Dark Age: Unboxing the Dragyri Ice Caste Starter
I have another great set of Dark Age minis for you guys to check out.
This set was actually a pre-release at Gencon, which is where I picked it up. It was made available to everyone last November.
Here are some more of the bubble wrap bags we’ve been seeing. Inside the wrap are eight models: a mighty Spirit Lord, two imposing Blizzards, a somewhat sneakier Soul Searcher, three pitiful Slaves, and a Slave Taskmaster to keep them in line.
Soul Searcher
Our first Dragyri is the Soul Searcher with his mighty Frost Glaive.
Here he is assembled and primed. Like most Dragyri his hobbies include grimacing and collecting human skulls.
The reverse.
Here he is next to the plastic version from Path to Glory. I thought the plastics were some pretty good looking models, but the extra sharpness in the resin version is clear. Also the new one is bigger. We’ll have to see how they look side by side once I have them painted.
Here are two more plastic Dragyri from the Path to Glory starter. They don’t come in the Ice Caste starter but I thought some people might still like to compare. I think they’re nice and I look forward to painting them, but they just don’t reach the level of quality of the resins.
Blizzards
This big guy is a Blizzard. I’m always impressed by the trouble they take to make sure each Dragyri unit type gets its own look. It would be so easy to just slap a pair of axes onto the Soul Searcher and call it done, but this guy gets his own distinct armor and helmet.
Look at that screaming face.
And here he is assembled.
The reverse.
Here is the second Blizzard of the set.
I wonder what they keep in the little vials?
And here he is assembled.
The reverse.
The last Dragyri of the set is this Spirit Lord.
To give you a sense of scale, each cloth square is an inch by an inch. These Dragyri are big boys.
And here he is assembled.
And of course the reverse.
Slaves
Next we have the Spear Slaves.
They don’t look like much on their own.
It’s hard to figure out what’s going on without their arms and legs attached.
This one doesn’t even have a head.
Nonetheless I like taking pictures of everything.
This poor fool wants someone to bring it.
This is clearly why they have such short lifespans.
Now that they’re all assembled it should be much easier to see what’s going on with them.
Reverse shot.
Taskmaster
Here’s the big slave that bosses the others around.
He’s an older sculpt as you might be able to tell. He still holds up pretty well, but I wouldn’t mind seeing a new one with the spikier mouth and leg spurs.
All put together.
Wait a minute, I just realized this guy isn’t wearing a loin cloth. Being the boss means you don’t have to wear pants?
Using the Starter
Like the Skarrd Starter this box contains enough models to give you a 500 point force and get you right into the game. It has good potential for both fun and strategy.
The Soul Searcher gets to deploy ahead of the rest of the force. He has Survivalist which can help him get the jump on your opponent or, if you’re lucky, maybe make them waste a ranged attack or two on him.
The Spirit Lord gets to choose two Psychogenics from the Ice Caste’s excellent Psychogenic list. It’s tempting to give him Chilling Aura and Witness Me! just so he never has to waste an AP casting anything. On the other hand you might want to take Glacial Spear so he can have a ranged attack if he needs it. It could prove very useful if you find yourself facing an Air or Shadow Caste force with lots of Sidestep.
The slaves can Squadlink with the Spirit Lord, and will bring his offensive power up to insane levels if he can get the Gang Up bonus from three or four of them. The slaves’ primary purpose is to provide that Gang-Up bonus, but they can perform decently on their own if they work together.
The Blizzards are pretty self reliant, and two of them Squadlinking can bring down very tough targets. They also have a great Psychogenic with Chilling Grasp. Use it to drag enemies off of Objectives and line up other models for the kill.
This article first appeared on my own blog toomini. Follow it to get a look at these articles before they show up on BoLS. There are also a lot of great painting articles there that haven’t made it here yet!
~Hope you enjoyed the article! What do you think of the Ice Caste?
