Hi Everyone:

This is my first time posting on this forum, but I've lurked for a while, and been completely impressed by the creativity and artistry of many of the painters out there. The reason I post is because of a concept that was raised in this post , though that thread seems devoted to the idea of a "command walker," and my interest is in something slightly different: the idea of a "hero pilot." Forgive me if this has been covered elsewhere.

I'm imaging a single card depicting a hero that could be attached to a walker before the game begins. It would be like attaching a hero to a unit: the hero's skills would be added to the walker's. It would be different in the following ways:

-The hero pilot could never detach from the walker (for simplicity's sake)

-The hero pilot would have no weapons

-The hero pilot's hit points would be added to walker's hit points to represent the pilot's greater ability to weave out of danger, but these hit points would probably be very low (1-2), and if either the walker or the hero's hit points were reduced to zero, the walker would be considered destroyed.

The reason this idea is appealing to me is that it could allow a greater degree of walker customizing without the need for additional figures. All you would need is the card, which would have an AP value.

But before I try designing my own custom cards (something I've never done before), I wanted to ask the advice of the community. I've got some specific questions below, but if anybody else can see any snags or opportunities, I would love to hear them.

-Should hero pilots be restricted to a certain armor class (light walker, medium walker)?

-How powerful is an additional 1-2 hit points on a walker?

-What skills do you think would be appropriate for a hero pilot?

-What kind of AP cost would be appropriate for a hero pilot?

Thanks in advance!

// Allies

Cost: 17

Restrictions: Can only pilot ground mechs of armor class 3 to 4. Pilot can't be de-attached. The pilot is a unique personality - only one can be included in each army.

HP gained: +1 is added to the vehicles total HP.

Suppressive Fire : While another friendly unit is activated this mech can activate it's suppressive fire ability if it has not done anything the current round. It is also marked as used after giving it's suppressive fire. The mech targets an enemy unit & attacks as usual with it's weapons. If it gets one or more hits then itsucceeds with its suppression. The targeted enemy is not hurt and does not lose any HP, but, it can't use it's Reactive Fire for the remainder of the round.

Weapon upgrades: In any attack that has gotten at least one hit the mech is allowed to rol l one extra dice where the hits count as misses and misses counts as hits. Add the result to the total amount of damage that is dealt during that attack. This ability can only be used once per round and can't be used at the same time as Suppresive Fire.

// Axis

Cost etc: Same as allies.

Beruhmten Helden: Whenever an enemy unit gets line of sight of the mech x number of dice are rolled, where x is the amount of HP the enemy unit has lost. In case the enemy has lost 0 HP x will be equal to 1. Check the number of hits after the roll: For each hit the enemy unit must retreat one square in any direction away from the piloted mech with Renown. (Advanced rules addon: The retreating player chooses the first square to run to, the renown player the second, and so on, until the enemy unit has retreated the total number of squares as decided in the renown dice roll.) This ability can only affect units with an armor class that is at least 1 lower than the piloted mech. It also does not work on units that have Renown themselves. If a unit can't retreat due to terrain constraints (e..g running out of squares, being pinned down etc) it will get -1 hits when it attacks that round.

Präzise Pilot: The mech can move through squares that are occupied by Axis forces, no matter if they are squads or mechs. All other rules for movement still apply - they can't stop it's movement on a square occupied by another unit.

I went for giving them one ability that is "typical" for the faction, and one that is a bonus and more associated with the other faction, so it just doesn't become "more of the same". Idea is that it won't disrupt faction balancing since there can only be one such pilot per army and that it still gives something interesting that adds to the faction. I haven't played with them yet, but would love to read input...