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One of the oft requested new races for Warhammer (although partly in jest by some people) is some kind of Fishmen army. Now I always thought this would be quite cool, despite the obvious limitations... "Hey, let's play a coastal raid scenario again."

They also technically exist in the fluff already as some form of aquatic based creature with "needle sharp teeth" which have been giving Dark Elf Corsairs a bit of bother.

So what are your thoughts? Great army potential or one human/animal hybrid too many? Want to see the nemesis of Dark Elf corsairs expanded upon or should they remain just background fluff?

I'd much rather see the Fimir and Zoats extended and given a proper book. They're kinda fishmen esque...

I wouldn't mind some sort of aquatic based race, there is afterall an entire special rule that currently no model in existance has.

Sort of a sunken empire in the ocean thats attempting to flood the world.


They could have a mechanic similar to wood elves and forests where they get to bring along a swamp or river of water.

I'd be thoroughly intrigued to see a well thought out mostly aquatic race.

Release the miniature kraken?

 Micky wrote:
Release the miniature kraken?

You mean this guy?


Kraken mini from Man O War

 Flashman wrote:
One of the oft requested new races for Warhammer (although partly in jest by some people) is some kind of Fishmen army. Now I always thought this would be quite cool, despite the obvious limitations... "Hey, let's play a coastal raid scenario again."

They also technically exist in the fluff already as some form of aquatic based creature with "needle sharp teeth" which have been giving Dark Elf Corsairs a bit of bother.

So what are your thoughts? Great army potential or one human/animal hybrid too many? Want to see the nemesis of Dark Elf corsairs expanded upon or should they remain just background fluff?

I want to see this. Big time.

I have been waiting for this for a while and it would totally add depth to warhammer fantasy. Not another one of those dumb human, elf, dwarf or chaos factions. I guess these would be good guys with some fair similarities to lizardmen. I heard somebody say they were like atlanteans but if they looked more cthulu-esque i'd be incredibly over-joyed to the point of fan-gasming and nerd-gasming with eye pupils dilated as if i was on drugs of some kind.

First off, I think most people will say they want all the old armies either upgraded or removed.

Second, there's only so many ways to differentiate armies when you have the same unit types (chariots, infantry, cavalry). What interests me is rules changes not model changes. You could probably use WE, HE, O&G, rules and call them Fishmen. A bunch of strider or ASF or horde + netters. Fishmen is just fluff. You could say Lizardmen are fishmen.

I'd rather see some completely different types of armies. Ogres are MI. Brets are Cavalry. TK have an ability to be big chariots. What else could you leverage in the system that would make a unique game play? Whether they are fishmen or rockmen or space nerds doesn't matter if they play exactly the same as an existing army. Let's not make this 40K with 1000 different SM chapters who are all 90% identical.

Besides the 20 pages of fluff and history in army books, there used to be a page of sample strategy right before the army list--they took it out in the 8th books. But that's the crux of the army. How does it play? What are its options? What bases haven't been covered in WHFB? MC as core? Monsters--real monsters as core? All flying?

 Flashman wrote:

 Micky wrote:
Release the miniature kraken?

You mean this guy?


Kraken mini from Man O War

No, I think he meant this guy:



He did say miniature Kraken.

Abilities would be aquatic just like skinks in that water features are treated as open ground and cause no penalties.

They move slower on land but they're more devastating to make up for it.

They have a weakness to fire (obviously) and take more damage to it.

I figure it'd be something like a tomb kings army in play style. Hordes of fishmen, some fairly elite units, possibly a trident wielding fish tail with a mermaid-esque head the size of the tomb kings sepuchrul stalkers and finally sea monsters like the kraken or some sort of cthulu monster. Most of this stuff will move slower on land than in water which it's fast at. Chariots pulled by giant eels or wish with the chariots bedecked with coral, star fish, barnacles, sunken ship chunks and mermaid men wielding tridents.

I figure lots of magic will be based around the oceans and helping to spread them to make things easier for them and their army to move around and fight.

This will quite possibly be a good chunk similar in play style to tomb kings except fishmen instead of undead. There will also be banshee like characters (VC) in the form of underwater temptresses that kill mortal men in droves through hypnotic beauty and killing them when their true form is revealed (a creepy as h*ll monster). Ever seen that 'courage the cowardly dog' episode where that evil mermaid woman tempts eustace? It's pretty much like that. Not sure if that was inspired off something else but i'm guessing it was.

Flying would be limited but i'm guessing there would be underground water systems that pop up into swamps that would allow for movement between them like a warp grinder would allow movement to a spot anywhere. Also the fishmen can arrive through water features on the board possibly as an outflank maneuver or scouts on many of their guys possibly or at least within reason as smaller skirmishing units or river monsters.

Fishmen would also have scaly skin like lizardmen i guess.

Fishmen would also get stuff like schools of fish or possibly schools of eels of different kinds as a sort of swarm unit.

I figure if fishmen become a faction they'd be neutral like ogres and tomb kings are in the game. They're not bad but they're not good. I suppose it depends how you want to handle all this i guess.

I suppose the best way to describe them is kind of like tomb kings with water features treated as open terrain, a way to move water around and to use water as a point of entry for a lot of outflanking or scout units. It should make the enemy afraid when around or in water features (and possibly take more dangerous terrain when in them as a fishmen magic spell). You can use templates to mark water features or possibly some sort of terrain piece.

Magic will be definitely sea related with floods, tsunamis, etc and lots of torrential rains. I figure whenever they're coming the sky turns dark, the waters turn green and restless and an unearthly wind covers the land.

