Fantasy Mutants Army Showcase

Pre-'ramble'

I hope you don't mind if I 'faff about a bit and introduce the general thinking I have been doing underlying this army showcase. I think this brief preamble is necessary since the idea itself is under development and since Game Workshop have already trodden along this territory by developing the concepts of 'Chaos' and 'Chaos Spawn'.

It won't be surprising to find that many of the miniatures which one could use in Fantasy Mutants have traditionally been aligned with Chaos in Games Workshop. The location of what I would call mutants within this broad concept indicates the eclectic nature of the army and the underlying ideas. It also hints that the army miniatures at a persons disposal is likely to be as eclectic.

There are various summaries available on the origins of Chaos in Games Workshop 'The Warp' seems to provide a useful summary of what the concept means. The GW slant is all well an good and certainly fits with the linear notions of good and evil which they often present in their literature. This is most likely because the literature is targeted at a certain age group. Yet the recent release of Inquisitor certainly demonstrates a renewed look at the idea of Chaos. I have to say it is without doubt one of the best productions I have seen from Games Workshop and they should be commended for it. I love the book it is beautifully presented and superbly well written. I hope to eventually get into the game and given time I am sure I will. Whatever the case I do not want to provide a full review here (as if you didn't know anything about the game)all I wanted to do was point out that in the development of Inquisitor there is nevertheless an important development. There is a superb relativism in Inquisitor which I haven't detected in anything else that Games Workshop has produced and it is this sort of relativism that underlies the Mutants Army Showcase concept.

Take this excellent quote from Mary Shelly's Frankenstein as a case in hand.

Fantasy settings are known for the fact that all that magic flies around I mean you can fry eyeballs, burn flesh, kill beasties, and cause an awful stench. Yet seemingly this sort of thing has no side effects? I mean what if a stray bolt of energy hit a bird or a man carrying a bird? What if the bolt were to hit a man on horseback? Or what if the magic user in all his training experimented irresponsibly on animals and people?

Surely such interference insults the very notion of god in such settings? Yet it seems people in high fantasy battles can go around burning all sorts of mystical and magical energies without any effects whatsoever. Even if we take a scientific approach - with for example recent attempts to genetically modify or genetically clone animals and plants you could in effect cause a change in the 'natural' order of things. The result? Mutation! This is a list based on building up this idea into a fully workable army concept.

Such armies should typically have low command values to reflect low levels of organisation. But the profiles of the troops should be adopted to reflect the sort of mutations they represent. Additional rules for games such as Fantasy Warriors which move by 'command' I would suggest that each command is composed of only one type of Mutation. Otherwise things could get messy...

I will be working on this idea more and more over the coming months so please do not fail to keep checking my 'froth zone' here at FU-UK!

OK enough of this pre-'ramble' on to the showcase! Now what fecking figures can I use?

(This is most likely the point where everything goes tits up! Since I think GW are the only ones to systematically develop a similar concept)