A Chanting Conquest Update

 Hey Everyone,

     I wanted to put up a notice quick as it is the normal release day of the Chanting Conquest Podcast.  At the moment I am taking a break from producing regular content.  The project I was currently starting on was a series called the Scion's Scouting Report which was to be a detailed dive into each regiment.  With the announcement that W'adrhun would be getting a comprehensive update I've opted to shelf that for the moment as it doesn't make a lot of sense writing it all just to rewrite it at the end of the year.  I'm anticipating that update will likely result in me needing to rewrite all the chanting resource guides as well.

The next thing I plan on actually releasing publicly is likely to be a state of play podcast post Adepticon.  It does look like I'll be able to attend this year and I've been deep deep in the jank tank since the update trying to come up with something surprising to play.  I'm pretty sure I've succeeded but also now I have to do a ton of painting.  I'll probably continue to sporadically produce content related to any events I manage to get to but for now there will be a hold on regular episodes and articles.

The other thing I plan on doing while we wait in a little bit of limbo is to try to have better integration between the blog, the pod, and quite possibly a YouTube channel.  When I started the podcast I recorded the episode and just dropped it straight away without any real thought on where all it would be posted or how I was going to integrate the content with the blog.  I'm planning on using some of the time while we wait for the rework of the faction to have a better solution to have content easily available.  

I picked up a small camera and am trying to sort out the best way to add some more visual content.  Hopefully some of it will be games, but also it's much easier to show the potential of things like fluid formation with a video.  I'm also working on a better audio solution for the podcast as just using my headset has always been a bit spotty.  

I'm going to start doing some testing with video recording in the next month or two and if those work out well enough I will also have that content available. 

As Always thanks for reading and I look forward to having a revamped look for you soon

-K

Chant Deep Dive part 4: The Cult of Conquest

I know it's been quite awhile since my last post.  I'm going to try to get back to posting at least one or two articles a month.  I have quite a bit to get caught up on at the moment as far as recapping episodes of the Chanting Conquest Podcast and some other articles I have planned.  Today we are finishing the series of articles focused on a specific cult and what it does.

Before we get too deep into what the Cult of Conquest does we need to get into how using it actually works.  Conquest is quite a bit different to the other three options in a few ways.  First you don't really get to choose to have a warband follow it.  Instead Conquest is limited to models with the Bellowing Roar* special rule, the cult of conquest, and any regiment joined by a character with the Teachings of Conquest tier 2 benefit.  The Scion of Conquest follows the Cult of Conquest themself but does not automatically pass that on to their warband or any regiment they join.  The Touched by the Goddess artifact similarly makes a character count as following the Cult of Conquest but does not impact their warband or any regiment they join.  

These restrictions currently make it impossible to have either cavalry regiment or Warbred to count as Cult of Conquest.  Remember a regiment can chant from any cult you have the tokens to activate unless they have the Bellowing Roar or Fanatic special rules so this restriction really just locks you out of ever reaching Tier 3 benefits with those regiments. 

Secondly you don't use Conquest tokens to activate chants from the Cult of Conquest.  Instead Conquest tokens are basically wild cards that are replaced with tokens from a Cult of your choosing when you chant.  You activate chants from the Cult of Conquest by spending tokens from at least two different cults.  This does not ever require you to discard tokens from a third cult although if you have three different you absolutely can.  Three tokens from two different cults is enough to activate tier 2 of Conquest (or tier 3 if you also have Fanatic).

Now they we have the oddities of using Conquest out of the way let's jump into what we actually get out of it.  Like every other cult we have three tiers of benefits and these benefits are cumulative - you get the bonuses from all the tiers below the one you actually purchase.  Conquest focuses a little bit more on mobility than the power benefits of the other cults and that is readily apparent from the first tier.  At tier 1 we get +3 inches of movement to our first March action.  You do have to use an action on March to get the benefit but +3 inches is a substantial improvement for most of our regiments often being more than 50% additional movement on that March.

Conquest can be an excellent chant to trigger as a regiment enters the battlefield as that additional movement gives you a lot more flexibility in positioning.  It's also an excellent buff on things like Tontorr or a Drumbeast as both of those are more than happy to March Charge into an opponent getting a nice increase in their immediate threat range for doing so.

Tier 2 of conquest provides +2 evasion to the regiment until the end of the round with a rather generous cap of 3 total.  Evasion is an excellent form of defense typically trading higher base values for the consistency of ignoring the majority of rules the impact defense values such as cleave, brutal impact, and smite.  Evasion 3 is fairly unusual across the game but factoring in this chant we have several units that can achieve it including some more durable infantry regiments such as Chosen of Conquest or Veterans both of whom have a base evasion of 1.  While not a massive swing in defensive power moving to a very consistent 50/50 save profile makes regiments very annoying to deal with and excellent choices to tie up high cleave opponents such as Varangian Guard or Dragonslayers.

Tier 3 is where the Cult of Conquest gets spicy.  The third tier of Conquest grants the regiment an extra action during their activation.  Normal restrictions do apply so you are not able to charge twice or clash twice but otherwise unconditional third actions are very rare and shift some of the base elements of the game.  Typically this tier is going to provide exceptional mobility either combining with tier 1 to greatly amplify the threat range of a melee regiment or making something like Slingers exceptionally annoying to tie down.  

An example of the potency of this can be easily found with the potential threat range of the Chosen of Conquest.  Chosen of Conquest are a reasonably threatening melee unit with base clash 3, 5 attacks per stand, and cleave 1 for good measure.  On the surface they are held back a little by the somewhat limiting march 5.  That is until you trigger a tier 3 conquest chant.  Now they are capable of an action set consisting of March Charge Clash and you'll get the additional movement on that initial March.  That is an infantry unit with a minimum threat range of 14" on a turn that they will also be able to clash.  This combination lets them threaten clash actions further out than most cavalry regiments.  

Another example is the currently popular Chieftain on Tontorr with the Mantle of the Devoted artifact.  The fanatic conquest Tontorr can threaten 16 or more inches with it's full clash action available or can March March Charge and put its impacts and tramples into a target 22+ inches away.  Doing so will also give it evasion 2 making it that much more annoying to deal with when it dives in (or more reasonably attacks a flank - Tontorrs are durable but most of the time wont survive the aftermath a 22" charge down the middle).

I mentioned Slingers a bit earlier in the article and it is probably worth looking at that combo in a little more depth.  The Predator character does have Teachings of Conquest available to it and for 30 points spent getting to Tier 2 you can make the regiment of Slingers it joins count as Cult of Conquest.  Add on a method to give them Fanatic and the Predator's own ability to give them Fire and Advance and all of a sudden you have a very mobile gun platform that can do things march aim shoot or aim shoot march twice backward or any number of other combinations that let them either extend their threat range, particularly getting into Torrential Fire range, or shoot and move away keeping good spacing to protect themselves.

To recap the Cult of Conquest behaves a little bit differently than the other three cults and is a little more challenging to get regiments into but not particularly harder to actually trigger the chant.  It's worth a refresher on how the chant rules work in general but specifically with this cult every now and then.  The benefits focus more on mobility than raw power buffs but go a long way to opening up options for the savvy W'adrhun player.

As always thanks for reading and I hope you have a great week

-K

*The Bellowing Roar special rule was added to the Apex Predator, Tontorr, Drum Beast, and the unreleased as of yet Quatl to allow monsters to interact with the chant special rules in a little more limited way.  These monsters always count as following the Cult of Conquest, generate a conquest token when their card is drawn, however, may only ever chant from the Cult of Conquest.  Sorry no Death chants for your Apex.

Episode 2 Recap Hard Mommy

 Alright time to do a recap of episode 2 which is available HERE

    I mentioned that I didn't weight the categories at all during the episode and I think that it is important to look at where value comes from in characters.  Even through I think the Queen's supremacy is basically bad at this point I'm not sure how much that matters to her overall quality because we do have good supremacies available on characters you want to take.  The real drawback to the Queen currently for me is in her Warband.

    The biggest issues are her signature mainstay, Warbred, have aged a bit poorly and aren't nearly the menace of new elite cost brutes AND she can't join them.  This forces you to either take another basic mainstay for her or spend resources to put her into one of her restricted of which the only ones she can actually join are Raptors, for the upcharge of a 45 point artifact, or the Apex Predator which takes both her mastery and is another regiment I feel has aged a bit poorly.

