[IofRaw]

Alright, so this is my first attempt at making a codex. I decided to do this after reading a thread on how few races there are in the 40K universe. The whole tread can be found here:

So Few Races

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the Jokaero, they are an apelike race who are masters of technology, despite the fact that they don't possess what the civilized races would classify as intelligence. This list is very simple and almost entirely without fluff, but it is based somewhat on the old Rogue Trader rules for Jokaero. Take a look and let me know what you think.

Codex Jokaero

Family Structure: While they are masters of technology, the Jokaero do not possess conventional intelligence, and thus, they do not follow standard battlefield tactics and strategies. Each unit in a Jokaero army is an independent family; while several families may travel together and even fight together, this cooperation is instinctive rather than communicated. All units in a Jokaero army are troops choices.

Immune to Psychology: While Jokaero can be pinned and are affected by psychic powers, their minds are beyond psychology. They are automatically assumed to pass any leadership test they are required to take.

Survival: Jokaero will never willingly assault an enemy, though they can defend themselves if assaulted.

Jokaero Family

Points WS BS S T W I A Ld Sv
Patriarch + 50 4 4 4 4 3 4 2 10 3+
Matriarch + 50 3 4 4 4 3 4 2 10 3+
Warrior + 30 5 3 4 5 2 5 3 9 3+
Jokaero 10 2 3 3 3 1 3 1 9 4+

Jokaero families include 8-20 models and must include 1 Patriarch and/or 1 Matriarch. Of the remaining models, half (rounded down) may be upgraded to warriors.

Equipment: All Jokaero are equipped with a digital weapon with the following profile:

Str Range AP Type
3 18” 6 Assault 1

Patriarch: A family which includes a patriarch may modify their own equipment once per Jokaero turn.

Upgrade: In order to do this, the family must do nothing else for one entire phase (movement, shooting, assault). In addition to the Patriarch, any number of basic Jokaero may participate in the upgrade. Pick one member of the family to receive the upgraded weapon. Each other participating basic Jokaero may sacrifice his or her weapon to contribute to the upgrade. For each weapon sacrificed in this manner, you may improve the strength by 1, the range by 6”, the AP by 1, or the rate of fire by 1. Upgrades are cumulative, and a weapon may be upgraded multiple times.

Reverse Engineer: This is the opposite of the upgrade process. Any weapon which has been upgraded may be broken down. For each point of strength, AP, rate of fire or 6” of range subtracted from the upgraded weapon, one basic digital weapon may be created.

Survivor: A patriarch whose entire family has been killed may then join another family.

Matriarch: A family which includes a matriarch may scavenge equipment from defeated enemies. When a model fighting against the Jokaero is defeated, do not remove the model- instead place it on its side. If the matriarch’s family moves into base to base contact with the model, any member of the family may take and use the weapon as their own for the remainder of the battle. If the family also includes a patriarch, the weapon may be upgraded, however it may not be reverse engineered beyond its original profile.

Survivor: A matriarch whose entire family has been killed may then join another family.

Warrior: A warrior is a senior member of the family, usually a male. The warrior acts as a bodyguard for the family in the event that they are assaulted.

Bodyguard: Before any dice are rolled for combat, any warrior may trade places with any other member of the family.

Buying Time: At the end of any round of combat in which at least one warrior survives, the family may make a special jump move to try and escape combat. Roll 2d6 +1 for each surviving warrior. Beginning with the patriarch/ matriarch, move each member of the family this distance, ignoring difficult terrain. Next, move all of the basic Jokaero. Finally, move any warriors, placing them between the rest of the family and their enemies. Note: this rule may not be used if the Jokaero force their enemies to flee.

Transport: A Jokaero family may be mounted in a Jokaero transport for an additional 100 points.

Jokaero Transport

Points Front Side Rear
100 12 12 10

Type: Skimmer
Crew: One family member designated as pilot; this pilot may not fire.
Weapons: The transport has no weapons of its own. When the Jokaero embark, any member of the family may fuse his or her weapon to the hull. Any number of models may do this. From that point forward, each member of the family may fire their fused weapon, using their own BS. Upon disembarking, any Jokaero may detach their weapon. While fused, weapons obey all standard rules for primary/ defensive weapons. Note that fusion and detachment does not count as an upgrade and may be performed even if the family has no patriarch. Also note that while fused, weapons are subject to weapon destroyed results; if a vehicle with fused weapons is destroyed, the fused weapons are also destroyed.

Upgrade: If the family includes a patriarch, the vehicle may be upgraded once per Jokaero turn. In order to do this, the family must sacrifice one entire phase. This upgrade may not be performed in the same turn as a weapon upgrade, but it may be performed by units held in reserve. For each digital weapon sacrificed, any armour value may be raised by one. If the family sacrifices three digital weapons, they may confer upon the vehicle either the fast characteristic or the ability to deep strike.

