Redvers and Son Get Into Bushido

Taking the Two Lone Swordsmen (TLS) in the game gives you two models. Points wise, they aren’t cheap, potentially being a quarter of your warband but they are very annoying for your opponent. In game, they are fairly average at combat and movement but do get to activate as a pair but are treated as two separate models. You need to be a little careful as you have to assign the same activation to both of them but this just encourages you to keep them together. In combat, they gain an advantage with their Coordinated Attack which gives them an extra attack dice, this in itself ups them from being average, to being good. They also have the Prowess special rule, which allows them to re-roll a melee dice each combat should you not be happy with the result. Their armour of 2 also reduces the damage coming back in return.

But the real bonus is their special rule of Linked. If a Lone Swordsman is killed, at the start of the next turn, you may place them back on the board in btb with another Lone Swordsman and with full wounds. Therefore, the only way to kill TLS is to kill both models in the same turn. This is quite hard to do and results in the delightful effect of having them respawn.

The small downside to all of the above is that they are Ronin and to recruit them into the Cult of Yurei I need to give up a Themed list option and the benefits that this would have given me. Still, it will be worth it to see my son’s reaction when they keep coming back after being killed!

Painting wise, I’ve gone simple and quick. After the standard zenith highlight base, I’ve used a black speedpaint for the robes. The armour is a gunmetal given a nuln oil wash and then a gentle chrome dry brush. Skin was a light skin tone with a wash applied and then highlighted back up. I applied a blue sash to provide some colour and was a mid blue followed by a blue wash. I’ve then highlighted back up. The cord was scruffulous brown with a wash applied.

I wanted to make them look a little road weary and so once the paint and varnish had dried, I applied a couple of thin coats of enamel dust over the lower parts of the robes, with each coat being applied over less of the robe to try to fade it down to the bottom. It wasn’t overly successful but I’m fairly new to the enamel washes, so you lie and learn. To round out the model, I based it in pretty much the same way as my other models to try and create some uniformity across the warband.

All in all, a quickish job.