    Realistically her 3 best regiments are Tontorr, Drum Beast, and Raptors.  All of these are restricted and none are particularly easy to get her into.  I do like that she has a couple of light regiments available to her.  At the moment she can join them and give you an early scoring option.  I think that can be very helpful with some lists but also isn't by any means mandatory.  I do question whether or not characters keeping their own classification is actually a good rule in general.  I'd almost rather see them just count as whatever the regiment is much like auxiliary rules do in City States

    My thoughts on the queen are that she isn't unplayable trash by any means but I'd only run her in a competitive oriented list if I had a very specific plan and at this point I think that would fairly limited to take a big brick of braves (or blooded) as a mainstay and then take a Tontorr.  The big brick gives that style of list a durable medium unit to smooth out scenario play a little bit.  For me she is decidedly a secondary character.

Thanks for listening to the ramble and reading the review I hope you enjoyed it.  There is a special Halloween episode coming. 

-K

Thunder Chieftain Breakdown Podcast

 The first episode of the Chanting Conquest podcast is available HERE

    I thought I'd write a quick follow up to explain some of the "grading" system I've been looking at for characters.  As mentioned in the cast I look at Supremacy, Special Rules, Personal Output, and Warband.  When I was looking at this I decided to give each character a score out of 5 in these areas for a potential of 20 points.  

    The Thunder Chieftain ended up with 19.  I only gave him 4 in personal output because while he can get a lot of attacks and has a solid Cleave 2 he lacks is any sort of ranged output so I dinged him a little bit for not being able to consistently do damage over the course of the game the way a ranged character can.

    The score card for the Thunder Chieftain looked like this:

    
 

 

    I do have all the other characters graded and am looking to do an episode on each one.  Maybe I'll actually write some notes or something beforehand so I'm not just rambling.  I can assure you there will be some hot takes on my grades for the rest of the characters.

    I don't actually consider all of these areas equal.  For example I put a lot more emphasis on Warband that anything else.  The regiments you bring are going to be the biggest factor in the functionality of your list so they really should be the first thing you look at.  After that it's probably global special rules/supremacy.  Anything that can effect multiple regiments or general game flow is very powerful. Examples would be things like getting Shock from the Chieftain supremacy on your whole army while he is on the table or Crescendo from the Scion enabling additional chants. 

    The other thing I want to touch on briefly as a follow up to that cast is the idea of primary and secondary characters in list building.  I look at the characters with the better warband options as primary characters.  Those warbands are where you are likely to spend the majority of your points and secondary characters are likely to just have a couple of regiments with them.  The Thunder Chieftain is an obvious candidate for a primary character as it brings an excellent signature mainstay in Thunder Riders and a few very nice choices for Restricted slots.

    I'm not sure what the podcast special will end up looking like but I'd like to do at least one a month as long as I have ideas.  As always thanks for reading

-K

Chant Deep Dive part 3: Cult of Famine

    Famine is a personal favorite cult of mine even if one I don't reach for all that often.  Famine works to improve your threat ranges and the output of march charge and charge clash activations.  The second tier benefit can be useful in a sustained combats as relentless blows does combine nicely with the already good attack volumes we bring but in general this is a cult that amplifies your ability to initiate combats more than sustain them.

    Jumping into the benefits Tier 1 nets us Shock and +2" to movement on charges.  Shock is a nice special rule and does a fair bit to amplify damage but the real winner here for me is the additional movement.  For an already reasonably pacey faction that extra movement puts a lot of our regiments into cavalry threat ranges which can be very difficult to play around.  Being able to reach out and touch opponents or guard objectives is very powerful in a scoring based game.  

    This combos very nicely with already fast units like Raptors that are now threatening largely whatever they want when you add on fluid formation shenanigans.  Your normal march 6 regiments like Thunder Riders and Warbred are now threatening with the higher end of cavalry movement - Thunder Riders in particular already can march charge in for solid damage being able to get to 14" plus a rerollable d6 on the movement portion of that activation is very solid.  You can also stack this with a skirmisher on Hunters or Blooded giving the infantry pretty surprising reach.

    The Shock part of this is nice in that we have good volume so tend to get good benefit from hit buffs often pushing damage close to finishing off an extra stand vs leaving it on a couple of wounds.  However, there is no stacking with shock so if you take a Chieftain as your warlord you wont really see much of this benefit.  I'd say it's still worth playing Famine with the Chieftain supremacy as the movement and other benefits are still excellent.

    Moving to the Tier 2 benefit this is the one that adds specifically to your clash.  As mentioned already relentless blows is an above average buff to W'adrhun as you tend to already have good volumes.  A minimum unit of raptors for example is rolling 15 attacks base with flurry potentially netting you quite a few extra hits here.  Thunder Riders with a Thunder Chieftain also tend to be rolling a lot of attacks with rerolls.  While this won't always kick on because it will require a clash action it is a sneaky good benefit for several units.

    Tier 3 has one of the more interesting benefits available as it is a +2 impact attacks and glorious charge.  The +1 clash on impact attacks from glorious charge does stack with shock allowing for a few of our regiments to get to Clash 5 on impact attacks and terrifying 1 is never bad as a little damage boost.  The +2 impacts can range from meh if those are the only 2 you are getting to phenomenal on something like Thunder Riders that are now getting 6 good quality impacts per stand.  As this benefit is +2 it does stack with the Death's Gaze banner allowing for 4 impacts to infantry regiments.  That is potentially a future combo with Chosen of Famine depending on how they shake out.

    As far as actually getting this on the table Fanatic Famine Thunder Riders are probably the regiment I would look to to getting value out of this.  Their output is easily among the best if the game with the tier 3 on board and while expensive and relatively squishy compared to Cult of War Thunder Riders they can have a huge impact on the table state.  It's a regiment that you'll need to use carefully but can be an absolute nightmare to account for as your opponent really can't let you get it into anything of value.  A regiment of 4 Thunder Riders plus the Chieftain with Mantle will set you back over 500 points but will be outputting 30(!) impact attacks with brutal impact 2 and clash 5 and then another 10 auto hits from tramples into whatever remains of the regiment they charged.  It's a massive amount of potential damage.

    Cult of Famine, to me, is more like Cult of War where you'll want to build a list that wants to utilize what it does well rather than dropping any list into it the way you can basically do with Cult of Death.  In the case of war that is usually taking the regiments available that already have decent defenses and wounds and pumping that up.  In the case of Famine I think you actually still want to lean toward those picks.  Because Famine doesn't really help your sustained clashes you want at least some of your army to be able to shoulder that.  There are two general ideas I would learn toward with this cult.

    The first is the fairly obvious Thunder Riders and Thunder Chieftain combo.  That regiment takes the bonuses from Famine very well and becomes devastating on the March Charge.  However, you'll still want to combine it with other options to provide durability.  Cult of Famine Thunder Riders need to choose their targets well to avoid being a liability to counter attacks.  This will often result in them starting the game in wider areas so you'll want something like Chosen of Conquest or a Tontorr to help hold the middle.

    The second general idea would be to utilize the Matriarch Queen supremacy to amp up cheaper units like Blooded and use them as disposable missiles to take space and provide threat.  This build will also want some decently bulky options to take advantage of the space the Blooded create and would be a good place to run a Scion on a Drum Beast.  While I'm not super high on the Drummie this sort of list takes advantage of what it does well and you can also bring some Chosen to help threaten larger areas.

    Cult of Famine provides some interesting tactically capabilities and is definitely worth exploring as you tinker with various list builds.  The recent availability of more durable, elite options opens up possibilities that were previously difficult to utilize do to the difficulties W'adrhun had in maintaining space as a game went on.  This shift in options opens up the lesser used Cults and enables a variety of different builds and combos.  I hope that this article helps you consider ways to utilize the aggression that the Cult of Famine can play with in your games.

As Always Thanks for Reading

-K

Raptor Riders - An underrated home for the Thunder Chieftain?

    The flexibility of the Thunder Chieftain warband has been a topic of quite a lot of interest for me since it was announced and after shifting off of the idea of just going Thunder Chieftain, Thunder Riders, Tontorr I think there is a lot to explore.  This is one that I've got to give a shout out to Mike from BonkTable, Kang, and everyone else on the discord that has helped bounce ideas around.  I hope you guys get a laugh out of the list included in the article as I went deep, deep into the jank tank for this one.

