Discussion: Dahlia & Skarath as Retribution Mercs

[raptor1313]

Dahlia and Skarath are one of the few and proud merc/minion choices available to the Retribution. The Iosans have the distinction of being the only Warmachine faction that she'll work for.

They're a well-defended, lower-armor duo that mixes denial (from the elf dame) and a nasty offensive (the big freakin' snake). As they are a Warbeast & Lesser Warlock, the big selling point is that it's a jack equivalent that does NOT tax your caster's focus and does NOT absolutely positively have to be in their control area. It's kind of like a Jack Marshal and warjack in one, except that if they kill the marshal you flat-out lose the jack.

Basics
It's 9 points for the pair, on par with a heavy warjack. If you lose Dahlia first, you lose Skarath. If you lose Skarath, Dahlia runs out of Fury pretty fast and then either cuts herself or...stands there and takes up space, perhaps on an objective.

Dahlia
SPD 6 is respectable enough. She has a hell of a defense with DEF 16, but ARM 12 is squishy even with 8 health boxes. Her other basic stats are pretty irrelevant as she has no weapons. I mean, her sculpt has a friggin' flute. You were expecting?

The important stuff for Dahlia: FURY 4. She has two spells, and both cost 2 fury. She's got enough to pop both, or double up on Mist Walker. Additionally, she's got Skarath's animus, which CAN impact friendly models and costs 1 fury.

Haunting Melody is a RNG Control spell. Enemy living models cannot give/take orders, and cannot make melee or ranged attacks at Dahlia. Apprently she's good with that flute. It's the close-range don't-kill-me spell. Not bad, as it means the enemy will have to devote long-ranged guns to kill her if she has this up. (and of course she can do transfers, so yeah...)

Mist Walker is RNG 6; but can only impact Dahlia or Skarath. The target gets Pathfinder and Prowl, so when in concealment/cover they get Stealth. It gives me this ridiculous image of a huge freakin' snake trying to hide behind an inch-high wall, and not really succeeding.

The special rule 'Charmer' means that when a firendly warbeast frenzies in her control area (read: Skarath for this post) that the beast can forfeit its activation instead. Important, because it means Skarath doesn't turn around and shank HER, because he'd almost certainly kill her.

Lesser Warlock is essentially the warlock-lite set of rules, and Limited Battlegroup means only Skarath can be with her. Frankly, with Fury 4 she has no business trying to run more than one beast anyway.

Skarath
Skarath is a glass cannon. SPD 6 is nice (and Mist Walker helps out), and DEF 14 is reasonably solid for defense. ARM 16 is...not so solid on a heavy. Skarath has about 25 wounds on his spiral, though he's a little light on Mind. He's harder to hit than our myrmidons, but has all the armor of a light.

Really, there's one big draw for Skarath: SP 10, POW 12 corrosion with continuous corrosion. With FURY 4, he can boost to hit the important stuff, though with RAT: crap you'll probably NEED the boosts. Since the only ranged Retribution option that ignores stealth so far is the Stormfall Archers (...and soon to be Discordia) this is something of a selling point. The long range may set you up to catch a few targets with an aim bonus, though you have to ask your enemy nicely for it.

Skarath's no slouch in melee, either. He's MAT 6 with a PS16 Reach attack. Critical Consume means that if you hit a small based non-warlock/caster model it's removed from play. Remember to make 'om-nom-nom' sounds when this happens. With PS16, there's a good chance you'd out-and-out nuke anything short of a Lesser Warbeast in one hit (and losing a Shredder to a crit consume would hurt, trust me...) it's also nice to have a Remove-From-Play option available, even if it's not the most reliable of things.

Being a snake, Skarath gets the Serpentine rule, which means he's immune to knockdown, but incapable of slams/tramples.

His Animus is a RNG 6 1-fury spell that grants a model Riposte. Riposte means that when the enemy misses the target model, that model gets to take a swing at them immediately, then the animus expires. Funny story, it's called Serpent Strike.

Skarath also has a neato warbeast bond, so he can CHOOSE his frenzy target. A fully boosted MAT 6 POW 16 hit is nothing to sneeze at. If the dice go south, this is nice. Otherwise, you're probably trying to avoid losing Dahlia's fury battery and the ability to really CHOOSE what you're doing with a heavy hitter in your army.

On the Field
The first turn or two will either see them both running (and Dahlia discarding a fury so she can leach the forced fury off of Skarath) or Dahlia casting Mist Walker 1-2 times and riling Skarath to refuel.

After that, it's probably time to look for a good spray shot. Even if POW 12 won't kill 'em reliably (IE: shield-walling guys or, oh, ARM19 Dawnguard for example...) the corrosion can still do the deed.

