Delgon Playtest Rules - updated 04/01/10

[dequant]

Hence the phrase 'insect like' 

It's very hard to read posts & answer them & use Messenger with at least 6 fiends at the same time!
(Yeah! It's a Dumb excuse, but true Sorry!)

[Jubal]

Only 6 friends? Pfft... try it with ten friends, while beta testing a game in another window. :p

Are there any Delgon who take a less favourable line to the priesthood and Belog, or would such thinking be an executable heresy for them?

[Carcharoth]

Delgon is a small country, so I'm sure there are those who disapprove, but they are a definite minority. As far as most Delgon are concerned they are living in a golden age, with the gods walking amongst them and it will be them who see those gods rise to power in Anyaral. What is a little personal discomfort compared to that?
There are close relatives to the Delgon who live in neighbouring clan territories whose opinions and loyalties are more varied, but more on that later (in a few months time...)!

[Rick]

So, if there was a priesthood in Delgon already, which the Belog/Enari are using/used by..... Does it follow that there is a Fubarnii priesthood across Anyaral; the ones in the Empire being generally opposed to the Belog idea?

[dequant]

Only 6 friends? Pfft... try it with ten friends, while beta testing a game in another window. :p

Jubal, Jubal...

That day was a wierd day. Usually  I've got about 15 to 20 (sometimes more)friends online. I usually use TRILLIAN (Messenger+ Yahoo+ ICQ in one program). And I use SKYPE a lot !

& don't forget that Facebook got a chatbox 

Of course, I tried it, & playing a web based game: Urban Rivals - The online MMO Trading Card Game. And got crazy! 

Are there any Delgon who take a less favourable line to the priesthood and Belog, or would such thinking be an executable heresy for them?

Well, in he old site there's at least 2 Belgor (Aaral and Alaim) and a Delgon priest (Kartol, he was killed by Garlon for plotting against the Belog.) See link http://www.paintedjaguar.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/twilight/Encyclopaedia.html

Of course, backgrounds can change...

[Carcharoth]

I've just updated the rules to include the Delgon Acolyte in your games - they aren't going to kill many devanu, but are quite a useful little addition to make the force move more easily! The only things missing now are the derakeers...

[Carcharoth]

Now updated to include Derakeers, as well as giving a rough point scheme for all the models.
I've still got a few freebies ready to go out to anybody who has a game and posts a battle report or rules critique using these rules!

[Geckilian]

With any luck I'll be able to have an infantry-heavy Delgon army ready for a game on Thursday. I'll give the list a playtest then. Also, from the looks of the Acolyte they're meant to be used in larger block formations with a Priest right? Since they have no activation of others abilities of their own, I'm guessing they're used generally for a more flexible formation?

[Carcharoth]

That's right about the acolytes - you sacrifice some attacking ability, but can spread some of your troops more thinly, or pull back troops that have gone out of formation (after an attack or suchlike). I had considered giving them an activation ability in their own rights, but that would make them more expensive and could potentially make things a bit imbalanced. I will try some varients over the next few months to see how they work out.
I'll look forward to hearing how your game goes!

[darth tater]

I'm gonna try to have a game with the Delgon hopefully tonight.

My mate, who also brought Twilight at Salute, wants to play now as he's finally glued all his guys together!  We're
gonna play at the club on Wednesday 

[Jubal]

You could make a rule like this to make the acolyte a tad more flexible; allow it to activate up to (either 2 or 3?) friendly troops if and only if it is the first in a chain of command. That stops the problem of super-activation if they had an ability of their own coupled with a priest, because most of the time it'll be more beneficial to use the priest and not their own ability, but it means they do have some use on their own.

[Carcharoth]

You could make a rule like this to make the acolyte a tad more flexible; allow it to activate up to (either 2 or 3?) friendly troops if and only if it is the first in a chain of command. That stops the problem of super-activation if they had an ability of their own coupled with a priest, because most of the time it'll be more beneficial to use the priest and not their own ability, but it means they do have some use on their own.

I had been wondering about something along those lines. One possiblity would be to modify the Priest's Authority rule as follows:

Authority: This model may activate up to four friendly Troops or Civilians. Any Troops activated by this model may immediately activate up to 4 friendly Troops, who may not use any further Command Abilities.

and then giving the Acolytes:

Lesser Authority: This model may activate one friendly Trooper or Civilian. If a Trooper is activated by this model it may immediately activate up to 4 friendly Troops, who may not use any further Command Abilities.

(which does pose the question, what is the correct singular for Troops? Should it be Troop or Trooper?)

An acolyte on his own is therefore capable of activating a small (5 model) block of troops, but only if they are in formation. If a priest activates an acolyte then it can choose to either activate a (5 model) formation using Lesser Authority, or move up to 4 models back into formation using the Priest's Authority. A pair of Acolytes could work together to manage a 4 model loose formation, but I doubt that would be a particularly useful approach! An acolyte could also act simply as a command range extender, and a string of acolytes could work together to give a very long command range (only limited by the Four Degrees of Separation rule, as outlined here).

I'm not sure quite how much more effective that would make the acolytes, but it does maybe capture the spirit of their role while making them a bit more flexible. Any thoughts?

[Jubal]

I dunno how much of a disadvantage it is to only have troops bunched though, I often keep my militia for example quite bunchy anyway.

