I saw a couple of models a little while back which i'd quite like, however they're rather military in nature. The only idea that i had which could have worked for them is a recidivist warband of 5, 4 militaryish models, and one Inquisitor. The entire idea of them was that they were hand-picked for their values, deeds, ideology (they put the Emperor before all else, even the Imperium, and none of them have any qualms about harming Imperial citizens in order to achieve their objectives, the Imperium has grown weak, and needs to be tempered to become strong, that kind of ideas).
I intended to use them as an Antagonist warband, and develop a campaign around them. It could be as many as 20 parts (4 scenario's to figure out which of them you're dealing with, if you do you hit the final scenario against them, if not you miss out and you suffer a penalty against the Inquisitor's scenarios), or as little as 5 (basically, a small warband trying to capture each member whilst they try to escape).
I'm just having difficulty developing the warband itself. It simple terms i had a stealth, a marksman, a gunner, a CO, and the Inquisitor. I was trying to develop a theme within the unit that is more military than normal. An Infanteer carries, usually, 2 frag grenandes, a smoke grenade, rifle with 8 magazines, a side arm with 2 magazines, and a bayonet. For Inquisitor purposes, i was going to arm the 3 Combatmen with something similar, except halved numbers wise, and more role specific. So the marksman and stealth have a smoke grenade and no frags, and the gunner has a frag and no smoke. This i a problem as i don't want to make them over powered, yet at the same time know that if they're the antagonists, they'll usually be outnumbered, and i'd like to make those scenarios a touch more interesting that getting them blown away before they can act.
Also, i'm having problems giving the individual's skills and rules that'd be represent their role. For example, the stealth would be the classic agile one of the group, yet rules such as catfall wouldn't really represent him. Would it be better to give them some sort of bonus to certain skills (ala the classic Sniper gets a bigger boost whilst aiming), rather than specific skills?
My questions are, how would you equip a military warband without going overpowered?
Is it worth having two character sheets for them, one for when they're the antagonist, one for regular gaming?
What'd be the best way to represent an unhinged Inquisitor? Roleplay, or a specific set of random rules for him?
As a side note, i don't really plan on playing with this warband, it's just a side project i'd like to have, a growing idea which i know i wont play with, but would like to be able to play with, and i personally use the conclave standard as a rule, so i'm quite wary of making these guys too "militant" for a regular Inquisitor game. It's mostly an idea i've been wishlisting, but i'm interested in trying to catch the feel of a military unit akin to an SAS brick, and put it into Inquisitor. This is mostly just what i've come up with at the minute, i just had to get at least one of the ideas i had into model form before my brain melted (so far, i've got a daemon warband i want to do, a family of mercenaries whom i may buy tomorrow..., a daemon who believes it's a real person, a mutant/slave warband, the warband i'm currently doing needs finishing...) I'm pretty much to throwing some ideas around...
I had to read your post twice, on the first read it sounded far too Clichéd as a warband but it made more sense when I worked out what you were actually saying.
For your unhindged Inquisitor roleplay will work much better than complex rules that just slow you down.
As a player group I think it would be better if you picked a tighter militry theme rather than having the sniper, the stealth, the up close guy and so on as it doesn't seem very realistic that they'd get on well enough.
These are just my thoughts though, I don't claim to be right.
I have a team of mercenaries who occasionally get used as PCs and therefore they all have profiles. If I'm using them as NPCs I just use the Architecture of Hate rules.
Morcus, there's a reason i try to stop myself posting at 3 in the morning :p
Any particular theme in mind?
I originally intended to have 4 skills, and they each had two of them, more like an SAS brick. They tend to have a primary specification (such as Medicine, Engineering, Signallers, Linguist, Admin and Intelligence, Sniper), and then they'll have a secondary specification fro, one of the ones already mentioned, it just wont be their role within the unit. How could that be translated into Inquisitor?
Medicine - Medic + Medi-kit
Engineering - AdMech/Admech training
Signals - Vox-com set
Linguist - A particular talent speaking various Dialects/languages within the Imperium? A piece of equipment?
Admin and Intelligence - Masters at being the "Grey Man", blending into their surroundings whilst carrying out surveillance...so they're harder to detect?
Sniper*- Lots of different roles, Fire Support, Observation and Intel, Flank Protection - All very big battle orientated.
*It's already been discussed how a sniper doesn't work in Inquisitor (the distances in games are too small for an actual sniper to work), so i try to replace it with marksman (a decent scope on a normal rifle, an no out of game benefits).
How would these be 40kified?
Kaled, i'll be looking those rules over later today, see how i can apply them onto it.
You could give the intelligence one the camouflage skill from the eldar rangers article or something like it. The linguist would probably be just a normal soldier in the field but would be highly useful in the background allowing more ease of communication, for instance in interrogations.
For the Intelligence guy, i'm thinking of giving him Camouflage, and Detection, the Pathfinder skill. Equipmentwise he'll be pretty small armed, a smoke grenade, an autogun (i've been looking through the Armour, seeing what fits), a pistol, and a knife, though I may give him a "machete" (short sword).
As for the others, i'm not really sure where to go for the gunner. Equipmentwise, i was thinking of giving him a heavy stubber, a bionic eye, and bionic arm, a pistol and a smoke grenade. Skillwise i'm thinking of making him the medic, so giving him a medi-pack as well.
I'm going to drop the marksman, and instead replace him with an investigative character, someone who has auspexes and the such in order to investigate stuff. This guy will be the linguist, almost like a Molotch kind of thing.
The Officer might get changed into an Acolyte, but due to the fact that the Inquisitor is also several different kinds of guano, is also the Leader. Also, personally, i don't think that one has to be a good leader to be an Inquisitor. It's something that I always notice, you get the best person at a job who is then made the leader, but they're not necessarily good at leading, just good at that job. An Inquisitor may be really good at banishing demons and whatnot, but not necessarily good at leading a group in a combat situation.
As for the Inquisitor, he's a conundrum. I'm trying to come up with a character who is unhinged, even slightly comical at times, whilst still being focussed enough to actually do the job. I was tempted to make him almost like Mark Hamil's Joker, from the cartoon, but that'd be a touch cliched, (though it'd be interesting to use Severina and Sevevora as a Harley Twin, seewhatididthere?).
The models i'm going to use are here http://www.the-conclave.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=1447.0