Vorl Storm Hearths

Along with the Fire Hearths, Vorl Storm Hearths are at the core of a Leading Claw force. Their primary weapon – the Vorl pulser – is much-feared as it fires a stream of nebuliser shells, either directly at opponents or at longer distances overhead.

Hearth: Vorl maintain strong family and clan ties and a ‘hearth’ is an approximation of their term for a squad. All the members of a hearth live together (around the same ‘hearth’), are related and, mostly, grew up together.

In line with Vorl outlook and philosophy, their pulser is designed to have a longer range and be more powerful the more Vorl there are linking together to shoot. On its own – its stream mode – it issues one or two, short-ranged, Inaccurate, direct-fire attacks with nebuliser shells (see below). In storm mode, multiple Vorl can join together in Fire Teams to produce a single, more powerful OH shot (D4+1, D5+2 or D6+3 Blast hits): in effect, the teams pour power into the weapon carried by one of their number to allow it to fire a more coherent stream of nebuliser shells at a target.

The implications of this are that a Vorl Storm hearth acts as both an infantry squad and a weapon team, depending on what it wants to do at the time.

Fire Team: Some shooting modes allow two to four Vorl in a squad to merge and fire a single shot from one of their number. A squad can split into multiple Fire Teams, so allowing (perhaps) two more powerful shots from one member of each Fire Team. A squad of five Vorl, for example, could form two fire teams one of two and one of three warriors (giving a Blast D4+1 and a Blast D5+2 OH nshot), or even have one team fire special munitions such as suspensor net.

Normal rules for modes still apply: all troopers firing the same weapon in a squad must use the same mode and at the same target, even if their weapon has the Choose Target rule. A twist is that one team could fire special munitions at a target whilst the other launches a normal blast effect attack.

All Vorl warriors also carry an s-sling and nebuliser shells, The s-sling uses suspensor technology but it otherwise similar in effect to a panhuman’s x-sling. The difference is that it fires nebuliser shells, a grenade that combines fractal technology with a ferocious biocide. Hits from nebuliser shells are at SV1 Blast (Breaching SV3) but compound like other grenades and can also be laid as mines. The nebuliser shells are also launched from a Storm Warrior’s pulser, though the pulser can also launch a number of special munitions, especially the Vorl Suspensor Net (1d4+1 pins as opposed to the normal suspensor net’s 1d3+1).

In close combat, Vorl can fight with all four arms, generating up to two attacks each. Whilst their lower (torsite) arms are strong from the torsite’s brachiation, their upper (cephalite) arms are weak. Furthermore, hitting multile targets is difficult even for Vorl so whilst two attacks are unwieldy (-1 Str) their average Str is 6 (used in full if only one attack is made). However, they often use nebuliser shells, making the attacks deadly (except against Concord troops when they ignore the nebuliser shells due to the hyperlite armour’s excellent resistance to Blast effects).

Vorl armour fields are also designed to be more effective the more Vorl there are to use it. A Vorl’s base Res is the same as a panhuman’s, but their synthesis armour adds a +1 Res bonus per Vorl in the hearth up to a maximum of four. This means that three-strong hearth’s are Res 5(8) whilst larger hearth’s are Res 5(9) – at least until casualties are suffered and the armour field is weakened. This means that Vorl are tough at the start of a battle but after receiving a few hits, they degrade quickly. Indeed, Concord tactical manuals recommend early, high-impact (SV4+) weaponry be used against them from plasma lances and weapon teams!

Hearth leaders and veteran Vorl in each squad also carry kinetic dampeners and combat arrays. The former projects a weak armour shield like a batter field but giving only -1 Acc to shots through it, but only a single dampener field can be used at a time. Combat arrays act much like a spotter buddy, allowing a reroll from a single shot in the squad or allowing for OH patch sighting. Normally, several Vorl in a Storm Hearth have kinetic dampeners and combat arrays to help with their longer-distance OH shots and with shooting their s-slings.

Stl’s and Assembly

The Storm Warrior .stls will be available on the Nexus (link to location and guide TBA here) for you to download and print off. We recommend fine detail.

---