Fourth edition is going well. Rules wise I’m enjoying each game and whilst there have certainly been some interesting changes the whole experience still feels very Kings. As that familiarity with the rules grows, I’m starting to find some direction with my armies.
Basilea has been pretty straight forward, and I feel like I’m now playing the sort of army I wanted to play in third edition (and really enjoying it). So, for the time being they are going to be my faction of choice for tournaments, and they’ll get a lovely base upgrade for their troubles. Rats and Halflings though have been a bit more challenging. I think this is because their rules were very characterful, and they just haven’t translated across directly in the new army lists.
Halflings have changed massively for me since third edition. In part this is because my army was built around Juggers, the Muster Captain with the strider aura and Gastromancy. Together they created a really effective, but fun, battle group that defined the army and its narrative background.
For my first outing with the Halflings, I took an army that was vaguely reminiscent of that previous list, but it now functions significantly differently. Changes to the EJ Grenadiers to reduce their speed, as well as the changes to characters and Gastromancy made for a very different play experience, however, there was a very recognisable vibe about the army. For that first game I decided to give Aaron a try, and whilst I’m still in two minds about how to build an army around him, there’s something suitably Halflingy about him that means I will definitely be returning to him once I get my first army fully built, especially if Mantic can make a suitably nice model for him.
The first two observations I have about the little folk is that they feel slower, and that Gastromancy functions differently (it’s really all about Mama Beata and brutal). This has definitely left me questioning as to whether leaning more into Tinker Tech is a more interesting route, but for the time being I’m going to stick with the special saucery and the broader commands.
Despite having eight commands (five general and three gastromancy) the general commands largely work on five ups. I find these pretty unreliable and as a result I’m not going to try and build an army around them. What’s more, because Iron Beasts are so damn good it’s hard to get overly excited about the characters. For this reason, I decided to go for a Muster Captain on a winged Aralez as the warlord, purely to get some movement 10 into the army and have a unit that is reasonably self-reliant. Mama Beata has joined the fold because she just about makes taking Gastromancy worth it (a few years of experience with rolling three dice tells me you certainly can’t rely on getting a high score, and a few games in now I’m convinced the most useful thing she’s done is seize an objective so the call of Greedy Guts is getting louder, but for now I’m enjoying rolling dice for her).
The core of my new list is a bunch of the old favourites Juggers (one regiment with the Boots of Striding are still pretty damn good), braves, trolls, EJ Grenadiers and my two beautiful beasts are providing me great value. The big shift is moving towards more shooting.
Shooting is turning out to be really interesting. Intuitively the move to no more death by arrows should make it weaker, but I genuinely think a shift to better shooting in some armies is creating some cool dynamics and making mixed arms forces really viable. Great news, because I’ve always seen Halflings as being a mixed arms army. Iron Beast shooting is brilliant, with an additional hit when rolling sixes the pigs have created some happy moments (especially the one where I was hitting on sixes anyway and then proceeded to roll six of the afore mentioned sixes). The Swamp Belcher makes the perfect support unit for the pigs, as well as being a really fun model. Leaning into shooting has resulted in me taking two rifle regiments, which have already set about proving their worth (which means I now have to paint two regiments of rifles).
The final slot in the army is taken up by the EJ Drakon Rider, and I’m genuinely hitting a bit of a weird place with him. I absolutely love his model (incidentally he comes with rider options, you can choose between a fish and a sword, and I’m convinced that it’s some kind of a personality test). His stat line is really interesting, certainly not compelling, but what’s struck me most is how useful he’s been without seemingly achieving much, other than heroic deaths. Don’t get me wrong, I think he’s a really great use of points, but I couldn’t tell you exactly what it is you’re getting for the investment. Of all the army he is the character I’m most interested to see what he’s going to get up to next, I think over the course of a few more games I’ll work it out, he also needs a name.
I would say at this stage the Halflings are coming together pretty well, although there’s a fair bit more painting to do before we get them near a tournament table.
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