Shock Troopers WIP #2

Closing in on the finish. 

More painting today, lots and lots of green and red.  Once again the time invested in the red was too much for the (visible) results.  I have a real problem in highlight red too subtly.  There's a layer or three of highlights there, but you'll be hard pressed to find them.  All I have left to do is blacks, metals, basing, and any details/touchups that pop up along the way.  That short(ish) list should only take one more painting session which will hopefully occur this week, and even more hopefully give me enough time to get those straggling Shepherds finished in case I go Legion for the tournament next weekend.  Assuming there's no hockey that day of course.



I'm fighting the good fight and trying to stay on track with the Motherland for the tournament, but it's not going well.  Crafting Khador lists has been a constant struggle of trying to balance killy stuff (WGI, Kayazy, Doomies) with stuff that can manage objectives and doesn't rely solely on high DEF (Shock Troopers, Jacks, if only I had IFP...).  Working on some intel from one of the locals I'm also trying to get as much Pathfinder as I can lay hands on, which mostly means Saxon Orrick, Kodiak, and Harkevich.  With character restrictions and timed turns taken into account, list building is an Olympic caliber balancing act.  By contrast, Legion solves all these issues in a single stroke.  Carnivean "chassis" beasts are all Pathfinders and fill both killy and holdy roles in the same package.  Toss in some solos for spice and/or ninja objective holding (looking at you Strider Deathstalkers), maybe a unit of infantry (read: Swordsmen) if you're feeling saucy, and the lists write themselves.  My only concern is that all my Legion lists are of a similar flavor and therefore don't require any hard choices from my opponent.  If you see a 4+ heavy list the choice between a Bane Thrall heavy list and one that leans on Satyxis is no real choice at all.  This is the problem I ran into at the Dream Wizards tournament from a slightly different angle: instead of all my lists being infantry heavy, they'd all be "armor" heavy.  That said I'm nowhere near as worried about running into a cloud of Bane Thralls with an Absylonia tier list as I am about seeing Bile Thralls across the table when I'm running pIrusk.

I'm also mildly saddened at the idea of leaving my mostly (if I'm >50% painted, then I can say mostly) painted Khador in the bag in favor of my not even close to mostly painted Legion.  On the other hand I did finally assemble and magnetize my second Legion heavy torso, along with the Ravagore head from the first kit, and getting the second set of arms together won't be any problem.  If I get the Shepherds done and maybe a caster or two, I can field a Legion list that's probably 30-40% painted (in my scheme no less).  Will I succumb to the lure of Everblight?  It's very likely, but I'm going to keep resisting until the end of the week at least.