Plague doctor warband

Hi guys,

I've been working on a Plague doctor warband since last night, (yeah I know, but I had some ideas which resulted not in a hired sword but in a warband xD) and I wanted to share some of it with you.

I'll post the introductiontale and choice of warriors first. I do have some profiles but I'm still working on those.

Introduction

Many are the sorrows of the ordinary people of the Empire, and one of their greatest fears is getting ill. Only the slightest rumor of a plague can drive a little town into frenzy, people locked up and quarantined in their homes, exiled, or even worse. In these times doctors travel from village to village, offering their services to the common folk in exchange for money to make their living.

But not all of these doctors have good intentions. Evil man en maddened experimentalists travel the lands of Sigmar, pretending to help man. Secretly they poison whole families to see what happens, or they inflict more damage on a broken leg whilst experimenting! Some of these doctors have even gone further, and work together with the loathsome Skaven.

In exchange for protection and finances the Plague doctors spread deceases amongst men and experiment on the poor and sick. The Skaven find this a profiting business as using human subjects makes infiltrating the world of man much easier. Besides, men are much easier to corrupt.

Soon the man-things will know the true meaning of cure and decease...

Choice of Warriors
A Horror Warband must include a minimum of 3 models. You have 500 gold crowns which you can use to recruit your initial warband. The maximum number of warriors in the warband may never exceed 15.

Plague doctor: Each Evil doctors warband must have one Plague doctor. Someone has to be the genius, eh?
Skaven representative: Your warband may include a single Skaven representative.
Helpers: Your warband may include two Helpers.
Skaven helpers: Your warband may include up to five Skaven helpers
Deranged prisoners: Any number of models may be deranged prisoners.
Walking experiments: Your Warband may include up to two Walking experiments

This sounds cool! I suggest naming the (Human) Helpers to nurse, attendant, backer, underling, fetch, aide, acolyte, or some more esoteric/archaic words. Here are some other cool words that may or may not mean doctor, and may or may not be derogatory: Quacksalver, Archiator, Chirurgeon, Leech, Bones, Craoker, Butcher, Cutty, Sawbones...

Edit; Plageue Archiater sounds awesome! Churgeon Guard could make a good name for a hero or henchman.

This could be sweet, u could have the Plague doc have a igor (i guess thats the helper), and a one Frankenstien monster (Its alive!) type ! give it and undead/ ogre type. Or is that your intentions with the walking experiments?


Would the Doc have revive spells similar to sigmar preist spell?

This could be some cool modeling!

Actually, I've seen more than one Frankenstein - style character out there- one in the 'Necrarch' warband, one in the 'Masters of Horror' warband, both of which is one Brahm's site. http://www.brahmsbook.com/

(The latter group, the 'Masters of Horror', was inspired by the old Monster Movies, with a Mad Scientist/Reanimator as the leader).

Spells: how about this instead- the Skaven Accolyte has plague orbs, which 6 possible diseases to learn. They are like Spells, in that they require a Difficulty test and are learned randomly, but are all thrown with BS, and so they can possibly miss their target, poisoning your own henchmen. To balance it off, the first Orb thrown each game does not require a Difficulty test- it is pre-made before battle, and works perfectly if it hits the target. A difficulty test is required to safely siphon off and fill another plague orb on the fly, hence the difficulty in 'reloading'.

Maybe one of the plagues is an oozing blob, which slowly grows. It is entirely impassible, and must be jumped over or circumnavigated.

I must confess that the Masters of Horror warband was a good source for inspiration. But I wanted something different. I feel the MoH aren't evil , but mere crazy The Plaguedoctor had to be a person realy evil, and I wanted to fit the Skaven theme in. Any of you read Witchhunter? One will know what I mean when you know about Freiherr Weichs.

That list of names is realy good, I'll use one of those for the 'helpers'. I'm looking for another name for the Skaven too btw.

I was thinking of adding an ogre, or perhaps a rat ogre but then I thought about some experiments gone bad, something like the possessed. I want some options you can buy for them, still thinking on them.

I like it. There is also mention of Skaven Worshipping cults in the Empire

Experiment: Personally, I think the Possessed Warband is pretty darn tough. Compared to the other official warbands, it's nearly unstoppable for the same price. Just a bias of mine, so take my next advice with a grain of salt...

Rather than a Possessed Hero, make it a mindless, Possessed Henchmen Experiment. Give it purchasable mutations (the Carnival list seems a good spring board.) If you want to be REALLY nice, make it 'unkillable' (like the troll) or able to be 'resurrected' (like Brahm's Abomination), so the player doesn't blow 200 on something that dies every third game.

I'm working on something like that There's only a problem when two things die which you want to keep, as the doctor can only 'work' on one of them to keep it alive

Heroes

1 Plague doctor (doctor 'o doom!)
65 gold crowns to hire

M Ws Bs S T W I A Ld
4 4 3 3 3 1 4 1 8

Weapons/Armour: The Plague doctor may be armed with weapons and armour chosen from the Heroes Equipment list.

SPECIAL RULES
Leader: Any warriors within 6” of the Plague doctor may use his Leadership instead of its own.

'Don´t worry, I can cure that': One deadly result when rolling on the injury-chart may be re-rolled after each game. However, on a result of double numbers, the subject suffers from a wronggoing experiment.

