lare2

First time in a long while this weekend I didn't have High Priest on the Relictor... the amount of 1s I rolled for Translocation was far too high. That rubbish cost me a game or two.

I know a sylvaneth player and he is indeed a true gent.

Thanks - it's much appreciated. Worked on them a bit more last night as well so getting a good layer of Zandri down on the parchment. Thanks for the pointers. I really wanted to start giving more focus to faces when I started but with doing everything at once, I don't think I could face (no pun intended) it. I also think I'd prefer to keep the head separate from the bodies to do them. I'm pretty certain that following this I'm just going to go back to a unit at a time and at that point I'm gonna keep the heads separate. You're right though - practise makes perfect and the only way to improve is by actually doing them. And it looks awesome! This is one of the (many!) problems I have painting though - I'd know about it! I watch tutorials and whatnot and I'm always envious of their speed painting and how they skip corners (not painting underneath, for example) but then it comes to me sitting at my table... and I just can't do it for some reason!

It would make me sad, I don't think any change on these is needed... but I can believe it.

Finished off the Rakarth flesh - areas covered were cream fabrics, rope, bone and flesh. Really happy with how they're coming on now. They're really starting to take shape and to begin to look actually painted. Next up I'll be painting all parchment using Zandri Dust but soon I'll be on the metals. This will be pretty much the final step in the base colours and I'm super excited to see how they'll all look with everything coloured in. I'm taking forever and a day to do this though so I got a little inpatient with them and I've started ripping some models off their perches to actually get games in between painting sessions. The Longstrike are just oppressive. I really hope they don't get hit with a nerf bat before the army's complete! On that note, I've had a number of games now with the new book and I really don't think this army will be fantastic... you can be sure that I'll still be running it though at tournies when it is done! I do love a good tourney. At one in Scotland this weekend. I'll be the one running a 1st edition SCE army - feel free to say hello if you're there! The worst step about this phase was definitely the faces on the few models I've left without a helmet. I really struggle with faces, like most. You can see below the technique I've kinda settled on. Essentially, I just smack on a blob of white over the eyes and then I get out my 000 Winsor and Newton and carefully colour around the actual eye. A note on brushes, this is pretty much one of the few jobs I use my Winsor and Newton for... most of the time I just use Hornby brushes, which I think are a pretty decent medium ground between quality and expense. I've used expensive brushes and I've used cheap brushes. I've bought Winsor and Newton which die on me after a couple of sessions and cheapo ones which have been work-horses. I really do find that the Hornby brushes are pretty good though and they're cheap enough that I'm really not too bothered about replacing them every 6 months or so. Anyway, back to faces. Once this is done, I then just wash and layer the flesh as normal. You can't really see in the 2nd pic of the face below but the eye is left pretty white and if I'm feeling confident, I'll then get out my fine tipped black pen to carefully place a pupil. It's been a long old while since I've attempted to paint on a pupil and I honestly swear by a fine tipped pen for jobs like this. Once the model's varnished and whatnot, you really can't tell the difference. Anywho, I hope you're all well and I wish you the very best for the rest of the week!

Ta

Do you know what beat him, by chance?

Too rich for my blood. Be a long old while of saving before I'll have a dragon army. Hey ho... Best get saving!

Dragons are up - they're lush. If I wasn't so poor I'd definitely be preordering. Karzai and 3 boxes of mini dragons would do me lovely. Hey ho. Best get saving!

Using proxies i assume?

Good luck! Let us know how you get on.

You and me both. I played around with this list for a bit and in previous games, not having feet on the ground really hurts. I like 3 basic battleline here: 1 to protect the castle and 2 to protect a wing each and to hunt objectives. I was just never really happy with the chaff SCE could offer. Aetherwings could work in this role as well but I'm happy to pay the 10pts extra for skinks. Depends who I'm up against. There's only so much you can keep up in space. The grandhammers have to go up and if someone can threaten my castle 1st turn, I'm more concerned about the Longstrike. There aren't many armies that have that kinda reach in the 1st turn though. Lumineth, definitely. It's a great combo. Along with the Relictor's damage spell and the imperator's shooting, they're a great way to cause chip damage and to deter if anything gets too close to your castle. Nope. They can only go in the generic ones. I ran them in Warlord with all my heroes. The grandhammers went on hunters and the rest went in redemption. Having low drops is a trap. I want to be able to counter deploy - see where my targets are and deploy accordingly. Worst thing in my mind for this list is Tooth and Nail. That mission right there... it'd really do it over.

They're great. I try to bring them down so that they'd be able to charge the Longstrike's target, in case they fail. The Longstrikenever did though so it's good to make sure they can also charge something else. They come down 1 unit per turn. The fear of them coming in really messes up the enemy's movement for the 1st 3 turns. My biggest concern is the 1st turn drop though as there's a potential that they might only be able to target chaff. Hasn't happened to me yet though. With the Longstrike being at the back with the heroes and Vindictors, deleting things, they have to come and try to deal with you. As they come though, they're just getting massive chunky hammers dropped on them. Yep, pretty much. I'm actually not that big of a fan of our standard battleline. 5 of anything will die... it may as well be skinks. They did the job great, zoning out my flanks and rear. They were generally ignored and zoomed in, in the later game to claim objectives. Worked great. Teleported them 1st turn to the far corner. This covered a lot of his army. I did run TV - it's super powerful. The combination of Aetherwings and TV were what popped the VLoZD 1st turn. My Longstrike never leave home without them. Plus, everyone seems to forget the birds are there. Even I did when the Longstrike's gaze turned elsewhere. Remembered late on though and Translocated the Relictor to them late game to score that Battle Tactic (forget its name - 2 units in enemy turf).

Good game last night against my bogey opponent, Soulblight. Got the win and happy with how my list is developing. It's pretty much everything I wanted when moving over to SCE - an elite force which just smashes face, fits comfortably into 1 box, and (importantly) doesn't destroy my back when playing. 6 Longstrike are just oppressive though - point and click every turn. 1st turn, wiped out a VLoZD with mystic shield and amulet, 2nd turn Radukar, 3rd Mannfred. I try building lists without them but always seem to rotate back round to them. List below: Knights Excelsior Battalions: Warlord, Redemption, Hunters Knight Incantor - Lightning Blast Lord Imperatant - Arcane Tome, Chain Lightning Lord Relictor - High Priest, Translocation Vindictors x5 (ordinarily these would be libs but I couldn't be bothered to dig them out) Skinks 2x10 Grandhammers 3x3 Aetherwings x3 Longstrike x6

You're an absolute hero. Thank you very much for this. Found it in the GH.