Greetings! Another studio paint job from House Goritsi to show you today.

We have “Ironeyes” Irene von Goritsi herself. Irene is a Kickstarter exclusive sculpt. She is of the Goritsi line, but can be played as a mercenary for other factions.

Wishing everyone a great weekend!

–Jen Haley

We’re starting off this week with some new images for House Goritsi. First up is the Ravenscar Mercs leader, painted by Elizabeth Beckley.

And here’s a shot of the plastic version of the Herald of Blood.

We’ll have some more photos for you later this week!

For your viewing pleasure this week, we have photos of the three Teknes alternate sculpt Union Workers, painted up for us by Caleb Wissenback. Eye patches are quite the fad amongst the Workers this season.

Union Worker 4

Union Worker 5

Union Worker 6

And here’s a look at the plastic for Lineman Boris, the Many-Bladed. This is a randomly chosen production sample, with no cleanup, assembled with tacky putty.

Lineman Boris

I think Elizabeth and I may be arguing over who gets to paint this one.

Boris…now in Technicolor!

Greetings all, Jen Haley here. I finally have been given the Power of Updating! Muahahaha…watch out, Mr. Black!

Today we have photos of the Nasier Ashmen alternate sculpts, painted by Elizabeth Beckley.  These guys add a nice bit of variety to the unit. I like the one with his hood thrown back to show the skin tone of the Empowered mask wearer.

We also have some photos of the Shael Han FuLung Devourer assembled with the alternate parts (different tail, rider, and ‘whiskers’). This is a randomly chosen production plastic, held together with tacky putty. Some of the mold lines look a bit harsh, but the ridges are paper-thin and very trimmable, with no mold offset as in many resin and metal figures. The studio model of the original Devourer which I painted was a PVC/styrene model just like this, and you can see from its photos on the home page how clean it looked after priming and painting.

He is on an 80mm base, and I’ve included a photo with a ruler for scale. This is a big boy!

And here is a photo of the Shael Han Iron Lotus unit, with all three figures together. Natalya Melnik (AlexiZ) currently is painting these up for us, and I’m looking forward to getting some studio photos of them for you.

More photos of painted models, plus shots of plastic models we haven’t had a chance to show you yet, coming soon!

–Jen Haley

Backers! Mr. Black here with another fun Friday filled with some Wrath of Kings spoilers!

I have three to bring you today. You know the drill, so let’s get right down to it:

So what are “Mercenaries”? Well they’re the models that are not aligned with any one nation, and will fight for whichever side pays them- basically they’re a super cool Character anyone can field.

Currently we have three of them:

Ironeyes, the main focal point of the first Wrath of Kings novel! This deadly lady is an assassin extreme, reflecting in her rules by her Backstab, Precision(3), and From the Shadows abilities. Of course she is nimble as well, and reflects this via the use of Hit and Run… And of course she is “Ironeyes” after all, so what sense would it be if she couldn’t stare-down any threat that approached her? To show this we’ve also given herStrong Will.

It’s important to note that Ironeyes is not a butcher’s cleaver, no no. You’ll need to treat her more like a surgeon’s scalpel to use her effectively- Wait for your forced to get into position, secure the kill of an enemy model, and let Ironeyes pop out (hopefully to later activate and then go kill an enemy Leader or other high-priority target). She’s nice, but she’s also expensive, being a Rank 2 Specialist- Don’t rush her into combats, least you know she can secure the kill and get out, otherwise you’ll be wasting the gifts of this nasty assassin!

Next up…

Dame Allison, the Twilight Knight

Our cross-over miniature from the guys over at Kingdom Death (specifically Monster), we see that Dame Allison doesn’t much care for the big scary guys- Suppose that’s to be expected, she is from the world of Monster, after all, where all the terrifying creatures of nightmare not only exist, but regularly hunt the remnants of mankind.

Few can stand against such horrors, but Dame Allison was one of them, and now, shipwrecked and stranded in Arikania, she has put her skills to good use via monster-hunting. Her weapon, the legendary Quicksilver Blade, focuses her fury and grants her additional attack dice against models that are larger than her. Couple this with her unique Slayer of Monsters ability and we have a Rank 2 Specialist that seems to exist to… Well hunt Rank 2 Specialists (namely the Monsters of the various armies).

The last item in her armory is the unique Armor of Twilight, another gift from her homeland across the sea. Using this legendary shroud Dame Allison is able to nimbly dodge most incoming attacks- so well, in fact, that any Dodge result against her allows her to perform a free Sprint Action, ignoring disengage penalties along the way, thus keeping her mobile.

