[Son Of The Forge]

Originally Posted by Doctor Thunder

This creature is based on the Moa, an extinct eleven feet tall creature native to New Zealand.
The Moa is very similar to a Veloci-Raptor, both in silouette, speed, ferocity, and intelligence, but it is unusual in that is has no arms/wings, not even little ones. Moa were very strong, able to break through a man's skull or snap a man in half with their lightning fast beaks as effortlessly as popping a balloon. The Moa has been the inspiration for other Sci-Fi creatures you might be familiar with in movies like Wizards, Naausica, Final Fantasy, and some Star Wars critters.

The rider will carry a shocklance, which would be an equivalent weapon that would use the same rules as a hunting lance.

Have you read any Dan Abnett books yet? Straight Silver, one of the Gaunt's Ghosts series, describes a very similar type of riding-bird cavalry, called 'Struthids'. The world that employed them used psi-link technologies to link the rider's minds to the birds, so that the riders could handle thier rifles and weapons while steering thier mounts with thier minds. Thier beaks and claws are just as much weapons as thier rider's rifles, hacking men in two and chomping off heads and limbs Your design reminds me of them.

You might want to take a quick look at the Chapter Approved rules for Xenos-mounts. Then you can have the bird attack as well as the rider. That would be awesome.

Lookin good sofar. I wanna see more!