Partly at the request of IST (although he only asked for a bump), and partly because I want to, I thought I would post up the rules for Cherubs and Blessings for units again to see what people think of them now, and whether they are good enough to pass through the gates of the compendium. *hopes*


Special
Cherubs
The Cherubs are young angels who in popular myth are known as the Angels of Love or Angels of the Air. As they are lighter and less heavily equipped than their older brothers, they can fly with much greater ease and skill, sending their magical arrows anywhere within the enemy formation.
20 Pts/Model
Unit Size: 5-10
Cherub--M4 WS3 Bs4 S3 T3 W1 A1 I5 Ld8
Sprite----M4 WS3 Bs4 S3 T3 W1 A1 I5 Ld8
Weapons and Armour: Hand weapon, Angelic Robes (6+ ward save) and Cherub bows (counts as normal bows).
Options:
May promote one Cherub to a Sprite for +18 pts.
The Sprite may shoot twice with his bow in the shooting phase.
Special Rules: 20” Flight, Skirmish, Small Stature, Cherub Bows
Small Stature: Being only young angels, Cherubs are diminutive creatures, smaller even than halflings and dwarves. Combined with their joyous, swirling flight, this makes them harder to hit than normal enemies. All shooting at a unit of Cherubs suffers a –1 penalty (cumulative with the skirmishers penalty, so it will be improved to –2).
Cherub Bows: The bows of the Cherubs can enhance the emotions of any enemy they hit, causing various reactions, from love to hate. If an enemy unit is wounded by Cherub Bows, they must pass a leadership test. If they fail, roll a D6 and consult the chart below to see what effect the arrows have. Units immune to psychology are immune to this effect also.
1-2: Rapture: Most enemies believe the angels to be the most beautiful and handsome creatures alive. The magic of the Cherub Bows multiplies these feelings of awe and wonderment. The unit is enraptured by the beauty of the angels and must make a compulsory move towards the nearest angel unit that they can see in their next movement phase. They are assumed to have a 360 degree arc of sight for the purpose of this. If they cannot see any angelic units then they act as normal. They may not charge, but will fight as normal if charged. They may not make any other moves that turn, but the effect wears off next turn
3-4: Fear. Angels are fearsome, godlike beings, and make most enemies nervous. The magic of the Cherub Bows multiplies these feelings. The unit may not charge an Angelic unit next turn. If they are charged by an Angelic unit, they suffer -1 to hit and will break if the Angels beat them in combat and outnumber them.
5-6: Hate: The magic of the Cherub Bows amplifies every dislike and minor quibble within the unit. Half the target unit rounding down makes one attack against the target unit. Characters are not affected and cannot be targeted by these attacks.

Thoughts: The Cherubs fill the role of harrassment. With a full flight move and a -2 save penalty they are perfect for blocking march moves and disrupting the enemy. However, they are very fragile. They will usually only be in small units, and even with a -2 save versus missile weapons they are only T3 with a 6+ ward, so they will drop like flies to a magic missile or concentrated shooting. And for 20 pts/model thats hard to lose. However, this fragility is justified, especially against low-leadership armies. The effects of their bows can be devastating, allowing you to smash through the enemy lines, set up flank charges, weaken the enemy and generally throw his lines into chaos. You'll have to protect them, but they can be deadly. And even if they die, they are a great cause of fear to an enemy player, rather like a model with sustained assault in WH40K.




Blessings of the Great Angels
a number of Angel and Archangel units in your army may take Blessings. At 500 points, you may take 1 blessing. At 1000 points you may take 2. At 2000 points you may take up to 3 blessings. You may take +1 blessing for each +1000 points.

Units of Angels may take 1 blessing each.
Units of Archangels may take 2 blessings each.

The list of blessings is as follows:

Blessings

Blessing of Raphael: 30 pts or 2 pts/model
The units Angelic Flight move is increased to 16”.

Blessing of Metatron: 20 pts or 1 pt/model
The unit gains +1 strength on the charge.

Blessing of Raziel: 35 pts or 3 pts/model
The unit is immune to psychology.

Blessing of Raguel: 20 pts or 1 pt/model
The unit rallies automatically the next turn if it flees.

Blessing of Michael: 40 pts or 3 pts/model
The unit is stubborn.

Blessing of Sandalphon: 25 pts or 1 pt/model
The unit can see through difficult and very difficult terrain.

Blessing of Azrael: 30 pts or 2 pts/model
The unit has killing blow.

Blessing of Haniel: 50 pts or 3 pts/model
The unit has a 5+ ward save.


Thoughts: As you can see, the blessings help the units perform specialised tasks. For example, and unit of archangels with halberds (+1S), the blessing of Raphael (16” flight) and the blessing of Metatron (+1 S on the charge) gets a 16” charge range with +2 strength on the charge. In effect, they’ve become a cavalry unit and can play that role. A unit of angels and the blessing of Raziel, or Michael becomes a great flank holder. An angel or archangel unit with the blessing of Sandalphon and either the blessing of Azrael, Raphael or Metatron becomes a formidable flanking unit. A small unit with the blessing of Raguel and possibly Raphael can act like fast cavalry and divert charges. The blessings give your units more variety and let them do individual jobs.
The one thing I am unsure of is whether to make them cost a fixed amout for the whole unit, or make them have a cost per model. Per model is probably more balanced since the cost you pay is proportionate.

Well there they are again in all their glory. As always, please give your thoughts, ideas, comments, critiques, etc, but please be gentle, I'm a sensitive soul at heart :) .

I am not sure on unit blessings but I will talk to the others of their possibility in the conclave (nothing decided yet). I like the cherubs but they will need some work with some of their bow powers.

I posted your bow powers in a seperate thread entitled: Cherubs because you were being slow about it :P.
I really like the idea for blessings, but I think an angel/arch unit with a blessing should be special, and an arch with two should be rare. I think we should have ones that are different then the gifts for chars, and we should have a few new ones. Perhaps the unit gets plus 1 attack, for 40 points/3 per model. Blessing of Kalina.
And you are bad at life (oh wait, I'm suppsoed to be gentle, nevermind) :P
---Baran

I don't like the idea of making blessed units special or rare because then it becomes far too similar to Lizardmen sacred spawnings. That's also another reason I prefer points cost per model rather than per unit, because it distinguishes the sytem from marks of chaos and sacred spawnings, I don't want to just copy an existing sytem.

Also, what do you think needs to be changed about the bow powers Iron? Are they too good, too weak, too complicated? And I saw your post Baran, for the short time it was up. It seems our minds are beginning to work as one...

And Baran, your words hurt :(

I'm Sawy. And if our minds are working as one, then I'm going to have to destroy my mind. Like now.
On the other hand, I think you make a compelling argument, and I think that you are right about the special rare. Hows about a unit with a blessing doesn't count towards core? That would make it new, and it would still make people take basic angels. I'm not sure about this though, so someone give us your opinion. And I really like the pt per model. I've been silently complaining about that for my lizzies.
---Baran

Baran you're freaking me out, that was an idea I just thought of! Although I didn't post it up. Psychic disturbances aside, I quite like it, but it may be a bit too harsh a penalty.

Well, these are really quite good abilities. Stubborn? +1 Attack? These are really quite amazing, and its a minor penalty. You just need to have more basic angels and arch angels then special ones. With this inclusion though, I think we'll need to rethink the bow rule. Hows about all angels can use bows, because we are really restriciting core, otherwise.
---Baran

I think that we should stay away from using angelic blessings or we make them a rare or special choice if you use them because otherwise like Baran said, we would have too much limit in core choices. I think we would make a good balance by doing this with points per model which is new, and we are still working with some tried and tested system.