Next Fantasy Faction for Community Development...put ideas here

[Chad_YMG]

As we discussed in the Amazon section, we've decided to take a step back and start over.  This thread is for proposals for the next faction.  You're welcome to put up entire lists or just requests for an army you'd like to see.  The one requirement from a play perspective is that this faction's defensive profile should make its enemies prefer to bring units with six power rather than six offensive skill.  Most likely this means a 3-toughness and either 1 or 2 for baseline defensive skill.

[gull2112]

  The one requirement from a play perspective is that this faction's defensive profile should make its enemies prefer to bring units with six power rather than six offensive skill.  Most likely this means a 3-toughness and either 1 or 2 for baseline defensive skill.

What is the reasoning behind this? Is it to retain the DE dominance? It seems to me it is ultimately and RPS thing and a higher offensive skill (Like a (5)6/5) makes for an interesting variation and certainly has a 'duelist' feel to it.

[ZiNOS]

I am trying to come up with something like the Ogre Kingdoms (something) but the cost of the models is really high.

I am talking about a list that will ahve all the models Large, many of them with 5'' movement or at least 5'' movement when final rushing and be mainly 1/4, with some of them being 1/3 and other (with shields) being 2/4.

The flavour will be like this. Ancient race of large creatures that got pushed northern and northern by the new races. Eventually they gained a bluish, greyish tint to their skin and since there are no facial or bodily hair in them, their body accumulated mor fat for isulation and their skin became harder, thus the higher toughness.

They will ahve fear, mainly for the (-1) dice their opponents will suffer because of their reach. Their weaponry is mostly crude, they are barbaric tribes that wait for the one to unite them all and lead them back to their ancentral homelands. Until then, they have united a lot of times under strong individuals and plunder the southern lands.

And thie cavalry units will be BEAR CAVALRY, you cannot beat the coolness of this one .

The idea for this faction came from these #d models. BTW the models are ready, meaning that this faction can be more quick to produce than the others .



But imagine them with a bluish tint on their skin and quite larger than the average human.

Cheers!

[Chad_YMG]

  The one requirement from a play perspective is that this faction's defensive profile should make its enemies prefer to bring units with six power rather than six offensive skill.  Most likely this means a 3-toughness and either 1 or 2 for baseline defensive skill.

What is the reasoning behind this? Is it to retain the DE dominance? It seems to me it is ultimately and RPS thing and a higher offensive skill (Like a (5)6/5) makes for an interesting variation and certainly has a 'duelist' feel to it.

Niko has written some really good posts about this, but essentially the problem is that the Battleground "world" is skewed towards skill over power.  The rules already make offensive and defensive skill slightly better than power/toughness (there are more skill penalties and the charge bonus is to power) but with most armies and especially most recent armies having higher defensive skill than toughness it's gotten even more significant.  A (5)6/5 is better than a (5)5/6 and some balance is needed.  Yes, there's an RPS element but using that analogy we've currently got a LOT of scissors which means that any paper faction we design is likely to face problems it just shouldn't face.

[Chad_YMG]

A couple of ideas either of mine or that have been suggested elsewhere:

Teracotta warriors -- see the Ch'in (sp?) faction.

Insects.  These could either be harder to control or easier.  How about 'brain' units that generate command actions that can only be spent on nearby units?  Acid spitters?  Bombadier beetles that explode?

Golems.

[Kevin]

I personally like both the Terracotta Warriors and the Insects, and would be very happy with either.

Initial thoughts/caveats on both:

Terracotta - Very nice to do an Asian flavored army, to complement to African flavored Umenzi and show that Battleground is a worldwide thing.  I like the general idea of terracotta warriors a lot, too--it has just enough tie in with history to give it a very nice flavor--inspired by something other than Dungeons & Dragons.

I put a few comments last years on the army thread http://yourmovegames.com/forum/index.php/topic,1340.0.html which still hold.  The biggest one is that skill 4 sucks, and at that skill this army will still be a speed bump for elves, neutralizing what was supposed to be the reason to do a high-toughness army.  Of course, in that thread I suggest some things that cold be done.

Insects - These could be great fun!  I mean, who doesn't like to kill insects--no scatching your head saying "Couldn't the High Elves & Ravenwood worked out their differences peacefully?"  Also no guilt when your error gets your bug army slaughtered--just hatch more next week.      (I used to feel terribly guilty every time one of my High Elf units perished.)


