Missing Marauders

I seemingly forgot to post these the week before last. I went from the first two directy to the last two. Anyway here are the missing Marauders from the Horsemen regiment. I don't have anymore of them to paint thankfully but their foot cousins seem to be a never ending tide encroaching on my painting table. I do want to get the Cultists finished to about twenty models soon. The only problem is the just started Macinations Warmachine League. It is offering points for painting miniatures and my focus therefore has to switch over to getting some models done for that. It also helps that there are a few new releases for Circle coming up this and next week!

Tharn Ravagers, what to do?

I just don't get them. I played in the Irish Masters last weekend and I used these in every list. Aa full unit with the attached chieftan. The package comes in at eleven points for the nine models. In most games I deployed them forward in front of my army and ran them forward to jam the objectives and zones. They also form a decent threat. In most games I was down to two or three models by the time I activated them again. The only thing I can think of is that I am using them in a completely bad role for them. Almost everything my opponent puts on their front line can deal easily with the Ravagers. With a standard defence stat they are easily hit and with an average armour they are easily damaged. Eight boxes help for sure but POW 12 weapons are easily able to remove them from the game. For what can I use my medium infantry?

The first thought is to place them out on a flank. It subjects them to less direct firepower in the early turns but allows them to threaten towards the centre. They are not so fast that they really become a threat out there but they can tie up and possibly defeat a lot of other flanking forces. These should leave a few models by the late game to effectively flank the opponent. However for eleven points, basically a fifth of your entire army you really want them to have some dominating prescence on the battlefield. I played a little yesterday and tested this. I found that the Ravagers are very effective against other medium to heavy infantry. These are also often deployed off centre and the advance deployment rule allows you to pick your match up in most cases. Having a MAT of nine when charging means even defence fourteen isn't too hard to hit and with a POW of 15 on the charge even armour twenty models need to be worried. Curse of Shadows gives them an effective POW boost of two meaning that even Khador 'Jacks will go down to a charge.

Having said that is there anything else I would use them for? I am tempted to use them as a second wave. I have no idea if this would be effective at all but it strikes me as a decent possibility. Having advance deployment always makes me think these guys should be up front and in the mix as often as possible. However that has rarely paid off! Putting them behind an annoying tarpit would ensure that the opponent has to commit something decent to remove the tarpit and allows me to countercharge in relative safety. Thinking a little further I am really tempted to use the Ravagers in conjunction with the Skinwalkers. They are a much more effective tarpit and removing them is no easy matter. Having them spread out allows for lanes where the Ravagers can charge into and deal with the engaging models aloowing the Skinwalkers to move up and repeat the tactic. It is expensive but I am really tempted to try it. Has anyone else tried this?

No rest for the Wicked!

This is a really old Jes Goodwin sculpt that I have had for many many years. I always loved this model and the other Chaos Sorceror models of the same era. I have another somewhere that I can't find for the life of me. I knew instantly that he would have to be the leader of the Cultists so I dug him out and painted him up to suit. I wanted him to be a bridge between the Warriors and the Cultists and so I painted the armour in the same way as I did the Warriors. This is the last model I have for the regiment and I need to pick up another box soon. I will be scouring eBay to get my hands on some hopefully at a respectable discount. I just need to figure out what they are called in german.

Front Rank

These will be the front ranking models for my Chaos Cultists. I put a few symbols on each of the models handily supplied by the Marauder Horsemen. They aren't quite chaos wheels but they are close enough. A few chaos symbols on the shredded remnants of parchement these guys carry also helps. I painted the fine text with ink rather than thinned paint and it proved much easier to achieve the fine lines I wanted. I will definitely do this again. I did notice that if I used a wash after doing the text I had some problems. The wash could lift some of the ink off. I need to confirm this by trying it again but if that is true it would be annoying!

I am theming the army somewhat towards the Storm of Chaos. The Cultists are part of this as they played a large role in the quick fall of the town in the north, according to the roleplaying game fluff. The name of the town on the sign, Kurst, is one of the towns that fell early to the slaanesh invasion. As for other elements of theme I have been going for regiments in multiples of six as far as possible. Otherwise I am finding it fairly hard to make more of the theme. It doesn't have such a specific imagery and so I am not sure what more to do!

More Back Rankers

I only have eleven models for this regiment so I am nearing completing these already. Again my MSU style seventh edition army needs more models. I will eventually pick up another box of flagellants to complete the regiment. Twenty five is the target number, hopefully I can source the four models I need on eBay. Getting some of the older models would great. I am not sure if they fit exactly with the new ones. I remember the older ones being a lot bulkier than the current ones.

Crazy Nutters

These will be some of the back ranking guys for the regiment. I made sure that those in front have a few more obvious chaos symbols on them. There really isn't a need for that in the back ranks. The empire flagellant models are really great and suit the cultist image excellently. The eyes are tiny and almost impossible to paint. I usually don't have a problem with painting eyes but really these guys are tough to do. I have scattered the heads around the rest of the army and they fit the marauders perfectly. I have also added them to the Chaos Mages I converted a long time ago. I am eager to paint the mages up but I need a little more greenstuff work on them before I can get started.

Chaos Cultists

I have had these models sitting around for ages in various degrees of completeion. Thankfully they were pretty much already basecoated so I didn't have to work to hard to get them done. I used the Empire Flagellant models and added a few chaos symbols in places to emphasise their allegiance. The model on the left has been shown before. He is my first attempt at OSL. It came out fine but I won't be doing it on other models at this stage. It takes too long and with the pale skin colour I went for it isn't that effective. I think it works out better on dark models. At least now the model is complete and these can be put into the painting cabinet.

The Last Ones

That is it, no more Marauder Horsemen to do. Okay I have a few more models unassembled in the bitz box but there they shall remain. I can't se myself using more than twelve of these guys anytime soon and if the models are unassembled I can pretend they don't exist! So that is two regiments complete for my Chaos army. Add that to two regiments of dogs done years agao and I have a fair start on the light elements of the army. The challenge as always is getting the blocks done. If this was sixth or seventh edition I would only have a few more models to paint to bring regiments up to twenty and then I would be done. Sadly everything has to be at least twenty five models now so I still have quite a way to go.

First Horsemen Finished

Here are the first finished Marauder Horsemen from the second regiment. These came out great and match exactly the first regiment. A few people have commented that the white horses don't fit in that well with the rest of the army but I think it is good. I wanted them to be obviously slaaneshi and I think the white horses helps with this. Although now with the changes in price for the Mark of Slaanesh I am less sure. It was also a little bit easier to paint the white as opposed to brown. I do still have to find some suitable shields for these guys. I have run out of the old beastman shields and the new ones come with army already attached sadly. Hopefully I will be able to source more as I need them for the foot sloggers also!

I armed these with flails as in seventh edition these were a great option. While I haven't as yet bought the eight edition book I am assuming that the flails upgrade is really expensive. There seems to have been a huge change to the marauders, both mounted and on foot. I can see myself having a really outdated army in terms of its composition! Once I get the army finalised I think I will go back through all the army books and make out the same army as best as possible and see what I come up with in each edition.

Base coat...

I seem to be only basecoating things at the moment. That stage often seems to take the longest time. Getting a clean even basecaot is in my opinion the most important part of painting a miniature. A lot of people painting try to do dirt and battle damage on miniatures and I find myself telling them that you need to learn to paint neatly before you can do those effects. While I won't have much time over the weekend I will get some of these finished I guess.