Switch Theme:

Attempt at a homebrew army: Puppetmen  [RSS] Share on facebook Share on Twitter Submit to Reddit
»
Author Message
Advert


Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you:
  • No adverts like this in the forums anymore.
  • Times and dates in your local timezone.
  • Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance.
  • Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely.
  • Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net.
If you are already a member then feel free to login now.




Made in ca
Pustulating Plague Priest






Found an old army I (tried) to make. Looked pretty boring and very unbalanced so far so I thought I'd ask for some help on it here.
Removed a few units that were more or less useless so there aren't really a lot of units so far.

Special Rules:

The Horror
The puppetmen are unliving beings that can easily rise when they are supposedly "slain". After a model has lost its last wound, roll a D6. On a 6+, the model is still alive and gains 1 wound.

Lords:

Puppetmaster - 275 points

Spoiler:
M - 6
WS - 5
BS - 5
S - 5
T - 5
W - 3
I - 4
A - 4
LD - 8

Special Rules: The Horror, Terror, Flammable

Magic: The Puppetmaster is a lv. 2 wizard with spells from the lore of death or the lore of shadow

Options:

May be upgraded to a lv. 3 wizard for +20 points or a lv. 3 wizard for +45 points.

May take wings for +25 points

May take magic items up to 170 points



Core

Dollmen - 10 per model

Spoiler:
(Dollman)
M - 4
WS - 3
BS - 3
S - 3
T - 2
W - 1
I - 3
A - 1
LD - 7

(Stitched One)
M - 4
WS - 4
BS - 3
S - 3
T - 4
W - 1
I - 3
A - 2
LD - 7

Equipment:
-Hand weapons
-Lt. Armor

Unit comp. 10+

Special Rules: The Horror, Flammable

Options:

The entire unit may take...
- Shields +1 point per model
- Spears +1 point per model
- Shortbows +2 points per model

The unit may have a Stitched One for +10 points.
The unit may have a musician for +9 points.
The unit may have a standard bearer for +10 points.


Special

Mannequins - 18 points per model

Spoiler:
M - 5
WS - 4
BS - 3
S - 3
T - 5
W - 2
I - 3
A - 1
LD - 8

Unit Size: 5 - 10

Special Rules: The Horror, Impact hits (1), Frenzy

Equipment: Lt. Armor

Options:

May take...
- Flails +5 points per model
- Crossbow +3 points per model
- Shortbows +2 points per model


Rare

Shrieker Horror - 180 points

Spoiler:
(Shrieker Horror)

M - 5
WS - 2
BS - 4
S - 4
T - 5
W - 3
I - 2
A - 2
LD - 8

(Shrieker Horror Crew)

M - 5
WS - 3
BS - 3
S - 3
T - 2
W - 1
I - 3
A - 1
LD - 8

Equipment (Shrieker):
-Two Crossbows

Equipment (Crew):
- Hand Weapons
- Light Armor

Special Rules: The Horror, Fear

Options:

May replace both crossbows for a...
- Stone Thrower +20 points
- Black Powder Cannon +40 points
- Bolt Thrower +15 points


Magic Items

Spoiler:
Blood Stuffing - 170 points
For each model killed by a model with blood stuffing, roll a die. On a result of 6, the model with the Blood Stuffing regains one wound to a maximum of it's base wounds stat.

Furnace Maw - 72 points
The model with the ember stone gains a S3 breath weapon.

Porcelain Body - 25 points
If the model has the flammable special rule, it is removed. In addition, it counts as heavy armor.

Arcane Flames - 15 points
If the model has the flammable special rule, it is removed. In addition, model makes flaming attacks.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2013/12/10 02:55:07


Faithful... Enlightened... Ambitious... Brethren... WE NEED A NEW DRIVER! THIS ONE IS DEAD!  
   
Made in au
Stubborn White Lion





It's a cool concept, but it's just all over the place at the moment. The costings for the upgrades make no sense... And I'm not even going to start on the magic items.

Also it seems that the army doesn't really have a direction when looking at the stats from a points perspective. Doll men cost the same as an elf, yet they would fight about as well as a skink.

Like I said, cool concept. Unfortunately the list at the moment is almost beyond making suggestions for as it really doesn't make sense. I'd suggest nutting out more of the fluff side for the army first and then attempting to create units/rules. Do you have anything written about the background you could post to help everyone?

Warhammer is the right of all sentient nerds!
 
