More bases, scurriers and keeping the cold out

Living on the Ej is not only the title of the up-and-coming instalment of the annual Pride of The Shires tournament in the suitably green and leafy county of Oxford, it’s also how I’m feeling about getting the rats ready, possibly even finised.

My take on The Mother… I’m not a fan of the Firefight stuff

Progress has been made, a list has been written (and tested – kind of, well most of it has) and more and more units are getting their bases upgraded. I’m amazed at how much life the new aesthetic is breathing into the old collection. I’ve always enjoyed getting my rats on the table, but there’s nothing like the feeling of putting a brand-new army on the table for the first time, and I’m getting that vibe at the moment.

Cryza is back, Scud will be making an appearance and there are a couple of new units to add, a warrior regiment and a vermintide troop. I’m currently working on the bases for the rest of the infantry. At the moment it all seems pretty much in control, so because we can’t have that sort of behaviour I’ve decided to paint up a band new scurrier regiment. Obviously, this is a necessary use of time as I already have a regiment painted, and a troop. Long story short, whilst messing around with warrior paint schemes I came up with a bit of a ninja look which is frankly cool, so I figured doing a few more would be the best way to put unnecessary pressure on myself.

Last Sunday I took the rats out against the Northern Alliance and was really happy with their performance. We played Wrack and Ruin, arguably one of the more predictable scenarios to play (a 4:3 win to someone), and the rats managed to pull off the 4!

Over the past few games, where I’ve been messing around with weapons teams and clawshots, my lists have felt pretty underwhelming, without sufficient punch. With the new list I think I’m starting to hit the right balance between shooty stuff, hitty stuff and trash. I’ve also been avoiding taking Cryza because a new edition deserves at least a momentary departure from leaning too heavily into the same old stuff. My one concession is that I’ve not taken any wretch hordes, which have apparently become the scourge of the States, so at least I’m not jumping too heavily onto that particular bandwagon. I actually think warrior regiments are great chaff in an army that still requires big based units like shock troop hordes and tunnel runners to do the bulk of the fighting.

Of course, I’m sure you’re all wanting to hear how well the scurriers did? Well, they scouted forward before the game started, wavered some snow foxes in the first turn, put some wounds onto a tribal warrior regiment next, which enabled the mutant rat fiend to one shot them the next turn. They then finished the previously wavered foxes off in combat before lending their shooting to the death spewer tank to waver and then kill a frostclaw troop, all whilst holding onto the centre scoring point. Not bad for a couple of hours work.