Dogs of War

Download:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/33025584/Warha...ies-Nippon

While I'll recharge my batteries from Cathay, I'd figure I'd have a look at Nippon meanwhile (am I crazy for doing 3 books at once? I'm actually doing 7!). As such, this is what unit choices I've narrowed it down to so far:

Special Characters:
Shogun
Emperor of Nippon
The Red Samurai
Some samurai chick (affirmative action, you know)
...and either a monk, ninja or something like that (will have to do some research first)

Lords:
Daimyo (fighter)
Shugenja Mistress (wizard)

Heroes:
Taisho (fighter)
Tengu Ninja
Shugenja

Mounts:
Serpent Dragon
Kirin
Warhorse
Nue (chimera)

Core:
Ashigaru (spear/halberd/bow)
Samurai (halberd/katana/longbow)
Samurai Cavalry (Spear/katana/longbow)
Peasants (flails)
Warrior Monks (mix of weapons)

Special:
Hatamoto (halberds, harakiri)
Sumo Fighters (heavy armour, great weapons)
Kabuki Dolls (two hand weapons, skirmish)
Ninja (skirmish/scouts)
Oni (daemon-ogres)

Rare:
Death Rocket
Ronin (slayers)
Elementals
Inugami (warghulf)

And just to finish of the post, the would-be cover to the book:

Did the forums get Rolled Back or something?

Anyway, here's the ideas on the Kitsune -


Equipment: Claws and Teeth, 1 Tail

Options:
May purchase up to 8 additional Tails for +30pts Each

For every 2 Tails the Kitsune has, it may take a Magic Level for +40pts. It may use the Lore of Heavens, Beasts, Life, or Light.

Special Rules:
Immune to Fear Terror and Panic
Is a monster, but has 360 degree movement and vision
Immune to the effects of Difficult Terrain
Magical Attacks
4+ Ward Save

Tails
For every tail a character has, it may take an additional benefit from the list below. Unless noted otherwise, each ability may only be taken once. Each magic level a character has reduces the value by 1 (i.e A Nine Tails may be Level 4, but may only have 5 abilities. A Two Tails may be Level 1, but may only have 1 ability, a Nine Tails may be Level 1, but has 8 abilities.
- Fly
- Regen
- Mr1, Multiple Mr2, Mr3
- +1 Power Dice to Pool
- +1 Dispel Dice to Pool
- ItP, Multiple Unbreakable
- 5+ Scaly Skin Save, Multiple 3+, 1+
- +1 WS, Multiple, max of WS10
- +1 S, Multiple, max of S7
- +1 T, Multiple, max of T7
- +1 W, Multiple, max of W5
- +1 A, Multiple, max of A9
- Breath Attack, S2, -1AS, Multiple adds +1S and -1 AS, to maximum of S5, -4AS

I was also thinking of including something along the lines of the Callidus Assassin from 40K affecting the enemy lines prior to battle - i.e chosen unit must pass Ld at -2 (non ItP units), or be redeployed within 12" (after deploy, before battle), but thought I'd judge reaction.

Yup, the forum got rolled back all right.

Rules looks fun, but a bit overly complicated. It will be virtually impossible to remember what stats and rules it has for every game. I'll see if I can simplify the rules a bit for version 1.0, but thanks for giving me something to work with

That's no problem. How is it going?

I am working on the fluff for Cathay atm, so I haven't done any more on Nippon yet. Luckily, I'm soon finished (decided to pretty much start from scratch, easier than editing everything). I have about 50 pages of fluff ready for Nippon though, with minimal editing to do, but the actual army list will take quite a while. I will also do some layout work on the Dogs of war book before fully starting with Nippon, but I will get around to it eventually.

Bit of info for you - Japanese Militia/Peasant fighters were known as Shinobe. Those armed with Naginata, for example, were known as Naginata Shinobe.

They came in two forms - Naginata, and Yari. Yari, being pikes, and Naginata acting as Halberds.

Samurai were known as Bushi.

Horsebows (the typical 7-9 foot tall bows that you see) are called Daikyu, and were Samurai only. Modern tests have shown they can pierce a half inch of iron from 120 yards away, and they were accurate to 150, while extreme range was 250.

There are two typical types of swords - Katana, and Nodachi. The Katana could be used two handed or one handed, and was always paired with a Wakizashi. The Nodachi and Katana were known as Daito - longswords, but the Nodachi took that to the extreme - a purely two handed blade, which when trained was greater at cutting through armour than that of a conventional Medieval bearded axe.

For magic weapons, this might be useful -
http://japantrip.tripod.com/nodachi/odachi_gallery.html

Particularly the Norimitsu Odachi - the longest sword to date, over 220cm long, not including its 45 cm haft.

