Hobby Update: Redone Varangur Horse Raiders

In the midst of finishing up all the Abyssals, I decided to touchup some models for the Varangur as well for an afternoon break this week. That army still needs more supporting chaff! I have (hopefully) three regiments worth of Draugr built and primed, as well as some Night Raiders with Axes ready... but those are significant hobby endeavors, and I need to free up some space before I can tackle those. 

Previously, I had a troop of Horse Raiders, and some old Mounted Skaalds. In the transition to 3rd Edition though, the Skaalds apparently forgot how to ride. Thegns don't have the horse option, and these didn't look imposing enough to be Lords, so I had slated these to be ignored or repurposed, likely added into a small warband for trading games. But... looking at the stats, I realized that I quite liked them, and decided some touchups were in order instead.

Unit 1

I found two marauder horses on ebay, and picked them up, replacing the two horses of the two old Skaalds. I actually have a third Mounted Skaald, but left them as-is for now. If I pick up another box of 5 down the road, he can bump that unit up instead. 

Unit 2

Four horsemen filled the base originally. Three look a little sparse, but should work for now. The new horses needed painting, so I touched everything up while I was at it. The old gold was replaced with with Retributor Armor paint, the purple/grey shields with a dark blue, and the metallic pauldrons and such got a striking light blue. They look very Tzeentch-like now! I was trying to make them bright and unique, like the Varangur units are a variety of clan colors coming together, but this was a neat result.

So, what caught my eye with these Horse Raiders and why did I revisit and retouch them? Well, I like my KoM Scouts! The Scouts are cheap, pretty quick, and well, these are darn similar. They should fill a screening or escort role quite nicely for something like a Frostfang Horde or especially for Varangur knights. However, for 5 points per troop (10 per Regiment), I lose 1 speed but gain TC1 and Def4 while still retaining a ranged attack option. All of this sounds cool to me. My Scouts tend to die against everything, so I thought the additional Defense might be worthwhile; the Thunderous Charge will definitely make them more dangerous in a chaff war or as a flanking unit; and keeping the ranged options is really nice. I opted to not to add anything bits-wise to them to show the ranged attacks, so I could try out both the bows and the axes down the road. There should be nothing else like them on the table, so I think my opponents should be fine with this.

Regiments of these Raiders seem fun too, and I hear that the formation for these horsemen is pretty good, so that might be something to build towards in the future. The added Defense should make them a bit more survivable than the Regiments of Scouts I've tried out previously. Unfortunately, I arranged both troops relatively similarly, so various horse tails are getting in the way of other horse snouts, so these don't really work well in tandem. The bases are a little incongruous too, with one being heavily dry brushed and lighter than the newer one I just did up. I think I'll have to stick with troops for now, but that's fine by me! These Raiders look slick and should provide a little more support to the army until I can hobby up some Draugr and such. We'll hopefully get them on the table sometime soon and see what all they can do!