Phoenix Clan Shugenja!?

...and now for something completely different.

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)


These are two nest stands of Phoenix Clan Shugenja (Magicians) for my Hordes of the Things Phoenix Clan army. The figures are old AEG/WOTC Clan War figures.

I have no idea what prompted me to switch gears and paint these up. Maybe a need to do something different…? During all the cleaning and reorganizing I was sifting through the Clan boxes and noticed these and thought I could quickly paint four figures and finish off a THIRD of the entire army!

The Phoenix army I’m planning features the “Triple Wizard Combo”:


Here’s all three – half the army. The “Triple Wizard Combo” is hard to play and not a very “effective” army… but “effective” has never been a deciding factor in building an army for me – what SHOULD be there is!

As far as I can recall the Phoenix are more or less pacifistic and heavily involved in magic. It seems to me that if brought to battle they would field maximum wizards and try to end the battle before it starts by ensorcelling from afar. The bulk of the melee foot troops will be earth elementals and “Void Guard” – summoned creatures – so they don’t have to actually get their kin into close combat. These will be supported by archers and possibly a stand of Shiba Cavalry.

I also have some Avalanche Guard (shugenja that cast a spell to turn their skin to stone and them go mix it up in hand to hand – probably call them “Blades”) and some Inquisitors (Clerics…?). If I did use the clerics as “Clerics” the earth elementals would probably be relegated to “lurkers” to make the army points even again (Clerics being one of those odd 3AP stands). Of course using the clerics means one less mage… and potentially foiling my own mages

I was going to take a pic of what I’ve got so far… but I just need three more stands to finish a full army and two of them I’m just finishing the bases on (the Void Guard), and a couple others (last stand of archera and a couple optional extras) are sitting on my workbench waiting for paint this evening.

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

The forecast for this week is looking HOTT. The Void Guard will be done by tomorrow and a couple other HoTT items have invaded the workbench.

I may even throw down with a couple games on Wednesday… and maybe Friday… or any evening anyone’s available…