WotR on the Cheap: Spider Army

Kruger_NZ · **Posted:** Tue Feb 08, 2011 9:49 am

Hey Folks,

This is my "Secret Project" for War of the Ring, an Army of Spiders!

Gleefully I sprung this on Xelee tonight:

The beauty of this army is that it was ridiculously cheap and easy to make. In my random perusal of the crappy discount stores in my Mall where I work I found these:

For the princely sum of $3 each! They are a great size and there are 12 different types in each packet. I then proceeded to clean out two malls work of these plus I also tracked down a couple of large plastic spiders at $3 each as well to use as Queens.

Cost of Spiders: $18
Cost of Basing: Free
Look on Jamie's Face when Unleashed: Priceless! :-D

The bases are just MDF and Bark with a mix of Gale Force Nine flocks. The painting was simply spray black, dry brush dark grey, dry brush (lightly) light grey, paint eyes and red stripes (GW Dark Flesh Base, then a DF/ Red base highlight) then paint the fangs

The army works out to be at 1000pts;

Druzhag
6 Coy Formation of Giant Spiders
6 Coy Formation of Giant Spiders
5 Coy Formation of Giant Spiders
Spider Queen
Spider Queen

This leaves 7 Bases of Spiders for Druzhag to "Call" with his Summon Beasts Ability.

I played a game vs Jamie tonight with them and they did very well, but are terribly fragile. I will post a battle report for this game in the next few days.

Here are some more shots of the Horde

Its a bit of a Joke army, but terribly easy to do and a good way to game on the cheap. Its also really fun to use!

You can see more pictures oon my blog here:http://krugerskreations.blogspot.com/

Cheers
Jason

Xelee · **Posted:** Tue Feb 08, 2011 11:07 am

The look wasn't shock, I was just impressed - genius! An army using the Beastcaller that makes complete sense.

I don't think it is a joke army. I just happened to be using the Dunlendings with Uruk xbow, which does tend to eat cavalry formations alive. It defeinitely gave better than it got vs everything else in my force - gobbling up two whole lots of Huscarls before we called it for time. Anyway, not every army has to be the same sort of min-max based on hunting out the under costed things, allies, loopholes etc and combining for effect. This lot ran rings around my boys, which is saying something - since I had access to the Darkness spell list.

I know Thrydan is going to be leery about leading his warbands anywhere near the Misty Mountains for a while!

You doing the batrep?

lorelorn · **Posted:** Tue Feb 08, 2011 11:49 am

Very nice!

Erunion · **Posted:** Tue Feb 08, 2011 12:04 pm

Brilliant idea! I love to see this sort of ingenuity.

The only thing is, the mold lines would drive me batty!

hithero · **Posted:** Tue Feb 08, 2011 12:28 pm

Very Impressive

Kruger_NZ · **Posted:** Tue Feb 08, 2011 8:46 pm

Xelee wrote:

The look wasn't shock, I was just impressed - genius! An army using the Beastcaller that makes complete sense.

I don't think it is a joke army. I just happened to be using the Dunlendings with Uruk xbow, which does tend to eat cavalry formations alive. It defeinitely gave better than it got vs everything else in my force - gobbling up two whole lots of Huscarls before we called it for time. Anyway, not every army has to be the same sort of min-max based on hunting out the under costed things, allies, loopholes etc and combining for effect. This lot ran rings around my boys, which is saying something - since I had access to the Darkness spell list.

I know Thrydan is going to be leery about leading his warbands anywhere near the Misty Mountains for a while!

You doing the batrep?

Yep, I plan to get the Batrep up later on today if its not too busy at work.

Its not a "joke" as in a useless army, but its certainly a joke that you can build for less the $20. Thats $20 crappy New Zealand Dollars too, so I think it would work out to be around $10 USD and may 7GPB lol.

