yes their blue but they arent Tau

was watching avatar last night and thinking using the situation in deathwatch with the kill team helping to either persaude or slaughter the navee

any suggestions for the blue guys stats ? they are pretty big , with carbon fibre bones , the bows look pretty meaty and they appear pretty agile, plus various beasties from mounts to flyers to add a bit of punch

Use kroot but add in unnatural toughness?

Ah, finally someone gives me a excuse to do this.

What I remember from the movie, th Navi seem to drop fairly easily after being shot with machineguns (which are close to autoguns, perhaps with manstopper rounds). They are agile, and bigger than humans. Also quite good fighters.

Their main weapons consists of quite primitive weapons (knives and spears) and powerful bows with lethal poison. Luckily marines have good resistances against the poison at least.

So I would think that a single Navi should not be a huge enemy for Marine. Without armor, perhaps then, but fully armed Marine should be closer to the walkers humans use than the actual humans.

For stats, a rought estimation:

ws 40
bs 50
s 45
t 40
ag 45
int 35
per 45
wp 35
fel 35
Wounds: 15-20

Traits: I would be giving them Size(Hulking) and Unnatural Strength x2 (they parry hits from the combat walkers!) and leave it to that. As I said, they die rather easily, therefore no UnT, nor Unnatural Ag. They are not as dexterous as an Eldar. And a special trait dealing with the mind-linking (a natural MIU perhaps?).

Talents: Heightened senses(Hearing, Sight), Hatred(Humans), Deadeye Shot, perhaps something more.

Skills: Awareness +10, Dodge +10 or +20, Survival +10, Concealment +20, Silent Move +10. Tactics (Stealth and Ambush). Speak Language (Navi), Wrangling.

For weapons, standard from DH/RT, but perhaps with mono. The bows could have little more pen and add the users SB to damage. Poison could be really potent stuff (not merely Toxic), something like -20 Carouse Check or lots of damage and/or paralysis.

The bests would be far more dangerous, even more when riden by a Navi. But their armor should not be "completely bulletproof", just lots of Natural Armor. Otherwise, lots of wounds, UnS and UnT, depending on the critter high WS even. And big size.

And give the Marines a good reason why they just do not bomb the place from orbit (like they should have done in the movie).

I think that this is a great statline, but I think an underestimate of how big and tough they are. The machine guns I remember them generally being shot by were carried by giant robots that seemed more on the dreadknight scale. I definitely remember a line about their bones containing a natural carbon fibre. Just as an alternate idea I would make them enormous and give them unnat str 3 and unnat tou 2, make them almost on the same scale as tyranid warriors. Plus I generally prefer big tough elite level enemies to lots of hordes. makes it feel more epic to me when the bad guys are epic as well

Hello again.

All of course depends on how powerful you want the Navi to be, but after for some info ( http://james-camerons-avatar.wikia.com/wiki/Na%27vi ) and not relying on my memory only:

I'd say that UnSx3 would be too much, but would make the Navi powerful enemies (elites). I'd say it really doesnt matter that their bones are carbonfibre-enchanted, as they are really killed by destroying the fleshy bits surrounding the bones. But it depends on what kind of enemies you want them to be. But giving them UnT and UnS would make them really Marine-like in stats, which at least I would think is little boring.

Also the Chieftains son, Tsu'tey, at least is gunned down by the human machineguns(although he isn't killed instantly), and I'd stat the guns used by the combat walkers ( http://james-camerons-avatar.wikia.com/wiki/Amplified_Mobility_Platform ) more like Autocannons, not autoguns. And the height of the AMPs (4m) puts them really close to Sentinel size, not Dreadknight (over 8m).

Them being close to 3m in height doesn't in my mind warrant larger size than hulking, as they are really thin and weight a lot less when compared to Marines.

