These are my HAUS-ROOLZ:
- illustrate using only the work of Ian Miller
- dice fall where they may
- obey with the will of the gods (in this case Khörne)
- abuse diacritic marks
- quote non-gaming 80's pop-culture in a sideways self-referential manner
THE CHAMPION
Roll1: 74 Human
Ok, bit dull there Khörne, human the most likely type, with all the fun options, to say the least, I'm truly disappointed.
Roll2: 3 Standard profile
Fair enough. I'm determined to play by the dice, so standard human profile is what I get, along with a vague feeling that the will of Khörne is against me. Young God, I wanna help you, collect blood and stuff, so come on..
Roll3: 714 Plague Bearer
Plaguebearer of Khörne. Sub-roll: 1 The Shakes - attacks cause T-1 and A-1 loss, whether they hit or not. Oh great, but also gives him T-1 and A-1 losses, but as stats can't go below 0, so no effect, phew. Otherwise my Champion of Khörne would be unable to actually attack anything, which is exactly what a god of war would look for in a follower, ah but, his friends and his foes, would rather die than have to touch him.
So there we have it, my Chaos Champion, a weak, ill, low-level human, probably spent his whole life in ruins, because of people who are nice. Champion gets chaos armour for free, and a chaos steed or weapon. Seeing my luck I'd probably roll up a broken bicycle, on a hillside de-solate.
The Experiment |
THE WARBAND
5 rolls for a level 5? I'll drop one as my champion is no-level, so 4 rolls on the retinue table, lets see what depraved creatures of chaos decide to join my Champion on their quest.
Roll: 3: Beastmen
Sub-roll: 9. Nine mortal beastmen doomed to die... again, the most common type...
Gor Un Gor |
Roll: XX : Wólves
Sub roll: 10. OK, I like wólves, or maybe Woolfs of a Virginian persuasion.
Who is Afraid of the Virginian Woolf? |
Roll: 93 : Trôll
Trôll! Regen and everything. Plus 2 attributes...
538: Levitation
Levitating Trôll, yeah! With complex point-spend flying rules to boot. That's really fun, a troll hovering around, out of harms way, regenerating a bit, then deciding there is nowhere to go but down. Perhaps it's some kind of tantric-farting troll that brings a message on an ill-wind, thanks Khörne looks like the blood red light of your blessing is shining down on me...
892: Temporal Instability
Oh no, Khörne has changed his mind again. Temporal Instability means every turn I have to roll a D6, on a roll of 1, roll another D6 and the Trôll is out of the game for that number of turns. So I've got a flying troll that probably hardly even appear on the field of battle. Truly, truly, dissapointed.
Flying Trôll, if he bothers to turn up on time. |
Roll: 73 : Humans
Subroll: 3. I'm beginning to suspect this warband may lack style, you know, but each blood must blossom and grow...
3 Men | The City | Ian Miller |
This is supposed to be the Realms of Chaos, where's my Dragon-ogre with a plasma-cannon for a head? Or my chaos dwarf were-harpy? Apart from the Floating Troll of Tardiness, this list is just about as miserable a list as you can get. Hey Khörne, read these lines: truly disappointed, truly, troooly truleh ooooh oh ah ha ha.
Mörrrissey : Dissapointed |
Ah, good night, and thank you.
Not that bad really Zhu, OK your champion stinks, probably literally but the warband is quite Good. Beastmen are hard and you have nine. Fast wolves are very useful and a unit of humans, give them bows and they'll be twice as useful. Make them cultists and they can have Khaos attributes.
ReplyDeleteAre you going to paint this band up?
...and, you should have an edge in terms of the sheer number of models that will swarm over the table barking 'blood for the blood god!', shouldn't you?
ReplyDeleteOh, I'm totally overstating the level of disappointment so I can shoe-horn the Morrissey lyrics in.
ReplyDelete1 ailing anti-hero, 9 Beastmen, 10 Wolves, 3 Humans and 1 Troll, it has a nice, low fantasy almost folkloric feel to it. Need to work on a theme...
Just because of how ailing he is, and I guess the wolves, it feels like a band of survivors, perhaps due to being angry vicious psychopaths the last survivors of a raided village are accepted by the raiding beastmen. Or survivors make some dark pact to save themselves form a wolf pack, then finding common ground...
ReplyDeleteCan you not give the 'hero' a horse - a broken down old nag - and have his men tie him into the saddle? Have him trot semi-consciously ahead of his 'pack', a figurehead masquerading as a Chaos champion.
ReplyDeleteOr maybe carried into battle seated on his shield, too weak to walk?
I dunno about the rest of the warband, but I love the idea of this Troll levitating with excitement whenever it gets a good idea or 'gets' something, only to drift slowly to the ground as its brain loses grip on the thought and it descends back into its common stupidity...
ReplyDeleteAndy - I like the Maimed King motif, I imagine him something like Durers Famine from the 4 horesemen, sending the diseased ahead to weaken the enemy.
ReplyDeleteErny - yeah I can dig that, perhaps even captured humans suffering stockholm syndrome, or forced/goaded into fighting rather than willing participants.
Gaj - I'm getting Captain Caveman vibes, zoiks! I'd stupidly forgotten about Stupidity :-)
I was thinking along the lines of the Champion suffering from St. Vitrus Dance - with a touch of the Pied Piper leading Wolves instead of rats. The beastmen and men would be a psychotic medieval Mummers procession, dressed in motely rags. Not sure but I think I'd need to rephrase the special rules for the troll as a dancing mania, changing nothing mechanically, just making the description more thematic.
Disco mania? Are you sure this a Khorne warband? Sounds suspiciously Slaaneshi to me!
ReplyDeleteI'm thinking more morrismen in a moshpit than some dodgy poledancing BDSM joint. The Danse of the Red Redemption. There will be blood.
ReplyDeleteSurely that should be Morrsliebmen. Damn thats cool now. I take it back you can't have Morrsliebmen their mine.
ReplyDeleteSeriously what isn't to love about crazy Khaos moon folk dancers.