Helena the Virtuous 8E Adaptation

[Servant of Dante]

Alright, I just finished adapting Helena's 2E rules to 8E I've got the rules and notes in pdf form, and I'll post them below. I'll also link my 7E adaptation of Helena thread. I feel like there was other stuff I was going to say . . . but I really can't remember what it was

 

Feel free to ask any questions (actually I'd enjoy answering them). I plan on doing the other 2E characters in the future too, any preferance on who to do next (does anyone even care? I'm thinking of Praxedes or Armandus Helfire).

 

7E adaptation thread: http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/324975-helena-the-virtuous-7e-adaptation/

 

8E adaptation PDF: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B6I7dUBoJLwfVFp2ajNhQTZ2X3c

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Helena the Virtuous is an HQ choice

 

Helena the Virtuous  M 6"  WS 3+  BS 3+  S 3  T 3  W 4  A 4  Ld 10  Sv 3+

 

Helena the Virtuous is a single model armed with a boltgun, the Rod of Grace, frag grenades and krak grenades. Only one of this model may be included in your army.

 

Faction Keywords: Imperium, Adeptus Ministorum, Adepta Sororitas, Convent Sanctorum

Keywords: Character, Infantry, Helena the Virtuous

 

The Rod of Grace (Shooting)  Range 6"  Type Assault 1  S 6  AP -4  D D3

The Rod of Grace (Melee)  Range Melee  Type Melee  S x2  AP -4  D D3

 

ABILITIES

 

Act of Faith, Shield of Faith

 

Rosarius: This model has a 4+ invulnerable save

 

Mantle of Ophelia: Once per game, at the start of any Battle Round, you may declare that Helena is using the Mantle. For the duration of that Battle round you may re-roll Rosarius invulnerable saves for Helena.

 

Sacred Rites: You need not roll a D6 at the start of your turn for the Act of Faith ability, you are always assumed to have rolled a 2+. This does not affect further sources of Acts of Faith, such as the Simulacrum Imperialis ability of the Imagifier, for which you must roll as normal.

 

Holy Radiance: Friendly units within 12” of Helena halve the number of models lost each time they fail a morale check. Round fractional models up. Additionally, all friendly units with line of sight to Helena may use her leadership in place of their own.

 

Revered Leader: The first time Helena loses one or more wounds, even if this results in her being removed as a casualty, or when Helena is removed as a casualty without having lost any wounds, all friendly units gain the Hatred ability for the remainder of the game, as described below. When Helena is removed as a casualty, each friendly non-Character unit must immediately make a Morale test as if it were the Morale phase and four models from the unit had been slain that turn. Helena’s Holy Radiance ability grants no benefit to units making this Morale test. The number of models slain is treated as four even if more models from the unit have already been slain that turn, and models lost to Morale tests caused by this ability do not count toward models slain in the turn for Morale tests made during the Morale phase.

 

Hatred: Units with this ability add 1 to their Leadership and can re-roll hit rolls in a turn in which they charged, made a heroic intervention, or were charged by an enemy unit. Additionally, units with this ability may not Fall Back during the Movement phase when within 1” of an enemy unit.

 

Prioress of the Convent Sanctorum: Helena must be your Warlord. Additionally, your army must contain a unit of Celestians as Helena’s bodyguard. This bodyguard unit does not take up a force organization slot, and it can never fill a mandatory force organization slot. This unit may never voluntarily end the Movement phase 3” or more away from Helena. If, in the Movement phase, Helena moves so that her bodyguard cannot end its move within 3” of her without Advancing, they must Advance and move toward Helena by the shortest possible route.

 

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NOTES

To keep with the rules presentation style of 8E (even if not in terms of formatting) I have not included any flavor text. It’s worth reading though. I did refer to my notes on the 7E adaptation of Helena as I made this (I made rather extensive notes). The 7E adaptation and notes are linked at the top of the thread.

 

Profile: Adapted using the profiles below. Move is 6” like all humans, and have been omitted from the profiles. The Canoness profiles were used as a baseline for how Sisters profiles have changed since 2E. The WS is the tricky one for me, Helena’s was slightly weaker than the base Canoness, but the 8E system of WS is less granular than in previous editions. Celestine and the basic Canoness are the only models in the Sisters army that have a WS of 2+ in 8E. In order to maintain that Helena has slightly worse WS, I have set it to 3+, though it really should be a 2.5+ (if that were possible). Her BS was even more less than the base Canoness, so a BS of 3+ makes sense for her. On the other hand, both BS 7 and 5 hit on a 2+ normally, but again, 8E does not offer us the granularity of previous editions. I am erring in favor of preserving Helena’s stat differences with the base canoness, at the risk of statistically widening them. Her 2E incarnation had 1 less toughness than the basic Canoness. To represent this (as well as to perhaps balance out the power of her abilities), I have set her wounds to 4, 1 less than the base Canoness in 8E. This is one of the few stats in the 8E Canoness’s profile that is high enough that there is some wiggle room. Helena ignored psychology and break tests in 2E, and she’s quite the important, influential person in the Sororitas, so I have set her Ld at 10 even though in 2E it was equal to the base Canoness’s.

