NOTE: So sorry about the major delay, ended up not
having internet or time to post things due to exhaustion or what have you for
the last 2 and a half weeks, I have posts though, and so that you are all able
to see them I will be posting about twice a day with them until I've caught up
to what the posts should be. I hate
doing this to you all, but hopefully you enjoy what I was able to work on!
+++
We return to our
regularly scheduled program with a discussion of fleshing out those specialist
forces in your army
This post bleeds
over a little into the Elites and Heavy Gear ones because this focuses upon the
role of the unit within the army as opposed to its skill and equipment. Oftentimes forces are Elite or Heavy Gear and
serve one specific purpose, others they are all-comers and can work in a
multitude of situations and accomplish several jobs at once (or at least in
different situations). Specialists are
those that are intended to serve one or maybe two purposes and that is it. An example of this would be Fire Dragons from
the Eldar codex are specifically anti-vehicle, Tau pathfinders support the army
with markerlights, space marine rhinos are strictly transports (that can also
be used for blocking and tank shocking I guess). They are not assault terminators or paladins
that can kill anything they look at regardless of the situation or score or
block enemy forces.
With that definition
out of the way we can get to the good part and talk about how to draft their
creation. The first piece to go through
is how it is how they gained that role.
This is a question of skill or equipment. In the case of Space Marines they are
generally given the equipment and act the role they are given, such as in the
case of Devastators or Assault marines.
Just like in the Elites versus Heavy Gear posts looking at the stat line
might help you out here. From a strictly
story-based setting you might decide how it was that this group of individuals
became what they were. Some of them
could be naturally gifted at sharp shooting, others have spent years attaining
their abilities, and some might have bionic implants or equipment that puts
them on the same level as the others.
Depending on the amount of work that you want to put into them you could
detail each member individually so that the entire group is unique and
interesting, with a tail that you could tell over time, perhaps focusing on one
or another each time. I always refer to
Dan Abnett's Gaunts Ghosts series for examples because I love his writing, plus
I don't have much experience with other books yet (though I'm working on the
Horus Heresy and the Path of the Warrior/Seer/Outcast series waiting for the
last). He has a plethora of characters
that are all interesting that he continually develops throughout it and informs
us of further bits of their history. For
instance Mkvenner (I think that’s how its spelled, last of these books I read
was about 6 months ago)… I just realized that you all wouldn't appreciate any
spoilers. Suffice it to say that his
mysterious history and patronage is developed somewhere in the second
collection I think. Even those people
that he kills off are referred back to and given a clear spotlight at times
because of how other characters discuss them.
Try and remember that just because you do kill off one of your
characters that doesn't mean that you have to leave them to collect figurative
dust as they are.
As with the other
units you probably want to provide some sort of event that they pulled out
ahead and narrowly avoided a crisis or saved the day because of their abilities
or actions. Another piece that I don't
believe that I mentioned before in other posts is you might want to have some
outlining parameters for how they interact with each other. This doesn't have to be a set in stone
diagram or history, but establishing a few guidelines can help with the
consistency of the whole thing while also showing you where you have
opportunities to develop those people.
Ways that you can decide how they generally interact with each other are
numerous, but the two that I personally like are as follows: determine individual personalities and draw
logical conclusions based on that; create a small history between the two of
maybe 4 or 5 events that would drive their feelings for the other in one
direction or another;
The final piece of
Specialists is to determine why they are there.
Why is it that they were given that specific task (aside from the
obvious that is their forte/equipment/training) and why is it that the army
needed a group or individual like them and couldn't fill the need for someone
to accomplish the task from elsewhere in the ranks.
*NOTE* Sorry that
this is a day late (I hope its just a day late) the hotel that I was at last
night didn't have free wifi so hopefully I can post this tonight as well as the
next post that I'm going to write today.
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