Tell me about Northkin Raiders

I love them with Grim and the northkin elder. Grim lets them hit everything and they have pathfinder natively so you don't necessarily need a fell caller which is great. Quickwork lets them get those support models that I find so tough to get range to with normal troll shooting.

They are great with anyone that can up their def(Grissel2 as mentioned) so Calandra, Borka1, and Madrak1 come to mind. But really I think their best attribute is how solid they are without buffs. You can make them great by piling it on them but they can also get the job done by themselves.

They work with almost any caster imo. They are sort of the "jack of all trades"-unit. They are pretty fast, have pathfinder and AD. They punch reasonably hard in melee (very easily become MAT 8 POW 13) and they can even shoot a bit. I would not consider them a proper ranged unit, but rather a melee unit that happen to have a ranged weapon. Their defensive stats are not superb, but they are not half bad. DEF 13 is "missable" by most attacks, and ARM 14 is not great, but ARM 16 under the stone would make them die only half the time from POW 10s, and way less often than that against blasts. They qualify as "annoying to remove" in my book.

What they will do best will depend on your caster. With Grissel 2, you could play a unit of Raiders with a Hooch Hauler. Grissel knocks a heavy down, and your Raiders/HHH will obliterate it at range. Or they could be very fast (SPD 8 and AD) or very hard to shoot (DEF 17 in a forest).

Grim 2 also makes them shoot well. RNG 12 is a BIG deal, as is the potentially higher RAT and POW. If they can charge something, they can melee it down, and then throw an extra bomb at respectable RAT and POW against targets with Mortality. ALso, potential POW 15 charges are nothing to scoff at.

Doomy 1 has a great accuracy buff for them. MAT 9 rerollable melee attacks (with the HHH) followed by RAT 6 rerollable shooting means they can kill a lot of infantry if they get the alpha.

Madrak 3 also has that accuracy buff, but add spell piercer and the feat on top. What more could you wish for? They become super annoying jammers with the feat up.


So they work very well with all the above mentioned casters (and most others too). If you want to focus on them shooting heavies, the HHH (or croaks) is needed, but they can do great work against infantry and lighter ARM without it. They are a great unit, and if you play SotN you should have one in the box. Not in every list, but they are always a contender imo.

I feel that they hit the perfect sweet spot. Their point cost is just a hair high to be a pure tarpit unit but not high enough that you can't use them that way. Their defensive stats are just right so that your opponent has to spend real resources to get rid of them but at the same time they aren't a major threat so your opponent is not going to want to spend the good stuff on them. Their offense is just low enough that they aren't the big threat on the board but if you ignore them then their offense is just high enough that they'll hurt stuff if you ignore them. They're an excellent damned if you do damned if you don't unit.

Especially so with Bearka and his feat. Turn 1 they're Def 15 requiring good guns to kill. Turn 2 they're either stealthed or jammed in and you become stationary if you try to kill them. Turn 3 they get the stone buff and then it just depends on what you're facing.

Really the only downside to them is their Rat 5 and the fire only being a crit but their ranged attacks are typically just a bonus for me not the point of them.

I love them with kolgrima. With cured fate up on a unit, the can mow down an inf unit like nobody else.
With Madrak1 and a SSC you can make them def 17 vs shooting and def 15 all round.
With Gunny they can Quick work 12 inches and might be able to reach out to juicy support solo's
etc.etc.

They cost £68 here in the UK, that's about 95 USD!

Raiders with a unit of Croak Raiders under Grim2 is on my list of lists to play (after I purchase Croaks).