Post ideas for new army abilities

[NegativeZer0]

I'm sure chad is always looking for new ideas and who knows if your idea is good/interesting enough maybe it will see print.

Rules:
1. You keep author credit but any abilities submitted becomes Your Move Games to publish, either as written or in modified form.  We get to edit abilities as we see fit for print.

Slightly modified from another thread so chad doesn't have to post this

So lets have some fun and come up with some cool and interesting abilities for new armies.
Try and keep them generic abilities that could be tweaked to work with any race/army/faction/whatever if possible but if you have a specific army/race in mind mention that as well.  Also try and keep your ideas all on one post.  (edit your original post when you think of something new)

Fortune Telling - At the beginning of your movement and command phase you may look at the top card of your command deck.  You can choose to put it on the bottom of your deck and look at the next card.  This is a free action that can only be used once per turn.  (could work with any magic or tribal styled army)
Hatred - During deployment you may mark a unit with hatred.  Your unit gains the close command and you must mark an enemy unit as an objective.  Units with hatred gain +1MC and +(1)0/0. A unit with hatred can not have its command changed or be directly controlled.  If a unit with hatred routes or it's objective unit leaves the table the unit loses hatred.

Poisoned Weapons
On the roll of 1 on a damage dice results in another wound to the target from poisoning.

I've been kicking around ideas for a Demon based army and came up with the following:
Stuff of Nightmares
You may spend one Command Action to empower one of your units with Stuff of Nightmares.  That unit gains the keyword Terrifying and +1 Courage while it has the mark.  Erase the mark if the unit routs.
Feed off Pain
Defense +1/0 and +1 courage when engaded with an enemy not in the green.

Fighting squares - The army is trained to fight in squares (not rectangles). If the unit is unengaged before been final rushed it may turn a quarter turn to face the enemy.
Out Of Phase - Unit can be out of phase with this plane of existence (for example Ghosts/Spirits).
Unit is given a marker, which allows it to discount the first hit against the unit, i.e need 2 or more hits to hit it. Once hit, the marker is lost.

Demons
Soul Hunger: You may spend one Command Action to empower one of your units with Soul Hunger mark.  That unit gains +1 Courage while it has the mark.  If your unit does two or more damage during an attack while engaged, you may erase the mark to heal on damage.  Erasing the mark counts as playing a Command Card. 
Brimstone: Enemy units within range receive (-1) 0/0 hex. 
Nightmares: All friendly units within range gain fearsome and +1 courage.
Unholy Vigor: All friendly units within range gain (+1) 0/0 blessing.

Shieldwall (for armies with large shields and close-packed warriors)
Units with Shieldwall get +1 defensive skill v Ranged attacks.
Fanaticism (for armies with warriors who'll keep fighting instead of routing)
After making a courage roll you can increase your courage by 2 by causing a point of automatic damage to the unit.  This ability may be used multiple times.
Caltrops (for a sneaky army)
Any enemy unit charging this unit or making an attack when this unit flees takes 2 impact hits.

Hunters Instinct: You may spend one Command Action to empower one of your units with Hunters Instinct mark.  That unit gains +1 Courage while it has the mark.  If engaged enemy unit routs, gain (+2) 0/0 for the free attack.  Erase mark if this unit routs.

Berserk
You may spend one command action to imbue a unit with "berserk" Put a marker/check the checkbox/whatever on the unit. The unit gets (+1)+0/+1 and -1/-0 (and maybe courage+1?).

Vengeful
If a unit with "vengeful" gets engaged with a unit that caused it to rout earlier on, it gets (+0) +1/+0, +0/+1 and Courage+1.

Persistence
A unit with "persistence" never routs but suffers a loss of one defensive skill if it fails a rout check. If there is no more defensive skill left, the unit suffers one point of damage. (however if you do not want a unit's defensive skill to drop you can choose to make it suffer a point of damage instead)

Last stand
If a unit with "last stand" is in the red, it suffers no penalties but it gets a bonus of courage +1 instead. (note: this does not apply if a unit is in the yellow though)

[TheJustWiseSage]

Poisoned Weapons
On the roll of 1 on a damage dice results in another wound to the target from poisoning.

