Strength Pts in Dragon Rampant

[gorillacrab]

Gentlemen,
This long winter has me going back to the fantasy comfort of Dragon Rampant.

As Mr Mersey does with most of his rules, the game encourages flexibility and creativity in making units that feel right for your game. There are unit options and magic options based on points, as you know.

My question: aiming to create some truly "formidable" War Beasts, how would you recommend handling bumping the Beasts Strength Points from 6 to 12? Consider on page 9 of the rules, it talks about a single giant Flesh Golem having 12 Strength points (double the usual amount) - but there is no mention of the point cost to do this.

I like the idea of having one very large and very tough War Beast - but the standard 6 strength points means your horizon-darkening monster drops to half-attacks as soon as it takes 3 wounds (half of its 6) - and that can happen very quickly as these guys do draw attention even if they do have Armour 4.

To kick things off, I don't believe simply "doubling" the cost of the Critter is the way to go, but acknowledge the considerable gain in stamina is worth around 3-4 points - probably 4. Anyway, there it is - what are your thoughts and recommendations?
- GC

[Dr. The Viking]

Gain in stamine but not combat power... I think X1.5 is OK.

But the easiest would be to just try it out and change it as you go along from game to game. I mean with a dead simple set like this, there is a lot of reason to fap around. 

[Hobgoblin]

I don't have the rules to hand, but one option might be to start building the profile from Bellicose Foot with the Shiny Armour upgrade and then adding additional fantasy rules. That gives you a fast, fairly tough and very aggressive profile to start with. And with 12 strength points.Maybe add Venomous? I forget if there are suitable "beefing up" rules on the defensive side.

Will have a look at the book when I get home.

[beefcake]

My question: aiming to create some truly "formidable" War Beasts, how would you recommend handling bumping the Beasts Strength Points from 6 to 12? Consider on page 9 of the rules, it talks about a single giant Flesh Golem having 12 Strength points (double the usual amount) - but there is no mention of the point cost to do this.

I don't think that section was specifically referring to it as a warbeast but rather using it as something that is already strength 12 like Heavy or Bellicose foot.
But yeah I reckon doubling would be to harsh in this case. x1.5 as Dr Viking has said. Rules are made for changing I guess.

[gorillacrab]

Consensus seems to be 1.5x of original value - say 9 pts then, plus any other extras. again, if anyone else has "built a better war beast" give us your thoughts
- GC

[Hobgoblin]

I had a look last night, and here's what I'd do:

Bellicose Foot @4
Shiny Armour @2
Venomous @3

Now, that gives you a "warbeast" that's a bit slower than a standard Greater Warbeast (though quicker, if memory serves, in bad going), but has the same attack and defence and 12 strength points. With Shiny Armour, the armour is a single point worse than a Greater Warbeast.

That's still a significant difference, though, so why not bend the rules to allow for two Shiny Armour upgrades, taking the points to 11? You then have a fierce, fleet-footed beast with Wild Charge, Armour 4 and 12 strength points. It works out at 11 points, which is more expensive than a "legal" unit can be, but that's a given.

The advantage of doing it this way is that you're building from actual profiles and upgrades, so the points cost might be less of a shot in the dark.

Out of interest, what model are you planning to use for this?

[sukhe_bator]

I've been pondering how DR can be adapted to cope with armies which are composed almost entirely of warbeasts - e.g. Ents or even my Oliphaunt heavy Haradrim
Seems you can only realistically field a couple in an army as it stands, which seems a shame particularly since I have a whole herd

Why field just one beastie which just acts as an arrow magnet, when you can have several

[Hobgoblin]

Just field the whole lot! DR works fine with points well above the standard 24.

I had a go at putting together a mumakil-based ambush scenario for DR here.

And I had some ideas for stampeding mumaks, which I put here.

[gorillacrab]

To Hobgoblin,
Some great ideas from you on using modified Bellicose foot. Even at Armour 3 for a single boost of Shiny Armour, it makes a more formidable single creature given the 12 hits. I guess some playtesting is in order.

To answer you question, I have a decent collection of prepainted DD dragons - but I'm also painting some large and terrifying "special" monsters from the Conan board game from Monolith; check out "Thog" on this image page for an idea: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/555913147728733158/
- GC