We left off at the end of January with me ushering in my first slaves to darkness models, the Lord on Karkadrak along with 10 Chaos Warriors and 3 Chaos Knights. Though fun to paint (love the rhino-meets-crocodile vibe), I played three games with the fuller army (in greyor basecoated plastic) and just wasn't feeling it. They didn't play like I wanted them to, apart from the Lord on the Rhino once equipped with the -3 rend Runeblade from Malign Sorcery, who (credit to him!) was a true monster. But there was a change of plan...
In particular, the core chaos warriors and knights didn't have that much offensive bite, the army seemed heavily reliant on its marauders pulling off long charges from deep strike to win the objective / board control game, coupled with the ridiculously powerful slapping down of full hit and wound re-rolls on tank units to do the killing (Warshrines and Sorceror Lords had a lot to answer for...). I may have won the games I played, but would have preferred to just play as Nurgle like I usually do - even though their book may be ageing, it has some more nuanced and cool tactical options.
In addition, being the hobby butterfly we all are, I found myself emerging from the cocoon of this abortive project to nestle on the varied Spring flowers of Adeptus Titanicus (new starter set, great game system, great demo game with Neil), Necromunda (our club gang war has kicked up again recently, and I've painted my Delaque to kick up some fuss across Chem Ridge) and 40k (getting my marines to their full competitive glory, as the first actually fully painted (almost, anyway) 40k army I am able to take to events. I'll try to give these guys the photographic coverage they deserve in periodic "What I've Been Up To" posts.
So, after our group rallied around a prospective AoS doubles event (once COVID-19 lets up), I decided to jump ship - my Slaves are great models and can still do good work in a Nurgle and - eventually - a Khorne army, but I wanted to try to revive my failing enthusiasm and #Bash Some Backlog (thanks Matt) by painting some of the extensive Stormcast Eternals I've amassed by buying multiple copies of the first and second edition starter sets and ruthlessly cutting up and converting (which I really enjoy) to get a unique and cheap army.
For the doubles event, we have 1,000 points each, and I'll be allying with Neil's Seraphon (the successors to the notorious "Neil's Eels" Idoneth list of the doubles we attended in Autumn 2018).
My list will probably be:
Lord Arcanum on Dracoline
3 Evocators on Dracolines
3 Evocators on Dracolines
5 Sequitors
5 Sequitors
coming to a round 1,000 points.
I'd ideally like more of a mix of mobile units, but once I'd added one set of Thundercats + Thundercatboss and the mandatory selection of what's sadly, I think, the only really decent core unit SCE have, I had 260 points left - not enough to buy anything meaningful alongside my usual favourite unit, the Vanguard Palladors (180pts), as SCE heroes start at 100 points. So I went with even more cats!
At the Autumn 2018 doubles, I was partnered with James, and to everyone's surprise we came second out of 80 odd teams with 5 wins (mostly because Nurgle and Nighthaunt were the new hotness back then and we struck lucky not facing any hugely horrible lists or super skilled players!). So, easy record to beat, right? The only way is up, apart from down.
I've celebrated the new project by finalising a colour scheme and painting up my first Sequitors - I just love these guys in gameplay, being super dependable and useful pieces who can either zip down into cover for a 3+ rerollable save and really hog those objectives, or start dishing out pain with the stormstrike maces. I'm pleased with how the colour scheme has worked out - hopefully my savage and noble but increasingly amnesiac stormhost, the Hounds of Azr, will really project an Ultramarines style heroism with that blue, black and gold.
Till next time!
