Infantry with Harkevich, do you bring them?

jonnyboy
Junior Strategist

Posts: 637

Infantry with Harkevich, do you bring them? Apr 24, 2017 1:52:02 GMT

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Post by jonnyboy on Apr 24, 2017 1:52:02 GMT

Right now I'm playing around with both Harkevich and Irusk, leaning towards Irusk. This is mainly due to the fact I don't see Harkevich supporting his infantry very well. Irusk seems pretty heavy on the warrior models, but superiority can be great for our Jacks. Couple Irusk with Andrei and we have good options for charges.

Harkevich has some great abilities for running jacks, a speed buff/pathfinder spell and reposition. Plus his feat gives free charges and a hefty armor buff. What kind of infantry work well with him? I'm assuming units that operate alone are pretty effective. I'm just so skewed by always having buffed up infantry (Vladimir and Butcher do this quite nicely).

For infantry I currently own
-Great Bears
-Kayazy Eliminators
-IFP (min + UA)
-Man-o-wars ST(boat)
-Widowmakers

I especially enjoy the man-o-wars with ironflesh and fury/battlelust, as they can hit like a truck and take a beating. I feel like they fall off in effectiveness under Harkevich and I'm not sure if I want to bury 25 points in them without proper buffs. Harkevich also seems to fit the JoTW theme pretty well, is this how most people are using him right now? What is everyone's thoughts and ideas about Harkevich and Infantry?

Also on a side note, how do you position Harkevich to get the most out of his speed boost buff? I find it hard to hide him behind my jacks because he has to go first in order to give his battle group +2 movement.

Last Edit: Apr 24, 2017 1:52:52 GMT by jonnyboy

borderprince
Junior Strategist

Posts: 974

Infantry with Harkevich, do you bring them? Apr 24, 2017 6:01:02 GMT

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Post by borderprince on Apr 24, 2017 6:01:02 GMT

Apr 24, 2017 1:52:02 GMT jonnyboy said:

What kind of infantry work well with him? I'm assuming units that operate alone are pretty effective.

Exactly. If a caster doesn't buff warriors, you need warriors who don't need buffs to perform well. Doesn't mean they won't perform better with another caster, but they'll do well enough.

Kayazy Eliminators and Widowmakers are good examples of this. They don't need any support to do their jobs well. In a SR2017 Hark list, Eliminators can also provide a hard to hit warrior unit in zones which require warriors for the scenario. As a small unit, it's easy to cram them all in.

IFP actually aren't bad unbuffed, but not great with Harkevich. They don't add much other than warm bodies to the list. Their main defence is ARM, which a Hark list already has. They can have pathfinder, which a Hark list already has. They hit quite hard, which a Hark list already does.

MoWST really shine with buffs. They also have two significant problems in a Hark list. The first is that they provide what you already have - lots of ARM and boxes, but Hark does that better with jacks (as they benefit from the Feat and have a better point:box ratio). The second is more important - MoWST are too slow in this list if you want their ARM at a good level. They will be outpaced by the jacks.

Soul Samurai
Moderator

Trying to find time to paint!

Posts: 3,724

Infantry with Harkevich, do you bring them? Apr 24, 2017 7:50:13 GMT

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Post by Soul Samurai on Apr 24, 2017 7:50:13 GMT

As I understand it, the cloudwall is a pretty big part of what makes Hark work. So would it make sense to take infantry who synergize with clouds? Maybe AKs for shooting through the clouds? Or is there no point since you can shoot before putting the clouds down? I guess I'm wondering if avoiding any order-of-activation issues is a big enough reason to bring the AKs.

jonnyboy
Junior Strategist

Posts: 637

Infantry with Harkevich, do you bring them? Apr 24, 2017 10:44:48 GMT via mobile

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Post by jonnyboy on Apr 24, 2017 10:44:48 GMT

I was trying to find a way to bring MOWST, but you're right they just don't shine with Hark. I'll be sticking with the kayazy and widowmakers (which are great). Although it does make me lean towards trying out how irusk can handle 4 warjacks.

smoothcriminal
The Sky Fell

Posts: 1,212

Infantry with Harkevich, do you bring them? Apr 24, 2017 10:53:26 GMT coelacanth likes this

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Post by smoothcriminal on Apr 24, 2017 10:53:26 GMT

I recommend min WG unit or two with rockets in theme. For a price of 3 shieldguards you get a lot of sac pawns that has reasonable shooting capability.

Out of units you have there are 2 ways:
- IFP + Bears in theme and get the kovnik for free. You get to be pseudo-Karchev with countercharging weaponmasters.
- take jaws theme and get kayazy + widowmakers. Point-wise it's the best one since you get to benefit from all the jacks.

Last Edit: Apr 24, 2017 10:53:48 GMT by smoothcriminal

sand20go
The Sky Fell

Posts: 2,251

Infantry with Harkevich, do you bring them? Apr 24, 2017 16:19:46 GMT

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Post by sand20go on Apr 24, 2017 16:19:46 GMT

I have not found infantry that critical with Hark in SR16. Not sure about SR 17 and the importance of inafantry for pressure. When I was running him it was with WGI Min, Joe and the UA so I had some shotguns. But when Una got Nerfed I went away.

I think the AKs are not really useful. Remember, you have vent steam which is MORE powerful, autohits and probably has more volume of attacks. As my friend said saturday, "For 13 points kodiaks are BROKEN".

Bigger issue for Hark is that the cloud wall sorta demands bricking up, ditto Hark's feat. You have to balance how good that can be with the downside of the brick.