These guys might also have a storm summoning unit or some all powerful monster that does so like a dragon ogre shaggoth or something but bigger. Alternatively they could actually have a cthulu insanity monster.

No thanks, fishmen would be a terrible decision, never going to happen, ever.

Are we talking about murlocks or tau? Because GW would never steal intellectual property like orks or space marines.

I wouldn't mind, but their update list is slow enough as it is.

 Grey Templar wrote:
I wouldn't mind some sort of aquatic based race, there is afterall an entire special rule that currently no model in existance has.

Sort of a sunken empire in the ocean thats attempting to flood the world.


They could have a mechanic similar to wood elves and forests where they get to bring along a swamp or river of water.

Skinks

 captain collius wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
I wouldn't mind some sort of aquatic based race, there is afterall an entire special rule that currently no model in existance has.

Sort of a sunken empire in the ocean thats attempting to flood the world.


They could have a mechanic similar to wood elves and forests where they get to bring along a swamp or river of water.

Skinks

I think he meant the negative special rule where something walks awkwardly outside of water features.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:

 captain collius wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
I wouldn't mind some sort of aquatic based race, there is afterall an entire special rule that currently no model in existance has.

Sort of a sunken empire in the ocean thats attempting to flood the world.


They could have a mechanic similar to wood elves and forests where they get to bring along a swamp or river of water.

Skinks

I think he meant the negative special rule where something walks awkwardly outside of water features.

I think the rule he is refering to is Aquatic and Skinks have Aquatic for all the good it does them

No, I was referring to Sea Creature. Page 75.

To give the army a different feel, you either need different stats, unit types, or deployment IMO.

Sea Creature is a must, but having an army super dependent on a single terrain type isn't a good idea. It makes game performance too tied to terrain. The only way to counter this is to balance it.
Myrmen Form, fish men form legs and lose the seacreature ability.
Myr Form, fish men return to fish form, gain the seacreature rule, and gain X. (Regeneration of some amount, better scaly skin, something like that).

You'd have a shape shifting army that had to choose between speed (marching) and extra durability (regen/scaly skin).

IMO, that would make it unique from other armies in that it's performance could change while the units remain the same.

-Matt

 Micky wrote:
Release the miniature kraken?

This would be pretty cool. It'd be like the new "Waaaaggghhh!". It'd be something you activate once per game and instead of shouting "Waaaagghhhh" as you do so, you would proclaim "release the Kraken!" in a suitably Davy-Jones-esque manner with plenty of Scottish annunciation on the word 'Kraken'.

Davy Jones as a Lord Choice would be pretty cool too. He'd have a Special Rule saying that his opponent in a challenge loses 1 Attack (to a min of 0) as they are ensnared by his tentacle beard.

Yes, I guess the big obstacle is the terrain issue (i.e. lack of water). I like Hawaii Matt's idea of different "forms" though and some form of magic creating additional water features may work.

I thought the fishmen introduced in WoW where handled quite well, more river based than ocean though.

I'd have no objections mind, hell I'd like to see a couple of new races for both settings, just for some more flavour.

I'd tolerate Fishmen in WHFB but only if they came out after the larger Warhammer world was fleshed out a bit.

I'd start FB for the fishmen.

Wow Platuan4th, that is an awesome model. Where is it from?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
on topic, Fishmen if done right could be cool. Would GW get it 'right' though?

 Morathi's Darkest Sin wrote:

I'd have no objections mind, hell I'd like to see a couple of new races for both settings, just for some more flavour.

Yeah i know that there are other human factions but is anybody like me in that they prefer not to play any of the human, elf, orcs & goblins and dwarfs in fantasy? All i'm saying is that i've seen enough of all of them but we could really use something that breaks the mold like beastmen, skaven and lizardmen. Maybe it's just me but i think a fish people race is just what the doctor ordered. And the doctor ordered pain! With delivery! And no tip!

Also i think battles with an extended coastline sounds like a perfect army expansion though supposedly that'd be ridiculous for high elves according to a friend. It'd totally be fantastic with the new fish people army though. I kind of wish they'd bring back the 'blood in the badlands' expansion so i could actually buy it. It had underground battles in it and that would've been perfect for my skaven vs a dwarf match-up. I think there's so much more fantasy could have besides just crazy magic and huge mega-battles of armies. For instance fortress/castle sieges and underground battles would be a good start. Perhaps in underground battles the ability to dig underground for the underground factions in greater frequency. Ugh if only i had the money. Things could really use an over-arching game map with bonuses not just for certain points taken but for different factions and also for battles won or lost (though i think all but faction differences have been done in some way).

If they were still doing Dogs of War, a fish-person regiment would be ideal. Not sure a would want a whole army myself.

Interesting concept. But i would rather the books all get updated first. Even then i would be more interested in a full army book again for chaos dwarfs and the other established nations for a new army book. Like Ind, Nippon, Border Princes, Cathay.

I would like to see a sort of shark race. Seeing some awesome Hammerhead Shark warrior type armt unit would be interesting. Burt there are a lot of limitations to that, also Lizardmen are sort of the aquatic race.

 DiabolicAl wrote:
Wow Platuan4th, that is an awesome model. Where is it from?

It's a converted Privateer Press Swamp Horror for Hordes Minions.

Deep Ones and the like would be great fun.

Plus isn't the female pirate from Dread Fleet not human and hacked her lower body off or similar - plus a daughter of the sea god - might be some tie in there?

I'd rather see Eastern Empires - so so much more potential - some tantalising details here and there - like in the Neferata novel and their use of gunpowder in the time of the living Tomb Kings