Remember her specialty and don’t waste her against the normal rank-and-file troops of the enemy- this girl was made to kill the stuff that instills fear into others, that’s where she thrives, and that’s where she should be!

Last, but certainly not least… A special surprise…

 So we told you up front that The Ancient King would not have any rules, but you’d get a card for him anyway… And I was happy to keep it like that. I mean, we’re talking about the being who shaped the world into the state it is today… Single-handedly.

But you guys requested it, kept asking for us to stat him out… I said over and over it was a bad idea, but alas, I’ll always try to give you guys what you want!

So, let’s take a look at the non-sense that is the Ancient King’s stats.

First, he has no Strike results and no Over results, because you can’t touch the Ancient King.

Next, he has Resilience: 20… If you were to somehow penetrate that then he still has 20 Wounds.

Movement 10, because he is very spry.

Willpower 20, because you really think your head-games are going to effect the Ancient King? Seriously?

Looking at his attacks, he has two forms of “I’m Better Than You”, the first being his melee attack, Strike of the True King. It kills a wave of guys instantly… Because again, this is the guy who single-handedly shaped the world to his will. His next attack is Wrath of the True King, because he shouldn’t be forced to engage you in melee to outright kill you.

Next, let’s check out his abilities:

Awe of the True King makes it so no enemy can actually target him with an attack or ability, because they know immediately that it’s a complete waste of their time and power. And even if they did attack him (Those poor fools…) then you really think it would have an effect? This is the TRUE KING OF ARIKANIA we’re talking about!

Ironically, that’s also the name of his last ability- it causes each opponent to lose 20 morale a turn- because I want you to imagine you’re an army commander, standing in front of your troops… You look across the battle-lines at the enemy and see, oh snap, it’s the Ancient King himself standing there… Well, pack everything up and go home, we ain’t winning this war today! Nope, nope, nope!

Of course, to field the Ancient King all you have to do is pay his cost of being a Rank 20 Specialist. 

… If you guys haven’t figured it out yet, we don’t intend for you to actually field this guy in games

Well, that’s our update for this week, dear backers!

Join is next time when we’ll be showing off one of the remaining Third Infantry Types!

… Hmm, I don’t know if I’d rather show some Goritsi Ravenscar fun, or the lovely Shael Han ladies of the Iron Lotus School… Which would you guys prefer?

-Mr. Black

Hello backers! Mr. Black here, and this time I’m bringing you a fishy update today…

Ok, we used up all the water and fish puns last time, and frankly I’m not a very punny person, so let’s just get on with the update and show off some cool stuff:

First up we have the full gambit of pictures showcasing the lovely Carcharian models, plus some added fun in Ephrimaki and Ilva.

Behold! The Carcharian Frenzies! The astute reader out there might notice we did a slight name change on these guys (formally Deepmen Frenzies). Well we did that to avoid confusion on the tabletop as these guys very specifically do not have the Deepman trait. Wanted it to be nice and clear, hence the change!

 The mighty Frenzy Charger!

 Gar, the Gladiator! Scion of the Voice!

Ephrimaki! The Deepcaller Lord!

Ilva, the Syren of Sysor Strait!

Pretty cool, huh? I’m a huge Hadross fan (as not to say I’m not a huge fan of all factions!) and the Sharks here are just some of the coolest models I have seen in my time. Ephrimaki and ilva came out great as well, and can be used as super distinct centerpieces to any army.

But this update way only halfway about awesome sculpts, dear backers, we’re also here to look at the stats of some of the above fishies and give a brief overview of their role in the Hadrossian Military! So without further adieu, let’s get on with the show!

Rank 2 infantry, two wounds, five Mobility, five Willpower, no Over results- Those are the important details looking at the front of the Frenzies’ card. What does this all mean? Well Hadross likes to outlast their opponent; in the Deepmen this is represented by Defensive Expertise, in the Sevridan its shown via a Resilience of 2, and here we have it in the fact the Frenzies have 2 wounds and heal themselves when they kill a model (CHOMP!).

No Over result means that opponents cant hope for a lucky 10 to remove one of these guys from the table- nope, they’ll have to handle them the old fashioned way… Which is a pretty terrifying place to me. I mean, I wouldn’t want to have to tackle a shark (especially the front!) and wrangle it down that way, and that’s pretty much what an opponent has to do to get rid of these guys!

