Ships .....

[keravnos]

and of course there is the civ3 mod which has ships and many of them, and all sorts of units... It has been going on for years, so it has most of its roster filled up.

[DrZoidberg]

and of course there is the civ3 mod which has ships and many of them, and all sorts of units... It has been going on for years, so it has most of its roster filled up.

I was on the team making that. Most models are far too low in detail to be used. And when zoomed in on, they're really crappy. But then again. If we don't care, but just want something. Sea battles aren't animated anyway, so it doesn't really matter.

[Taranaich]

Archelons for the Lizardmen! If we're not using the Arcanodon for the Engine of the Gods (presumably Arcanodon is just too rare and large a unit to bother with), perhaps we could have a seagoing Arcanodon for the Lizardmen?

I personally think it would be really neat for the Lizardmen trade boats to be rafts, and the "ships" to be big reptilian things on the campaign map. It would look awesome to invade shores or blockade a port with giant plesiosaurs.

[Ciaran]

Here are some pics of the High Elves and Dark Elves Man O' War Fleet, from a french website.

I'll try and find more infos, but from what I remember, Elves had superior but more expensive fleets. Oddly, Bretonia had 17th century-like ships (and was described as a major sea power), while the Empire had medieval-looking ones.
The Norses (who were probably part of Chaos) had various kind of longships, the Dwarves got Steamships.
Rules were made for the undeads, but no figures were released (though I guess VC should get Empire ships with an undead look, and TK egyptian-like ships).

Edit : And here is another site with loads of info, and a few other pics.

When was Man o´War published? That could explain a lot about inconsistent background, because of all races/factions, the Bretonians underwent the greatest changes in the different editions of Warhammer. They even started out, I believe, more or less as a copy of the Empire.

[Phats]

It would be great if you could spawn some rebel sea monsters.

Behemoth, Black Leviathan, Gargantuan, Kraken, Megaladon, Promethean, Sea Dragon, Sea Elemental, Triton

[Bwian]

Hmmm...sort of an alternative to pirates

[Bwian]

OK ...here are some of hte prospective lineups.

MTW2 seems to have 3 classes of ships, so each race will get 3 ships. You have 'light warships', 'heavy warships' and 'flagships'. There is only one actual model used on the stratmap, and it is basically an unmasted ship that gets the nation banner imposed on it as a flag/sail. There is no way to have multiple ships actually displaying on the map, since they are effectively 'admiral markers' rather than unit markers.

The actual ships are just the icons and used for combat resolution.

Dwarves:
Monitor ( light )
Ironclad ( heavy )
Dreadnought ( flag )

Chaos: ...er...really not sure here! Probably warped versions of the Empire ships. Nurgle plaguefleets are mentioned, but nothing for the other chaos factions.

Empire:
Wargalley ( light)
Wolfship ( heavy )
Greatship ( flag )

Bretonnia:
Buccaneer ( light)
Corsair ( heavy)
Galleon (flag )

High Elf:
Hawkship ( light )
Eagleship ( heavy )
Dragonship ( flag )

Dark Elf:
Doomreaver ( light )
???? (heavy )
Black Ark ( flag )

Orc:
Drillakilla ( light )
Bigchuka ( heavy )
Hulk (flag )

Skaven:
Warpraider (light )
Deathburner (heavy )
Doombringer (flag )

Lizardmen:
some swimming lizard things ????

Vampire Counts:
corrupted versions of the Empire fleets. Same ships, wrecked and crewed by the dead

Tomb Kings:
Some basic ships based on old styled Dhows, with a battle-barge for the Flag. Nothing canon, so best guess will be used based on old Egyptian ship designs.

Have I missed anyone ?

[Lordy]

Lizardmen use Sea Drakes, i posted a picture already in this thread but here it is again for you.

http://us.games-workshop.com/games/w...s/approach.jpg

Maybe you could just use 3 different ages of Sea Drake for the lizardmens ships.

[Dogman55]

Imo Lizardmen should only get one ship version... sailing isnt really there strong point... lol it could be there main weakness, besides slow movesments?

[Bwian]

There is no need for any race to have 'good' ships, but every race has to have some kind of sea travel to reach every part of the map. The Lizard' ssea drakes would provide transport and some combat power. The flagship could easily be a 'Venerable Sea drake' with increased stats. Easy to do.

[DrZoidberg]

Norse are chaos and they use longships and dragonships.

[Casuir]

Elves use dragonships, norse use kingships. Chaos had a full fleet lineup for each of the major powers in man o war, basic unit was a death galley and specialised units on top.

[DrZoidberg]

Elves use dragonships, norse use kingships. Chaos had a full fleet lineup for each of the major powers in man o war, basic unit was a death galley and specialised units on top.

