The cold grasp of Death: Part 3... The Servant stirs...

The works of the Great Necromancer are never done, and with a patience honed over thousands of years of immortal undeath Nagash is happy to work slowly towards his goals.

As a dedicated servant of the Great Necromancer, I, however, am not afforded the same luxury of patience if I want to keep him appeased...

and so I have forged ahead to complete a great swathe of models this month to please mighty Nagash!



Up first came the main 'Hammer' in my army - 20 Grimghast Reapers.

As much as these models excel in the competitive scene... they're horrible to paint. With only 5 poses across the range it was SUCH a tedious project to work though. That being said, I think they've been done pretty well in a short period of time with fairly basic painting techniques. Washes and drybrushes are pretty effective on these guys, and I fully understand why they feature so prominently in the starter sets.

Up next on the hobby table was the first Servant of Nagash, the First Mortach and the master of the Legion of Sacrament; Arkhan the Black.

As my second Mortarch I knew what to expect from the mount, but I really enjoyed trying to go for the extra level of details on Arkhan compared to the other models in this Death army.

I've opted for a green/ yellow colour for both the skulls inside Razarak and the gemstone and magical essence on Khenah-an, the Staff of Spirits.

Typically Death magic is purple, but most of my Death models have a fairly dark tone; Coelia Greenshade is a pretty dark ethereal tone on the Nighthaunt and spectral models, and the bone is more of a dirty brown not white. Bright, vibrant green provides a nice contrast to that pervasive darkness, and I've used it on a few models (including the baleflame on my Chainrasp Dreadwarden)

That ends my painting expertise this month, but I've also participated in three games with the list I showed in Part 1 of this series.

Game 1 was against 1000 points of Daughters of Khaine, built primarily around Melusai and Khinerai.
The army performed pretty well here. I was very surprised by the quality of the Chainrasps, who easily dispatched 5 Khinerai before dragging down a 5-man squad of Melusai Blood Stalkers. 
The Grimghasts met 15 Melusai Blood Stalkers in the centre of the field and melted... I expected a little more survivability if I'm being honest, but given the ability to enhance Blood Stalkers though various prayers I'm not surprised they died so badly!
Arkhan also impressed me, dispatching a few Melusai and a Slaughter Priest in combat. His bonuses to cast spells also proved pretty helpful in supporting my other units thanks to The Withering (a spell which forces afflicted units to only use 1D6 for charge distance... perfect against a melee army!)

I was also lucky enough to pull off the free unit revival afforded to the Legion of Sacrement via The Masters Teachings... sealing my win.

Game 2 went less well. Playing against the new Khorne army, I started well - throwing my Grimghast forward to shred two units of Blood Reavers and open up a large hole in my opponents force. However, aggressive positioning of Arkhan left him susceptible to a charge from Karanak who was re-rolling everything!!! I was momentarily relieved when I pulled off the double turn (hoping to pull Arkhan out of combat and reinforce the Mortarch), but excellent use of Blood Tithe points had Karanak attacking during my hero phase, sending Arkhan back to the grave and ending my hopes of winning.

If I had reservations about using Arkhan in 1000 points, Game 3 confirmed it. A new player down our gaming club brought a massively unexpected list containing 40 Freeguild Guard, a Hellstorm Rocket Battery and a Loremaster...
After a horrendous volley of gunfire in turn one Arkhan was dropped to 3 wounds and my Grimghast Reapers reduced to only 4 models. Good use of command points to ignore battleshock kept the 40 Freeguild in the center of the battlefield, acting as a wall I couldn't get over in my attempt to silence the Rocket Battery. With a 41" threat range there was no-where Arkhan could hide from the artillery, and another volley of rockets saw him blaster back to the grave again...

One serious problem with the 1000 point list is Death's reliance on Hero's and my lack of them. Arkhan is powerful, but can only do so much on his own.

So as an army revision I've decided to drop him and 80 skeletons, and exchange them for a Vampire Lord with Flying Horror, a Necromancer and a Guardian of Souls.

With three wizards at +1 to cast the hope is I'll still have a lot of magical control, but can now get extra options for summoning back units I lose and reinforcing those that are still alive. Further to that, the Vampire Lord offers some fast, hard hitting melee that will back up the already scary Grimghast, whilst the Guardian of Souls' offers bonuses to the Grimghast and the Chainrasp.

I'm already out of the mini-league I built this Death list for, but let's see if I can salvage some pride in the final game!