Cad’s Balewolves for Norsca
This mod adds a new unit, Balewolves, to Norsca; it also renames the Things in the Woods ROR (The Mordheim Balewolves) to the Woes of Dolganyeir.
Based on a marriage between new canon and the older, incontrovertibly Chaotic creatures of Mordheim fame, these Norscan Balewolves are aggressive anti-infantry monsters comparable to Kislev’s own Things in the Woods. Tactically they function like a cross between Things and war beasts such as Dire Wolves; while they have lower speed, damage, armor, and morale than Things, they retain good damage reduction and also possess Vanguard Deployment. Be warned, however, that they will enter a rampage once they take sufficient damage, making these mutants a fierce but fickle asset for your battle-host.
Is this lore-friendly?
The canon surrounding Balewolves received a significant expansion (or rather, an alteration) in Shadows of Change to make Balewolves/Things a Kislevite unit. This mod is an attempt at yes-anding these changes, and proposes that, if Things are indeed ‘purified’ Balewolves, there remain impure versions beyond Kislev’s borderlands and forests. This is reflected by the design of the Norscan Balewolves; while Things are largely cleansed and stripped of corrupt flesh, Balewolves possess alarming, chaotic malformations sloughing off their twisted forms. This leans away from CA/GW’s newer lycanthropic lore in order to align it with the older canon. In essence, the canonicity of Balewolves generally is a little subjective, and this mod seeks to wield that opportunely.
I don’t like how these look!
If you feel that the models with flesh still covering most of their skulls (i.e. the ones using warhounds assets) look janky, you can just switch the active variantmeshdefinition to “cad_chs_balewolves_use_me_for_OGs_only”. You’ll only have 3 variants, though. I believe the only swap needed is the variant_filename column in variants_tables. You could even substitute in the normal Things models if you want—they use a different animation, but all the new animation in this mod does is recreate it without the glowing eyes effect, so you if you’d prefer them to look like vanilla, that’s very doable! These guys look a little kooky for my taste too, truth be told, but you could cook an egg on my laptop when I’m editing fur on lower LODs, so I may need to wait before fixing these issues.
What’s the compatibility situation?
This is a standalone unit mod and should be happy alongside other Norsca mods of all types! Tribes of the North, for instance, works as per normal in tandem with this mod. Balewolves benefit from the same tech/ability perks as Skinwolves, so anything which buffs or nerfs them in campaign will also nerf or buff these guys. Overhauls and special feature mods (such as SFO or Tabletop Caps respectively) would need their own submods.
Cheers
Thank you so very much to the community over on Da Modding Den, which has been integral to me as I’ve learned about modding. Extra thanks are due to to Drazhir, PropJoe, Cataph, Calm, and Cryswar, all of whom have come to my aid when I’ve asked questions there. Cryswar has put some wonderful modding guides up on Steam and the aforementioned Discord is a great resource for modders and mod aficionados alike.
