Painted: Devastator and Sorcha

I had a chance to finish up the base on the devastator the other evening, so Sorcha and her warjack got some time in front of the camera.

I (obviously) didn't spend a huge amount of time painting up the interior of the 'jack.  Just brass and metal and a few highlights.  Oh well, He's meant to be viewed from above or the sides anyway.

In my desire to get him finished I picked the wrong color for his side and front face markings.  Again, oh well.  They will serve the purpose until I get around to painting over them with the grey the other models use.

I really dig the grass bits by Army Painter.  These are the Highland 6mm tufts and you can buy them on Amazon here (affiliate link). I ended up having to pick up another pack because my first one got lost somewhere in the Basement of Doom.  The packs look pretty small on store shelves, but even a large base like a warjack's can't really have more than two or three tufts on it without looking crowded, so they last a really long time.  They're an especially good way to kick a very simple basing job up a notch.

So with these guys out of the way I'm down to the Bull Snapper, Harlan Versh and a pile of Tau Battlesuit weapons, and I have just shy of two weeks to wrap it all up to meet my goal.

Khador Widow Makers

These fine fellows and accompanying lady are ready to lay precision waste to the foes of the motherland.  My last post on these guys had them half basecoated standing in front of an equally rough Devastator.  Now their brown cloaks have been finished and their guns are all brassy and ready to fire.

See the last post with my widowmakers here.

This means I can update my Hobby Scorecard on the right and also that my 15 point Khador army is only two models away from being ready to take the field.  All that is left now is a Devastator and Sorcha.  I can't wait!

Khador Prorgress

Some progress has been made on my 15 point Khador army. I've decided to tackle painting the Devastator warjack and the unit of widowmakers at the same time. Here is an in progress shot.

 

Painting time has been limited to an hour or so in the morning just a couple of times a week so I've only managed to get a bit of the base coat on.  The widowmakers will sport mostly brown with only a very small bit of blue on their shoulders.  This is to amplify their role as a stealthy unit while still keeping them cohesive with the rest of the army.

Once this merry crew is done I'll only have Sorcha left and then they'll be ready to carve a trail of destruction across Immoren.

Doom Reavers Finished

My unit of Doom Reavers is now complete.  This marks the tipping point for the 15 point starter army I detailed here.  At this point I have 7 out of 13 models painted.

The blue and leather theme that I am using is somewhat reminiscent of the traditional Cygnar paint scheme.  I think, though, that the blue against the bone and leather looks quite good from a tabletop view.  No reason the spark addicts should have a monopoly on good looks.

These guys are going to look smashing leading the charge ahead of Sorcha and her Devastator. The conundrum now is which of my remaining three units get paint next.

One Piece of Doom Reaved

One Doom Reaver, minus basing, finished.  I don't know about the rest of you, but assembly line painting really starts to drag once I'm about three quarters done.  After shading and highlighting a half dozen leather skirts I put them all down and there's still just as much visible primer as an hour ago.

So this time, once I got to the point where I could wrap this guy up in another half an hour I just went for it.  Initially I wasn't sure how I wanted to do the swords for the unit, but some grey blended up to white to pick out the skulls seems to have done the trick nicely.

I may still take a wash to some of the elements and knock down the brighter spots on the leather and hair but in general I think he's going to look good screaming across the battlefield next to his buddies.

DoomReaver Progress and Tactics

I'm moving forward with the army list I described in my last post.  A unit of Doom Reavers will soon be joining my Khador War Hound.  Here are the bloodthirsty murderers waiting for the rest of their paint.

If you've never familiarized yourself with these guys head on over to the battle college and do so.  These guys are straight forward rules-wise.  Berserk weapon masters with high MAT and reach can turn opposing units, beasts and 'jacks into chunky salsa with a halfway decent charge. But unlike some other Khador units that can basically be point and charge these guys take a bit of finesse to get the most out of them.

Their berserk rule means that it's very easy to wipe out an enemy unit and then wipe out your own unit as well.  Fenris or a Greylord Escort can mitigate this with silence but these can be spendy options.  I believe that these guys really just require a few extra seconds of thought to keep them from turning on each other.

Try to put them in a position where their berserk attacks aren't going to hit each other.  Enemy unit flanks are a good choice.  Or group them like you would shield wall units so that if one does end up killing its buddy it only kills one buddy.  Order of attacks is also important so start attacking with the reavers that have reach on the greatest number of opponents, or if you are attacking a single target try to end on a reaver at the far end of your pack rather than in the middle to reduce the number of fellow reavers that are valid berserk targets.  Placement is key so really take the time to determine where they should go.

Doom reavers are a hard hitting unit so they'll probably be a high priority target for your opponents.  Try breaking up your unit, moving two or three of them five or six inches ahead of the rest and far enough away from each other to make trampling a dangerous prospect for your opponent. These screening models will hit too hard for your opponent to want to risk free strikes so they'll have to deal with them somehow.  Once they're engage (and likely killed) the rest of the reavers can countercharge.

Also remember that your reavers are abominations.  If you get charged by something that's not fearless make sure your opponent takes their command check.  A failed abomination check will immediately shut down your opponent's charge.

If you find yourself on the receiving end of a pack of doom reavers there are a few things you can do.  Their average armor and defense means that dedicated ranged units will kill these guys on average rolls.  Their spell ward only means that you can't target them directly with spells not that they are immune to them.  Using a throw away unit of your own to land an AoE can take out a few of them.

A player with a keen eye for distances can also use the automatic miss and template deviation rules to their advantage.  I once setup Terminus 10 inches away from the center of a pack of doom reavers, then cast Annihilation at a unit behind the doom reavers.  Automatic miss but the template ended up only scattering one inch and still caught most of the reavers.

Once these models are finished off my 15 point army will be more than half done models wise.  I'm hoping to have these guys finished up real soon so I can get started on my caster, jack and widowmakers.  Then it will be on to face smashing goodness.

War Hound

Nope, not the 40K Titan,  but this guy, the first painted addition to my Khador collection.

Oh war dog, I shall name you Fluffy.

Now the task at hand is to build an army to field this guy with. At only a single point, the war dog leaves a lot of room for expansion. Let's look at making a 15 point starter list.

As a Guard Dog, Fluffy here gives the warcaster he is attached to +2 DEF vs melee attacks.  Let's capitalize on this by choosing a warcaster with an already high defense, pSorcha.  With Wind Rush she's usually running around at defense 18.  Fluffy puts her to DEF 20 vs melee, making her almost impossible for anyone to hit without access to boosted attack rolls.

Next I'm going to add a unit of Widowmakers, one of pSorcha's favorite units due to the synergy between her Fog of War spell and they Camouflage ability.  These snipers can knock off the last couple points on a column or spiral, hunt solos and kill low arm infantry.

Next up is a unit of Doom Reavers.  These help solve the problem I normally see in low point games, which is that the alpha strike can be totally devastating.  When you're only running one or two warjacks your opponent can completely cripple you by getting the first charge.  Solve this problem by keeping the doom reavers spread out.  Two or three range in front as buffers and the rest stand just back for the countercharge.  Just remember that as abominations you need to keep them away from your widowmakers and guard dog.

This leaves us with 9 points and Khador is just spoiled for 9 point jack choices.  I'm going with a Devastator.  Its ridiculously high armor value is another component to being able to absorbe an alpha strike, and it can hit hard on the charge with its POW 18 rain of death attack followed up by two POW 16 fists (which can auto-hit on the feat turn).  Another fine choice would be to use a 7 point Juggernaut and put a greylord escort in with the doom reavers if you're worried about their berserk ability getting out of hand.

So our list looks like this:

• pSorcha
• War Dog Attachment
• Devastator
• Doom Reavers
• Widowmakers

This list gives you a good number of models on the table (13), an even more difficult to hit pSorcha than usual and a large number of powerful attacks on your warcaster's feat turn.

It's So Big

It's so big that we called it The Behemoth. I think of this thing when I think of Khador warjacks. Cygnar engineers might be addicted to electricity, but they've got nothing against the singlemindednest of Khador engineers. For them there is no perfect machine. You just keep adding bigger weapons and more armor plating so that each new thing is better than the last.

I've only ever been on the receiving end of this monstrosity, so I'm looking forward to inflicting some Behemoth-fueled destruction on my opponents soon.

And Her Little Dog...

Got some Khador in recently for a pretty good price. Mrs. Kratikoff to the left there is is now based and ready for primer and paint.

There are more models but they require cleanup. I'll be posting the pictures as I get them cleaned and based. I'm not decided on the paint scheme yet. Either Traditional Red, Winter White, or Soviet Tank Green.

I'm going to start at the 25 point level with the following:

• Sorcha
• Behemoth
• Iron Fang Uhlans (3)
• Uhlan Kovnik Markov
  
• Man-O-War Drakhun (w/dismount)
  

So lots of cavalry. I have visions of Sorcha freezing the opponents army, and the cavalry impact charging their way through scads of opposing infantry.

Also, don't forget that I'm selling off some of my miniatures. Still a day and a half to bid!