Which Magnamund army is the best?

[Winter Wolf]

dont forget the bor gunners you can only hide in a castle if it is still has walls,roof etc :twisted: tick the little guys off and you will no longer have a home standing too go home too :wink: :lol:

Good point!

Still you are going to have to be very careful putting boom powder anywhere near a Magician of Dessi who has mastered the element of fire. Bor would be a powerful army though I agree, powerful weapons and gunners who have seen lots of action in foreign lands. The unexpected arrival of an army from Bor turned the war in Talestria form book eight.

I can see their rifles being especially effective against the heavily armoured Drakkarim.

 

[toothill man]

we might be short but we are the most powerful if you have any problem with that just hold this bomb sorry crate for me :shock: :lol:

 

[Winter Wolf]

The Vassagonians shouldn't be underestimated either. They seem to be pretty expansive.

Vassagonians are one of the forces I would love to be able to play in a LW battle game. A campaign set around the Chasm of Doom would be superb.

1. Bandit raids to the north.

2. The First Raunon Assault once it's defenders had been spread thin.

3. Assualt on the Guard Cavalry and their flight to Raunon.

4. Ambush Lone Wolves Rangers.

5. Lone Wolves flight from the mines to Raunon.

6. The Assualt on Raunon straight from Chasm Of Doom.

7. The Royal Army.

I agree that the Vassagonians would have a very wide range of troops and great numbers. Do they use Camel cavalry do you suppose. What about elephants?

 

[Anonymous]

I agree, the Vassagonian's are probably quite powerful, with large numbers and excellent training. But we don't really know too much about them ,until a class or two is published.

 

[Winter Wolf]

I agree, the Vassagonian's are probably quite powerful, with large numbers and excellent training. But we don't really know too much about them ,until a class or two is published.

I don't know there is quite a bit of info in LW books 4, 5 and 9. The Gazzateer in the main RPG book also has a bit of info.

 

[ParanoidObsessive]

I was surprised to read that, to be honest. I always assumed that the Brotherhood was a Sommlending institution.

I always assumed that as well - basically, the city of Toran is divided into any number of guilds, and the Brotherhood of the Crystal Star is the Magician's Guild of Toran (stated a number of times).

While guilds show up in a number of other places, we never really see a magician's guild anywhere else (unless you count the Sages of Varetta... but they're certainly not part of the Brotherhood).

Personally, I tend to see the Brotherhood as being a Sommerlund-exclusive group (like the Kai), and that the RPG simply made the multi-ethnic reference as a means of making them more playable.

But I also feel that it's not impossible for other nations to have similar methods of magic (in much the same way that the RPG links the Magicians of Dessi with the magic from Grey Star, which never really made much sense to me), so a Gamemaster could easily either assume the Brotherhood is all over Magnamund (the easy way), or could develop a slightly different version of the Brotherhood somewhere else (with a different name, different ranks and hierarchy, etc).


As for Helghasts being the more powerful military force, I always got the impression that it was impossible to "mass-produce" them, as it were, so at any given time, you'd be hard-pressed to get more than a couple of them together in any one place (because, in order to concentrate them in one place, they must neglect another).

In other words, Helghasts wouldn't HAVE a military rating, as it were, but their presence could either bolster the effect of the army they support, or hinder the effect of the army they oppose. So, if you're ranking different militaries by number, I'd say use the Helghasts as a modifier to that number (say, boost by one for every Helghast present?).

 

[Anonymous]

Paranoid's right about Helghasts. They're assassins, not soldiers, used for one-to-one combat. The average Helghast should be able to take on the average Kai Master, before adding in Magnakai powers but assuming the Master has a low-rank magic sword. However, neither Kai Lords nor Helghasts can be massed in the kind of numbers you'd see in field battle, since there aren't that many of them.

As to Vassagonians...Drakkarim are mostly Vassagonian, I think. This is derived from the point in The Masters of Darkness where you put on the Drakkarim disguise and try to speak to Kraagenskul, and you "speak partly in Giak and partly in Vassagonian to maintain your disguise." Since Giak is the Darklands lingua franca, the implication is that Drakkarim would come from Vassagonia.

 

[Anonymous]

Paranoid's right about Helghasts. They're assassins, not soldiers, used for one-to-one combat. The average Helghast should be able to take on the average Kai Master, before adding in Magnakai powers but assuming the Master has a low-rank magic sword. However, neither Kai Lords nor Helghasts can be massed in the kind of numbers you'd see in field battle, since there aren't that many of them.

