Long ago, the name Deveaux was known far and wide as a strong, noble and powerful name in the hearts and minds of men. A house born of hard work, blood, sweat and tears by humble labourers and selfless nobility. It once ruled the lands of the south east between the areas now know as La Fouldre and Og’Domn.
When the Fall happened, there was a time where House Deveaux still managed to hold out and survive the first two centuries. Suffering and enduring the Long Winter and attacks from various outside forces that sought to take advantage of the chaos created from the Fall. Soon enough, the kingdom fell after many famines, invasions and cold snaps.
Many centuries later, during the embroiling conflicts of current time a descendant of the Deveaux bloodline, Duchess Marchesa Deveaux. Marchesa is a young woman of twenty four years, but the only known descendant of the bloodline left alive to this day. This cling to the old world has enthralled many to praise and follow her as the so called “Second coming” of Saint Agobard, a long dead devout follower of the Theist faith.
Due to this, Marchesa has developed a near zealot like fanaticism towards the Theist faith, converting many people to what she sees as “the One True Faith”. This has not gone unnoticed either, those higher up in the Theists took notice of the fledgling noble and approached her, offering to help her retake her ancestral home as by her right. In return for their assistance, Duchess Marchesa has pledged her kingdom and it’s resources to the cause of the faith. Sending able men and women to fight under the Theist banner whenever they are needed.
Now, with her numbers swollen and fervour ignited, she marches towards her soon to be kingdom, to take what is hers. But it will not be easy. The Dwegholm of Og’Domn seek the lands to be theirs due to the rich abundance of rare metals in it’s soil that make it ideal for making armour. There are also those of the Orders, the survivors of the Last Legion who defended mankind from the darkness. Seeking to make sure the church do not claim a foothold in the region through their puppet leader.
Well it finally happened! Last Saturday, After 18 months of sitting idle during the Pandemic we finally managed to gather a bunch of players for a Conquest Tournament. The event was held at our usual Club Venue in Southampton and consisted of 3 games at 1250 points. The scenarios were all objective based, with 2 games being variations of the ones you find in the official Parabellum Tournament pack, and another of my own devising.
We had 10 attendees in total for the event, some experienced, some not, and some that had literally had a demo game with me a few weeks prior and were borrowing forces (which is a compliment to the game, that people are so excited after a single game to give up their time for a whole day event!)
The factions were broken down as follows:
6 x Hundred Kingdoms 3 x Dweghom 1 x Nords
Whilst our club does have Spires and Wadhrun players, they were either unable to attend or in the case of the Wadhrun not assembled in time (Paul had to borrow my Dweghom instead of shoving Orcs everywhere– poor thing!)
The lists were all a little different from each other. I’ve collated the armies into the table below. It shows the total number of stands present, though in some cases they may be spread amongst multiple regiments:
The first game scenario had two objectives spaced evenly across the middle of the table. The players swiftly got into the swing of things with all but one of the games being finished within the 2 hour time slot. Two of the players scored a maximum 12 victory point win to head into an early lead.
Game 2 was a scenario of my own devising with 3 objectives running up the middle of the table. Players would not score anything for the one nearest them, 1 vp for the middle objective and 2vps for the furthest away. Obviously the enemy would be aiming for the one nearest them, so they still had to work to deny it to their opponent.
The hundred Kingdoms Clash!
James and his Hundred Kingdoms continued their rampage with another 12 vp win, which was more impressive because he was against Mike H, whos Dweghom had also scored maximum points on the previous game. Ian also managed a fine win with his infantry based Hundred Kingdoms whilst Vaughan slowly crept up the table with a close win against Toby (Literally a few different dice rolls would have seen the Nords defeated). Poor old Paul was really regretting not having his Wadhrun finished at this point, though it looked like the awesome Wooden Spoon trophy was within his grasp!
Game 3 saw James and Ian face off at the top Table whilst Vaughans Nords squared up against yet more Hundred Kingdoms. The final scenario had a central objective. plus 4 other objectives in the middle of each table quarter. Players would score 1vp for holding BOTH their nearest objectives, and a VP for each of the other ones.
Unstoppable force versus Immovable object!
James and Ian slogged the hell out of each other, in what was a really close match. Eventually James gained the upper hand and managed yet ANOTHER 12vp win! The first prize was most definitely his!