I would note that people might argue that poisoning wouldn't work on x and y  units because of this, that and other; however most people understand the basic concept of poisoned weapons. More likely to call it something like "Weapons of The Faithful" where the cause of the extra damage isn't really expand to much.

[Of course, for all you Orc players out there, it's weapons with extra spiky bits]

[boltana]

I've been kicking around ideas for a Demon based army and came up with the following:

Stuff of Nightmares
You may spend one Command Action to empower one of your units with Stuff of Nightmares.  That unit gains the keyword Terrifying and +1 Courage while it has the mark.  Erase the mark if the unit routs.

Feed off Pain
Defense +1/0 and +1 courage when engaded with an enemy not in the green.

[Chad_YMG]

A couple of design parameters to have in mind:

Static army abilities: These are things that an army doesn't pay command actions for.  They can be army-wide (like Ravenwood/Runegard units not paying MC penalties for woods/hills), specific to a subset of units (e.g. Blood Frenzy for Lizardmen, Nets for Ravenwood) or can involve an interaction between units (e.g. Leadership for Umenzi).  These can be costed into the individual units, so they can be pretty good but even small effects (like Nets) can add a lot of flavor.

One thing to be wary of is powerful static abilities that trigger off of something.  Those are often very hard to make work in practice because it leads to units that are, for example, worth 200 points sometimes and 280 points other times -- and the ratio will vary a LOT depending on situations that may not be controllable.  If you look at Blood Frenzy, for example, that's an ability that pushed the boundaries of a triggered static ability.  Anything more than +1 attack would probably have been too big a swing in terms of combat power, and +2 courage required a lot of testing before we were happy with it.

Command Action abilities.  In addition to adding flavor, these form part of the decision tension on command actions.  The best CA abilities should always be on the radar screen but should rarely be so good that you don't even have to think about it.  This is probably the hardest single area of design and one in which I think our own record is probably only worth a B or B+, so if you come up with good ones we're going to be very happy.

[Chad_YMG]

Poisoned Weapons
On the roll of 1 on a damage dice results in another wound to the target from poisoning.

This is actually already in development for the "Ninja" Ratmen army Rob is working on. 

[Chad_YMG]

Fortune Telling - At the beginning of your movement and command phase you may look at the top card of your command deck.  You can choose to put it on the bottom of your deck and look at the next card.  This is a free action that can only be used once per turn.  (could work with any magic or tribal styled army)

This is really neat.  I'm working on an army where this could fit in well, so I'm going to test it out.

Hatred - During deployment you may mark a unit with hatred.  Your unit gains the close command and you must mark an enemy unit as an objective.  Units with hatred gain +1MC and +(1)0/0. A unit with hatred can not have its command changed or be directly controlled.  If a unit with hatred routes or it's objective unit leaves the table the unit loses hatred.

I like this as well.  I think I would want to match it to the Ancient Grudge special situation rules from Kingdoms, since we've already tested that and know (or at least have good grounds for thinking) that the rules for movement work.  This is interesting because instead of the Grudge being a drawback that both players have to work around it would be a tradeoff where you could make one of your units better but at the cost of losing some control.  I'm worried about +1MC though -- I might prefer C+1 or somesuch, although MC could work if it made sense within the faction's flavor.

[Chad_YMG]

I've been kicking around ideas for a Demon based army and came up with the following:

Stuff of Nightmares
You may spend one Command Action to empower one of your units with Stuff of Nightmares.  That unit gains the keyword Terrifying and +1 Courage while it has the mark.  Erase the mark if the unit routs.

Sounds cool.  I can imagine a demonic aura surrounding the unit and making it seem incredibly scary.  The obvious concern is that any "scary" abilities vary a ton in utility depending on whether you're fighting a low-courage army like the Umenzi or a high-courage one like the Undead or even High Elves.  It might be worth making it modal; one box indicates Terrifying and +1 Courage and another box gives a different demonic aura-relate ability; no unit may have more than one box marked at a time.

Feed off Pain
Defense +1/0 and +1 courage when engaded with an enemy not in the green.

I think this is simply too good for a triggered ability, although we could test it.  As an example, let's apply this ability to Orc Swordsmen.  Before it triggers they are worth 237 points.  Afterwards they are worth 305.  We would have to price it by making an estimate of what percentage of the time they would be Feeding off Pain, but a gap that big is a real problem.

