>>97170215
Have you looked into Dungeons the Dragoning for ideas?

>>97170261
That's about mashing up D&D, Warhammer 40K and Exalted into a single RPG setting. This is more about creating Warhammer Fantasy armies based on D&D factions. There's a degree of conceptual overlap, yeah, but they're actually pretty different if you look closer at the details - there's a reason I'm planning to stick to canonically spelljamming or planehopping factions for this kind of meta-project.

Also, Dungeons: the Dragoning is an RPG using a custom mechanic based on Exalted more than anything, so... not so useful for converting to Warhammer Fantasy's wargame mechanics, y'know?

Even if it IS funny to contemplate how the High Elves would take meeting an envoy from the Imperial Elven Navy and discovering that they're considered backwater primitives by their spacefaring counterparts...

For what it's worth, my current priority list is this:
>1
Pick a faction to work on; current options are Githyanki Raiders, Imperial Arkhosian Legion, or Scro Invasion Force.
>2
Come up with a decently sized list of possible units to attribute to that army, filling the five categories; Lords, Heroes, Core, Special and Rare.
>3
Come up with statblocks for said units that aren't immediately broken and that can hopefully be playtested to get them relatively balanced
>4
Other army-related crunchy goodness, primarily magic, magical items, and any possible tech-related goodies - for example, if the Scro Invaders field Giff Mercenaries as a secondary force, then that means they need rules for guns, right?
>5
Anything I'm missing.

>>97170215
what about the Flaming Fist for Empires of Man & Order of the Silver Chalice for Britonnia

>>97170364
Hm. Interesting... wouldn't those be more of a lore reskin for an Empire or Bretonnia force, though?

>>97170311
Ah, I was under the impression that you were after ideas for how to reskin a Warhammer army into a D&D one, rather than outright homebrew. My bad.

>>97170388
somewhat, if you want to add flavor for Empire of Men (flaming Fist) avoid the artillery, flying machines, steam tanks & heavily focus on the following: Empire Knights, Empire State Troops, Empire Greatswords, Free Company Militia, Battle Wizard & Empire Archers. you could get away with the using General on Imperial Griffon & War Altar but besides that it could be pulled off we all know how the harpers fucking hate tech so all the guns & tanks are big no nos.

for the Bretonnia its pretty much good as is, i only picked Order of the Silver Chalice because it was the quickest one to come up without looking it up, these tools follow some demigod tart & something about royality & nobles.

>>97170413
No worries, anon. My basic list of goals for this project is, as I said, >>97170348

>>97170215
Mindflayers
elder brain commander
mindlfayer officers
intellect devourer minion
nautoloid transports
umberhulk, duergar and drow thralls/fodder
maybe some unique thralls such as a chuuls or hook horrors

overall strategy might be something along the lines of using various form of crowd control via psionic powers to set up troops effectively

>>97170523
Hm... the mindflayers DO have a list of strange fleshcrafted horrors and thralls to their names. Yes, they could easily be made to work, although I wouldn't have an Elder Brain proper as a unit - a Brain Golem, a Brainstealer Dragon, or a... what did they call it, that Elder Brain grafted to a Dragon that 5e introduced? Those would make sense as emissaries of the Elder Brain, but they wouldn't risk the Elder Brain itself on a fight.

In fact, there's an option for a Mindflayer + Undead force to represent Illithiliches & Alhoons as well... no?

>>97170523
>>97170556
In fact... let's talk about this, shall we?

In general, I'd see a Illithid army working somewhat similarly to the Vampire Counts army; you have seriously nasty Lords and Heroes who are expensive as all hell, and some fairly impressive monsters, but most of your army is made up of trash-tier cannon fodder who compensate by being cheap. The biggest difference is that illithids are far squishier than vampires, but have much better magic (and "magic").

So, units... Well, let's start by presuming that you can't mix and match illithids and illithiliches; the two canonically despise each other, so if you want an undead illithid army, you don't get any living illithid characters.

>Lords
Ulitharids, as the canonical "ruling caste" of Mindflayer Society, make the most sense as your "default" Lord tier illithid, no?

Illithiliches are a Lord tier variant of the Alhoon, and are powerful undead illithid mages.