The Nords embarked on a massively one sided slaughter of their opponents to secure a 2nd place finish, whilst Ian clung on to the 3rd place despite losing to James in the final game.
Down at the foot of the table Paul grimly claimed his Wooden Spoon prize, and vowed never to borrow any of my stuff ever again (probably)
The top 3 players each walked away with a victory mug, with First and second place also receiving a regiment box of their choice (James got Longbowmen, Vaughan got more Trolls – which we all hate him for). There was also a “side quest” of killing the most number of enemy Characters. Ian was our Assassin of the day, killing 8 characters across 3 games. As his prize he got a character box of his choice and went for an Imperial Officer.
Crimson Tower Knights showing no mercy to innocent dweghom. probably.
I’ll leave you with a lovely little piece from our winner James regarding the thought process behind his list.
++++++++
“So I attended a tournament of Conquest: TLoK, and while I intended to try to offer a fun but challenging experience to my opponents, I did not imagine I would actually win, and with maximum points per game, too! The event was semi-competitive; yes there was a prize and trophy that incentivised an element of competition, but the main aim was to enjoy a day of just playing the game and if you happened to walk away with something then that was just a bonus. It was this ethos that I designed my list, to hopefully offer a force that wasn’t spamming ridiculous units but was challenging to face ad against which my opponents had to think about what they were going to do.
The list I took was:
+++++
The Hundred Kingdoms – 1245/1250 Novum Equestrum
Noble Lord [150]: Tier 3, Tier 2, Tier 1, Armor of Dominion, Powerful Physique
– Household Guard (5) [315]: Armsmaster, Standard Bearer
– Mercenary Crossbowmen (4) [140]
Priory Commander (Ord. Crimson Tower) [125]: Select as Warlord
– Order of the Crimson Tower (3) [215]: Standard Bearer
Chapter Mage [130]: Tier 1, Magus, Olefant’s Roar, Fire Dart
– Men at Arms (4) [170]: Seasoned Veteran
+++++
I would like to put a disclaimer that I know very little about proper list building. I do not do “mathshammer” or statistics or anything like and this list includes everything I wanted to play with on the day – overall, if you don’t actually enjoy playing with the models and force you use then what’s the point?
I made the list to not only be a fun force to play, but it has a theme as well. Like many 100 Kingdom players, I’m sure, I have imagined a kingdom within Ea and based my collection around this. For me, my kingdom or called Novum Equestrum – hence the name of the list. The name means “new Horsemen”. It is a city-region that specialises in equine breeding and trade, and also provides the best horses to a nearby Crimson Tower Priory. The kingdom also has a treaty and trade with an established Nordic settlement within its land, and incorporates Nord warriors into its military – much like Rome and her allies and auxiliary forces. Likewise, Nordic culture has also seeped into the kingdom and influenced style and art. The ruling houses, in acts of support and friendship with the Priory, rejects the Church, and so does not house any priests, but does have mage advisors. This then was the theme I wanted for the army.
I have converted some Household Knights with some Huscarl models to create my household squires. I was originally going to include these into my list instead of the Crimson Tower Knights, but while it meant the squires could run up the field and mean any medium units could be entering the board almost half way up, I chose Crimson Tower simply for the joy it brings me when they get their charge off and inflict all those impact hits and the idea of just heavy cavalry smashing into their poor targets! With the Crimson Towers knights, I’m not fussed about if they get to fight the turn they charge, but getting that charge off, so will (more often than not after failing a 2” charge before – even with a banner) move and then charge – often the same turn enacting the supremacy of the Priory Commander who is usually my Warlord. I also often tell this to my opponents, explaining especially the Unstoppable Charge special rule if they haven’t encountered it before.
I also like to take credit for our little local gaming community in Southampton often taking a mage with Olefant’s Roar. I tried it once and never went back. I usually give the mage Fire Dart, and with Olefant’s Roar giving her Seize the Day, it means I can activate her Men at Arms regiment, have them activate bastion in doing so, move, and either volley (to allow the mage even extra range damage) or move again – it effectively means she can immediately have better protection through bastion, and turns her 16” range on her spell into 26”. This alongside Magus and Magic Tier 1, meant that Fire Dart was very often hitting 4 or 5 times reliably, and in one of the games, made her more deadly than the knights! In hindsight, this may have been a bit too OP, but certainly wasn’t a conscious attempt at power-gaming.
