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Just as a first glance this looks really good, something that you could use to explain how they can build fortifications is by saying that they have some special spit or something. I forget the name of the bird but there's a swallow in Asia that builds its nests out of its own spit, possibly also like termites but I like the swallow idea better.

Oh and one other thing that I just remembered, you know how RPG's have a long barrel? There was a 300 episode of samurai jack where, being in the future, the Spartans had grenades on their spears that they would launch before the tip of the spear slid up from the inside of the shaft and they then charged into combat. If you had a one use weapon like that it'd be really cool.

First off, thanks to those of you who have said you like the ideas, it makes me feel better about spending so much time typing this all down....

 rahxephon wrote:
Like the warlord table, I think the HQ could work well similar to a CCS from IG. So you have your basic Dux and 2 voltur's, then on top of that you can add on an auspex or a aedifactor. Alternatively you could have the others instead of a the Dux so you could make a psycher or techy based CCS.

Actually, making them into a squad that you can upgrade various members for sounds quite good. Although I wouldn't want to limit the army to just the one HQ choice..

All your slight adjustments for stats, is there any particular reasons for them, or you just feel they would be more balanced? I really appreciate the ideas for point values especially, as I really wasn't sure where to start for that stuff!

 rahxephon wrote:

Overall I think its quite cool, most of the things I'd change are just a few stat things. But being a predominantly melee army, it would be quite a huge horde. As in hundreds of Accipiters for example. However if there was one thing I would do playing this army is spam purely Falco's. They virtually have bolters that ignore cover, so I would suggest making them Ap6 and just giving -1 to cover saves like that warlord trait (but the 2 are combinable). For their points cost I did it with that change in mind.

That's probably fair, I put that in to give them an advantage over their foes given the amount of cover they can buy with their army. Reducing the effectiveness of that cover without ignoring it makes more sense fluff-wise too. But I'm a fan of as simple a rule as I can. Is counting cover as one less simple enough that people are fine with it?

I had begun to realise how big the armies would end up being too! So many foot soldiers in a 40k game... Not really sure how to get around that, without making them more than human-ish stats... I guess they need some more vehicle options as well?

I like being able to choose for the Gallum, but I guess they could be turned into a pre-game roll to see the effect. I could offer a special character/some sort of upgrade that allows two cumulative rolls or something as well.

Barrywise wrote:
Oh and one other thing that I just remembered, you know how RPG's have a long barrel? There was a 300 episode of samurai jack where, being in the future, the Spartans had grenades on their spears that they would launch before the tip of the spear slid up from the inside of the shaft and they then charged into combat. If you had a one use weapon like that it'd be really cool.

This is quite a neat idea. I may look at yet another unit with these weapons (as I quite like my energy javelins, and they gave me the fluff for a blinding large gun).

Dast wrote:
I really like it! I love how you wove the "they build fortifications" into their evolutionary history with the nests and amphitheaters.

Minor things I would change:
-I would suggest their ancestors never flew, this rams home the point that, being aliens they are not birds. Instead they are an alien life form that so happens to be roughly analogous to Terrestrial birds.

Thanks! I thought it made sense, but figured it would be a good idea to elaborate for everyone! I like your suggestions of noting the similarity to the birds humans are aware off, but noting that they never flew. They have feather for warmth and display, and they have beaks, but they never flew. Perhaps somewhere in the misty recesses of their evolution they shared an ancestor with some of their own planets birds, but they followed a different branch.

For the stats adjustments and points, I just compared them to units in my orks and IG dex. It sort of feels that the army fits in between them too me and for things like the initiative, I was just basing it off marines and dark eldar predominantly (those are just the one's I'm most familiar with).

I dont see a cover save modifier as being that difficult to keep track of, the armour save modifiers in WHFB took a while to get used to!

Being an Avian based race, I cant really imagine them being heavily armoured. What you could do is give the majority/all units stealth so they get +1 to their own cover saves. Would bump up the cost a bit as they would almost be MEQs at range. I see it as fitting into their fluff; master of cover, know how to negate the enemies and benefit the most from their own etc. Then it wouldn't be so horde like.

edit; also they need a MC..... called a moa
also one other thing I think would be cool, 'being preternaturally adapt to sensing out danger, combined with its psychic potential the auspex also have the ability of the C:SM auspex'. I think it was where you rolled 4d6 at the start of the game and if any infiltrators set up with that radius your guy or his unit could have a round of shooting at it before the game starts. So in effect... its hard to sneak up on these guys.

I think having tank sized robotic beetles with turrets instead of wing flaps would look pretty good. (Possibly slightly like the walkers in star wars attack of the clones).

They could have the ability to partially burrow themselves so that only the turret sticks out and the rest of them is under some loose earth they have kicked up. (game terms this could be that they could gain some cover (wherever they are) instead of moving.