Athel Loren Campaign: Hired Swords & Dramatis Personae

The initial ideas for hired swords were:
- Amber Mage
- Bestigor
- Bretonnian Faceless?? (The robin hood types of bretonnia).
- Alter kindred wood elf?
- Quillbeastman ?
- Beast hunter
- Big game hunter

Dramatis Personae:
Inspired by Von Kurst mention of Legless and the art of the bow connected with Athel Loren: A wannabe legolas (Bs 7, fires 3 arrows each turn, like Johann but better range and worse strength).
A lost grail knight helping bretonnian warbands like Bertha.
Uxtulmaru, Scourge of the southern forest: A powerful beastman shaman, who hates elves and humans.

Robin Hood: Would we be overstepping our ground and having THEE Betrand show up in Athel Loren? If not him, maybe a member of his Brigands? (Maybe 'Roussel de Rouge?')

Well, as I mentioned before, the Beastmen Hired Swords would be GREAT to add in.

Other ideas:

~Exploration aide: kinda like the Nomad, helps get through.
~Amber Mage - Adds a 'savage' touch to the Merc warbands ('cause, no matter how we coax, every campaign WILL have a Merc player, I just know it.)
~Alter - could be need. Adds Wild Cats or Hounds (S4) to the group? Can be hired by HE, WE, Bowmen, or Brets?

Not sure what you mean by 'Quillbeastmen', to be honest. And there already is a 'Big Game' and 'Beast Hunter, really.

DPs: Oh, how about we have a Pellinore and a Questing Beast DP? The old knight hunting down the crazed beast through the forest of Athel Loren. Brets, WE, HE, Dwarves, & other Humans warbands could hire the Knight, while Beastmen, Undead & Greenskins can hire/look for the Questing Beast.

Hmm, Perhaps we could have a hunt for the outlaw scenario where we hunt a bertrand/robin hood wannabe.

Or we could include a bertrand character (although not necissarily bertrand), who doesn't need upkeep but gives half of your post game gold to the poor.

The big game hunter and the beast hunter were mainly to emphasize these, so we could include them as suggestions for what people could include in this setting.

The quillbeast was an idea I came up with some time ago, I wanted to have a beastman that uses his natural weapons, his back would be full of spikes which he could throw, like a quillbeast.

Looking at the amber mage, we need a spell list for him.

I'm thinking he should mainly have spells that buff himself into a melee monster, along with a spell similar to children of the horned rat, and black fury.
For the exploration aide, we already have the elven ranger, but perhaps we could need another similar one?

Alter, I like the idea of an alter with a group of wild cats, however how should they be included as a single HS?

DP, I like the idea of a beast and a questing knight who hunts it, this gives us two knight DPs which should be fine to give a bretonnian feel.

Master wrote:

Alter, I like the idea of an alter with a group of wild cats, however how should they be included as a single HS?

you seen the rules for the Snake Charmer hired sword on page 20 of the Khemri setting? He comes with 3 snakes and if not out of action, he can search for additional snakes after battle. Something similar could be done with the Alter (sounds like fun already).

Good idea identity, so what if we do it something like this:

Feral Alter:
40gc to hire, 10gc upkeep + 10gc per wild cat.

May be hired: By wood elves, high elves and bretonnians.

Rating: +15 points, +5 points per cat, +1 per experience (s)he has.

	M	Ws	Bs	S	T	W	I	A	LD
Alter	6	4	4	3	3	1	5	1	8
Wild Cat	6	4	-	3	3	1	4	1	6

Weapons & Armour: The Alter carries a longbows, a sword, an elven cloak and a dagger. The cat carry nothing and need nothing.
He starts with 1 cat.

Feral animals: Wild cats never gain experience. In addition if they are not within 6" of the alter at the start of the turn, they most roll a leadership test, if failed they will charge the nearest model, friend or foe.
Wild cats fear members of the alter kindred, and therefore they will never charge a member of the alter kindred, and will stop 1" away from them if attempting to do so. Each turn they are in combat with a member of the alter kindred, they will try to break from combat, and they wont fight back against them.

Cat Whisperer: In the post game section the alter may attempt to lure in another wild cat, to do so he must pass a leadership test, if succesfull he aquires a cat, if not he suffers 2s4 hits. As the cat attacks him before fleeing off. he may have no more than 3 cats at a time.

Pounce: When the wild cats charge they receive +1 attack.

I think adding in a Default 'Beastmaster - All friendly animals within 6" may reroll Leadership" seems like a good idea for the Alter. Makes him useful for any warband with animals in it.

May be hired: For the sake of expanding his use, I think "May also be hired by Halflings, Bowmen of Bergerac, & Dryads. Dwarf Slayers, Dwarf Treasure Hunters, Mercenaries, Witch Hunters, & Sisters of Sigmar may hire also hire him, but pay double for Upkeep (applies only to him, and not his cats.)"

Also, I think raising the Strength of the cats to 4 might not be too powerful. Sure, with Pounce they can be really nasty, but you're paying 10gc each game with an animal only slightly better than a 15gc wardog, so I don't think it'd break them.

I agree that 10 gold upkeep for a cat is too much. I'd suggest bumping the Alter's upkeep up to 15, and dropping the cats' down to 5 gold. That would mean with the max of 3 cats, it would be 30 gold upkeep. Same as an ogre. As it currently stands, it would be 40 gold upkeep, which strikes me as too high.