Musings on Army Building:
Part 2 — The Future

by Carl Hotchkiss

I'm coming fresh off of testing one of my army builds from the last article I wrote. It worked great. We played a three way battle, with one Griffin and two Wolfen players. I played with Serethis, four Hunters, and six Great Fangs. My Hunters wiped out a unit of Spearmen, while my Great Fangs wiped out a smaller unit of Great Fangs. By the time my groups arrived at the side of the battle where the other players were fighting each other, my forces outnumbered them. It just emphasized how important the attachment boxes in this game can be. The special abilities of the special fighters can be critical in battles that might otherwise be equal. And the sequence ability and Gift of the Wolf were critical.

This has lead me to start thinking about what is coming soon and what new figures I can add to my forces to make them better. The Griffin especially will be well served by some of the new incarnates coming. As there will be multiple Incarnates to add to the armies, and more options to pick from, I am moving up to 2500 point armies, to try out even bigger ideas.

Standard Griffin Order

One of the new releases coming soon allows me to start an army that I have wanted to try ever since I read the Griffin book. I love the whole concept of Knights on horseback, as it captures my imagination, and the Temple of the North Hero Box allows me to try a banner idea that will be fun, and I will see if it can be effective. I start by choosing the standard Griffin Order of the Banner. It allows me to choose two Rank 1 infantry slots, which is necessary for my idea to work. For my priority slot, I choose a full unit of 12 Fusiliers. My second choice is also a full unit of Fusiliers. This gives my banner great firepower to begin the fight at a distance.

My third unit is going to be a full complement of five Redemption Riders, with both special fighters, led by Thurbard, mounted on his horse. The Redemption Riders have nice solid stats on both attack and defense and move faster than the other Temple units, giving this banner a little more movement flexibility, and their lances give them the ability to attack at 3 cm. The standard bearer gives a 2–point bonus on courage, which given Thurbard's already high courage, lets this unit stand against the Wolfen's Fear easily. I also pick Thurbard's artifact, a Battle Censer, which makes Thurbard's unit's power always greater than that of the unit it is charging, guaranteeing the charge re-rolls.

The whole concept of this banner centers around using the two Fusiliers' firepower to heavily damage the opponents fastest unit, and using the Redemption Rider unit to slam into the weakened unit and destroy it. While the Riders go after that unit, the Fusiliers then pick the next fastest enemy unit and start mauling it, so when the riders finish with the first unit they can then charge the second, and so on.

Temple of the North

Looking further out on the release schedule, there are two more units that I am looking forward to experimenting with, the Praetorian Guard and the Cannons. For this army build, I choose the Temple of the North banner. I am making this choice for two reasons: it allows me to bring two War Machines and two Rank 3 Infantry. In this case, I hold off on making my choice for the compulsory priority slot. I know I must fill it, but I want to make my other choices first and see how many points are left and then make that decision.

My first choices are the Praetorian Guard. I choose two full strength units with all three special fighters. These units cost me more than half of my army points, but they have incredible stats and abilities. While they only have one health and one die, their attack is decent at 5 and their strength is a 9, which is great for Griffin troops. Their defense is a meager 3, but with a resilience of 9, they should hold up well. With their Master Strike ability, which adds their Attack to their strength in hand-to-hand strength tests, they can cause massive damage. Another cool ability comes from the Musician, who allows me to bring in any incarnate into my unit.

I choose Mira to join one of the Praetorian units. Her stolen weapon Hauteclaire has a powerful ability that triggers a wave of magical flames, which allows her to inflict a strength test whose action value is equal to her Fervor of 6 on all enemy fighters in contact with her unit. Her War Fury also allows her attack tests to be re-rolled. I next move on to the multiple War Machine slots this banner allows. I pick two Cannons. The Cannons are very powerful pieces. Not only can they shoot out to great distances, but their strength tests are very powerful. Since they are fixed artillery, they get extra shots based on the number of crew. The shots are also perforating which allows the number of kills to exceed the number of shooters.

Now, as my compulsory slot needs to be filled and I have only 305 points left, I select a group of Demon Hunters. My ultimate plan here is to center my deployment around the Cannons. The Praetorians get placed to the side of them, with the idea that as units get closer they move out to intercept them. The Demon Hunters would be placed last to prevent units with the Scout ability from being able to get to the Cannons.

Throne of Stars

I decide to try a Wolfen banner next. The new Throne of Stars is about to be released, and both incarnates look really cool. Yes, sometimes that can be a good reason to play a figure, but in this case, they are also good stat-wise. I decide to use the standard Banner when building this force.

For my compulsory slot, I choose Onyx and a unit of nine Fangs, with all three special fighters. I give Onyx the Keratis blade, which makes his strength tests better, and given his solid stats, that helps him become a solid pick at low cost.

The next pick is Y'Anrylh and a unit of three Bloodthirsty Predators. Y'Anrylh himself is a great fighter with devastating strength, and some critical artifacts: He has a Bloody Shoulder Guard, which allows him to ignore the first damage from every strength test scored against him, and Y'Anrylh's Edge, which allows him to do a strength test of strength 6 against every enemy in contact with his unit. In addition, both he and his fighters share the Born Killer ability, which provides an extra die in attack tests, and Savage, which allows a bonus die on 5s and 6s. The final unit I take is five hunters, mainly for their Scout ability so they can base any ranged units to allow my two main groups to cross the table intact.

The Path of Opal

The second Wolfen banner I want to experiment with is The Path of Opal. The compulsory slot here is a Rank 3 infantry, which works well with the banner's first incarnate, Asgarh. I choose Asgarh because he leads a Worg Unit, and Worgs are incredibly powerful figures, though a player may only have one in a unit. Asgarh's stats are the same as a normal Worg, except he gets three attacks instead of two, yet his abilities modify that in a very big way. All Worgs get a bonus die on 5s and 6s for both attack and strength tests. In addition, The Purple Eye of Y'llia gives the unit the Implacable ability, which means that after they have assaulted an enemy unit, if they are still in contact with enemy figures, they initiate a new combat. The advantage of this banner works well with these abilities, as the results of strength tests are read one column to the right.

I next choose Karnyrax, who works with Vestal units. I put her in a unit of nine Vestals, with all special fighters. I also give her the Kiss of the She-Wolf, which gives the unit Regeneration, which means every time figures in the unit are damaged, they roll one die per wound and cancel a wound for every 5 or 6 rolled. Given that the Repentant can still cancel the first wound that gets through on each strength test, Regeneration makes them very durable. Last and definitely not least, I take two more Worg units. The whole idea is to run the Vestals ahead, soaking up the fire of lead troops because they can get rid of many of the wounds inflicted, and have the three Worg units follow and maul the enemy.

These four armies are just a few of the future potential armies for Confrontation: The Age of the Rag'narok. While going over the books, I began to see a multitude of strategies to use. I can't wait to try these armies out!