Empire Fantasy Baloon?

[0ctavion1992]

A couple years ago I thought I heard someone say something about an Empire Baloonist or something. I thought about it recently and decided to see if anything ever came out. I guess it didn't or at least i couldn't find it. I thought I would just ask since it seems like a hot air balloon of war would be cool in an army. If not maybe I ll try my first real scrap made model which will probably not turn out well

[Pixie]

Well while a balloon is certainly feasible for the Empire, I have the impression that on the battlefield it'll probably be short lived... not necessarily because of field guns, mind you (I believe in real world terms it took until the FrancoPrussian war before somebody got the idea to blow up those observation balloons?), but because what with eagles, dragons, gyrocopters, harpies, flying goblins, and so on, being in a small basket suspended by oh so tearable cloth with a giant fire above you probably isn't the safest place to be. :p

Would make an interesting model though. ^^

[ArchonFarseerGuy]

Since this thread contains no rumours, I'll nudge it over to the Empire forum.

As to your question, there are no rumours of one that I know of. As Pixie said, it would make an awesome model.

Though what would it do ruleswise? Maybe give it a choice of three abilities, like making artillery more accurate/easy to guess the range for, dropping rocks or explosives, or something that assists deployment.

[GMJoeSolarte]

Yeah, from a Warhammer battle field perpective, being on a balloon does not strike me like it would have a very long term life span on the battlefield.

Maybe a more personal one, based on the game "Balloon Fight" would work. Would be a better Halfling invention.

[0ctavion1992]

So what if it doesnt have a long life on the field, I think it would be fun to field. I like the idea of it aiding artillery too. Though a balloon would be a target, arrows wouldnt necessarily bring it down. It would take a lot of holes to let out all of that hot air. I could see an eagle or griffin destroying it in seconds though.
I can imagine a ton of unique rules for this thing. A one time use pot of oil that you can dump and it has a small template effect and then the crew light some torches and drop them.
Also like giving one guy a hochland long rifle who gets slightly increased range because it will take longer for the bullet to fall, be useful for taking out heroes.

EDIT: OH and a really cool rule would be when it gets shot down, it can hit some modelsmaybe only a couple though, and it could have the rule of the mortar of 'Under the hole" or whatever its called because the big thing that makes the fire
And if it had explosives in it, then it would do even more damage. Or even if it just didnt get to use its pot of oil, then it would do a lot more damage.

Another rule I just thought of, Vials of holy water that the crew throw down if the enemy is chaos.
All of these things would of course have to be upgrades though.

I can see the basket being not too difficult, but how would i make a balloon look decent.

[Zema]

This is pretty cool i was thinking of making Balloon rules just this weekend! I wasn't thinking of making it an offensive unit as of itself, but as an artillery balloon: spotting for gun crews and perhaps giving them a bs bonus or a reroll because of it.