Captain Farilor and Standard

[PG_BloodRath]

Hello every one just got Captain Farilor and Standard and I wanted to open discussion on them in prep for an article about legionnaires. I, am going so save all of my comments for killing time but I want to take a pulse and see what the community thinks.

[Xnath]

Can't think of to many reasons to take Farilor over vessel. Though Set defense could help, and the mini feat with more armor and no knockdown against being trampled would trigger free strikes from survivors I believe. The banner is nice. Just a lot of situational stuff there..

After playing cygnar units with jr and rhupert. Tough was always a better tool for 1 wound units than some extra armor, in my xp anyway.

[Seferon]

Well, when you look at the unit without the UA and with the Spawning Vessel, the unit serves a entire different purpose then with the UA. I played a game last night with the UA with pThag and i was also using the Spawning vessel. I can tell you i really enjoy the UA. The unit it self really needed set defense to help them stay alive to get more use out of the spawning vessel. The minifeat is also nice for popping on the way in so that they don't get shot to death. I also had a couple of times that my opponent really needed to cast a spell on them to keep the game in their favor but they couldn't because of Magic Static. Over all, if you have the points to add in the UA then i can see some cases to take it over the Spawning Vessel. However, if you have the points to add both in at the same time, i don't see why you shouldn't take both.

[Belthazar1113]

both the pot and falior suffer from the same problem.... single model dependence. once you crack the pot, or kill the captian thats most of what you really paied 3 points for down the tubes. so one extra laye rof consideration is how easy those thigns are to protect and what role they will want to play.

the pot really means you want to use your legos as a big recycling tarpit. they might pair or tripple team to take out some other infantry but really they are goign to get in there to gum up lanes, hold ground and generally take up space on the board so more valuable thigns dont get charged. you will probly be taking incubi with them to facilitate legion's epic level recycling program. in this instance the pot is going to hang out behind the legos and chill with teh lunch ladies who will also spread out a touch t ohelp clog up trample lanes. the pot itself can also block slams to a caster posted up behind it. all in all thi is a good combo. but what it doesn't do is actually increase the effectivness of your legos in combat. it doesn't really make them DO anymore than legos do... which is mostly falling over.

The captian serves a similar purpose in one respect. His "mini feat" makes legos remarkably durable for a turn. that can make quite a few more of them survive on a critial turn when you want to have them doing things. even if its standing touch in range of a charge to "bait" someone into killing throwaway guys, or if its your own charge and stand tall to try and strike again next turn. in this aspect i think he does some great things, but he still fails hard to any auto damage (anitomical precision, blight shroud, sniper) but stands up better against wide effect attaks over the pot. he also does surprizingly more vs shooting since the extra armor is goign to help more against the compairitivly lower power of blast damage and you dont have to worry about it splashing and crippling lunch ladies and rendering your pot borderline worthless. What he really does better than the pot is increase the effectivness of your legos IN COMBAT. he lets them charge and get a 4 die attack into a heavy. it lets him be a signifigant board presense in leading combined attacks against things that normally you would only plink for damage. he lets legos gang up and be effective aginst things they normally wouldn't have much of a chance against.

I have personally proxies out a full unit of legos, incubi, spawning vessle and captian fallior. and let me jus tsay, all working together they make one hell of a grinder infantry block. I have surprized several people with how much of my army seems to replenish itself despite their best efforts at crushing it. and since they have to put so many physical numbers of attacks into the brick to kill it all that takes unwanted pressure of the heavy's and support that i want sticking around.

I love my leggos. I march them to their death more than i like to admit, but hey almost always provide jus tthe right balance of meatsheild and legitimate threat that i want. being able to customize how much effort i want to put into that sheilf having a nice spike, or how reusable i want that defense to be is a nice option that gets overlooked by many legion players.

the simple fact that you can take a min or max unit of leggos, add the captian or not, put a spawning vessle behind or not, and feild incubi or not... that gives a HUGE amount of choice and flexibility in both point cost and role fillign that you want your leggos to really do. I think the captian was a great addition to the forces and while i dont think he replaces anything, he gives a great additional option to make legions marching tarpit, into a legitimate weapon on the battlefeild.