And if you're taking a hint from the 5 Rings, then maybe "Spiritual Weapons" could be included, by buying upgrades for the weapon, similar to Dwarven runes?

Thanks for the info, I'll make sure to put it to good use

Good idea on the Spiritual Weapons too, I'll see If I can think up something.
Finishing up the last part of Cathay's fluff at the moment, then I'm gonna do some layout work for Dogs of War (no writing involved, so it should be really quick), and then I can fully commit to Nippon

(05-19-2010 07:30 PM)Vaz Wrote: [ -> ]Horsebows (the typical 7-9 foot tall bows that you see) are called Daikyu, and were Samurai only. Modern tests have shown they can pierce a half inch of iron from 120 yards away, and they were accurate to 150, while extreme range was 250.

Which equates to a longbow, both having the same range and relative firepower. However, keep in mind that there is quite a difference between regular iron and tempered steel.

Quote:but the Nodachi took that to the extreme - a purely two handed blade, which when trained was greater at cutting through armour than that of a conventional Medieval bearded axe.

Most likely not true, the nodachi was not a popular weapon and rarely saw use on the field, reasons being that it was just too unwieldy. As for saying it had superior cutting power compared to a proper battle axe is just a kick in the face of elementary physics. An axe carries most of it's weight on the "killy part" of the weapon, thus concentrating most of the force applied onto a much smaller surface. And while I'm sure that the nodachi could accomplish the same level of force due to its length giving it leverage it was as stated before much more unwieldy.

Point being the following:

There is absolutely no reason to invent new weapons, just call them long bow and halberd (one of the intended uses of the nodachi was fighting cavalry) or perhaps great weapons if you fancy that more and be done with it.

Which was the plan really, I think it was good from a background POV, but I wasn't planning on giving them special bows or anything.

I'm not a fan of renaming troops after the language. Calling the samurai 'samurai' is fine, and we don't need to call peasant footmen shinobe. After all, it's just a translation and the other army books don't have the troops named in their own languages - dwarf warriors are just called dwarf warriors, and glade guards aren't some fancy elven name.

Daikyu might, maybe warrant special rules for itself (like the Glade Guard Longbow, but only on horseback), but it could also be simply represented as a longbow.

Wouldn't the no-dachi be a great weapon rather than a halberd, considering it's basically equivalent to a two-handed sword? The naginata would be a halberd. For true heresy, katanas are just hand weapons. I agree on the general principle - weapon equivalency is a beautiful thing.

I do like that idea for Spiritual Weapons being mix-and-match like the dwarfs have, but working it while having traditional magic items as well might be a problem.

For the army's tactics, would it be something like the VC in that it is built heavily around characters, with the Core troops being rather weak but numerous? Something about Nippon/Japan just strikes me as being centered around masses of cheap troops led by elite bands of samurai and almost superhuman characters.

Units won't be named solely after Japanese names, GW never does this which keeps it more warhammer-y, and it's easier to understand what everything is. Samurai will be called samurai, ashigaru - ashigaru, peasants - peasants and so on. I could be even more extreme and call samurai "warriors" and ashigaru "conscripts" (after their real meaning), but that would just make the whole list sound boring.

Gameplay-wise, it will be based a lot around powerful characters and elite infantry, yes. Core samurai won't be anything special (foot knights essentially), but backed up by the characters you will have some pretty hard-hitting units. I guess you could say they will be a mix of WoC and VC, very close combat-oriented.

Been going through the material for L5R a bit now, and what strikes me as the greatest problem is the huge amount of material there is to use about it. I would like to divide the history sections into possibly 4 sections: Establishing Nippon, the Clan War, middle history and the unification of Nippon under the current Shogun. So now I ask you L5R players, what are the most important sections of history in L5R, and in which books would I find them? I figured the War against the Shadowlands and the Clan War would be among them, as well as the Thousand years of Peace, but I'm probably missing something. I could really need some help sorting out this things so I can focus on teh actual list afterwards, but to do that I also need to get a feel for it, and there history and fluff really helps.

Just a quick update for those who bother care :

Fixed most of the fluff now, history section is still a mess, but the society part is done at least. Most of the bestiary is done as well, only special characters left and the mounts. Special characters will be the Shogun, the Emerald Champion, the Red Ronin (not the robot ) and a female character based on Tomoe Gozen. If anyone has any more ideas for special characters you would like to see in the book, let me know.

Hopefully I can have v.1.0 out next week.

