Hobby Update: Herd Harpies

Up now are some Harpies for the Herd!

Both units.

The models are Chaos Furies from the Chaotic Beasts Warcry box. I picked up a box of assembled minis via ebay, and I have used the Rapyoryx minis from it for my Herd Rimewings (Scorchwings), but wasn’t sure what to do with these. I think it was one of Boss_Salvage’s reports that I saw them used as Harpies and figured I’d steal the idea… The models fall far short of the usual acceptable model count for a unit, but with only three possible sculpts, I am stuck with them for now. Fortunately, they do fill do up the base well enough for some casual games.

This unit is something out of an animation handbook. Figure 2: The Harpy spots prey and takes flight.

Hobbying-wise, I did the bases up first, including the snow. The minis came assembled but needed priming, and the spring weather has largely been uncooperative. Once primed, they got my usual Herd paint scheme of MSP’s Glacier Blue for skin, a blue shade, and then white hair. A second layer of snow effect was added afterwards to hide the join to the base in places, especially with the ruins.

This unit is a bit more chaotic.

Herd have some peculiar chaff. The Gur Panthers have been my go-to, since they are what I have had access to. Fortunately for me, they have done well! They are amazingly quick and can keep up and block for everything in the army, but with only 6 attacks, their ability to hunt war machines or reliably disorder something has been questionable.

The Woodland Critters is slightly cheaper, but far inferior to the Panthers. As discussed in their hobby post as well as their debut game, you are paying for a lot of special rules that just bloats the units price. At Speed 6 they are actually one of the slower things in the army, and might not be able to get where you need them to block threats.

Excluding additional options like Centaur troops, for Herd chaff, the Harpies look like the best of the bunch? For 5 points over the Panthers you gain fly and two extra attacks, making them a little more reliable in potential disruptive or offensive roles while still retaining the speed you need to get them where they need to be. 

The Gur Panthers have been solid, but the Harpies should be on par with them, and might even get some additional tricks in during games due to having Fly. We’ll need to get some testing in!