57 Varieties of Sorcery

It's been a year since I bought my trio of Exalted Sorcerers, so it's about time I finished off the third one...

... but not before I paint a couple of other ones first!

Don't jump the queue, sonny.

First up is the Sorcerer in Terminator armour. Part of the Start Collecting! Chaos Space Marines box that I bought for the Helbrute (and inadvertently ignited a whole new army).

And a lovely kit it is too - you can use it to make either a Terminator Lord or a Terminator Sorcerer, and both of them in a number of configurations and weapons. I've very tempted to get a second one.

Compared to their loyalist brothers, the heretics may have the fuzzy end of the lollipop in terms of new releases, but you can't beat either this kit, or the Exalted Sorcerer for options.

Not much converting required for this one (it's so simple, even the Thousand Sons codex suggests you do it). I added a Scarab Occult headpiece (luckily that kit comes with a spare one) and snipped off the big choppy bayonet from his combi-bolter (that sort of stabbiness may work for the World Eaters or Black Legion, but we Tiscans are more refined).

I could have replaced the headpiece of his stave with a spare from the Exalted kit (I arm all my sorcerers with power staves - all wizards should have staffs), but he's a big fella, so I went with the one from the model's own kit, as it's nicely chunky.

On the battlefield, I like him. He's already seen action in a couple of fights already and rarely disappoints. He's like a one-man Terminator squad, with the advantage of more psychic powers and a smaller deepstrike footprint. It's a shame he's not an Exalted (who would allow rerolls of 1), but then it would be too tempting to drop him in with the Scarab Occult, and I prefer him on his own.

He has a lot more skulls adorning his armour than your standard Thousand Son, but I put that down to him belonging to the Pavoni - the biomancers cult. Back in the days of pre-heresy, each psyker belonged to one of five disciplines, and I've carried that over into my thrallband. More of which later.

Next up: did I say I always give my wizards staffs? Well, that was until the Codex Errata let me dual-wield power swords, baby!

Folks don't usually expect sorcerers to be much of a close-combat threat, but these guys are basically chaos lords, with the added bonus of being able to Smite you in melee. With the extra attack from the two weapons, and giving him the Seer's Bane relic, then this disc rider becomes a nippy little assassin to threaten both enemy psykers and leaders.

That said: I've used him twice, and he's accomplished nothing - but he's just biding his time, you hear!

Despite appearances, this was not one of my original Exalted, but an eBay rescue when it struck me that I didn't have enough sorcerers in my army - or at least, not enough with swords.

Not much remains of the original model - head swap, arm swap, weapon swap (bringing in a Scarab Occult sword for the off-hand) and complete respray and repaint.

Like his disc-jockey predecessor, he also got magnetised feet, so I can ground-pound him at will.

Same paint recipe as all my other sorcerers (since they all look differently, their uniforms may as well match), though I also tried out some Gulliman Blue glaze for the magic blade.

• Gold armour: Retributor Armour base, Reikland Flashshade wash, Golden Griffon drybrush
• Blue armour: Thousand Sons base, Nuln Oil wash, Thousand Sons layer, Ahriman Blue layer
• Gun barrel: Ironbreaker base, Nuln Oil wash
• 'King Tut' headdress: Blue (as armour) + Yellow (Averland Sunset base, Cassendora Yellow wash, Yriel Yellow layer)
• Loincloths: Celestra Grey base, Drakenhof Nightshade wash, Ulthuan Grey layer
• Robes: Ushabdi Bone base, Seraphim Sepia wash, Terminatus Stone drybrush
• Bolter: Skavenblight Dinge base, Nuln Oil wash, Dawnstone drybrush
• Eyes: Ulthuan Grey base, Biel-Tan Green wash
• Gems: Stormhost Silver base, Waystone Green/Spiritstone Red/Soulstone Blue glaze
• Sorcerer's cloak: Screamer Pink base, Nuln Oil wash, Khorne Red layer + Ushabdi Bone base, Agrax Earthshade wash, Tyrant Skull drybrush

I gave this one 'natural' looking fire for his backpack and disc smoke, since this chap belongs to the Pyrae - the pyromancers.

And finally we get to the the chap who started all of this...

You only get one 'bare-head' option in the Sorcerer kit, and I thought it suited this floating, arms outstretched pose - he's clearly working himself up to an M. Bison flying punch.

He counts as an Exalted Sorcerer 'on foot', even though he's clearly levitating and doesn't have any feet. I might second him over to the Black Legion forces, for when they need a jump-pack sorcerer, but they guy needs a chance to earn his stripes in the Thousand Sons first.

The reason for that is he's a Raptora - the telekinetics. Now my other two Sorcerers are Athanaean (telepaths) and Corvidae (soothseers) respectively - and given that I now have nine sorcerers (just as intended) and Tzeentch is all about intrigue, I've decided to make it interesting for my thrallband...

Each of the sorcerers begins ranked from one to nine (with nine being the highest). In each of their battles, the rules are as follows:

• If you are the warlord, and you win, gain two points
• If you are the warlord and you lose, lose a point
• If you are killed (i.e. jump back into the warp to avoid the final blow), lose a point
• If you do something cool (say, suicide charge a hive tyrant and force him to perils), gain a point

And then this gets applied to the thrallband hierarchy:

• For every point, you move up that many spaces in the hierarchy, displacing those who previously occupied the space. 
• If you are tied for points on the same space, the one who most-recently participated in a battle gets priority (you get nothing for sitting on your ass)
• You can never exceed ninth place, no matter how many points you accrue.

Applying it to the last fifteen battles gives me quite a neat little narrative: Arac Rapathwin, Exalted Athanaean, was my general for a lot of early games, and rose to prominence in the middle run, once I'd got the hang of my army. 

However, Scynthius Ekurah, Exalted Corvidae tends to hang back, as he's on foot, and therefore has a better survival rate. He was also my warlord for the successful WoffBoot XII run, which racked up a lot of points.

Yr'bith Fulred, my Daemon Prince, owes allegiance to no single cult, but he's part of the game just to keep the others on their toes. He's more of a high-risk/high-reward player, since victory is usually linked to his performance/survival.

Even my Aspiring Sorcerers get to join in - they usually vie with each other for the bottom space, but my Scarab Occult Aspiring is making great strides (his epic duel with the Genestealers helped there) and has reached the dizzying heights of the fifth sphere. I don't know what I'll do if he actually outranks the warlords.

I may start applying this narrative in-game, and give the warlord mantle to whoever happens to be senior at the time, no matter what the tactical benefits (such as constantly giving Otherworldly Prescience to the Daemon Prince).

But either way, by sitting on the bench for a whole year, poor Guron Sekra has fallen right at the bottom in the first sphere. I need to get him on the field and kicking ass soon if the Raptora are going to hold up their heads at the next heresy 'n nibbles mixer.