Sorry, I used real world terminology. Bad mistake in this crowd :)

[Bwian]

One Dwarf Ironclad for the strat map

Still got some serious issues with the strat map models..but specifically the textures. I could not get the thing to use the mod-folder for the textures AT ALL. Soon as I did, the game crashed. Took a bit of fiddling, but it did turn out to be the mod folder not working for strat map models.

I might need to add in the mod-path to find the textures... or I might just have to live with the problem At least I got them working!

[DaCrAzYmOfO]

Archelons for the Lizardmen! If we're not using the Arcanodon for the Engine of the Gods (presumably Arcanodon is just too rare and large a unit to bother with

Whats that?

Arcanodons and the engine of the gods....SOUNDS NIFTY

[Dogman55]

as long as the lizardmen can get the basic big bad guys (Stegadons n the flame spitters, hell maybe even a carnosaur) i wont miss an engine of the gods >.>

[Taranaich]

The Engine of the Gods is basically a one-off unit for a Red Host of Tehenhauin, which consists of a massive stone gyroscope mounted on the back of an Arcanodon that summons comets to devastated the battlefield. An Arcanodon is the Lustrian equivalent of an Apatosaurus.

This is Neil Langdon's model, generally considered the archetypal EotG:


A couple of other EotGs are seen in higher quality here (it's in French, but look at the pics!!!

I would miss the Arcanodon, the Lizardmen could do with the heavy artillery, but I think Lizardmen resources would be better spent on the regular units. Besides, the mighty Stegodon's more than enough for crushing and maiming hotblood infidels!

[Bwian]

Well ... now that I have sorted out the issues with the strat-map models, I have put all the ship units into the necessary sections, and removed the original entries for the unwanted vessels.

Just need to render up some unit cards for them now

[Eufarius]

Bwian that ship looks cool. you cant add smoke to it ?

like coming off its exhaust?

[Bwian]

I could add some static smoke through an alpha texture, but it isn't as easy as it sounds to make it look good. I will give it a try and see how it looks. No way to animate it though... the strat map skeleton doesn't have that much detail to play animation games with!

My next job, though, is to make the unit cards up for these units. I plan to make some basic meshes and just render up some icons for the unit cards. I have diagrams of most to work from, so it shouldn't be too hard!

[Pantsalot]

Maybe it would be a good idea to continue with more important projects
on this mod then the ships right now. Do u guys even have a warhammer map
made yet?

[Detlef]

yup, they do... Check out "A world to play in"

[Jargon]

Maybe Bwian doesnt want to burn himself out on just doing unit models and textures. If he wants to release the professional looking campaign he has planned then faction specfic ships will have to be done eventually anyway.

[Bwian]

Chill out Pantsalot .... everything needs to be made at some point, and I have been churning out new units on a pretty regular basis.

Casuir is working on the map, and we have all the major landmasses in place, the territories laid out, and just need to finish off the detail of the terrain textures. It's not something I am working on, so me doing this is no holdup.

Likewise, all the unit cards need doing, the text for the unit descriptions needs assembling, and the work is ready to start on the building trees ...

Ships have to be built .... so why NOT do them?

Gives me a break from making more soldiers

[Jubal_Barca]

Are you adding Araby as a faction, becuase they were good sailors and merchants, think arabic (well duh) ships. Also I feel the need to demand slayer pirate ships...

I don't yet have M2TW, but is ther any way the skaven could have, like, tunnels rather than ships? They'd be naff sailors and I believe they get around by tunnels in the fluff...

[Bwian]

Man O War rules gave the Skaven ships ... so there does seem to be a precedent for rats at sea. Sort of traditional! I presume they jump overboard before the ship actually sinks

[Taranaich]

MTW2 seems to have 3 classes of ships, so each race will get 3 ships. You have 'light warships', 'heavy warships' and 'flagships'. There is only one actual model used on the stratmap, and it is basically an unmasted ship that gets the nation banner imposed on it as a flag/sail. There is no way to have multiple ships actually displaying on the map, since they are effectively 'admiral markers' rather than unit markers.

So, this means that there's only one ship model for each race? Is there enough room for each faction to have a ship suitable for them, or will some have to "double up" like in the culture slots?

Also, awesome ironclad! Is this the first M2 mod to have modded ships in it?

[Bwian]

None of the ships actually have 'models' as such, just one model to represent an admiral on the stratmap. I think there can be only one model, so I am choosing the mid-range one each time.

Each vessel will have a unit card, as per stock ships. I will make some simple meshes for them and render up the pictures for the cards. Won't take long to do, and then I am back to the units proper

[DrZoidberg]

After what has been close to a six months hiatus from adding texts, I've picked up the baton once again.

