Fantasy Preparations

As you know, some of the Northwest Gaming Geeks are planning on doing Fantasy for the Seattle GT this year. While I originally planned to take my Orcs and Gobbos, I painted up some Chaos Knights for the Storm of Chaos Battletour and got bitten by the Chaos bug. When I got started on Chaos, I wanted to play Slaanesh, because s/he is rarely played, at least in 40k, and I had some cool conversions in mind. As I've detailed before, however, I kept hearing the whisper of the Lord of Change in my ear. Every step of the way, something drew me toward Tzeentch. Finally I gave in and started a Tzeentchian army. Once that was settled, I started thinking more about composition. Movement is huge in Fantasy and I was captivated by the idea of an entirely fast army. While I could build an army of just Knights, they would be very limited and probably wouldn't win much. While winning isn't everything, I do want to win, at least some of the time, even though I'm a newbie to Fantasy. With that in mind, I went looking for good support units, but they still had to be fast to fit in with the rest of the army. Now that I've got the main list all planned out, I'm rarin' to go!

This is the army I'm currently planning on taking. While there may still be a few changes here and there, overall I'm satisfied with the composition, so they'll only be minor adjustments.

663 3x Exalted Champion on Disk w/Great Weapon, shield, Mark of Tzeentch
340 6x Chosen Knights of Tzeentch w/Full Command
268 6x Knights of Tzeentch w/Full Command
237 3x Dragon Ogres Great Weapon, Light Armor
96 6x Marauder Horsemen Flails, Musician
96 6x Marauder Horsemen Flails, Musician
30 5x War Hounds
30 5x War Hounds
105 7x Furies
132 4x Screamers
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1997pts. 10 Powerdice, 5 Dispel Dice. 51 models, the slowest is M7 and can march.

capabilities of each unit

I plan to use a Denied Flank setup so that I can get to grips with part of the enemy army at a time. I'll be putting the hounds closest to the center to provide some screening. The Chosen Knights and regular Knights are next, followed by the Dragon Ogres and a set of Marauder horsemen against the board edge. The Champions will be put between the heavier units and the flying daemons and the other set of Marauder Horsemen will form a second line. The idea is to use the Hounds to screen and the flying daemons to hit enemy warmachines. Meanwhile, the units of Knights and the Dragon Ogres will smash into enemy units with the Champions hitting the flanks or rear of the same enemy units. Finally, the Marauder Horsemen will attempt to disrupt enemy flankers and secondarily add flank charges against units engaged by the heavy hitters. If I run into large, unbreakable units, the plan is to combine 2 or even all three of the heavy hitters and add all 3 Champions to all concentrate on a single unit, attempting to grind it to a pulp quickly. With the potential for what, about 32 S5 attacks, 9 S7 attacks plus some attacks from horses, most units should go down pretty quick.

Work left to do on each. 3x Exalted Champion on Disk: no models yet.
6x Chosen Knights of Tzeentch: Painting is done, still need Mark, Chosen status, Musician
6x Knights of Tzeentch: Painting is done, still need Mark, Musician
3x Dragon Ogres: no models yet.
6x Marauder Horsemen: unassembled
6x Marauder Horsemen: unassembled
5x War Hounds: not based, may need to touch up paint.
5x War Hounds: not based, may need to touch up paint.
7x Furies: partially assembled
4x Screamers: unassembled
10xHorror: unassembled

Where did the Horrors come from? The Tzeentch lore of magic has a spell that hits every model in an enemy unit with a S2 attack. Any dead turn into Horrors of Tzeentch and immediately start fighting their own unit, as long as I have the models to do so. So, I'd better get some Horrors painted up as well.

I'm still toying around with the idea of adjusting the daemons and Marauder Horsemen slightly, but that shouldn't be a big deal. On the other hand, since I don't even have the models yet for the Dragon Ogres, if I'm short on time, I may decide to put in another unit of Knights of Tzeentch (already painted) and pull out the Dragon Ogres and a unit of hounds or a couple of daemons to make up the point difference. Also, although they would be very handy, I can, in a pinch, drop the Horrors or add more as the GT approaches.

I am planning to tackle these projects in two ways. The first way is the 5 minute plan. The idea is that it's always possible to find 5 minutes in a day. In five minutes you can assemble a few models or a small unit. In another five minutes you can prime them. While it won't take only five minutes to paint one, you could get a base coat on a couple of them in five minutes. I've gotten fairly good results out of this method previously, but I think I can get better results by doing a unit at a time. Friends of mine swear by this idea, since it gives you little successes which will keep you more motivated to keep working. As an added backup, my friend Janice has offered to assist me with painting the army in a big day or two sometime in February, in return for my assistance with her Dark Eldar army. I've got my work cut out for me, but I've got a plan to do it and I think it will be done in plenty of time. In the next edition of this, you can expect to see pics of my progress or lack thereof.

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