As title implies. These ideas could be for conversions, lore or anything else relating to Chaos Dwarfs.
Hands
“They gave me a thousand hands so I could count my sins” (from this song around 1:00)
The idea of Chaos Dwarfs doing a lot of accounting seems fitting, and I like the idea of a slaver keeping count of his imports using their hands. As mentioned on the discord, I think it would be a cool conversion to make a large slave carriage with hands all along the sides, to count the total number of slaves that had been transported to the capital using the particular carriage.
Hands could be nailed to the sides of a large wooden box that forms the carriage, lopped off rebellious slaves. Each hand could represent five slaves or perhaps even 20. I feel I even remember an episode of QI where they explained how to count to 60 on one hand.
Or perhaps hands could be cast in gold, the payment received for the slaves. The obscenely wealthy Chaos Dwarf Slave Traders having no issue with placing it in a position of such risk to earn the prestige of flaunting it, for to them it represents such a small proportion of their riches. When the last golden hand that breaks the carriage’s axle is placed, the trader finally collects their payment.
Abacuses
Abacuses (abaci?) seem like a great object to incorporate somewhere in a chaos dwarf conversion. Perhaps large ceremonial abacuses that function like crucifixes? For slaves who claim they can no longer lift a pickaxe. Their arms are angled backward that the bar can hook under their shoulders, and then their hands are chained together in front of their body to complete the loop. They serve as a piece on the great abacus until dead, when they are replaced by a new disobedient slave.
What purpose could the abacus serve? Something like a clock seems obvious, if it were big enough it could serve a whole district of a city in that function. Perhaps to count days between sacrifices? Or tons of gold mined each week?
3 Likes
Slaves
So my necromancer mentioned in my army blog got me thinking.
Slaves need someone to keep whipping them, especially if they’re treated as badly as the Slaves of the Chorfs are. In the case of the Necromancer, I’m going to have someone threatening his life at all times to keep him loyal, what would this look like in the rest of an army?
So the idea is this: an army list where all slave units need a chorf unit in their rear arc at all times otherwise they rebel. So the army must always have Chorfs bearing down the necks of the slaves, otherwise the slaves fight against the nearest Chaos Dwarf unit. (Perhaps close combat could override the rebellion mechanic)
Could make for a fun risk/reward mechanic.
2 Likes
The rich lord who pays others to fight for him
So here’s an outline for a rules mechanic I would like to use for a rich lord who is equipped with no weapons: (for something like Warhammer Fantasy or WAP etc,)
At the start of the game, the lord must be added to the infantry unit with the highest cost in points per model. Instead of being placed in the front rank, the lord is placed in the middle rank of the unit and the middle file of the unit. Every time a full rank in the unit has been removed (by death or other means), the lord moves forward one rank, so that he is always the same number of ranks from the rear of the unit as he was at the beginning of the game.
This Lord wears Heavy Armour and carries no shield.
- The lord increases the Toughness and Initiative characteristics of the unit by +1 and +3 respectively, showing the increased incentive of the unit to live to receive their weightened wages.
- The unit also receives +1 to its movement characteristic, as the troops are eager to fulfill the impatient demands of the boss.
- With the cowardice of the wealthy sloth and the unwillingness of the troops to put their source of remittance in danger, this unit may never charge an enemy unit that is not already engaged in combat.
- Source Of The Spoils - If the lord is ever slain by an enemy melee attack, all friendly units must immediately take a panic test as they reel from the realisation that even victory will now for them be fruitless.
- Aversion To Hard Work - The Lord has an attacks characteristic of 0 which cannot be improved.
The Lord is a unique, named character and if fielded in an army must be the general of that army.
7th Edition fantasy points cost guess: 150?
So what you are looking for is basically a DoW paymaster that doesn’t fight at all.
I’d not make it too complicated, take or alter some of the paymaster rules and put him in the last (not middle) rank.
And avoid morale buffs to improve physical attributes.