Hobby Update: Herd Druids

It has been a very busy 2023, and while I've gotten in a handful of games, I haven't had much time to really relax or hobby over the last few months. I tend to try and power-through stressful things, and that works ok for something short and with an end point, like a project deadline, or university finals, but does not work for chronic sources of stress. And when juggling both, you really need to sit down and try to make some changes. March was proving to be particularly stressful, so around Pi Day, I started purposefully setting aside some time every few evenings for some self-care, including putting paint on some minis again.

I opted to hobby up some Herd in my attempts to de-stress. Outside of a few introductory games way back in 2nd Edition, they have yet to really see the table. I have a wonky collection of models for this army currently, so I figured it would be fun to give them more toys and turn them into something actually viable to run on occasion. They seem like a very aggressive army, and that approach should lead to some interesting games, and give me many new things to learn.

A trio of ... cool, new spellcasters.

First up for the additions are some characters, who should provide some great versatility, but are also great test models as I get back to hobbying on the army again, and hobbying generally. My scheme for the Herd has been "BLUE!" but some variation has crept in since I painted the units up at different times. The skin and basing are is the two most important parts to try and match up I think. Previously I used a "Glacier Blue" that I cannot locate at the moment. Skin-wise, these look to match the other units pretty well, so future me should take note that this is 89526 Marid Blue from Reaper Mini with some of their Pathfinder hobbying stuff. It's Drakenhof Nighshade for the shade/wash, and tiny touchups of Marid Blue for highlights when and if I feel like it. The base is usually a gray layer, either spray primer or paint, then Reaper's MSP09021 Snow Shadow, then an ivory drybrush, and then all the rocks and snow and ice effects and such.

A very imposing Gladewalker Druid.

I picked this mini up around when 3rd Edition launched. I had read that my Varangur were going to be reorganized, and an offshoot from the master list of the Northern Alliance. Seeing an Ice Queen on the master list, I got excited, and picked up Reaper's Nadezhda the White, Ice Sorceress, and assembled and primed her. Once the Varangur were fully released though, all the army had were the Magus variants, so this was unused until now, as a cold-themed druid is pretty on-point for my Herd army concept. 

The mini is metal, and came with a 25mm slotted base. The slot is small enough to fit into a 20mm base, but I opted to keep the larger size, so I could run this as a Gladewalker Druid, should I ever want to do so. The Gladewalker looks to be a more expensive spellcaster for the army, with more spell possibilities and some neat special rules, allowing for rerolls (Nature in Balance), or double-casting of some spells (Ring of Harmony). It looks like a very neat character! I am not very experienced with magic and casters, so we'll save further discussion for game testing.

Two Druids. Nice sources of Inspiring.

Some other new characters are Nolzur's Female Human Druids, which were picked up sometime over the last few months from a local shop after one of my games. Each blister comes with a pair of minis, and at around $5 per blister, these are nice ways to get some fun sculpts to experiment with. They come pre-primed, and since It was snowy in Wisconsin when I started on these, and I didn't need to do any big mold-line scraping, I just painted them up after giving them a warm, soapy rinse to get the minis nice and clean. They are ready for the table, but it wasn't the cleanest of paint jobs, so I may go back and touch them up once I'm am back in a bit of a groove.

The Druids are the basic spellcasters for the Herd. Their spellcasting seems a little muted compared to other basic casters like the KoM Wizard or Undead Necromancer as these lose a dice on normal spells like Heal and Lightning Bolt - but they do happen to be sources of Inspiring! I feel like I don't run enough sources normally, so these characters are very likely to sneak into lists primarily as cheap sources of Inspiring, with their magic being a happy bonus when it happens to land, similar to running an Army Standard Bearer with an item. We'll see how they perform on the table though!

More to come with from the Herd soon!