I would say that play them as invidinuals, attacking from cover or riding beasts, so that the Kill-Team must target and kill all of them separatedly. They should use at least some kind of tactics, traps and ambushes, and in case of the Kill-team, overwhelming numbers. One point to make them quite dangerous is to make their poison really deadly: for example, it could do 1 fatigue per each turn, with a cumulative -10 penalty to toughness/or all tests. After fatigue reaches twice the TB of the target, death is instant (a successfull -40 T test or -20 medicae test to ends, or something like this). In that way, they might be quite harmless, if not irritating when faced alone, but deadly if they have enough attacks (and are lucky enough) to poison every member of the Team.

for their bow, I would stat them as: D10+SB Impact Damage, Pen4, Range 200, S/-/-, Rld Half, Razor Sharp, Lethal Poison.

To be fair I think an Imperial Guard battalion or two (with proper breathing equipment of course) would be able to wipe out the whole Na'vi population quite easily, I don't see the need to involve the Deathwatch. Maybe even throw some catachans at them if the Imperium is feeling really nasty, even Pandora is nothing compared to Catacha...

A Deathwatch kill team could kill scores of these stupid blue xenos with stone age technology very easily.

thanks guys thats been really helpful

"A Deathwatch kill team could kill scores of these stupid blue xenos with stone age technology very easily.~"

hmm didnt the US forces say something similar in vietnam ?

i think a skilled , jungle savvy foe can always be a challenge no matter what tech and the Navii have a link with the planet and animals in what looks like a very hostile terrian to a tech based army especially the floating mountains with the electronic interference

Hardrainfalling said:

No they didn't.

And xenos with primitive technology (a fiber bow certainly isn't more dangerous than a lasgun, let alone a boltgun), no natural armor, and strenght and toughness only slightly higher than humans can only run or die when faced with a team of Deathwatch Space Marines, who in their long years as Astartes have no doubt fought and won on dozens of planets just as dangerous as Pandora (they were even born on one, most likely), and probably even a few much more dangerous.

Na'vi are like feral orks, only less tough and much less brutal.

going off the point slightly a human long bow or mongol hunting bow hits with the same force as a 357 magnum and due to the archers paradox cuts through armour designed to stop bullets easily (hence some special forces still use crossbows) the navii are bigger than humans with carbon composite recurve bows providing a superb power to wieght ratio with huge arrows indicating a great pull power coupled with the archers paradox these could cut through most armour easily

i agree i dont want them uber stat'd but i'd say the navee bow is likely to be better than anything a feral ork has

I could buy the archers paradox applying to flak armour, thus explaining why the imperial guard can't handle the Navee. But power armour is more than just protection against bullets, its protection against blades, vacuum, energy weapons, explosions.

The main issue I have with the archers paradox applying in this setting is that space marines quite often fight with bladed weapons as a matter of choice, thus altering the blades vs bullets balance and how the armour is designed.

I could buy the archers paradox applying to flak armour, thus explaining why the imperial guard can't handle the Navee. But power armour is more than just protection against bullets, its protection against blades, vacuum, energy weapons, explosions.

The main issue I have with the archers paradox applying in this setting is that space marines quite often fight with bladed weapons as a matter of choice, thus altering the blades vs bullets balance and how the armour is designed.

Yeah I don't see Na'vi arrows piercing power armour. Duh, even mono-edged arrows (mono-edge is very advanced technology when compared to Na'vi standards) have PEN 2, how could Na'vi arrows be better?

Let's be VERY generous and say that the special material Na'vi use is equivalent to mono edge, and that the superior size and strenght of Na'vi provides +4 damage over a human arrow, that's still a 1d10+4 PEN 2 arrow, hardly a threat for marines.

And I'm still convinced that Catachans (who come from a far deadlier jungle planet and have accesso to far better technology) would absolutely murder the Na'vi.

Isn't the archer's paradox that an arrow has to bend around the bow because the bowstring pulls towards the wood? What does that have to do with increased armour penetration? I would think that an arrow if an arrow indeed has the same impact as a .357, it would be because of the increased mass an arrow has over a bullet.

But keep in mind a bolt is a .75 caliber rocket propelled round with an explosive warhead, so I wouldn't give a Na'vi bow stats better than a single shot bolt pistol.

Not that I am a real Navee fan but I think one talent is truely needed to stat them, that's catfall.
If those guys don't have it who has?

