So after the big reveal at that Adepticon Team Tournament, I can finally talk about the secret project that my son Jon and I have been working on the past few months.
Last Year we entered the team tournament with a Dwarf / Nature combination, where the Dwarfs were my Drunk Dwarfs from my WFB days, and Nature had Beer Elementals (water elementals), Hop Elementals (forest Shamblers) and drunk druids. That coupled with my display board that included a keg of cold, home brewed beer on tap. I think we had a decent shot at the best theme award, except we has almost no Mantic models in either army (the forest shambler conversions being the exception I believe).
So when we started talking about what to bring this year, we wanted to make sure we had 100% Mantic models. However in a fit of rebellion, we don't have a single Kings of War model in the army.
I have to give proper credit to my son, it was his idea. Using the Walking Dead miniatures for his undead - because they had so many zombie models. I was going to use Mars Attacks! minis - and finally decided on Night Stalkers (the other option was Goblins, but there ARE goblin models, while there aren't any Night Stalker models (thus giving me a little more freedom)).
So first are some shots of the display board.
Full Display board with army
back story (army lists are on back)
The armies met up at the corner of Kirkman and Renton
Empty display board - could be used for a game of The Walking Dead: All Out War
Mantic store entrance
Mantic Store side
Jon played this undead list
Undead
2 Legions of Zombies (walkers)
1 Regiment of Soul Reaver Infantry (saviors)
1 Vampire Lord w/ Mace of Crushing (Negan)
1 Revenant King w/ War Bow of Kaba (The Governor)
Legion from above
Legion of walkers
separated out so they can be used as regiments, hordes or legions. This one has walker Ronnie in the corner
This one has a guy in a Mantic splat shirt
troop for the back
and another
2nd legion - these are attacking Donna
again, it breaks down to regiments and troops - the Donna side
and the Liam side
from the back. The last two rows of the legion are empty, because the walkers are all crowing in to attack their victims.
The saviors were one of the few actual conversion units - as Jon wanted to have Dwight in it (since he is now so recognizable from the show. He used Derek's body and Ricks head (scarring it appropriately). He also replaced Patrick's baseball bat with the banner.
The survivors became the saviors - all in black jackets with wings painted on them.
of course Negan leads the group as a vampire w/ Mace of Crushing (to represent Lucille)
The governor was a revenant king (with war bow to represent his gun)
and I played the night stalkers. This was a fairly risky choice game play wise, as I playtested these before the Uncharted Empires book came out, and never managed to win a game with them. I like the monsters and heroes too much. At least with a team list the undead make up for the base troops this army lacks. These were less obvious, but I still tried to make it clear once you saw the list which units were wich
Night Stalkers
1 Regiment of Spectres (grunts)
1 Troop of Spectres (grunts)
1 Horde of Fiends (Giant Bugs)
1 Shadow Hulk (Big Stompy Robot)
1 Void Lurker w/healing brew (Flying Saucer)
1 Dread Fiend w/Kevinar's Flying Hammer
Grunts as spectres - because they were a shooting unit and the grunst all had guns
and a troop, with a martian zombie in the front
I wanted to take a quick second to take the blame for the banners. We wanted the units that had them (basically infantry) to all use the same banners to tie the armies together. I created these from a thin sheet of plasticard and a candle (to deform the flat card to simulate wind). I then hand painted the logo - which is supposed to be Mars with Lucille in front.
In my paint scoring sheet - it has a checkmark for 'freehand banners painted to an excellent standard'. While freehand, I do NOT feel these are an 'excellent standard'. I am thinking of revising the sheet to just 'freehand banners / other instances', without the judgement call as to the quality. Leave the quality to the final 4 subjective points
Horde of fiends
The fiends are some of the only actual conversions - I added Science Division troops to them as riders (using hot water to re-position the legs).
Shadow Hulk - aka Big Stompy Robot.
built with both close/combat arms
Void Lurker - a bit flying monster
Dread Fiend. Replaced Sidney Rose with general Zzar
When I was waiting for my new glasses (in about an hour) walking around the Dayton mall, I found a shop that makes custom t-shirts. We had already been looking at doing shirts as a team, and this was quicker than trying to mail order them.
We went in after Christmas and set things up to buy them later, but when I went back they couldn't find the design (and it frustrated the poor girl working there, because she remembered making the design with us a couple of months before.
It didn't take long to recreate it however, and we had a pair of matching shirts with Negan quotes on them.
t-shirt front - I really like how the martian head turned out
and back
Well the army was a big success. We actually went 3-1-0 in the tournament for second place (coming in behind Cory Reynolds and Chris Pelletier (Corey had 1000 pts of elves, every unit of which shot. Yeah stealthy wasn't enough to protect me there)).
We also too Best Themed Team Army, and it wasn't just due to having Mantic models - it was scored (and player voted) the highest out of all 15 teams.
No, we didn't have beer with the army. I'm not sure when/if I'll bring beer again - it simply takes up SO much room in the car (and this year we had 4 people in the car). We are already starting to talk and plan next years team army - but you'll have to wait for then to see what it will be next time.
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