MAT 6 is passable, but it also means Skarath is capable of handling itself in melee.
If you can find something that a couple POW 16s will cripple/kill (or do something prevent boosting to-hit rolls, like a Disruptor Bolt or eEiryss) then you've got yourself a melee target. Note, though, that Skarath's ARM 16 is NOT gonna stop heavy hitters from mincing him.

In your Army
As D&S are a 9pt unit, you're probably not taking them in 15 points. At 25, it's possible to include them, but they're still a chunk and you probably want at least one myrmidon as a heavy hitter. Don't get me wrong; the flutist and snake are versatile and all, but you have warjack points to spend first.

I'd probably consider them seriously starting at 35 points.

When it comes to capabilities, I think three things make them stick out and should be considered when deciding whether or not to take them.

1) Do you want a SP10, POW12 Continuous Corrosion shot that can get there without too much trouble?
2) For focus-greedy casters, it's a heavy that does not require focus to operate.
3) It's a heavy that does NOT have to stay in range of your warcaster, but still gets to boost more than once a turn. Helloo, flanker.

Cons
There are two major cons that come to mind with this pair: Durability and the inherent weakness of a lesser warlock.

Dahlia and Skarath both have solid defense values (16 and 14 respectively) but sub-par armor (12 and 16 respectively). They have a reasonable number of health boxes, but when your ARM is like that...there's room to worry. It's just something you have to keep in mind when it comes to AoEs and accurate heavy hitters.

As for lesser warlocks/beast buddies? Losing one part of the pair is essentially losing both. If the enemy drops Dahlia, Skarath leaves. If the enemy drops Skarath, Dahlia loses her only Fury battery.

Interaction with Retribution Warcasters
Kaelyssa can use Banishing Ward with them. Since they can get Stealth without too much trouble, her feat is unlikely to leave them out to dry as the only non-stealthed targets.

Rahn can help them out with Force Field (...since boosted AOE hits are a worry with Dahlia's mighty ARM 12, which means it's transfer damage to Skarath...) and can always use Telekineses to help one or both of them out of a jam.

Epic Eiryss can rob a jack of its ability to boost, which works nicely with the solid natural DEF of our intrepid duo.

Anything past that? It's a matter of army composition and how much you want to save focus on your caster.

Conclusion
Dahlia and Skarath are, I think, viable options for the Retribution. They're one of two sources of sprays at this point in time. They can operate independently of the warcaster (though this also means most of the buffs don't work; see this discussion on Cylena & co for expansion on that) in terms of resources and control distance.

So long as you bear in mind their relative fragility and don't try to take them in smaller points levels, I think you can expect mileage out of them.

Additionally, I think they offer a couple of 'soft' benefits to the Retribution player:

1) It's a break from painting armor and myrmidons
2) If you haven't played Hordes, playing with the Fury mechanic will be a good learning experience.

Give 'em a shot. They're perfectly workable in a Retribution army, and if you have a Circle or Troll army, they can pull double-duty for you there.

[Mod_Plarzoid]

Beautiful writeup. Well written, informative, inclusive and a touch of humor.

Well done!

I can definitely see putting this duo in an anti-stealth list for multi-list tournaments. The spray is great for anti-Legion, Cryx, etc. Since they don't have to stay within your caster's control range, they are an awesome unit to run along the side of the board and strike from the side (with pathfinder if you want) when the opponent least expects it.

Plus the sculpts aren't half bad either!

[serrasin]

Dalia and Skarath are (imho) under rated but there is a point that I feel needs more attention. Since they are effectively their own battle group they do not drain focus from the caster (yay). However, this also means that they do not benefit from battlegroup effects such as Bird's Eye or Witch Hunter, nor are the eligible for battlegroup only spells. Something to keep in mind.

[TIEActor]

I bought this girl for garryth at first but she finds a spot in bigger games most of the time with me. They've rarely failed to accomplish SOMETHING good with me.
My favorite use of them is to be able to get them to some woods in the middle of the map and have a ten inch spray bubble of doom with the 8 inch anti charge/sheild wall bubble backing it up. They become very hard to remove.

[silverpuppy]

i have seen this lesser group do terrible terrible things! nice right up

[Verizonwired]

Question, when I ordered my dahlia skarath duo, I recieved the old cards in the box. There was a spell, though it was easy to miss with, caused torpor (warbeast goes to 1spd and 7def) so i would use eryiss and 2 snipers to deal 9 pnts of damage to which ever branch i wanted. Did they get rid of that spell entirely?

[Cotillion989]

One of the best combos i've seen from Dahlia and Skarath is for shield wall removal. Dahlia while upkeeping Haunting Melody can run on by the shield wall unit to remove the shield wall order and then Skarath moves up and sprays down the line. Very nasty if pulled off.

