Thornwood Thursday - Journeyman Gators

As tau4eva mentioned in the previous post, GS is wrapping up a Journeyman league. I took the opportunity to start work on my new army- Blindwater Congregation a.k.a. Cajun wrasslin' gatormen!
I chose the Gatormen because I thought they would be super fun to paint. It's a pretty limited army in terms of model selection, mostly since they're just one half of the Minions army. (The other half are farrow, or pig-men basically.) Some of the infantry models, such as Gatorman Posse and Bog Trogs, are definitely showing their age. But the newer stuff such as the casters and beasts, all look amazing. I wanted to take the opportunity to really go overboard with basing, something I usually keep somewhat simple. On to the results:

This unit is blue themed. The second unit will have orange. Brownie points if you can guess why.

The first thing I painted was a Gatorman Posse unit. These dudes are rightfully seen as one of the best infantry units in the game. Many Blindwater army builds basically come down to cramming as many of these units in as you can. (I have a second unit to paint, and am considering getting a third.) Bonus, I can take them in Trollblood armies. Nothing too fancy with the painting here. They're an infantry unit, and I try not to let myself get too bogged down in painting those. Also they are pretty old sculpts so not much detail on them in the first place.

Next up I did a light beast, the Bull Snapper.

Dude looks really happy here.

This is a classic utility beast. Only costs three points, and won't see much use (if any) as a combat piece. But his animus, Spiny Growth, is amazing. It gives a model +2 ARM and, if hit by a beast/jack, the beast/jack takes d3 damage.

Next, I painted up my Blackhide Wrastler. Wrastlers are pretty much just like they sound. Cool melee beasts with rules for fighting on the ground. They're great in pairs- have one throw the other, then the gator cannonball can use its animus to stand up and start kicking ass.

This guy was painted for a competition at Gamers Sanctuary. Unfortunately I forgot to take pics of him before I dropped him off, so apologies for the less than stellar picture. I'm pretty stoked on he came out, especially the layering on the chest area. It's most obscured by the angle, but when I get better pics I will post them up here. Really proud of this dude!

Why yes, that in fact is a luchadore mask. So cool.

My last beast in the Blindwater battlebox equivalent was the Ironback Spitter:

Insert TMNT2 reference here.

The Ironback is super slow (natch), but has a powerful ranged AOE attack. Some people rag on its rules, but I like the ranged element it brings- especially since it's the only ranged Blindwater can bring outside of caster spells! This dude was inspired by the studio scheme. I really liked the orange look they used.

Last but not least, I painted my battlebox caster, Bloody Barnabas.

No water effects here yet, to be added soon.

I don't normally do blood or gore effects, but he is called Bloody Barnabas.

I really like this glowing effect on the weapon.

Barnabas has been pretty fun to play so far. He has Iron Flesh, and upkeep that makes Gatorman Posse units absolutely bonkers annoying for opponents to deal with. He can cast a Swamp Pit, making gator models inside it untargetable (shut up it's totally a word) by ranged attacks (REALLY COOL). His feat knocks down all non-amphibious models in his Control radius. As always, knockdown effects are super powerful in this game. And of course he's a beast himself in melee.I played what was easily my most epic game of WarmaHordes ever, versus an opponent using the super powerful new collosal, the Galleon. Barnabas won the day after an amazing grindfest, thanks mostly due to Iron Fleshed Gatorman Posse and the Swamp Pit neutering the Galleon's ranged dominance.

So all in all, I am super happy with how much I got done for the league. I look forward to continuing painting this army, especially some new casters and the super legit Gatorman Witch Doctor.

Thanks for checking out my stuff!