    So let's jump in and start looking at some pros and cons to putting a Thunder Chieftain in with some Raptor ladies and why you might want to at least give yourself the option to do so.  The biggest benefits of putting a Thunder Chieftain in with Raptors are that you can get a warlord chieftain on to the table very early to start being able to benefit from Shock basically from the start of the game and to create a light regiment capable of scoring.

    

    Light regiments do not normally count toward seizing objectives, however, Character stands still count as their own type.  So a 3 stand unit of Raptors with a Thunder Chieftain is 3 light stands and 1 heavy stand so that 1 heavy stand WILL contribute toward seizing an objective.  This is similar to using a Matriarch Queen with the Brood of Omgorah artifact to shift her to cav.  The Raptor block with Queen has been a reasonably common choice through out V2 and is quite good.  The Chieftain can do similar but adds the possibility of destroying objective markers in a single round which the Queen can't do.  Let's take a closer look at how that works.

"Objective Markers cannot suffer more than 1 wound per Charge/Clash actions from Light and Medium Regiments"

    The above is relevant because the character does not change the type of the regiment.  So even though both a Thunder Chieftain and a Matriarch Queen are heavies the regiment itself is still a Light Regiment so can not cause more than 1 wound per action to the Objective Marker.  The Thunder Chieftain has the advantage here as its Trample special rule DOES* work on objectives.  This results in an additional 2 hits that have the opportunity to do the third and final wound to an objective marker in a single turn.

    You wont always want to attempt this but against an opponent that isn't prepared to punish you for extending to attack an objective on turn 2 you can get a pretty solid amount of scoring in very early.  Raptor riders can quite reasonably reach an objective on the midline of the table by turn 2 and you have roughly a 75% chance of destroying one with a charge/clash action and the aforementioned tramples. 

    Now that we've looked at why we might want to do this lets look at some considerations that maybe make this less than stellar.  First the Thunder Chieftain does slow down the raptors.  The Chieftain is only March 6 and you are limited to the lowest march in a regiment.  You could, at the time of this writing, take the Brood of Omgorah on the Thunder Chieftain (yes I know that sounds silly) to make up the difference but that is quite expensive as the impact bonus doesn't stack with the base impacts of the Chieftain.

    The Thunder Chieftain's way of war doesn't combo overly well with the Raptors.  Raptors already have flurry so while the Chieftain would still get it and Rapid Displacement is far from bad its a little bit not great.  I'd probably still take Violence of Action mostly on the intention of eventually dropping the Thunder Chieftain back into a unit of Thunder Riders.  Seek New Escort is a whole different rules deep dive to get into with the way it messes with formations but at least with Thunder Riders Impacts and Tramples don't care that you'll likely be forced to be more compact after you move.

    Lastly Raptor riders are a little bit fragile and the regiment gets quite expensive when you add a Thunder Chieftain.  If you opt to go this route you will need to be careful to avoid getting what is likely to be close to 400 pts taken off the table early.  You'll only have 5 wounds per stand at resolve 4, defense/evasion 2 to work with and losing the Chieftain, especially if it is your warlord, early is going to make the rest of your game quite difficult.

    One of the options you do have to try to keep your Chieftain a little bit safer is just how the rules work in general as far as when you attach a character to a regiment before the game.  This isn't done until just before the first reinforcement phase so you will get a chance to see what you are up against before you decide to put your Chieftain in the squishier Raptors as opposed to a regiment of Thunder Riders.

    I promised a list that is probably terrible but probably quite fun so here it is.  It takes the idea of early scoring to the logically extreme so try to build early advantage.

=== The Last Argument of Kings ===

All the Cav? [1980/2000]

The W'adrhŭn

== (Warlord) Thunder Chieftain [190]: War, Mantle of the Devoted, Violence of Action

 * Thunder Riders (3) [250]: 

 * Raptor Riders (3) [210]: Huntress

 * Veterans (3) [180]: 

 * Tontorr (1) [310]: 

== Thunder Chieftain [200]: War, Elder Brontoskalps, Violence of Action, Wasteland Adder

 * Thunder Riders (3) [250]: 

 * Raptor Riders (3) [210]: Huntress

 * Veterans (3) [180]: 

    There is 20 pts left in this list you could probably drop Wasteland Adder to add more but Adder ensures we get BOTH of our THUNDER RAPTORS on the table turn 1.  The best option is probably just to toss a standard or champion on one of the Vets but you could get cheeky and add Marksmanship to the Warlord Chieftain.  It is only volley 1 but it would also be pretty funny and this deep in the jank tank I'm not sure how much we care about efficiency.  You could also drop the Tontorr to take a 4 pack of Thunder Riders in that warband if you wanted to avoid the big dino and take more hats.

As Always Thanks for reading and if anyone opts to try that list I hope they have fun,

-K

*There is clarification that tramples do work on objectives despite saying enemy regiment.  The Clarification statement was that Objectives need to be targeted the same was as enemy regiments so while the objectives can't count as enemy regiments for mechanical reasons they are essentially subjected to attacks the same way.

August 2023 Musings, Ponderings, and Hypotheses

 Now that I'm back to writing some content while my work schedule isn't quite so hectic I wanted to do a longer freeform post just detailing some thoughts I've had while interacting with other community members on various platforms.  This is unlikely to be a particularly regular thing but I think some interesting ideas came up that I'd like to explore a little more.

Topic 1: Why do Veterans feel like a mediocre upgrade compared to Chosen of Conquest

    So now that both units are available and have gotten some table time Chosen of Conquest feel very powerful and a good upgrade over the more basic units like Blooded while Veterans even with their point reduction just feel sort of meh.  Not to say that they are actively bad just not exciting.  I think for me the answer to this is that Veterans don't offer anything that Blooded can't do they just offer a slight discount while doing it.

    What I mean by that is the primary special rule for Veterans - Forged in Battle - basically offers you a free tier 1 chant bonus which is quite nice.  Otherwise nothing else they do is a particularly substantial improvement over Blooded.  From an Output perspective 5 stands of Blooded (215 pts) slightly outperform 3 stands of Veterans + the Chief upgrade (205 pts) and from a Defensive perspective the Veterans are higher defense on account of their shields but the Blooded will have better resolve from unit size, more wounds (25 vs 18) and require more wounds to break (15 vs 12). 

    The primary advantage for the Veterans is that you get the tier 1 every round without having to expend resources.  It's quire a good special rule but less exciting in that Blooded could do the same thing if you are willing to spend the tokens and are more available.  For me I feel like Veterans just don't do anything exciting enough to account for being 180 points base cost and being restricted to basically just a Chieftain.  The only time I'd currently feel like reaching for them in a more "serious" build is if I really wanted a Chieftain with Tontorr Rider and I think for the most part the Thunder Chieftain just offers more.  It really pushes Veterans to the back of the line for me.

    Chosen of Conquest on the other hand are 15 pts more than 5 stands of Blooded but offer a couple of more difficult to replicate advantages.  Firstly they have impacts and innate cleave 1 allowing them to actually do more damage than the 5 stands of Blooded especially into higher defense targets.  From a bulk perspective you do still give up 4 wounds total (21 for chosen vs 25 for Blooded) but only give up a single wound in break threshold (14 vs 15) and will still have +1 defense (this time not conditional on shield) and equal resolve with the Chosen's base resolve 4.  

    Lastly Chosen are innate Fanatics with cult of conquest allowing them to chant more and get better benefits from doing so.  In particular this makes Chosen of Conquest one of the few regiments in the game that can be consistently taking a third action that is only restricted by normal action rules.  This means that Chosen of Conquest have surprising mobility being able to march 8, charge, and then still clash leveraging all of their rules.

    To me this is the sort of upgrade that makes for an exciting elite option vs just a maybe slightly more efficient version of the basic unit.  It is actually possible to make Blooded Fanatic Conquest as well but it takes a lot of resources and a character staying in the regiment to do so.  Chosen are expensive but they feel worth it for the capabilities they bring.  It is worth pointing out the Chosen do give up some of the flexibility of chants for this potential power spike but that drawback with Fanatic in general feels reasonable and not crippling.

