What Model is your All-star?

Hey Everyone!  Today I wanted to talk about those special models in your army who always seem to punch above their weight class and you cannot play the army without them as part of the force.  Sometimes it can be a mighty Hero who leads your force through acts of valor and fantastic deeds.  Other times it might be a member of a basic Battleline unit who stubbornly makes every armor save and holds dragons in combat and holds a flank on his own!  We all have these favored models in every army we play and they can appear when we least expect it.  While I have a few All-Stars from the older editions of Warhammer Fantasy I want to focus on my models who have stepped up to the plate since the release of Age of Sigmar.

  My current number one all-star is a Liberator-Prime wielding a Grandhammer.  Currently, he is the only Liberator-Prime who uses a special weapon as my other five units are all from the original starter set with the Primes using Hammer and Sheild.  I have seen this Prime and his unit stand up to devastating charges with nary a scratch.  I remember fondly watching this Prime and one of his companions hold up Tyler E.'s Treelord Ancient for the majority of a friendly game one night at Adepticon a few years back.  Everything Tylers Treefolk could muster would not shift them and my Prime continued to put out a wound here and there refusing to give up the fight!  More recently at last year's NOVA Team event, I set up the unit as a sacrifice to hold up the enemy attack from my friends Okami and Roger as my partner Matt and I tried out best to retreat away with our remaining forces.  The Prime held on stubbornly on his own pinning an entire Tomb King Snake army in combat allowing a small reprieve to the rest of our forces.

My next choice of all-stars from my armies is The Mortal Realms Bravest Gryph-Hound.  He has never slain a mighty foe and probably never will.  What he has done though is what the model does best as he charges in combat and runs away.  I have had this little Gryph-Hound help capture an objective last second and easily earn any Secondary Objective where a model needed to run off the opposing board edge.  Often ignored and not targeted he was perfect for some cheeky moves, but my greatest memories of the model are its fearlessness.  This Gryph-Hound has charged Durthu, a Mawcrusher, Stonehorns, and Dragons of every size.  I am looking forward to running him with his true partner my Lord-Castellant going forward to see what they can do together.  I have no braver models in my army and I rate this Gryph-Hound a 12/10! 

You would think an autonomous construct such as an Avatar of Khaine wouldn't be a memorable model, but his lack of personality is what began to appeal to me in my game splayed with the model.  Originally this model was perched upon my original Cauldron of Blood, but when I was bringing and expanding the force with the new release I decided to remove him and let him walk on his own.  He is a powerful unit that can do good damage against a lot of stuff in all armies.  I love to imagine one of my Hag Queens pointing at a Bloodthirster with a scream just to see this automaton set off to kill it and wait for the Hag Queen to point at his next target.  The models lack of emotion and personality in an army of emotion and personality really makes him stand out.  The fact the model kills what he touches pretty regularly helps as well.

My most recent addition to my all-star list is my Branchwraith I painted up a few weeks ago for my Sylvaneth force.  I have only played three games with the model, but she has proven her worth as she continues to cast spells with impunity.  Whatever spell she want sot cast she has consistently put it out to my opponent's dismay.  I plan to play a fair number of games in the future with her in my list and I am hoping the trend continues to cement her place in my all-star list.

Who are your all-star's from your time gaming in The Mortal Realms?  Let me know below and share you stories of their glory!  See you all next week, Happy Hobbying!

Chuck Moore