My wishlist is mostly for Kingdoms of Men, since that is what i have been working on(by way of historical armies)
first, as i mentioned above, a better purpose for the “Hero” unit in the list. while it is a Hero(Inf) unit, and has Individual and thus is a little more agile, it honestly doesn’t bring a lot to the army. a lot of people like to bring up it’s use as a support or to slow down monsters, but in both roles there isn’t much to advocate for a hero instead of just a Troop of some basic infantry. sure they aren’t quite as agile (but no less so they couldn’t do the job), but they have better attacks and often, nerve. my own suggestion would be to give the “hero” Rally [1] , as a reflection of the fact that they are the unit commanders, champions, or other individuals that the soldiers respect/follow, and their being near and shouting words to encourage valor would improve morale of the troops and encourage them to keep fighting, in much the same way that seeing a flag or standard would. (in fact, in ancient times, when unit and army standards were smaller and harder to see at a distance, it would be the shouts of the unit leaders and champions that were the main way to steady a flagging unit)
i would like to see the option for a one use ranged attack via throwing weapons. to reflect that many armies in history, even if their focus was on sword, spear, and axe, would use throwing weapons (javelins, hand darts, knives, small axes, Pilum, etc) as an opening volley to soften up an enemy formation and make the easier to fight in hand to hand. the KoW Historical list has this for many armies, and it basically is a single use ranged attack, with 10 attacks at Ra 5+, 12" range, for an extra +10pts. applying this to the Shieldwall, Foot Guard, Militia Mob, and possibly the Mounted Sergeants units would let you make some more thematic lists and get some interesting options in game play. (i do not think these should apply to the spear phalanx, pikemen, polearm, and beserker units, as these are supposed to have two handed weapons and thus wouldn’t have much chance to hurl things.)
in terms of new units i would like to see a few options drawn from the historicals list, like Elephants and elephant formations (separate from or even replacing the ‘beast of war’ currently in the list). the historical War Elephant unit has the following stats:
Regiment (3) Sp 6, Me 4+, Ra 5+, De 5+, Att 18, Ne 18/22, and 260pts, with the following specials: Thrown weapons (6 attacks), Crushing Strength [2], Strider, Thunderous Charge [2], 50x100mm base, Height 4. with the option to replace the thrown weapons (range 12") with bows (6 attacks, 18" range) for free.
some version of that should be viable in fantasy as well, especially given that you are not limited to just elephants fluff wise.
if this is used alongside the “beast of war” i would hope that unit would get a shift to be a ‘titan’ class unit, with suitable boost in stats.
another unit i’d love to see come over from historical is the Musician. Rally [2] but no combat ability is useful, and very thematic for human armies, as musical instruments (whether drums, trumpets, flutes, and so on) were the staple for sending orders and rallying troops before the advent of radio, as well as establishing the pace for movement on and off the battlefield.
one non-historical unit that might be fun to see, based off their appearance in Vanguard, would be ogre mercenaries. probably best done as a ‘limit one’ variety of unit for kingdoms of men, being able to take a large infantry unit would make for some interesting options. whether these would be just standard Ogre Warriors, or whether the option for Shooters or even Boomers would be there (or perhaps some KoM specific variety the way the Ogre Palace Guards are for Basilea) would depend on space and balance considerations.