Topic 2: Is the Tontorr actually that good or are we better off just playing more Thunder Riders

    So this one needs some explanation.  This is assuming you are using the Thunder Chieftain and the warband consists of an minimum unit of Thunder Riders for him to join.  The thought here is it's better to take a 4 stand regiment of Thunder Riders as your second regiment vs taking a Tontorr as your second regiment.  

    The four stand regiment of Thunder Riders costs 20 pts more than the Tontorr at a whopping 330 but it is quite good.  As far as output goes the Thunder Riders will substantially outperform the Tontorr if they can spread out and will slightly outperform the Tontorr if they are in a 2x2 formation to conserve space.  They are also much more flexible as far as chants go as they aren't restricted to conquest, have similar wound totals (24 vs 26), similar base defenses (r4 vs r3 oblivious isn't a massive difference), don't take up a restricted slot leaving a few more options, and won't take up your free reinforcement on Turn 3 as they already have Flank.

    The downside to doing this is losing out on Monster advantages namely not degrading through wounds.  Losing stands of the Thunder Riders will absolutely change the equation on output while the Tontorr fights at full strength on 26 wounds and on 1 wound.  You do avoid being punished by fiend hunter regiments with the Riders for a little bit of a bonus.  There are a few more niche considerations here such as the Thunder Riders being better base clash and not necessarily needing the Chieftain's supremacy as much as it feels like the Tontorr probably does.  Otherwise they end up being pretty similar with the Riders offering additional options.

    I'd love to hear more opinons on this as I feel like the Thunder Riders are likely to just be better. They are also notably cheaper to purchase with 2 boxes of riders (6 stands) being about 75% the cost of the Tontorr at the time of this writing.  I can certainly understand playing the Tontorr because Big Dino is awesome but in a strict list building sense I'm struggle to see where it is super compelling comparatively outside of the lack of degrading profile.

The above image is a monster stand vs 2x2 cav stands.  I put that in there because the mobility advantage of monsters and terrain is not insignificant.  The stand isn't that much smaller than the narrow Cav formation.  This is also why I looked at running the Thunder Riders in a 2x2.

Here are the output comparisons into a variety of targets.  The targets are mostly chosen at random but I think its fairly representative of a wide array of profiles.

That's all I've got for today.  If there is a topic you are curious about and would like me to explore let me know.  As always thanks for reading

-K

Rules Focus: Fanatic

    The Fanatic special rule is one of more powerful tools available to W'adrhun as it opens up the potential power spike that is the tier 3 chant.  However, the rule itself is somewhat obtuse in how it interacts with chanting in general.  The goal of this article is to break down the three parts of the Fanatic rule and how the relate to chanting as well as provide some examples.

First let's review the requirements to chant each tier

• Tier 1 - 2 markers
• Tier 2 - 3 markers
• Tier 3 - 3 markers AND the Fanatic rule

Now let's look at the Fanatic rule-

Fanatic: When a regiment with this special rule chooses a Tier bonus due to Chant the Battle Cry, it always counts as having discarded from the Sequence one additional Chant Marker belonging to their* Cult (to a maximum of three), but may only choose their own Cult's bonus.

    There are three distinct important parts to the special rule as it relates to chanting.  The first is just having Fanatic.  In order to choose a Tier 3 bonus the regiment must have the special rule.  The second part is that you basically get a free bonus token when a fanatic regiment chants.  These two clauses are different.  Chanting tier 3 does not necessarily require your bonus token, however, your bonus token would count toward one of the three required tokens.  The third part of the rule is the limitation.  A unit with Fanatic may only ever get the bonus from its cult.  Effectively this means you trade some of the flexibility of chanting for a potential power spike.

Lets look at some examples.  We'll use Chosen of Conquest for these as they are currently the only released models to have this special rule natively (for a refresher on how conquest tokens and chanting the cult of conquest works check the link to the general chanting write up below):

• We have zero tokens in our pool.  We flip our Chosen of Conquest and add a conquest token to our pool.  We really need that extra movement so we decide to chant the battle cry.  Because fanatic counts as having discarded and extra token we have 2 tokens and so are able to choose the Tier 1 benefit.
• We have a War token in our pool.  We flip our Chosen of Conquest and add a conquest token to our pool.  We decide to Chant the Battle Cry.  The fanatic special rule makes us count as having discarded 3 tokens and we are a regiment with Fanatic so we are able to choose the Tier 3 bonus netting us that extra mobility, evasion, AND a third action
• We have zero tokens in our pool. We flip a Scion of Conquest and add a conquest token to our pool.  With our Scion's action we decide to cast Crescendo using it to add a second conquest token to our pool and drawing our Chosen of Conquest.  We again decide to chant the battle cry immediately and because we have the fanatic rule we count as having discarded a third token and are allegeable for the Tier 3 bonus.
• We have 2 Death tokens in our pool.  We flip our Chosen of Conquest and add a conquest token to our pool.  We MUST chant as we have activated a regiment able to chant and have three tokens in our pool.  We Chant the Battle Cry, because the bonus from fanatic can never count as using more than 3 tokens to chant we don't add an extra token.  However, since we had three tokens when we chanted and are still a Fanatic regiment we again qualify for the Tier 3 bonus.

You'll notice in none of these scenarios do we ever take the Tier 2 bonus.  This is because the only difference in taking Tier 2 vs being able to take Tier 3 is the presence of the Fanatic special rule.  Functionally a Fanatic regiment will never chant Tier 2.  You could opt to take Tier 2 instead of Tier 3 but there is no benefit to doing so.

    Now that we've reviewed the rule and looked at some examples...Is the Fanatic Special rule good?

I think the answer to that is undoubtedly yes.  The loss of a little flexibility to pull a Tier 1 bonus from another cult is actually a pretty significant draw back as all four cults have very good Tier 1 buffs, however, not only do you get the often huge buff Tier 3 provides but fanatic is also offering you free tokens functionally increasing how often you can Chant.  

    Those Tier 3 buffs are also huge.  Tier 3 Conquest is a full third action (normal rules apply) allowing something like Chosen of Conquest to be shockingly mobile.  Tier 3 War provides Blessed which might be the best single rule in the game and Tier 3 of both Death and Famine offer large potential damage swings.

    So how do we get Fanatic?  All of the "Chosen of" options in the Scion's warband come with this rule base.  Of those four only Chosen of Conquest are currently available.  The Matriarch Queen's supremacy ability allows her to choose a single Infantry regiment to gain the fanatic rule.  This is now quite limited and while ok probably not the best available supremacy in W'adrhun, but that is another article.  Finally a character with the Mantle of the Devoted artifact grants the Fanatic rule to the regiment they join.  Importantly that does include a monster if you opt to give it to any of the Rider options.  The Mantle isn't cheap at 30 pts but it is good enough to almost always be worth it's points.

There is a link to my general write up of chanting HERE

Hopefully this helps answer questions about the Fanatic rule and actually getting to the Tier 3 bonus.  As always thanks for reading

-K

* When a cult of conquest regiment with fanatic chants the additional token they are considered to have discarded is a conquest token and will be replaced by a token from another cult during step 1 of "Chant the Battlecry"

How should I kit out my Thunder Riders?

     With the impending release of the ceratops riding, hat wearing Thunder Riders it seemed like a good idea to examine ways to kit them out.  At a whooping 250 pts per min regiment and the thunder chieftain costing at least an additional 160 before add-ons the cost is high enough that you'll want to ensure you are setting up some buffs to maximize their value.   You could run the thunder riders as a restricted regiment option with a foot chieftain, however, this article is going to focus on the assumption that you have a mounted chieftain with your thunder riders.*

    So we have the thunder chieftain riding this massive ceratops (seriously this model is huge) there are primarily two artifacts that help us maximize value for the regiment.  The Mantle of the Devoted to give them fanatic* and the Elder Brontoskalps to give a regiment hardened (1). I'm of the opinion the Mantle is better virtually all the time when it is available but the Elder Brontoskalps is a good shout to take as a second artifact with the long lineage mastery should you choose to go all in as we'll see a little later.  The Mantle of the Devoted is an artifact that should broadly be in every list.  I know no one likes auto takes but this is more of the one option you have to unlock the top end power spike the chant rules where ever you might need it to be. That top end power spike is also huge on something like Thunder Riders.

