One Warcaster and his dog (and a horse)

Hey folks,

Ok so yet again I am very late with another post, but this time I have a really good excuse. I am a very keen cyclist and about four weeks ago I got a bit too keen going down a hill and ended up having a bit of a crash which resulted in a broken collar bone. As you can appreciate this put a bit of a dampener on my hobby time. On the bright side once I got to be able to move my arm enough to get in the painting position I had enough time off work to actually get a lot done. What I had to do was get everything out with my good army, sit down and then with my good arm move my bad arm into position with the brush (after a bunch of painkillers). Then when I needed to dip or wash the brush I would take the brush out of my bad hand with the good hand, do what I needed and then put it back. This was slow, but I had plenty of time to kill.

So I have been focusing on my Khador arm, there is a Steamroller tourney coming up at the club and I wanted to get the Khador army all painted, as I have mentioned I don't like playing with unpainted models and there is nothing like a tourney deadline to spur on the painting. I have been playing a few practise games and have come up with a list I like, this tourney actually allows two lists, so I am going to take one list that I know will work ok and then something a bit more risky.

Epic Irusk. 

My list is basically a Winterguard Deathstar and this will form the basis of both lists. Then the other bits can be interchanged.

My caster is Epic Irusk. He works really well with an infantry based army, he is not a combat caster
but a buff/support caster. He gives Tough to units and allows them to move through each other and ignore friendlies when determining Line Of Sight. He has a couple of great spells like Fire For Effect which is an upkeep that allows a unit to boost To Hit and Damage rolls for the first shooting attack they make. This is great with a Mortar or Conquest for example.

The main Deathstar is as follows: -

5 Man-O-War Shocktroopers. 
Full Winterguard + Command and Standard + (1 to3) Rocketeers. 
Kovnik Jozef Grigorovich.

The tactic is that the Shocktroopers go first and use Shield Wall and the Winterguard follow behind them. The Command and Standard give DEF bonuses and allow the unit spray attacks as well as normal shooting. Jozef has some useful songs to sing boosting To Hit rolls. The unit also has combined shooting and melee abilities so can take Warjacks and Infantry alike. This unit can really lay down the hurt.

The rest of the army changes depending on my mood and what models I want to take, in the main list I suspect I will take the following: -

Juggernaut. (Irusk only needs one Jack and the Jugger is good enough for 7 points).
Widowmakers. (Good unit to knock off some Warjack boxes or to take out some Solos early game).
Man-O-War Drakhun (Able move down flanks, or go after units holding objects, adds a bit of speed and hitting power to the army that largely needs to move as one).
Winterguard Mortar Crew (Big gun with a long range and AOE, whats not to love?).

The Second list will be the main Deathstar but will feature something a bit more risky: -

Conquest (Hard hit, big and shooty, will benefit from Fire For Effect. Downside is that its a lot of points for a 35pt list. If the enemy takes it out thats 19pts from a 35pt list, thats a big hole).

So the full lists are: -

List 1.
Epic Irusk
Juggernaut
Kovnik Jozef Grigorovich
Man-O-War Drakhun
Man-O-War Shocktroopers (full unit)
Winterguard (full unit) + Officer and Standard + 2 Rocketeers
Winterguard Mortar Crew
Widowmakers

List 2.
Epic Irusk
Conquest
Kovnik Jozef Grigorovich
Man-O-War Shocktroopers (full unit)
Winterguard (full unit) + Officer and Standard + 2 Rocketeers

I am really enjoying playing my Khador army as they are really different to the Cryx I have been playing for the best part of three years. They were very much "run forward and hit stuff", but the Khador army takes a bit more thinking about but also has more options on what it can do.

So painting wise I have got a whole bunch of stuff done whilst I have been off, it has taken longer to do but I didn't really have anything else to do and there is only so much Jeremy Kyle you can take.

The first thing I did was get the Winterguard finished, they are one of those units that you just have to grit your teeth and get done. Models are ok, nothing exciting but once they are done its done.

After this I finished off the trusty Kovnik Jozef Grigorovich to go with the Winterguard, this veteran runs along side the unit singing his tunes to boost their skills.

With the bulk of the army done it was time to get the Warcaster finished. I left him to the end mainly so I can get the rest of the armies colours and patterns sorted so that when I come to paint the main character I wont make any errors.

The army was actually very simple to paint, there a really three main colours (Red, Grey and Gold). Once these have been painted onto the model the areas are washed with black to add the battle grime effect, the areas are then highlighted up using the original colours. The details are then picked out to finish off the model.

So whats next? Well to totally complete the army I need to finish the Widowmakers so these will be next. After that I really want to get the Conquest done, I am looking forward to this. Then I have a unit of Iron Fang to paint and then my whole Khador collection will be painted. I think this might be the first time I have all the models for a specific collection painted. 

So now they are done I am looking forward to putting them on the table at the club tourney, i'll let you know how they get on. 

Until next time...