Chant Deep Dive part 1: Cult of Death

This series will contain an deeper look at each cult chant with a focus on use cases and comparative benefits.  Because each cult tends to bring a few special rules that don't directly effect stats I want to try to tie those rules into a dice math comparison.  For example in this article I'll be taking a look at how flawless strikes compares to just having cleave.  I think doing so helps with quick and dirty table math and managing resources. 

I opted to start the series with Death because I think it is the most user friendly of all the chants but at the same time has a bunch of special rules that benefit from more analysis.  I find death to be very user friendly in that all of the benefits it provides just kind of work.  They aren't as situation dependent as the other two primary cult chants.  Unlike famine you don't need to be making charges and unlike war you don't need to do much predicting of your opponents target selection.  If you are in combat all the benefits of death just kind of work.

Tier 1: +1 Clash

Exactly what it says on the tin this gives the regiment +1 clash.  For as simple as this is it is a very potent first benefit.  In addition to stacking with Inspired this also effects impact attacks which is relatively unusual.  The ability to get virtually any chanting unit to clash 4 through inspire + clash or a charge + clash turn is hard to underrate as it turns almost all of our units up to pretty elite accuracy.  The ability to fairly cheaply threaten a significant volume of hits even on our units that lack cleave makes running at ranged units or objective holders a much more risky proposition. 

Examples

1) An Inspire + clash action from a 3 stand unit of hunters nets an average of 8 hits with no chant.  Against our standardized Defense 3 Resolve 4 opponent that we've used previously that comes out to about 4 wounds + an additional missed resolve or two for 5 to 6 wounds and probably lifting a stand.  With Death one we jump up to 12 hits now expecting about 6 wounds and an additional 2 from resolve netting 8 wounds.  This puts us close to a situation where we can destroy 2 stands of some enemies and potentially breaking small units.  Death is a surprisingly good "defensive" chant on ranged units and objective holders because of the risk of losing multiple stands when just running at a W'adrhun unit.

2) A charge + clash action with a 3 stand group of Warbred.  Warbred let us double down on this benefit through also picking up the benefit on their impacts.  With no chant you'd expect to hit twice from impacts netting you 1 wound and then another 8 from their basic attacks and we will give them 1 bonus hit from Relentless for 9.  Our opponent is looking at 7 to 8 wounds here with cleave 2 and probably another 2 or 3 from Resolve.  We should be looking at 10 to 12ish wounds expected.  With Death because of that bonus to impacts we are looking more at 3 initial hits with 1 to 2 wounds through and possibly another from resolve.  We'll just call this 2 wounds expected.  Jumping up to 12 expected hits from making to to clash 4 on our melee attacks should net something like 14 after relentless and 12 expected wounds plus another 4 from resolve.  We go from 10 to 12ish wounds to something more like 16 to 18 wounds and breaking if not destroying many opposing regiments outright.  This also threatens to outright destroy a variety of monsters including our own Apex Predator 

The second example shows where the early chant from Death can amplify quality attacks to a large degree.  In this example we actually net more expected wounds from Death 1 than we would from Famine 1 although at the cost of charge distance.  Burnout would also stack with Death 1 getting us to clash 4 on those impacts and clash 4 + reroll 6s on the clash attacks. 

Tier 2: Flawless Strikes

Flawless strikes cause hit rolls of "1" to count your opponents defense as 0 for that attack basically forcing them to rely on their evasion.  Combined with the extra accuracy and potential rerolls we start to be a bit more threatening to a high defense unit especially with many of our unit not really bringing a lot of cleave.  This benefit is substantially greater for units that output a high volume of attacks at low cleave than it is for our cleave 2 choices but even they will benefit against anything with 4 or more Defense letting you threaten very bulky units a little bit more.

Examples

For these examples we will give our standard opponent Evasion 1.  Let's start with maybe the poster child for high output relatively low quality attacks...the humble Blooded.  A minimum regiment of Blooded pours in 19 attacks for a mere 135 pts but do so at clash 2 and no cleave Death lets us fix the quality of issues of these attacks in a hurry.  Against our standard opponent with an Inspire + Clash action we have 19 attacks resulting in 9 to 10 hits and generously 5 wounds plus 1 or 2 more from resolve.  Certainly able to threaten a stand but unlikely to pick up more than 1 of most targets.  Chanting Death 2 pulls us up to an expected 12 to 13 hits from the first tier and likely having a pair or "1"s on the dice.  Those will be saved at our opponent s evasion 1 and likely both wound.  The other 10 to 11 hits will add another 5 or so wounds resulting in 7 wounds + another 2 expected from resolve.  

