After the tough decisions of creating your faction the unit classes always tend to be a little easier of a choice. Today we are diving into the creation of our army, the NorKraag, to see if we can take a large collection of miniatures from Atlantis Miniatures, and make a faction out of them.
The Making of an Army Part 1: The Challenge
The Makings of an Army Part 2: Creating the Faction
Having a faction with Unit Classes that take on the many roles when going to battle is important. We don't want a force that does nothing but charge straight into battle, and the challenge of bringing all these miniatures into a single army will just that. On the miniatures list we have our Dwarves, Giants, Bear Riders, Giant Eagles, and Spellcasters. So we need to get our typical ranged weapons in (the dwarves with crossbows), multiple weapon options (two handed weapons, shields, and dual weapon dwarves into the mix.)
Unit Classes... What are they?
Unit Classes are different models with additional training, characteristics, access to special equipment, or other added benefits that are above and beyond the standard individual in your faction. These can be Rangers or other special forces, Giants or other racial differences, or even elite and sniper units. There are lots of options.
Unit Classes are created by adding a new trait or traits to the class.
Yesterday we showed the NorKraag Dwarf faction. Here it is again. We will begin with our standard classes building directly off of the base faction.
First up will be our NorKrag Mountaineers. We need a jack of all trades class at this level. Depending upon how equipped these guys will be our standard melee dwarves, our ranged crossbowmen, or a mixed weapon load out to really give us some flexibility with coordinated attacks.
Rule Preview for the Release version of The Genesys Project
- Melee Weapons use the normal strength and martial skill of the model
- Using a two handed weapon grants enhancement strength 1, with slight point cost increase.
- Using two weapons grants an enhancement martial 1, for the cost of a second weapon
- Using a shield allows for the model to parry. Reduce the die roll of a single chosen attack by 1. Must obviously pay the point cost of the shield to equip it.
NorKrag Mountaineers already have a decent skill in Martial, and are tough. So this type of squad will be our go to, with separate squads equipped how we need them to be when getting ready for a game.
However, with Medium Armor the one thing they will not be is fast. Lets give them Recon. Recon Mountaineers sound like a good solid place for our squad and fits within the theme I was thinking. Recon in the release rules allows for movement during deployment, and if able to spot close enemy units reduces reduces your first round initiative total. This will get them into the center Area of Conflict quicker.
NorKrag Ram Calvary are next on my list. With Medium Armor slowing our Dwarves down, some Calvary units will make up for that. Atlantis Miniatures makes some really cool mounted Dwarves mounted on Rams. While non of these are already in the collection... it gives a great place to expand our dwarves into later when I am ready to pick up some new models.
Our Rams will have the stats of normal Warhorses.
Krag Defenders. In order to get a real backbone I want some dedicated ranged forces to defend territory and provide some ranged cover.
Mountain Scribe. Starting off with a low Willpower and wanting some powerful magic ability in the army will be a challenge. So one of our classes needs to either be able to cast magic, or go for a Willpower bump. We will go for a Willpower bump for this.
Elite Classes either use the base faction or a standard class as starting point for the new elite class. Building off of a standard class tends to make them more expensive, but also quite a bit better. Our Elite Classes get an extra attack + up to two additional traits.
Mountaineer Veterans. Since we have our Mountaineers, we need some veterans to give us that extra punch when need be. So we give them Parry 1 and War Veterans. These are a more expensive point cost, but will be very durable and provide that extra punch during bigger games.
NorKrag Bear Calvary are one of the big models we are trying to reach during our creation process. So we will take the NorKrag Ram Calvary as our base, and give them Monstrous Beast to make our Bears. Since we already have access to medium armor, we will be armoring up our bear during games, for a rather tough beast in battles. For fun we will make their charge into melee even more inspiring by taking Charger 1
NorKrag Rangers. Ive been wanting to make these guys. Take our Defender and give him Infiltration and improve upon his ranged characteristic. This would really help disrupt the enemy battle lines and rethink how they are going to handle the game.
Rock Giants. Ive got this idea Ive always wanted, and that is Giants with Magnetic hides that take rocks with high Iron content and bind them to their hides, eventually becoming part of their hide. These giants work great with that concept, so we will start from our Base Faction to keep the point cost down. So we are going to give them an advanced armor trait, to additional toughness simulating their rock infused skin. For 75pts with the improved armor, this guy will be a beast in combat. What they do need down the road (once playing games, is to level up this class to get an additional wound)
This is a majority of our faction right now. Once games start, you get bonuses to advance your faction, adding new traits, new classes, new technologies, etc. However, I feel like the classes we have for standard and elite forces will work perfectly.
So check back tomorrow when we work on our Leaders and figure out what we will do with a unique class for our Dwarves. While we have spellcasters, we will be doing a leader spellcaster as well as fulfilling our duties of getting in a Giant Eagle and the huge Mountain Giant. While these last bits might seem hard to achieve, we took a secret weapon when creating our faction that will get to where we need to be.
Continue on to the last and final part of our series
Makings of an Army part 4: The Final Classes and 1st Game Results
If you have missed either part 1 or part 2 of this series here are the links
The Making of an Army Part 1: The Challenge
The Makings of an Army Part 2: Creating the Faction
Miniatures provided by Atlantis Miniatures
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