As an example of the first, I now know that the Principality of Drachenpost has special troops known as “greatswordsmen”; foot soldiers who fight with two-handed swords. That’s a detail I might not have come up with if I was thinking purely in terms of role-playing.
And as an example of the second, when needing to bump up the point value of the starter army for the Barony of Rittergeist, I was able to incorporate the Knights of the Golden Heron, which I had worked up for the role-playing game, as a special force of Superior Drilled knights. It’s a little thing, but really adds character and color to otherwise-drab army lists, as well as giving some inspiration for painting the figures when the time comes.
I can see this working in all sorts of ways, with some of the ideas I’ve got floating around in my noggin. More to come.
It's a good idea. I always try to purchase miniatures that I can get as much use out of as possible My LOTR orcs are painted with orange-brown skin so they can double as hobgoblins in RPG's. My GW "Imperial Guard" are Mark Copplestone troopers – they also see use as Colonial Marines for the Aliens RPG and for Aliebs wargaming, Mobile Infantry for Starship Troopers etc. My Copplestone cyborgs/robots double up as Necron's for In the Emperors Name and T-800 for my Terminator Skirmishes. My Foundry Street Violence guys and Copplestone rebels/scavengers treble up as Shadowrunners, Terminator Resistance fighters and Survivors for ATZ.
If I can't think of a way to use the figures in at least two games I play, I don't buy them. No matter how good they look.
Apologies for the terrible spelling in that last post. I really need to buy a back-lit keyboard for blogging late at night.
I had a friend who did this with his various and sundry Warhammer 40,000 and Warhammer Fantasy armies: we faced Striking Scorpions, Empire, Lizardmen, Dark Eldar, Chaos Cultists, and more. He'd also use story fluff from other games (like Battletech's Houses) as organizations in the game, adapted for whatever magicpunk game he was running at the time. It was pretty cool.
I see this happen to me regularly in Pendragon.
The Books of Battle (Pendragon's mass combat system, which is quite wonderful for an RPG) supplement has lots of little details about special troops that have spilled over into the non-warfare part of the campaign.