First off: This is not a thread to tell everyone that certain character concepts are impossible to build in 4E. If that is your belief, please go post it elsewhere.
I enjoy building characters with an initial inspiration based on a new mini. Instead of hunting for the right mini, I make a character that emulates the mini and build its stats and story from that basis. But this go around I'm stumped.
Sounds like fun! Let's give it a whirl.
Looking at the mini I would like to stick with the following axioms:
Very aggressive looking figure. Let's take the guidelines one by one.
1) No chaging of the 4E rules. Modifying fluff is fine, but the crunch must stay.
Good. I always feel free to modify fluff.
2) Player's Handbook or WoTC web materials only.
Still trying to get the hang of the rules, so I'm working with just the PHB.
3) Some inspiration from the name 'Warsinger.'
Now we get to the good stuff. Warsinging could be entirely fluff, just indicating that the character sings upon entering battle, but it's more interesting to have the singing be mechanically meaningful. We've got some flexibility even with that, because the songs could be songs of encouragement(warlord), prayers(cleric, paladin), or spells(warlock, wizard).
Powers from at least one of those five classes should be involved, though they may need to be acquired by multiclassing.
So, for class selection, we need to consider dex and wis bonuses. Elves' other racial traits are pretty solid for any class.
5) Must viably wear light armor (meaning that heavier choices available to the class shouldn't be vastly superior).
This mostly affects primary class, as that is the source of armor proficiencies. I'll assume one point of AC is a fair trade for the extra speed. So paladin requires a +4 ability bonus to AC, fighter requires at least +3, warlord and cleric require +2.
6) Must viably wield a two-handed weapon that looks like the blade of the mini (I'd rather that a mini in a sword-swinging action pose not just carry the weapon around for show).
So we're looking for some sort of sword that can be wielded in two hands. We could refluff an axe or even a club, but let's try the swords first and see where that leads us.
Our sword choices are: Longsword, Falchion, Greatsword, and Bastard sword. All military or superior, so we may end up needing to spend a feat on one of them.
I'm looking for assistance in putting together good crunch for an effective character that fits these axioms.
So let's put together what we have and see what pops out. Let's go in alphabetical order by basic class.
Cleric: A cleric could work nicely. Using the standard array we can get a 16 str for sword attacks, a 16 wis for implement attacks, and a 14 or 15 dex for AC bonus. Spend a feat for a preferred sword, and we're good to go.
Fighter: We're working with heavy blades, so a high dexterity is a good thing. With the standard array we can put a 16 into str and a 16 into dex. This leaves our con at 13, which is a touch on the low side, but not too bad. From here multiclassing into cleric, paladin, or warlord can get us a few str-based "singing" effects, depending on what we want them to do.
Paladin: Feasible, if a little strange. We'll need at least an 18 in dex to make hide a viable armor choice, which we can manage with a 16 in our attack stat(cha or str, both work well with the sword), leaving at best a 15 in wisdom. We'll only be able to use one type of paladin powers, but there are enough powers to fill out our list.
Ranger: Another strange choice. At most levels that include a new power, rangers do have an option that can be used in melee without requiring two weapons. We'll need to multiclass(probably into cleric, paladin, or warlord, given that we'll mostly be doing str based fighting) for our singing, and we'll probably want to take a paragon path from our second class. Fortunately, our ability scores aren't restrained by armor choice here, so we can distribute those however we like.
Rogue: Really not feasible. The heavy blade won't work with any rogue powers, so we'd have to be doing most of our work through multiclassing. Better to just start in the different class.
Warlock: Again, not really feasible. If we could use a heavy blade as a pact blade, we might be able to work something out, but as it stands, probably no good.
Warlord: A warlord with 16 str, 14 int or cha, and 14 or 15 dex could work. It'd give us the AC we need, and we'll be able to keep our AC competitive and eventually get the weapon feats for our heavy blade. However, as you've noticed, the dex and wis bonuses don't really help the warlord out very much.
Wizard: Surprisingly solid. Wizards only really need int, so we have a lot more flexibility with our ability scores. Mostly we want to make sure we can pick up appropriate feats, so that's 15 dex by paragon tier for Arcane Reach and whatever stats are necessary for the damage increasing feats we want. Wis 13 in heroic tier is very easy and gets us Burning Blizzard and Expanded Spellbook if we want it. A wand wizard, for example, could start with 18 int, 16 dex, and 13 wis and never have to worry about ability scores again. Pick up primarily acid and cold spells, and life is good. An orb wizard could invert the dex and wis, then bump dex at 4th or 8th to access Arcane Reach. The sword just needs to be a longsword, then we can use the wizard of the spiral tower paragon path to make it our implement. That gives us a couple of attacks that will benefit from the extra damage we acquired by wielding it in two hands, and makes it our primary piece of equipment.