Brainstealer Dragons are dragons that were cerebromorphed, whilst Elder Brain Dragons are literally dragons that an Elder Brain has grafted itself to. These would be the single most powerful creatures in the army, so maybe go back to 6e and have them take up a Hero and/or a Rare slot as well as a Lord slot?

>Heroes
Illithids, obviously, are your default hero. Possibly you have an option to take a weaker version of an Illithid as a upgrade for Core units?

Alhoons are undead illithid wizards.

>Core
Grimlocks and Quaggoths are the go-to "warrior slaves" of illithid society, so these make the most sense as Core Units.

Cranium Rat Swarms are another obvious choice for a cheap(ish) Core choice, and would probably be the army's version of Scouts.

An Alhoon-based army can also field Skeletons and Zombies, but these are taken straight from the VC army list.

>Special
Uchuulon

Intellect Devourer

Illithidae

>Rare
Brain Golem

Yaggols

Neothelid

What do we think, this look like an interesting start to an army?

>>97170556
the elder is just big boss poster boy of the mindflayers, but yeah makes sense to keep it away, maybe have it as a mechanic that the elder brain is connected to all proper mindflayers, so they can serve as conduits for some bigger psionics.
a commander can just be some big dick mindlfayer that bosses the others around.
the alhoon thing could be a subtheme, or like a specialization.

>>97170628
not OP
these are good ideas and the alhoon seperation makes sense.
but an Illithilich needs more than just zombies and skellies
other units could be things like:
ghosts, giant skeleton/zombie, bonedragon and flame skulls.
and also, afaik normal mindflayers are forbidden use magic other than psionics, so the lich squid should also have access to arcane magic.

>>97170668
I made those suggestions, I am the OP, and I'm glad you like them.

Agreed, the alhoon's army needs more undead & diversity, but maybe focus on the OG flavor illithid army first? We can talk about adding spooky dead things to the illithids after we get the default illithids done first.

As for magic vs. psionics, it's basically flipflopped over the editions. For example, back in 2nd edition, mind flayers used arcane magic by default and psionic mind flayers were an optional variant, due to how AD&D psionics were a notorious fustercluck. In 3e's "Lords of Madness", illithids happily experiment with arcane magic, psionics, alchemy, and combinations thereof.

But yeah, I'd agree that a psionic based army-specific "school of magic" for the standard illithids, ala the Lore of Vampires, Lore of the Waaaghs, Skaven Lores of Plague and Ruin, etc, should be the goal.

Hm... starting point is perhaps the "standard" Illithid statblock, representing the basic Hero of the army? Then we can tweak and play with it to make Ultharids, then start discussing the thrall-beasts and monsters for the rest of the army?

I'm actually a bit unsure on if Neothelids (degenerate giant worm illithid-spawn) and Yaggols (degenerate, bestial illithids) make sense as part of the army or not...

>>97170523
>>97170628
GRIMLOCKS GOOD
I would happily run a Grimlock list.

>>97170704
Grimlocks are the iconic warrior-slaves of the illithids, they gotta be in there as a Core Unit, right?

Honestly, there's maybe grounds for Grimlock Heroes, with the caveat that they cannot be your army's general?

File: Alien Illithid Lab.jpg (119 KB, 640x785)

119 KB JPG

So, Illithid stats draft 1... it's been a while since I cracked open a copy of any edition's Monster Manual, but I recall mind flayers generally being big on mental stats, but kind of squishy, so...

>Movement: 4
>Weapon Skill: 3
>Ballistic Skill: 3
>Strength: 3
>Toughness: 3
>Wounds: 2
>Initiative: 3
>Attacks: 2
>Leadership: 9

Special Rules:
Cause Fear - I think this should be pretty self explanatory, no?

Mind Blast: During the Shooting phase, an Illithid can unleash a Mind Blast. Treat this as a Breath Weapon that has a Strength of 5, ignores Armor Saves, and which rolls to wound against a target's Leadership instead of its Toughness.

Psionicist: An Illithid is a Level 1 Wizard using Illithid Psionics. It can be upgraded to a Level 2 Wizard.

Brain Suck: Treat as the Killing Blow special rule.

What do we think of this, anons? Any tweaks we can think of to make? And what would be a fair price for this, points wise?

