i had a battle recently with scyla angingrimm in the enemy army and he seemed completely unreasonable tough. i was shooting him with streltsi and i think each bullet was only doing like 2 damage. it took two whole units of streltsi firing all their ammo just to deal like 3000 hp. i had to engage him in combat with didnt go well. he got 484 kills! seemed quite op. does the mod affect him or was he like that anyway? I notice he has "scaly skin" modifier already.

Yes, the mod still works. I just run a custom battle test with only this mod enabled. However, yes, I am also seeing the Ogres riding Stonehorns appearing underneath the Stonehorn with this mod.

Does this mod still works after 6.1?

If thunder lizard ever gets added to the game as a proper unit above the dread saurian will it get its own category above gargantuan/stone/metal if needed?

@AwDiddums happening to me too

I'm not sure how or why but this mod affects the Ogre(s) riding on all Stonehorn variants. They're underneath the model with this active. Can this please be looked into?

Would you happen to know if this mod works nicely with others that add this feature? Or does it just take whichever of the two is loaded first in rare cases of a double up?
My examples are: https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2997074409 (Lustria Rises)
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2940793412 (Dodging is dodging)

Thank you for the great mod and any consideration in advance! <3

This is one of the must have mods imo. Nothing makes me sadder in this game than watching my building sized stone monster die from some dinky little handbows,

Absolutely love your mod, nothing has made so many units feel so proper. Hope it gets an update soon - take care!

Great mod idea! And probably brings the game closer to table top too. Its been decades since I played tabletop, but I still remember that strength 3 arrows could not hurt anything with a toughness value above 6 or 7. Even without taking into account armour and ward saves, certain powerful creatures like big dragons and greater daemons were simply immune to small pointy sticks shot with bows.

is there a submod for the jurassic normal mod

In what way, specifically? Or is it just the numbers and no testing?

Great mod idea but I find the value of the numbers a bit too high for it to be balanced

does not seem to work with zharrhammer sadly, but other than that, I love this mod:)

I love how much this especially f*cks Skavens over. Skavens deserve to be trampled and ground to pulp.

@JetXGorilla if the numbers on the actual ability are tweakable at all it could have its bottom line upped a little or if they can be moved around. Bastiladons getting more shield on the sides with less on the front and rear with Stegadons getting more from the front and less from the sides and rear. I have no clue about modding at all so I don't know how those numbers could be changed if at all and if it would also affect the Steam Tank itself. Only thing I could think is creating a whole new ability with custom numbers for each unit you'd want but that's a whole lotta work and messing around so I don't expect that at all.

@Cinder Thanks, I actually did consider it for the bastiladons originally. I didn't explore how directional shielding is set up when it was just a mod for myself so I'm not sure how involved it is. I'll consider stegadons too--in general, directional shielding would probably be a nerf to whichever unit has it unless I go above the 65% of the highest category (I think steam tanks are 70% and go down to 10%).

@JetXGorilla If you do end up considering applying the Steam Tank directional shield to units the Stegadon I think would be a good candidate for it. Since they have that big heavy plate on their heads that would I imagine provide some much more solid frontwards defence. Can't really think of any other unit that it would really fit on other than maybe Dread Saurions at a push.

@Alan: Thanks, feedback and missing units is always helpful. What I originally considered was that the Steam Tank was intended to have that amount of missile block and have it be directional because of how the unit is "built", lorewise. What I'm now considering is (1) whether to tinker with directional shields more for the "tank" units and (2) whether to make a category for chariots/altars/vehicles that's lower than the gargantuan/made of stone or metal category.

@JetXGorilla while tanks do have shields already, the values are different from your Metal category, I think. Not really a problem, was just raising it because it might have indicated the mod wasn't working for Empire if you HAD intended to modify them.

Letting me know which units have been missed is helpful, thank you. Imrik in particular has a lot of mounts.

The process is that I go in to land_units, copy over the individual units, and add shield and missile resist values (which means mounts are easy to miss). The 360-degree block is added by linking can_block_missiles_360 to the unit attribute group in unit_attributes_to_groups_junctions. If this helps folks with compatibility.


Added:
- Sun dragon 360-block trait
- Elspeth carmine dragon (with 20% missile res instead of 15% for heavy scales/mounted, default is 25% missile res)
- Marienberg Land Ships (interested in feedback here, they seem pretty strong)

For unit inclusions, not every unit is included just because it's a single entity. It's based more on whether they look like they should be able to shrug off small arms fire.

- Steam Tanks weren't included because they already have directional shields. I will take a look at directional shields for some units. I went with adding 360 to everything rather than figuring out directional shields to start.

- Marienburg land ship I skipped because it's a powerful ranged unit, but I'll include it in the next update and people can give feedback.

