Fiona what are you missing?

[canadianone]

So, i have started playing some games with our much mal aligned Fiona the Black, and while she is working reasonably well, i feel like she is missing something. She has the awesome teglesh mark to get spells in neat angles and past blockers, but it feels that despite this and nonorkian brand, all she can do after that is use soul fire. I feel like she is missing some enemy debuff. Affliction can be useful, buts its hardly universal. I feel like she should have some spell like Emagnus' calamity. It fits her whole "evil dark *****" motif, and I think it would really help her as a caster. Not to say that she doesn't work with her current spell list, but after a couple games, i am finding that she seems to be missing something. Does anyone else think so? or am i just being a malcontent?

[cannonball]

Nyss + Feat and walking away from Free Strikes sounds fun with her.

[Kite66]

The only thing I find missing is something to do with her when something is preventing me to cast spells (I hate you Kromac). I build her lists with the mind of assassinations so grinding down armies or trying to take out all the heavy jacks are far back on my mind. I do think she will be my go-to caster except against a beast / jack heavy list. I do like affliction because quite often my nyss hate rolling above a 7... on a charge against a heavy but that is me and cursed dice instead of the norm.

[pattison]

She's missing a unit of Long Gunners.
They just love both Nono and Affliction.
Give 'em a try!

[canadianone]

Yeah, i was actually just thinking, wait, 20 shots = 20 damage... me likey!

[Weezinggg]

id like if instead of cultist ability she was focus 8

[absent]

parasite instead of affliction would make her one of the best merc casters imo. She is still fine but her army often faulters late in the game.

[Weezinggg]

For cracking armor i usually bring kayazy and snapjaw....which sadly doesnt feel like enough

[Skorpius47]

Fiona, Rocinante, Boomhowler, Long Gunners.

You'll never look back.

[Ger]

Oh if Telgesh Mark was 1 focus I would be filled with Joy...

Gunmages actually work really well with Nonokrion Brand on them. Affliction let's their measily pow 10s kill a lot of stuff. The trick is you give up quantity of fire for more accurate sniping.

[pattison]

Fiona, Rocinante, Boomhowler, Long Gunners.

You'll never look back.

These are actually the main bricks in my latest Fiona concept.
Earlier I used her with a straightforward assassination list with everything it needed, but even if it was successful (no losses with Fiona) I felt that it's very fragile and all of my wins were like "if I don't win now I'm screwed".
So I started to think again. I felt that LGs are a must, and I also liked Rocinante with her (actually she's the only one...). Anastasia stayed too as a great arc node nominee, and of course Dougal for ranged support.
I included Boomies for a resilient front line and some hard hitting & survivable stuff. At the moment I'm balancing between the amount of Forge Guard and melee jacks. The former is focus effective and a great unit, but takes up a lot of space on the field, while putting the LGs behind at effective SPD4, while the latter would be great for their mere presence and the fact that the opponent needs to do something with them (after killing the Rothed trolls in front), but they're eating up focus. Still, not in all of the turns. I know it's kind of unconventional to run Fiona with 3 heavy beatsticks but with such a great ranged support it might work, and would give the list a good sturdiness.
Also I'm thinking about adding Thor & a Blaster. If Anastasia dies, a prontoable, ARM18 arc node is nothing to sneeze at. Also it works against high DEF ignoring being in melee penalty (LGs won't be able to solve that), while it's also insane against high ARM, single wound infantry when they have Affliction on. IFP, TFG and the like will fall like dominos.
I'll test it a couple of times with different proportions and share the result.

[sleet01]

I've got two pairs of Eliminators on order for Fiona based strictly on @RobertShepherd's battle reports; I'm very interested in running them as arc node / assassinators.

[moddball]

Fiona is one of my go to casters. Some of her spells and tricks are highly situational but when the situation doesn't suit her Spells power up her Jacks. I agree some times you want an alternate offensive spell or a more universal debuff but it's normal to always want more it doesn't mean Fiona is week or bad. She is a great caster and she is my number one anti Hordes casters. She does work best against the living.

[CareyBear]

I bought one set for the same reason, I haven't used them with her yet, but they are money with Primed on them. Mat STUPID and P+S BOOYAH. I will be buying the second set.

[pattison]

Eliminators are a blessing for us merc people... So far I've tried them with Damiano, Durgen and Gorten and they are just b0rk3n!
Damiano gives them +3STR, +2MAT, +2DEF and KD immunity (come on!). Durgen & Primed already mentioned (great with sidestep), while with Gorten they're immune to Blast & KD.
With Fiona they're unhittable on feat turn and who needs better arc nodes...
Crazy chicks.

[pattison]

Eliminators are a blessing for us merc people... So far I've tried them with Damiano, Durgen and Gorten and they are just b0rk3n!
Damiano gives them +3STR, +2MAT, +2DEF and KD immunity (come on!). Durgen & Primed already mentioned (great with sidestep), while with Gorten they're immune to Blast & KD.
With Fiona they're unhittable on feat turn and who needs better arc nodes...
Crazy chicks.

[canadianone]

Yeah, plus their crazy run and acrobatics, i had 2 of them sprint over a wall of gun mages and get behind them engaging all of them in combat. They really are amazing. Though i haven't heard too much roar about them from khadoran players.

[MagnustheJust]

It's too bad none of the Four-Star casters have Quicken...

