Antares: Creature Feature and Reinforcements!

THE WILD KINGDOM OF YADROLLA

I remember back ages ago reading an article in White Dwarf about the Ambull.  For those that don't remember this beastie, the Ambull was a subterranean creature that you could throw into scenarios to mix things up.  The Ambulls could burst out of the ground to attack the troops or you could have the whole battle set inside of a warren of Ambull tunnels.  Of course this was back in the Rogue Trader book for Warhammer 40k so it was more than 30 years ago.  Since the closest real gaming store that I knew of was two states away, I was never able to get the Ambull mini but I love the concept.

Moving back to the present, it kind of feels like Antares is doing something similar with the fauna from Xilos and the new plants from the Dronescrouge supplement and I think its awesome!  It has also inspired me to look in my own collection to see what critters I can scrounge up to inhabit Yadrolla.  Since its a swamp/rainforest, I want to stay away from the myriad of bugs that I have except maybe the ripplers.  That's right, giant mosquitos for the win!

"Anyone bring a can of Raid?!?"

These I don't have a lot of these as they were released towards the end of the Starship Troopers mini game, but I should have more than enough for random encounters.  I've also been thinking about painting up some of these to use for Mars Attacks (namely the giant bugs random encounter card) so this will let me kill two birds with one stone!  It did wind up being a bit larger than I remembered once I had it assembled but I suppose they could just be giant space wasps.

I also have some of the old Tyranid ravagers which will fit the bill.

"Snakes... why did it have to be snakes..."

With their serpentine bodies and their giant scything claws I can see these being some kind of a snake-like predator, perfect for the swampy terrain.  I'll need to grab some more of the smaller arms for these but I think they will work.

And last but not least, I have some Growlers from when I was dabbling with Vor from FASA.

Here's a stock image of the Growlers since I still have to assemble mine.

I had picked up two of the starter sets so that gives me a good number of Razorbacks to throw into the mix.  I'm thinking of them as xeno-gorillas on some serious steroids.

Of course I still need to put together some stats for these but since they are just for fun it should be easy to do.  I'm not trying to make balanced units for an army, just something to add a twist to the game.

REINFORCEMENTS HAVE ARRIVED!

Besides adding to the menagerie of Yadrolla, I've also got more troops to throw into the fray!  Nothing major but I wanted to get a support option to round out their ranks so I picked up the X-launcher team for my Algoryn.  Add this team and the targeter shard to the troops from Strike on K'Ara Nine gives me a good 500 point block to start with.  It's taken longer than I'd hoped but life happens sometimes.

And the AI aren't the only ones getting more love.  I also picked up an X-launcher team for my Concord troops.  It seems like people consider this one of the mainstay support options so it made it an easy choice for both armies.  This also rounds out the core of my Concord army though I've still have a good number of sprues left thanks to the Summer sprue sale.  Maybe I'll paint up a strike squad as a special guard unit for my NuHu Mandarin...  Not a bad idea but it'll have to wait until I get my core troops painted.