For the Noble Lord and Household Guard: the Guard are just fantastic models and they look amazing when ranked up, and the Noble Lord compliments them so well, especially when they’re given Arms Master. I did think about taking Regalia of the Empire for that extra +1 Clash, but it would have meant I had to either abandon the Crimson knights, or reduce the stands of either the MaA or Crossbowmen which I didn’t want to do – and Inspired Clash 4 is still nothing to snort at! The remaining points I put into the combat Tiers for the Lord, who also had Amour of Dominion; the armour was always going to be taken as negating cleave for 40pts was worth it, especially when seeing Dragon Slayers entering the board during one of my games. The Crossbowmen also just offered some range threats and having an extra stand just meant a little more reliability of not necessarily deleting units, but knocking off a few wounds here or there – especially in the late game when regiments may already be pretty worn down.
Overall, the list offered options for defensive play, offense, and worked well to support each regiment. The list also had a few sources for AP, Cleave and of course the Brutal Impact 2 of the knights, all of which I hoped would make the opponent think rather than just running down the centre of the board. The list then was to be fun but demand pause for tactical thought – which is what I expected and received from my opponents’ lists, too!”
+++++
The Southampton Sluggaz Gaming club will be hosting more tournaments in the future and hopefully we will see numbers increasing as the player base develops. We run friendly informal events with a relaxed atmosphere. We welcome players from the wider community so if you ever want to visit us for one of our events then get in touch and we will always try to accommodate you.
Milestone 3 has been completed! We have now successfully converted our First Blood Warband into regimented blocks for the Last Argument of Kings massed battle system.
The Spires now sit at 1250 points and comprises the following:
As you can see, the main thing we have done this month is increase the sizes of the regiments that we already had in order to make them legal for Last Argument of Kings. I’ve added in some retinue and some upgrades into this list so let’s have a look at the new stuff in greater detail.
Biomancer
This lovely chap comes with the Biotic Renewal Draw Event as standard which is in itself a wonderful thing. There is an awesome combo (that I have shamelessly pinched from Andy Sparks – THANKS DUDE!!!) that enhances the healing ability even further. The Essence Transfer Biomancy lets you heal 2D6 wounds on an infantry regiment, at the expense of suffering 2D6 wounds on the regiment that the Biomancer is part of. This is brilliant for keeping your frontline regiments intact, but only whilst your Biomancers wound pool remains stocked. By adding the full Mastery of the Flesh Retinue, the Biomancer is able to use 2 Draw events per activation. This means he can Essence Transfer a pile of wounds onto a regiment that needs it, and then use the Biotic Renewal to heal D6 of those. It probably won’t heal up all of the wounds lost but it limits the amount lost for sure.
Mimetic Assassin
We have added the Degenerative Aura mutation to our Assassin. This is a really effective upgrade that bestows the Decay(3) draw event on regiments that are in contact with him or his regiment. This forces an enemy regiment that begins its activation in contact with the Assassins Drone regiment to roll 3D6 per stand at the end of their activation, and suffer a wound (Not a hit, a WOUND!!!) on the roll of a 5 or 6. It doesn’t cause resolve checks but it does ignore enemy defence and evasion so it can be really effective and certainly makes opponents think twice about engaging the regiment. Normally a good way of neutralising this would be to engage the character in a duel, but lets face it – who wants to be duelling an Assassin?!
Force Grown Drones
We have taken all 3 of our regiments up to 4 stands strong (16 models), each with the Pheromantic Node. Unlike in First Blood – you have to pay for the banners, and it is quite expensive at 25 points (the same as another whole stand!) but we already have them painted up and to be fair, rerolling charge distances isn’t a bad idea, plus they count as a leader so if we find our support characters engaged with something nasty, we wont take as many wounds as we run away! The reason I have gone for 4 stands instead of the minimum 3 is mainly because they are rather fragile and I want to be able to absorb a decent number of wounds without the unit being removed. No amount of healing will bring back a unit that is destroyed!
