i have previously thought that the animal faction could not use dark potential as it is too technologically advanced for them.

in the last playtest, matthew mentioned that there was lore for the animlas that linked them to the x'lanthos so what i'm about to say may be swept away almost instantly by the official fluff
but

could there be an alien beast that could liberate the potential energy inside itself
that it gained in that most pedestrian and low-tech of ways,
the potential energy gained by climbing up on the terrain?

could there be a unit, that gained dark potential powers by climbing up as high as it could get?
it would have to climb at normal rate (or even a reduced rate as it siphons off part of its energy to a dark potential store).
the higher it climbs the greater its control of dark potential energy.
and perhaps, if it throws itself off that height in some kind of death-dive
it could liberate it's accrued energy and rebalance the forces within it by creating a big implosion?

just a fleeting idea,
i was thinking about an inca-style lizard-priest climbing a pyramid of potential and then sacrificing itself in a quasi-mystical leap.
i still have hard-science problems with the whole issue of animals manipulating hidden forces
but i did like the image

Stalker:
when a beast has this power and is "cloaked"
Every enemy unit within 6 inches of this model suffer a negative 2 to their leadership roles.

This represents twigs cracking and a low but intimidating growl/grunts comming from the bush. The enemy cant see it, but they definitely know its there. Getting everybody on edge.

But a "shot" from another distraction is totally unexpected, the enemy team dash for cover, but in the meantime the bush begins to move, twigs cracking towards them, instilling fear upon them.

Not exactly a dark matter powered ability. There was a thread a while back that looked into this. I'll see if i can link it if i find it again

_________________
The Beasts are rising...

Cyrmuvoodoo deserves a reward for the massive contribution to this game

I kinda have a few ideas.

1. There could be a squad or character that for its action make an opposing squad do a leadership check (with some type of negative modifier if upgraded or so). It makes some type of growl or noise that might scare some people.

2. There could be a squad (like a swarm of wasps, or if you seen or read Hunger Games, like a Tracker Jacker) that can do a "hit and run" and make the squad that it attacked have some type of negative modifier that can mess up their shooting, movement, or it just poisons them over time. ( For example, roll a D6 and look at a chart to see what it does.)

3. Now I'm thinking about some type of bug that swarms a unit and it isn't good at taking hits, but if it charges into a unit, all models in base contact of the bugs has to take a test to see if (not the whole squad, but ONLY models in base contact) they get over run or not.

4. A model or squad (like a more evolved firefly) can blind a unit (as a shooting action) that deals wounds to the unit (the only thing I can think of is that the person is blinded and he or she just walks into a pointy object) and the squad that fired at the squad has to do some type of test to see if they blind the squad for the next turn and if they fail it, one of the bugs uses all that it has and pretty much kills itself because it shot too hard.

5. (Last one for now because if I go on I will have ALOT of ideas) Have a model or squad that can lure enemies closer to them so they can ambush them. The squad or model has to take a leadership test to see if they go to the noise or not. (Only thing I'm thinking about for this is that Jimmy hears this noise and it sounds like the ice cream truck. He tries to persuade his companions to follow him and get some ice cream with him. Either Jimmy persuaded them into their death or someone just slaps Jimmy and makes him stop.)

Those are some of my ideas for the Animal Faction and I hope it works out because I'm extremely interested in them.

if this thread is moving away from dark potential powers to just powers for the animal faction
then i think a good combo with many stealthed units would be an AoE
that causes damage to the perception of units affected,
either ink or blinding acid or something...

The name of the thread was Dark Potential Powers for the Animal Faction...

_________________
The Beasts are rising...

Cyrmuvoodoo deserves a reward for the massive contribution to this game

i know,
but i had an idea, so i posted it

i would like to hear about people's thought over the possibility of dark potential powers for the animals, though...

Since animals are unlikely to use DM tech directly, what if we came at it from another angle?

For example, maybe their bodies have some kind of natural affinity for dark energy. what if it was something like 'every time any DM tech is used within X" of an animal it gains X effect.' More powerful animals would have greater effects, and maybe a specialist monster might simply be a 'Dark Matter Eater' that nullifies any DM tech within X" or who gets bonuses on anything carrying DM tech.

Or maybe as DM tech is used, the army gets 'DM points' stored which they can spend on certain powers depending on avaliable specialists and points accumulated. (For lack of a better way to describe it, like Walrocks and Warbeasts in Hordes.)

i like the idea of it being 'risky' to use DM on them. maybe that could just be their 'thing'. With DM being such an integral aspect of the game, it would seem odd to totally exclude any one faction from the fun!