To help me ’contrast and compare’ the various Evolving weapons I am working on, I ended up formatting them as ’reference cards’ I would use for the related campaign (print these out, sleeve them as Magic cards and mark the kill/death counts and evolution with a pencil/marker).
Having them side-by-side allows me to work-out which stat/rule buffs to apply, while keeping them thematically distict and somewhat consistent in ’power-level’, especially as I try to think-up additional ones, attempting to avoid them being repetitive or an ’excessive power-creep’ as I keep going...
So far I made only chaos related Evolving weapons, but we also have Gene-stealer and Malstrain corruption available in the game, so it would be ’fair’ to show them some love (for now I’m thinking some sort of Tyranid symbiote/parasite living weapons, that link the weilder to the Brood-mind and therefore lead to GSC corruption of the gang using them), as well as something for ’vanilla’ Outlaws and Lawful gangs (Necron, Tau and Eldar ’intelligent’ weapons and Imperial ’holy/saintly’ relics that may influence their users), but I am still working-out the ’fluff/logic’ to justify most of these, since that will inform their rules design and flavour.
As you may notice, trough this process all of the god-specific whispering weapons I described previously have changed to varying degrees (mostly in the traits/skills they unlock levelling-up) and I’ve defined some design patterns and upper/lower limits, in the name of ’balance’. For example, I decided to limit myself to making-up one ’unique’ rule/skill per weapon for their 3rd ’skill advancement’ and use only existing traits/skills/rules for all other advancements. Aditionally since these weapons are meant to corrupt the gangs using them, any character weilding any of these will have ’Inured to insanity’, making Insanity (the drawback for the 3rd OoA of the user) pointless, so for all Chaos weapons I instead changed it to gaining the Starved condition from the Dark uprising campaign and rather than just dying after the 4th OoA, the owner will turn into a Chaos spawn, as we often hear how the path of any aspiring champion of chaos will always end either becoming Exalted or devolving into a Spawn.
Khorne is ’Melee only’, so it has the only god-specific weapons that take up 2 hands/slots to weild, while all other gods have a one-handed melee weapon and a special ranged weapon as their options; besides those, there will also be a bunch of ’undivided’ weapons, that can be weilded by followers of any chaos god, mainly to generate more options, for larger gaming groups and to avoid pigeon-holing players into picking a chaos god/weapon because other choices ’ran-out’ or gangs that may mount-up multiple Underhells expedition to search for more such weapons...
Anyway, for now lets do an overview of the Evolving weapons and their Unique rules so far:
Khorne
Melee focused entirely on enhancing offensive damage output. For their ’unique’ Skills I gave each a passive ’always-active’ benefit and a secondary buff that ’activates’ only after they ’kill’ an appropriate enemy target in melee (the Skull Taker will accept only worthy offerings like champs/leaders).
1. Gore Twins (Paired Chain Axes)
It is all about charging, doing an obscene number of attacks and fishing for 6s ’to-wound’ to trigger Shred and Rending for maximum carnage.
- Blood Thirst: When performing a Charge move, this fighter advances an extra D3’’ (on top of the normal Movement+D3’’). Additionally, after taking OoA one or more enemy fighters with a Melee attack or Coup-de-Grace, until the end of the battle this fighter treats the Charge (Double) action as a (Basic) action instead.
2. Skull Taker (Chain Glaive)
This is the opposite approach: you can trade all your attacks for just one ’super-juiced’ attack and you want to go after enemy Champions/Leaders in particular, to assert dominance on the battlefield (aka Terrify anyone left). From a modelling perspective, I would go with one of the various 2-handed Chain axes/swords/glaives from World-eater Berserkers, Eightbound or Night lord kill team kits).
- Head Hunter: When resolving Melee attacks against fighters with the
Gang Hierarchy (X) rule, this fighter may re-roll any 1s to-Hit and 1s to-Wound. Additionally, after taking OoA one or more enemy fighters with the
Gang Hierarchy (X) rule, this fighter gains
Terrifing until the end of the battle; if this fighter already had Fearsome or Terrifing, before triggering this effect, enemies suffer an additional penalty to Willpower checks triggered by Terrifing (-1 for pre-existing Fearsome and -2 for Terrifing).
Nurgle
Nurgle has always been about resilience and spreading plagues and poisons, so the unique skills for both weapons provide passive debilitating auras. Also, since the Bile Spewer is a Toxin weapon, instead of the normal +1 Str for the 2nd OoA of the weilder, it has a +1 to its Toxin to-Wound rolls (which will apply to both the Blasts and hits from the Poison Blood skill).
3. Frothing Sermon (Plague Censer Flail)
This weapon is mainly inspired by OG fantasy Skaven Plague censer bearers (ideally you would model it using some of the AoS Skaven censers with smoke, maybe some Dark angel smoky backpack censers or even the ’skull-filled’ flail from the Jackal’s kit), but its theme is all about being ultra resilient and ’self-healing’ by spreading Plague mist.
- Plague Mist: In the End phase of each round, before Recovery rolls, any enemy fighters within 3’’ of this model suffer an automatic Radphage hit (roll for the weilder as well): on 4+ they suffer a Flesh wound (roll separately for each affected model).