++++++++++
I actually got this force onto the tabletop recently (well – a slight variation of it, but broadly the same!) and it did really well. The drone wall was able to control the board really well, the assassins regiment got stuck in and wiped out a regiment of Milita and a Theist Priest in one glorious flank charge. The heavy hitters all dealt consistant damage with the Marksmen, Vanguards and Abomination all racking up quite a kill tally.
There was not anything really I would have changed, though there were a couple of times I messed up the order of the cards and couldn’t benefit from the Biomancies and Pheromancies. Still, that is all something that will come with practice and the list performed well against a solid opposing army.
++++++++++++
So what next? As we move into Milestone 4, as are going to take ourselves up to 1600 points. I will add in a regiment of 3 Brute Drones for additional combat punch, and will increase our 3 Force Grown Drone regiments by another stand or two each. To round off the points, we will make our Assassin even more deadly by giving him the Venom upgrade. The force will (hopefully end up looking like this.
Will i stay on target? Will i run out of blue paint?! Will I follow through with my insane idea to name ALL my drones? Stay tuned next month to find out! You can follow the work in progress of this project on my instagram page (https://www.instagram.com/david_resinbunker_richardson/). Give it a like and a follow!
Well it’s been an absolutely crazy few months but that path keeps going and the W’adrhun keep on getting painted. I walked into this excited for the W’adrhun and all they were bringing to the game and the feeling definitely hasn’t faded over time. I am just as excited for this army as I was at the beginning of the year and I cannot wait to get my hands on more of their amazing sculpts.
Last Milestone saw us end off with a fairly sizable first blood army, we are now looking to branch out and move to a mid sized The Last Argument of Kings list. We will be finishing that unit of Braves this month and bringing them to 12 models strong, we will be adding 2 stands to the Blooded giving us 20 models of blooded, and finally we will be adding Hunters and a Predator for some early pressure and ranged firepower. This will set the framework for our second warband and get us ready for the glorious Raptor Riders we will be adding next month.
The Predator we are adding this month is a very solid character with plenty of fantastic and tricky options he can take. We will be using him as our Warlord and his Supremacy is a thing to behold, rerolling charges for the turn and a litany of other bonuses based on the weight class of a regiment is just too good to pass up. With our Predator we bring out our trusty Hunters, Fast and deadly with the drawback of being fairly short ranged are their claim to fame. Hunters pack the coveted Deadly Shot, along with ap1 to help crack armor are solid stats. One could be confused looking at their 14 inch range and think they need to be right up on your opponent to effectively shoot but their Strong Arm rule solves that issue by letting them get unobscured shots at max range.
Milestone 3, while a little smaller, adds several of my personal favorite units from this army, The Raptor Riders. These guys are beasts and exemplify exactly what you want to be doing with the W’adrhun, hit hard and hit fast. Raptor Riders have a laundry list of special rules and each one is huge, Flurry, Deadly Shot, Fluid Formation, and a Barrage too is just icing on the cake. Their stat line is nothing to sneeze at either, March 8, and 5 Attacks each make these things deadly harassers and give them the ability to hit well above their light weight class. Raptor Riders are critical early game units for W’adrhun, giving us the ability to threaten large sections of the board early and allowing our mediums to come onto the board aggressively and in a great position.
As of the end of month three we are really starting to flesh out our W’adrhun and you should be starting to get a feeling of how this army plays. W’adrhun plays aggressively but they are not your normal Point and Click Aggressive army, you need to pick your fights and pick them right. Our battle cries give us the ability to punch way above our weight class and turn most fights in our favor but they require planning and require target prioritization. The best advice I can give to newer W’adrhun players is to set up your chant tokens while you make your command stack. This will allow you to see where you will hit your battle cries during your turn and possibly help plan them just a little more easily.
With milestones 2 and 3 come and gone we are nearly half way done with this Path of Conquest, The army is over half way completed and we are beginning to understand how to army ticks. Milestones 4 and 5 seek to fill out the army with more staples and also add the powerhouses of Warbred to our disposal. With all that being said, keep on painting, keep on playing games, and keep up the great work with all the great pictures you guys have been posting all over the place.