[dequant]

(which does pose the question, what is the correct singular for Troops? Should it be Troop or Trooper?)

Trooper is correct & also troopers for plural. Troops means "group of soldiers" & troopers means "SOLDIERS". Troop is also correct, depending in which country you live (you know, in England they say LIFT & in USA they say "ELEVATOR)

[dequant]

This weakend I've made a full playtest of the Delgon Army with some extra rules.

I's not a bad army . but I think that the cost must be raised. Or upgrade devanu  army

[Jubal]

Had a battle against Delgon, but it was mostly teaching someone else to play so not great for playtesting.

The new shooting units are nasty against elites... I think the striders may be a bit overpriced, 50 points can go down the drain very quickly against decent barrages of shooting; I can almost buy 4 herders for each strider, which often means that I can take them down before they get to me.

The acolytes really really need some sort of lesser authority rule; the army is just mincemeat when anything goes outside 6" of the priest, which means Fubarnii can run rings round them easily.

The Derakeers are about right, the lack of support makes them very vulnerable when regimented though; I need to see how well composite Derak/Soldier regiments work.

[Carcharoth]

Sounds interesting! Most important question is whether you both enjoyed the game? Did any aspects of the rules (particularly the playtest rules) seem too fiddly or simplistic? Can you remember what forces you used?

I haven't really used striders against herders yet. Certainly not with large numbers of herders. Did you remember that the Striders can use combat trained and overdrive even against ranged attacks? Overdrive does leave the difficult decision whether to use stamina to almost guarantee survival or just risk it with the two stones, but that is part of the fun of striders... Combat trained should help the elite troops a lot against ranged attacks.

As they are, the acolytes allow troops to be more than 6" from the priest, giving a range of up to 12". That is small, but fits the solid regimented structures of the Delgon, and to some extent the troops should become mincemeat if they stray too far! I do however think the lesser authority rule is a good idea as it would allow small groups to operate in an autonomous manner, with an acolyte leading each unit. The challenge is working out how valuable that makes the acolytes in order to balance them!

I've always used deraks mixed in with the standard soldiers rather than as dedicated units, but I guess it'll be a matter of taste as to what balance works best!

[dequant]

Sounds interesting! Most important question is whether you both enjoyed the game? Did any aspects of the rules (particularly the playtest rules) seem too fiddly or simplistic? Can you remember what forces you used?

I haven't really used striders against herders yet. Certainly not with large numbers of herders. Did you remember that the Striders can use combat trained and overdrive even against ranged attacks? Overdrive does leave the difficult decision whether to use stamina to almost guarantee survival or just risk it with the two stones, but that is part of the fun of striders... Combat trained should help the elite troops a lot against ranged attacks.

As they are, the acolytes allow troops to be more than 6" from the priest, giving a range of up to 12". That is small, but fits the solid regimented structures of the Delgon, and to some extent the troops should become mincemeat if they stray too far! I do however think the lesser authority rule is a good idea as it would allow small groups to operate in an autonomous manner, with an acolyte leading each unit. The challenge is working out how valuable that makes the acolytes in order to balance them!

I've always used deraks mixed in with the standard soldiers rather than as dedicated units, but I guess it'll be a matter of taste as to what balance works best!

Well, In my playtest, A squad full of deraks (using them as a rifle) is to powerfull against devanu, so to balance  the army, I allow up to 2 deraks per "squad" (4 soldiers+ 2 deraks), the same with the staff slings. As I said(did I?), the range rules worked well,:  Iput lot of scenary on the table.

Of course we enjoyed the game: it's mechanic is different as we know (the combat stones stuff).

One thing I didn't mention is that we do not use small armies (a few figures)  We where more focused in a WH style (BIG BATTLES).
We are SPOILED WARGAMERS HAHAHA

[Jubal]

Sounds interesting! Most important question is whether you both enjoyed the game? Did any aspects of the rules (particularly the playtest rules) seem too fiddly or simplistic? Can you remember what forces you used?.

They had a few striders, a priest with guards, 2-3 acolytes each with some troops, I had 4 herders, 5 militia with captain, a few knights and an engineer. The shooting rules worked really nicely, though doing each one individually slowed things down rather. It was pretty enjoyable, though.

I haven't really used striders against herders yet. Certainly not with large numbers of herders. Did you remember that the Striders can use combat trained and overdrive even against ranged attacks? Overdrive does leave the difficult decision whether to use stamina to almost guarantee survival or just risk it with the two stones, but that is part of the fun of striders... Combat trained should help the elite troops a lot against ranged attacks.

I thought those abilities only worked in CC. Oopsie.

As they are, the acolytes allow troops to be more than 6" from the priest, giving a range of up to 12". That is small, but fits the solid regimented structures of the Delgon, and to some extent the troops should become mincemeat if they stray too far! I do however think the lesser authority rule is a good idea as it would allow small groups to operate in an autonomous manner, with an acolyte leading each unit. The challenge is working out how valuable that makes the acolytes in order to balance them!

Yea... also, will there be a priest-with-no-guards option? That is another difficulty, as you have to ahve that block so in small games it's hard to build a decent rest of a force.

I've always used deraks mixed in with the standard soldiers rather than as dedicated units, but I guess it'll be a matter of taste as to what balance works best!

The Deraks alone are certainly too weak as they have to get too close before shooting.