We go from expecting 6 to 8 wounds to 9 to 10 making us much more threatening to a second stand.  That 2 or so extra wounds isn't just a 25%+ increase in output its important to consider the impact on opponents output.  The changes in v2 to infantry resulting in no degradation until you remove an actual stand makes the ability to threaten multiple stands much more important.

Tier 3: Deadly Blades AND Untouchable

Tier 3 gets us our final offensive output boost and our first and only defensive buff from the Cult of Death.  Deadly Blades just adds even more output on top of what we were already doing.  Let's go ahead and jump back to our tier 2 example and look at those 13 hits we were doing with deadly blades on top.  Because our opponent has evasion they actually have to roll those flawless strike attacks which actually makes this slightly more dangerous for them than if they were evasion 0 and they just automatically wounded.  13 save attempts is likely to see 2 "6"s rolled resulting in 2 extra wounds so our 7 expected wounds jumps to 9 and our opponent is likely to fail an additional resolve test at this point pushing us up to 12 wounds expected.  Definitely in the realm of removing 2 stands even of elite targets and probably earning their points back from one activation.

I'm going to jump to a different example for Untouchable because I think the best highlight for the potential of this rule is how well in synergizes with Chosen of Death.  Chosen of Death have a very unusual evasion 3 base.  They on average just save half of the incoming attacks regardless of cleave making them oddly one of the most durable choices we have but also at a huge 230 points they probably should have some survivability.

In this example we are going to look at what another elite unit actually should expect to do to them in combat.  I'm going to use the Dweghom Dragonslayers regiment because they are a fairly elite hitting unit.  Dragonslayers are clash 4 base so will inspire to get some rerolls and a minimum regiment outputs 19 attacks at cleave 3 for a surprisingly reasonable 200 pts flat.  19 attacks should be about 13 hits  and 2 "6"s to reroll lets give them both hits to make it 15.  We don't have any defense for them to cleave but we get our evasion 3 giving us 7 to 8 saves.  We will go with 7 saves and assume that of our 8 "4"s, "5"s, and "6"s we will get 3 rerolls making 2 for a total of 6 wounds through.  We are only resolve 3 so we will take another 3 wounds netting "only" 9 damage. 

The expected output here is more like 8 to 10 but the realities of not being consistently likely to kill that second stand of Chosen of Death with other elite units can be a real issue.  Chosen of Death hit very hard given the opportunity to swing back and as mentioned in the tier 2 discussion the change to infantry degradation makes it much worse in v2 to leave a stand on a wound or 2.  W'adrhun having 5 wounds per stand as the norm leads to some potentially challenging decisions when trying to decide where to put attacks and how much to devote to removing a single regiment especially when we can potentially amplify the bulk of high value targets.

Comparison of Cleave 1 vs Flawless Strikes

I wanted to look at this just as an idea of how much difference there is between the two and how to look at something like Flawless Strikes or Relentless Blows in general.  While Flawless Strikes gives comparable outcomes to Cleave 1 (we'll get there bear with me) and Relentless blows works out similarly to just having +1 clash it's worth pointing out that the reliability, or lack there of, of the special rules is likely to create much more swingy outcomes.  Over the course of thousands of rolls there wont be a lot of difference but in a single activation you could easily roll several "1"s or zero.

To do some math lets just grab that example fight from tier 2.  We had 12 hits likely netting us 2 "easy" wounds from flawless and another 5 or so from our cleaveless attacks for an expected 7ish before resolve.  Cleave 1 pushes our opponent down to saving on 1s and 2s for all 12 attacks netting us about 8 wounds.  The more attacks you make the more cleave becomes beneficial vs the special rule and as stated cleave 1 should be more consistent over the course of a game although it is also effected by other special rules such as Hardened that Flawless Strike ignores.  

If you wanted a very quick and dirty look at output estimates you could probably subtract 1 defense and then drop your expectations a wound or 2 as a placeholder for trying to math out the effect of Flawless Strikes.  In general when working with expected outputs I tend to always lean towards my models doing less work and my opponents doing more.  Preparing my rounds that way has a tendency for me to add redundancy to my plans and over the long term has been beneficial to not having a single bad activation change the course of games.  