Note: In apocalypse games, two Jokaero vehicles may be combined to create a single flyer with the characteristics of the superior vehicle, provided both families include a patriarch. Two or more vehicles may be combined to form a single super heavy vehicle with a number of structure points equal to the number of vehicles combined, provided each family includes a patriarch.

Reverse engineer: Any vehicle modified in this way may be subsequently reverse engineered. Simply break the vehicle back down into its component parts.

 

[omegoku]

Interesting and could be fun.
Only problem is keeping track of the weapons and stuff, and getting the models for all those different weapons and vehicles!

 

[IofRaw]

I'm actually going to try and model up a small squad sometime, just for s#$% and giggles. My idea is that the patriarch and matriarch should be big, like ogryn size- not actually monstrous creatures, but big. Warriors would be marine or ork sized, while basic jokaero would be like ratling sized. Jokaero don't really wear clothes- armour is in the form of force fields, but I might put bandoliers or something on a few models for variety sake. The females will have more braided fur than the males, maybe ear rings or something.

Since Jokaero are famous for digital weapons which often take the form of rings, my idea is to model them with oversized fists and pin vice a couple of small holes in each knucle. Then I can make up a set of studs- red for strength, blue for range, yellow for AP, black for rate of fire. If I can get two holes on each knuckle, that would allow me to fit up to 16 studs per model. If the hands are too small, I may just put them on the bandolier or maybe build an actual weapon chasis that can be fitted with studs.

Vehicles will be a pain, but I think I can scratch build something modular. We'll se how it works out; I'm a notoriously slow modeller, so it could be a while. I may buy a box of cheap plastic toy soldiers to use as armatures and just green stuff fur like crazy. The vehicle I envision will be similar to a DE raider; again, Jokaero armour is mostly forcefield based, so a vehicle that looks open topped may even be capable of travelling in hard vaccuum.


It's kind of an odd list- my idea was that each family was essentially its own army. It's weird, because if you want variety, you have to play with unit composition, where in a typical army, you choose different units. So for example, your units which want to hold objectives would have a full compliment of warriors in case they got assaulted, where as a team that includes 19 basic Jokaero can become a really nasty fire support squad; if you use 19 upgrade points on four weapons, you could get yourself up to strength 8 on 3 of them and 7 on the 4th- not bad for tank hunting. If you were playing against marines, you could sink it all into AP instead. A squad with a matriarch should always have a transport in order to be able to reach enemies killed by long range fire in order to steal their weapons. If you took down something like a devastator squad and stole their gear, even minimal upgrades could be deadly- changing the rate of fire on even a single lascannon could be brutal.

I have to play test to see if the numbers work- the basic weapon profile is pretty weak, so you have to sink a lot of upgrade points to make something cool. I think stealing weapons is a better way to go.

Anyway, thanks for the response.

 

[kithre]

I would simplify the rules for the weaponry TBH - I would sya that a Patriarch can upgrade the units digital weapons at the start of each turn the Jokaero are unengaged, they randomly create new weapons:

Rolling a D6
1) Makes all weapons flamers (S4, AP5)
2) Increase AP
3) Increase S
4) Increase rate of fire
5) Gain "melta" rule against vehicles
6) Player chooses.

The upgrade should only last one turn.

I would also state that Jokaero have one weapon each, and a matriarch may scavenge weapons to allow each Jokaero 2 weapons each...but what they already had, not what they have scavenged.

My take is tha whilst Jokaero are incredibly proficient with technlogy, they are essentially nothing more than animals with a strange set of basic instincts. The upgrades should be random but should be consistent with what we know about digital weapons already (incredibly short ranged and come in all sorts of shapes as per Captain Tycho and teh Inquisition books)

 

[IofRaw]

That's a pretty good suggestion- it is far simpler. I'd have to tweak the army list to give them a fighting chance if I used these rules; the only way they could ever bust a tank was if they rolled melta, and then they'd only have one turn to get into range to use it.

But I really do like the idea of randomizing- and the idea of the full squad getting the upgrade and nobody having to sacrifice a weapon. Maybe if I made the basic profile stronger- gave it a 24" range and a basic strength of 4.

Maybe if you liked what you rolled, you could opt to not roll again on the following turn?

Also, if there's going to be little or no control over the upgrade process, I could drop points costs. There's a lot to think about here- thanks for the suggestion.

 

[Seanchadith]

They better be real shooty since they can't assault. Also, perhpas there is a way to loot weapons from vehicles or foes killed by their shooting?

 

[kithre]

no worries!

I think Jokaero need that element of randomness to be honest and a whole squad with melta weapons would be nasty anyway (make it AP1 as well?)