Don't You Want Me

Poor Hector, Tamer of Wild Horses, Defender of Troy, and the first of the recent big-screen Incredible Hulks. He was purchased amid a way of excitement following the listening of Mayacast's Homerid heroes in Infinity podcast and a quick online rereading of Rosemary Sutcliffe's classic 'Black Ships Before Troy' along with the new Shock Army of Acontecimento boxed set. The aim was to effectively finish the great PanO for the time being and start my new Steel Phalanx force based off the Trojans (no Achilles/Ajax/etc) with Hector, Penthesilea and the other dude with some Myrmidons and others. I was excited, Hector was excited, even Ben and Sean were excited for the latest round of paddlings I was going to be handing out to them. I actually heard Ben say how much he loves facing ODD without any decent MSVs...

Just look at how hopeful and excited Hector and Marvin the Martian are. And the Shock Army are all geared up for war too. What could go wrong? (Wait, what's that behind the Acontecimento Regulars...?)
EBay.
EBay is what could go wrong. No, my account hasn't been hacked again. There's not been a repeat of the 10 square metres of leather, ball-gag and ass-less chaps fiasco. But what has happened is that I was randomly slinging bids across EBay at anything that I could stick money to. This included a Tohaa army, some Haqq and some random Combined Army, The Tohaa were halfway tempting, the Haqq could be turned into my Kum force and the CA were a flighty choice with loads of random choices; there were a few boxes of different stuff. Then the usual EBay curse struck and some dude cracked out his Barrett .50 cal and took potshots at all my auctions, running out of rounds on... the Combined Army starter set (effectively the Onyx Contact Force starter set). This gave me a solid starting place, and like the Shock Army starter it's quite loaded with SWCs (Multi Sniper Rifle, Umbra with an empty hand that can ANYTHING I WANT, the Fraacta drop trooper with the option of being a hacker) unlike the Corregidor/Corridor suppression force (everyone with a combi rifle). So naturally I was restrained and didn't spent any more money on them.
At all.
And that was that.
Bullshit.

The usual monetary restraint was displayed and a couple of minor things were added. An Overdron Batroid, the Morat Aggression Force, a Krakot Renegade, a Kurgat Engineer (in the post), a Malignos hacker (unbuilt), and Kornak Gazarot. It must be said that at first I was totally unconvinced by the CA but I think this is because the last range of them had some dreadful models. Plus I hadn't read the background so assumed that they were just the stereotypical alien bad guys. Now that I look at them I really like the Halo aesthetic and having read their background I really like them, the misguideness of the EI (but not outright evil) and I've got a good idea how to paint them (glossy black or purple, a la Halo). They look like they play very differently to the PanO; no Knights, a lack of heavy infantry, some really cool different units (especially the Shasvastii), and some very interesting Link Teams. Oh, and plasma weaponry. I find that plasma always brightens up both players days, regardless of the game. Nothing excited me more in online Halo than seeing my opponent's plasma rifle overheating. Albeit this was generally after mercilessly gunning me down and the overheating was from firing his gun in the air shouting 'Aaaaaaarrrrhhhhh' but hey (you have to watch me playing Halo against other players to appreciate just how bad I am. It is a huge consolation to me to know that not matter how bad I am at tabletop wargaming, i will never be as bad as I am at online shooters). Don't get me wrong, I love my PanO, but a change is good too. I am hoping to hit the tournament scene next year, which will be with my PanO, so knowing some of the enemy will be an advantage. I will trying them out next week, a Vanilla CA list to see how they play.
All of this makes my Aleph very very sad indeed.
And so the Trojans buried Hector, Breaker of Horses
(and abandoned the PanO to fight the Combined Army on their own out of spite...)