And because of the hollow bones (like Birds have them) I'd give them a trait that halves fall damage on top of that.
Yes, they don't just jump streight down from their trees to the ground but use the foliage to decelerate them but what the heck...

I support not giving them unnatural T. They're just too squishy.

To be able to use a bow effectively they need rapid reload

I would make their bows accurate , toxic, felling (1) 1D10+2 Pen 2. reload half (free with rapid reload)
If you want to make them a little more dangerous give each one of them a few special arrows with pen: 3 and razor sharp.
With those stats the arrows would, in most cases, just be deflected off the armour but with a good, aimed shot they could perhaps kill a marine, but at least hurt him.

good points about mono and archers paradox affecting flak armour but not curved powerarmour

archers paradox affects armour pen as the arrow bends in wobbles in flight at very high speed which means when the arrow hits it drills through armour

this would mainly work as mentioned on flak armour as the head needs to penetrate for the drilling to begin rather than be deflected by a curved solid armour

the catachens may have the same jungle skills as navee but would be physcially much smaller (the navee have carbon fibre bones and are much taller bigger than a human) the navee also have an almost telepathic link with the eco system

the US found out how effective bombing dense jungle was in vietnam

I am not saying the Navii wouldnt loose i am just saying they would be a challenge

of course a deathwatch marine would be more than a match for an individual navii

Redemption NL said:

Keep in mind that a Na'vi Arrow is going to be around five feet long and more akin to a human spear than an arrow.

I haven't checked the DVD but I do believe the Na'vi arrows were embedding themselves in the aircraft armor and penetrating what would be armored canopy glass with relative ease. My guess is the Na'vi bows are probably closer to a Ballista stat-wise than a bow, just with a higher rate of fire and better mobility.

For stats I would lean toward:

1D10+6 I, Pen 6, Range 150, S/-/-, Rld Half, Tearing, Toxic, Razor Sharp

Hardrainfalling said:

They Na'vi also don't have flamethrowers, grenades, sniper rifles, heavy bolters, plasma weapons, proton charges, sentinels...The list goes on and on.

Look, if you want to make the Na'vi far stronger than what they are portrayed in the movies fine, it's your game, but in the end they barely won (with some crucial help from traitors among the enemy) against a small army with technology and probably training inferior to a standard Imperial Guard regiment.

And some of the proposed stats for Na'vi bow are unbelivable: A Na 'Vi arrow better than a bullet from Astartes bolt waepons? Yeah, right....

Sorry double post, please delete.

Alright, not to rant, but the constant, untutored references to Vietnam as some sort of holy grail for an advanced military losing to primitives and thus comparable to "Dances with Woves in Space" aka "Avatar" need to stop.

1. The Viet Cong in South Vietnam were supplied with weapons through North Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos that came from the superpowers of China and the USSR.

2. Said super powers provided technology and weapons to the NVA as well.

3. The North Vietnamese army was a conventional, modern military.

4. The US rules of engagement included not bombing the routes being used to bring weapons through neighboring countries or the ports by which it was delivered to North Vietnam, they also involved trying to save and protect the populace in the South. It was notoriously difficult to distinguish between civilians and combatants, who hid behind these rules knowing that Americans were unwilling to risk civilian casualties.

5. It is widely recognized in military history circles that the US military lost zero (0) battles during the war. Vietnam was lost in the court of public opinion. The political will to fight and win was never present from day one, and became ever more eroded throughout. Since the entire premise of the war was a holding action on the spread of communism and not a war to win, the US was essentially trying to play to a draw when a non-trivial and ever-growing portion of the populace and government wanted out.

6. Tet failed as a military effort, it was a disaster, the Viet Cong rose en masse to attack the US throughout the South while the NVA invaded. After a few hours of confusion the NVA and the Viet Cong were routed. Reporters, many of them seeing live combat for the first time in the capital of the South, were filled with panic and reported the war was lost. As a political gambit, which it wasn't intended to be, Tet was wildly successful.

So, which of these applies? None.