Planning like this in W'adrhun is also a little easier as our units tend to be pretty mobile.  It's much easier to still get value out of later activations if things have gone well early in a round if your regiments have the pace to reach out to multiple targets or threaten to take an relatively distant objective.  Target flexibility when your plans change is also a side efficiency of ranged units and as mentioned about a thousand times already in this blog I currently regard all of our ranged options quite highly. 

Conclusion

To wrap this up I find Death to be the most user friendly chant as the majority of the benefits are straight-forward and apply to most combat situations in the game.  The sneaky tier 3 defensive bonus synergizes very well with the Chosen of Death unit and can be useful on a handful of other units such as Raptor Riders with their Evasion 2 and maybe Braves or Veterans with their slightly better Defense 3.  It would be my choice for learning the chant system when starting W'adrhun but also offers enough upside to use as a primary cult choice for a wide variety of lists especially when adding in a couple of sources of Conquest tokens to provide coverage.

Blooded and Braves - Examining Mainstay Infantry

 Two of the most ubiquitous regiment entries in the W'adrhun army are Blooded and Braves.  Every character except the mounted predator has the option of taking these two regiments mainstay.  On the surface both would appear to occupy a similar role as basic infantry choices with Braves being slightly cheaper at 115pts for a 3 stand regiment and Blooded running a slightly higher 135.  This article seeks to do a little bit of a more detailed look and show where both regiments have interesting and different roles in the W'adrhun force.

OVERVIEW

Looking at the entries for the two regiments both are medium infantry allowing for scoring with 5 wounds per stand and a 5" march.  Braves benefit from a shield and support (2) while Blooded have a very solid 6 attacks per stand a standout if you will amongst basic infantry choices.  Blooded also have a very generous selection of officer options including the unique choice - the Aberration and also bring Evasion 1 and an additional point in Resolve.  Braves on the other hand "benefit" from the blood lust special rule.  That special rule is one of the things that changes the way the two units can reliably be used.

BRAVES AND BLOODLUST

The Bloodlust special rule is an unusual one in that it forces a resolve test every time the regiment would take an action.  Failing this resolve test forces the regiment to charge the closest enemy it can see and if it has no valid charge targets it must march towards the closest enemy in line of sight.  The upside of this special rule is it does allow for a charge on the turn the regiment enters the battlefield an odd benefit worth keeping in mind on the rare occasion where you can get a sneaky entry charge. Because the base unit of Braves has a poor resolve of 2, it is very risky to play them as a minimum unit alone.  A canny opponent will seek to force you to charge regiments they would prefer.  With that being said let's look at things Braves do well.

Firstly Braves are an excellent cheap character escort. At 115 points and with an effective defense of 3 with their shields they do provide at least some bulk to protect a support character.  For example a Scion plus a minimum regiment of Braves only comes in at 215 points and is the cheapest way to get access to the variety of spells available to the W'adrhun.  The same is true about the Matriarch and access to her powerful healing draw event.  Both characters do a tremendous job of offsetting bloodlust as well.  Because bloodlust tests at the current highest resolve in the regiment a minimum regiment with either character will be testing on a 5 rather than a 2.

The second more reliable way to use Braves is in a larger sized regiment.  The support (2) rule and their cheap cost does make them a viable choice for a "Big Block of Braves" or BBB.  115 points and 35 pts per stand means you can put 6 stands on the table for 220 points.  This also makes them effective with character load outs meant to buff a large unit.  Typically that would be something like the Death's Gaze banner that gives you impact (2) and in a larger unit such as this the Glorious Charge netting you some decent improvements to those impact attacks.  

This load out is relatively common for good reason.  A block of 6 stands of Braves and a Character, let's use a Matriarch, will be making 14 impact attacks and if they can charge - clash this activation following up with 21 additional attacks from clash using a standard 3 wide formation.  A very decent number and not dissimilar to what Blooded will do in a similar set-up but saving 35 pts over the 6 stands. Only the attacks from the character will have an cleave value but the 35 or so attacks should be enough volume to offset that limitation against many targets.