Bwian gave me the great honour of not only writing the descriptions of the various ships, but also to do some research, and if necessary make shit up to fit the bill. Since Warhammer is such a rich universe, I'd rather stick to canon than my own fantasy. This has served me well since Man O'War has most races covered and give tactical and cultural explanations which will make a fun, and possibly educational read. All went well until I got to Lizardmen and Undead.

Sometimes research can backfire. The ships for the Undead look and sound like they've been pulled out of somebodies ass. They don't really fit in. Rather than ignore them and set it straight, I thought I'd turn to you guys to offer me your opinions.

What we need as far as Total War is concerned is three ships for each faction.
Light, heavy and flagship. All with corresponding dockyard buildings in cities.

Lizardmen

Official canon gives Lizardmen one "ship" and that's the Dragon Turtle. As far as I can tell from pictures I've found, it is also known, (back in the Old World) as a Sea Drake. If these are different, they sure look the same. It's basically a big turtle that can take about 15 Sauruses a pop. A bunch of Dragon Turtles and we have a Lizardman invasion fleet.

Anybody know of any more boats or creatures Lizardmen use? We could use small, large and huge Dragon Turtle...but that isn't supported by what I've read about them. My suggestion is that they only have one type of "ship". Just as in Total War some factions simply have a useless navy. If they want a powerful navy, they'll just have to have lots of turtles.

Thoughts on this?

Von Carsteins and Tomb Kings

In Man O'War they have together a fleet consisting of:

Specter
A small ship that causes fear. Seems pretty useless and hard to see it having any practical use other than a minor support role.

Skullrammer
A ship with a ram. A common type of ship in Man O'War and seems to be in it, not because it makes any sense, but because it made Man O'War more fun to play.

Floating Necropolis
So, who's idea is this? Sounds cool, but for fucks sake? Necropolis... floating? Is it just me or is this simply a really dumb idea?

Skullchukka
This is a wee bit more interesting, even though it has a silly and Orcish name. A ship build out of bones with a huge bone catapult. Why bones? Why not build it out of wood? For Tomb Kings this would make sense, since there's nothing living there at all. But Von Carsteins live in the woods.

Boneripper
Also a all bone ship with some heinous murderous contraption that I've failed to identify.

Ghostship
A non-ethereal ship that floats around and terrifies people. Not really useful in TW since it can't transport troops.

Deathship
These are galleys made out of bones with undead sailors.

Worth pointing out is that these don't come from any official rules, but from a magazine called Citadel Journal. But it's Games Workshop, so it's semi-canon.

Needless to say, we need completely different fleets for Tomb Kings and Von Carsteins.

So guys, thoughts on this?

I have a suggestion:

In Von Carstein history there's a Black Ship mentioned, which is a galleon. We can make that into a type, if we want to. But that ship was manned by very much alive sailors. I think we should aim for old European ships, like galleons. I think it fits the Dracula mood?

Caravel (light), Carack, (heavy), Galleon, (flag). Of course it would be crewed by zombie sailors, the sails would be ripped, and constantly enveloped in mist and propelled by ghostly magical winds. How about that suggestions?

Now for the Tomb Kings.

I like the Deathship from Man O'War. A galley is of course a great way to propel a ship where the oarsmen will never get tired. Also I like the idea of having a ship with a huge bone catapult, but to rename it. Tomb Kings call their catapults, Screaming Skulls, so why not keep to the nomenclature?

Bonegalley, (light)
A small galley.

Deathgalley, (heavy)
A large galley with an archer contingency to pelt their opponents.

Screaming skull galley, (flag).
The biggest galley featuring a large screaming skull catapult?

So how about this suggestion? Anybody else have a better idea. When there is a Warhammer canon, I think it should have precedence, but in this case the info is flimsy.

[IMG][URL=https://imageshack.us]

dragon turtle picture

[Taranaich]

Anybody know of any more boats or creatures Lizardmen use? We could use small, large and huge Dragon Turtle...but that isn't supported by what I've read about them.

It seems perfectly reasonable to me. Reptiles tend to keep growing throughout their lives, and so some very old individuals could reach huge sizes, so dragon turtles of different ages could be used in different roles: juvenile turtles with, say, 7 saurus crew could function as light attack craft, the 15-saurus crew could be the archetype Dragon Turtle, but there could also be rare, ancient Dragon Turtles with perhaps 30 saurus capacity.

Some of the ships look quite nasty (seen those Slaanesh blade things? Crazy!), but some do seem rather daft, like the floating necropolis. Just go with what you think's most suitable.