Post by Choco on Jan 16, 2018 22:10:09 GMT
With how strong certain casters are within our faction, I have been wanting to explore some of our other less used casters. The first one that really caught my eye is Magnus1. First looking at him on paper he feels similar to Stryker1 with his more toolbox approach to playing the game. To be honest, their spell lists are extremely similar. Both have a knockdown spell, both have an armor buff, both have Snipe and both have Blur. It's kinda weird (fluff-wise, I think I remember Magnus being Stryker's mentor before he was exiled/became the traitor we know and love). The biggest difference between them is in their feats. Stryker wants to hunker down and ride out the storm while Magnus wants to either get deep into your army to make your opponent have to make tough choices, or play some wacky hit and run tactics.
I played Mags in a steamroller recently and in my third round (I was 1-1 at this point) I decided to try something wacky just to see what would happen. My battlegroup consisted on 3 Freebooters and 3 Manglers (this is important for later). I was playing against The Dreamer and decided to try jamming my opponent as quickly as possible. I won the roll and opted to go first. I had 4 units for the Advanced Move on my Freebooters, popped my feat, Jury Rigged all 3, ran my 14" then ran 10" when my turn was done from the feat. As it turns out you can put Freebooters 2" in front of your opponent's deployment zone top of turn 1 with all of this.
I was not prepared to this revelation so stuff died and I didn't have a good enough follow up to keep the pressure on and try to win on scenario. But this got me thinking, how can I take advantage of this idea and use it to my advantage. I know you all are going to say, "Why not use Magnus2, he does it better". Well, he does and he doesn't at the same time. With Mags1 I can get my jacks farther than Mags2 and really pressure my opponent from turn one instead of just lining up and hoping they just play around my threat ranges.
I feel this provides some interesting questions for your opponent to have to answer right from the beginning. Do I try to ignore these jacks and go around them, which leaves them in my back lines, but gives me scenario presence? Do I engage them and try to removed them since they are right here but hurt my scenario presence? Is there an option C?
So after talking this idea over with some of the other players in my Meta, there were really only two ways to go with this idea. Either spam as many Freebooters as possible (which sounds like fun) or bring a more balanced option. I went with the second option as that also allows me the chance to have a second wave of jacks to follow up the first (it also accommodates what I already own). I also love Manglers for these jack heavy lists to give me some game into infantry, but with the goal being to jam as hard as I can with as many jacks as possible, I dropped them for Nomads. So, here's the list:
Magnus, the Traitor
-Freebooter
-Freebooter
-Freebooter
-Nomad
-Nomad
-Nomad
-Nomad
-Nomad
Anastasia di Bray
Eiryss, Mage Hunter of Ios
Orin Midwinter
Ragman
Aiyana and Holt
Kayazy Eliminators
Kayazy Eliminators
Blythe and Bull
With only 4 units in the list, I limited myself to 3 Freebooters (plus that's what I currently own), but filled in with my 5 Nomads. This makes for more of a 2-pronged approach where I can engage with the Freebooters quickly and follow up with the Nomads. So far I have only played the list once, but I kinda accidentally won on scenario without even going first (I played against Bethayne in the Dragons theme without the character Nephilim, but he was experimenting with swordsmen for her feat turn, which is rough). His feat is surprisingly versatile in helping you determine the lines of engagement and creating those hard questions. I was able to be up the board quickly, take the counter charge from a couple swordsmen and then reengage at my terms.
A couple reasons for some models:
- Blythe and Bull: Cheap for more advance move, and with snipe they actually become a real threat. I'm starting to enjoy playing with them more and more.
- Anastasia is mostly for the +1 to the starting roll, but she's solid in all cases.
- Orin is for a bit of crowd control and some anti-spell options.
- The rest should be obvious. All are solid choices.
This is a weird list and write-up for me, I just hope that you take this with a grain of salt and understand that this is still an experiment. I want this to be a fun list that has game into many match-ups and really makes your opponent think before they act. Have at it.
I played Mags in a steamroller recently and in my third round (I was 1-1 at this point) I decided to try something wacky just to see what would happen. My battlegroup consisted on 3 Freebooters and 3 Manglers (this is important for later). I was playing against The Dreamer and decided to try jamming my opponent as quickly as possible. I won the roll and opted to go first. I had 4 units for the Advanced Move on my Freebooters, popped my feat, Jury Rigged all 3, ran my 14" then ran 10" when my turn was done from the feat. As it turns out you can put Freebooters 2" in front of your opponent's deployment zone top of turn 1 with all of this.
I was not prepared to this revelation so stuff died and I didn't have a good enough follow up to keep the pressure on and try to win on scenario. But this got me thinking, how can I take advantage of this idea and use it to my advantage. I know you all are going to say, "Why not use Magnus2, he does it better". Well, he does and he doesn't at the same time. With Mags1 I can get my jacks farther than Mags2 and really pressure my opponent from turn one instead of just lining up and hoping they just play around my threat ranges.
I feel this provides some interesting questions for your opponent to have to answer right from the beginning. Do I try to ignore these jacks and go around them, which leaves them in my back lines, but gives me scenario presence? Do I engage them and try to removed them since they are right here but hurt my scenario presence? Is there an option C?
So after talking this idea over with some of the other players in my Meta, there were really only two ways to go with this idea. Either spam as many Freebooters as possible (which sounds like fun) or bring a more balanced option. I went with the second option as that also allows me the chance to have a second wave of jacks to follow up the first (it also accommodates what I already own). I also love Manglers for these jack heavy lists to give me some game into infantry, but with the goal being to jam as hard as I can with as many jacks as possible, I dropped them for Nomads. So, here's the list:
Magnus, the Traitor
-Freebooter
-Freebooter
-Freebooter
-Nomad
-Nomad
-Nomad
-Nomad
-Nomad
Anastasia di Bray
Eiryss, Mage Hunter of Ios
Orin Midwinter
Ragman
Aiyana and Holt
Kayazy Eliminators
Kayazy Eliminators
Blythe and Bull
With only 4 units in the list, I limited myself to 3 Freebooters (plus that's what I currently own), but filled in with my 5 Nomads. This makes for more of a 2-pronged approach where I can engage with the Freebooters quickly and follow up with the Nomads. So far I have only played the list once, but I kinda accidentally won on scenario without even going first (I played against Bethayne in the Dragons theme without the character Nephilim, but he was experimenting with swordsmen for her feat turn, which is rough). His feat is surprisingly versatile in helping you determine the lines of engagement and creating those hard questions. I was able to be up the board quickly, take the counter charge from a couple swordsmen and then reengage at my terms.
A couple reasons for some models:
- Blythe and Bull: Cheap for more advance move, and with snipe they actually become a real threat. I'm starting to enjoy playing with them more and more.
- Anastasia is mostly for the +1 to the starting roll, but she's solid in all cases.
- Orin is for a bit of crowd control and some anti-spell options.
- The rest should be obvious. All are solid choices.
This is a weird list and write-up for me, I just hope that you take this with a grain of salt and understand that this is still an experiment. I want this to be a fun list that has game into many match-ups and really makes your opponent think before they act. Have at it.