Sunday, April 3, 2011

Ranking officers: Character Unit Attachment



    This man is Koldun Kapitan Valachev, the new Khador Ranking Officer. Basically you add him into your army and attach him to a single Mercenary Unit and he makes them friendly faction members so they get to benefit from all of those spells and feats that used to be faction specific. On top of all this he can give the unit some support in the form of magical spells. I'll do a quick overview of his abilities and stats and then give my opinion on him and the ranking officers in general.

-Stats are the same as the regular Winter Guard for the most part so he is nothing great as a combatant. Costs 2 points.
-Magic Ability [7]
--Disbinding (*action) - Enemy upkeep spells on this model and his unit immediately expire.
--Frostbite (*attack) - Spray 8 magic attack. Models hit take a POW 12 cold damage spell.
--Zephyr (*action) Models in this unit immediately advance up to 3". They can not be targeted by free strikes during this movement.

-Ranking Officer - While this model is in play, models in his unit are Khador instead of Mercenary.

    My favorite ability for Valachev other then Ranking Officer is Zephyr. Another 3" is movement can be used to many ways that its just great. His other abilities are very helpful as well. I plan on using him with a full unit of Boom Howler and Co. and help them to be even more of a pain in the butt to the enemy. This will allow for a good diversion/ speed bump for the rest of my army to do their thing and get into position. I can not say enough for the fact that they are now faction members with him and the combinations will be endless. Another great unit to note would be the Nyss Hunters with Valachev. They are already awesome as it is and with faction buffs they will become ridiculous.

    All in all I support these new Ranking Officers. I see what PP is doing with them as it will help drive sales because those already great merc. units will be hard not to want to add into a list now that they can benefit from all the faction only buffs. On the other hard this is not a bad thing and it will also help people to branch out a little more and try all new things they hadn't before had the reason to use. +1 to the ranking officers.

Thank you for reading and expect to see many more articles on unit analysis, tactics, and much more. If you like it go ahead and follow and share my blog. I would be glad to see your comments on the topics I am writing about as well. Take care.

2 comments:

  1. I agree with the overview of Valachev, although your article has one problem. The unit isn't able to "Run" 15" using the Run order, since their activation would end immediately at the end of their movement. Additionally, you can't use a * action ( which Zephyr is ) and then Run afterwards.

    The most you'd be able to do is the standard movement +3" from Zephyr. The unit would either be able to run their standard 12", or they'd "walk" a total of 9". That's not really a bad speed either if you stop to think about it. Just keep in mind anti-magic effects also stop you from using Zephyr.

    ReplyDelete
  2. You are right I will fix that. Walking 9" and then shooting or charging 12" though are both handy. You could even use it to disengage with something because the 3" makes you immune to free strikes. Thanks for the input.

    ReplyDelete