As an army its a heap of fun to play, its so incrediblly mobile. 12" base moves (24" doubling for Druzhag's unit!) with pathfinder master is evil. Even the Spider Queens can move 16" if they double, and being courage 5 they are most likely too. The Queens are great in that they are Inspiring so the 12" courage bubble was brilliant for passing those Terror tests to charge the pesky Nazgul

It also can hit like a ton of bricks, Str 5 Cavalry charges with Poisoned attacks is nasty, especially if Druzhag gets a Shatter Shields and Dark Fury off. If you can flank then Prowlers is brutal at such a high Strength...and its not hard to flank when you can Summon more Spiders!

Its biggest weakness of course is that its about as durable as tissue tea cup. When you get hit you tend to get hit hard and can suffer multiple push back easily. The other drawback is that you feel obligated to hold onto Druzhags might so as to call more spider units, so your prone to being "out heroed" A possible solution to this is to take Durburz by dropping 2 * Spider Coys. His might + overlord + being able to double another unit woudl be well worth the loss of 2 spider coys. Im thinking mutant Dryder Goblin King :mrgreen:

@ Erunion

Yeah the mold lines are becasue I was lazy, the whoel army took me maybe 10 hours Max to do :-D

Cheers
Jason

theavenger001 · **Posted:** Tue Feb 08, 2011 8:49 pm

Great work. I personally don't think I would like the feel of the cheaper plastic, or the less details, or the mould lines..... but, that's for the sbg. For wotr it would be okay. Especially as it saved you a BUNDLE.

Xelee · **Posted:** Tue Feb 08, 2011 9:01 pm

Ahhh, your definition of 'joke army' betrays a trace of "GW Stockholm Syndrome" lingering still

Honestly, you can't even see the mould-lines, except in a couple of the low-angle pics. The army isn't for close up view in hi-res pics, it is for mass effect on the table top. It looks really good from that angle, where arrangement, basing and shading is the key thing. My reaction when I saw it was "why would anyone ever buy GW spiders when they could just have those?" If they really bothered you, they could be cut off and the cut hidden with a bit of cheap 'furry' texture.

Please don't be yet another guy comboing Durbuurz and Druzhag! Aren't those guys meant to be mortal enemies? :lol:

So yes, a mutant spider king, under the Beastcaller's thrall, would be just the way to go.

Also, I think you'd find the good old South Pacific Peso is incredibly strong vs both the GBP and USD at the moment - though slipping again!

Kruger_NZ · **Posted:** Tue Feb 08, 2011 9:28 pm

theavenger001 wrote:

Great work. I personally don't think I would like the feel of the cheaper plastic, or the less details, or the mould lines..... but, that's for the sbg. For wotr it would be okay. Especially as it saved you a BUNDLE.

They are actually pretty detailed for what they are, if I could be bothered to spend time and effort painting them they would come up better.

They also may *feel* cheap, but you dont have to stroke them lol. Plus being flexible is pretty cool, as they wont every break.

AS for Comboing Druzhag and Durburz, they are the ONLY two Epics in the list. If I had a cheap epic (any epic would do really) I would use them instead, so hence the Mutant Dryder (Gryder?) King. Unless you think I should ally Thrydon. Or a Nazgul? :rofl:

Cheers
Jason

Xelee · **Posted:** Tue Feb 08, 2011 9:43 pm

Quote:

AS for Comboing Druzhag and Durburz, they are the ONLY two Epics in the list. If I had a cheap epic (any epic would do really) I would use them instead, so hence the Mutant Dryder (Gryder?) King. Unless you think I should ally Thrydon. Or a Nazgul? :rofl:

Lol, no. I like the Drider idea, it is these lists where no one bothers to rename and model things up differently that end up being 'odd'.

7Thunders · **Posted:** Thu Feb 10, 2011 5:25 pm

This is a wonderrful idea and i salute you sir

Consider it stolen

funny how something that starts out as a joke
can turn real and change into a new movement
in this game.

now: if you could only find a way of doing cheap
Wargs! That would take the cake.

WotR on the Cheap: Spider Army

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