High Toughness Amazons

[Niko White]

Kevin of course answered the question much more concisely, but I think it is an important one so glad to type out the full description

[gornhorror]

Thanks for clearing that up.   Now I understand.  So does that mean that the new faction will not be the traditional Amazons, or are they going to be an army with a whole different feel?  So I guess there's a good chance that the main units in this army are going to move 2.5"?

[Niko White]

Thanks for clearing that up.   Now I understand.  So does that mean that the new faction will not be the traditional Amazons, or are they going to be an army with a whole different feel?  So I guess there's a good chance that the main units in this army are going to move 2.5"?

Nah, I hate 2.5" movers; I mean, it depends on what the ultimate feel is but poking along at 2.5" is really annoying, and makes final rushing a pain.  "Dwarf-movers" (free sprint on rout/fr) are a bit better IMO but not a lot.

I still like heavy Amazons, but I (and I think a few others) am waiting to see if Chad thinks we're better off doing the IMO cool "civilized amazons" or switching to different flavor.  There are a million great factions waiting around so I'm mostly indifferent

[gull2112]

I still like heavy Amazons

So we're going to call this version the BBW Amazon faction?

[lazyj]

Just posted a thought on the Army ability section about elgin's idea. Seems to me that YMG wants functional x/3 but everyone's first guess is that Amazons fit better as x/2. elgin managed to make the simple suggestion of making the army ability the +1 toughness boost that would seem to satisfy both sides.

[Bohan]

My thought is that if we decide Amazons feel more evasive than tough, it's probably better to put them on the backburner and work on another faction that's more flavorful rather than shoe-horn them into being a tough faction.  On the other hand, I didn't do any of the current work on the Amazons, and I feel those people who did should make the call about potentially starting over.

Some of my thoughts on potential tough factions and their flavors (this is all IMO and others may have different feelings about their flavor):

- Insects: This could be taken in multiple directions.  For one, we could do an all tough faction.  An exoskeleton makes for pretty nice armor.  Alternatively, we could make it a hyper-specialized faction.  So they could have some cheap tanks that don't do a lot of damage, some fast and punishing light "cavalry" that can't take too many hits, and some heavy tank bruisers.  Weaknesses are no all-round troops and bad ranged attackers.  There may also be potential for some sort of "Hive Mind" faction ability, i.e. 1 command actions = direct control or change standing orders for 2 units.

- Gnomes: Like dwarves, gnomes have a reputation of being hardy.  I can see a line of x/2 normal guys and x/3 plate wearers.  Plus we can play with their technological bent, and throw in heavy steam tanks and possibly even ornithopters (although finding an excuse to make them predominantly melee could be tough).

- Constructs: Golems of various sorts should definitely have good toughness.  As Chad mentioned, these guys could be backed up with Wizards and there could be some interesting mechanics around this faction.

- Beastmen: It needs more direction, but these guys would probably be tougher than evasive in general.

- "Egypt" theme: What would an Egypt-themed fantasy faction look like?  The foot soldiers would probably be 1/2, and there could be high toughness sand golems, sphinxes, mummies, etc.

- Norse: I'd personally like to see the Norse as a low defense high offense faction (5 6/6 offense 0/1 defense basic footsoldiers? got to do something about ranged attacks though...), but they could definitely fit as a high toughness faction.

[Niko White]

I have an Egypt-based army in the works, and could share it if people wanted to go that way; it definitely is in a similar state to the current Amazons, having flavor and a "first draft" unit list but plenty of room for tweaks and army themes and so forth.  There are tons and tons of good flavors/inspirations for factions so if Chad decides not to do tough amazons the question becomes which one to explore, really.

[gull2112]

Before this thread gets high jacked into a faction idea theme let me remind folks that the faction discussion thread has a bunch on it. For instance, here is my insect army theme:
http://yourmovegames.com/forum/index.php/topic,694.0.html

[RushAss]

My thought is that if we decide Amazons feel more evasive than tough, it's probably better to put them on the backburner and work on another faction that's more flavorful rather than shoe-horn them into being a tough faction.  On the other hand, I didn't do any of the current work on the Amazons, and I feel those people who did should make the call about potentially starting over.