Also- pretty sure torpor is gone.

[AJ the Ronin]

Question, when I ordered my dahlia skarath duo, I recieved the old cards in the box. There was a spell, though it was easy to miss with, caused torpor (warbeast goes to 1spd and 7def) so i would use eryiss and 2 snipers to deal 9 pnts of damage to which ever branch i wanted. Did they get rid of that spell entirely?

Yup, she no longer has that spell.

[Verizonwired]

Lame, bounding leap was taken away too. Just got the new cards

[TheSanityAssassin]

I've got this pair in as a Ret and Troll player...Thanks for the write up, it's nice to see I'm not just paying for a nice sculpt and something new to paint. Man I hate painting Myrmidons.

[Laxen.]

Nice discussion! I was thinking about getting her not long ago, but not knowing much about Hordes rules I soon realised that she would be killed instantly by some random AOE or CRA and I would lose my 9 pts like that. But I see you talking about damage transfer... hmm. Didn't know all 'locks could do this. I should investigate this and re-evaluate

[TheSanityAssassin]

Yup, it's a handy little ability. Combine that with her ability to stealth quite easily and she shouldn't be taking too much damage a turn....with luck you should be able to keep her away from most boostable AOE's by flanking and threatening with the rest of your force. Of course there are going to be bad matchups like Triumph, but sometimes such things happen.

[Volaguera]

Hmmm if they aren't a bad choice, I might just get them so I can play around with a warbeast before going for a fully-fledged Hordes army...

[Nafael]

They're crud now that we have discordia for a spray attack. They really do look /awesome/ but... they just make me sad at how much they suck. a 8 inch control range for the flute player really really sucks. Also lack of sympathetic transfer (transfer damage without fury).

[Lothlin]

Are they really that all that awful? Looking at their abilities I can certainly see uses for them; cheaper than Discordia, don't tax your main caster's focus, plus Dahlia has a few handy spells... And you lose Discordia's spray once her field goes down, right?

I just wonder because the sculpt really tempts me, enough that I would go out of my way to make her work in an army (and it's not like I plan on doing tournaments anyway,) but i don't want to spend thirty bucks just to have something neat to paint.

[darisus]

I got them in a trade for my son with a bunch of trolls and have benn thinking of using them also. As a menoth main player i can tell you that sprays are always good, and 10' sprays are awesome. Think about it 10' is the range on alot of guns and you are getting a spray which ignores so much stuff on a fury 4 beast that means you can boost alot to hit if needed or damage if not, and the spray is continous corrosion so if you fail to damage some high arm single wound stuff the effect can auto-kill next turn. Dahlia has some decent abilities that can mess with alot of peoples strats as well as you can always play her 8' back to make your opponent go through her snake to get to her.

[Tank Carthage]

I don't own either Disco or Dahlia but i would consider taking Dahlia over Disco in some lists as they are one point less with some pretty nice abilities and can work on thier own.

[Mod_Redphantasm]

One of the best combos i've seen from Dahlia and Skarath is for shield wall removal. Dahlia while upkeeping Haunting Melody can run on by the shield wall unit to remove the shield wall order and then Skarath moves up and sprays down the line. Very nasty if pulled off.

Also- pretty sure torpor is gone.

This does not work. Nothing in Haunting Melody removes orders that have already been given. Haunting Melody prevents units in it's range from giving or receiving orders, but a unit in shield wall has already received the order and is benefited from it.

[bakaryu]

To offer my two cents' worth Ravyn offers nice synergy with being able to drop a cloud effect on top of the pair if you go for the double Mist Walker approach.

[serrasin]

Keep in mind that Skarath is immune to knockdown which makes him excellent for hiding a caster behind.

[Evil ColSanders]

Keep in mind that Skarath is immune to knockdown which makes him excellent for hiding a caster behind.

Sadly, this is why Slams were invented. Keep on your toes.

[raptor1313]

Honestly, most of the time I tend not to keep D&S close to my caster just because I don't HAVE to. It's a heavy that's not in any way tied to my caster, which means I can start chewing on a flank with it. I'd rather angle for some sprays then commit him to melee, as Skarath's not particularly uber there.

Knockdown Immunity does do wonders against stopping crap like pKreoss, though.

[ElCapitan28]

I got them in a trade for my son with a bunch of trolls and have benn thinking of using them also.

Hold the phone, man. You gave your son to Trolls? Heartless...

[Pinegulf]

Note that critical consume applies to normally immune models like Vilmon and minifeated Zealots. Also it’s divine to eat Covenant of Menoth. However it should be noted that boosted hit roll has only ~44% chance of critical hit. One shouldn’t count on this unless you can buy additional attack and boosting that also. This has ~80% chance of critting.

