Back from Korea...for the last time?

Well, work things got very hectic there for awhile. I had another trip to Korea, but was able to bring my wife along! We had a great time, but it's good to be home and getting back to my gaming addiction!

With all the (over)time in Korea, I've been able to significantly add to my model collection, and I even bought a No Quarter magazine!
As mentioned in my last post, I'm hoping to put together a Steamroller-style force. For Legion, I'd wanted to have my Tier-4 Absylonia list:

Absylonia
2x Shredder
Harrier
Seraph
Angelius
Scythean
Raek

3x Forsaken
Shepherd

I'm really comfortable with this force, own it all, and have started the paining (thought it has a long ways to go!)

To compliment her, I want to take advantage of the new Rhyas tier list from the latest No Quarter. The list looks something like this:

Rhyas
Seraph
Typhon

10 Swordsmen + Unit Attachment
3 Ogrun Warmongers
3 Ogrun Warspears (or Warmongers, not sure)

Ogrun Warchief

With Dash going, and 1st turn Stealth, I'm free to run full blast and be almost 2/3 the way across the table on the first turn. Everything hits like a truck in melee, with enough movement tricks (notably Dash to avoid Free Strikes) that it takes a lot to keep the swarm of meanies from landing on the enemy caster turn 2 or 3. Typhon with Rapport is terrifying, the Seraph is just damned handy, and Ryhas herself can wade in to a fight and lay down the smack. A somewhat unconvential but effective force.

I'm still experimenting on using two Warmonger units or replace one with a Warspear unit. I can see that the 8" ranged attack could be very handy when not quite able to get in to charge range, but the idea of all the potential berserk attacks is really exciting! :) I bought 6 Warmongers, as my plan for 50 points includes two units of 5 Ogurn each, so they won't be wasted either way. I plan to order a box of Warspears anyway...I like the models :)

I had ordered all this stuff before my last trip, and it arrived before I even left...I was even able to spend an evening putting most of it together! Nothing's primed yet, and they've only been on the table once, but so far I'm really pleased with how overwelming the force is...hard to deal with at range because of the speed, and enough hitting power to make a real difference against virtually anything...not to mention everything having MAT7 (or higher!)...and I think it will look very stunning on the table, too!


But my first love is Skorne. There's something magical about twisted, tortured, mutilated baby elephants! I'd come up with a list awhile back, and used it on Vassal a few times...enough to realize that it could be really formidible. Here it is:

Zaal (and Kovaas)
Titan Gladiator
Cyclops Brute

10 Praetorian Karax
10 Praetorian Swordsmen + Unit Attachment

2x Ancestral Guardians
Hakaar the Destroyer
Aptimus Marketh

This is a Tier 2 list, which is enough to give the Ancestral Guardians Advance Deployment...nice to have on models that are slow as hell, and it's nice to have deployment tricks, too :)

The idea here is to use Zaal's ability to choose where Souls go to ensure that the AG are fully loaded: The infantry swarm ahead, with the AG and Beasts behind. As the infantry get engaged and start dieing off, the AG move in and use their souls. When they open a path, Zaal uses his feat and the Gladiator and surviving AG (and/or Kovaas) move in for assassination.

In practice this has worked very well. I was hooked on this army after the game where I put Last Stand on the Gladiator as he charged the enemy Caster on Zaal's feat turn; sacrificing himself but able to dish out (potentially) seven POW-16 attacks using 4-dice to-hit and for damage! What can stand up to that?

This would pair up with a pMorghoul all-beast heavy list to be another Stearmroller-style force ready for tournament play.

I had ordered the stuff I'd need for this also before leaving for the latest Korea trip, and was able to pick most of it up after getting here. Sadly the two AG and one of the Swordsmen blisters is still on back-order. But a little proxy, and this has been on the table already!

In the same No Quarter as the new Rhyas Tier force was also a section on speed-painting Skorne armies. I decided to give it a try this weekend, as I have a fair amount of stuff to work through now, and want my stuff to look decent on the table, but I'm not aiming to win any awards!

The idea is this: prime black as normal; then give them a spray of rust-colored automotive primer. Since most of the infantry are wearing red clothing and red-tinted armour, this serves as the 'base-coat', basically. Then from straight-down, a shot of gold spray paint. This was trickier than the article mentioned, as this gives a lot of coverage...the paint kind of bounces back up and gets underneath and opposite...but not a solid coat. I ended up with a lot more gold than I wanted in most places, but not good coverage in other places, but I stuck with the plan.

Forgive the poor pictures, I'll try to use a real camera instead of iPod for the whole unit:





After the priming, I used GW Red Wash on the armor plates, going slow and careful to leave the gold trim around the outside. Two coats of the Wash seemed to work best.

That covered the bulk of the models. After that it was red Foundation on the skirt/tabard, with a drybrush of Blood Red; then Flesh on the heads, with a quick Wash and Drybrush to pick out detail. Black on the spear-hafts, silver on the spear blades, and some light tan for belts and tangly-things on the spears...done.

It took me about an hour to do 5 of them. I managed to get the whole unit done in just a couple sittings (minus basing...I'm not sure how I want to do them yet!). One addition that I didn't get in the pictures is the knob on the front of the shield I painted over black.

As I said, they're not winning any prizes, but they are very striking looking: there's no doubt they're Skorne!

I did a Cyclops Sava-brute as my test of this. He's really gold...over-gold, perhaps...but he looks the part. My next project is the Gladiator, who will be done the same way. He's got first coat of red wash done, and basecoat on his skin. I think he's going to look very striking, but will take more time to do more real detail work on him, as he's going to be the center of visual attention...biggest thing on the table, most likely. :)

I'll try to get some pictures with a real camera when I can!