Greetings my fellow Path travelers! The last two months have been incredibly busy but I am still maintaining a good pace with getting the Dweghom of Grel’Hof ready for battle. June saw the completion of my Milestone 2 and part of Milestone 3 by accident. When making my First Blood and Last Argument lists I did not realize that I had included my Milestone 3 Dragonslayers in my Milestone 2 First Blood list. So instead of being sensible and just painting what was called for I went ahead and did the whole regiment! Then do to various delays I put off this article until I had also finished the rest of Milestone 3 as well. Given that this will be the Milestone 2 and 3 update combined.
Now my list stands at a Hold Raegh accompanied by 24 Hold Warriors with a Leader and Standard Bearer and 12 Dragonslayers with a Leader and Standard Bearer all supported by a Tempered Sorcerer leading 12 Hold Ballistae with a Leader, 12 Fireforged with a Leader, and 3 fearsome Inferno Automata. Now lets do a breakdown of what we’ll be doing with this army.
=== The Last Argument of Kings ===
Dweghom – 800/800
Grel’hof
Hold Raegh [80]: Select as Warlord
– Hold Warriors (6) [260]: Standard Bearer
Tempered Sorcerer [95]: Fireball
– Hold Ballistae (3) [165]: Leader
– Inferno Automata (3) [200]
Characters: 2
Light Regiments: 2
Medium Regiments: 1
Hold Raegh
Hold Raegh and Tempered Sorcerer
Quite a few people I know really love to tool this character up to make him a regiment annihilating monster. Trust me that I can definitely see the appeal but I prefer to run him with minimal upgrades for a very simple reason: the Raegh does not need the help. At Clash 4 with 6 Cleave 1 attacks he is already plenty dangerous and his high resolve makes his regiment virtually immovable. Why spend the extra points on making him deadlier when I can just bring along even more Dweghom?
Hold Warriors
What is a rank and flank battleline without a solid shieldwall to anchor it? Raw stats wise Hold Warriors are not much to look at but they makeup for it with dependability. Solid Defense paired with a character’s high Resolve makes it so they can grind their opponent into dust.
Dragonslayers
When you want any living thing sliced apart though that’s where Dragonslayers excel. Abomination rampaging along the lines? Dragonslayers will take care of it. The main difficulty with these guys is that they are not very fast and are Heavy infantry. So while they can and will kill anything on the battlefield they simply cannot be everywhere at once. This is why it is better to give them a specific mission or target to focus on. Destroying the right target at the right time will often time be the difference between victory and defeat. A tired adage admittedly but still accurate.
Tempered Sorcerer
Now we come to the most infamous and most popular unit in the Dweghom roster. Other’s have written more extensively and exhaustively about the terror this character inspires. I personally have had the most luck with just giving him a Fireball and sending him off to battle with either Hold Ballistae or Fireforged so that he can Volley and set people on fire throughout the game. Again I like to keep my character’s cheap so that I can bring more soldiers to the field.
Hold Ballistae
Like the Hold Warriors, Ballistae are a solid reliable feature of Dweghom warhosts and for good reason. They are decent shots but are shockingly durable. With a range of 24” and Defense 3 from the front these Light infantry honestly feel more like a Medium or Heavy in practice.
Fireforged
Basing was finished later that night
These fiery lads fit a very interesting role in the Dweghom roster in that they are quite literal tanks in the proper military sense. Heavily armored so that they can hold the line or break through while armed with anti-armor cannons makes these a priority target for any enemy. Given their high armor and ranged attack that also makes them a perfect bodyguard for the Sorcerer. They are not melee specialists but they have decent Clash while their high Defense makes them very difficult to shift out of combat. In either the next Milestone or the one after they’ll be accompanied by a Flamecaster to make their short range firepower significantly more threatening.
Inferno Automata
Honestly, this unit is one of the main reasons I picked Dweghom for my Path of Conquest army. Pseudo daemon possesed Light Cavalry equivalent running around on fire? How could I pass that up. Their speed more importantly allows me to put my opponent on the backfoot from the very beginning of the match. That high speed also makes them very flexible by making them excellent flankers assuming they survive by the time battlelines clash.
In addition to getting everyone painted up, the Dweghom of Grel’Hof actually took to the battlefield this month! Both in a demo game between two newer players and against Karnthis’ Nords the Dweghom emerged bloody but victorious.
Now by the end of July I aim to finish Milestone 3 which would have been the 12 Dragonslayers and 12 Fireforged bringing some much needed anti-armor assets to the army.
