US Master's Final Preparation

Well, the US Masters tournament is this weekend. Shall we see what I've done to prep for it?

For this event, I painted somewhere between 700 and 800 points of new stuff, all of it on the tile below this.

Going clockwise from 12 o'clock, a lone troll, five wolf riders with a standard, an orc boss on boar, five more wolf riders with a standard, a bock lobba, and three spear chukkas. In the middle, four River Trolls.

The three Spear Chukkas. I added these to my list because I felt I needed some shooting that could do damage to a Daemon Prince, Phoenix, or Dragon. I've never been a shooty-army fan, so it'll be interesting to see how these guys do. One model is a real Spear Chukka, the others are random parts that have been sitting in my Bits Box for probably a decade.

The five trolls. The River Trolls are from Mierce, while the lone turquoise one in the back is from Privateer Press.

Another shot of the River Trolls. Painting these guys was great, but I've already talked about it, so I won't bore you with it again.

The Orc Boss on boar. A lot of guys in the review were confused what his role is. Some thought I'd stick him in with the Wolf Riders, but that's pointless. Master's guys: if you're reading this post, good for you! You get a tactical advantage: he joins the River Trolls. The Dragonhelm means whatever unit you're putting on them to stop their Regenerate is going to be frustrated when he challenges the character in it, and help me soak those low-dice Ruby Ring casts. In addition, it allows me to do a very effective deny-flank deployment: If I set the block of River Trolls on one flank, a lot of guys are going to assume the general will go on that flank to keep them in his Leadership bubble. With this guy, I don't have to do that; I can add him to the unit and keep the unit passing their Stupidity tests.

The lone troll and five Wolf Riders. The Wolf Riders are from Mantic, and I got so bored with the sculpts that I didn't even finish their shields. They're in the list to help with Fortitude, harass flanks, give me two extra deployment drops, and possibly hunt a war machine or two. Of course, I think I have more war machines than all but a few of the lists, so who know how that will work out?

The other Wolf Rider unit. Same story.

For the really fun part: charge and flee markers, a turn counter, wound counters, and spell tokens. All of these just add fun little flavor to the army.

Now, for my captive audience: how much of the Masters do you want to see? Do you just want a summary of how I got my butt kicked and photos of the armies? Do you want detailed battle reports? Somewhat drunken rantings of how bad it all went? Let me know, and I'll do what I can to accommodate you! It happens this weekend!