The Eastern Push, Part 2

One of the great things about a 500 point list is that they are relatively inexpensive to do, with many starter boxes coming in at around 400 points, with a single purchase (a character or a support squad) easily taking you across that 500 point line.

The Eastern Push is no exception, and can be built from the Dark Legion starter box, with the addition of a Nepharite of Algeroth, a box of 5 Undead Legionnaires and a box of 5 Necromutants. If you do that, I'd recommend using the spare Necromutant Leader model from the starter as the Squad Commander for the Necromutant squad - just remember to put him on a 30mm base! That then frees up a single regular Necromutant to act as the Squad Commander upgrade for the Undead Legionnaires.

Speaking of the troop squads, how will they work in this list?

The Necromutants are relatively straight forward - an 'elite' troop type squad that comes in at 19 points per model - almost double that of an Undead Legionnaire! They are decent in close combat, better at range (Ranged Skill 14 with an assault rifle that can get 2 shots, both at strength 12), and have good durability with tough armour (24) and a built in 1 in 4 chance to survive a wound thanks to Heal (5). They don't have a lot of abilities, unfortunately, but they should do a good job of protecting Quinzel while she's hanging out with them.
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The Undead Legionnaire squad, however, is the workhorse of this list with a massive 17 models to manage during their activation. On paper they are shooty but slow, with a speed of 4 and the inability to Run, Rapid Fire or go on Sentry. They aren't fantastic shots either, with a Ranged Skill of 11 but they ARE cheap, and are allowed to field a lot more special weapons per 5 models in the squad than the basic troops of other armies. However, with the correct support, Undead Legionnaires can be extremely resource card efficient and are able to move across the table with surprising speed.

For starters, we have the basic Necromutant who is an addition to the squad and can act as the squad commander. Simply by having him the in the squad, we push the base speed of the space zombies up to 5. Next we have the Necromutant Leader attached to the squad. His passive ability Whip says that Undead Legionnaires beginning their activation within 6" (which should be the whole squad as long as he is in the middle) gain an extra point of speed, bringing them up to 6. He also has two Dark Symmetry powers - one to curse the squad the Legionnaires will shoot at (so that up to 3 casualties in that squad that turn will immediately rise again as Undead Legionnaires) and another to buff the strength of all weapons in the squad, making it easier to achieve those casualties in the first place.

Finally we have the By My Will ability possessed by Quinzel. For the cost of 3 resource cards, nearby Undead Legionnaire squads can make perform a free Walk action. Thus a typical turn will involve activating Quinzel and her retinue first, casting Cleansing of the Void onto the Undead Legionnaire swarm, then using By My Will to make them advance 5". Then when the Undead Legionnaire squad get their own activation, they can Walk again - this time 6" - and all fire. This is equivalent to all models in the squad running (normally 2 AP) and then shooting (1 AP), which would require the use of 17 resource cards under normal circumstances. This is why we want as many HMGs in the squad as possible. Quantity will surely win the day!

But how about the army itself? Luckily, I had a spare Dark Legion starter box laying around, plus a Necromutant blister I hadn't opened yet. I have a Nepharite of Algeroth model too (because he's a great looking model that really matches with his art work) but sadly he is already built and painted. So instead, I will be using my Kerheela model. Granted she's a Nepharite of Illian, but there's nothing wrong with a little variety! Finally, I'll need some more Undead Legionnaires as you only get 10 in the starter. I have about a million of them from the Warzone kickstarter but I have no clue where they are (and besides, the newer ones are MUCH cleaner sculpts and look far less fiddly to assemble). I'll have to order them in, along with some extra Secret Weapon bases for them all. But this is what I have so far..