and hatred didnt exist in 4th edition either!

You have 13 codex's based upon rules which you have no intimate knowledge of. How many 40k games have you actually played? I'd say a person needs a minimum of 10 games to even consider writing themselves a codex.

Each member of your squads get a new rule or piece of wargear. is that even neccessary? I'd have to glance across your 2 codex's to know exactly what each model does, and games would go really slowly.

the worst thing is, they arent simple, such as : "this unit ignores difficult terrain" or "The models attacks count as rending"

I've made this comment before, and i doubt you will listen this time, but try set out your units like this:

unit name
Fluff
Stats
Default wargear
Upgrades and costs
special rules

and set out the entire codex in this format:

Main fluff
Army Special rules
Wargear/weaponry
Units

People read wargear and weapons rules, and then search out the models which have these rules and equipment. its an altogether easier way to do things.

[avatar of khaine]

compared to most other threads here in the rules development forum, you get tons of feedback on posts, it's just not always positive, and kind of repetitive, as you don't take on board the suggestion of making things less complicated.

One unit with one two special rules is generally the most posted on here, you put down entire codexes with 5-10 specials rules per unit. It's just far too complicated

[Calixtus]

OK, I will rearrange Codex: Tribe Rancour according to your template, including the units from the Great Clans that it can field. Tribe Rancour represents the typical Hrud Lesser Tribe, just like how Ultramarines is the typical Space Marine Chapter. I will remove the fluff. If you need to read the fluff I have created, then just head to the older thread.