House Rule 13: Presence

PRESENCE
Presence is something elusive and difficult to define.  It is the measure of a warrior's strength of will, determination.  It also reflects how much the gods, fate or destiny are willing to intervene on his behalf.  It is a sort of "spiritual battery" which measures the strength of his soul.

A model may possess a number of presence points which it may expend throughout the course of a game.  Presence points are always recharged between games.

In general, only Hero or higher level models will posses presence.

A model may declare it is expending a presence point at any time.  It may use the spent presence point to perform one of the following actions:

Heroic Might: This may be used whenever the model rolls to-hit, to-wound or to save.  The result of any one die rolled is improved by one.  For example: if your hero makes three attacks, needing a 4+ to hit and rolls 3, 4 and 4 - he may expend a presence point to increase the 3 to a 4, resulting in another hit.  Multiple presence points may be expended to increase the result of a single die more than once.  Remember, critical hits occur only on a "natural" 6.

Heroic Timing: This may be used whenever the model moves.  The amount of distance the model moves is increased by 1".  This is the total distance, so a M4 model may run 9" if it expends a point of presence (M4 x 2 + 1).

Heroic Will: This may be used whenever the model is called upon to take a characteristic, leadership or spell casting test.  By expending a point of presence, the test is automatically passed.  You must declare you are using this ability before attempting the test.

Heroic Fate: This ability may only be used after a model suffers an unsaved wound.  Immediately roll a D6.  On a 4+, the wound is ignored.  Multiple attempts may be made against the same wound.


For the purposes of a campaign, all hero models have access to all four of the above abilities.  Heroes which can cast spells have access only to Heroic Will.  Monstrous Creatures have access to none of the above abilities unless otherwise specified - they may only use presence to activate their monstrous attacks.

For the purposes of a campaign, all models start with zero presence points except for a warband's leader who starts with 1.  Any time a model has the opportunity to gain a skill, he may opt to increase his presence by 1 instead.  Models may have a maximum of 5 presence points unless otherwise specified.

Hired Swords may never gain presence unless otherwise noted.