As to Vassagonians...Drakkarim are mostly Vassagonian, I think. This is derived from the point in The Masters of Darkness where you put on the Drakkarim disguise and try to speak to Kraagenskul, and you "speak partly in Giak and partly in Vassagonian to maintain your disguise." Since Giak is the Darklands lingua franca, the implication is that Drakkarim would come from Vassagonia.

I think you're getting that wrong. The Drakkarim are evil humanoids from another world(in Aon, I assume.) They came and conquered much of Northern Magnamund before the Darklords brought them to heel. The part-Giak/part-Vassagonian thing is because of WHERE that particular army(of Darklord Xog) was fighting. When you're working with and living in a certain part of a world, it's quite possible in communications you will start speaking a pidgin or creole of two or three languages.

But Vassagonians are Vassa and very human and appear "middle eastern" while Drakkarim are brutish, 'european'-looking humanoids.

 

[ParanoidObsessive]

But Vassagonians are Vassa and very human and appear "middle eastern" while Drakkarim are brutish, 'european'-looking humanoids.

Yeah, the Drakkarim are their own separate and distinct race, who tend to dwell in the regions south of the Darklands... they were actually in Magnamund BEFORE the Darklords were, and swore fealty to the Children of Naar when they arrived.

The Drakkarim lands are on the other side of Magnamund from Vassagonia, and they're definitely not related peoples.

 

[columbob]

But Vassagonians are Vassa and very human and appear "middle eastern" while Drakkarim are brutish, 'european'-looking humanoids.

Drakkarim are also human. Just because they're from another world doesn't preclude them from being human.

 

[Wannabe Drakkar]

We drakkarim are too beautiful and dangerous to be compared with humans. but im sure anthropologists would just say we're humans from another planet. not "humanoids"... although, with nadziranim improvements... (thats how i imagine them anyway :twisted: )

 

[Anonymous]

If I'm not mistaken, even some of the text Dever wrote(later on, of course) referred to the Drakkarim as 'humanoids.' I just took this to mean that in a few minor respects they differed from Sommlending and Vaderish, but that they were essentially human in the other ways.

They also seem more uniform than other races in their appearance. And of course, they are magically enhanced/corrupted since the darklords brought them to heel.

 

[Wannabe Drakkar]

yeah, that sounds perfectly right, also solves the "what do the drakkarim look like" debate. different darklords would have different ideals, so some drakkarim would be devilishly handsome like oldskool ones, whereas some others would look like the roided ones .... corruption points is another argument for this too i guess

 

[Walks with the Snails]

Pretty much every picture I ever see of them in the books has them as grizzled, overweight but muscular trailer trash. I thought I did read somewhere in Legends about them having an unearthly but cold and cruel beauty, so maybe there's some merit in the idea that followers of different Darklords looked different.

 

[columbob]

Pretty much every picture I ever see of them in the books has them as grizzled, overweight but muscular trailer trash. I thought I did read somewhere in Legends about them having an unearthly but cold and cruel beauty, so maybe there's some merit in the idea that followers of different Darklords looked different.

I only remember that picture of a grotesquely fat and muscled captain in the Dungeons of Torgar, but otherwise they're no fatter than any other soldier.

 

[Anonymous]

Just that they had unsharp features. The guy in Torgar had a fat, piggish face, but other than that was incredibly muscled. Other Drakkars seem to be a bit more normal but still large men, not necessarily with fat faces but not with sharp, aquiline features either.

 

[Walks with the Snails]

I only remember that picture of a grotesquely fat and muscled captain in the Dungeons of Torgar, but otherwise they're no fatter than any other soldier.

There were pictures of several in Book 15 among others IIRC. They all had that general trailer trash look.

 

[Anonymous]

My sensation, according what I remember from the books I read, mainly 1 and 2, is that “human” troops are poor quality, and no challenge for the bad guys in general, except for minor elite forces or individuals (Royal Guards, Knights of the white mountain, lord Axim, captain D´Val…). what do you think?

 

[Wannabe Drakkar]

that sounds right, i was just thinking it in fact, even the lowly old giaks had enough ease to stop and turture their captives (well... they woulda done it even if they were gettin their butts handed to em on a shield :twisted: ) but yeah, pretty sure a small group of giaks can do a LARGE amount of damage, so just think what the well disciplined drakkarim could do to a detachment of sommlending militants, i know i have :wink: