Needing help with fluff.

Alright, so I'm going to have a group of people playing when I head home, and one of the guys was really into it, because he has some other minis sitting around, gathering dust. However, the thing is: they're constructs. I think he has a handful of warforged minis, from D&D, and we were both trying to think of some way he could work them in. I was thinking that maybe he could have them be an experiment from some dwarven engineers. Then we'd just give them dwarf stats and call it a day. Or maybe have them act as possessed, but we'd change the wording around? Instead of "cloven hooves," have "enhanced hydraulics?" But would that make it weird when he's doing chaos magic? Would it be reasonable to change his magic to the lesser magic and claim his leader is a normal wizard artificer? Or would that under power his leader?

I guess, my question is: does anyone have any other ideas? I would hate to have this guy pigeonholed into a warband he may not like because his guys aren't really in the canon. When I suggested steam-powered men, he approved...

As I recall the Sorcerer's warband from the Khemri: Land of the Dead setting had constructs for henchmen.

Several people have steampunk threads in the Painting section and there is currently a steampunk army of Stirland in progress.

As to the Possessed warband, I don't see why the Magister would have to change his magic since the Warhammer mythology already had possessed machines like the demonic cannon from the Chaos army book.

Or make it so he uses his inventions to trap and channel magic! The Wings spell is a jet pack or spring-loaded boots!

For inspiration I would read Girl Genius. Fun steampunk-like comic. Gaslamp Fantasy the author calls it.

what about the black dwarfs from BTB campaign, you could use them as mechanical suits any guns they have on them could be blunderbuss's or handheld mortars etc... however the will have to start out as regular chaos dwarfs until you get the mechanical suits .......
this just got me thinking about a gnome warband with 1-6 gnomeish engineers (heros) and everything else mechanical constructs.
warmachine does great figures btw for steampunk genre

Perhaps as undead? I've not really looked at the warband for a while, but slow moving, robots perhaps? They'd definitely cause fear. Again I'm not too sure about necromancer spells but they could be worked in as magic-tech maybe. The vampire and maybe ghouls, as fear causing but speedy/normal speed creatures could perhaps be cyborgs, tough due to robotics but faster and smarter due to human free will.

Dregs, if he's a couple of human figures could represent engineers as the necromancer's assistants maybe?