    From a perspective of choosing cults I'd really be choosing between War and Famine. Death is certainly not bad this is one of those cases where the other two options lets you get to a point of almost silliness with this particular regiment especially if you've opted to give the Thunder Chieftain the mantle to gain access to tier 3 bonuses.  Famine tier 3 makes these things one of the most devastating hammers available in the game often just wiping out normally durable regiments and not even needing the clash action to pick up lighter regiments.  

    The big draw of this is that putting a Fanatic Famine regiment of Thunder Riders on the table you sort of warp the table space around them as your opponent can't avoid responding either though always having some sacrificial piece in front of their valuable targets or by trying to keep targets away from the Thunder Riders.  That sort of table pressure has pretty substantial value even if you never get the high value charge you are looking for off.  It also isn't particularly easy to get away from them.  The +2" charge distance you pick up from famine tier 1 combined with having unstoppable built in gives you good odds to hit 11" or 12" charges if you should need to.

    If this sounds awesome it almost certainly is but there is a pretty big drawback to it which has me relegating Famine to the second choice option currently and that is the lack of staying power and durability.  A fanatic regiment of thunder riders is minimum 440 pts spent.  Nearly a quarter of your army.  That hammer might remove whatever is in front of it but then it is sitting there at defense 3/resolve 4 and only 18 wounds.  It's a prime target for a counter charge unit to clean up resulting in what is likely to be a points positive trade for your opponent.  Opting to instead go Cult of War turns that idea on its head quite a bit.

    Cult of War is one of the less user friendly cults because of the stack pressures it puts on you as the Wadrhun player and often isn't used frequently because the buffs don't make a big enough difference to be worth the headache.  The more elite units like Thunder Riders is where this starts to shift.  Getting to tier 3 War makes your thunder riders go from just an elite hammer to a unit that still has exceptional output but now also has real staying power.  The defensive buffs on display in this case force your opponent to put real quality into them to start to whittle down the unit and also gives you a rare Wadrhun unit that can potential stay in sustained combat for multiple rounds.

    At tier 3 Cult of War turns your defensive stats to defense 4/resolve 5 and blessed (which you should almost always save for defense) combined with there base 6 wounds you have a very similar unit to the 100k's Ashen Dawn that can be very very challenging to remove.  Low quality high volume attackers are heavily offset by Blessed letting you reroll fails so it largely forces your opponent to bring their better quality attackers to the Thunder Riders whom are also gaining Cleave 1 on their clash attacks with this Chant.  This is also where you could use Long Lineage to take a second artifact and snag the Elder Brontoskalps to give the unit Hardened (1).  Hardened serves to basically decrease the quality of the attacks coming in and if you've ever faced off with a late game T3 Fallen Divine you might be fully aware of how difficult it can be to deal with Hardened and Blessed in combination. Its very expensive bringing the regiment cost up to an incredible 480 pts but it provides an regiment that so long as you are putting it early enough in your stack to get the buffs up can fill most rolls and likely dominate an area of the table. 

    While you don't hit as hard and can't march charge nearly as well as Famine Thunder Riders you actually get more out of the clash phase offsetting some of the lost damage. I've attached a chart with estimated damage output from both set ups and while Famine is frankly silly with how many wounds it can do War is still doing real damage to even the most durable opponents like the aforementioned Ashen Dawn and Steel Forged. The combination of having both excellent defenses and still hitting like a runaway train is primarily why I would put it as the best option for Thunder Riders.  It also works a little bit better with multiple units.  If you opt to bring a second regiment of Thunder Riders they won't be able to get Blessed but will still be able to get the defense and resolve boosts while with Famine a second unit can't ever get the extra impacts or glorious charge that make it so brutal.

* It's probably worth a little refresher on how chanting with Fanatic works.  The fanatic special rule provides 2 distinct bonuses.  First just having it enables you to get to tier 3.  Second it lets you count as having discarded an additional token.  This means that you can get to your tier 3 with a single token in your pool prior to drawing your fanatic regiment or use a Scion of Conquest and it's crescendo ability to go from no tokens prior to drawing the Scion directly into your tier 3 chant.  In the first scenario you have 1, the regiment gives you the second, fanatic lets you count as having discarded the third so you'll have discarded 3 tokens and have the special rule.  In the second scenario your Scion plays the first token, crescendo adds the second, the regiment doesn't add a token because crescendo sates it will not but can still chant so fanatic still counts as your third.  The downside of all of this is that you are locked to the cult you've chosen but the tier 3 benefits are quite substantial.

As always thanks for reading

-K 

PS If you are one of those people that doesn't like the Thudner Rider hats you are just wrong...sorry not sorry :)

Should I get a Tontorr or a Drum Beast?

This question has been popping up a lot with the upcoming release of these two fantastic but also quite expensive kits. If the goal is to only get one of the two initially how should we look at which one is the right choice for what we want?

Firstly we should look at the differences.  It doesn't seem like all that much - the Tontorr gets a few extra attacks and has relentless blows while the Drum Beast has the Sound of the Drums drums special rule and costs 20 more points.  The extra attacks for the Tontorr end up being pretty easy to quantify.  In most situations you'll get about 20% extra output from the Tontorr at a slightly cheaper price.  The crux of the evaluation then rests on how much is the Sound of the Drums rule worth to how you play.

Sound of the Drums gives your entire army the ability to not chant when you have 3 tokens in your pool.  Under normal circumstances drawing a regiment that is eligible to chant when you have 3 tokens already or are placing your third token forces you to chant even if you wouldn't want to.  The option to hold that can be quite valuable as it makes your turn much more consistent.  Lists that utilize large numbers of smaller units and therefore generate lots of tokens can find very good value there, however, the cost of the Drum Beast itself (currently a whopping 330 points) is likely to push you into a more elite build anyway.

For this reason I think the Tontorr is the likely to see more play.  It provides much more consistent output regardless of the list around it.  The Drum Beast likely has a role in a list designed to generate a ton of tokens that could use the additional flexibility but recommending it for what might be a niche use is a little more difficult than just saying slam in a Tontorr.

The other consideration is of course which model you prefer aesthetically. I think the Drum Beast is fantastic in this regard and would consider designing a niche list just for full rule of cool reasons but that's probably another argument entirely.

As always thanks for reading 

-K 

Using Output Estimations in Game

 I use a lot of estimated output on articles on this blog so I felt it was worth a glimpse at how I personally use those to help inform decisions.  One of the primary things to consider is that all in all this is a dice game and with how small the sample size is over the course of a game or even an event there will be wild variations compared to the estimates.  Given that variation I rarely take an action expecting that outcome will .  

Instead I often assume I am going to do a least a wound or two less and take a wound or two more.  You can't reasonably plan on huge swings but I think it is worth being a little bit pessimistic as doing so will often guide you into smart choices.  Typically that means I am going to pick out the really important things I need to happen in a round and build redundancy into my plan.

For example if I need to do 5 wounds to a regiment and my estimate is 5 to 6 wounds with a regiment I'm going to try to make sure a second unit is in position to clean up if I am below my estimate.  Sometimes this leads to arranging my activations such that a ranged unit can chip in prior to a regiment charging in and blocking line of sight to a priority target.  I'd rather get my priority engagements resolved and deal with a little bit of efficiency lost due to ensuring resolution than leave a regiment I really need gone on the table.

Defensively it also means I'm going to play a little bit conservatively in order to keep units on the table as long as possible.  Table state is going to play a big role into decisions here.  Sometimes you get forced into committing more than you'd like to not give up scenario advantage, but it is worth pointing out that the best defense is always distance - you can't get hit if your opponent doesn't get the opportunity to attack.  This can be especially true of very mobile units like Raptor Riders where it is easy to over extend them when it isn't really beneficial to do so.

I wouldn't recommend using estimates as a hard guide for what to expect at the table.  Dice simply provide for too much variation and an individual game simply isn't going to provide enough of a sample size to push all that heavily towards expectations.  However, knowing the most likely outcome range can gives you tool to help plan turns and inform decisions.  Personally I tend to lean a little more on the conservative side - expecting to need to use a little bit more resources than the estimate and expecting my opponent to do a little better than average this mind set informs my overall playstyle and has generally been reasonably effective for me. 

As alway thanks for reading

-K

Hunters and Slingers or Why You Should Probably Consider Running Both

 A question that seems to get asked rather frequently is which should I choose between Hunters or Slingers or why would I ever take Hunters over Slingers and I think attempting to answer that is worth it's own post.  I have already made posts about each of those units that I will link to at the end and it's also worth noting that Slingers seem likely to get at least a mild adjustment in the upcoming army list update.  That said I don't actually think the initial question is overly impacted by an update unless Slingers get hit really hard.  The reason for this is pretty straight forwad - I don't actually think the units are that similar or fill the same role.