BLOODED

Moving on to Blooded in addition to being perfectly functional in a large block, if a bit expensive, they are highly useful in smaller regiments left to their own devices.  In addition to a high number of attacks base plus access to an array of officer choices, Blooded also bring a slightly better resolve 3 and evasion 1 making them a very flexible unit.  A champion pushes them up to 7 attacks per stand- an amount well in the norms for elite infantry choices most of which would cost far more than the 150 points the Blooded will.  They can also gain access to flank and fiend hunter from a tracker letting netting you potential rerolls for a large number of attacks and more deployment control.  The Skirmisher upgrade gives them an interesting bonus to their March.  Going to base 6" march with access to the aforementioned Death's Gaze and cult of famine makes them function almost like cavalry threatening large areas with potential impact attacks.  The last officer choice is the unique Aberration.

The Aberration can only be taken in units of 5 or less (although does let you exclude characters from this count) and provides the lethal demise special rule.  This special rule essentially does one hit to the opponent's regiment for every wound they inflict to the blooded while in contact. With W'adrhun regiments having a higher than average wound total, in this case 5, this often will contribute a few additional wounds and force some interesting questions.  While their defensive stats aren't particularly good that 1 evasion does offset high cleave a little bit and that extra point of resolve makes them less reliant on a character for tests.

I mentioned using Braves as character escorts and offering a points savings in bigger regiments Blooded would be my choice for either a couple of minimum units floating around and being threatening and would also be a choice for a list that wants to flood the board with cheaper options.  135 points for a minimum regiment and being mainstay means you can get a lot of stands on the table if you so desire and have a fair bit of flexibility in how you set those stands up.  Combined with their high attacks you reach volumes of output that offset the lack of cleave and when supported by well timed chants they can inflict damage well beyond what the point cost would imply.

CONCLUSIONS

Despite sharing a basic mainstay infantry role I'd argue both Braves and Blooded have differing places within the W'adrhun force.  Both can be effective in large blocks while Braves make excellent cheap character escorts and Blooded have a high amount of attacks and solid flexibility in officers making them a regiment that can fill a variety of needs.  I would lean towards Blooded as being somewhat more user friendly on the back of not having to factor in bloodlust, but I think both have their place in various army builds.

NOTES AND CONSIDERATIONS

1. The bloodlust special rule allows you to choose to charge when you enter the battlefield you do not have to fail the resolve or anything like that. 
2. You can opt to refuse to act which would also let Braves do something like hold an objective without having to test. However, you do still contribute a token and would have to chant if there were 3 in your pool as special rules triggering before actions are still resolved.
3. If you really wanted to dive into the jank tank you could combine an Aberration with the third Tier of War.  This chant ends up netting you counter attack in addition to lethal demise potentially netting a lot of hits back into an attacking regiment.  Probably expensive and difficult to set up but interesting none the less. (Shout out to Halkbat on the conquest discord for this idea)
4. Slightly deeper on the costs of larger blocks and output - A champion on a block of Braves is still cheaper (5pts + 5pts per extra stand) than an equal number of Blooded and will typically net out to an even number of attacks. Not something I would consider for minimum units but at 6 stands it's saving enough to be worth looking at.
5. Cleave factors heavily into the value of the shield on Braves vs the evasion of the Blooded at cleave(2) they are equivalent.  Blooded also get slightly more benefit from the ways we have to improve evasion although the Scars of Endekar relic is quite costly and Conquest tier 2 isn't likely to be a super common chant both have potential value.

Hopefully you found this to be informative and helpful to your army design and as always thanks for reading

-K

P.S.

If you are new to W'adrhun and wonder how you should assemble a starter box I do think you'll end up fielding Blooded more frequently than Braves although I don't think either choice is bad - both have good value on table.

Chanting and You in TLAoK v2 (UPDATED!)

TLAoK v2 brought about a number of changes to the W'adrhun chant mechanic.  In addition to revamping much of the cult benefits changes were made to token generation, when you are able to chant, and the fanatic special rule.

On the surface token generation only underwent a minor change.  Previously as long as the card drawn was on the table a token could be generated.  In V2 this was changed to specify that a card must have started the round on the battle field to contribute a token.  This means that you can no longer generate sneaky tokens on turn one by bringing on regiments with characters and then drawing the character card after.  The net result is slowing down early game chanting and making the first draw on turn 2 less likely to chant. 

