WaaaghPaca: Update #3

Right before Christmas I participated in the Battle for the Christmas Ham. A one-day, three round Warhammer tournament in Oakland, CA. The format for this year's Battle was 2000 point armies using the same rules as WaaghPaca, including the Man of Intrigue. This was great because I was going to be able to get three solid games in with my new list, figure out how I liked my magic item choices, and make necessary changes for WaaghPaca. I would also be able to throw my units around to see what kind of damage they could really do.
For this tournament, I was really looking to answer a couple of key questions like:

• Can Dark Elves beat Warriors of Chaos in combat?
• Can my army list move fast enough to kill opposing mages to warrant not taking the Dispel Scroll?
• Is the Kharybdis model any good?
• How awesome are the Doomfire Warlocks, really?

Luckily, I was able to get answers for most of my questions. At the tournament I ended up playing Ogres (with Irongut Star, Mournfang, and Ironblaster), Warriors of Chaos (all Khorne with Skullcrushers, Knights, and Warriors), and Dark Elves (Executioner Horde with Bloodwrack Shrine, large xbow unit, and other monsters).

What I learned from these few games are:

• The new mounted BSB build (Lance, Dark Pegasus, Cloak of Twilight) is awesome for charging and killing monsters but not as good at killing models with 1+ armor saves. Though he can push through a few wounds, so with a flank charge he should win the combat against Mournfang or Skullcrushers. 
• The new hydras are still awesome at killing units. I like the always strength 4 breath weapon as it makes it easier to sacrifice a hydra in combat just to get the breath weapon on the unit. Although I found myself using breath weapon out of combat in two of the games to kill more executioners or warriors. I also never managed to regenerate a wound in any of my games (I rolled really poorly), but the hydras managed to survive more often than not. 
• The Kharybdis is utter crap as a unit where you put all your hopes and dreams into its destructive power. It died every game and only managed to kill a sabertusk in 3 games. However, treating it as a sacrifice unit that I knew my opponent would focus on allowed the rest of my army to get into favorable combats. I am keeping him because he keeps the hydras, who do the real damage, alive. Further, for those games against Empire players, he will destroy a steam tank in a single turn as he hits automatically granting him an additional d6 strength 7 hits. 
• Dark Riders are still awesome and I love them.
• The Ring of Hotek is cool, but not on a single mounted character. The few times my opponents did miscast, they lived, and the MR didn't really do much. I found myself in combat much faster with the High Beastmaster and so really just needed the standard 4++ save rather than the MR. I still think it is a good item to put on a cheap master in a horde unit to help keep it alive, but it did not make the cut for WaaaghPaca.
• Doomfire Warlocks are AWESOME! The are the best chaff I have ever played with. Their ability to kill other chaff, their 4++ save, and their ability to cast Soulblight is amazing. I found myself casting Soulblight in all of my games to damaging effect. In one game I double soulblighted a unit of Skullcrushers with characters that I had charged with the Beastmaster, BSB, and two hydras. Not a single enemy model was left and I only suffered two wounds on the hydras. These units are clutch and make the army viable. These guys are the army all-stars. 

I am now totally prepared and looking forward to WaaaghPaca. All I have left to do is paint the army (yikes!). That being said, I have been working furiously on the two units of warlocks. Below is a basic rundown of what's going on with the units.

First, I primed all the models black. I then painted the horse with chaos black to get all the horse a solid color. I then painted the horses with a heavy drybrush of a mix of chaos black and shadow grey to give the horses hair tone a midnight black effect.

Hard to see, but a slight blue effect to the horse.

From there, all of the models were highlighted with an initial highlight of shadow grey on various parts of the horse to accentuate muscle tones, rib lines, etc.

Slight highlighting

Next step was to base coat the armor piece of the horse. For the armor, I am going to go with a bright color to offset the plans for the horse and rider. A base coat of khorne red is painted thickly.

Lots of red as the main model accent color.

While that was drying, I wanted to begin painting the symbols carved into the horses' flesh. I am going to end up with a very light Slanesshi color. But first, I need a base color to work with and GW dark purple it is! This was painted directly into the cuts and slightly around the symbols.

Symbol work, and a close up of the horse highlights

Next time, more work on the guys. I really need to get them done by the end of this weekend so I can work on the other models I still have to paint and finish: all the big monsters.