- Thunderbarge not included, it's a blimp and already quite strong--the air sacs aren't really deflecting missiles, even if the ship itself might. Willing to take another look though.

- LoC not included because it's not scaly or fleshy, and has a barrier.

- Soulgrinders not included because they're not very large and their top halves are squishy.

- Chariots/altars not included because they aren't super heavy construction. I might consider it.

So after a check properly both the Moon (same tier) and the Star Dragon have the 360 block trait unsure why the Sun Dragon is lacking it. I also don't know if Imriks unique dragons have the trait as I haven't done an Imrik campaign. Also to note that none of the phoenix units have the shield or 360 block even the Tier 5 Arcane Phoenix. Which can make sense as they are much smaller than a Dragon and much faster aswell.

@PIXY_UNICORN I imagine Lords of Change don't have the shield as they already have their barrier which is a far more powerful option when used properly as it negates all health damage entirely and can be regenerated infinitely.

@Alan Yeah I noticed it doesn't seem to work on dragons. Looking through the menu at faction starting units. Imriks sun dragon does possess a Silver shield but lacks the 360 degree missile block trait every other monster has been given.

Also doesn't seem to apply to Elspeth's dragon. Perhaps this simply isn't properly applying to Empire?

Also, do steam tanks not count as large SEMs because they're too small?

Are these changes applied manually to individual units or based on some sort of classification? IE, I understand you will not make submods, but I would still like to know whether (or not) it will work to any extent at all with non-vanilla units so I can decide to install or not.

This should be into the basic game. Good job.

Good mod

Also shouldn't the Marienburg landship, Lord of Change and thunderbarge be affected?

Shouldn't the Chaos dwarf Skullcracker and Iron Daemon have a directional shield? - Like the steam tank?
Also I think soulgrinders are missing from this mod.

Love this idea. I'm going to start a HE campaign and hunt those disgusting rats down laughing in joy.

Mazdamundi riding Zlaaq, his ancient stegadon, also needs to be added

I redid your test of 5 long rifles and 2 ironsides against the AI. I set the AI as the attacker, and hid my lord, so only my hierotitan was visible on a flat plain. In two volleys the long rifles brought the hierotitan down 2k hp, by the time it engaged the lord (running towards the titan) it was down 4k hp, 1/3 of total. Though I'm able to do more damage against the AI if I swap the roles.

Same test but replaced one ironside with shield sundering RoR (which is a more expensive unit). Approach damage was 3k, then down 9k in melee, the sundering amplified the high volume significantly. This setup can also kill an AI dread saurian by the time it terror routes one unit of ironsides.

I then performed the initial test one more time with an intended counter for large monsters by replacing one long rifle with one great cannon. Initial damage was also about 3k, by the time it reached the lord it was down 6k (two volleys from cannons, I counted two cannonballs miss). (2/2)

@The Reaper Of Memes: that example is the mod working as intended. The point is that massed fire from lower-tier small arms missile units will be an inefficient way to take out large monsters, particularly (as in your example) the monsters that are extremely large or made of solid stone/metal. Much the same way that putting 8 units of spearmen against a unit of Khorne chosen is a bad use of your time--it doesn't matter how many spears are around the chosen, they aren't the right counter and they're too low tier. (1/2)

@Krakenous: Just as a heads up this mod doesn't defend the first two tier of monsters against Artillery, the only ones that get a buff against artillery are the ones that get a 20% missile resist boost as that resists artillery fire but Missile Block doesn't.

Now In a real match shooting at any unit that Is a little over 3x cheaper than whatever combination of units that are shooting at It for about a minute straight to get It to 50% health Is a HUUUUGGEE waste of time, not to mention with that money advantage the player can take cav, chariots, etc etc to lock those missiles down.
Don't get me wrong I love this mod Its great!, I just think that the block + resistance for the final tier Is just a bit too high.

In my opinion most monsters shouldn't just easily die to volley fire, but they shouldn't be practically Immune either as then It fully rely's on spears and those are countered by enemy Infantry distracting them while the monster swings on them (Its how I use Giants with Greenskins, Goblins or Orcs distract the spears and the Giant gets free damage).

Well those were my thoughts, I could try to go more In depth If you wish but for now that's what I can think of.

I would show some pics or something but Idk how to do that on steam.

The best I can really say Is during testing It wasn't uncommon for me to get a majority of monsters
past the firing line and still have about 30 to 50% health still, and that was tested with an unreasonable amount of gunfire.
Example: I tested a Hierotitan slowly walking towards an Empire army that was shooting at It with 5 Hochland Long Rifles and 2 Nuln Ironsides, the Hierotitan was able to reach the firing line with a little over 50% health left. Now I was glad to see the Titan not being just deleted before It got to combat, however over 50% health against 7 elite gunpowder units did feel a big too strong as even taking costs Into account the Empire had 6,250 worth of elite Missiles shooting at a 2,000 cost Monster.
Need to do a second part, Its too long In one message.

