Wrathful review: Cygnar part three

Now it has become the time for the last part of my Wrath:Cygnar review.

Archduke Alain Runewood, Lord of Fharin (Character Solo)

Cygnar got their first melee weaponmaster! Though, that's not probably the main thing about this guy, buffing your dudes is. He gives Sword Knights Reform (as Elite Cadre) which should help SKs a little, though I'm still not that convinced about SKs (mainly because Steelheads rock so hard). He also has three battle plans he can give to a unit: pathfinder, raising them from Knockdown or a small buff hitting on charge attacks.

So, he should work rather nicely with Rhupert buffing a unit. He frees Rhupert from giving Pathfinder when necessary and can raise your unit up after they have all toughed. Though, Runewood+Rhupert is five points supporting your units, which is quite much. He also has a Handcannon and the already-mentioned weaponmaster melee attack, both of which are quite nice (and he can use one of them and still give a Battle Plan to a unit).

IMO he is definitely playable, but three points is quite a lot for him. Though, two points would have been too little (kinda having 2,5 point dilemma)...


Captain Jonas Murdoch (Mercenary Unit Attachment)

Murdoch has been out for a while already. He can be added to any Mercenary Unit (naturally they have to work for Cygnar) and he becomes the unit leader. The unit becomes Cygnarian while Murdoch is alive and is thus able to profit from "friendly faction" buffs. The main things seem to be his own abilities, though. He has Assault order and Go to Ground minifeat. So the best units for him should be the units with both melee and ranged capability, eg. Nyss Hunters, Ogrun Assault Corps, Devil Dogs and the like. With GtG Nyss Hunters should become quite a pain to kill and assault gives them some random shots before charge attacks. Also, Murdoch is the unit leader and thus Cylena can hang out way back and there's not much of a risk to lose CRA she grants.

Storm Strider (Battle Engine)

It has two guns with respectable POW to hurt pretty much anything besides closed Devastator and might be able to boost the damage rolls (it gains power tokens when it is hit by the enemy, up to three). The guns also give D3 bounces that inflict POW10 damage rolls. It has Repulsor Field (pretty much the same as Revenger's shield) which makes it quite hard to kill in melee. Or at least you have to do some tricks not to bounce away. Or just charge it with Bane Thralls...

With DEF10 ARM18 it's not very hard to kill in a turn (to deny him getting power tokens), but give him Arcane Shield and your opponent starts having troubles.

Strider also gives +2 to electrical ranged attack rolls if the target is within 5" of SS. This should help Storm Blades and Storm Lances quite nicely.

All in all I'm pretty happy with the Storm Strider. It has its place in some lists but probably not in all of them. And I'm interested to play against it (or with it), but not that scared of it.

 

Next up: My thoughts about the spoilers from Lock&Load (hopefully tonight) and after that I'll continue my Wrath reviews.