New Year, New Army…
The Christmas break has come and gone, all the turkey has been used up, there are but a few chocolates remaining and all the tinsel has been packed away. However, this year, along with the tinsel, something else got packed up and put in the loft – my Dark Elves – and that is because I treated myself to an early Christmas present – I bought a new army….
Everything goes in cycles.
I played Orcs and Goblins for 3 or 4 years and then switched it up to use Dark Elves, which I now have been playing for 3 years. Recently the army had started to feel stale and I felt I was starting to get stuck in a rut. So the time felt right to start thinking about a new army to work towards.
On the journey home from Beasthammer, Santilargo and I started discussing options, and despite strong contention from a number of possibilities, two emerged as front runners:
Warriors of Chaos – Back in the day, I originally bought my Dark Elves as a job lot with a load of Chaos stuff as it was intended as a Cult of Slaanesh force. Therefore I have quite a lot of unused models – a good basis of a fairly sizeable army. They are a fairly one dimensional play style, it all revolves around getting your blocks into combat – not too dissimilar to my Orcish mentality. With a new book looming on the horizon I was beginning to get quite tempted…
Lizardmen – Lizardmen are currently very competitive and offer a number of possibilities on variation of build and play style. One of the popular styles focuses heavily on movement, magic, shooting and avoidance – something I used to be quite good at with my Dark Elves under 7th edition. And, let’s face it, who doesn’t want to play with a load of cool dinosaurs!!
Another consideration was the painting and modelling side of the hobby. Both front runners would give me options to buy a bit at a time as a painting project, something I could use to improve my painting techniques and overall painted standard and both would provide a fair bit of scope for conversions. Both could be a project that could tick along whilst I would still have my painted Dark Elves to use in tournaments.
What did I choose?
I didn’t really have a strong preference one way or the other so I started to look around the internet, on forum second hand sales threads and auction sites, to see what I could pick up for a reasonable price.
As luck would have it, an opportunity to buy a sizeable, very well painted Lizardmen army fell into my lap – in all honesty it looked like too good of a deal to pass up!
So I contacted the guy, started up a bit of an email exchange, saw a fair few photos of the army and was happy with the negotiated price. Decision made, I set off down South, hung around in the parking lot of a service station, met up with the guy, exchanged money for merchandise, unloaded it from his boot into mine and off I went. Sounds dodgy? It wasn’t really!
So there we have it, probably the worst kept secret in the world and it will not come as a shock to some of you that I can now announce that I have officially become a Lizardman <insert appropriate swear word here>.
What’s in the army?
Remember I said it was a good deal – well I wasn’t lying. When I got home I had a good rummage through and I am more than happy with what I have purchased! I obviously saw the list of stuff for sale and saw pictures of it all beforehand but was still merrily surprised when I started going through it.
The stuff I have bought is more than enough to make up over 3500 points WITHOUT magic items and upgrades! Also as a brucie bonus the army is painted to a very high standard – not all of the pictures did it justice. I believe it has, in the past, won painting awards at a few major events in the UK. It has loads of cool little extras, wicked conversions and everything is based on Aztec Ruin resin bases.
The figures I bought include:
2 Slanns
2 Mounted Scar Vets
2 Skink Priests on foot
Skink Priest on Engine of the Gods
Chatax (special character)
24 Skinks with 3 Krox
40+ Skinks (mix of blowpipes and Javelins)
6 Camo Skinks
10 Terradons
40+ Temple Guard
10 Cold One Cav
1 Stegadon
1 Ancient Stegadon
3 Razordons
2 Salamanders
Plus loads of extra unit fillers, bits box and the army book.
What about the painting project?
Well, seeing as though I bought the army ready painted I need to find a new painting project.
For the next few months I will be working on the Lizardmen. As it is a second hand army it has suffered a bit of wear and tear – I need to make a few running repairs, not everything listed above is painted (although probably 90% of it is!) and I probably need to purchase and paint a few extras to round out a list that I am happy with. Oh and I need a shed load of movement trays!
After that I think I am going to start painting up the Warriors of Chaos that I already own. My first thought was to sell off the Warriors to part-pay for the Lizzies that I have bought. But, having had time to think about it, I quite like the idea of having another tournament standard army to be able to choose from – it’ll give me a good variety. Hopefully, with a new book out soon, I can watch the developments of the army and write a list to work towards. Then, possibly by the end of the year, I might actually have another tournament ready army to roll out if I so choose!
Where are the gaming updates?
Fear not! If you like reading my gaming exploits then you won’t have to wait too long.
Over the Christmas period I have played a couple of games at Wyvern Wargamers with the new Lizardmen – one to test them out and one to help Buzz prep for Winter War
Also, with Sheffield Slaughter just over two weeks away I’ve had two practice games at the Cheltenham Warchiefs.
So the next few posts will be coming thick and fast – keep your eyes peeled for a post on List Discussion and then a bumper Game Report round up later this week!
They’re not Scar Vets! They’re Skinks!
Only to the untrained eye.