One of the best looking range of miniatures hit shelves everywhere a short while back and these little guys are bound to be a great hit with players of Chronopia and other fantasy games everywhere. The Stygian are the lizard man race of Target Games highly popular Chronopia fantasy system. Sculpted by ex GW maestro Tim Prow they look more like aliens than lizards, and one expects them to scuttle around at any moment.

The Stygian are a race as old as time itself and when awakened by the One King (see review of Land of Two Rivers) they pose a threat perhaps as great as that of the Devout themselves. The range of models so far is as listed below and I was so impressed when I first saw these little beauties at the Target Games Studio last December that I knew that I would have to dedicate a full page of Gamers Web to them. When one plays as the Stygian, one gets the feeling that they are not of this world. It's very hard to put into words exactly but as a lot of players have told me over the past few months, the Stygian are just so cool to play, but you need a completely new approach to fielding them.

For starters they have very little in the way of missile support. Anyone who plays Chronopia will tell you that missile troops are a must have in any force as they can really change the outcome of a battle, but the sheer lack of these troop types makes you rethink any attack tactics you would normally utilise in battle. Sure the Stygian move fast and due to their low points cost you can have swarms of them teaming over the enemy before they can get a chance to react, but the lack of covering fire means that you are likely to lose a lot of troops before you can reach your targets.

Having played a large number of games using my own Stygian force now, I find that they can make up for the lack of missile troops and if used properly will take out even the most armoured of enemies. Before I get down to the reviews of the models themselves here's a few of the tactics that I tend to use with my own Stygian force (just for the record my Stygian force has played over 15 battles now and has only lost 3 and drawn once.)

Due to the lack of support that your Stygian force has access to it is imperative that you play as offensively as possible. Take the game to your opponent as fast as possible and always push forward. Stygian are quite good at CC when it comes down to it, so get them in fast and cut a swathe through your enemies ranks. Hanging troops around at the back of the pack is useless, so push forward at all times.

One of the options that is open to the Stygian army is to purchase The Drugged. These are soulless automations that where once mighty warriors who feel to the black blades of the Stygian forces, now they are nothing more than walking dead. You can purchase The Drugged on a one for one basis (one Drugged for every Stygian in your warband!) and I suggest that you do so as often as possible. The Drugged are unarmed and have no CC or MW score so they cant make attacks, but they do make an excellent shield, forcing missile attacks away from your valuable troops and into cannon fodder instead. Each of the Drugged must be set up within Command Distance of the Stygian controlling them ( a distance of no more than 4 inches!) and seeing as they have a Movement rate of 3 inches per Action, it's best if you place them as far as possible from controller and advance them as quickly as possible (see Seize the Day!). Remember that when using the Drugged your Stygian forces controlling them are limited to the movement of the Drugged!

Like most forces in the Chronopia world, the Stygian utilise magic and if you don't take a Priestess then your going to miss out on a vital area of the game. The magic that the Priestess can wield is mainly used to give advantages to the Stygian rather than offensive, and seeing as the Stygian don't tend to do very well in cold climates, changing the weather to your own advantage is something that you really have to consider.

Of course these are only a few basic ideas that I use myself and not gospel according to Target Games, however I find that the Stygian are not only my favourite force to field in the game but are by far among the best miniatures as you can see.

The basic core of any Chronopia army is it's Swordsmen and the Stygian are no exception. This multipack consists of four excellently sculpted models from the talented hands of Tim Prow. Based on designs conceived by Targets resident artist in chief Adrian Smith, the entire appearance of these warriors is far different from anything that has been done before. As is the norm with Targets multipacks the blister contains four models in two different poses. The first pose is advancing with it's head down low and it's sword clutched to it's chest. The other pose has it's head raised slightly higher and looks as if it is about to pounce into the fray. In both cases the attention to detail is excellent and both models look like strange dinosaur creatures from a time long forgotten. Each model is equipped with a short sword (one curved, the other straight) and a separate shield. The shield fits neatly on the boss on the arm of the warrior and only needed a slight amount of trimming to remove the excess flash. Animation is okay, but not the best in the range. The Swordsmen are a great start to what will be an excellent range.

The closest thing that the Stygian force has to missile troops are the Spearmen. Each of the two poses in the pack is posed as if moving at high speed towards it's enemy with a nasty looking two pronged spear jutting forward of the model. The spears are come as a separate item and need to be glued in place, causing the model to be a little front heavy and giving a tendency to tip forwards. In fact I found that I had a lot more problems with the spearmen than I had anticipated and the spears themselves took ages to attach, then again my glue may have been at fault and not the models. Animation is a little more fluid on the Spearmen compared to the Swordsmen but still not as good as is normally from Target Games. However the detail is excellent and once painted the models look great. The two poses (one with it's mouth opened, the other closed) are quite long and stick over the edges of the slotta base that is provided. Still they make a great addition to any Stygian force.