1. Nope, just pointy sticks.

2. Nope, no big scary conventional army backed by big scary MAD thermonuclear type powers. You want to add in a Tau supplied weapons angle with maybe a planet smashing railgun and a lurking Tau fleet? Now we are talking.

3. Nope.

4. Ahahahaha, No. This is the grimdark, even if humans on some other planet in the Imperium knew about the conflict they would want the evil xenos to die horribly, and since the Space Marines and/or IG would be agents of genocide, not peace-keeping, picking targets would be a matter of shooting anything breathing.

5. Nope. In all probability the Imperium would just kill them all from orbit anyhow, but there would certainly be no delusions of maintaining a status quo of power balance. Purge the xenos.

6. Nope. The Imperium would probably lie about losses anyway, but that even assumes any grunts thought they knew who was winning which is unlikely, and that they had a chance to spread rumors before a commisar ended them, also unlikely, and that the givernment anywhere in the Imperium was vulnerable to public opinion with regards to a distant war in a galaxy full of wars, which is also unlikely.

All that said, if you want to have such a planet and you want to make it work for your setting, its your story, do what you want.

The weapon trait that everybody here seems to be forgetting is primitive. If you aren't going to admit that a bow is primitive, then for goodness sake, what is? Composite bow is already statted out in DH, they do 1d10+2 pen 1, accurate, primitive. I agree the Na'vi bows should do more due to size. People are pointing out that they should have sufficient pen to pop through plexiglass windows since they do in the movie, but that's not what pen is. Pen is how much armor they ignore. That window pretty did a decent job of stopping the arrow, and it had greatly reduced energy afterwards. All you can say is that the Pen+Damage exceed the cover of a plexiglass window, which probably is not even 4. Toxic is probably overly generous for their homebrew primitive poisons, but sure, we can splurge. If we want to give them a damage bonus for the arrows over humans, I think 2 is plenty. That's about as much advantage as DW weapons have over their DH Ascension counterparts.

In the end, that gives the bow 1d10+4I Pen 1, Accurate, Primitive, Toxic. Their maximum roll is then going to be an accurate shot with all 10s, for a total of 34+1 pen. Hitting an SM in the head, they'll take off 15 from armor, then around 10 from their toughness bonus, leaving 9 damage and a moderately difficult toxic roll. That is fora 1 in 1000 aimed shot to a weaker part of the armor, mind you. An average aimed damage roll would be 21 with 1 pen, which wouldn't get through their toughness bonus.

ItsUncertainWho said:

But then according to Hollywood, you can shove a sword through a steel breastplate...

And small jungle-dwelling ewoks can serve up on guys in armour with energy weapons...

Siranui said:

Give me two dozen Ewoks, a dense forest and 2 weeks to prep then watch me wipe out a company of space marines!!!

With a full village of the little fleabags I could take down whole Chapters!

ItsUncertainWho said:

Didn't Colonel Quaritch shoot holes in said 'armoured' canopy with his pistol sidearm when Trudy stole one? And you can also see the arrows only creating chips in the glass when they hit it at an angle or from somewhat longer range. So I would decrease the penetration and/or give it Primitive. Probably decrease the range a bit too, as I doubt an arrow could be shot accurately at a target (so no to hit penalty, which is up to double range in DW) up to 300m due to the lower travel speed of an arrow, or has a maximum range of 600m.

"Toxic is probably overly generous for their homebrew primitive poisons, but sure, we can splurge." really ? some of the most lethal neuro toxins in the world are from jungle frogs who knows where the Navii get their neuro toxin from? granted marines are pretty resistant to toxins anyway

Ewoks for the win !

just out of interest i can put an arrow through a car door with enough force to penetrate what evers soft and squishy on the other side with my mongolian hunting bow (a primiative traditionally made weapon) Longbows were replaced in war not because they arent powerful but a gun is easier and doesnt require an effective user to be trained from age 9

True vietnam anolgies dont help but the history of jungle warfare and counterinsurgency does show armoured vehicles and air support isnt as effective

(btw i have a masters degree in strategic studies , my dissertation was on the phoenix program in vietnam so i am not just a kid whose watched full metal jacket too many times )