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Kingdom of Ind Teams

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Linemen

Kalites

Rakshaka

Basilisk


Background
The great peninsula known as the Kingdom of Ind is one of the latest regions of The World to start playing Bloodbowl though their teams have quickly built up a huge following. They have become world famous for their Tigermen, women with four arms and Basilisks.

For years it never seemed possible that Ind would be able to form a team capable of competing in the brutal sport, their society was divided by wealth, Slaves were plentiful though they were weak and malnourished. Ind had no great history as a military nation, their only soldiers were placed at the entrances to the great forests throughout the Kingdom, protecting their congested cities from the beastmen that inhabit the jungles and abducted their women.

The turning point came when the Beastmen of the jungle became divided. The Rakshaka grew tired of their Chaos Beastmen brethren and revolted against the leaders. The Rakshaka had grown stronger and more powerful than the other beastmen and over the course of a year rid them from their jungles.

The Rakshaka formed great tribes throughout the jungle and lived in seclusion, no longer bothering their human neighbours at the jungle borders.

The years rolled by with each race living in peace side by side. The humans started sending war parties to the jungles long after the beastmen attacks had stopped. The war-bands were made up of Ind royal soldiers and the Kalites

The Kalites found their place in Ind society somewhere between Maharaja’s ‘dancers’, or elite warriors and assassins in the Maharaja’s royal army.

After months of searching the dense Jungles the war-parties found the home of the Rakshaka deep in the heart of the jungle. The Rakshaka took the soldiers and Kalites captive, they told the humans how they drove the Beastmen of Chaos out of the Kingdom of Ind and over time bread was broken and trust was earned.

The war-party was eventually released; they went before the Maharaja and enlightened him with their tale. The two races lived as equals on their own, trade routes began to open between the two cultures the Rakshaka traded medicines, food and spices from the Jungle and the humans built great temples for the Rakshaka.

As peace enveloped The World and war was forgotten the nation started moving freely through The World, exploring different civilisations. It didn’t take long before Bloodbowl was discovered by Ind and the Maharaja ordered his people to form teams to take part in the brutal sport. The soldiers and Kalites were the first on board and Rakshaka started joining in as well during their visits to the great human cities.

The final piece of the jigsaw was the Basilisk, the great lizards that the Maharaja’s soldiers had tamed. They symbolised the Maharaja’s power over all creatures in his land and brought travellers from all over The World to see how the game was played in this great Peninsula.

Rationale
The Kingdom of Ind are basically another human based race so their linemen are your basic human linemen albeit with lower Av than the standard human team. This is just because they are less well equipped.

The Big Guy had to be a Basilisk as it is such an important part of Ind fluff and the only model to have been created from this region in any edition of Warhammer. It first appeared back in 2nd edition, and the first model appeared in 3rd edition. Generally speaking I am not a fan of having creatures/monsters in Bloodbowl teams, but in this case I felt I had to make an exception. The Basilisks skills were very straight forwards, they have giant claws so Claw was picked over Mighty Blow, Hypnotic Gaze is what Basilisks are famous for so that was added. They have a giant tail so Prehensile Tail was added. The only tricky part was deciding which nega-trait to give the Basilisk. In some ways Wild Animal makes more sense as they are wild animals. However these Basilisks are meant to be tamed or trained to some degree to fight along side Ind players so Really Stupid seemed the best fit; representing an animal that responds to be prodded and poked by its master, but has little to no thought process of its own.

It is also worth noting that in WFB Basilisks are reptilian not snake like. This is why they have legs and claws.

The next player added was the Rakshaka. This is also one of the known inhabitants of Ind. This player was mentioned in a WFB novel (citation needed) that talks of the many beast-men that inhabit the jungles to the south of Ind, one was explicitly described as a tiger-man. I have seen in other sources on the internet that this race is known as Ti-gors, but I hated that, it is too cheesy and it is not official, I went with Rakshaka as it is a play on the famous myth of Rakshasa, but tweaked the name in a GW style way. Though they are a beastman in one way I did not think they were similar enough to Gors to warrant th e Ti-gor name. The player skills were again straight forward, they have giant Claws so claw was a must, and it makes sense that a weretiger is stronger than a werewolf so I gave them St4 and changed gave them S and G access. This is undoubtedly a great player but their cost is high and you are only allowed 2 of them in the team. This means you will only have 3 players with St access which is not many and will likely mean the team will lack basic skills like Guard etc... as most people will build the Rakshaka as a CPOMB player.

As the fluff is so sparse for Ind I again turned to the unofficial WFB Ind army book for inspiration and added the Kalites. These made perfect sense to me, like everything in WFB the ideas are stolen from their real life equivalent countries and as Shiva is so iconic to this region. The idea of a woman with 4 arms fitted perfectly. I added the stab skill to add to the teams uniqueness and the fluff behind the Kalites also makes reference to them being blade dancers, but I later removed this as 4 Stab was too much, and I later plan to make a Kalite star player with the Stab skill.

The team on the whole does have some unique powerful players but it lacks the core skills or skill access which could make them too good, they rely on two killers being at the top of their game and the Kalites high Ma plus Ag access for scoring . But with such low average Av the team will probably perform in a similar way to Undead; great out the blocks for the first season or two but as specialist teams develop more they may struggle.

Season 2 Changes
150 games played, win percentage 48%. This is performing as a tier 1.5 race. This is as expected. There is however a lot of people in Round robin leagues that would like the Rakshaka to have its price reduced by 10k. Originally I made them 10k more expensive than they should be because of how over powered Piling On was in CRP. This has now been removed from the game so I will likely reduce them in cost by 10k in season 3.

Season 3 Changes
198 games played, win percentage of 53%. The roster is performing as expected. However they were sadled with a +10k price increase on the Rakshaka because of how powerful the cpomb combo was in the previous edition. I have reduced their cost by 10k now because this is no longer a problem. The price reduction helps make the rebuild slightly easier when they lose their best players. This roster is now locked. No further changes are needed, the roster works as it should.

Team design, rationale and fluff by Garion.
Icons by Cowhead and Garion
Player art by Knut Rockie, coloured by Garion