Serpent Riders

To supplement our bourgeoning Serpent Horde army, I painted 4 Serpent Riders to accompany Suladan into battle. These were some of the most rewarding models I've ever painted! Now that we have quite a huge collection I am spending more time on models (and thus have mostly eschewed contrast paints) and the results are so much better in my humble opinion!

The models have so many weird little details that were a joy to paint. That being said, I'd love to run a full cavalry Serpent Horde army some day but the cost and painting time will probably keep that dream forever out of reach!

From a game stats perspective these guys are fairly efficient. Their closest analog is the Knight of Minas Tirith, who they lose out to ever so slightly in my opinion. They have one better fight (often that is mitigated for the Knight with Boromir), the same strength, 1 worse defense (though for one more point, the Knight can have the shield getting them to that sweet D6), and similar courage. The Knight of Minas Tirith will often have 1 better courage thanks to their army bonus while the Serpent Rider gets no benefit from their armor bonus as their war spear comes pre-poisoned right out of the spear packaging.

War Spear is a slight improvement over a lance as if these guys find themselves dismounted they can bring their F4 to your frontline troops.

Overall I am quite happy to have these guys ride into battle alongside Suladan, so make sure to check out the first battle report featuring these guys!