Waking Dead

I’m trying something a little different here on Waking Dead, largely because I haven’t updated for so long, and largely because I’m getting busy with miniatures again. I’m going to update at the end of every week (usually Fridays but today is early because I won’t be here tomorrow) with a picture and brief description of what I’ve been up to that week. The title is shamelessly stolen from Beasts of War, but the intent is a little different. Without further ado, here’s the first On the Table…

This week I’ve been assembling Hordes miniatures from Privateer Press in preparation for the release of Hordes MkII in July. In the image you can see a unit of 6 Legion of Everblight Striders and a Strider Deathstalker solo on the left, and a unit of 6 Skorne Praetorian Swordsmen and Master Tormentor Morghoul on the right. Slightly difficult to see is a unit of 4 Skorne Paingiver Beast Handlers in the background.

The Striders are an interesting proposition. I bought them because I really liked the models, but I know that Archers or Swordsmen would have been a better pick for expanding the starter set. Saying that I’ve yet to play with them, but I’m not expecting my initial lists to be optimal. These guys are probably going to get painted up in standard Legion colours, and with a similar style of snow base to my Khador force.

My Skorne on the other hand are a bit closer to optimal. I’ve read a lot on the awesome BattleCollege about Skorne and how to expand the starter set, and Paingivers generally come first followed closely by Swordsmen. Of course none of this means I’m guaranteed the win, but it does at least give me a good starting point to learn the system. I’ll be painting these in slightly more muted colours than standard Skorne, but they’ll still feature the usual red and gold.

You might also notice in the background a couple of unopened boxes; these are two starter sets for Infinity, the sci-fi skirmish game from Corvus Belli. I picked up the Human Sphere expansion book from Maelstrom Games last time I was down, and I figured what the hell, might as well grab some miniatures while I’m at it! I opted for two of the new sectorial forces, namely the Japanese Sectorial Army for Yu Jing and the Hassassin Bahram for Haqqislam. I’ve yet to play a game of Infinity – and to be honest with all the Warmachine and Hordes MkII goodness at the moment it might take a while – but I’ve read the main rulebook twice now and it looks like a fascinating game. Not sure when you’ll see the miniatures themselves on the table, but I might assemble them in the next couple of weeks just to see what they look like.

That’s it for this week; next week I’m hoping to assemble a few more units for Hordes, and also do an audit of my 2,000 point Chaos Space Marines force for Warhammer 40,000. Mike is running a Planetary Empires campaign when we come back from GenCon, and although I’ve got another few months to sort it out, I’d like to get a head start on the list. So far I need to buy another set of ten Death Guard upgrades from Forge World and assemble another two Khorne Berserkers. Other than that it’s just a matter of painting the new units, and finishing off the existing ones. All the rest are at least base-coated, but I’d like them washed and highlighted before the campaign starts.

See you in a week, game fans!