 

(Profiles in PDF, I'm not going to retype them here, sorry . . . )

 

Weapons: Targeter and purity seals remain dropped as they no longer have rules. Krak grenades added since they are standard for all Sisters. The Rosarius is an Ability now, rather than a piece of wargear or a weapon.

 

Abilities: Act of Faith and Shield of Faith added as standard Sisters abilities. The Rosarius is an ability rather than a piece of wargear now, so it’s listed here (standard rosaries rule for 8E). Helena’s other abilities are described individually below for (relative) ease of reading.

 

Mantle of Ophelia: Since this isn’t a weapon, and the Rosarius was moved to the Abilities heading, I moved this here too. Since Instant Death is no longer a part of the game (invalidating simply copying the 7E version of the Mantle), I have adapted the original 2E functionality, since it’s quite quirky and fun. I’ve not restricted the reroll to failed rolls, to avoid issues with the application of modifiers forcing a reroll of what would be a passed save after modifiers, or keeping you from rerolling what will be a failed save after modifiers.

Sacred Rites: In 2E, this ability inhanced the Sacred Rites roll of the unit Helena was attached to (but Canonesses did the same thing, just with a slightly smaller modifier, so there’s no reason for Helena to magnify nearby units’ AoFs since Canonesses don’t in 8E), as well as improving the Sacred Rites rolls for her entire army. I feel that the most simple, elegant way to represent this is to have her let you automatically pass your 2+ AoF roll.

 

Holy Radiance: The radical changes to the morale system in 8E make this one quite tricky. Originally it caused Imperium squads with 12” of Helena to automatically rally, and gave Helena immunity to psychology and break tests (I approximated that as Fearless in 7E). And it let units with LoS to her use her Ld, which is not problematic in 8E, so hardly worth mentioning here. What we have seen so far for morale mitigation (not ignoring it entirely) is simply capping the number of lost models. A negative modifier might sound thematic, but that is no different from simply adding to her leadership since she shares her Ld with those around her (and Ld 11+ is no longer impossible, technically). So, I think halving the number of models lost to moral, on top of sharing her Ld (to those in LoS at least) is a decent solution and approximation of the 2E effect. Since Helena can’t be allied with non-imperium units (she lacks any non-Imperium keywords) except for perhaps the fallen (and at that point, it’s not my responsibility to clutter up my rules to keep you inside the fluff) I’m not going to worry about restricting her Ld buff to just Imperium units. This makes her an interesting character, since almost all characters in 8E only buff their own faction. Since I’m trying to preserve the letter of her 2E rules, I’m ok with this design discrepancy. Her morale sharing effect is probably her most potent attribute in my version of her rules, but I want to maintain this functionality, so she’ll just have to be costed accordingly. The 2E rule also made Helena immune to psychology and break tests, but since Helena is a single model unit she never takes morale checks anyway, and I’m also using this as a justification for bumping her Ld up to 10.

 

Revered Leader:  With how every unit spells out all its Abilities in 8E, I’ve decided to make this work more-or-less verbatim, though I have toned down the effects of hatred from what they were in 2E, the Hatred ability given here is derived directly from 2E, rather than relying on a current incarnation (since it doesn’t exist anymore). This ability is quite clunky and requires a good bit of book keeping, bit I am more interest3e in maintaining the function of Helena’s rules than making sure she’s not a bit tricky to play. Unfortunately, once again the massive changes to morale create a translation issue. Previously, the rule forced all units to pass a Ld test or fall back when Helena died (and those that passed became immune to break tests for the rest of the battle), but units no longer fall back against your will ever in 8E. The solution I’ve come up with isn’t an exact representation, but I’m taking GW at their word that losing additional models is the extent of how morale works in 8E, and this is supposed to be a morale check. They treat themselves as having lost 4 models, since Helena has 4 wounds. I think it’s a rather clever parallel to include, since it makes the morale check an actual threat, but it doesn’t hit units that have taken casualties previously the same turn any harder than it hits units that haven’t (it doesn’t consider the actual casualties the unit has taken that turn). Thematically, it helps play up the fact that the units are discouraged because Helena has fallen. I’ve dropped the “ignore break tests for the rest of the battle” thing since that would be too powerful. The wording on this ability turned out to be quite a mouthful, but I wanted to make sure it was clear and consistent with the wording of the morale phase in the main rules (all 5 sentences of them).