Slingers are a primary ranged superiority unit.  With the notably longer range and a rule that functionally adds wounds rather than improving quality the expectation for Slingers is to sit back and volley as long as possible.  The potential upper end of their output is quite substantial and they can be reasonable expected to do well with just a base 3 stand regiment and the predator needed to take them.  The predator fits well here as it also has 18" range and will happily sit and shoot as long as possible.  I find the predator to be very efficient in terms of output per cost mostly because as a long ranged option it tends to last on the table quite awhile.  Slingers are really the only regiment that we have to fill this role.  If all you want is some ranged oomph this should be your first and probably only stop.

Hunters are much more a flexible unit option.  They can shoot reasonably well but even with having deadly shot and AP 1 the much shorter 14" range is likely to prevent you from being able to stand and shoot for large portions of the game.  To offset this Hunters have an additional melee attack.  A few extra attacks per regiment doesn't seem like a lot but against a d3/r3 target you are looking at a little more than an extra wound done per regiment.  Add in the lower base cost and Hunters are actually half way efficient in melee and take buffs quite well.  I've found Hunters to function very well as a front line.  The volley works to force opponents forward but running at Hunters just to engage as you would many other ranged units is a tactic that Hunters are often able to punish.

Rather than comparing Hunters to Slingers I'd be more apt to look at them as a comparator with Blooded.  You sacrifice some melee and a little bit of durability to instead pick up ranged attacks and improved mobility.  Hunters being light gives them the advantage of being a potential front line that is on the table early and getting up the board to threatening positions.  Both also have good officer options which can be quite valuable.  Hunters not being able to score on their own is a potential issue - it is always worth looking at a list and asking if you have enough potential scoring options.  I like to have 4 scoring options but have gotten by with 3 and the option to slide a character into some lights for a "false fourth" regiment.

As far as the sacrificed durability I've found it to not be overly important.  W'adrhun in general does not have much by way of bulky front line pieces.  We do have the additional wound on many stands (including all 3 mentioned in the article) that shifts the odds of survival a little but by and large I do not expect most of my regiments to survive contact unless it is something in a larger block.

To finish up here I've found Slingers to be a specialist and Hunters to be more a generalist choice.  If what you need in your list is strong ranged output you should be looking at a way to stuff in some (or some more) Slingers.  Ranged is what they do and they are very good at it.  If you need a piece you can move around and can fill some different roles Hunters are your huckleberry.  I personally find that using both is extremely effective.  Regiments of each should give you strong early board presence and the ability to dictate tempo.  You have options to overlap threat ranges to make it very difficult for your opponent to find safe spaces while being relevant on the table.  Hunters ahead of Slingers with some angling to provide sight lines gives you lots of options to punish opponents moving forward or make something like holding a zone largely untenable. 

As always thanks for reading

-K

Math on Slingers can be found HERE

Me gushing about how much I like Hunters is HERE

 

Regiments and Officers and Characters Oh My! or an attempt to break down how rules are passed along and what it means for W'adrhun

So now that a little bit of time has passed to try to digest the clarification on how regimental rules are supposed to effect attached characters I thought I would try to do a write up and provide some W'adrhun specific examples.  I anticipate having to update this but we'll give it a shot.

To start with let's talk about the rules clarification.  Essentially it boils down to rules gained during list building such as those coming from officers do not effect characters attached to that regiment even if the character starts the game with the regiment.  For example a unit of Braves with a champion starts the game with a Scion of Conquest in this case because the champion bonus is applied during list building the stands of Braves gain +1 attack but the Scion stand does not.  There are exceptions for this if the bonus is specifically called out in the Officer's rules but currently for W'adrhun none are.

A slightly more complicated example is rules that effect regiments but don't actually impact characters.  Let's use a unit I really enjoy for this - A unit of Hunters with a Tracker and a Matriarch Queen.  The Tracker provides 2 rules, flank and fiend hunter.  In this case despite the Queen not getting either rule you do still get the benefit of flank.  Characters don't deploy Regiments do so having flank on the regiment is enough to allow you to use it.

Now let's look at when regimental rules DO effect characters.  Any rule gained by a regiment during the course of the game does impact attached characters.  This is what allows chants to also effect the character stand. In a more unusual example the Chieftain's Way of the Hunt 1 option provides the regiment he is attached to the Bellowing Shout draw event.  Because Character attachment to a regiment is considered an in game benefit in this case BOTH the regiment and Character will gain the special rule.  Yes that means you can activate the draw event when you draw the regiment and when you draw the character having the possibility of two bonus conquest tokens per turn.  The Predator stand would also benefit from Sureshot with its Hunt 1 option.

There are still a couple of things we don't know of in regards to rules passing to characters.  Namely how does blessed from the Cult of War Tier 3 impact a character.  Blessed is only allowed to be used once per turn and is then lost.  If a Regiment and it's attached character gain Blessed from chanting the battle cry and it is subsequently used by the character in a duel action is that also considered to have been used by the regiment?  Currently there isn't clarification on that but hopefully there will be soon.

Hopefully this helps and as always thanks for reading

-K

Starting W'adrhun - thoughts and considerations for beginning and expanding a force

     It seems as though we have had a recent influx in newer players looking at starting W'adrhun or at least being in the faction selection stage so I thought I would put down some thoughts on if W'adrhun is a good force for a newer player and how I would maybe get started

First up is how they play.  I'm going to link the section of Para-Bellum's website with a detailed how they play article HERE as I think they are generally quite good reads.  There is one for each faction in The World section of the site and they provide a good overview and some lore.  The only thing I don't like about the article is the last little section as at least at the time of this writing there aren't really sub-factions when it comes to actual rules.

To jump into my own thoughts I'd describe W'adrhun as being very different than your typical fantasy orcs.  We really aren't going to be drowning our opponents in waves of cheap bodies.  Typically W'adrhun lack high defense and resolve values but have a lot of flexibility and attack volume.  The basic W'adrhun stands do have an additional wound on average though which can be just enough to tip the dice in our favor.  I would consider W'adrhun to be of moderate skill floor with a very high skill ceiling.  Getting the most out of a W'adrhun force is often going to require good positioning and setting up beneficial trades and our Faction special rule - the War Chant mechanic - also puts some additional planning pressure on your activation deck order.  This type of force can be a little bit challenging at first but rewards experience and can be very satisfying to play.

I'm not going to dive too deeply into the War Chant mechanic here as I already have an article about it I'll link to at the bottom.  I would read through the War Chant rules in the army list once or twice first anyway.  My article is hopefully a decent supplement to those with some tips and more examples.  Getting solid chants off can be very impactful in shifting or maintaining momentum in a game so it's worth getting a decent idea of how it works.

On to some purchase considerations I think one of the biggest pros of play W'adrhun is that the internal balance is fantastic.  The vast majority of the army list is quite good and the outliers are less bad and more, in my opinion, over-costed.  This makes the long term playability of the faction excellent as you'll eventually end up with a huge variety of viable lists.  Want to play mostly Dinos?  It probably works.  Want to play big blocks of infantry?  W'adrhun can support that.  Want to play lots of ranged and mobility?  Right in the W'adrhun wheelhouse.

Are some of those archetypes going to be more efficient purely from a competitive view?  Of course there are always going to be choices that squeeze more efficiency out of a list but I think with W'adrhun you can have a real game with a large array of different builds.  At the time of this writing the one player starter sets are going to be switching to a new box.  I think both are really good starting spots for a new force.

The current box consists of 6 stands of Braves or Blooded, 6 stands of Hunters or Slingers, and one Predator character.  I don't think there is a wrong way to assemble this box although I would probably go 3 stands each of Hunters and Slingers and then decide what you want to do with the melee choices.  I have a write up specifically for Braves vs Blooded that I will also link at the bottom.

The upcoming box comes with with 3 stands each of Braves/Blooded and Hunters/Slingers and a Predator character but replaces the rest with sweet Dinosaurs.  You get 3 stands each of Hunting Pack (18 little raptors altogether!) and 3 stands of the fantastic Raptor Riders.  The update adds more variety and the dinosaur kits are excellent from a hobby perspective.  I would in this case lean towards assembling the ranged kit as Slingers as they compliment the rest very well.