[ViperClaw]

Played a game tonight against trolls with a full unit and Fairilor. They went up against a gator posse and were decimated in two turns quite easily--even with the mini feat in play. Gators are pretty nasty with two attacks and high base armor. It was disappointing a little bit but it kept the gators occupied on one side of the board and let me use Rhyas, and a Scythean to kill the trolls with tough (removed with take down) placed on her against the Sons of Brag. I then put take down on a Shredder and went rabid against Jarl Skuld. He only had 4 boxes left--toast. Always take a Scythean against Trollbloods.

[PG_fildrigar]

Can't think of to many reasons to take Farilor over vessel. Though Set defense could help, and the mini feat with more armor and no knockdown against being trampled would trigger free strikes from survivors I believe. The banner is nice. Just a lot of situational stuff there..

After playing cygnar units with jr and rhupert. Tough was always a better tool for 1 wound units than some extra armor, in my xp anyway.

Trample doesn't cause knockdown. And you don't get free strikes if the model tramples over you, only if you engage it as it tramples by. And why are you talking about Tough? He doesn't have it, and doesn't give it to the unit. I'm confused.

[OminousAfro]

I disagree that the addition of Farilor drastically changes the "role" of Legionnaires. Ultimately they are there to get in the way and Farilor does nothing if not facilitate that through his mini-feat. I think he does, on the other hand, change (albeit, slightly) the method of attrition that you are playing. When you include the pot, you are flexing point superiority over your opponent. Ideally, they are removing less points than you are adding or you're keeping it roughly equivalent. When you include Farilor, you are hopefully doing the same thing but it is instead through the denial of model removal. (This is all obvious)

Unfortunately we have the problem that charging infantry will usually do the 1 pt necessary to remove the model off the table, and this is why I feel people prefer the pot over Farilor. Since there is little to nothing you can do to legitimately lower the damage of your opponents charging infantry (consider a minor damage spike on a pow 10 will kill arm 20 on a charge) we, as Legion players, would rather let the model die and benefit from it in a way that our opponents are hard pressed to stop.

I think Farilor's usefulness rises with further armor buffs, unfortunately the one we have the easiest, and least conditional access to, belongs to Thags2. If we had Defender's Ward Farilor would rise to boss status. But alas, we do not. Mage Static is cute, but kind of "corner casey" in it's application. Set Defense would be useful if Legionnaires were not notorious for suffering one round of shooting, Vengeancing forward and slamming into front lines, I can't speak for everyone, but my Legionnaires very, very rarely suffer being charged.

[Xnath]

Trample doesn't cause knockdown. And you don't get free strikes if the model tramples over you, only if you engage it as it tramples by. And why are you talking about Tough? He doesn't have it, and doesn't give it to the unit. I'm confused.

1. I play against Titan gladiators a lot. I am used to seeing slam/follow ups so darn much I get the knockdown part of those power attacks confused now and then. Oh well...

2. I was simply stating an opinion for 1 wound tarpit type infantry, tough has served me better in the past over extra armor, so I am not to excited about a UA giving extra armor for a single turn.

[PG_fildrigar]

1. I play against Titan gladiators a lot. I am used to seeing slam/follow ups so darn much I get the knockdown part of those power attacks confused now and then. Oh well...

2. I was simply stating an opinion for 1 wound tarpit type infantry, tough has served me better in the past over extra armor, so I am not to excited about a UA giving extra armor for a single turn.

So, you'd take the Witch Doctor over the Legionnair UA?

[Obeisance]

Legionnaires exist to charge screen for beasts and provide fresh meat. I don't think they need Captain Failor to do that.

They already have a U/A.. the Vessel.

[MeniteTom]

Why are we talking about this in terms of having to take the pot OR Farilor? Take both. As long as Farilor is properly screened from ranged attacks (not difficult) he does everything he has to do before the enemy engages the unit in melee (pop Iron Zeal, take advantage of Set Defense).

Farilor gives the unit a staggering level of extra survivability through more defense, armor and a near immunity to offensive spells (or at least the assurance that whatever was casting the spell is well within threat range of your army next turn) while at the same time making the unit less worthless offensively with weaponmaster CMAs. With Kallus, eThagrosh and maybe eVayl, I consider Farilor an auto-include.