Like the Swordsmen and Spearmen, the Stygian Axemen are very reptilian in their appearance and fit right in with the rest of you Warband. The Axemen come with separate axes that fit snugly into the model and required very little or no filling. You must make sure that you place the right axe on the right model or the fit wont be as neat as desired, which can be a bit of a pain I guess to less experienced modellers. But on the whole the Axemen are another great addition to the Stygian warmachine.

Armed with two very nasty sickles that are used to literally rip their enemies apart. The animation is good with strong detail on both models. One thing that did throw me at first was the small piece of ornamentation that hangs from the end of on of the models tails, and to be honest at first I thought that they were miscast or extra flash metal left over from the casting process. The weakest in the range so far in my opinion, but still more than worth the price.

A change of pace now! The Starved are Stygian who have been born deformed or don't fit in with the strange Stygian society. Treated as second class among the Stygian and left to fend for themselves, they don't get much food normally and when they are unleashed on the battlefields they will gorge themselves, till they cant eat anymore. The Starved look very different too the normal warriors as they are standing upright. Well as upright as a lizard can I guess. They look like they have just walked off the set of Jurassic Park VI and perhaps just what the Dinosaurs could have looked like if they had evolved rather than die out. The bone crest that sits at the back of each warriors head is more pronounced than normal warriors and looks very much like a Pterodactyl (the strange bird like reptiles that always seem to carry off women in the monster movies!) and are my favourite of all the basic warriors. The tails of the creatures come separately and can be attached at different angles to give more distinction to the creatures.

Every Warband needs someone to lead it, and the Stygian are no exception. Leading them into battle are the very powerful Priestesses of Tiamat, each bearing a stone of destiny on her back. Standing much taller than the normal Stygian and looking like a snake, the Priestess comes in two parts, the main body and the small disc (stone of Destiny) that fits on the back. The Priestess is armed with a staff that is quite fragile so please be careful with you're model as they tend to snap very easy. A nice model with some good animation but the detail is a little lack.

The largest of the Warriors and an individual on the battlefield. The Great Warriors look just like the normal Stygian warriors only much, much bigger. A single piece casting armed with a spear; good detail but lacking in animation.

The first of our multi piece kits now and it comes in the form of the Embalmed. These creatures stand much taller than any other figure in the range and are built up from seven finely cast pieces. Assembly is fairly straight forward and shouldn't cause too many problems, but on my sample I found that I had to bend the spear slightly so that the hands fitted neatly into the body. On the whole though this model goes together well and looks excellent when assembled. The animation is excellent and the detail is first rate and this is a must have in any Stygian Warband.

Another multi part kit, that suffers from the same problem as the Embalmed model. Gluing the arms holding the spear onto the body requires a fair bit of coaxing and I snapped my sample and had to resort to the tedious task of drilling out the spear and using brass rod in it's place. Care must be taken when putting the spear arm in place. The arms holding the small war darts fit neatly and need no filling and once finished by placing the large piped back pack on the model it looks fine.

Ah now to the part I loved the best; painting the Warbands. Painting the warriors is as always down to individual preferences, and there are a multitude of schemes that one could choose from, I decided that I would pay a visit to my local library and get some books on lizards out for reference. Both myself and my young son Daniel are interested in Dinosaurs and our home is filled with books and videos on these prehistoric beasts. So it was out with Jurassic Park and The Lost World and into the VCR. The creatures in both movies are excellent for painting lizardmen and I have used them in the past when I was painting up my Lizard Man army for Warhammer so I knew what I was looking for. I also poured through a wide range of books on Dinosaurs and found that the Ultimate Dinosaur Book from Dorling Kindersley (David Lambert author) is by far the best book to use.

So after looking through the books and having fun with the videos with Daniel I got down to painting the creatures. I decided that it would much better if I painted most of the models in a similar fashion. I undercoated the basic warriors in white and began to paint them in deep purple hues. However I found that they looked pretty naff like this and after only 3 models changed my mind. The good thing about using acrylic paint is that if you don't use it too thick and make mistakes or change your mind it's easy to paint over or re-undercoat them and start again.

So what was I too do? Well after looking through the videos and books again briefly I decided that it would look better if the models were all green. I must admit to cheating a little here and sprayed the whole bunch using a Humbrol dark green model spray. Once dry I started to pick out the details and paint the underbelly of each model in a flesh tone. After highlighting all the detail I based all the warriors with sand and painted it flesh colour and then drybrushed it white giving a desert effect. The larger models look better if painted a different colour to the warriors (with the exception of the Great Warrior, which I painted the same as the rest) and I painted both the Embalmed and the Guardian very dark blue, again with fleshy stomachs. The Priestess was painted like a cobra as she looks very snakelike anyway and finally I painted the Starved in a mid blue and washed it with a turquoise ink.

As with all Target Products; the Stygian are available from game stores world wide or in case of difficulty contact Gamecraft direct at the address below. My many thanks go once again to Roger Higgins and all the staff at Gamecraft for the samples.

Marc

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