Maintenance of tokens changed very little.  You may still only have 3 tokens in your pool at any given time and adding a fourth forces you to discard.  You also must still chant if there are 3 tokens in your pool when drawing a card that can chant.  There was a small change to when you are able to opt to chant - previously you could only chant if you had 2 tokens in your pool - now you may chant with a single token in your pool.  This is of benefit to regiments with the fanatic rule.

Where we start to see larger changes is in the requirements to chant each tier.  Previously tier 1 required 2 tokens, tier 2 needed 3 tokens, and tier 3 required 4 tokens.  The only way to acquire the 4th token for tier 3 was through the fanatic rule which did, and still does, let you count one additional token when chanting with a unit with the special rule.  The new requirements are still 2 tokens for tier 1 and 3 for tier 2 but instead of a 4th token tier 3 simply requires 3 tokens and the fanatic rule.  

There were also some slight changes to using the cult of conquest chants.  Previously you need each token to be from a different cult to chant conquest.  This has been changed to just needing tokens from 2 or more cults.  Conquest tokens themselves have not changed and are still a wild card of sorts.  When you opt to chant the battle cry with Conquest tokens in your pool you replace those tokens with any of the other three cults of your choosing.

The fanatic rule still provides its own "bonus" token if you will.  Combined with the change of only requiring 1 token to chant at all a regiment with the fanatic rule can basically always chant tier 1 and will be able to chant tier 3 with 1 token in the pool prior to its activation.  A regiment with the fanatic special rule will probably never chant tier 2 because it now has the same token requirement as tier 3. 

Lets get into some examples -

You have one DEATH token in your pool and you draw Cult of Death unit of Blooded.  You add a second DEATH token to your pool.  With 2 DEATH tokens in your pool you opt to chant the battle cry.  Because you have 2 DEATH tokens you will be able to gain the tier 1 benefit from the cult of death.  For the remainder of the round your Blooded gain +1 clash making them Clash 3.  Both tokens are spent and your pool is now empty.

You have one DEATH token and one WAR token in your pool and you draw Cult of Death unit of Blooded.  You add a second DEATH token to your pool.  With 3 tokens in your pool you must chant.  With 2 DEATH and 1 WAR token you may either chant for the tier 1 benefit of Cult of Death or because you have tokens from two different cults you may chant for the tier 2 benefit of Cult of Conquest.  Remember these benefits are cumulative so if you opt for Cult of Conquest you get both the tier 1 and tier 2 benefit.  Either choice will empty your pool as you always discard remaining tokens.

You have NO tokens! However, your first activation this round is a regiment of Raptor Riders with the fanatic special rule.  You place one Famine token into your pool.  You may opt to chant for the benefits of tier 1 for the Cult of Famine as the fanatic special rule will count as your second Token. 

You have 2 WAR tokens in your pool.  You draw a Scion of Conquest adding a CONQUEST token to your pool.  Because Character stands can't chant you are not required to chant and instead cast Crescendo.  Crescendo adds another CONQUEST token to your pool, because you have 4 tokens in your pool you must now choose to discard one.  Crescendo causes you to activate a unit which now must chant as you have three tokens in your pool.

Hopefully those examples help explain the system.  Many of the special rules and bonuses from chants are extremely powerful and it isn't always the best choice to try to save for a tier 2 or tier 3 benefit.  A well timed +1 clash or removing broken on a key stand are just as capable of turning a game as getting off that perfect tier 3 famine super charge.  

BELLOWING ROAR

The June 2023 update added the Bellowing Roar rule to most of the W'adrhun monsters.  This rule allows limited interaction with monsters and chanting.  Monsters, such as the Apex Predator, now use the war chant special rules and are considered to follow the cult of conquest.  They are also limited to only ever being able to chant from the cult of conquest.

FAQs

• Only fanatic regiments are required to chant the same battle cry as their listed cult.  Other units may benefit from any of the cult chants
• While a unit entering the battle field does not contribute a token they may chant the battle cry (both war and conquest can be beneficial on entry)
• The fanatic rule counts as adding an additional token but because that token isn't a part of the pool fanatic units are not required to chant with 2 tokens in the pool.
• Conquest tokens are exchanged individually.  If you have more than one conquest token in your pool you may replace them with tokens from different cults.
• While Characters don't contribute tokens the round the regiment they are attached to enters the battlefield you can cast crescendo that round with a Scion to add a sneaky token.