4. Bile Spewer (Plague Launcher)
Basically a Toxic Grenade launcher, fuelled by the weilder’s own vile bodily fluids (could be modelled with tubes from the gun going into the owner’s bloated belly, for max ’theme/immersion’) that attracts the characteristic Nurgle’s swarms of flies...
- Cloud of Flies: Any fighters within 3’’ of this model (him/her included) count as being Shrouded (-1 to-Hit with ranged attacks); any Rule/Skill that allows attackers to ignore/reduce Cover works on this as well. Additionally Enemy fighters within 3’’ of this model suffer -1 to-Hit on any attack rolls they make.
Tzeench
With Tzeench I wanted to enphasise its scheeming nature, so the weapons are marginally ’less killy’ than others, but they tend to focus on deception and debilitating/controlling the enemy either with free-casting Wyrd powers or turning chuncks of the battlefield into ’hazzardous terrain’ that debuff the enemy and spawn eldrich tentacles. Like with Nurgle’s Toxin weapon, in the case of the Veil Breacher being a Graviton weapon, the +1 Str for the 2nd OoA of the weilder was somewhat pointless, so instead the weapon gains Power (essentially +1 Damage on 6s to-Hit).
5. Slithering Malice (Ritual Dagger)
Essentially this is a Wisperbane Knife, meant for ritualistic blood sacrifices...
- Ritual Offering: This fighter becomes an Unsanctioned Psycher and can choose one Wyrd power from either the Chaos powers table or any discipline from the Book of Outcasts. After taking one or more enemy fighters OoA with a Melee attack or Coup-de-Grace, instead of using the ’free Fight action’ (granted by the Whispering trait), this fighter can choose to manifest one of its Wyrd powers as a free action. If the enemy that triggered this had the Gang Fighter (X) rule, this fighter can manifest a Simple or Basic action power, while if the ’sacrificed’ enemy had the Gang Hierarcy (X) rule, this fighter can manifest even Double action wyrd power for free.
6. Veil Breacher (Warp-gun)
This is basically a Grav-gun, that creates small warp-breaches in reality, to slow-down and generally weaken anyone caught up in them and sometimes even summon warp entities attracted by the anomaly. From a modelling perspective, this could be represented with one of the weirder Van saar/Mechanicus guns (Grav/Rad-guns), a chaos-y energy gun or even an arcane tome (like the ones from Chaos SM Legionares Kill team, Redemptionist or Inquisitorial agents/retinue kits).
- Warp Tendrils: While within the Blast AoE, any fighter suffers a -1 penalty to any Statistic checks they are required to make and any doubles rolled, while manifesting/negating Wyrd powers, will trigger Perils in the warp (not just 11 and 66). Additionally any fighter going OoA whitin the Blast AoE, will leave behind a Beast lure token, when removed from the table.
Slaanesh
Slaanesh is mainly about excess in all fields, but I focused mainly on the ’Noise weapons’ and ’Martial pride/arrogance’ themes, so the unique skills ended up being pretty big auras that influence/control the enemy behaviour, but unlike previous auras, the weilder have to take enemies OoA to activate and empower these auras.
7. Height of Hubris (Hex-Blade)
This is the manifestation of ’Come at me, Bro!’ to the extreme: all its conferred skills revolve around baiting enemies into close combat and punishing them for it.
- Provocateur: After taking one or more enemy fighters OoA with a Melee attack or Coup-de-Grace, instead of using the ’free Fight action’ (granted by the Whispering trait), this fighter can activate their
Provocateur aura, which lasts until the start of their next activation and has a range of 6’’+1’’ for each enemy taken OoA by this model this battle (max 6). Any enemy fighters (not Broken or Seriously injured), starting their activation within range, must make a Willpower test; if the enemy that triggered this had the Gang Fighter (X) rule, apply a -1 to this test, while if the ’triggering’ enemy had the Gang Hierarcy (X) rule, apply a -2 penalty to the Will test. If the Willpower check is passed they can activate normally, but if it fails, they must immediately declare a charge toward this model, or stand up and move directly toward him/her, if they were pinned to start with.
8. Rapture’s Wail (Doom-siren)
In the end I opted to make it a Template weapon, since to me it better fits the idea of a sonic weapon. From a modelling perspective, this could be represented by some Loud-speaker-like contraptions on the models backpack/shoulders or mouth (think of the typical Noise marine’s art), leaving their hands free to use some scary melee weapon (preferrably a Versatile weapon, to stay out of enemy engagement/reaction attack range), to take advantage of the Whispering trait’s ’free fight actions after kills’.
- Cacophony: After taking one or more enemy fighters OoA, this fighter activates the
Cacophony aura, which lasts until the end of the battle and has a range of 6’’+1’’ for each enemy taken OoA by this model this battle (max 6). While within range enemy fighters suffer a -1 penalty to any Mental (Ld, Cl, Wil, Int) stat checks they are required to make, can’t initiate or be part of group activations, nor can they use or benefit from Lead by example and Leadership skills. In Stealth missions ’activating’ this aura will automatically trigger the alarm and if using Visibility (X), the weilder will always counts as Revealed (due to the constant noise they make).