[Seferon]

I disagree that the addition of Farilor drastically changes the "role" of Legionnaires. Ultimately they are there to get in the way and Farilor does nothing if not facilitate that through his mini-feat. I think he does, on the other hand, change (albeit, slightly) the method of attrition that you are playing. When you include the pot, you are flexing point superiority over your opponent. Ideally, they are removing less points than you are adding or you're keeping it roughly equivalent. When you include Farilor, you are hopefully doing the same thing but it is instead through the denial of model removal. (This is all obvious)

Unfortunately we have the problem that charging infantry will usually do the 1 pt necessary to remove the model off the table, and this is why I feel people prefer the pot over Farilor. Since there is little to nothing you can do to legitimately lower the damage of your opponents charging infantry (consider a minor damage spike on a pow 10 will kill arm 20 on a charge) we, as Legion players, would rather let the model die and benefit from it in a way that our opponents are hard pressed to stop.

I think Farilor's usefulness rises with further armor buffs, unfortunately the one we have the easiest, and least conditional access to, belongs to Thags2. If we had Defender's Ward Farilor would rise to boss status. But alas, we do not. Mage Static is cute, but kind of "corner casey" in it's application. Set Defense would be useful if Legionnaires were not notorious for suffering one round of shooting, Vengeancing forward and slamming into front lines, I can't speak for everyone, but my Legionnaires very, very rarely suffer being charged.

pThags and Kallus both give a armor buff. In both cases its not to hard to get the armor buffs to work with them. ((Counting the -2 str as a plus to armor.))



I agree with Tom on this case. I personally feel like if you have the points open, then i'd take both if i can. However, i did recently play Farllor with eVayl today and i can say that i like the Spawning Vessel over it. I just find it to be hard to fit the UA in with her, especially when the Succubus comes out. Finding 5 points to drop in her list is just going to be hard.

[OminousAfro]

pThags and Kallus both give a armor buff. In both cases its not to hard to get the armor buffs to work with them. ((Counting the -2 str as a plus to armor.))

Neither of those buffs work against ranged attacks and require your caster to be behind a screen of models that is more often than not, needing to be 3 models deep to prevent them from being killed themselves.

There is virtually no world where I am running my Legionnaires so close to my beasts that anything that engages them (the Legionnaires) is suffering from Death Shroud, but maybe I'm a scrub.

The point is, sure it is not difficult to park Kallus within 9" of his Legionnaires to ensure they get Unyielding, but it is frequently unwise, in my experience.

[PG_BloodRath]

*SPOILER ALERT* some of this is in an upcoming Killing Time!

hypothetically If you were to bring a spawning vessel and the UA, you could have kallus behind 2 -3 rows of arm 22 ( 20 vs range) legionnaires, a vessel, accolytes and lessers. The medium base of the vessel would to help prevent tramples. If the legionnaires only need to be arm 22 on minifeat turn (becuse the + 2 isn't going to help much after iron zeal) then the turn after they could go their separate ways. Kallus can follow up next turn with host out angels to keep those legionnaires annoying. One thing I have learned playing with my warlock as bait, is its not bad to move your caster behind your screen and then back away the turn after. If you spawn a stinger bushwack comes in handy here. Terrain, sceaniro, and combat can all dictate changes but its a tatic I first perfected with vayl1. I would run turn 1. stay put turn 2 then back away usuing my feat. think of it like a boxer feinting as he fades back to bait his opponet into the haymaker. When I write my KT for kallus I plan to make diagrams, this tatic will also be included in my playbook # 2 coming late next week

"Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat". -Sun Tzu-

[MeniteTom]

An excellent point. The best thing about Farilor with Kallus is that you essentially get two turns of invincibility out of the Legionnaires: one on the minifeat turn and one on the feat turn.

[Seferon]

Neither of those buffs work against ranged attacks and require your caster to be behind a screen of models that is more often than not, needing to be 3 models deep to prevent them from being killed themselves.

There is virtually no world where I am running my Legionnaires so close to my beasts that anything that engages them (the Legionnaires) is suffering from Death Shroud, but maybe I'm a scrub.

