Hobby Update: Herd

Last year I started hobbing on the Herd. The goal was to make a speedy, swarming army, and I ended up hobbying up a lot of small troop-level units. I ended up with a little over 1000 points painted up, but could only really run around 750 points due to a lack of unlocks. I should be set for unlocks for the foreseeable future!

Lycans
I recently finished up three hordes and one regiment of Lycans, which is both a lot of points, and a lot of unlocks. I can run all sorts of things now!

Tons and tons of Lycans.

The models are various Confrontation Wolfen (Trackers and Hunters). I picked them up for about $5 a box. They are a little more expensive now, but still a great deal. I chose to repaint these, but the figures come painted, if you are feeling particularly unambitious.

The figures themselves are actually articulated along the waist, and occasionally an arm too. While the same figure is used over and over, a swivel here and there helps break up the monotony, and these turned out pretty good.

These are terrifying units to me. Speed 9, with Nimble and Pathfinder means that they should be able to swiftly get to places normal units can't, and they can take advantage of all sorts of terrain. Crushing Strength 1 isn't great, but better than Thunderous Charge, as they'll be equally deadly in a grind as on the charge.

Brutox & Centaur Chieftain
I had some spare ogre pieces, and decided to convert a Dragon Ogre Shaggoth back in the day. I've repainted the skin and rebased it, and now I've got a pretty deadly Herd monster ready for the field!

The Brutox is convincingly tall for a monster.

The Chieftain is just another Inspiring hero to help the Herd stick around. This guy can dish out a little damage too, and with the small base frontage, should be able to get some cheeky charges in. All around, I think the Chieftain here is my best hero option for the Herd.

And just like that the Herd is up and over 2000 points. Monstrous things really add up quickly!

Hobby Update: More Varangur Heroes

With the Abyssals at 3k, I decided to bounce over to some other projects. A big update to the Herd is coming soon, but first, I took an evening to finish off a few models for the Varangur that had been lurking on my hobby table for a while.

The Magus on the left was a quick conversion I did for a big WHFB game; a special sorcerer known as the Magister had captured Teclis. He may get more touchups down the line, but rebasing is just fine for now.

The Mounted Skaald (my third) was leftover from my Horse Raiders unit. I mulled over buying another box to make more units, but ultimately just decided to run him as another mounted Skaald and save some money. I have a bunch of faster Sounted Sons and such, so hopefully 3 Skaalds are enough to Inspire everyone.

The Mounted Magus is an old Chaos Sorcerer, with a new paint job. I am kind of interested to see this model in action. I think the extra mobility will make him much more interesting to use.

The last Skaald (my third) is an old Reaper Mini. I liked the pose, thinking that he could easily be tossing that ax at someone. Nothing too special here; just another cheap Skaald to inspire everyone.

Pretty basic characters. I have made ton of progress on the Varangur in the last year, but still a handful of units left to paint up. I think some Fallen should be up soon. Next up though, is a bunch of Lycans for the Herd. They should be finished soon.

Hobby Update: 3k Abyssals

The Abyssals are coming along nicely. They are mostly repaints of old GW Daemons, since I'm trying not to spend money on new plastic.

Flamebearers
I picked up a box of GW's Pink Horrors way back, along with 20 spare bodies from an old bits store.

The bar from improving the unit is very low.

Back in the day I did one unit up normally, like they were fresh from the Warp, and then broke out the green stuff for a second unit of 10 (leaving the third unit of 10 in limbo). The second unit got green-stuffed beaky-heads, but the work was pretty terrible. Lacking Horror limbs, I also swapped in a bunch of Chaos Marauder arms, since they almost fit. My idea was to make them looked more "crazed" with very prominent eyes, and give them weapons, like they have been in the Old World long enough to scrounge up some things. I don't think it worked that well, and they were not a particularly great looking unit.

For the Kings of War repaints here, I did find another bits store and splurged on some spare heads. They look pretty uniform now, but I still needed to use a lot of Marauder arms. Overall, these turned out pretty good. The models are all running/leaning and are hard to space and base, and not really breating much by way of flames... but it worked out.

Not bad conversions. Though yeah, the more I think about it, it's really odd that none of these models are really showcasing a ranged attack. That's one thing I really liked about Mantic's line.

With 4+ to hit at range, and Piercing 1, but no Reload penalty, they seem like they could be pretty versatile. They have a decent threat range, and Regen may let recoup damage if the enemy fails to focus them down early on. I'd be interested to see these used by a good general.

Chroneas
The fluff says it's a black-skinned manipulator of time, and those that venture too close find their flesh warped with age (reflecting the breath attack). While a neat concept, I'm trying to work with what I have, and what I have is an Exalted Flamer from the Tzeentch Chariot kit.

