Blogosphere! Been a hot minute, hope y’all are enjoying the new edition. I’m four games in with my crabby Trident Realms and not feeling like the army works very well in 3E, or at least doesn’t work well for me. Just so few attaks to go around, when the meta demands smashy grinding for its enjoyment (which is totally my bag … but not necessarily TR’s). So what, you ask, about my punchy grind army?

I’ve actually played a couple 1000 point games to get a buddy up to speed on KOW and his new Northern Alliance bros. First game was pretty close, as he was able to ground my Scorchwings with Snow Foxes (lulz) and then pop them, followed by his Snow Trolls going ham before getting Fire Elemental’d. Second game I did bad things to him and regretted bringing the Scorchwings horde to a newb game, as they did work at such a small scale. Preposterously I didn’t take a single photo of these games, so that’s all you get, valiant readers!

As for my thoughts on Salamanders, the lizard half is looking great, and the flamebound half largely got better as well. I’m pretty tickled to have my sub-theme be a thing, tho the main upside is that my previous struggle for inspiring (and so hero slots) isn’t a thing any longer. My army overall lost some shooting quality and quantity, between Agnes stepping out of the list (for now!) and the CLOFD requiring wings (and a 75mm base) invalidating my version, but maybe the increased punchiness makes up for it? I’m excited to find out.

Here’s the current 3E conversion from 2E:

Army: Salamanders
Points: 2300
Unit Strength: 25

220, Fire Elemental Horde
220, Fire Elemental Horde
220, Fire Elemental Horde
220, Fire Elemental Horde
220, Fire Elemental Horde
200, Scorchwing Cavalry Horde
80, Ember Sprite Regiment
80, Ember Sprite Regiment
80, Ember Sprite Regiment
80, Ember Sprite Regiment
140, Ghekkotah Skylord on Scorchwing
— Blade of the Beast Slayer
175, Greater Fire Elemental
85, Lekelidon
140, Mage-Priest
— Shroud of the Saint
— Heal (3)
140, Mage-Priest
— Surge (8)
— Heal (3)

I’m most excited to finally get a BOTBS Skylord on the table, and looking forward to actually learning how flying works with him and the Scorchwings. Happy to see Jar go, that item wasn’t particularly well thought out and made Skyraiders into a unit I don’t think it was intended to be.

From experience, I know that the GFE is pretty junky, but it does let me keep Agnes’ model on the table, plus maybe it’s better with a 50mm base? My old ones were up-based to 75mm (helloooooo twin Fire Drakes??), and sucked. I want to give her a shot in 3E, however I’ve got an Ankylodon to rebase to 75mm, who will either be a Fire Drake (yawn but flamebound) or a Slasher (bizarrely great IMO). The latter would probably see the Lekelidon booted to have the Herald babysitter return, unless the Slasher just freeballs it with no inspiring …!

So why aren’t I playing Bloodfire already? Mostly because I just painted my TR in September, and because I know for a fact any event I go to with my red army will tank my painting and give me bad feels. It’s … difficult for me to push past that knowledge, but it does have me wondering about touching up the first four hordes (which are pretty bashed up at this point) and maybe rebasing the whole thing over to more standard desert with tufts and stuff. I’ve also got metal versions of the Bones used for the Mage-Priests. I mean, I’ll still get tanked, but will feel better about it? Maybe?

Anyway, I’m headed to the Best of the Rest tournament going on beside the US Masters in February, so if I decide to truck Bloodfire out to that you’ll hear about it. Deciding between Trident Realms (the Redux), Ratkin (OMF Brood Moms) or #flamebound.

EDIT: Oh right, the Phoenix! Yea, she fits the list well and seems like a clear swap for the GFE / Slasher. Especially with the increase in flying units (spoiler: the models are all phoenixes too) I’ve got going on. Mantic mini is lovely too.