Milestone 2 has now been and gone, and this collection of models is beginning to look like an army now. The target for this month was to achieve the following:
I’m delighted to say that not only did I manage to complete the above, but I actually went one better and did all 12 Marksmen clones and all 12 Vanguard clones. This puts me nicely ahead for the next milestone.
We are now at 800 points, which in my opinion is probably the upper limit for First Blood. Here is a brief rundown of the units we’ve added in this Milestone:
Biomancer
This character brings yet more healing to the force with his Biotic Renewal draw event. When combined with the Pheromancers Accelerated Hibernation I fully expect to be able to reliably replenish casualties I suffer. He is poor in combat, so will need to be protected from enemy combat troops and characters.
Mimetic Assassin
This character is incredibly good in First Blood. Characters are normally quite vulnerable as they are not protected in a regiment (like in Last Argument). The Assassin however has an Evade stat of 3, which we are boosting by +2 with the Heightened Reflexes mutation, meaning that ANY wound he takes from Clash, duelling, direct damage magic or shooting will be saved on a 5 or less. Cleave is irrelevant to him! He’ll just dodge the massive axes! He has a decent number of attacks as well and will go first in duels thanks to his quicksilver strike special rule. His only slight weakness is a lack of Cleave, but he’ll certainly pull his weight in combat
Vanguard Clones
These are elite close combat troops. Each Clone has 2 attacks and a decent defence score, backed by evade 2 as well. Much like the assassin, they lack cleave, but sheer weight of attacks will tell against most enemy regiments. They’re also quite fast with a movement of 6 so can really to where they are needed.
Marksmen Clones
These are elite ranged troops. They have everything you need to smash enemies at a distance with lots of shots, a long range and the wonder arcing fire special rule, letting them use a friendly regiment to draw line of sight. They are only lightly armoured so careful positioning is needed to keep them alive, though the healing abilities of the Pheromancer and Biomancer will keep them combat effective.
We now begin Milestone 3, and this is going to be an interesting month as we convert the above First Blood Skirmish force into a 1250 point Last Argument of Kings force.
The obvious things changing will be the size of the regiments. Infantry, cavalry and Brute regiments all need to have a minimum of 3 stands of troops (a stand is 4 infantry models, or a single Brute/Cavalry model). Right now, all of the units apart from the Abomination are under this minimum threshold, so we need to bulk out what is already there. We will expand both Clone regiments to the minimum of 3 stands. We will also need to increase the Force Grown Drone numbers to make up for their below average individual stats, so I’m going to take all three of the drone regiments up to 4 stands worth of miniatures with 16 drones in each unit.
By the end of the next milestone (11th August if I stay on target!) The army will look like this:
This means that I need to add the following to the force: 6 x Marksmen Clones, 6 x Vanguard clones & 21 Force Grown Drones which should be perfectly achievable in a month.
This will give me 3 regiments of drones, each with a character embedded in them, and each fulfilling a different battlefield role. The assassins regiment is tasked with spreading decay into enemy regiments, whilst the biomancers regiment is simply a pool of wounds to be spread around the other regiments with the harvest essence ability. The Pheromancers regiment is purely there to keep him alive and healing.
The damage dealers will be the Abomination and the two Clone regiments. They are proper elite units that can go head to head with almost anything else in the game.
Stay tuned to see if I manage to get the next batch painted up!!!
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.
+++++
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.
+++++
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.
Milestone 1 is complete and I met my goal. It took a bit to fully nail the colorscheme I wanted aside from the given of using Turbo Dork’s Let Them Eat Cake and Sweet Dreams. Knew that I wanted to do something different from my more grounded Hundred Kingdoms scheme and decided to go with blue fire and orange cloth to accompany the purple. Decided to also prepare for the future milestones by making sure everything was primed and some of the future units at least basecoated. Didn’t get as far on that goal as intended due to a combination of increased ability to demo in person and the beginning of 1.5 playtesting.
Regardless I was able to successfully complete 1 Inferno Automata, the Hold Raegh, the Tempered Sorcerer, 6 Hold Warriors, and 6 Hold Ballistae. Also thanks to Walter’s Workshop’s speed painting challenge I also painted the Tempered Steelshaper. One challenge I decided to take on for this army while painting is to make sure that there are a variety of beard colors and some variation in skin tone. The latter will be more evident as I get more painted since this time was more about figuring out the general recipe for the army. I am predominantly using Scale Color and Turbo Dork paints for this.
