AoS28 meets Outgard: The Funeral Procession rules

In death there is life and in memory there is revelation. They gather confused to celebrate dagmál, to strengthen themself before the gods, to have the will to walk on. They cannot know what awaits.

If one wants to explore the darker edges of the Warhammer 40,000 setting, bereft of Space Marines and Knight titans, and instead populated with frail humans on the edge of sanity, along with shady Inquisitors, and ghoulish cults, then Inq28 is there for you, with many great communites with like-minded individuals (Such as the Ammobunker and the Inquisitorium. Until recently, If you wanted to bring this narrative- and conversion-focused theme to Age of Sigmar, however, there was no distinct community to welcome you. Excitingly, this is a thing of the past now, with Bruticus from Ex Profundis coining the term “AoS28” to describe the Inq28-style of hobbying being applied to the Nine realms of Age of Sigmar. In addition to penning some guidelines for getting involved in AoS28, the Grand Alliance forums started a thread for people to post ideas and models and a facebook group was also started. In a very short time, these places have been flooded with all manner of fantastic conversions and warband ideas. When first reading about AoS28, we could not help but think of the Outgard project held last year. While technically set in the 40k universe, the gritty stagnation of culture and lack of technology beyond that of the middle ages, fits quite well with Age of Sigmar. Possibly the most iconic warband that took part, and certainly our favorite (in no small part because its leader was already dead before the games started!), was Alexander Winberg’s Funeral Procession! As a first venture into exploring AoS28, we figured we would try our hands at adapting their rules to Age of Sigmar, and talk a little about our thoughts about warband design.

Chief Ruma

Chief Ruma

Although Bruticus from Ex Profundis recommended using an adapted set of the Hinterland rules (skirmish rules for AoS) for AoS28, people new to the Inq28 style of narrative gaming might not realize that it was only meant as a loose guideline to help you get started, one that can help ease you away from extensive rules and point values. At its core, AoS28 (and Inq28) is about creating characters and exploring and expanding lesser known elements of the setting. Because of this, the ruleset that you use is not critical, so long as you have a good working knowledge of it. When thinking about creating rules for the Funeral Procession, I decided to give the Age of Sigmar ruleset a chance (afterall, AoS28 gets its name from it!). This was partially due to the simplicity of the system, not filled with innumerable special rules, and the fact that the AoS28-supported Hinterlands is based off of them. Glancing over the Hinterland rules, I quickly lost interest as it got bogged down with Gold/point costs and model restrictions. While these have value for a regimented skirmish game between strangers, I find it quickly leaches away much of the creative freedom that draws me to AoS28 to begin with. Besides, none of the models I would be creating rules for really resemble standard AoS warscrolls, and trying to wade through all of the available ones to find one that passingly fit would remove a lot of the fun of warband creation, and ultimately be a poor substitute. So with this in mind, I went about creating the Funeral Procession’s warscolls from the ground up, with a few official ones for reference.

Kratti

 

Iki-Turso - the breaker

When going about designing the rules for the warband, I started by simply downloading a few warscrolls of related units from Games Workshop’s website just to get a sense of power levels. My first goal was to determine a general statline for the weakest of warriors, frail empire spearmen and chaos marauders, knowing that the Funeral Procession was largely downtrodden peasants mourning the loss of their lord. Without stats like Toughness, Strength, and Weapon/Ballistic skill, it was not as easy to define and demarcate these Necropilgrims from the likes of human militia. I ended up selecting the following basic statline for most of the warband because of its similarity to Empire Freeguild Guard:

Movement: 5”

Wounds: 1

Bravery: 5 (although it is not really used in Hinterlands due to the lack of units)

Save: -

For some of the characters, like tiny Hiisi, I adjusted it slightly, decreasing the movement value or adding some armor. For their weapons, I used a similar strategy, choosing the basic statline of Freeguild militia weaponry and modifying it slightly to reflect different weapon options:

	Range	Attacks	To Hit	To Wound	Rend	DMG
weapon	1”	1	4+	4+	-	1

Lowyatar - Her visions are blinded and her mind tormented by guilt and madness. Still the threads of fate are hers to manipulate for she is of the Norn lineage.

For all of this modification, I took special effort not to focus on making something powerful, often reducing some of the stats if they seemed applicable. This is important considering the theme surrounding the warband. They are not warriors, but sorry souls mourning good times past. And while some might worry that this could result in a under-powered warband, efficacy on the tabletop is not really my concern; their motivation for gathering is not one to fight others, but to guide their master to eternal rest. Therefore I treated rule design more like a role-playing experience, focusing on theme and character.