Expanding from the starter box I would pick up a second character (and probably third) relatively early in my W'adrhun journey.  All of the characters are good and provide interesting warband choices but I would lean towards one of the two more support type characters as an early purchase.  Both the Matriarch Queen and the Scion of Conquest offer a lot in terms of gameplay with their support abilities.  The Queen is our source of healing and the Scion is our only spell caster.  Currently most of the Scion's warband are not released which maybe a reason to choose a Queen initially.

As far as units goes - yes you can absolutely buy and play an Apex Predator to go with a starter.  It's a fantastic kit and a great show piece model and despite being maybe a little squishy it is an elite damaging piece that compliments both starters. If you wanted more dinos you could also add to your Raptor Riders.  They work very well in a small 3 stand regiment as well as in a larger group with a character.  I would advise some caution when using them - just because they are fast and have a lot of reach doesn't mean you should just dive in.  They are wonderful on the edges as a harassment regiment early and they do fight most other lights very well.  Warbred should also be a consideration for an early purchase especially if you pick up a Queen.  They are a mainstay unit for her and like the Apex will compliment your starting force by adding some needed hitting power.

From there I think expansion can go in whichever direction you like.  I have found I always enjoy a game more when I am using models that I like and with how strong the depth is for W'adrhun I think that's a viable way to look at purchases.  I find the light regiments are all fantastic and would personally probably add more Hunters - I use them as my primary front line unit as they can do some damage from ranged and have a better than average melee punch.  If you wanted to go in a more elite direction the Chieftain and the Veterans should be available by the time this posts.  I'm not hugely fond of Veterans but they bring some extra durability and an interesting twist on the Chant mechanic with their draw event.  The Chieftain himself brings strong melee potential in a character with access to the full combat retinue and good base stats.

I should probably wrap this up before I get too deep into list building considerations which definitely deserves an article.  I've included a couple of links below with more detailed articles as well.  As always thanks for reading.

-K

For my thoughts on the chant mechanic check HERE

For Braves vs Blooded check HERE

For a release schedule and some ramblings check HERE

Adepticon 2023 release schedule updates! Hype! Rampant Speculation!

THE SUMMER CATALOGUE CAN BE FOUND HERE

Alright we have some schedule updates and some pictures out of Adepticon of upcoming Conquest releases.  Obviously I'm focused mostly on the W'adrhun but the schedule does include other factions.

The general schedule release through June has been available for some time.  The Chosen of Conquest coming in June should replace the Veteran kit that released this month with a dual kit.  They were intended to release together but it seems as though there was a small delay to work out some issues with the chosen side. 

The contents of the new starters are as listed with all the other factions being at the end

FIRST BLOOD W’adrhŭn: a squad of Hunting Pack, Blooded, Veterans and Braves, a Scion of Conquest and the Aberration. TLAOK W’adrhŭn: 12 Blooded and Slingers, 18 Hunting Pack (6 per stand), 3 Raptor Riders, and the Predator character.

July should see the release of an Artisan Series Mounted Chieftain model

Thunder Riders are slated for an August release

The Tontorr and Drum Beast will both see early preorders in September with the general release in October

Now onto the new stuff!

The chosen sculpts look awesome.  I love the beards.  Thunder riders were a surprise and the Tontorr/Drum Beast kit looks phenomenal.  We don't have release dates but we did get a little text blurb hinting at it and even more sweet dino goodness!

Yes.  Just Yes to all of that.

Lets get into the part where I make rampant speculation

The dog days of summer suggests a later in the season release so really I wouldn't be looking for these until August or September.  The text blurb about the Mounted Chieftain option is super interesting as the rules mentioned are not the rules for the Brood artefact.  This implies that we are getting a new character entry which could be really interesting.  As of right now I can't think of any characters that don't have a mainstay regiment they are allowed to join so if this is a new character entry it will almost certainly have some warband differences from the foot chieftain.

*updates* I was told this is not a new army list entry so I assume the rules listed are something of an amalgamation of the Thunder Rider rules and the Brood rules.

The other very interesting part of the blurb is the alt rider sculpts for a Scion on the Drum Beast and a Chieftain on the Tontorr.  We haven't heard anything about whether or not those are just cosmetic alternatives to the crew or if they are actual Scion/Chieftain models getting new rules.  At the moment the Scion can't even take a Drum Beast and there are no options in the faction for putting a character on either.  Personally I'm not expecting rules but good gracious would I love a character on either of the Big Boy Dinos.

*NEW UPDATES 4/2* The Chieftain and Scion mounted on the beasts will be getting rules along with a slight update to the beasts rules when they reach the table.  

*More Updates* Army lists will all be getting an update sometime around early June.  Both big dinos are getting a rework with the Tontorr losing its ranged capabilities to become a more focused offensive piece and the Drum Beast keeping its support capabilities.

As for the Dinos themselves aside from looking fire it is floating around that they will take up two Monster Bases.  You can kind of see it just from the tail length, the overhang on a single base would be brutal.  Two bases will bring with it some interesting rules clarifications and the downside that you have a big flank to protect on them.

That's all I've got today and as always thanks for reading

-K

PS if you are a fan of not Dinos (unsure why this would be but ok ;) ) I've added some images below of other stuff

Single Player Starters Dweghom: 12 Hold Warriors, Fireforged, Initiates, and Dragonslayers, and the Hold Raegh. City States: 12 Hoplites, Phalangites, and Agema, the Polemarch and 3 Minotaurs Hundred Kingdom: 12 Men at Arms and Household Guard, 3 Household Knights and Mounted Squires, and the premium Mounted Noble Lord.
Nords: 12 Trolls and Stalkers, 3 Fenr Beastpack and Ugr, and the powerful Blooded character.
Old Dominion: 12 Athanatoi, Legionairres and Praetorians, 3 Kataphractoi, and the Strategos character. Spires: 12 Bound Clones, Marksman Clones and Vanguard Clones, 3 Brute Drone Brutes, and the High Clone Executor character.

First Blood Warbands City States: 2 Hoplites Squads, a squad of Phalangites, a Minotaur, a Polemarch and the Dorylatis. Dweghom: 2 Initiates Squads, a squad of Wardens, an Inferno Automata, an Ardent Kerawagh and the Herald of Stone. Hundred Kingdoms: Gilded Legions, Hunter Cadre and Militia Bowmen, a Household Knight, a Noble Lord and the Errant Order for the Shield. Nords: Valkyries, Raiders and Huskarls, a Fenr Beast, a Skald and the Volva. Old Dominion: 2 squads of Legionairres and Moroi, a squad of Varangian Guard, a Mounted Strategos and the Optio. Spires: 2 Onslaught Drones Squads, a squad of Vanguard Clones, an Incarnate Sentinel, a Pheromancer and the Assault Preceptor.

Chanting Deep Dive Part 2: The Cult of War

For the second installment of my look at the cult chants we'll jump to War.  War seems to be a little less popular in V2 but it still provides some valuable buffs and tools.  At first glance it very much is the least glamorous of the choices.  Unlike Famine or Death it isn't really about directly enabling big plays.  The tools provided here aren't going to help you make long distances charges or sweep whole regiments off the table. War also suffers a little bit from the way defensive buffs function, the high lethality of the game in general and the typically limited defensive bulk of W'adrhun as a whole, but these are still valuable bonuses that a canny player can make great use.

Each tier of War provides two benefits.  The first tier gives +1 defense to the regiment for the remainder of the round and more importantly removes the broken status.  +1 defense isn't a bad bonus by any means but using it requires good timing.  Too late in the round and your opponent may have already attacked the target regiment and too early may just allow them to shift focus if needed.  W'adrhun also aren't often bringing high base defense to the table so most often this is more converting a mediocre score into a serviceable one.  In my opinion the real winner in tier 1 and perhaps the whole of the cult of War is the ability to remove broken before using any of the regiment's actions enabling a normal turn and potentially shifting momentum. This is especially valuable on higher cost regiments and bigger blocks where all of broken's negative effects are futher amplified by cost.

