Shock Troopers WIP #1, Tournament Musings

Preparing to take some objectives.

This month's Paint the Target is for a unit and while it's tempting to run with a thrown-away line Gdaybloke dropped on the post and do my second Mortar team, instead I'll take this opportunity to finally paint up some Shock Troopers.  I've been wanting to paint these models for a while, but always managed to talk myself out of it.  This time around it's no different, as the Shock Troopers have featured prominently in my list building of late, but I'm not letting that stop me.  I can always proxy them for the next week or two and I could (if things go well) get them done by Thursday and not miss any table time, but even at the worst I'll have them done by the 19th.  Why the 19th?  More on that in a minute.  Today I was focused on getting base coats and the preliminary wash done.  I managed that feat, though it was far more painful than anticipated.  Turns out painting a full unit of medium bases takes a lot longer than doing a single small based model.  Everything that needed a wash got that far, which is everything except what will end up black.  Next time I'll be satisfied if I get the green done, and after that it will be another session or two to finish.  It'll take some work, but I think I can get them done next week.



Despite my recent struggles at the table, I've been back in tournament mode over the past few days.  At least tournament list building mode.  There's a 50 point Steam Roller on the 19th down at the Game Vault that I'll be attending (hockey permitting), along with a decent handful of locals from the FLGS.  Hopefully stop number two on my own personal summer battle tour will go better than the first one, though if I have as much fun in Fredericksburg as I did in Rockville then I'll call it an overall win.  Plus there's a Sonic in Fredericksburg, and maybe two miles from Game Vault at that.  This tournament will use timed turns (10 minutes per, with a single 5 minute extension), which will be something new for me as all (3) of the tournaments I've been in have been death clock style.  This has required a slight adjustment in my thinking.  Factor in that the much feared Iron Fleshed infantry has been a dismal failure for me since my return to Khador and I'm looking at a whole new approach to list building.  The biggest factor I've been taking into account thus far has been model count.  With only 10 minutes per turn I can't run the pIrusk super infantry spam army that I might otherwise consider, which is good since I'm trying to move away from that anyway.  I'm actually looking to Harkevich of all casters, running lots of Bombards, Bulldozers, and armor to take zones and be hard to dislodge.  My second list, at the moment, is a Strakhov assassination/Stealth spam list, but that's very open to change.

Change may be bigger than swapping Strakhov for eSorscha.  While I've been grappling with Khador lists, Legion lists have been springing forth with no real encouragement or effort.  In about five minutes, with a single look at the Legion book, I hammered out two lists that I feel pretty good about.  One is my beloved Absylonia tier list, which I think will take one solid turn of engagement to fall back into, which would serve as my anti-Warmachine list (Blight Field shuts jacks down hard).  The other is a pVayl list that gets the anti-Hordes label as pVayl has a lot of tricks that only work against beasts/things with Fury.  I'm less familiar with pVayl, though I have a better handle on how I think she should work now than I did during the Gnarls league, but Fury is so flexible/forgiving that I'm not too worried.  There's a week gap between the end of the Olgunholt league (the 13th) and the Game Vault tournament (the 19th), so I'll have time to get some reps in with Legion in general and pVayl in particular.  On the one hand I've been looking forward to laying out a mostly painted army at a tournament while also repping the Motherland, but on the other hand I want to do well and Legion gives me a better shot at that than Khador.  It's a sad truth, but it's a truth all the same.