First Warpath Demo Army

In some circles I've come to be known as the "Kings of War guy".  This probably has to do with me running my learn to play sessions at Origins and Gencon for the past three years.

I do play some other games.  Or at least I try to be prepared to demo them when necessary.

Maybe because it is the mass battle aspect, or maybe it is because I never played 40K, but I've gravitated more to full Warpath than Firefight.  And I have my first painted warpath demo army (1000 pts) - Asterians

Why did I start with Asterians?  Well I really like the design of the vehicles - which of course are at minimum MONTHS away from arriving.  Plus for the demos that the Ohio War Kings are running at both Origins and Gencon (I'm not, but my buddy Keith is) this was the army that Keith was not able to get to in time, so I volunteered to paint it up.

Shot of entire army

The list is fairly straightforward.  I didn't take any magical artifacts because I don't like to demo with them, and I guess they actually aren't available in a science fiction setting (it does feel a little weird that there are no completely universal 'upgrades' or items available for all armies, but that is my Kings of War background talking.

• 2 Units of Marionettes - both identically set up
• Marionette Team
• Sniper Equipment upgrade
• Weapon Drone Support upgrade
• Unit of Cypher Rifles Unit
• Cypher Rifle Team
• Cypher Rifle Team
• Sky Razor Unit
• Sky Razor Team
• Kalyshi Unit
• Kalyshi Team
• Shield Drone
• Weapon Drone
• Heavy Fission beamer
• Weapon Drone
• Plasma Vortex

Two goals for any demo army I build are to be able to show how the army works in a demo setting, as well as to show off the models (as well as I can at least).  So I tend to go for a large variety of models.

Marionettes are the 'core' of the army - they are the cheapest and the least effective troops.  Of all the upgrades, I like the Weapons drone to give them 6 more shooting dice (and Suppressive Fire(1)) for a total of 14.  With only Acc of 4+ (which, for Asterians, is not great) having more dice helps.

I decided to take to small units simply to get 2 of the cheap weapons drones.

Marionette Team w/ Weapon Drone & Sniper

Marionette Team w/ Weapon Drone & Sniper

Cyphers are the better, more elite robots.  They only have three models per team, so I put two teams into the unit (so they have 12 shots).  These have Acc 2+, so should be hitting whatever they aim at. Plus each team adds a command dice (and thus can also give orders).

2 Cypher Rifle Teams

The Sky Razors are fliers, so are fast and mobile.  Not very strong - but should be good for snagging objectives.

Sky Razor Team

The Kalyshi are more combat oriented and don't have shields, however they do have the Reckless Advance and Camouflage rules, so can move in and out of terrain to help them get into combat.  (However so far in all the small test games I've tried, they have yet to make it into combat).

Kalyshi Team

A shield Drone had Shield Projection(5) - so it can block up to 5 hits of AP 4 or less within 12".  This is nice to protect the forces, and since shields stack, you can choose which to apply first (so it can help to keep the lower shields from being burned out.

Shield Drone

Heavy firepower comes in the form of drones - so of course an anti-tank drone is necessary

Weapon Drone w/ Heavy Fission beamer

The other is more of an anti-personnel unit.

Weapons drone w/ Plasma Vortex

back / sides of drones

A quick check on the beta Firefight army builder shows that I can basically take this same army minus the Kalyshi for Firefight - though I'm not sure if I'll want to demo firefight at 1000 points or not.

It will be interesting to see how it fares at the Origins and Gencon demos.

Because it is all fun and games . . .