Finally finished with version 1.0! Download link here and in the first post:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/33025584/Warha...ies-Nippon

Hey M4cR1II3n,
I love the book, it's very colourful and I love the big history part...there could be alot more in the "official" armybooks...you hit the honour/dishonour system of old japan very well, good job! The people from a German website called "brueckenkopf" also like it alot, you get good feedback from them! Maybe I can playtest some games with the book, looking forward for that.

Just a minor flaw I've found: In the entry of the Shadow Eye is stated, that he cannot be the dark elf army's leader instead of nippon..
Btw: Is the portrait of the shugenja made by genzoman from deviantart? looks familiar somehow

Thanks, glad you like it

And yeah, I fixed the Shadow Eye thing, it was a copy paste from the DE book

And yes, it is made by genzoman, I have used artwork from him several times. Hope he don't mind, I did mention him in the credits

Personally, I would've done a little more thorough job of filing the serial numbers off the L5R setting. For the fluff, it looks like you pretty much just replaced 'Rokugan' with 'Nippon'.

You would actually be quite right there

Well, I did rewrite the creation background a bit with the kami, but I did stuck to L5R as much as possible, as most of the stuff fitted really well imo. If you want to have a crack at it, be my guest, rewriting a whole nation's fluff isn't really my favourite thing in the world.

If I wasn't in the middle of a big move, I would. I'll start taking stabs at it once everything stabilizes, though.

Sounds great, if you do I'll put you in the credits for sure

Hmmm rules are looking good but there Just a minor flaw I've found: In the entry of the Shadow Eye is stated, that he cannot be the dark elf army's leader instead of nippon..
am i right?

Yeah, that's just a copy paste error, it will be rectified in the future.

This is my first post and I am not very good at this sort of thing so forgive me if I mess something up! Anyway I like the rules for samurai and also have an idea to add. Please hear me out. I would like to suggest changing the Way of The Warrior to this- "for each successful hit inflicted in close combat by a model with this rule, the model can immediately make one additional attack. These additional attacks do not benefit from Way of the Warrior".
So what do you think? Pretty simple and very fitting. Feels kind of like a less powerful non-evil version of hatred and would make the samurai stand out more as a close combat oriented army.

That's not bad, not bad at all! Ofc it would have to be carefully balanced to not make them too great, perhaps by giving them an additional attack if they successfully hit and wound (before saves)? Will have to do some math on that, but it might actually work

Glad you liked the idea! My closest gaming group is very impressed with your work but have found Nippon to be a little under powered in comparison to the other armies we commonly play, so we have implemented some changes within our group to make the Samurai better in combat, which is what we feel their major strength would be. These are the full list of changes we have been testing, everything else in the book we kept unchanged.

Way of the Warrior:
Enemy models striking at a model with this rule are at -1 To Hit. In addition, models with this rule may never choose ‘Flee’ as a charge reaction and must always accept challenges. In addition, they may re-roll all failed Psychology tests and ignores Panic caused by friendly
units without this rule.

Katana:
The Katana counts as a hand weapon. All attacks with a Katana are resolved at +1 to wound, even if mounted.

Sashimonos:
The sashimono are small banners fitted to the backs of Ashigaru (15 pts/unit), Samurai (25 pts/unit), and in special holders on the horses of Samurai Cavalry (35 pts/unit) and Red Devils (35 pts/unit). Sashimono are used to identify friendly troops and to make the unit seem larger than it actually is. In game terms, and for the purposes of combat resolution and Steadfast, a unit equipped with Shashimonos counts as having one more rank than normal and may therefore claim an additional +1 rank bonus.

Horo Cloaks:
Horo Cloaks are often worn by mounted Nipponese warriors. Fashioned of finely woven silk, Horo Cloaks are wrapped around the body to catch arrows and other missile weapons. Any Ballistic Skill based shooting attack directed at a model equipped with a Horo Cloak is resolved at -1 Strength. Horo Cloaks have no effect on black powder weapons. (+4 pts/ model, +4 pts/taisho, +6 pts/daimo)


Merciless Strike:
Hatamoto are veteran warriors, the most skilled and hardened Samurai in all of Nippon. In combat the Hatamoto are terrible to behold for they fight with terrifying and single minded purpose, delivering a complex series of perfectly timed strikes designed to wound and maim multiple opponents with each strike. For each successful roll to wound (before saves), a Hatamoto may immediately make an additional attack. These additional attacks do not benefit from the Merciless Strike rule.

We have also increased Hatamoto to 14 pts/model and 2 attacks each. Besides these changes listed everything else we have left alone. So far we have found these changes to be good and not OP'd in the context of this book, although further testing will tell for sure. Now for a humble request; Please Please Please write an Early Imperial Roman book for WHF!! Thank you, Brom.