We are now officially one month into the latest Path of Conquest Marathon. Paint has been spilled! Brushes have been brandished, and clippers have done their brutal snippy work!
The original plan was to have the following completed:
Did we complete it? Well mostly, actually. The Executor, the Drones and the Abomination are all done. The Pheromancer got half done before I had a typical fit of Dave madness and decided I wanted to convert the model. To make up for it I did paint more Drones than I needed to and I have pretty much assembled the whole 2000 point army.
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This is a pretty nice 400 point First Blood List. Let’s go into a bit of detail with the units and how they’ll be used in the skirmish system.
High Clone Executor
This chap has zero upgrades in the initial list, but that is ok as he is pretty decent in combat anyway with Cleave 1 and 5 attacks. He can dish the pain but he cannot really take it, with only a defence of 2 to keep enemy attacks at bay. He’ll be best hitting already engaged enemies where they can’t surround him and beat him up with superior numbers.
Force Grown Drones
In first Blood they are quite simply a meat wall that will not die. You can’t buff them as easily, especially at low points games, but they are incredibly useful to pin enemy regiments in place. Because the maximum regiment size is capped at 12, it is rare that an enemy will be able to take out all the Drones in one go unless they gang up with multiple regiments. This means that they can keep receiving healing from the Pheromancer to keep going. It is terribly frustrating to play against!
Pheromancer
This chap will be the engine room of my small Spires Force. He’ll keep the drones fighting with his Accelerated Hibernation Pheromancy ability. He is to avoid combat at all costs and to simply keep the other units topped up with wounds.
Abomination
Yes, I’m bringing a Monster to the table at 400 points. No I do not care! First Blood is where monsters shine! They have less to fear with smaller enemy regiment sizes and can quite easily swipe most enemy units and characters off the board in a single charge. The only way I’ve ever successfully dealt with it, was with a combination of a mage using firedart and her own barrage, plus 12 imperial rangers. It took so much firepower to bring it down!
It is safer in combat, but its very effectiveness is its weakness. In First Blood, you cannot shoot into combat, so ideally you want to dive in, ravage an enemy and leave a few models engaged. With 10 attacks, Cleave 1 and flurry, plus impact attacks, this awesome unit will leave little left standing at the end of its activation which leaves it vulnerable to take all the enemy ranged firepower.
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Milestone 2 begins immediately and I am expanding the force listed above to the following:
I will be adding in 6 Marksman clones to the Executors Warband for some ranged punch, and will add a Mimetic Assassin and a group of 6 Vanguard Clones for some elite close combat power. Finally I will bring on another support character in the form of a Biomancer, and he will deploy yet more Force Grown drones to add another pinning block to the force. With 2 characters and 3 regiments to do this month, I’d better deploy the blue paint and get cracking! Oh, and I’ll finally finish that Pheromancer.