The point is, sure it is not difficult to park Kallus within 9" of his Legionnaires to ensure they get Unyielding, but it is frequently unwise, in my experience.

On the beast point. Most of the time i use the Legionnaires as a screening unit. So, my Beasts are about 5 or 6 inches behind back line of the legionnaires where pThag is sitting with them. Depending on who i'm playing against that is.

Your original statement was talking about us having the problem of when an enemy model charges a Legionnaire at armor 20 and they have a pow 10 weapon, all they need is a 11 to kill it. This is a above average roll that in most cases ((if i remember the number correctly.)) happens 37% of the time i think. If pThag/Kallus is set up in the correct position, then you are now armor 22 against the charge. The problem of them being charged is now mitigated with both warlocks. I personally don't have much experience with Kallus but i have played pThag a lot lately. The thing about pThag is that you don't keep him within 7 inches of your front line at all times. You have to know when the crucial turn is to move him up into range to catch enemy models when they charge the Legionnaires. There is something to be said that pThag has fog of war, so he does help with them getting shot from ranged. Granted, Defense 14 isn't the best but when your opponent needs 7s to hit on average, well, you will be surprised how often they can miss. Blast damage on feat turn is less of a worry as well ((not that it was to much of a worry before.)). Since all the blast damage happens at the same time, they are still armor 20 against the blast damage roll. Needing 13's to kill a Legionnaire on blast damage is pretty hard to pull off.

At the end of the day, if Farllor is causing the Legionnaires as a whole to live longer then they would without him, then he is doing his job. Just by getting more lessors out of the Spawning vessel he makes his points back after the first 2 turns or so. ((Counting killing your enemies models as well for the spawning vessel.))

[OminousAfro]

All right Seffy-pants (may I call you Seffy-pants?) I do not disagree with anything that you said other than the fact that the average of 3 dice is 10.5 so I'm not sure it's a 37% chance to roll over a 10, but that's neither here nor there.

The fact that you have to sit and evaluate the table situation to determine if it is safe for your caster (Kallus, or Thag1) to give Legionnaires their armor buff makes it patently more difficult than casting an upkeep on them and letting them do their thing. That's all I was saying. Simply that the easiest access we have to an armor buff sits on Thag2 and that it seemed to me (purely from theory) that Farilor and posse kind of want a secondary armor buff beyond Iron Zeal.

[PG_Pszito]

Occultation on a max unit of Legos with Farilor is silly. +2 arm buffs (pthags, ethags, kallus) all make these guys blast damage/thresher/spray/eruption of ___/ashes to ashes/etc etc resilient. tarpit says what? granting extra attacks to farilor is tasty (rhyas' feat, massacre, vengeance, cleave) with weaponmaster + cma on a reach unit. Add on a str/dam buff and we're off to the races. This guy can easily reach multiple high pow weaponmaster swings in a single activation. He is our most survivable and dangerous unit UA to date.

Where in that is a 3 point price tag bad? Sure if it's a question of points due to other more important list elements then you have to pick and choose what support you want to give our 6 point tarpit. Now with another level of power to our tarpit, it is perhaps time to consider building up our front like a bit more than disregarding them as useless filler to tie up the board. I can easily see dropping 17 points for max legos, UA, vessel, and incubi with 6 of our casters. Rhyas, Kallus, and eThags are all going to be regularly seeing this guy.

Frankly I'm hoping that something comes along like him for our Grotesques. As of now, there's no reason to play them in my not-so humble opinion.

[MeniteTom]

Lets not forget Mage Static as well. Most offensive spells are RNG 8 or 10, with most of the debuffs being RNG 8. Against Legos, they're now RNG 3. Since most of these debuffs are being cast through an arc node (I'm looking at you, Cryx), they can't be engaged if they want to arc, which means there is a 1" window that the arc node can operate in. 1" too close, they're engaged by the Reach infantry, 1" too far and it misses. Against those RNG 10 offensive spells like Ashes to Ashes, the Legionnaires now essentially have Stealth.

[Kooza]

Can't think of to many reasons to take Farilor over vessel.

Why choose? take max legionnaires + UA AND the vessel. If you want to really jam, take Kallus as well, and have 2 turns of jamming delight that will make people jelly.