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Jeff Horger
United States
Columbus
Ohio
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The Badari
In Fury, the Badari represents an army raised from the sands of a vast desert. The vision I had of this army was culled mostly from the Al-Qadim sourcebooks from 2nd Edition Dungeons & Dragons. This base was augmented with the “flashback” scenes in The Mummy movies, the campaigns of Lawrence of Arabia during WWI, a series of 1st Edition D&D adventures known collectively as the “N” series (Against the Desert nomads), The Tales of the Arabian Nights, and historic accounts of Persian, Carthaginian and Egyptian military actions. The base combat types and units came mostly from the historical narrative and the magic and leadership was derived primarily from the fictional sources. In the end, the army turned out to be a fast, light and hard hitting group that has a bit of trouble holding a defensive line.
In the descriptions below, at the end of each unit is a value listed as X-X/X-X. This represents the Combat-Move/Reduced Combat-Move of that unit on the counter.
BADARI UNITS
Karaca’s Light Cavalry: This unit was designed with the light Numidian horse in mind. Fast, aggressive and nimble. The unit has a decent attack values with pursuit. It is among the fastest units in the game with a “3” speed that is not reduced as it passes through the desert. However, it possesses no defense factor on its cards of its own. The defensive capability of the unit is to Withdraw from an oncoming battle. I didn’t want the Light Cavalry to be able to make a stand-up defense so I chose that in lieu of a defensive strength they would be able to withdraw instead. 7-3/3-3
Mutaharrik’s Guard: As I thought about them, the Guard became a mounted version of Alexander’s Silver Shields. While they are fast from point to point, the lack of heavy armor makes them less able to stand up to combat than other nation’s heavy soldiers. Again, by being anchored to their horses, the Guard’s defensive ability is to Withdraw from combat. 6-3/3-3
Scarab Legion & Dakarr Light Foot: These units are light foot modeled on the infantry of the Persians under Darius. They are light but resilient having low attack and defense abilities but with an ability to force march on all of their cards as well as the ability regroup if they suffer a defeat. 5-1/3-1
Badari War Elephants: Most obviously these were modeled after the elephants of Carthage. But they also had some foundation in the Oliphants from The Lord of the Rings. These elephants are very strong on the attack, much stronger than on defense. They also suffer enormously when they take a loss in combat. The primary attack of the Elephants is to Rampage. A Rampage is three attacks in succession against adjacent units, possibly even friendly ones if the first enemy target is eliminated on the first or second attack. I invented the rampage just for the elephants but once the rule was in effect, there were other units from other nations where it fit just as well. Elephants cannot regroup on their own but require a leader or HQ card to do so. I concluded that this represented the difficulty in reforming elephants once they had been scattered and the pure reduction that would come from losing too many of them to casualties. I have also granted elephants a secondary ranged attack mostly stemming from the vision of Oliphants from the Lord of the Rings. 8-2/3-2
Majin of the Oasis: Clearly this unit has its basis completely in fiction. It represents a small number of Genies or Djinn called to the service of the Badari. The Majin are very strong in both offense and defense possessing the ability to damage any unit in the game and with the defensive capability to withstand attacks by the strongest of opposition. While they do not fly all of the time, their cards allow the Majin to fly over terrain or enemy units as the need arises. To further enhance these creatures of the air, they were given a Whirlwind attack allows the unit to target all four adjacent spaces with a fairly powerful ranged attack at the same time. The Majin are also unable to regroup on their own since losses to Genies are not easily recovered. 8-1/4-1
Swirling Sands Squadron: The need for a unit that had a primary ranged attack was obvious early on in the design process. The response in the Badari turned out to be this squadron of horse archers. This unit has a very light (pathetic) attack but devastating ranged capability. In addition they also have the speed benefits of the light cavalry. As the other Badari cavalry they have no defense value on their cards but may withdraw from battle. 5-3/3-3
Immortal Infantry: I have been fascinated with this unit name since I came across the Persian unit of the same name in a book of ancient warfare many years ago. This was rekindled by The Great Battles of Alexander from GMT where they made an appearance. I took the concept of a unit that was always kept at full strength (or as close as it could be) and created a unit with a strong counter value with a reduced strength just below that of its full strength side. Its cards allow it to regroup as well. In combat the unit has a choice of two different types of attacks to make on a turn due to the training and fervor inherent in the ranks. It may make a disciplined attack that allows it to hold its ground after a victory (Not required to Advance after combat) due to the rigid training. However, if necessary it may unleash its fury and make a Committed Attack at the expense of losing some men to disorganization and combat. 7-1/6-1
BADARI HQ CARDS
Nation Cards: Every nation in the game has 10 “nation” cards that are available to use for every unit, including non-aligned units. These cards can be used to allow some basic use by all units. Every Badari card has a 1d10 attack value which is pretty standard for these cards. Half of the cards allow you to Force March a unit to represent the extra speed of the army and provide some minimal Defensive bonus keeping with the lightly armored nature of the army. The other 5 cards provide units with the capacity to regroup along with a special defensive power known as Skirmish. A skirmish forces the attacker to lose one dice in the attack of his choice but makes that attacker immune from any losses inflicted by failing to match the defender’s combat strength. I assumed that many of the lightly armed desert troops would be proficient at harassing and delaying an attacker before they came to blows.
Supply: A staple card of the game and there was no reason to believe that supply would be withheld from the Badari.
BADARI MAGIC
Much of the Badari magic is tied to the desert and the oasis.
Water of Life: This magic requires a Lake space on the board and allows the Badari player to return one unit to play once eliminated. This ability comes directly from Al-Qadim as well as The Mummy Returns. This makes it imperative that a Badari player takes some water in the terrain set up as well as it is a reason to avoid water for their opponent.
River of Sand: This spell is again a direct descendent from some of the magic of Dungeons & Dragons. It allows a unit, friendly or unfriendly to be moved any number of spaces in a straight line as long as it starts its move on a desert space. Again, this makes it imperative for the Badari player to have at least some desert in their opening terrain.
Desert Wrath: This attack spell probably has roots in a number of books and movies, most notably and visually stunning to me was the airplane scene in The Mummy. I see it as the Badari people using the desert windstorms and sand pits to cause waylay and cause damage to enemy units. This is another case to be made for having desert that can be used to initiate attacks.
Windtomb: A Windtomb is used to lock one opposing unit into place and force it suffer a loss to exit the vortex of swirling winds. I believe that the idea was taken from a combination of Al-Qadim, the Wall of Wind in D&D and a Wall of Air in Magic.
Shape: The shape spell allows the Badari player to create either a desert or oasis anywhere on the board. See above for the value of this spell to the Badari. Shaping or altering a location is a staple of many different fantasy novels and spells from role-playing and Magic. I think I got the idea for the base of this spell from Dungeons & Dragons, but again The Mummy Returns must be credited for how I view the spell.
Maelstrom: This is another location based spell for the Badari focusing on the destructive nature of water. I am sure that there is a comparable spell in D&D somewhere that caught my eye and gave me the inspiration but again I have to turn to The Mummy Returns for my vision of this spell when the water was brought to life by the Imhotep. The concept of pulling water out to do your bidding though can be traced back to Moses in the Old Testament.
Summon Elements: So many resources conjure up this vision of earth, air water and fire being controlled to disrupt and damage the enemy. How about a new reference for this spell, the Last Airbender and the ability to conjure and control the various elements.
Conflagration: Very similar to Summon Elements but with a specific nod towards fire as the destructive force. I believe that the concept for this spell had its roots in both Dungeons & Dragons as well as Magic, The Gathering.
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