I have mentioned before that my sons and I are getting into two new genres these days: Warhammer Fantasy Battle and BattleTech. Now, I like the settings for both, but I got to thinking how cool would it be to combine them?
I'm starting off the setting with the Empire. Essentially, the Empire is a large volume of space roughly in the center of the galactic arm. It has been divided up into a number of smaller (though still quite large) regions. these include Reikspace, Middenspace, Nordspace, Wissenspace, Stirspace, Talabecspace, Ostspace, the Ostmark, MootSpace, etc. One region for each of the provinces in the Warhammer Empire, you see, usually substituting the word 'space' for 'land.' Each of these regions has many planets within them. These planets take the place of the various cities and towns of the Empire in Warhammer. So, Bogenhafen is a planet within Reikspace. Altdorf is the Imperial capital planet. Nuln is a major industrial planet, and so on.
Each region or planet's Mechs will be painted up in the WFB state color schemes.
I figure the Knightly Orders can be semi-autonomous units, with fortress planets as bases.
Orks will be wandering raiders, mostly, based off planets out on the fringes of the Empire. Dwarfs will also have heavily fortified industrial planets in systems loaded down with asteroid belts and such. Wood Elves will be based on naturalistic planets, hidden within nebulae and such instead of a forest. Brettonia will be added, similarly to the Empire. Tilea and Estalia too.
For the other evil races, I have thought of the following: Dark Elves and Chaos are easy, just locate them in the appropriate stellar geography. Skaven are troubling. Maybe a lot of beat up vehicles and only a few Mechs? But where to locate them? Dark planets? Subterranean in human planets just seems a little... maybe in asteroid belts or gas giant moons in the systems. Undead are a problem too. Zombie Mechs? Not very sensible.
So it isn't perfectly worked out yet. But its the germ of an idea that may be fun.
4 comments:
I don't mean to sound snide, but this is called Warhammer 40,000. If you want mechs, then it's Epic (one of several versions, I think Epic Armageddon is latest, not sure). The knight orders become the Space Marines. Orks become...wait for it...Space Orks. I suppose that it depends on what you want, if you want Battletech mechanics with the Empire background then you're on the right track. If you want the Warhammer mechanics in a space setting then go with 40k/Epic.
Nice ideas - very Warhammer 40Kish in feel, except with mechs rather than space marines as the focus.
Perhaps Undead could come from dead worlds - where calamities have destroyed the ecosystem? You might have a group, like the Ixians from the original Dune series, who re-animate the dead of these cursed worlds and control them - more "Zombies Attack" than skelies, their mechs may work on a master/slave system - an Ixian Master Mech controls a number of Zombie slave mechs.
Skaven might have tunnel/cavern systems on Gas giant moons, or nest hulks sublighting between systems - the first you know of them are increasing attacks from non-jump ships which implies a nest hulk somewhere within a couple of light months of your world.
Sergeant Crunch: Well, for someone not wanting to sound snide, you certainly did an excellent job of it.
Kobold: Nice idea on the Skaven. Nestships. Cool. I had thought something along the lines of the Necrovores from Chronicles of Riddick for a techno-undead. I don't dig the 40K Necrons that much, which were obviously what GW went with for tech-undead. It may come down to hordes of zombie infantry armed with anti-Mech bombs...
It's fun idea using the Warhammer fantasy setting as a framework for Battletech. I have seen folks do this for Tolkein and Game of Thrones where they used the names and tropes of the factions in those settings for other genres.
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