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Snakemen Teams

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Snakemen

Runner

Mesmer

Constrictor


Famous Teams
SSSchHit V'gghUYth who first appeared in White Dwarf Issue No.86
Kureshi Kobras, first mentioned in Death Zone Season One, 2016 .
Slaaneshi Sidewinders, first mentioned on Spike! Journal #1, 2018

Background
The Hinterlands of Khuresh are filled with dense tropical jungle where no man dare enter. It is said that the plants are living and big enough to devour a man whole, the earth is poisoned by warpstone and the very air you breath is noxious.

Only a few creatures are capable of living in such an inhospitable environment; the Skaven who are drawn to the warpstone, Forest Goblins who are small, nimble and immune to the poisons of the Jungle. Herds of Beastmen and small tribes of Lizardmen have set up camps on the outskirts of the Jungles even they dare not venture too deep in to the undergrowth.

Right in the centre of the Jungle lies a great temple created by The Old Ones. Deep within lies a Warp Portal which The Old Ones used to travel through dimensions. But at some point in history Chaos arose and creatures started pouring through the Warp Portal. A great battle took place here and the Lizardmen that at one time guarded the temple were all slaughtered.

For an age all was quiet, then new creatures were spotted in the temple region by the Skaven and Goblins that inhabited the Jungles, part man part snake, with arms of a human and tail of a snake with scaly skin and a forked tongue. No one knew quite where these creatures came from but one thing was certain, they were servants of Slaanesh. Some believe they were once Lizardmen, now aligned to Chaos and gifted the chance of a 2nd life by a Chaos God. Others believe they were once human explorers that were twisted by the designs of Chaos. While some believe they are just the result of snakes huge exposure to Warpstone that have since pledged allegiance to Slaanesh.

The Snakemen learned of the game when still in its infancy. Through their great Warp Portal they picked up transmissions from the NBC and watched as races from all over Amorica and The Old World participated in the sport. Their interested peaked one day watching The Chaos All Stars slaughtering some hapless elves and they created their first team. SSSchHit V'gghUYth. They made their way north out of the Jungle and on the outskirts of the Hinterlands came across a Skaven team and the rest is history.

Since their first game the race has grown from strength to strength and one Snakeman - Zzchhtrr, V'hnn Qllss was even bought by the Chaos All Stars. Two years later he was captaining their side to major glory winning the Bloodbowl in 67.

Rationale
First of all Snakemen teams were mentioned in a number of places in relation to Bloodbowl. There was a team of Snakemen who played against a skaven team team in White Dwarf Issue No.86, and the captain of the Chaos All Starts in 67 was a Snakeman as well, hence their inclusion in this league.

Designing this roster was among the hardest of all the teams. Snakemen models were released but they were never given a stat line in any white dwarf or army book that I could find going right back to 2nd ed WFB. So there wasn’t much to go off there. The fluff is almost non-existent as well the only information that exists about them is they are aligned to Chaos (probably Slaanesh if I had to make an educated guess based on the current Slaanesh Snakeman champion).

First of all I had to consider the characteristics of a Snake and felt Prehensile Tail en masse was a must. Other attributes from the skills list that fitted the snake theme were Hypnotic Gaze and Side Step. Tentacles was given based on some Blood Bowl fluff about a player called 'Constrictor' Atlanson, it doesn't specifically state he is a Snakeman, but other players in the Chaos All stars were specifically named as Snakemen so its a fair gamble that he was meant to be too. Though there was later a miniature for him which was a Chaos Human with tentacles, but for me the constrictor idea in a snakemen team fit perfectly so I went with it, also the miniature started as a conversion from another miniature before being cast for a very limited run; and I have always felt he was meant to be a Snakeman like his fellow team mates that were definately Snakemen. Tentacles represents the ability of snakes like Boa Constrictors who coil around their prey trapping them. Making him St4 also seemed a must otherwise Tentacles would be pretty worthless and constrictor snakes are also considerably bigger.

After looking at the models for Snakemen they did not look particularly fast to me, using only a snakes tail with a humans torso and snakes head (though human sized) they seemed very top heavy, so apart from the runners I felt that reducing the average Ma to 5 was sensible.

Finally as a Chaos race I needed to consider whether or not to give them mutation access. I did want it to feature in the roster, but I also did not want the team to be another CPOMB team or have reasonably easy access to the combo, so I only gave it to one of the positionals who does not have access to St skills on a normal roll which means they will require 2 doubles to achieve the combo and a normal roll. I felt this was enough really as the player I gave it to is something of a freak in this team; possessing Hypnotic Gaze already and I felt that these creatures were most likely men at one time and have already undergone huge transformation to become a Snakeman so further mutation would be less likely.

I also found a small bit of background information in the Black Library iirc that inferred Snakemen were found in the dense Jungle in the Hinterlands of Khuresh which places them in an area comparable to Vietnam and Burma etc… in the real world, which does seem like a suitable place for such a race to exist and in keeping with GWs theme of taking real life elements of real world place and spinning them in a fantasy way. This area contains unlimited amounts of Warpstone and a city called lost city of the old ones a ruined Lizardman city, so it is also possible that the Warpstone has affected the few remaining Lizardmen in some way transforming them in to Snakemen. Beastmen are also known to live in this area so it is possible that they have been transformed in to Snakemen by the Warpstone or it could also just be a mutation gift given to them by Slaanesh (who still has a Snakeman hero you can buy from GW). One thing is for certain though and that is the Snakemen are aligned to Chaos. Other information I found also suggested the reason for all the warpstone in the area is that the Lost City possibly houses some kind of warp portal which is also why there is such a heavy chaos presence in the area. These little shards of information were what I used to write the Background.

Season 2 (2020 Edition) Changes
Added the Pa stat. I have adjusted the Ag Mesmer to 4+ due to how strong Hypno gaze is in the current rules, and adjusted their cost by 10k. I have also added Safe Pair of Hands to the Runner, as this is a skill the new Snakeman star player has, and I felt it would be good for consistency and verisimilitude to give them this skill.

I later changed the Ag back to 3+ for the Mesmer, as the nerf was not required, and increased the cost by 10k.

Team design by Garion and legowarrior
Rationale and Background by Garion
Artwork by Knut Rockie and coloured by Garion
Icons by Cowhead and misterlonestar