Sources of Conquest Tokens

• Scion of Conquest
• The Crescendo Spell (see Scion of Conquest)
• Chosen of Conquest regiment
• Any regiment and the attached character if the character has Teachings of Conquest tier 2
• Any character with the Touched by the Goddess artifact (note this does not effect the regiment)
• Monster Regiments with the Bellowing Roar Special rule (Apex Predator, Drum Beast, Quatl, and Tontorr)

 

 

An output analysis on Slingers

 The broad changes to the function of ranged units in addition to the changes to really both W'adrhun ranged infantry options create some interesting choices in list building.  This article seeks to examine the math for slingers against a relatively generic target.  I'll be looking at the output at long range with and without using Take Aim and at close range with and without using Take Aim as well as looking at the impact of the Flint Knapper upgrade.

Let's start with what the Slingers do.  They are a March 6 Volley 3 base unit with 18" barrage (4) per stand.  The minimum 3 stand regiment will set you back 170 pts but with the included leader will be making 13 ranged attacks per turn at full range.  They also come with two very powerful special rules - Torrential Fire and wounds caused by this regiment at ranged still cause Morale Tests.  Both of these rules have the potential to greatly amplify the damage slingers can do particularly to lighter targets as they lack any armor piercing.  Now that that is out of the way let's jump into some math.

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Starting with a generic target lets use Defense 3 and Resolve 4 as a baseline

With a March and Volley activation we have the potential to take 13 attacks at a starting distance of 24" with Volley 3 we should hit roughly half of those attacks yielding 6 to 7 hits.  Our generic target has defense 3 so should also save roughly half of those shots leading to an expected output of 3 to 4 wounds.  Because we also still cause morale tests we can expect our target to take 1 to 2 additional wounds from failures leading to and expected output of 4 to 6 wounds.  

While not an incredible number this is likely to remove at least one stand and has done so from potentially 24" away with no buffs.  Now lets look at a Take Aim and Volley Activation.

We increase our Volley to 4 from take aim and now we are generating 8 to 9 hits. Again our generic target will save roughly have of those resulting in 4 to 5 wounds.  Adding resolve tests should generate us an additional 1 to 2 wounds as before.  Our expected output has pushed to 6 to 7 wounds. 

This should reliably remove one stand from our generic target and while it is less than a 50% chance to do 8 wounds there is a possibility of doing so threatening an additional stand of 4 wound models and a potential break of a small unit.  6 to 7 wounds also puts us in the realm of removing a stand of many Brute and Cavalry models.

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Now that we've looked at long range let's dive into half range.  At half range regiments gain +1 barrage per stand leading us to 16 attacks.  This also brings our other special rule, Torrential Fire, into play.  Torrential Fire causes an additional automatic hit for each hit made from within half of barrage range.  This is an incredibly powerful special rule resulting in double output of Slingers shooting at targets within 9" so lets get into what that output looks like.

Lets start with a march to within 9" and then a volley so we will use Volley 3 for now.  Our increased 16 attacks should yield approximately 8 hits. This will be doubled by Torrential Fire to 16 hits.  Our defense 3 target will again save roughly half resulting in 8 wounds.  Resolve still kicks in on these attacks adding another 2 to 3 wounds.  Within half range we are expecting roughly 10 to 11 total wounds.  This should threaten to immediately break a large array of small units including some brutes and cavalry.

That escalated quickly.  Slingers within half range are definitely a highly dangerous unit.  Let's take a look at the increased output if we can manage a Take Aim and Volley activation within 9" of our target.

We continue to start with 16 attacks but now at Volley 4 we should expect 10 to 11 initial hits doubled to 20 to 22 hits.  Our generic target will again save half so will start with 10 to 11 wounds.  The resultant morale tests should add an additional 3 to 4 wounds.  This leads to a total expected output to be in the 13 to 15 wound range.  At this point we can see that the slingers aren't just threatening to break a small unit but outright remove it from the table as well as threatening to break or destroy a number of Brute and Cavalry units.

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At this point we can see that Slingers are a potentially devastating ranged unit especially if we can leverage their Torrential Fire special rules.  We have yet to examine the potential buffs we can add to the unit in the form of the Flint Knapper upgrade.  The Flint Knapper costs us 15 pts bringing the 3 stand regiment to 185 but it provides two benefits.  The first is we now ignore the Hardened rule.  Hardened allows a unit to ignore at least part of incoming effects such as Cleave that reduce defense.  As our slingers have no armor piercing we don't actually care about that part.  