[Ger]

Oh a weird thing I'm starting to do. Run H+J with Dougal as a "Horde thinner". Fiona typically brings enough shooting to make one unit, jack, or caster have a bad day...but if there's too large of a horde she can't deal with it. A couple Scatter Shots can really reduce the amount of targets Fiona has to deal with.

Although AoEs do NOT work with Affliction. Sprays do. So blasters under Thor really are very cool with Fiona.

[moddball]

Although AoEs do NOT work with Affliction. Sprays do. So blasters under Thor really are very cool with Fiona.

So tune up to boost to hit then hose the arcane shielded sword knights. Thanks I did not know that; I will soon be investing in Thor I have looked at him for a long time but this finally makes him to good not to have.

[pattison]

Yupp, pretty much as I wrote above (post was probably too long and got ignored lol).

Also I'm thinking about adding Thor & a Blaster. If Anastasia dies, a prontoable, ARM18 arc node is nothing to sneeze at. Also it works against high DEF ignoring being in melee penalty (LGs won't be able to solve that), while it's also insane against high ARM, single wound infantry when they have Affliction on. IFP, TFG and the like will fall like dominos.

[MagnustheJust]

A Basher arc node?!?

As ideas go, that's got to be the ...




Please give me a minute - the hamster fell out of the wheel again.

[Weezinggg]

I usually bring eliminators, peiyrss, wrongeye and thor+blaster and just cycle the arcnode ability to whatever works best that game

[moorg]

I like playing Fiona with Boomy screening down the middle, and Kayazy and Croe taking the flanks. It just bogs down your opponent, and one of the flanks can usually close on the enemy caster for the assassination. Works more often than not.

[pattison]

The Basher arc node is indeed a valid idea. That was actually my very first thought when I purchased Fiona.
Then I discovered how great of an arc node Anastasia is and didn't really look back. I should try it though.

pEiryss is mean with Nonokrion, hitting the enemy caster hiding behind models... no focus for 2 turns? Too bad.

[joelker41]

eEiryss on feat turn as an arc node vs warmachine is just...dirty. shut down a few enemy jacks, and make them all cry trying to hit her 16 defense with one less die.

Good stuff! Oh and is also a very sneaky way for backlash to work!

[lastspartacus]

eEiryss everyone knows the merits of, but with Fiona pEiryss seeing through all models is an absolute terror for warmachine opponents. Just that possibility will make your opponent hide his caster back field all game.

The long gunner plus affliction idea is cute, but its alot of points and effort it seems when you have all the four star benefits. There are valid reasons to take either contract.

BTW: Fiona found what she is missing. Its called Galleon. Enjoy the armor cracking

[slinkdawg]

Yeah, I am interested to try long gunners with nonokrion brand shooting through galleon.

The potential is there. Acrobatics and huge bases can be abused heavily as well.

[Skorpius47]

The long gunner plus affliction idea is cute, but its alot of points and effort it seems when you have all the four star benefits. There are valid reasons to take either contract.

It's more about getting the two RAT 18, POW 21 CRA's into the face of your opponent's Warcaster from within 14" away through intervening models. I, personally, haven't been able to get Affliction to work since I can just ignore the Warjack and pelt their Caster while they're mucked up with Roth's Mercy Boomhowler & Co.

[pattison]

It's actually 16" with Dougal.
And add in Rocinante with a Artilleristed & fully boosted shot too...
If Eiryss managed to strip him/her off focus then it's surely a dead warcaster.
Not that easy against warlocks though.

[Thamarite Merc]

Well, against warlocks you still got affliction.

I won't field Fiona anymore without either Pressgangers or Madelyne Corbeau. Influence without Seduction is just a fringe affair. The combo is a real threat, that will usually keep the walking distance around the Seduction model clean from melee warrior models. Or else..

[LiamPiver]

The problem with Fiona is that if you want to use Affliction it tends to point towards Long Gunners for their volume of shots (knocking out Khador jack systems with Long Gunners is sweet). Whereas her feat points you towards models like Kayazy. I tend to run 4Star so I don't get a lot out of Affliction, but I get a ton out of the rest of her spells.

Speaking of Influence. It's a weird spell. It's got uses and if you see a reach unit, she can do some good damage quickly but in general it's not something you'll use that often.

[PG_Sobek]

I'm curious as to how important people seem to feel it is to try brining some kind of Sea Dog unit in order to get that extra Focus point?

[Thamarite Merc]

Not very important. Fiona is usually fine with 7 focus, and if she purely wants more of it, Sylyss is the better choice.

Pressgangers are still very strong with her, as fearless goes well with their main role of clogging up the opponent army, and Seduction makes Influence a more solid option, but Fiona usually does not want to stick within 1" of them for collecting focus, b/c a) they are frontline troops and Fiona is not and b) their DEF is 3 lower than Fiona's DEF, plus they lack Whiplash, so they are just going to draw in all kind of AoEs to her.

[LiamPiver]

Yep. I have never run pirates with her. She has a lot better options in Nyss, Boomhowler, or Kayazy.

[Ger]

I'm curious as to how important people seem to feel it is to try brining some kind of Sea Dog unit in order to get that extra Focus point?

Sea Dog Deck Gun or Min Press Gangers are often the best way to handle that. I do find myself nodding my head about Wyshnaller being a better option than either though.

[MagnustheJust]

It's actually 16" with Dougal.
And add in Rocinante with a Artilleristed & fully boosted shot too...
If Eiryss managed to strip him/her off focus then it's surely a dead warcaster.
Not that easy against warlocks though.

Most players will not consider transferring a Death Bolt's damage until the third one hits...