Lalli

One element I struggled with while designing the rules was the lack of psychology in Age of Sigmar. In the older editions of Warhammer, Psychology was something devised to reflect morale and fear within games. Furthermore, it was primarily resolved using a model’s Leadership value. The closest approximation of this in Age of Sigmar is Bravery: when a unit takes casualties, they need to take a battleshock test and, depending on the result, lose models from the unit. Since Hinterlands works on a model by model basis, Bravery and the Battleshock phase are completely ignored, removing even this minor abstraction of morale from the game. Fear was an element that I wanted to convey with the Funeral Procession, as it was an important element in Alex’s original Mordheim rules, reflecting the hollow, despised, revenants that make up the group. One look at these lost souls, harbingers of regret and the futility and failings of existence, should be enough to cause dread to well up in even the most steadfast warrior, a chilling reminder of mortality and the pointlessness of it all. To convey this, I focused on one common element of Fear in many of Games Workshop’s past games, the fact that a model attempting to charge one that causes fear will fail the charge if they do not pass a leadership test. Although the Bravery characteristic is not normally used in Hinterlands, I decided to incorporate it and devised the following rule:

Necropilgrim: Models attempting to charge the necropilgrim must roll 2 dice. If the number is greater than their bravery, their charge distance is decreased by 2.” If the result is double the model’s bravery the charge fails automatically. Furthermore, the roll of a 12 always results in a failed charge.

Hiisi

While the rule will probably need a little playtesting to determine its feasibility, I think it ultimately works a lot like a leadership test from previous games. The most probable roll on 2D6 is 7, which is a fairly common Bravery characteristic, allowing the roller to ignore the rule’s effect. Rolling above this  is still common, but such a roll is not devastating, as it only subtracts 2” from your normal 2D6 charge distance. Models with extremely low Bravery, however, are more likely to be affected by the rule, fitting the theme.

Peikko - Mutie warrior, follower of the Old Hero. Depleted, devoured, despised. The barely human still cling to a desperate belief in the possibility of a noble death.

The last thing that I did was create a few rules for some of the more unique characters in the the warband, like dead Ruma and the wytch Lowyatar, including creating a Command Ability and a Magic spell. Ruma’s Command Ability was largely adapted from many other official warscrolls, allowing friendly models to reroll dice in close combat. Lowyatar’s spell Foretold Doom was more difficult to create because when looking at other warscroll spells, virtually all of them were some permutation of  causing mortal wounds. I found this a little disappointing, as it basically simplified all magic in the Nine Realms to magic missile. Instead, I wanted something that represented her manipulating the delicate threads of fate, bringing disaster and misfortune upon her target. I ended up creating a rule that reduced the probability of the target making To Hit/Wound rolls and armor saves, something that I think does an admirable job conveying her talents.

Väänämö

So concludes my general summary of the design process of bringing the Funeral Procession into AoS28. The rules have not be playtested yet, but we hope to in the near future. You will notice I never really worried over point values or power levels. While these thing are very important for competitive play in Age of Sigmar proper, in the AoS28 format they are secondary or not important at all. My entire effort was spent towards creating characterful rules that fit with the spirit of the models. The warband may be somewhat weak in terms of fighting prowess, but that is exactly how I intended it. They are not warriors, but mourning pilgrims. And ultimately, when they get used in a game, if their power level does not seem quite right, the rules can be adjusted in-game. This works because the purpose of AoS28 is bound so tightly to crafting an interesting story, and seeing where it takes you. Winning is trivial compared to  the journey. So, Onward to Tuonela!