Tier 2 keeps up the defensive theme by adding +1 resolve to the regiment until the end of the round but combines it with a more offensive buff in giving Cleave 1.  Note that that is not +1 so regiments already having cleave will not receive the second benefit.  +1 resolve is another not bad defensive buff.  It has some of the same issues as the tier 1 defense bonus but the ability to shift from what is largely an army of mediocre resolve to good will certainly save some wounds and maybe keep an extra stand alive.  

Adding Cleave can be a very significant buff depending on the regiment in question. Most of our mainstay regiments forgo cleave and instead have higher volumes of poorer quality attacks.  Gaining cleave for a unit of Blooded or Raptor Riders very quickly elevates their threat to closer to the more elite hitters.  Thunder Riders also benefit from war tier 2 with their clash attacks being typically much lower quality than their impacts.  This is a unit that is already capable of dishing out a ton of wounds with the huge volumes of impacts, clash attacks, and trample hits so elevating the clash hits to merely good can create something of a terrifying hammer regiment.

The third tier benefits move away from stat bonuses to providing two otherwise unique in the faction special rules. The first is Counter-attack which inflicts a hit on your opponent for every "1" you roll on your defense rolls.  This is an interesting benefit that can help shift an engagement to be just a little bit more in your favor especially against high volume opponents.  It also combines extremely well with Blooded and the Aberration officer.  The Aberration grants lethal demise which causes hits to opponents when the regiment is wounded in melee stacked with Counter-attack you can create some legitimate headaches when trying to engage with the regiment as your opponent will likely be taking a similar number of hits back.  Unfortunately none of those hits benefit from special rules like cleave but with enough volume you will cause some wounds.

The second benefit from tier 3 War is frankly one of the best special rules in the game - Blessed.  Blessed changed a little bit in V2.  Before rolling dice during a Clash or Volley or before rolling defense dice you may opt to trigger Blessed granting you full rerolls on that action.  Blessed can be a little bit hit or miss because you have to declare before you roll and might not really need it but full rerolls during an action are an incredible buff.  Full rerolls are generally fantastic - They help reduce dice variance, aid in fishing for special ability triggers like Relentless Blows and Counter-attack and provide a reasonable increase to success chances.  If you have blessed and need an action to be successful there is little reason not to just trigger it as insurance.

Now that we've looked at what is in the chant let's look at some units that really benefit from it.  I've mentioned Blooded a couple of times already and they are an excellent candidate for War buffs as they benefit from every tier and have enough volume per stand to still be threatening if you have to use the chant to remove broken.  They are a relatively cheap unit that can really punch above their weigh with a couple of tiers of Cult of War.  Raptor Riders and Thunder Riders have also already been mentioned.  They have enough volume to really benefit from cleave.  Thunder Riders also start to have decent-ish bulk with a tier two chant pushing them to Defense 4/Resolve 4.  Chosen of War also primarily benefit from the defensive buffs going to Defense 4 + shield and Resolve 5.  

It's important to note that even with these buffs the lack of hardened means you still aren't going to shrug off the truly elite hitters in the game.  Once you start getting into cleave 3 and line breaker you should still expect to lose stands.  Be careful in how you engage with things like Dragonslayers or Varangian Guard even while fully buffed.

One of the interesting tactics with Cult of War is to use the defensive chant early when you are coming onto the table.  While regiments entering the battlefield don't contribute a token they can still chant the battle cry.  An early round entry from say Warbred can benefit from the little bit of extra defense against a lot of ranged options.

The cult of war isn't my favorite choice but it certainly has some strengths and provides a lot of utility.  If you are a player that likes to use elite units or bigger blocks there is quite a bit of value to be had using Cult of War.  When you've put a large chunk of your army points into one regiment saving a few wounds or keeping both your actions can keep a lot of points functioning on the table.  

You can also use the tier 1 chant as a tool to avoid unwanted duels.  The tier 1 benefit is also a very good reason to try to include a few conquest tokens in your list as removing broken can be an excellent use of those without necessarily having to commit to a Cult of War warband.

As always thank you for reading

-K

For my general review of chanting check HERE

For Part 1: the Cult of Death check HERE

Other notes - Even if you cannot pass a defense roll you do still attempt them allowing you to potentially trigger Counter-attack on a successful hit.

The Alton Brown Principle or Why I love Hunters

This should be a little bit of a shorter post as I'm not going to be diving overly deep into math or special rules and instead just briefly talking about Hunters and why I believe they are one of the best front lint units W'adrhun have access to and possible one of the best in the game.  The title mentions Alton Brown the creator of one of my favorite shows Good Eats in which he goes full nerd on cooking.  As the cookery happens to be my other main hobby the crossover title makes me very happy.

In numerous episodes of Good Eats Alton mentions that he has very little space or time in his kitchen for unitaskers - gadgets that are only really good for one function.  I find this principle applies as well to much of my list building.  I prefer regiments that bring flexibility for the majority of my lists.  Not every regiment can be a multitasker, sometimes there is plenty of value in just hits really hard, but the core components of almost every list I build are units that can play multiple roles for me.  Hunters in their current form are ideal for this.

An off-hand look at Hunters reveals a light regiment with decidedly average volley and medium range but also with some solid ranged special rules in armor piercing (1) and deadly shot.  A closer look shows a unit with decent mobility in March 6, 5 attacks per stand at average for W'adrhun clash 2, and access to a few powerful and interesting officers.  Oddly the only regiment in the faction with more officer access is Blooded.

The combination of base abilities and special rules access is what turns this into a core unit for me.  I tend to use them in regiments of 4 stands with an officer.  The ranged output of 4 stands is 17 barrage shots and if you can aim you are likely to kill a stand of the vast majority of non-monsters in the game.  You also present a regiment that outputs potentially 21 melee attacks.  Yes they are clash 2 and no cleave but also they are lights and we have chanting to make them pretty reliably clash 4.  21 clash 4 melee attacks is legitimately threatening to most units that want to simply run in and tie up a normal ranged unit.  

I know I said this wouldn't have a lot of math but that's something like 9 to 10 wounds into the average unit I use in my other articles in melee...for a ranged unit that can already have killed a stand at range.  It's a devastating combination that requires attention.  They are as good in combat as Braves and nearly as good as Blooded.  So we have a unit that is competent at shooting, competent at melee, on the table early allowing scenario pressure and board control and they have some specialization options from their officer choice. 

Let's take a brief look at those officer options.  The flint knapper will elevate their ranged output by guaranteeing you get your armor pierce and giving you re-rolls.  This is exceptional against Dweghom and solid against both Old Dominion and City States.  The Tracker gives you Fiend Hunter for rerolls both at ranged and in melee against brutes and monsters and flank assuring you can start on the table turn 1 to create pressure.  Finally the Skirmisher puts your mobility in line with most cavalry allowing you to further press the board and create difficult choices for opponents.

When it comes to chant options Hunters play well with all 4 chants.  Famine pushes a little bit more into an aggressive forward unit that can shoot one round and the next be making some impressively long charges and applying good output through shock.  Death and War both allow a more conservative game plan.  Death tier 1 giving a flat +1 clash is a substantial improvement the to danger Hunters pose to anything simply running at them while War 1 won't make them tanks by any means the bonus to defense can be important in an early shoot out although I wouldn't expect them to survive much.  Conquest is a little bit different but no less potent.  The 3" bonus movement at tier 1 extends their walk and shoot range from 20" to 23" allowing them to threaten regiments your opponent might have hoped were out of range.

Currently I'm using 3 regiments of them to form the front of my army.  I use a pair of 4 stand regiments with flint knappers to provide a threatening forward element that also protects my slinger regiments and more centrally a deploy a 3 stand regiment with a tracker with my Matriarch Queen.  The queen enables this regiment to score keeping me with 4 potential scoring regiments despite 5 or my 8 regiments being light and with flank I can use my single auto deploy choice on a non-character unit.  I've found liberally using flank makes it very challenging for most opponents as I will have 4 to 5 units on the table round 1 that all present ranged threats and the 2 most forward units are the stands of hunters that can also fight in melee.

I might tackle flank and positional advantage in another article in detail as it is hard to overstate how difficult it makes things for opponents when you have 5 regiments on on round 1 and all 8 by turn 3 with little to no rolling.  The consistency and volume of deployment has had substantial impact in my test games.  

This went a little longer than I had planned but I hope after reading you take a second look and Hunters as they aren't just a basic ranged unit but a versatile and powerful multitasker of a regiment that brings a number of impactful tools to any list.

-K