Shard!

For only $20 a month!

A collectors guide for Vor: the Maelstrom

FEBRUARY 2001

First, please read this very important announcement.

Alrighty then... I have had a month to digest the new Shard Forcebook and make a few decisions. I know I want Concussors. For $20, I can get four packs of them, yielding eight figures which could be one squad of eight or two squads of four. Of course, blowing my whole wad on Concussors might be a little boring, so I want to consider some altenatives. Nothing too fancy, just some basic options to create a more interesting force. I now the things I do NOT want: Jagged, Fledglings, and Nanite Swarms (see last month for my reasons.) Crawlers and Striders are a possibility, but I want to stick to the more "humanoid" models to start off with. Ambients and Scryes will be helpful when there are more units to defend, as they are most useful when fielded in support of other units, but not as a unit in their own right. There are no figures for the Husks yet, and I can't afford the Eradicator (damn! Damn! DAMN!) Would an Axion be ridiculous at this stage? I think so. Which leaves me Primes as a feasible "extra" unit. Now, I can get three packs of Concussors for $15, which gives me a single unit of four, five, or six models, with any variety of monstrously dangerous alternative weapons. And I can buy a pack of two Primes for $5, although I will only be able to field one of those Prime models initially. The cool thing about a Prime is you can kit it out to either support your basic squad, or fill a gap in the battle plan. I can give my Prime a Heavy Beam Laser to help out the Concussors, or an Impaler to kill carbons up close and personal. So, even though I get an extra figure I will no be able to use this month, I am going to get the thrre packs of Concussors and one pack of Primes for the low, low price of $20 this month. Once again I am financially tapped out, but I can begin building my force with these guys.

The Plan

So what can we do with six Concussors and two Primes? Well, for starters, we can only field one Prime. The other goes into the Shard box. I quickly check my Shard book, yep, I can trick out these seven figures to 500 points. NO! BAD BUNNY! TOO MUCH! OK, so that would have been gun-heavy for even my shooty-force dream. But I can put together what I hope is a pretty competent 400 point force. Can I talk my buddies into a few 400 point games? (Guys, it's all the Shard I have... PLEASE???) Well, they're a couple of softies anyway, so here's my initial 400 points of Shard to try out against the Union and Zykhee:

PRIME: Defense spur, Beam Laser, Heavy Beam Laser, Sonic Field, Focusing Lens; 137 points

6 CONCUSSORS: 1 Matrix Cannon; 255 points

TOTAL: 392 points

This is a bit more of a thought-out force. I would like to focus on the Beam Lasers and the Matrix Cannon. I must remember to NEVER pump more than 7 MP into the Matrix Cannon... otherwise a Critical Failure will become the dreaded Core Syphon!

The Battles

And then I tested out my beautiful new figures in a couple of battles. First against Darkhost's Zykhee, and then against Peredyne01's Union.

The Gallery

And how am I painting my Shard? Check out the February Gallery.

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