Looking on the back we see that, arguably, the Carcharian are the most offensive oriented of the Hadross units, boasting two attack dice base with the ability to increase that to a staggering three dice against models with Resonate. And if they’re damaged? Well then they can fall back on their Feeding Frenzy attack to heal themselves up! Resiliency through killing, I love it!

Speaking of Resonate, however, we see they also carry two interesting abilities:Scent of Prey and Whispers of the Voice. These abilities work in conjunction to not only allow the Carcharians to Mark enemies with Resonate (OM NOM NOM NOM!) but also grants them a mobility boost in the process. It’s only reliable 50% of the time, however, as it requires a successful Will Check upon activation (so don’t grow overly reliant on it!) but the benefits are fantastic… Again just don’t come to rely on it always going off, least you find yourself dead in the water when you need it most (Well… I made it about halfway through without a water pun… Not bad!)

So looking at the Charger, we see he’s similar to the Frenzies. His stat-line is similar, his stats are similar, just a slight Leader boost… Except Mobility, which is explained via his abilities (which we’ll get too).

Attacks? Bloodtide is just like Blood in the Water, with the added bonus of 2 inch reach. Feeding Frenzy is the same as it is on the Frenzies. So what makes this guy unique? Well its in his Resonating Fury ability, as well as his Inspire/Training!

Looking at Resonating Fury, we see a similar version of the Frenzy’s ability, except he just radiates it off of a passed Will Check. He won’t be marking as many as the Frenzies (possibly) but the added bonus he gives is pretty cool on its own, and that bonus is his Inspire.

basically, it makes it so the Carcharian’s Feeding Frenzy becomes a mini AoE effect, targeting all enemies within 1 inch with Resonate, rather than just 1. More attacks = more killing = more NOMs = more healing. Once again we see the basic anti-Hadross tactic of “Don’t get marked, least ye wind up in the bellow of sharks”.

The training here is fun as well, giving the entire Hadross army a boost in mobility (which some would call much needed!). We understand Hadross is a slow faction- that’s their thing, slow and steady bash your face in… or something to that effect anyway, so here we give them a counter to armies that would bog them down with troops- just walk (Slither? Swim?) away. Like most training, its uses are situational, but that’s the benefit of choosing them before each game: having a variety of them allows for greater tactical diversity against many foes.

 Lastly, we’re going to take a look at the Rank 2 Character Leader for the Carcharians: GAR, THE GLADIATOR!

This guy has a special place for me, dear backers, as Gar is just one of my favorite characters from both a rules standpoint as well as a narrative one. He’s likeGladiator mixed with… Well, a shark, and if you don’t think that’s awesome then I just don’t have any words for you.

Stat-wise Gar is ab absolute beast- of course he is, he has had to survive as a Hadrossian gladiator! That instantly makes him like the scariest guy around! Resilience: 2, Wounds: 3- he isn’t going down without a fight. If all that wasn’t enough, let’s take a look at his attacks and abilities:

Tribute to the Voice, Gar’s signature attack. It’s not terrible at 3 dice- able to take a sizable chunk out of most Leaders and hard targets, but what really sells it is it’s ability: Anytime that attack kills an enemy Leader or Specialist, the enemy loses 1 additional morale. Basically Gar is a giant showstopper, boasting to The Voice and offering the Deep Gods tribute anytime he slays something worthy… And in this case the Voice listens, and the enemy knows it.

It’s a bit demoralizing when not only are you fighting your enemy, but you know for a fact their god is on their side!

In addition to this we see that Gar is the Arena Champion, which carries with it its own unique powers and benefits: Anytime Gar is fighting an enemy character (say, most of the Rank 2 Leaders, for example) or a bunch of inferior opponents try to test his might, Gar will let loose the full fury of the Arena, putting all his prowess and fury on display and gaining Offensive Expertise(2)! Not only this, but looking at Gar’s Inspire we see that if the enemy is Resonated then he’ll also throw on some Precision for good measure.

All this cumulates into the fact that Gar is one of the nastiest one-man-wrecking-balls in the entire game! Of course, all this comes at a bit of a trade-off, as he is very greedy in his abilities and selective buffs- Gar is a pit-fighter first and foremost, and while many other Leaders can push their troops to far greater effect than they normally could, Gar is mainly a power unto himself. He trades the tactical ability and support most other leaders offer their troops for his own capabilities and skills.

Well, dear backers, that about sums up our offerings this update. Of course, stay tuned for more in the coming time, as we still have plenty more to show you. All good things come to those who wait, and you never know just what we’ll reveal to you next time!

Until then!

-Mr. Black