 

Hatred: In 2E this let models make Break tests with Ld 10, gave them what we call Zealot in 8E, and made them use their follow-up move to get closer or engage the enemy. I tried to approximate this for 8E, without making it have too large of an impact on gameplay or be too powerful. I decided to stick with granting Zealot, along with +1 Ld (a strong buff, but you did just lose Ld 10 for everyone who could see Helena) and losing the ability to Fall Back from cc, period. This is a major disadvantage, but Helena gives plenty of advantages. I think this is all very thematic. None of this is too hard to keep track of, so I think it’s ok.

 

Prioress of the Convent Sanctorum: Helena’s 2E rules required her to be your army’s commander, so I required her to be your warlord. I know this isn’t something we’ve seen in 8E yet, but I want to keep the functionality of the rules from 2E as much as possible and this bit is easy to do. Next, she was required to take a bodyguard (it was an option for any Canoness to take a bodyguard unit, but it was mandatory for Helena). In my 7E adaptation, I made her join a Command Squad, but now characters don’t join units, so this could get a bit wordy. Celestians, with their “bodyguard” ability, make them the obvious choice, and the Canoness could take a unit of Celestian Bodyguards in 3E anyway. I went back and forth on whether to require the bodyguard to stay close to Helena. In the end I decided I didn’t want people using her bodyguard to protect other characters and not Helena, so I would have to either add a restriction the Celestian’s bodyguard ability, or require them to stay close to Helena. I decided it would be easier to make them stay close, but I made the restriction only apply during the Movement phase. Trying to word it to work in the Assault phase as well would have been far too verbose and confusing.

 

The Rod of Grace: Since we’ve gone back to Damage and Save Mods, I can just use the 2E rules! 2E also had range mods, but the Rod of Grace just was straight dice with only 1 range band, so I’m lucky in that regard. And I’m not going to worry about the armour penetration stat (for use vs vehicles) since vehicles just have T now.

 

Warlord Trait (lack thereof): I thought about giving Helena one, but why not let her be tactically flexible and pick? Also, I really can’t think of one that screams “Helena the Virtuous” now. In any case, I don’t think she really needs one, especially since Celestine just picks from the generic ones now too.

 

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Comments appreciated Thanks to anyone who read all that crap.

Edited August 1, 2017 by Servant of Dante

[CaptainHelion]

Hey, liking how this all looks! My only real thoughts are that she should have 5 wounds. I understand entirely why you've put her at 4, but the only characters in 8th with less than 5 wounds are support characters like banner bearers and regular commissars. Given that even Company Commanders are 5 wounds, Helena should definitely have 5.

I like the Rod of Grace, it's a nice and clean conversion, but I'd change the Melee profile to be either x2 strength, or +3 strength, so she could benefit from any potential strength buffs she might come across in future. There's not a lot of things that hit at a set strength in melee, so that's my reasoning.

But, as I said, it's all looking pretty cool.

[Servant of Dante]

Yeah, I will make the Rod of Grace x2 in Merle, good point!

 

I did think about making her 5W. I had it considered looking at what other models have less than 5. But, she was 2 T less than the base Canoness (5 instead of 7). Is there another way to represent her being less tough than a basic Canoness?

 

The other thing to consider is that I intentionally made the "as if 4 models from the unit had been slain" part from Revered Leader match her W, so I'd be upping that to 5 if I increased her W to 5. I'd be fine with that, but I really do want her to be a bit less "tough" than a basic Canoness to keep the spirit of her 2E stat line.

Edited July 29, 2017 by Servant of Dante

[CaptainHelion]

Yeah, it's tricky. There's a stage of granularity missing between 4 and 5 wounds where we'd like to slot Helena, I think. Hmmm.

[CaptainMarsh]

So this idea may not be very good, but perhaps whenever she would have her last wound removed for the first time, roll a d6. On a 4+, she has 1W remaining after that attack is finished. That way she has a about a 50/50 chance of having 4W or 5W(functionally).

[Servant of Dante]

That would work functionally, but I'm not sure it could come off right, flavorfully. It also just feels a bit clunky to me, for not that much gain to the character design. At the moment I'm thinking I'll leave her at 4 wounds (Helena is getting up in years after all, she's not going to be as resilient as everyone else). Thanks for the suggestion though!

[Gen.Steiner]

I think T3 W4 is fine; we can't drop her T because suddenly bolters are wounding on 2s...!

[Servant of Dante]

Alright, I've finally updated the melee profile of the Rod of Grace to S x2 in the OP and the pdf. Thanks for the input, feel free to leave more comments.

 

Also, really, any preference about who I do next :D (I think I'll do the good Cardinal if no one says anything).

[Gen.Steiner]

Oh oh I totally want to see Arch-Confessor Kyrinov!

[Servant of Dante]

Ok, I'll do him next I guess :D I'll get to all of them eventually.