Warband List Based on Alien Movies

My nephew wanted to create a warband list based on the xenomorphs from the Alien movies. This is what he and I have come up with. We have played a few games and had fun so we wanted to share the rules with you. We welcome any feedback.

This is obviously an elite warband and I doubt that it is very balanced in its current state although I have (much to Merrick's disappointment) made the xenomorphs less powerful than they probably are in 'real life' in order to try to make them somewhat balanced (hopefully).

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XENOMORPHS (ALIENS)
By Merrick and Ben "Rational Lemming" Neale
Based on xenomorphs from the Alien movies and games.

SPECIAL RULES
Corrosive Blood: All xenomorphs have corrosive blood that sprays out when they are wounded. All xenomorphs have the blood that follows the rules for 'Blackblood' (one of the mutations from the Possessed warband in the core rulebook) except that the blood does not spray out if the xenomorph was wounded by a fire based attack.

Succession: If the Young Queen dies then the strongest Drone becomes the new Queen. The other Drones roll on the serious injury table to represent the fighting that occurs to determine the strongest Drone. The 'strongest' Drone is represented by the Drone with the most experience. If more than one Drone has the same amount of experience then compare Strength and then number of Attacks. The strongest Drone will evolve into a Young Queen and gain the Tail Attack special rule if it does not already have a tail attack. If there are no Drones in the warband then no warriors can be purchased until a new Drone is purchased and until then all warriors in the warband are subject to Frenzy and Animosity.

Blend into the Dark: Xenomorphs are able to blend into the dark. Shooting at xenomorphs in the dark has an additional -1 to hit modifier. Also, xenomporphs ingore penalties that come from the dark.

No Equipment: Xenomorphs will never use weapons or equipment of any kind even if they learned a skill to allow them to use weapons.

No Hired Swords and DPs: Xenomorphs do not hire outside help. They breed all units that they need to support the hive and kill everything that is not linked to the hive.

Royal Guard: A Warrior that has been promoted to a Hero can choose to miss D3 games when receiving an advancement instead of rolling on the Hero advancement table. This represents the Young Queen choosing the Warrior to become a Praetorian. The new would-be Praetorian is banished from the hive and must survive on its own to prove that it is strong enough to be one of the royal guards of the Young Queen. When the Praetorian returns it is treated as a Praetorian hero type rather than a promoted Warrior henchman type and gains access to the skill table available to a Praetorian Hero. It is now 'Large' and has 'Iron-Hard Skin' and the Young Queen shows her favour by granting the 'Spiked Tail' mutation to the Praetorian at no cost.

CHOICE OF WARRIORS
A xenomporth warband must include a minimum of three models. You have 500 gold crowns which you can use to recruit and evolve your warband. The maximum number of warriors in the warband is 12.
Young Queen: Each Xenomorph warband must have one Young Queen - no more, no less!
Drones: Your warband may include up to three Drones.
Praetorians: Your warband may include up to two Praetorians. The only way a warband can get a Praetorian Hero is through the 'Royal Guard' warband rule.
Warriors: Your warband may include any number of Warriors.
Face Huggers: Your warband may include up to seven Face Huggers.
Runners: Your warband may include up to five Runners.

Starting Experience
A Young Queen starts with 20 Experience.
Drones start with 8 Experience.
Henchmen start with 0 Experience.

Characteristic Increase
Characteristics for xenomorphs may not be increased beyond the maximum limits shown on the following profile.
M WS BS S T W I A Ld
Xenomorph 6 8 8 8 8 6 10 5 10

SKILL TABLE
Young Queen: Combat, Shooting, Strength, Speed, Special
Drones: Combat, Shooting, Speed, Special
Praetorians: Combat, Shooting, Strength, Speed, Special

HEROS
1 Young Queen
200 gold crowns to spawn
A xenomorph hive always centres around a queen. When a new hive colony is created, the queen is only young and a lot weaker than her older and more experienced peers in other hive colonies.
M WS BS S T W I A Ld
6 4 3 4 4 3 5 2+1 8
Weapons/Armour: Claws, tail, teeth, head, etc (it may be easiest listing what she DOES'T fight with) and suffers no penalty for fighting unarmed.
Special Rules
Leader: Any warrior within 6“ of the Young Queen may use her Leadership when taking Ld tests.
Cause Fear
Large
Iron-Hard Skin: Young Queens have a base 6+ Armour Save.
Tail Attack: Young Queens have a powerful tail attack, this tail attack uses the Young Queen's own Strength with a +2 Strength modifier to wound. The tail attack always strikes last, regardless of who charged or which weapon is used. The tail attack even attacks after Double-Handed Weapons.

0-3 Drones
75 gold crowns to spawn
Drones are female xenomorphs kept sterile by the Young Queen. They serve the queen and the larva in the hive.
M WS BS S T W I A Ld
5 2 2 3 3 1 3 1 7
Weapons/Armour: Claws and teeth and suffer no penalty for fighting unarmed.
Special Rules
Cause Fear
Spit Acid: As per the mutation in the Liber Malefic / Mutany in Marienburg article Corrupted Characters.