For the weapons I decided to go with Scale’s Necro Gold highlighted with Victorian Brass and Heavy Metal for the blades and the hafts/ballistae are Turbo Dork’s Six Shooter highlighted with Scale’s Heavy Metal. That steel recipe is also what I did for some details like the designs on the shoulder pads. Was originally going to go for a gunmetal but found that when the armor shifted that the shift color made the gunmetal very hard to see. For the clothes I used Indian Shadow followed with layer of Kalahari Orange. After that I did some stippling with Tenere Yellow followed by a wash of GW’s Casandora Yellow. The skin in this milestone was primarily Indian Shadow followed highlights in Arabic Shadow and Pink Flesh.
I am particularly happy with how the fire on the automata and sorcerer turned out. That is all Turbo Dork paint, about five layers of Ice to Never followed by Da Ba Dee on the edges and Pearly Gates in the crevices. Ice to Never is supposed to be a colorshift but it’s not too noticeable with mine since I think that bottle was part of a dodgy batch but it’s still a lovely shade of blue that looks nice and ethereal.
Decided also to try a more traditional method for basing. Wanted to have it look like they are taking the field after a light snow has fallen. So I based with a mixture of unpainted sand, grit, and green meadow flock. Then I glued some flower tufts from Huge Miniatures on the characters and those will make an appearance later as well. Once that all set I dabbed some modpodge on to the ground for sealing and lightly on the flowers then dusted them with some old Citadel snow flock I had laying around. Really happy with how it looks and think it provides a nice complement to the overall paint scheme.
Anyways now it’s on to Milestone 2 where I’ll be painting two more Inferno Automata, six Hold Ballistae, and 18 Hold Warriors since I want to have both a well rounded First Blood force and a small Last Argument warband.
Alright everyone, another month in and another Conquest Eternal event is underway. This month we want to see your army lore. Write us a short story about the army you have started (even better if it’s your Path of Conquest army) and the best lore article at the end of the month will get a hardback Companion book. Let’s see some creative stuff this month guys!
Click the button below to email us your submission either as text in the body or as an attached .PDF or .DOC file.
Over the past several months I have made no secret of my love for the new W’adrhŭn faction entering the game. I was lucky enough to run the army through its paces in playtesting and have a very good feel for it now. My excitement for the army has only increased with every sculpt and piece of support we have received for the W’adrhŭn. All of this taken into account, I don’t think it comes as a surprise to anyone that I decided to take on yet another path of conquest for this fantastic army. Over the next 5 months I will be grabbing any and all W’adrhŭn kits I can to make one hell of a stunning 2000 point army. I will break down the whys and hows as we expand the army from a humble 400 point First blood list all the way to the end game of a full The Last Argument of Kings army.
There is some very good news and some less than good news when it comes to the initial release of the W’adrhŭn. The less then good news is that we have a fairly limited roster consisting of 6 regiment choices and 3 characters, However the good news is that each and every regiment we have can pull its weight. Receiving 6 regiments off the bat that can all pull their weight is just fantastic and will really lead to some nice balanced lists.
For month one and my first blood army I will be ending some something that looks like this, === First Blood ===
The W’adrhŭn – 397/400 400 path of conquest
Scion of Conquest [195]: Select as Warlord, Aberration, Crescendo, Mantle of the Devoted, Famine
Blooded (12) [132]: Standard Bearer
Braves (7) [70]
Blooded are absolutely amazing in the army, backed up by an aberration and mantle of the devoted to make them fanatic and they are primed to be a major powerhouse on the board. The Scion of Conquest is a jack of all trades character and fantastic at pretty much everything, his spell is impactful, he can smash faces in melee at cleave 2 and he even has a few points of evasion to save himself in a pinch, overall a fantastic character. Finally we have some braves to round out this list, these guys are more defensively built then the Blooded but still have some bite. The Braves will really shine down the line when we get a little more support for them.
An easy first month to start off a new Path and I am just so excited to get this underway. Make sure to keep an eye on social media for all our other players following along with the Path of Conquest and watch out for more events and challenges as we move along.