Appreciate the update! I'm about to start a custom campaign of Malakai V "The World" with an emphasis on races that feature lots of big bois with lots of Dawi artillery mods to test my metal against them all so, will be fun to see how they hold up but I reckon it'll be awesome battles.

Added:
- Stegadon and Ancient Stegadon mounts for Skink Priests
- Hell Pit Abominations (waffled on whether their innate 15% was enough because of regeneration--they have the 20% missile block and no missile resist now)

re: balance, I'm not interested in theorycraft. If you have actual results that you can point to I'll look at them.

Stegadon mount options for Skink priests have also been forgotten. Both standard Stegadon, as well as both the Ancient types (Ancient and Ancient Engine of the Gods)

Thats why I think the 20-50% overall block chance is fine, although I would be careful of missile resist, just cause it shuts down artillery as well, and there are not that many options for anti large melee to dish out enough damage against big guys.

If you do add missile resist, maybe consider giving it to the slow large units only, since they basically cant dodge, while big, fast dudes like dragons and keepers of secrets can dodge all missiles anyways. Makes it a bit more messy to keep track of though. Just my 2 cents. I'll still be using this, been meaning to do a lizard or TK playthru where I dont just spam out saurus or necropolis knights.

Maybe, I've always disliked how misleading missiles are on missile lords and heros. Supposedly they do well against big guys, but against SEMs they are useless, and against cav and monstrous infantry they either waste damage or cant one shot. In reality, their use is against infantry, which I think kinda sucks but thats a different discussion.

Armor definitely does help though. It helps them survive massively against crappy missiles, like non AP missiles. Assuming all shots hit and not accounting for missile resist, an Archer is doing 17 base 2 ap, for a total of 1530 and 180 dmg. With armor, the effective damage against an arachnarok would be 378.9 damage (average dmg reduction on arachnorak is 87%), VS a handgunner that is doing 1588.5 dmg on avg.

Ya 85% on a Dragon Is a bit too high I agree, 50% would be more than fine.
Non of those lords are meant to be targeting monsters, the first two would mainly prefer monstrous Infantry or cav.
Also Armor doesn't help as much as you are likely thinking, the Arachnarok has 120 armor and Is easily killed by volley fire.
I think giving the Giant 20% Is fine Its just a 5% Increase.

Yea, 85% and 70% on a dragon is crazy. It is way too easy to stack this with other buffs to make them nigh impervious to any missile fire. And there is still armor to factor in.

A Hunter General or a Waywatcher/Welf lord or even a vampire captain would not be able to do anything to dragons or constructs, and thats kind of their whole deal.

15% flat missile resist is semi low enough that its probably fine? CA tried to give Giants something similar and it sorta helped them out, so combined with a small shield its probably ok.

Thanks for the mod!

I do agree that the block Is likely a tad bit too high.
However on realistics I disagree I am quite confident a Dragon with heavy scales would easily shrug off handguns.
Bears can tank shotguns Irl so a Dragon with extremely tough scales and also tough flesh would likely just bounce the handguns off of It.

But anyways ya I think Imo It would be perfect If It was 65 > 50, 55 > 45, And then keep the 20% Missile Resistance. Also ya remove the 20% Missile Resistance given to the higher tier monsters as the 50% block would already be good enough, however If the monster already had any Innate Missile Block then I feel It'd be fine to keep.

That's my two cents.

Also take it or leave it, but the values seem a tad bit too high? Especially the ones that combine it with missile resist. Remove the missile resist and shift all the block chances down one level would be good I think. i.e. replace 65 with 55, 55 to 30, etc.

A lot of these units already have armor, which covers being shot by dinky arrows. But being shot by handgunners or shotguns should probably damage a dragon since they have AP.

Went through the list, there's a few others:

-lord of change, khairos, sarthorael (or are they in the phoenix/manticore category of no missile block?) - would make sense if they arent included since they are hard to pin down with melee, but i can see a case since they are daemon big guys...
-nkari, throgg, kharanak, taurox (loreful)
-hell pit abomination, feral hydra, beast of nurgle, varghulf
-maybe brood horror? i can see not doing this one though
-cathay dragons? not sure if the dragon forms of the characters have their own stat blocks

Last ones, as I think you added a few chorf vehicles, but might make sense to extend to other SEM vehicles (maybe even use the steam tank directional shield instead?):
-chaos warshrines, screaming bell (gray seer mount), plague furnace (plague priest mount), doomwheel, luminark, landship, bloodwrack shrine

Awesome mod, as soon as I saw that they added 360 shields on the patch notes I knew someone would make this.

Soul grinders of all chaos gods are not included. A 20% missile block would make sense to match the other big demons.

So, this is a mod that makes big units bigger? Nice.