HENCHMEN
Warriors
100 gold crowns to spawn
Warriors are male xenomorphs. They are spawned to guard the hive.
M WS BS S T W I A Ld
5 4 3 4 4 1 4 1 7
Weapons/Armour: Claws and teeth and suffer no penalty for fighting unarmed.
Special Rules
Cause Fear
Scale Sheer Surfaces

0-7 Face Huggers
25 gold crowns to spawn
M WS BS S T W I A Ld
6 4 0 3 2 1 4 1 8
Weapons/Armour: None.
Special Rules
Animal
Easy to Kill: Face Huggers die on a roll of 1-3 on the Serious Injury Chart instead of a roll of 1-2.
Face Hug: If a Face Hugger successfully rolls to hit then instead of attacking as normal it attaches itself to the face of the enemy warrior. The enemy warrior is now treated as Knocked Down. In the next xenomorph warband turn the warrior will be treated as Stunned. In the third xenomorph turn the warior will be taken Out of Action. All attacks against a Face Hugger that is attached treat the Face Hugger as Knocked Down. If a warrior with an attached Face Hugger is taken Out of Action by some means other than the Face Hugger than the Face Hugger is also taken Out of Action and must roll on the Serious Injury Table after the battle. A warrior taken Out of Action by a Face Hugger must roll twice on the Serious Injury table and choose the lowest result. If a warrior is killed by a Face Hugger then this represents that the Face Hugger successfully implanted an embryo in its victim which has burst out as a Chest Burster. The xenomorph warband may now hire a Drone or Warrior at a -75 gold crown discount. The Face Hugger dies after successfully implanting a embryo and should be removed from the warband roster.

0-5 Runners
50 gold crowns to spawn
M WS BS S T W I A Ld
7 3 3 4 3 1 3 1 4
Weapons/Armour: Claws and teeth and suffer no penalty for fighting unarmed.
Special Rules
Animal
Cause Fear

XENOMORPH MUTATIONS
Mutations may be bought for a Drone or Warrior only when they are recruited; you may not buy new mutations for a model after recruitment. Any Drone or Warrior may have one or more mutations. The first mutation is bought at the price indicated, but second and subsequent mutations bought for the same model cost double.
Hulking Brute: As per the mutation in the Liber Malefic / Mutany in Marienburg article Corrupted Characters.
Iron-Hard Skin: As per the mutation in the Liber Malefic / Mutany in Marienburg article Corrupted Characters.
Regeneration: As per the Troll special rule from Orcs & Goblins (Da Mob Roolz) warband.
Spiked Tail: As per the mutation in the Liber Malefic / Mutany in Marienburg article Corrupted Characters.
Spines: As per the mutation from the Possessed warband in the core rulebook.
Spit Acid: As per the mutation in the Liber Malefic / Mutany in Marienburg article Corrupted Characters.
Piercing Tongue: As per the mutation in the Liber Malefic / Mutany in Marienburg article Corrupted Characters.

XENOMORPH SPECIAL SKILLS
Evolution: The Young Queen sees a need to develop the abilities of the xenomorph warrior. The Xenomorph hero may buy one mutation.

Young Queen Only
Headbutt: The Young Queeen learns to use her vast bulk in a charge, trampling the enemy to the ground. When charging, the Young Queen with this skill may attempt a single attack with a +1 ‘to hit’ modifier rather than making her normal attacks. If successful the enemy model is automatically stunned.
Tail Whip: The Young Queen can make lightning fast attacks with her tail. Attacks made with her tail no longer strike last and are made with the Young Queen's other attacks.

Looks neat, but is kind of overcomplicated.

Some brief thoughts:

The Praetorian rules are way crazy. I guess you could just have:
1 Queen - strong and tough like she is
0-1 Praetorian - same as a Warrior, but with access to mutations. Maybe +1 WS.
0-2 Drones

Warriors should probably be limited... not that they won't naturally be by cost, but 0-5 Drones doesn't seem unthinkable, given their power.

Face huggers & Runners- Animal. Missed that the first time. If you make this a fancy document, you should probably clarify. Also, not sure if they both should have Black Blood.

Face-huggers is tricky, as it's hard to include something that fights the theme without making them super complicated.

Option 1: Once the facehugger has successful hit a model, it must continue to attack that same model, until one of them is taken out of action or leaves combat. When a face hugger attacks a warrior, roll to hit and wound as normal. If he successfully wounds an uninjured opponent, he treats all instances of OoA as stunned. During future turns, he will continue to attack this same model- this ignores the rule that a model must attack a model that is upright over one that is injured. (The rest of the hugger stuff stays.)

Difference - has to wound like normal. Has the advantage of attacking a downed model, although there's nothing auto- he must roll to damage the downed model like normal.

Super-simple version - ignore the hugging aspect at all.
Option 2:
Attack like normal, including stunning and post game injuries. The Face hugger adds +1 to Injury rolls to take an opponent out of action. If he successfully takes a model out of action, it is also taken out of action. If the model dies, the face hugger dies, but free -75gc.
Face Huggers count as half a model towards rout tests.
Maybe give them lightening reflexes too.

Should probably mention the "can never have weapons or items", in case someone tries Weapons Training.

Is it intended that they are able to use equipment? If it isn't then that should probably be mentioned. Lack of access to rabbit's feet, tarot cards, hunting arrows, and the like will do a fair bit to balance them later in the game.

@SK... I'll have to talk to Merrick about your proposed rules for Praetorians and Face Huggers. I do like your proposed ideas for simplifying the face huggers.

To save typing I summarised rules that people would recognise (animal, large, etc) but in a proper publication these would definitely be written in full to avoid them being missed.

@Lord 0... Thanks for your comment on equipment (and likewise SK for weapons). I forgot to add that rule in.