In my upcoming Swamp Rebels (or Bandits!) campaign, a major threat would be the Sorcerer King of the city-state of Harat and his brutal armies. I’m thinking about which kind of monstrous troops, or special units, I can use to spice up his army. There are two options i have in mind - first, the more obvious, is him being a necromancer, and having undead units (as well as living ones) under his command. The second, more intriguing, is having him do a lot of monster (cross-?)breeding. Maybe have him steal dragon (or dinosaur?) eggs and experiment on them to produce “dragonborn” shock-troopers? Or have him as a Chaos-worshiper with Deep One shock troops? Ideas would be welcome.
As a sorcerer-king, you get to design your shock troops from the ground up. This is a huge bonus.
Shock troops should be, in order of importance:
1 - Replaceable
2 - Devastating
3 - Durable
This does a good job of showing us why all the various goblinoid types exist. Goblins are fast breeders, so they’re replaceable. All of the various goblinoids are the result of wizards trying to tap into that to create shock troops.
Unfortunately, most animals that are fast breeders are also tiny and not very helpful in combat. I therefore recommend a second-generation cross.
First generation: Rabbit + Something large and nasty.
Second generation: First generation + Intelligent humanoid.
And voila; you have fast-breeding, large and nasty, intelligent humanoids.
So the Beast of Caerbannog was a first-generation experiment? (I presume the second-generation crossbreeding was never completed.)
It killed the wizard after completion, so he never got to get around to Generation 2.
Advice for sorcerer-kings: Make sure that you can control your beast after creating it, or failing that, not die to it.
Hmmm… So maybe Toadmen are not a common chaotic monster after all, but bred by the Sorcerer-King? Toads breed quickly, work well in swamps (Harat sits next to a sizeable marshland) and maybe could also have a spring attack. Now just give them giant frogs as mounts!
If you have toad-men as his elites, they should be color-coded, like frogs. High-ranking elites are bright red and spit poison.
Hehehehehe I like that!