Old Black Magic

[Sception]

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~ I've got that Old Black Magic rolling in ~

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Old School Arkhan conversion is done! Not the cleanest paint job ever, but I'm none the less very proud of this guy. Very much what I was aiming for.  Arkhan’s really a corner stone of my collection, since the same dude can lead my Legions of Nagash, Ossiarch Bonereapers, and Tomb Kings, so I’m really pleased to have him done.  I don’t really have a lot to say about him now that he is done, though.  Process was a pain, especially redoing significant portions due to spray varnish frosting.  Definitely need a better set up for taking these pictures.

As for what armies he'll be leading, I'm working on a few small lists, including:

Null Myriad

Spoiler

Allegiance: Ossiarch Bonereapers
- Legion: Null Myriad
Mortal Realm: Shyish
Arkhan the Black, Mortarch of Sacrament (360)
- General
20 x Mortek Guard (260)
- Nadirite Blade and Shield
5 x Kavalos Deathriders (180)
- Nadirite Blade and Shield
3 x Immortis Guard (180)

EDIT:  I wrote a bit about the other two lists, so might as well say my piece with these as well.  Obviously before the Petrifex nerf I would have wanted to run Arkhan with them, and I'm honestly kind of kicking myself that I didn't have this model done for the OBR release.  I started the project more than a year ago, it could have been ready by then, and then I would have had the chance to play Arkhan during a brief period when he wasn't just kind of bad.  Oh, well.  I guess you could still run team up Katakros/Arkhan lists in mortis praetorians, though I was always skeptical of that many points sunk into heroes, and in any event I don't own Katakros and probably won't for a while. 

So anyway, yeah, with the petrifex nerfed, if I'm going to be a filthy casual and run Arkhan at all it might as well be in his persional legion the Null Myriad.  As for the list, after Arkhan and some Morteks and Kavalos to fill battleline there's points left over for exactly one of the OBR's many roughly 200 point special units.  A Liege, Crawler, or Harvester would probably be the best choice, but I went with a unit of Immortis to deploy next to Arkhan in the hopes that they might help him survive the first turn.  Their recent points decrease leaves the list with 20 points spare, but nothing really to spend it on.  I suppose I could pick up the carrion endless spell, but I'm skeptical of casting bound spells with arkhan - they eat into his casting bonus, which is one of the main reasons to field him at all.  So instead the list just sits on the 20 point deficit and hopes to pick up a triumph out of it.  On the other hand, my Liege is more painted than my Immortis squad are, so I might waffle on this one a bit.

...

Grand Host of Nagash  EDIT: Legion of Sacrament

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Allegiance: Legion of Sacrament
Mortal Realm: Shyish
Arkhan the Black Mortarch of Sacrament (360)
- General
- Lore of the Deathmages: Overwhelming Dread
Necromancer (130)
- Artefact: Shroud of Darkness
- Lore of the Deathmages: Fading Vigour
40 x Skeleton Warriors (280)
- Ancient Spears
5 x Dire Wolves (70)
5 x Dire Wolves (70)
Balewind Vortex (40)
Extra Command Point (50)

EDIT:  Obviously Arkhan, like any of the three classic mortarchs, is better off in a Grand Host army, where they don't have to be your general, and originally this post had such a list.  But honestly, I'm so proud of this conversion that I don't care.  He's the centerpiece of my army, he deserves to be the general even if it's a bad idea, and deserves to be leading his own personal legion.  I don't play often enough to care about winning or losing anyway, especially during covid, so yeah, here's a revised list that uses the Sacrament rules and runs a Necromancer on a Balewind and a second unit of 5 dire wolves instead of the original list's wight king and 5 black knights.  I already have the necromancer and balewind painted, and the second squad of dire wolves are closer to completion than any of my black knights, so this is a list that can be finished sooner, too.

...

Tomb Kings (Grand Alliance: Death)

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Allegiance: Grand Alliance Death
Mortal Realm: Shyish
Tomb King on Exalted Chariot (460)
- General
- Command Trait: Master of the Black Arts
- Artefact: Cursed Book
Scarab Prince (80)
40 x Skeleton Legionnaires (320)
- Ancient Spears
3x Skeleton Chariots (140)

I could technically run Arkhan /as/ Arkhan in the tomb king list, since it's a generic Death army, but 'arkhan on chariot' has officially counted as Settra/TKoEC in AoS since the compendium days, and Arkhan doesn't work so great outside of OBR lately, so yeah, exalted chariot it is.  That said, TKoEC doesn't exactly work properly in 2e AoS either, but whatever.  Short of a homebrew TK battletome, which I don't have the energy to write right now, there's no fixing it.  I know Mengel Miniatures put a very nice homebrew tome together, but that was also never updated for 2e AoS, so, shrug.  TK rules are awkward right now, but they've got a bunch of cool unique units so I still like to run them every once in a while.

EDIT:  As an interesting alternative to the above list, I could ditch the prince and the legionnaires to pick up another three chariots plus three necropolis knights, for a weird, fast, high recursion sort of list.  That could be cool, but it would lack objective grabbing ability and board presence, and would feel pretty lopsided.  Plus, while I have the parts to put together my necropolis knight conversions, actually making them would take /ages/, where as the legionnaires can pull double shifts in this and the legions of nagash list, which makes this list a lot more attainable.

...

Maybe I'll throw together a proper project blog to work on one of the above lists.  I haven't messed with that functionality of this site yet, would be a good excuse.

Edited August 3, 2020 by Sception

[Sception]

After a fair bit of fumbling around with the blog interface (is there a way to delete a blog entry?  The best I could find was "unpublishing"), I believe I've successfully managed to start a proper tga hobby blog to chronicle my quest to get an actual army painted for the new prize of my collection to lead.  The second entry includes a pole for whether I'll start with Ossiarchs, Legions, or Tomb Kings, as described above.  I'm really equally split on all three, so a nudge in any direction (or even suggestions for alternative paths) would be quite welcome.