   
Made in us
Confessor Of Sins




WA, USA

I'll echo alex here. This has a feeling of trying to build an army around a few 'cool ideas' rather than some sort of unified direction or vision. Nothing seems to contribute to any kind of central theme, mechanics-wise. Are they an army that endures, that fights, that casts? I have no way of knowing, especially since everything seems to be able to fill any role, which is not a terribly good bit of design. There's no consistency or seeming sync with the rest of the game.

This is ESPECIALLY true in the Puppetmaster. It feels very much like you wanting to have everything you possibly can and have no weaknesses. Plus 170 points for items? Why are these guys able to get almost DOUBLE the amount of magic items as any other lord-level character in the entire game? AND they are wizards. AND they are solid fighters. AND they can fly.

 Ouze wrote:

Afterward, Curran killed a guy in the parking lot with a trident.
 
   
Made in ca
Pustulating Plague Priest






Haha wow looking back a it again, you're both right. It's pretty bad.
Alright, I'll try to work on some fluff. Maybe I'll try again when I can think of a theme.
Thanks for the feedback!

EDIT: Alright, here's what I have so far...


Origin
There was once a wizard of the Amethyst College who was dabbling in the necromantic arts for the sole purpose of bringing his deceased wife back from the dead. It took him twenty years and the experiments he performed were barbaric, but he was close... very close. These experiments however, caught the attention of the Emperor and he was quickly exiled from the Empire. His labs were destroyed, his work burned and his wife's corpse was desecrated, impossible to raise from the dead.
Fueled with rage and guilt over his inability to bring his wife back from the dead, the wizard sought revenge on the Emperor in the form of a new experiment, a doll. A waist high doll with two black button eyes and a porcelain face. The shape matched that of the wizard's wife, a fitting form the wizard decided for his vengeance. The wizard sought to give this doll to the emperor as a gift to the emperor and at the night of the emperor receiving it, it would kill him in his slumber. The wizard danced with mad glee as he finally finished his experiment and retired for the night, dreaming of the revenge that he would cause the Emperor for stopping his experiments.

That night, during a great storm, a bolt of lightning struck the doll. It arose and looked around the lab searching for the reason of it's birth. There it found the papers that explained the ritual that the wizard used to bring the doll to life. There, it found its purpose. It was make more. That night, silently and without a word, the doll killed the wizard in his sleep. The doll then stitched up the wizard's wounds and performed the same necromantic ritual the wizard used to raise a terr. The doll soon found other, discarded dolls, failed experiments of the wizard, and promptly stitched them up, giving them buttons to see and reanimated them. They would be the ones to unite the world in stitches, a person at a time, until all joined the silent legions of the puppetmen.

The Silent Legion
The puppetmen are a terrifying sight to behold, moving with unnatural spasms and moving ever closer to the enemy with disturbing silence. After the battle, the leaders of these puppetmen are seen stitching the corpses with leather and wool and raising these corpses to march with them in the next battle. Many of their number are physically weak, yet their numbers are large. It appears as though there is an unknown force that controls them like a collective intelligence. This intelligence however not only echoes command to its legions but also it's fears, as it has been shown that the puppetmen are very afraid of fire.

Not quite finished but how would this do for a start?

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2013/12/10 12:59:01


Faithful... Enlightened... Ambitious... Brethren... WE NEED A NEW DRIVER! THIS ONE IS DEAD!  
   
Made in us
Confessor Of Sins




WA, USA

Honestly, the fluff is kind of bland and gives me a big 'so what'. So you've got a magic experiment that ran out of control, how does that become something that it is so big that it can rival other nation's and empire's armies?

Plus, there's a distinct lack of personality here. Now, obviously, it is an army of living puppets so you shouldn't expect to see a whole lot, but there's just a lot of very big questions that are unanswered or glazed over that makes the entire army feel slapped together. Let me lay out some of them:

1. Why are they doing what they are doing? Why are they seeking to do...well actually:

2. What is their purpose? They don't seem to have anything here short of 'be creepy dolls' which isn't much to unite an army around.

3. Where are they? If this force is big enough to rival armies, it has to be somewhere where it can muster forces and maintain a base, right?

4. How is this concept different than, say, undead, both in terms of fluff and in terms of tabletop performance?

 Ouze wrote:

Afterward, Curran killed a guy in the parking lot with a trident.
 
   
Made in ca
Pustulating Plague Priest






Have any suggestions? Fluff was never something I was good at.