>>97170702
neothelids would be a super cool special unit.
yaggols dont really have anything that stands out to me, is there a specific niche they have which couldnt be filled by some other thrall?
as for statblocks i cant help you as i havent played warhammer.
your standard illithid is basically a humanoid wizard right? maybe use an elf or human wizard as reference.
notable characteristics would be weak in health and melee, but powerful in psionics.

>>97170753
Given they're giant monsters with psychic powers, and canonically both quite rare AND largely hostile to illithid society, as they tend to regard illithids as food, I'd say Neothelids should be a Rare Unit, myself.

Yaggols originated in the Dragonlance setting, and are basically "barbarian illithids"; they're stronger and hardier, and have chameleonic skin that gives them stealth abilities, but dumber and with only the barest vestiges of psionic potential. I will admit, I'm not quite sure what they'd offer outside of being a Rare Unit that isn't a 1-per-slot monster type unit.

Appreciate your candor, anon. Honestly, it's great to have (the both?) of you talking this out; it's an interesting project, and I'd like to bring it into fruition if we can get more anons invested.

Actually, I will note that mind flayers have traditionally been quite resistant to enemy spells, both through general magic resistance and through their Aberrrant creature type in 3rd edition. Perhaps Magic Resistance as a special rule is appropriate?

Don't know if we need to discuss lore at any point, but... hm, perhaps the handling of Illithid Psionics as a Lore of Magic is a topic worth discussing?

Cards on the table, I've always felt the biggest obstacle to bringing D&D characters in to play with the Warhammer setting is how to make the different magic systems play nicely. My tentative inclination is towards the simplest solution; all D&D-based spellcasters have the special rule "Alien Magecraft", which means they function as regular Wizards, but when they Miscast, they don't roll on the Miscast Table. Instead, that caster has been temporarily overwhelmed by the raw magic available to work with and cannot attempt to cast any other spells in this Magic Phase.

So, Illithid Psionics... maybe I'm being too ambitious here, but I could see a scenario similar to the Skaven here; there are two schools of magic; Telepathy or Telekinesis. Some creatures can only take spells from 1 school, whilst other creatures can take their spells from both schools simultaneously. Make sense?

Hmm... on a tangent, re-reading the lore on neothelids and how utterly taboo they are, what if they're actually an alternative and exclusive Lord choice for your army? So you can have a psionic giant worm-monster and its army of mentally dominated thralls, but you can't have any of the normal mind flayers, since the two creatures absolutely refuse to work together?

>>97170802
>stealth squids
that sounds cool, sneak in a small squad of yaggols behind the backline to wreak havoc before slinking away or getting blitzed.
ye magic resistance seems appropiate, go for it.
as for the lore of magic thing, havent played so i couldnt say.
is the alien magecraft thing a kinda generic thing? how difficult would it be to make a Lore of Illithids or Lore of Psionics? cant think of a faction that would be comparable to illithids in terms of magic from warhammer.

a very important question here is which edition of each game you intend to be working off of.

My suggestion would be to pick one that was contemporaneous with the other (so like 6e and 3.5e)

>>97170920
So, for D&D lore, I'll be cherry picking mostly from 3.5 and 4e, since those are my preferred editions.

For the Warhammer mechanics, well, I'm game to try and make it work in 6e-8e, but either 7e (which I actually have the corebook for) or 8e (whose core rules are easily accessed online) are probably best. It depends which version warhammer-anons are most comfortable with.

>>97170894
Alien magecraft is intended to be more of a generic rule for any of these D&D based armies, to try and reconcile how much safer, tamer and more reliable magic tends to be in D&D than it is in Warhammer.

As for Illithid Psionics specifically, as I said in >>97170859 I'm leaning towards letting them have two different racial schools; one based on telepathy and one based on telekinesis. I've got no idea for any cool names for either of them, but the telepathy school is more debuff & hex focused, while telekinesis would be more attack and buff focused.

>>97170215
Red Wizards need a battleforce. And I need to finish my Red Wizard skirmish team I was working in for Frostgrave.

>>97171002
OP here. Not the biggest expert on Thay, but if you wanna try and brainstorm it, I'll certainly help out as best I can!