He was blue with pink flames, but I decided to repaint the fella pink with blue flames to go with the rest of the army.

Not a great representation of the fluff, but it does a great job letting you know it has a breath attack!

This is a quirky unit on paper. It cannot be Disordered. It has no normal attacks, but it does have Fury, letting it counter-charge while Wavered. But it's only offense is a Breath Attack. Goofy.

Harbinger
Also from the Chariot Kit is this new Harbinger. They are the "cheap" inspiring option for the Abyssals. They have the ranged Firebolt attack... but only one attack. So, despite the epic-looking fireball being conjured, this guy isn't too great on the offense.

Not really a fan of the magic feet, but I couldn't think of a way to fix that easily..

Varangur Skaalds are similar. I think one would take the Harbinger for the Inspiring and anything else he does in the game is a bonus. If you want a ranged hero... the Abyssals already have the potent Efreet, and the Champions and Temptresses can take all sorts of spells.

Imps
I love that Mantic's kits come with little imp extras. However, I've only purchased Lower Abyssals so far, so I only have a few variations of their Imp models. The same 2-3 models repeated over and over just won't do aesthetically.

Imps! Ready to take a beating.

But, the Abyssals needs chaff at the moment. Gargoyles are future must-haves, but what I have right now are Reaper Mini kobolds for Imps. The devious little lizards should fit right in! The units look a little underpopulated, but my goal is to sprinkle a few of the Mantic Imps in over time to fill them out. So far, so good!

I still have Lower Abyssals to hobby on, but they lack good shields, so I'll likely be moving on from the Abyssals to other things for the time being. Not sure what will hit the table next, but more hobby updates are coming soon!

"New" Plastic

One of my D&D players started Warhammer Fantasy with us back in the day. After some purchases, some hobbying, and some games, he decided it wasn't for him. Now, years later, I have been given his old army. Sweet.

The Book, and a few boxes packed with models and bits.

Picking up Warhammer Fantasy was a long process for me. It took a long while to agree to play, longer to read the rules, and then even longer to decide on an army. And even then I still needed to buy kits, stress over all the various gear options for each kit, and still assemble an army before I got to play. 

One thing I think Kings of War does better than Warhammer is the intro. The rules are far more intuitive, and multi-basing lets you effortlessly try out new units and unit sizes without needing to worry about each and every individual model.

Anyways, I eventually settled on Empire. But I almost chose the Tomb Kings as my army back in the day, so I'm pretty excited! 

The basic models aren't new to me. I picked up a box of TK Chariots back in the day to convert to core Chaos Chariots (why pay $40 for 1, when you can convert 3 for $35?). I also had purchases a box of the regular skeletons, which have unfortunately already been incorporated into my muddy Undead. Oh well.

With this windfall of minis, rather than proxy them up in my existing Undead, I want to do up a separate little army of Empire of Dust, after I make some progress on the Herd and Abyssals. 

While I've been trying not to buy new plastic in my 2018 endeavors, I did decide to cave here, and picked up three more chariot chassis w/ skeletal horses (but not charioteers) via eBay. I think I may be able to squeeze 1500 points for Empire of Dust out of all this... if I make some additional purchases for more chaffy units like Scavengers or Swarms, I could probably hit 2k.

Heck. This guy could probable be run as-is! 

My buddy hobbied a little on just about everything. Most things are mostly assembled, and some things are even painted! He'd even started on a color scheme, which I like. It's got a classic TK look, which I think I'll just run with. Since he gifted me all his old paints too, I should be able to replicate it. 

Like me, he did his homework when starting a new army. He made some smart purchases for the old Tomb Kings. In addition to the typical units from the battalion box, he's got a Casket of Souls, which it looks like Kings of War has rechristened as a healing and lightning bolting war engine known as a "Soul Snare." Having both on a war engine seems kind of neat!

He also picked up the sphinx monster kit, which is what has gotten me the most excited. The Necrosphinx was probably the model that tipped the scales in my head and convinced me to give Warhammer a try. It just looked so imposing and cool!

Unfortunately, he had already started modeling it up as the warsphinx version of the kit, manned by skeletons. Fortunately, he's only a step or two in the build from the point of divergence. I've removed the hood, and it's just the front, face-lookin' bit remaining that will need to go.

Looking over the Empire of Dust list, it could be argued that a smart hobbiest would build the warsphinx with the skeletons and howdah, as the Reanimated Behemoth. From the original kit, you still have the extra torso, heads and scything arms left over. All you need then is a pair of legs, and you could make a legendary Idol of Shobik! But that's not how I'm going to roll here. The Necrosphinx will be run as the Reanimated Behemoth, and I'll figure out what to do with the rest of the bits later.

I really wasn't looking for a brand new army, but here we are. This should be a nice diversion once the Abyssals and Herd are a little further along!