Faithful... Enlightened... Ambitious... Brethren... WE NEED A NEW DRIVER! THIS ONE IS DEAD!  
   
Made in us
Confessor Of Sins




WA, USA

Well, when it comes to things like this, I tend to follow two broad rules of thumb:

1. Create a goal or theme as your first thing. Before you dive deep into backstory or the evil magic that animates these dolls, ask yourself what exactly the end goal for this force is. I'd assume that, being puppets and dolls, there is some larger power at play manipulating them, if that is the case, WHY is this larger power using this approach to achieve its ends? Does it want to change all life into dolls? Is this a malicious or misguidedly altruistic idea it is pursuing? Once you have that theme and goal in mind, keep it at the front of your thoughts as you build other parts of your fluff and always ask "is what I am writing contributing to that theme?" It doesn't always need to be direct and clear, but the theme should always set the tone.

2. When it comes to more practical things, such as army size and movement, make sure you answer those simple, practical and indeed, boring questions. It is nowhere near as cool and satisfying to write about how the army gets around as to, say, how it possesses entire villages to swell its ranks, but it does help ground and keep your idea moving. Look at maps of the Warhammer world and try to figure ways that it would be able to grow to large enough that it could rival another army. Think about how it gets from one place to another, and how it goes about that movement. Is it stealthy, using the untiring puppets to simply march all day and night to elude other armies. Or is it a ravaging force, mindlessly just chewing up anything that comes close to it. Things like this help build the personality of the force as a whole.

 Ouze wrote:

Afterward, Curran killed a guy in the parking lot with a trident.
 
   
Made in ca
Pustulating Plague Priest






Well here goes nothing. Hopefully I've got it this time...

All of the puppetmen are led by an unknown intelligence. The main goal of this intelligence is to make peace in the warhammer world through assimilation. This peace however, comes at the cost of personal identity. All races are welcome to join the ranks or forced to, should they refuse.

The puppetmen usually do not attack unless provoked. When they see an army, town, or anything with a good sized population, they will usually invite them to join their ranks, promising freedom from pain, war, and life everlasting but not mentioning the price. These invitations usually come in the form of either strange letters or in very rare cases, hallucinations. Those that accept are lured away from their comrades and dragged off to undergo the transformation into one of them. If the invitation does not work or not enough have joined their ranks, the puppetmen will begin to attack. These attacks vary from small, quiet, raids for small groups, to larger attacks for much larger groups.

In battle, the puppetmen are physically frail. Because of this, they must rely on mind tricks and psychological warfare to outdo their opponents. This can be seen in their magical capabilities, where fear, hallucination, and persuasion are often used.

Sometimes, powerful enough puppetmen will be given sentience. These are normally the leaders of a warband of puppetmen and act as conduits for the intelligence's will, but will still have the orders of the intelligence echoing in their minds, forcing them to remain in its service.

Terror or psychological warfare is the greatest strength of these puppetmen as their presence is largely unnerving and intimidation has at times, aided them in adding more to their ranks. The puppetmen themselves, as they have no real intelligence or sense of self, do not understand fear. They march from place to place in between their "visits", without a word and rarely stopping. Over the course of their conquests, they're numbers have grown considerably, assimilating the many races together as puppetmen.

There is no actual civilisation for the puppetmen. Because of this, many warbands are largely nomad, stopping only to make more of their kin through the natural resources of the land.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2013/12/11 02:54:30


Faithful... Enlightened... Ambitious... Brethren... WE NEED A NEW DRIVER! THIS ONE IS DEAD!  
   
Made in us
Cruel Corsair





Memphis,ny

I like idea. I think it'd be both cool and terrifying to see lifeless stitched together bodies that look like marionette puppets marching en masse, its fluff also allows for a lot of creativity and kit bashing.

"Beyond the tower of Ghrond lies Saro Kyth, there your soul will perish." 
   
Made in us
Calculating Commissar




pontiac, michigan; usa

I actually like the theme a lot but I think it'd be way too creepy considering the family friendly nature of the store.

Ok so here are my ideas on the army.

The theme of the army will be similar to vampire counts in how they play. They will have extremely low initiative like i1 on base units. The magic will be fairly powerful but based around making more toys, turning the enemy into toys or slowing down their opponents with movement and initiative (so kind of shadow magic). Toy-men can take lore of death, lore of shadow and the lore of toys. The aesthetic will have lots of wind-up toys. The toy-men will have blimps and all sorts of more tech related gear. Trains, chariots, etc. will all be wind up toys.

