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.