Themes: A State of the Empire Address

I feel like the section that addresses the benefits of current Khador themes sidesteps the fact that not all things available to themes are equally good.

I'm not questioning which theme is better than another theme. The question is if you should be putting your list in a theme or not.

For example you may be running a Karchev list with lots of Jacks. At first glance you may think: 'oh well I have to be running in Jaws because that is the jack theme'.

But a closer analysis shows you aren't actually getting anything you really want from the theme benefits and you would actually be better off including Orin or something.

I agree with Netherby that it feels that the restrictions of running in theme sometimes can pull a list away from the direction of how the list was meant to be constructed in the first place. With the "free points" available from themes, it is hard to not feel like you are missing out on something, but again I agree that the limited options we can get may not be worth the free models. I actually resent the direction PP has gone in pushing the theme lists so aggressively. Not all themes are created equally, some are really quite powerful, and then can be taken by strong factions with arguably really really strong casters, yes Cryx I'm talking about you. The themes in Mk2 were cool to me because each caster had something different, they were much more flavorful and actually were a way to potentially boost a weak caster without buffing the entire faction. Now if a theme is very good, you basically have people playing the same stronger casters but now they get bonuses on top of that.

I agree mostly with your point.

If you are going to run out of theme you really have to take advantage of, well running out lf theme. This means including as many as possible of mercs, out of theme models (MoW/doomies/greylord), and effective mix of arms.

If you are running a jack spam list there I feel it's very important that you do JAWs. The denial of AD is helpful to our slow jacks. Free forge seers is also very beneficial and I think they would be taken OOT as they relieve a lot of focus strain.

I do think OOT is underestimated, and until they add mercs to theme lists it does have a lot of strength. My favorite lists right now are all OOT, i like me some mercs, MoW, and kayazy.

Disregarding the "free" points of stuff is very dangerous.

Without "free points" in Mk II, Mad Dogs of War would never have had quite enough efficiency to be effective. You got 20% more points of doomreaver swordsmen for the same price. That was the scale of price discount that started to cause very major effects on balance - any theme force that started with a competitive warcaster and let you get 20% more of a perfectly competitively useful model for the same expenditure could be competitive.

Winter Guard Kommand gives you up to 15-25% more points of Winter Guard for the same price. Legion of Steel, up to 20% more points of Iron Fangs for the same price. Jaws of the Wolf gives you up to 12-16% of your warjack expenditure in support models.

Those are major benefits. They're intended to make the themes attractive, and they're succeeding in doing so.

Worth remembering that those solos and unit atatchments often add abilities and utility to units at no cost.
It is not the points per say, it is the additional objective holders, unit capabilities, solo abilities, and extra bodies that are the issue.
It takes a list that is already gaining benefits and adds a relative points disparity which translates into real world advantage. Theme benefits are supposedly to compensate for a limited model selection--or that is how it is how it has always been presented to me. Now, it gives certain lists a material advantage over non-themed versions. That has been my experience, your meta may be different.

I think it is more complex than this, and depends upon how a given player approaches the list building process (ignoring for now two list combos, divide and conquer and so on).

It is probably a mistake to start the list building process with the objective of playing a given theme.

But it is probably not a mistake to begin with a desire to play Iron Fangs or Winterguard (or even Kayazy) and then looking to build an effective theme list. The themes give benefits then for taking what you want to take anyway, including free points.

Similarly, a player may start the process wanting to play a particular caster. It is worth thinking then about whether running in theme will give you benefits that caster really wants. I'm not that bothered about sac pawn on Sorscha1 for example - it's nice, but she gets to such high DEF, and moves around so much, that I can't rely on it. But sac pawn on a Butcher is great as it protects his medium-base from shooting quite effectively, without requiring a shield guard (remember pre-WGK when B3 lists often included a Bokur or two?) or dedicating heavy jacks to LoS blocking. If you start from this direction, free points are probably less important (but hardly unwelcome!).

On more specific points:
Too black and white, I think. In both WGK and LoS, the free points can be spent on things you would probably take anyway. IF Kovniks are great additions to IF lists (and interact well with the theme benefits), as are the UAs for the units. Free UAs to WGI units or free mortars in a Irusk2 WGK list are both additions that would probably have been paid for too (and again, free artillery synergises with the advance move benefit). Hell, even free Underbosses for Kayazy are nice in Jaws - who fields the Assassins without the UA? Getting these models for free gives points to spend elsewhere. If I get 8 points of models I would otherwise have paid for, that gives me more options - almost another jack, a small unit, UAs (4 more rockets!) or whatever.

It's also worth noting that having a couple of solos available can be quite helpful in SR2017 - not paying points for them makes that easier to accommodate.



I would probably say that the benefit from Jaws is more situational. But in the right situations it is very powerful, quite possibly more so than the benefit from the other themes. Circle players often do not like losing AD. There was even a post on the PP boards a while ago where the Jaws benefit was identified by a Circle player as the most powerful theme benefit and entirely unbalancing the game - it was the usual internet hyperbole, but does demonstrate how losing AD can be rather significant. It can also be powerful against Cygnar.

Losing AD directly affects some popular units (Sentry Stone, Shifting Stones and Trencher Infantry), and in a significant manner. It isn't just losing some distance - it fundamentally alters how a Circle/Cygnar player needs to deploy and unpack their army in Turn 1 (and potentially 2). That alters the momentum of the battle and the opponent's typical plans. Assessing the power of this from the Khador perspective is difficult as the effect of losing AD is felt more by your opponent than the Khador player.

If I were building a list with the intention if being my anti-Circle list, I would look very carefully at Jaws. Similarly for Cygnar.

Overall, as has been suggested in the Khador boards before, I often think that a list-pair may struggle by running two themed lists. One theme list can ask interesting questions, prompt awkward list-chicken (can a Cygnar player run their Trencher list against Jaws, for example) or provide a valuable build.

But, at least at present, it can be tricky to run two theme lists which cover enough bases. Magic attacks (and protection from magic) is the obvious lacuna for Khador at the moment, although not insurmountable.