The Army Structure & Composition (part I)

From the very outset the army was going to be short on cavalry and heavily armoured types of massed rank and file units. It just didn't make sense for an army from the sea to be thus equipped, except of course those units lucky enough to be naturally armoured such as the lobstrosities and giant crabs.

Artillery was also a no-no for obvious reasons and I wanted to keep the army from becoming too reliant on missile troops aswell.

The focus was to make a tactically challenging army to play with and to play against.

Initially, I was going to stick to these principles come what may but after a bit of playtesting with draft 2.0 I realised that the army would simply not be able to compete against enemies with a lot of fast moving units and/or long ranged weaponry.

So, a compromise was needed. I didn't want to pump up their stats too much or make them melee masters so I introduced some new units to bridge the gap between the Nauticans and their enemy. The new units were to force the enemy to either engage or be engaged earlier than they might like and to prevent the enemy from always getting the charge in. So, the sprats were born.

The sprats come in two varieties - grilled or fried :) Whoops, wrong type of sprats !

The two sprat units are Coral Hunters and Crest Riders (or Cresters). The Coral Hunters provide a short range, inexpensive missile option and are good "value for money" if you use them in large numbers and keep them out of combat.

The Cresters were to prevent key enemy cavalry units from continually charging the Nauticans with impunity. Combined with the Creatures of the Shores (Sea Creature origin rules) which benefit from advanced deployment, this unit should or rather might just be able to hold up an enemy long enough for some other Nauticans to get their charge in first.

I knew, from experience, that this unit might turn out to be key against fast moving enemies so I decided to limit their use. Because they ride on the crest of a magical wave it seemed fitting that their numbers should in some way be related to the power of the Nautican spellcasters. It was an easy decision really.

I also realised that Sprats were extremely vulnerable. They are, frankly, rubbish in combat. I therefore decided to develop a new rule to allow depleted units to merge into a new more effective unit. Although this is an exception to the normal rules I deemed that it was reasonable and fair because Sprats were so unlikely to be able to "tip" a battle in the Nauticans favour.

More tomorrow on the Army's composition and strucutre.

Thanks for reading,
Sigmar