One thing which is both a great potential, and a potential huge pitfall, is that an insect army could go SO many different ways, many of them very wacky.  Do you have special rules for queen bugs, poison, web, hopping, phermones, bravery, metamorphosis, etc. or not?  I can already see lots of people each pulling the faction in many different directions--so whoever is in charge would need to keep a very firm, steady hand on the process.

---------

In short, both armies could be really cool.  Doing an insect army is riskier, definitely in terms of downside, possibly (I'm really not sure.) in terms of upside.

I supposed, if I had to rank them, it would be Terra Cotta #1, insects #2.

[elgin_j]

I am trying to come up with something like the Ogre Kingdoms (something) but the cost of the models is really high.

Ogres seems to be the way to go.

If insects are chosen, however, I see opportunities to develop a unique army type with chronically weak queens upon which the army relies.   If killed it would effectively decimate the army, thereby requiring a focus on defence of these key units.  It would introduce a whole new tactical mindsight to the faction.

[Chad_YMG]

Richard already owns the Ogre model he used for M&M.  Are you thinking of a different model?  We should see what he has along those lines...I know he really wanted to remake the Orcs.

[Hannibal]

Well for obvious reasons, I'll throw up my Corrigan idea.  

If that gets shouted down, my vote would be for the Terracotta.  Actually, that one is right up there with the Corrigan (two very different approaches that see equally cool).  

Insects would be okay.  Nothing really jazzy, although if we did them I'd say draw a lot of inspiration from the Thri-Kreen from the old Dark Sun setting:  psionic hunter-bugs, instead of a Tyranid/Starship Troopers retread.

I am trying to come up with something like the Ogre Kingdoms (something) but the cost of the models is really high.

Ogres seems to be the way to go.

There already is an Ogre kingdom faction:  Monsters & Mercenaries.  

And please no Bear Cavalry.  It was cool and innovative 15 years ago, before the Golden Compass and Warmachine.  Now its just cliche.  Heck, bears are a punchline for Stephen Colbert.

[Zelc]

Some ideas I had from the other thread:

- 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.

I personally want to see an Egypt-themed faction .  Steampunk-ish Gnomes could be interesting as well, but that's a fairly popular trope in fantasy literature.

[gull2112]

BTW - I do have an insect (Chitin) army propsed here:
http://yourmovegames.com/forum/index.php/topic,1483.0.html

The cool thing about this faction is the faction ability that has them not break, but take extra wounds from a failed morale check. In other words, when a sentient independent soldier would say "We're getting slaughtered, I'm outa here!" The bugs just keep coming, but pay for their pseudo-hubris with extra casualties.

[lazyj]

Terracotta warriors, definitely #1. There are so many mythologies out there, why are we always stuck in the same Western Europe / Tolkien-esque ones? Let's go global! One of the awesome things about Umenzi is that it reached past those themes. This is the perfect chance to do it again. The bugs are kind of interesting (if not a bit more on the sci-fi side of things). But it just feels like we should keep pushing the global envelope. This potentially puts YMG on the road to Japan, Mongolia, Korea, India, Thailand, South America... 

Though I have to admit there are other options. Picking up on the steampunk comment - someone (Hannibal?) put together a Davinci themed faction a while back. It had interesting contraptions and things with high toughness. That could certainly be a road to choose.

My ranked choices:
1. Terracotta (China)
2. Davinci / steampunk machines
3. Viking / Valkyrie
4. Insects thing

[Hannibal]

Picking up on the steampunk comment - someone (Hannibal?) put together a Davinci themed faction a while back. It had interesting contraptions and things with high toughness.

Yeah I'd forgotten about that.  My only concern is that the faction would be a touch too comical.  There was a bit of tongue in cheek when I wrote it up.  Also, when talking to Niko he said that Chad was against putting gunpowder weapons into a fantasy setting (or maybe that was just the YMG consensus and not just Chad, I don't remember exactly).

[Mexico]

I have a few ideas for a gnomish battle mech army, complete with field mechanics. I recall reading a treatment on the forum a while back that had some good ideas as well.

I'd really look forward to something like that. Otherwise I'd be interested in seeing a viking/valkyrie army.

Insects would be cool, but I doubt it would work well as a community charlie foxtrot. I'd prefer to see that as a single-developer project.

[Bloodaxe]

I really like the Ogre Kingdoms and Insect Hive ideas!!!