Their HQ is Toy-land which is a city of lots of toys which are assembled and made there the most. The Toy King or similar is the leader and supposedly everything runs in a twisted parody of reality.

The purpose of the toys is that they want to collect souls of living things. Possibly it's similar to tomb kings or beastmen in that the other living races are what they can never be. However taking their souls sustains them and they can put their souls into dolls. Their eventual goal is to turn the world into a big Toy-land being a tremendous parody of real life.

----------------

Army Special Rules: Immune to Psychology, unbreakable, unstable (being unbreakable they'd need something to balance them), slow advance (pursuit moves are -1 movement), causes fear.


----------------

Units for Toy-men:

Toy soldiers/minutemen: These toys are armed with handguns. The toy soldiers/minutemen will have probably BS 3 or 4 but 2 is also possible. T4 is very likely in my head and they will either have heavy armor or scaly skin 5+.

Puppets: Toughness 2 or 3. These guys are cheap, disposable and can be spammed. WS 2 should be about enough.

Toy swarms (for lack of better wording): These are the toy swarms that can be generated and swarmed around bogging down the enemy to prevent them getting close enough.

Stage coach: Not entirely sure on the special idea of this thing other than being a chariot for the toymen.

Toy Box: This can generate more toys every turn for the player. They will most likely be toy swarms but there is a possibility that they will generate more puppets too.

Handyman/Dandy Boy/Puppeteer (hero): Possibly a level 1 or 2 wizard depending on upgrades. This is one of the hero characters which is more buff related and keeps the army together kind of like a liche priest or similar. He can possibly give a sort of regeneration save or ward save to his units or just straight up re-make them with some sort of weird magic using a toy wand or scepter or something.

Spooky Stage with creepy dolls: The creepy dolls will be similar to the tomb banshee a bit or the stage and dolls will do this. Basically any enemy within a certain range have their initiative and movement lowered by 1 at the end of every turn of the toy-men (it stacks per turn and per 'spooky stage' in range). If lowered down to 1 they will start taking casualties because their souls will be sucked out into a toy replica of themselves (probably based on a die plus your leadership vs the enemy's leadership) and be replaced by puppets for every wound lost. This means against things like ogres, lizardmen and undead you are probably going to bring on lots of puppets and kill off plenty of guys too. You may want to protect them as when a stage is destroyed it blows up like a mortis engine or possibly a 'casket of souls' and will just cause toys nearby to fall apart releasing the souls again.

Toy-Man/Puppetmaster: He leads the army and is more buff based. I can imagine the toys would have a combat based hero as well but this will be like the liche priest or vampire general for vampire counts. Basically if you lose him the army starts to crumble and become normal toys. He's a level 3-4 wizard though 4 is pretty likely.

Creepy Carousel: I can't figure out rules for this thing but I'd like to try in the near future. I suppose it could force certain leadership checks (3d6 take the two highest possibly) for stupidity to force the enemy towards it. I don't know what else I could give it.

------------

So those are just some ideas for the toy-men. If you guys would like to hear more I may have more later if I can come up with anything. So what do you guys think?

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2014/01/20 22:49:55


Join skavenblight today!

http://the-under-empire.proboards.com/ (my skaven forum) 
   
Made in au
Stubborn White Lion





 flamingkillamajig wrote:
I actually like the theme a lot but I think it'd be way too creepy considering the family friendly nature of the store.

Too creepy? In a game full of undead, bi-pedal ratmen, half-man/half-livestock beasts, hell spawned daemons and the rest?

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
Their HQ is Toy-land

Dude, what on earth… Seriously, despite how ridiculous the OP's rules were for the original army list of the Puppetmen the fluff he was beginning to create was by far more impressive than this.

I'd actually forgotten about this post though. Would be interested in hearing about any progress the OP has made if he reads this!

Warhammer is the right of all sentient nerds!
 
   
Made in ca
Pustulating Plague Priest






Actually, I stopped progress after it looked like people were not interested. I did think about it a bit. If anyone's still interested, so am I!

@flamingkillamajig: Actually, I wanted the fluff and theme to be creepy (I read a few doll-related creepypastas before typing it for a bit of inspiration explaining why it may be kind of twisted).

I love the ideas for the units!
A walking toy city rules sound very interesting (not to mention it kind of sounds like a WHFB Tervigon) but it kind of feels a little weird having a colorful walking city walking amongst people made of sacs. Maybe something different? (the rules look very good though!)