Brook has a faction he started a while back called "Deep Dwarves".  It's a similar dynamic that the High and Dark Elves have flavor-wise.  IIRC they are a base 1/3 defensive stat and they had an interesting faction ability that I can't recall off the top of my head.  Brook if you see this and have the time, do feel inclined to post it in the appropriate topic.

Sorry Mike, but I felt the need for further hijack 

[Hannibal]

What about if Amazons had a 2/2 defense?   There really isn't much 2/2 out there.  Just Hawkshold and, to a lesser extent, Lizardmen & Rome).

This is basically what I argued so vehemently for.  I can see them as a 2/3 faction, if they basically become platemail chicks.  I do think that the forum response is not going to be far off what people expect when they hear Amazons:  tribal rainforest warrior-chicks.

That being said, I think the biggest virtue to doing chicks in platemail is that then the faction becomes unique to Battleground.  One of the biggest knocks I hear about the early factions is that they feel too generic, too much a knock-off of Warhammer Fantasy Battle.  Orcs & Dwarves especially get that, but so do Hawkshold and Undead to a lesser extent.  However, Umenzi come very different and even well known archetypes like Ravenwood, High Elves, and Lizardmen have a unique spin to them that is different than traditional armies.  So the biggest argument to going with platemail is that it is a unique take on the idea.

Although Amazons seem counter-intuitive to a high-toughness faction you could overcome this through the army ability.  I posted a proposal the other day that I think would work but it is definitely achievable.  I also don't think that insects are necessarily the best choice for a tough army although I do have some other ideas I'd like to propose when the time comes.

Generating toughness through the army ability, while not a bad idea at all, does not make the faction an "x/3" faction.  An army ability like that will be used on maybe half the army.  So it wouldn't have the right feel you're going for.

[Niko White]

2/2's with a "Divinity"-style toughness boost would probably work, though I think 1) it'd have to be balanced to stack with command cards and b) I worry that chainmail amazons (ie, 2/2) are going to be as unexpected as plate ones - in both cases you're not talking about a tribal jungle society - if you go that way, you're pretty much going to have to do x/1's if the faction is composed of humans, because basically no one ever wears any kind of serious armor in the jungle.

I still think plate amazons would be really cool, and that Hannibal's point about doing factions that are at least a bit less generic mcgenericson (-daughter?) is a good thing.  Of course, you also don't want to do factions where the name has nothing at all to do with what you get: we couldn't have done Dark Elves that weren't elves and/or weren't dark; we just tried to put a spin on them that wasn't taken whole cloth either from D&D or from WHFB.  Personally, I think "civilized, matriarchal society where well-equipped, dedicated female soldiers stand toe-to-toe with men and elves and win on the line" fits quite well with the concept of Amazons - especially if we keep things like a huntress goddess and good archery.  But if tons and tons of people disagree, and think that plate amazons would be more like making a "Dark Elf" faction full of cheerful gnomes, then that's a valid point against it.

Also note that even if we keep the Amazon inspiration for the final faction, there's no reason we have to actually name it Amazons.  If we feel like that theme hook is good, there's no reason not to rename it to "City of [blah]" or "The Eumenides" or whatever the hell we want them to call themselves; sure, people on the boards would know the original inspiration had been "can we do Amazons?" but who cares?

Bottom line: I like the flavor Hannibal came up with for this faction, and think that we can make it even better with a bit of discussion.  I like the mechanics we've got in the draft factions from Chad and I (with input from others) though I think the perfect unit list is still waiting to be found.  And I think we can make a great, interesting faction out of this stuff.  Maybe we call it Amazons and maybe not, but I think it'd be a good one.  That said, Chad's right that we're in early enough days that if I'm in the minority, it wouldn't be a disaster to switch to something else, but I don't think we want to let the fact that the initial thought was Amazons get us to abandon the faction if we've got some good stuff going on here, which I think we do.  Easier to rename than restart!