The second benefit is the one we care more about - we now reroll any 6s on our volley hit rolls.  Typically I look at rerolling 6s as more of a normalizing factor than necessarily as adding wounds.  The reason for this is the low number attacks means a small percentage increase in successes.  In a perfect distribution you'd expect about 16% of the dice rolled to be 6s so rerolling those should net roughly 8 to 12% additional successes depending on whether or not take aim was available.  Let's take a look at our biggest output scenario - take aim and volley within 9"

16 attacks should yield 10 to 11 initial hits and likely 2 misses on a 6.  We should hit at least 1 but possibly both of those jumping us to 11 to 13 initial hits doubled to 22 to 26 hits after torrential.  So now we are at 11 to 13 wounds from the volley and an additional 3 to 4 still from resolve yielding 14 to 15 wounds with an reasonable chance for 16+.  This isn't a big change but the percentage distribution should be much more in the middle of the curve with the lower end being pushed up by the reroll.

To conclude this rather lengthy and hopefully helpful dive into Slingers we see a viable ranged superiority unit that should put positional pressure on opponents because the threat of not just removing light units but putting pressure on heavier units like brutes and cavalry especially if they can leverage the torrential fire rule.  Solid base Volley stats and some rather unique rules make Slingers a prime reason to run a predator warband in version 2.  I may examine the predator directly in a later post to see what those additional quality shots can add to the regiment.  

As always Thanks for Reading

-Kauzu

2.0 updates - brief thoughts

 Now that 2.0 is out and the dust has settled a little bit I think it is worth a few brief thoughts.  Firstly I think W'adrhun came out of the update in a very positive place.  Basically all of the characters got options rolled into their costs making them effectively cheaper and the change to stat by stand rather than by individual model was relatively positive for W'adrhun with a number of regiments picking up an extra wound and or extra attacks. The Scion of Conquest in particular benefits from the character changes as all the spells are available without cost increases.  The updated supremacy abilities are all also quite viable.  The Matriarch Queen and the Chieftain are my picks for the most interesting with the Queen winning out slightly on how powerful I think the Fanatic special rule can be.

Game-wide most elite units got a little less elite with those changes but both Chosen of Death* and Chosen of Famine were among the very few that kept 8 attacks per stand and, like all infantry, no longer degrade with lost wounds.  The Apex Predator did pick up some fairly substantial decreases with the changes to rider, the hide of the silent hunter, and just in general feeling a little less bulky than before.  The Drum Beast got an entire redesign and looks like it will eventually be a common sight in W'adrhun lists and will now be a combo kit to the Tontorr.  I for one am very excited to see what it ends up looking like.  More Dinos More Better I'm sure.

As far as the chant mechanic goes there are enough changes for it to be worth it's own post when I get some time to note down thoughts.  Redesigned Famine seems to be in a very good spot and Death remains very solid.  The loss of turn 1 tokens is a fairly big early game change but the availability of Fanatic does provide some opportunities for early chant utilization.  Leveraging that particular rule does seem like it will be important moving forward.  There are still plenty of tricks available and if anything the effect of the chants particularly at tier 3 got stronger.

In general I think ranged attacks got more powerful with the 2.0 update and the W'adrhun ranged** pieces all got quite a lot of improvements.  Hunters are now viable flex choices with decent shooting and 5 melee attacks per stand for anything seeking to run into them and Slingers leveraging their ability to inflict resolve tests at range and the new torrential fire seem very potent.  Both went from niche pieces to regiments I think should have some priority in list build. 

*I intend to explore the potential damage output and sustain of Chosen of Death in the relatively near future

**Check the list section for a framework of a ranged heavy build

Welcome

I decided to try my hand at blogging my time with Conquest: The Last Argument of Kings a miniatures game published by Para Bellum Games.  I focus primarily on playing the W'adrhun faction.  My hope is to expand this blog with my test lists and how they operate on the table, thoughts on the character and regiment options that make up the W'adrhun, interesting rules interactions, and tactical musings.  I hope that if you happen to stumble in you enjoy my ruminations on everyone's favorite engineered warriors.

All lists are made using the Army Builder tool provided by Para Bellum at https://armybuilder.para-bellum.com/ and a big shout out to the people on the Conquest discord server for helping bounce around ideas and answer questions