This message was edited 8 times. Last update was at 2014/01/21 02:09:55


Faithful... Enlightened... Ambitious... Brethren... WE NEED A NEW DRIVER! THIS ONE IS DEAD!  
   
Made in us
Calculating Commissar




pontiac, michigan; usa

Well when I said HQ I meant like their main production land like how elves are stationed in ulthuan. I honestly don't see how that's a terrible idea.

Well I never actually mentioned a walking toy city but I did have ideas for some of this stuff.

I feel like it's interesting. I've heard of creepy doll related things and I do remember something in 'courage the cowardly dog' where there was this puppet show/theatre that slowly turned its actors into dolls. I've heard of the whole soul stealing doll thing before and it's just super creepy.

So yeah if you want to add to it that's fine. Just remember you have to balance it out.

Currently I'm thinking it'd be more of a horde army or something along the lines of undead. Considering how slow wind-up toys are I figure that's how slow all the units should be here.

In the DC comics universe there's also a 'Toy Man' that makes toys. Perhaps the Toy Man in the superman cartoon would work?

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2014/01/21 04:56:30


Join skavenblight today!

http://the-under-empire.proboards.com/ (my skaven forum) 
   
Made in ca
Pustulating Plague Priest






Oh! That HQ! Sorry, I thought you meant this was the model that would lead them into battle!
Okay, that sounds interesting. I can try to make some fluff out of it.
As for the horde army thing, yeah, that kind of makes sense. A slow but large army.

I know psychological warfare according to the fluff (causing fear, giving hallucinations, compelling them to come closer) is supposed to be their strength. Thing is, I'm kind of having trouble making that into effective game rules. You suggested some good ideas (Immune to Psychology and Causes Fear as army-wide) but is there anything else that could work like that?

You also mentioned a Toy-Man? I think there was a character that was meant to be it but she is a marionette. She was the first of the puppetmen so maybe she makes them and leads them?

Faithful... Enlightened... Ambitious... Brethren... WE NEED A NEW DRIVER! THIS ONE IS DEAD!  
   
Made in us
Calculating Commissar




pontiac, michigan; usa

Like this.


http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=toy+man&go=&qs=bs&form=QBIR#a

or at least the more toy version of him.

http://www.itsalltrue.net/?p=966

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2014/01/21 21:55:28


Join skavenblight today!

http://the-under-empire.proboards.com/ (my skaven forum) 
   
Made in ca
Pustulating Plague Priest






Hmm... I was kind of thinking of something that looked more like this:
Spoiler:



Maybe not as big though.

Faithful... Enlightened... Ambitious... Brethren... WE NEED A NEW DRIVER! THIS ONE IS DEAD!  
   
Made in us
Calculating Commissar




pontiac, michigan; usa

Na I like the toy-man from superman better. The version I showed in the 2nd link I posted. Either that or make it a napoleon-esque general with a scarred eye puppet.

Join skavenblight today!

http://the-under-empire.proboards.com/ (my skaven forum) 
   
Made in ca
Pustulating Plague Priest






I don't know. He doesn't really look very scary.

EDIT: Better idea. We're probably going to have more than one lords choice so why not use both? Yours can be the one that hands out buffs and supports the army and mine can be the more combat oriented?

This message was edited 4 times. Last update was at 2014/01/23 02:32:02


Faithful... Enlightened... Ambitious... Brethren... WE NEED A NEW DRIVER! THIS ONE IS DEAD!  
   
Made in us
Calculating Commissar




pontiac, michigan; usa

 SkavenLord wrote:
I don't know. He doesn't really look very scary.

EDIT: Better idea. We're probably going to have more than one lords choice so why not use both? Yours can be the one that hands out buffs and supports the army and mine can be the more combat oriented?


Well that's fair enough. I'm fairly certain every army (or almost every army) has a combat lord and a wizard lord as well as a combat hero and wizard hero. So I figure that it would work. Just as long as you keep the low initiative in there with the army. So basically initiative 4 is about as high as a combat lord will have. The rest of the army should be lizardmen and undead slow so basically initiative 1 and 2 on most things. I figure nothing would be faster than initiative 3 in the army besides heroes and lords.

Join skavenblight today!

http://the-under-empire.proboards.com/ (my skaven forum) 
   
 
Forum Index » The Old World & Legacy Warhammer Fantasy Discussion
Go to: