Possible Races: Idea Corner and Race Discussion

[SpiritofTheWolfx]

Well I wanted to share my ideas for some possible additions to the enemy races in Battle Brothers. I have decided to make a post for everyone to post their ideas on the race they would like to see.

I think I will start with my personal favorite from any and all fantasy genre’s. The mighty, the powerful and majestic………Skaven. Everyone favorite underground crack addicted rodent people. I think if a Skaven-esq race would be integrated it would work very well with Battle Brothers, it would add an interesting dynamic to the game. Not saying the races implements already are not interesting but all of them fall into your standard Fantasy genre. You have your Orc (Ork. Difference between Orc and Ork.) that is a race in just about all every single fantasy game. They are somewhat slow, extremely stupid, stupidly strong and aggressive. Then you have your Undead. Typical fantasy enemy again, not really any different from any other iteration. Then we have the Goblin. Out of all the races so far it is my personal favorite. Being the most unique of the enemies so far introduced. A highly militarized and organized force, easily rivaling humans with organization and equipment. Normally when a game introduces goblins you have tricky little green things that are extremely weak and cowardly. Generally some of the best engineers in the world, their constructs are crude and prone to kill the user. Also generally enslaved or serving their tougher Green-Skin cousins. I love how you have made them a very interesting race. Making their government system near Feudal, the military using combined arms to great effect.

Anyways back to my idea on a new race. I will be using the term ‘Skaven’ just as a generic term, knowing that if any of it would get implemented, IF, I highly doubt it because they probably have what races they want to implement in the end game already planned out, but we can speculate can’t we? Anyways. I am not saying just plop down the Skaven in the world, I am saying use the Skaven as a ‘model’ for the race they want to implement like they did with the Goblins.

So…Lets start with how they could be implemented. I will be only listing the things that can be possibly implemented. The Skaven are rats. Literal rats, just barely smaller then your average human, just as strong as your average human, but fast. They are extremely cowardly creatures. They rely heavily on numbers to kill their foe, given your standard Skaven could take on a human soldier on a one in one fight, but would never do that. They are more confident and better moral with 40 other Skaven at their back, not that they trust any single one of them. They are extremely paranoid, words like trust, compassion, mercy, friendship and comradeship being filthy, filthy words. They would gladly kill anyone of the rats they are fighting beside to advance their standing in their society. Hell it doesn’t even have to be something as noble, another filthy word, as that, they could just think that the other is thinking about killing him. How they fight is with a large force of Skaven slaves in the front to basically die and flee and kill some of the enemy and wear them down. Unlike any other race, seeing their comrades die and flee would be giving them a moral boost, since that is one less Skaven that can kill them. Their mentality is they are always right and everyone else is wrong, and will kill me given the chance, which is exactly true because every other Skaven would. Only thing that normally keeps them in check is that their leader scare them. And given that anyone in the Skaven Warlords army would kill him given the chance he is the strongest and most cunning of any of them just because he is alive.

How would you implement them into Battle Brothers? Well first and foremost they would have to have a lot of units in even the smallest group. For an example, a group of scouts, which I have noticed ranges from 4-8…Well I would say possibly 12-14 or lower. Not really important for scouts. Large groups would be…16-24 or larger. But the majority of them would not be strong or well equipped. The bulk of the group would be Skaven slaves, bad weapons to no weapons, no armor and extremely low morale. So your Battle Brothers would be able to slaughter them no problem, but they would be fatiguing and taking some damage. Maybe damaged armor and some health damage. Then the ‘standard’ unit would come in, for simplicity we will call the Clan Rats. Equipped with small shields and spears. They would be the one to inflict the most ‘damage’ possibly being the end to weak or early game Battle Brothers. Then would come the groups leader with his elite units. For simple titles, Storm Vermin and Warlord. The Skaven Slaves would have no armor, Clan Rats with bad leather armor, and the Storm Vermin with with scale, bad scale but still scale armor. They would be their to try to finish the fight.

Stats wise I would say that each Skaven is slightly weaker then normal humans, maybe equal to goblins or a little less. They would be hard to hit, but they can’t really absorb much damage either and their morale would be awful. Thats why the first wave of Slaves would be important. Each Skaven Slave retreating or dead would be giving a small increase to the other Skavens moral. Having the Warlord in the battle and alive means that they get another boost to morale and resolve, but since he is one of the most important units he wouldn’t just jump into battle right away, making your archers snipping him important, either killing him, or causing him to retreat. They would be a melee heavy race, not that they are strong, but just so many to overwhelm your shield wall. Fighting them would be all but defensive until you finished off a good chunk of the Clan Rats. The reason I think they would be so interesting to add to the game is because unlike the other races in game. When their other units are dying off they would be getting small buffs, as long as they are not in direct combat. So in essence killing them gives buffs, small buffs, to their other units. And a lot of the battle would be large units against small units. We see this often in Undead battles but unlike the undead they have morale and will flee, really crappy morale. And it would make killing the leader a lot more important then normal. It would infer a massive debuff to remain non fleeing Skaven units, causing them to either fight for a little while longer then flee, or out right begin to flee, or if they still have enough resolve to keep fighting have them start fighting each other for who should be the next Warlord.

So what do you guys think? Also feel free to leave any and all ideas if you want to!

[MrEdgarr]

you cant just copy a race from warhammer.

[Grove_Knight]

I think some larger species of monsters would be neat. Even ones that take up multiple hexes, like a dragon or something. Dwarves, Ogres, Elves, etc. All of these would be fitting additions.

[Atheist]

hold on a minute here, this game is supposed to be a gritty, low fantasy, medieval game, not a high fantasy, uugh its another dragon, game. While you might like the high fantasy thing with lots of dragons, dwarves, elves, ect… I dont think that is what the devs were going for, and i for one dont want it in the game.

Ask me about your God

[SpiritofTheWolfx]

MrEdgarr wrote:

you cant just copy a race from warhammer.

I wasn’t. I was saying using it as a base to make their own unique race. By your logic the dev’s couldn’t have done that with their race of Orc’s (Technically Orks since their is a difference. Or their goblins which are obviously heavily inspired by the Warhammer Hobgoblins. All I was saying they should use a race that you do not see anywhere else, unlike orks, goblins, undead. Those are three of your cookie cutter low fantasy creatures. I was just saying that the Skaven would be a nice template to use to create a new race.

[SpiritofTheWolfx]

Grove_Knight wrote:

I think some larger species of monsters would be neat. Even ones that take up multiple hexes, like a dragon or something. Dwarves, Ogres, Elves, etc. All of these would be fitting additions.

And what would the fun in that be? Those are all cookie cutter races that you will find in any fantasy universe ever. All of those are just plain boring. I want to see something unique.

[Malthus]

I don´t want to sound rude, but you should really start to read the FAQ before posting such ideas. There won´t be elves or dwarfs.

They plan to expand the beast faction. So maybe there will be some monsters similar to these ratmen even though I don´t like them very much. Next thing will be Ninja Turtles, right?

"I am a Paladin!"
>OMG, Malthus, there are no damn paladins in Battle Brothers...<
"OK, OK! Then I´m a wrecked down minstrel drunkard pretending to be a paladin, singing so wrong in the midst of battle that even the undead run in fear... Better?!"

[SpiritofTheWolfx]

Atheist wrote:

hold on a minute here, this game is supposed to be a gritty, low fantasy, medieval game, not a high fantasy, uugh its another dragon, game. While you might like the high fantasy thing with lots of dragons, dwarves, elves, ect… I dont think that is what the devs were going for, and i for one dont want it in the game.

I just wish someone would be willing to take a chance and either put a spin on a race that has no attention (Skaven) or just say screw it and create a brand new race completely. Hell the dev’s could do it. It is there game after all.

[Malthus]

And they were pretty precise when in comes to the point what they wanted to be in their game regarding races and what definitely not.

"I am a Paladin!"
>OMG, Malthus, there are no damn paladins in Battle Brothers...<
"OK, OK! Then I´m a wrecked down minstrel drunkard pretending to be a paladin, singing so wrong in the midst of battle that even the undead run in fear... Better?!"

[Grove_Knight]

Woah, calm down folks. It was just a suggestion. No need to get upset over some fantasy ideas.

[Meeky]

Rather than have them add new factions / races immediately, I’d love to see them expand on what they have first (which they plan to do, IIRC). But if they do eventually add more races, I want them to be more along the lines of what we see already.

Ghouls, werewolves, orcs, goblins, vampires, necromancers… This is a world where if there’s something magical or inhuman, it’s evil. I think that gives the setting a flavor that is really, really neat. Any monster they add should fit that theme.

Someone earlier mentioned ogres. Not a bad start. Sure, ogres are “typical,” but so are orcs and goblins, yet they’ve both been given such character. Why not use ogres?

What about trolls? Except the trolls could be themed around Viking mythology. Hell, what if Grendel was used as the basis for trolls? A creature that lurks in the swamps, sneaks into towns, rips apart the inhabitants and eats them, literally eats them? Both furred and ape-like, tall and gangly and deadly? I’d dig that, and we already have the clearly Viking-based Raider background in the game.

The thing is, you can take these sort of races – “cookie cutter” races as you call them – and turn them into something great, just as the orcs and goblins have been given a broad brush of color that fits the setting.

Hell, I could even imagine a crazy “Druid” type opponent working for the Beast faction. Of course, they’re evil and they want you dead; they’ve let themselves go TOO wild; but using Druid-style powers as horror elements working alongside werewolves, giant snakes, horned bears and things like that would make for an utterly awesome touch to the game. Again, none of that is anything “new” or “uninvented” or whatever you want to say. It’s just an old trope reexamined and re-imagined.

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