Hey all.

Well now I've bought a starter and I'm impressed with the game. I feel like instead of buying tons of boosters though I'll just get the singles and when I've build the bands I want to play with I'll get boosters to fill out my collection. I've only played a couple of games with my starter so I'm definatly a noob to the game. I've read several threads and articles on the game. So far the Chessmaster article on the Wizards site is my favorite band, so I may just collect the singles and play with that band for the time being, but I've also looked at various minis stats and came up with the following band:

2x Scarab Warcharm 4V

Knight of Strife and Joy 5V

Knight of Tomorrow 5V

Twilight Scout 5V

Pearlhorn Castle 3VV

Hawk Eyed Instigator 7XX

Whirlwind Dervish 8VV

2x Boneclan Hunter 3P

Heartblood Temple 3PP

Greenleaf Dryad 7P

2x Bladehound 7P

Forgeblind Punisher 9P

Axemorph Demon 12PP

My aim for this band is to combine a lot of the cool "movers" from the Valor aspect with some of the hard hitters of the Passion aspect. The Dryad and the Temple help ensure that I get plenty of Spawn points. With so much attack dice being rolled, I should hopefully get to clear out multiple cells during strikes thanks to Advance/Skirmish and the raw offense of the Passion units.

Well what do you think? I don't own any of these minis yet (actually I got the Whilwind Dervish from my starter), so is this band good enough to go buy singles so I can build this band?

It's pretty good for a first time band.   You have a nice mix of figs and identified some of the stronger figures in each faction.   If you have a decent sized collection you should give it a shot.    My only concern is that  it may be a bit  on the expensive side  with 7 of the figures costing 7 or more.    The temple and dryad helps for sure to get things rolling.    If you face something very fast  you will have trouble stabalizing the board before the temple or dryad starts earning you a point advantage.

I find that with good  valor move + big attacker bands don't need a lot of big hitters when they get running.   3 or 4 is usually enough as each one will probably be fighting in multiple cells each round.    With that in mind, maybe strip out 1 or 2 of them   to stabalize the lower end of your band a bit.  Perhaps a 3 spawn  valor guy to get started, and a back up  mover.   A 2nd Twilight scout or 3rd charm could work for that. 

Nah - warcharms are hitting closer to $40 pretty regular now -

As to the warband - I like it - very similar to a band that I play.  The forgeblind punisher combined with the skirmish and advance abilities is a nasty thing if it gets moving.  The reaper will give you a huge problem with passion models though- they are likely to die and almost certainly will be disrupted on average rolls from the reaper. In order to counter that to SOME extent I use the Alluring Succubus.  I also use one more Pearlthorn to further my movement abilities. Going for the extra spawn points is interesting - might be worth it to test out although I would probably drop either the Dryad or one of the bladehounds. To me the passion modesl exist in this band to drive the blade abilities of the valor models and kill stuff - finding that balance is the hard part.

One other small problem I see is the lack of low spawn creatures - one or two low spawn phases early on could put you at a serious disadvantage. For instance - if turn one spawn is 5 or 6 points you'll spawn one boneclan hunter or a scarab while your opponent will likely spawn 2 creatures. If it happens again on turn two... you get the idea.  You may need to consider a couple lower cost creatures even if they are from a different aspect.

Good Luck!

If your going to combine Valor & Passion, I'd use a couple of Inspired Samurais. "Bodyguard" should keep the passion units alive to get at least 1 attack.

And your warband dosn't seem to have enough high cost units (only one Axemorph Demon) to need a Greenlife Dryad & a Heartsblood tenple. I'd expect multiple Noble Dragons or Dreadmorph Ogres in a warband with that much energise.

Thanks for the input people :)

Hmm, so would it be an improvement to the band if I were to do the following:

Remove 1 high spawn unit (most likely the Whirlwind IMO) for a cheap unit (Cannibal Parriah?), and replace either the Temple or Dryad for perhaps a mid-range hitter or Samurai? Or keep both the Dryad and the Temple and  include a second high spawn unit (another Axemorph maybe)?

Putting a single Cannibal Pariah into a warband which otherwise has no Fear units. woud not be cost-effective (it's spawn cost becomes effectivly 3 instead of 2). You'd either want a 3 point passion unit {e.g. Bloodthirsty Redcap)  Or you'd want more Fear units.

And yes, a 2nd Axemorph would make better use of the "Energise" abilities.

Note; A Cannibal Pariah & a Dreadmorph Ogre would work