0 - 1 Skaven representative
40 gold crowns to hire

Most Plague doctors work together with the loathsome rat men, Skaven. Mostly they work for a Warlord of Grey seer whose ambitions towards men should not be known to other clans, so they use a man-doctor. If their brethren are expandable, so are humans even more, so failure by the Plague doctor is only a small setback in the grand plan. The Skaven guard the workspaces and gather new 'subjects' upon which the doctor can practice.

M Ws Bs S T W I A Ld
5 4 3 4 3 1 5 1 6

Weapons/Armour: The Skaven representative may be armed with weapons and armour chosen from the Heroes Equipment list.

SPECIAL RULES
Warpstone gatherer: The Skaven representative finances the evil practises of the Plague doctor. He sends the warpstone which is used for both experiments and buying new supplies. The Skaven representative may re-roll his dice during Exploration, but the second roll must be accepted as the final roll.

0 – 3 Associates
35 gold crowns to hire

Whatever their reasons, be they money, awe or fear, Plague doctor's are followed by a numbers of helping hands and worshippers. Plague doctors are quite happy about this, as none can do a hard days work experimenting all alone. Plague doctors are helped by servants in their horrific works. Most are men rejected by society, or just thugs payed by the Plague doctor.

M Ws Bs S T W I A Ld
4 3 3 3 3 1 3 1 7

Weapons/Armour: The associate may be armed with weapons and armour chosen from the Heroes Equipment list.

Done some work on the heroes. I still have to work on the Walking Experiments, and after I've done those I'll probalby re-do the rules on the Plague doctor. What do you guys think?

This looks exciting! 'Fraid I've got nothing to input though.

My recommendations:

Doctor: Raise Bs to 4

Associates: With the 'Don't Worry' and the 'warpstone gatherer' rules, I don't think the Associates need any special rules or abilities. With that in mind, 35 is too much for the human stat lines. Lower it to make the 'Witch Hunter' support heroes... I think they cost 30gc?

How's this for weaker henchmen, a la 'Fast Zombies'?

The Unclean: -15gc
A certain strand of pestilence, when applied to a human, can result in fever and madness. Boils and black nodes appear over the peeling skin, and the infected has only one notion left in his eroding brain: pure rage!
4 2 0 3 3 1 2 1 5
Weapons: No weapons, they use their teeth and nails!
Mad!: The Unclean cannot gain experience, and pass every leadership test they are forced to take.
No Pain: Treat all rolls for Knocked Down as Stunned.
Fevered Rush: Any time an Unclean declares a charge against an opponent, you add +1D6" onto the Unclean's charge range.

(Thus, It's a 'zombie', with the ability to run & a charge bonus. On the flip side, he doesn't cause fear, and can't to boosted with Undead spells. If he's still too good, raise the price to 20gc.)

That looks nice StyrofoamKing, and is a bit like what I had in mind:

Quote :

Deranged prisoners
10 gold crowns to hire

Gruelsome are the experiments done on those unfortunate enough to fall in the hands of a Plague doctor. Some can withstand days of experiments, others fall victim to horrific corruptions within hours. But all have one thing in common: the poor conditions in which the prisoners of the doctors live made them little more than zombies, man and women with broken minds and bodies.

M Ws Bs S T W I A Ld
4 2 2 3 3 1 3 1 6
Weapons/Armour: Deranged prisoners may not have any weapons or armour and suffer no penalties for this.

SPECIAL RULES
Disillusioned: After undergoing numeress experiments the prisoners feel few emotions, their lives being miserable already. Deranged prisoners are immune to the rules for being All Alone.

Broken mind: Deranged prisoners do not gain experience.

I think I'll get some of your ideas too.

Btw, does anyone have a nice idea for a Warpfirethrower? I have seen rules for it in the Clan Skryre list, but i didn't like them.

Or, to make them straight down the middle, merely 'immune to psych'. Although, the idea of a 10gc group of scaredy cats does make an interesting strategy for a warband. In it's simplicity, it's pretty new.

Warp-fire? Well, my first suggestion is a S4 Blunderbuss with a NASTY misfire table. However, if you want to make it fair, perhaps add a Difficulty roll, like a spell. Only fires on a 2D6 of 8+. Gain +1 to your result for every previous turn that it hasn't been fired. Roll each turn, even when it's not fired: on a natural 12, it explodes (1-2 destroyed, damaging all within 3", 3-4 it has a small breach blows, hurting all within 1", costs 2D6 to fix; on a 5-6, it hits the user with a S4 and can be used next game.)

My point of view tends to be to rely on workable counts-as solutions for most warbands. I even suggested once that Dark Elves may well use the Clan Eshin rules, so I'd say use the Possessed rules and focus on modelling.

I had a similar concept in mind for my Nurgle themed Possessed, but ended up using the idea for my Marienburger gold wizard (Warlock HS). He is heavily influenced by the notorious Doktor Schnabel as well as alchemical imagery - and just obese and rich.

The same concept built on a flagellant's body would probably make nice acolytes.



(Bits used: Bret command monk body, ams, head and accessories, empire hat, GS nose mask and backpack, HE mage staff, empire wizard beaker (still considering to remove the skull cloud), handgunners' cartouches and dagger.)

I will actualy use this model from the Confrontation Goblins of No-Dan-Kar range. The Goblin is the same height as a GW human, and you don't see it's supposed to be a goblin.