[Chad_YMG]

I know, I know...I post a lot on BGG and it's /q there, not /quote so I screw it up here.

[TheJustWiseSage]

Another idea, but might be a bit powerful.

Fighting squares - The army is trained to fight in squares (not rectangles). If the unit is unengaged before been final rushed it may turn a quarter turn to face the enemy.

Note: would reduce a rear attack to a flank attack if desired and unengaged.

[TheJustWiseSage]

Ok, another idea

Out Of Phase - Unit can be out of phase with this plane of existence (for example Ghosts/Spirits).

Unit is given a marker, which allows it to discount the first hit against the unit, i.e need 2 or more hits to hit it. Once hit, the marker is lost.

A play on faith armour.

[boltana]

I've been kicking around ideas for a Demon based army and came up with the following:

Stuff of Nightmares
You may spend one Command Action to empower one of your units with Stuff of Nightmares.  That unit gains the keyword Terrifying and +1 Courage while it has the mark.  Erase the mark if the unit routs.

Sounds cool.  I can imagine a demonic aura surrounding the unit and making it seem incredibly scary.  The obvious concern is that any "scary" abilities vary a ton in utility depending on whether you're fighting a low-courage army like the Umenzi or a high-courage one like the Undead or even High Elves.  It might be worth making it modal; one box indicates Terrifying and +1 Courage and another box gives a different demonic aura-relate ability; no unit may have more than one box marked at a time.

Feed off Pain
Defense +1/0 and +1 courage when engaded with an enemy not in the green.

I think this is simply too good for a triggered ability, although we could test it.  As an example, let's apply this ability to Orc Swordsmen.  Before it triggers they are worth 237 points.  Afterwards they are worth 305.  We would have to price it by making an estimate of what percentage of the time they would be Feeding off Pain, but a gap that big is a real problem.

Your idea of auras got me rethinking the abilities for Demons and simplify the army ability.

Soul Hunger: You may spend one Command Action to empower one of your units with Soul Hunger mark.  That unit gains +1 Courage while it has the mark.  If your unit does two or more damage during an attack while engaged, you may erase the mark to heal on damage.  Erasing the mark counts as playing a Command Card. 

Select units will also have Auras that effect units with range.  These units will be allowed to change selected auras during the Movement and Command phase. 

Brimstone: Enemy units within range receive (-1) 0/0 hex. 
Nightmares: All friendly units within range gain fearsome and +1 courage.
Unholy Vigor: All friendly units within range gain (+1) 0/0 blessing.

[Karasu]

Ooh, ooh,  I like designing stuff!  Can I try?

Shieldwall (for armies with large shields and close-packed warriors)
Units with Shieldwall get +1 defensive skill v Ranged attacks.

Fanaticism (for armies with warriors who'll keep fighting instead of routing)
After making a courage roll you can increase your courage by 2 by causing a point of automatic damage to the unit.  This ability may be used multiple times.

Caltrops (for a sneaky army)
Any enemy unit charging this unit or making an attack when this unit flees takes 2 impact hits.

Duellists (You know what, this actually needs to be a command card)
Play this card on a melee combat before anyone rolls to attack.  This counts as both an offensive card and a defensive card.  No more than 1 point of damage can be done by either side on this turn.  If either unit takes a point of damage they must make a courage check.

[ZiNOS]

Something that i have been working on but is not exactly an army ability but command cards actually.

Call if Nature (druid spell): Place this command card anywhere on the board. It counts as rough terrain and any unit standing on it gets (-1)-1/-1. You can also have the terrain printed on the card with as minimum text as possible.

I really like the idea of using "remove of the game" command cards that will either affect the battleground or the units, permanently.

[lazyj]

ZiNOS that is a pretty cool idea. I could see Ice (-1MC) or Trees (Block LOS, -1 to hit range), or other "nature" effects.

Oooo... Druid / Celt army! Where these are the special Command Cards! Hmm... this will need further thought.

[gull2112]

I like "call of nature" with a tree on it and the unit is unable to move that turn while the troops answer the call.

Sorry, had to say it before Rushass did.