Necropilgrims

Chief Ruma	Range Attacks To Hit To Wound Rend DMG Ensorcelled blade 1” 2 4+ 3+ -1 1 Necro Arkke: The destruction of the remains of Ruma and his Arkke causes the remaining warband to add 1 to the attacks characteristic of each melee weapon in their profile. Necropilgrim: Models attempting to charge the necropilgrim must roll 2 dice. If the number is greater than their bravery, their charge distance is decreased by 2.” If the result is double the model’s bravery the charge fails automatically. Furthermore, the roll of a 12 always results in a failed charge. COMMAND ABILITY: Otherworldly presence: Until the end of your next hero phase you can add 1 to the result of any hit rolls in the combat phase for this model and friendly models with the Necropilgrim special rule within 9” of him. KEYWORDS: DEATH, ORDER, NECROPILGRIM, HUMAN, PEASANTRY, HERO
Lowyatar	Range Attacks To Hit To Wound Rend DMG Withered hands 1” 1 5+ 4+ - 1 Arcane hex: The first wound received, mortal or otherwise, is ignored. Baleful touch: If a wound roll of 6 or more is made with Lowyatar’s withered hands, 1 mortal wound is inflicted rather than normal damage. Necropilgrim: Models attempting to charge the necropilgrim must roll 2 dice. If the number is greater than their bravery, their charge distance is decreased by 2.” If the result is double the model’s bravery the charge fails automatically. Furthermore, the roll of a 12 always results in a failed charge. MAGIC: Lowyatar is a wizard (wytch). She can attempt to cast one spell in each of your hero phases and attempt to unbind one spell in each enemy hero phase. Foretold doom: The vølva scryes the tenuous skeins of fate, bringing about ruin on the target. Foretold doom has a casting value of 5. If successfully cast, the target subtracts 1 from all of their To Hit, To Wound, and saving throws until the beginning of your next hero phase. KEYWORDS: DEATH, ORDER, NECROPILGRIM, VØLVA, HERO, WIZARD
Iki-Turso	Range Attacks To Hit To Wound Rend DMG Rusted great axe 2” 2 4+ 3+ -1 2 Necropilgrim: Models attempting to charge the necropilgrim must roll 2 dice. If the number is greater than their bravery, their charge distance is decreased by 2.” If the result is double the model’s bravery the charge fails automatically. Furthermore, the roll of a 12 always results in a failed charge. KEYWORDS: DEATH, ORDER, NECROPILGRIM, HUMAN, PEASANTRY, HERO
Kratti	Range Attacks To Hit To Wound Rend DMG Rusted axe 1” 1 3+ 4+ - 1 Draugr: Ignore the weapon’s Rend when making save rolls. Hate (King’s Men): May reroll 1 when in combat with enemies with the King’s Men keyword. Necropilgrim: Models attempting to charge the necropilgrim must roll 2 dice. If the number is greater than their bravery, their charge distance is decreased by 2.” If the result is double the model’s bravery the charge fails automatically. Furthermore, the roll of a 12 always results in a failed charge. KEYWORDS: DEATH, ORDER, NECROPILGRIM, DRAUGR, DEADWALKER, PEASANTRY
Peikko	Range Attacks To Hit To Wound Rend DMG Sickle 1” 1 4+ 4+ - 1 Hate (King’s Men): May reroll 1 when in combat with enemies with the King’s Men keyword. Necropilgrim: Models attempting to charge the necropilgrim must roll 2 dice. If the number is greater than their bravery, their charge distance is decreased by 2.” If the result is double the model’s bravery the charge fails automatically. Furthermore, the roll of a 12 always results in a failed charge. KEYWORDS: DEATH, ORDER, NECROPILGRIM, HUMAN, PEASANTRY
Väänämö	Range Attacks To Hit To Wound Rend DMG Worn dagger 1” 1 5+ 4+ - 1 Hate (King’s Men): May reroll 1 when in combat with enemies with the King’s Men keyword. Necropilgrim: Models attempting to charge the necropilgrim must roll 2 dice. If the number is greater than their bravery, their charge distance is decreased by 2.” If the result is double the model’s bravery the charge fails automatically. Furthermore, the roll of a 12 always results in a failed charge. KEYWORDS: DEATH, ORDER, NECROPILGRIM, HUMAN, PEASANTRY
Lalli	Range Attacks To Hit To Wound Rend DMG Blacksmith hammer 1” 1 5+ 4+ - 1 Hate (King’s Men): May reroll 1 when in combat with enemies with the King’s Men keyword. Necropilgrim: Models attempting to charge the necropilgrim must roll 2 dice. If the number is greater than their bravery, their charge distance is decreased by 2.” If the result is double the model’s bravery the charge fails automatically. Furthermore, the roll of a 12 always results in a failed charge. KEYWORDS: DEATH, ORDER, NECROPILGRIM, HUMAN, PEASANTRY
Hiisi	Range Attacks To Hit To Wound Rend DMG Atrophied limbs 1” 1 5+ 5+ - 1 Necropilgrim: Models attempting to charge the necropilgrim must roll 2 dice. If the number is greater than their bravery, their charge distance is decreased by 2.” If the result is double the model’s bravery the charge fails automatically. Furthermore, the roll of a 12 always results in a failed charge. KEYWORDS: DEATH, ORDER, NECROPILGRIM, HUMAN, PEASANTRY

- Eric Wier and Alexander Winberg