I actually got to play Hordes with my Gators this week. Not only that I got to play 3 games with them, it being Journeyman week 1 and all.
After getting put on the shelf last time the group did a Journeyman league, I finally got the Gators back to the table. Week 1 is just the battle box so out came Barnabas, Ironback Spitter and Blackhide Wrastler. I’m not too bad with the Hordes fury mechanic, I played Legion for a bit, but this group has some interesting order of activation issues that I had to figure out.
In my first game, I played against Bill(the famous Sevwal on the forums) so he knew my army better than I did. He was playing the other half of minions, the Farrow. He was using a modified battle box, replacing the 2 gun boars with a Road Hog since it was too mean to make him buy, let alone use 2 gun boars. He out threated me by quite a bit and my wrastler got taken down. I could have stayed cagey, but that wouldn’t win me anything, so up went Barnabas with Iron Flesh on himself, bumping him to DEF 16. He luckily survived the onslaught and proceeded to do some damage to Bill’s beasts. Barnabas survived again, this time with Carver joining in. Popped feat and took him down. Bill could probably have stalled a while longer but I’ll take it!
In my second game I played Andrew with his Circle. I moved up in my mobile swamp and his Argus sprayed the other one to hit me. Barnabas charged up and popped feat but failed to hurt the Warpwolf much and his other beasts went down. The Warpwolf knocked me down and Kaya came in for the kill. I could have done the same damage without Barnabas going so far up. Iron flesh wasn’t helpful enough.
In my last game I played Seth with his Trolls. We were at a little bit of a standoff with him being unable to shoot me in my swamp and me being unable to charge him and sure foot stopping my feat. I put my spitter up and he came in with an impaler and and Axer with an angle on Barnabas. In response, the feat and beasts took out both his models and it was just a matter of chasing him down. There was one point where Madrak hit Barnabas with his axe, hoping for grievous wounds on a crit but he would have had to roll really well to kill him with that one shot.
Playing battle box games was a blast but playing them with experienced players is different than it was back in the day. They are quick, brutal and decisive. Still fun but they don’t feel like as much of a game as I remember.
With the gators, the biggest thing I was learning was how to activate. Barnabas has to throw down his swamp where there aren’t any models, so you can’t just plop it down by your models. You have to put it down where you can charge into it and still leave room for your 2 large based beasts. You also can’t have Iron Flesh on you if you want to be able to get the charge into the pit. This is all while juggling fury. It’s very interesting.
We have this week off for Thanksgiving. But after that we go up to 25 points. I’ll either add a Bull Snapper and Swamp Gobbers or 2 Croak Hunters. The Totem Hunter could be cool too. I’ll probably add the Snapper though for the armor buff. After that I think it will be battle box + Snapper, Full Gatorman Posse and 1 Croak Hunter.
On the painting front, I’ve got everything for the next few weeks primed. Battle Box, 1 Gator Unit, 1 Croak Hunter, 1 Bull Snapper, 1 Swamp Horror. I also own another unit, Calaban, Maelok, 2 Witch Doctors. I’ll probably be picking up the other things I’m missing soon as well.
I decided how to paint the non-gators. I really like the Orange look of the studio Spitter and thought that it would look good on the Croak as well but not the Swamp Horror. Since I’d like to have them all be the same to get them up quickly, I decided to go with purple similar to the studio Horror. I will, of course, post pictures and tutorials as they get finished.
Eclectic Gamer 