>>97171002
>>97171037
Alright, after a moment to actually think to myself... The Red Wizard army would most obviously resemble an Empire army, but trading out the artillery for increased magic, monsters, and demihumans. I'm sure a big Red Wizard fan like yourself can think of plenty of options, but I can personally remember that orcs, neo-orogs and gnolls are pretty major parts of Thayan society and heavily feature in its military alongside its human slave-soldiers.

I also seem to remember something about a female knighthood mounted on black unicorns...?

Obvious army rule; "Magocracy". You MUST include a Zulkir or a Red Wizard to designate as your Army General.

Zulkirs and Red Wizards, stats-wise, are basically the Imperial Wizard Lord and Battle Wizard respectively, but with more monstrous steed options. Maybe also create custom schools of magic to represent D&D's iconic eight schools; Abjurations, Conjuration, Divination, Enchantment, Evocation, Illusion, Necromancy, and Transmutation. Red Wizards actually mesh really well with the Warhammer general rule of "Wizards can only use 1 Lore of Magic at a time", since Red Wizards are *supposed* to be Specialists.

Optional heroes... well, the Human Slave-Captain, literally just a copy-pasted Empire Captain, is an obvious one.

Core Units:
> Human Slave-Soldiers (use Imperial Archers, Spearmen, and Swordsmen)
>Orcs (S4, T4, but more expensive)

Special Units
>Neo-Orogs (ersatz ogres)
>Gnolls (S4, T4, Skirmishers)

Rare Units
>Hydra (borrow Dark Elf Hydra?)
>Golem (Flesh, Clay, Stone or Iron)

But those are just my spitballing ideas... Anything to add?

>>97170215
This was a thing in the first edition.
Try playing games first.

>>97170523
>umberhulk, duergar and drow thralls/fodder
these are elite thralls and slaves, the fodder is the other races

>>97170215
Haven't read the thread yet but are there many examples of armies in D&D? I'd imagine outside of B/X, full scale armies would be bullshit and OP, making the setting a bit OTT marvelesque?

You get a similar thing when looking at TES military, it quickly becomes unfuckable garbage under scrutiny because armies have to be bulked out by generic infantry, cavalry & archer units when in reality even Joe the Shoe Cobbler can be slinging spells like an elite troop.

File: Githyanki vs Mindflayer.jpg (56 KB, 341x463)

56 KB JPG

So, I said back at the start I really want to do a Githyanki army as part of this project, and this is my tentative outline for it so far...

LORDS Not sure how to handle the iconic Gish as a Lord unit.
>Grand Commander (the vanilla/customizable lord)
>Hand of Vlaakith (Githyanki Knight Lord)
>High Warlock (Warlock Lord)

HEROES Not sure how to handle the iconic Gish as a Hero unit.
>Supreme Commander (the vanilla/customizable option)
>Warlock (Githyanki Wizard)
>Ch'r'ai (battle standard bearer + priest - maybe fold into Warlock as suboption)
>Duthka'gith Pyroclaust (Hero version of the Duthka'gith Holocaust Warriors, a Lore of Fire-wielding gish)
>Knight Commander (Hero version of the Githyanki Knight)

CORE UNITS Maybe just have one Troops, Githwarriors, and can build to represent Fighters, Scouts or Berserkers?
>Githwarriors (The basic troops)
>Githwarrior Scouts (lightly armored Skirmishers, cheaper than Githwarriors but similar gear)
>Githwarrior Berserkers (great-weapon armed, Frenzied, Githwarriors)

SPECIAL UNITS
>Duthka'gith Holocaust Warriors (Heavily armed, High Strength warriors with magical flaming attacks and a fiery breath weapon)
>Githyanki Knights (Elite githyanki warriors; not sure how to represent their Blackguard powers mechanicaly)

RARE UNITS
>Dragon Riders (Githyanki Knights on Dragons)

>>97170704
So, Grimlock stats... any ideas? This would be my kneejerk outline:

Stats:
>Movement: 4
>Weapon Skill: 3
>Ballistic Skill: 0
>Strength: 4
>Toughness: 4
>Wounds: 1
>Initiative: 3
>Attacks: 2
>Leadership: 9

Gear: Stone battleaxe (hand weapon)

Special Rules:
>Frenzy
>Scaly Skin (5+ Save)