[WithScience]

I was really thinking about these guys for a while. I decided to pass on them because both the Haunting Melody and Critical Consume only work on living models. I'd really like to have an extra spray vs. Cryx, but they're just going to charge and kill the warlock.

But, man, Serpent Strike and the spray are awesome. Also:

Impervious Wall - During its activation, this model can forfeit its normal movement or action to gain Impervious Wall for one round. A model with Impervious Wall is immune to continuous effects, does not suffer damage or effects from non-magical ranged or melee attacks, and cannot be knocked down.

So Vilmon isn't effected by critical consume. The zealots are, though.

[leo_neil316]

1. The spray damage type is corrosion. There aren't a ton of guys with Immunity: Corrosion, but all of them are in a faction I'd really like to spray.

So are you talking mercs or khador there?

'Cause cryx don't have any corrosion immune models.

[WithScience]

False! Corrupter!

....uh, yeah. That mistake's bad enough to be edit-worthy. Thanks for pointing it out.

[bouncymischa]

Snaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaake!

Finally, some time to spare! Last week I took Dahlia and Skarath in one of my lists to a local Steamroller, and they did pretty well for me. I know some people were interested in my thoughts as to why I chose to use them and how they did, so I figured I'd ramble here for a bit. :3

Why did I choose Dahlia and Skarath?

My first list choice was a Ravyn list with a lot of shooting, that I'd been having fun playing lately and had proven quite useful against infantry swarms (such as a Tier 4 eButcher list I knew one of the other players was bringing). I chose to use Kaelyssa as my second list because she'd been fun to play with more general-purpose lists, and reading up some of the information on the forums for using her as an anti-stealth list she seemed like a good alternative to Ravyn.

Originally, I'd planned to use a Phoenix, Discordia, and Hydra with Kaelyssa, with the Hydra taking advantage of Phantom Hunter to act as a long-ranged sniper. However, when considering how to deal with something like Bane Lord Tartarus, I realized that Discordia only had a 50% chance of killing Tarturs in one shot with the Sonic Cannon, and I'd likely need the Phoenix and an arced Arcantrik Bolt to try and finish him off, which would put both of my heavies within reach of whatever Bane Thralls were around BLT. After thinking it over, I realized that I really wanted a third option to help me deal with Tartarus, and Skarath with his spray was pretty much ideal. His spray wasn't quite as powerful or accurate as Discordia's (being POW 12 and RAT 5), but he could easily boost without affecting Kaelyssa's focus allocations, and with DEF 14 the odds of Banes hitting him was a lot better compared to Discordia. He ultimately felt like a model that I could more readily risk using to try to take out a target like Tartarus, to avoid needing to put both of my heavies into harm's way. He was also a good model to ease Kaelyssa's focus load, letting me potentially run three fully loaded heavies if necessary.

My final list ended up looking like:

Kaelyssa
Phoenix
Discordia
Dahlia & Skarath
Sentinels + UA (max)
Stormfalls
Stormfalls
eEiryss
Arcanist x2
Sylyss Wyshnalyrr

So how well did they work out?

I ended up playing against three Hordes opponents -- one Trollbloods, and two Skorne. I chose to use my Kaelyssa list in each match, although in hindsight I feel my Ravyn list would've done better against the Jarl Skuld list I fought in the first round.

The Trollblood list (with Jarl) Discordia and Skarath teamed up to try and fight a brick of Trollkin Champions, with Skaldi and Heroes -- fortunately, no Krielstone. Skarath's spray failed to hit Skaldi but did almost kill a Hero, who died to Corrosion on the next turn, while Discordia took out Skaldi. The Champs ended up getting Quicken, letting them advance into combat with the two on Kaelyssa's feat turn -- but it did show that Skarath isn't quite as vulnerable on Kaelyssa's feat turn as I'd thought. The Champs had wanted to charge Skarath, but then had to forgo any attacks on Discordia. As it was, Skarath's DEF 14 protected him from 3 of the 4 attacks the Champs got on him. Skarath's POW 16 was good enough to chew through the Champs' armor, but they kept making enough Tough checks to force him to use up his attacks against them. Unfortunately, I ended up overextending Kaelyssa trying to deal with my opponent's Mauler, and he was able to defeat her, but Dahlia and Skarath did survive to the end.

My second opponent ran pMorghul, with Nihilators, Immortals, Molik Karn, Titan Gladiator, Cyclops Brute, Hakaar, Marketh and some other support. The scenario was The Gauntlet, but the terrain on the board featured the Menoth "Altar of Flame" (the Gale Force Nine terrain piece) between the two zones. My opponent chose to circle around to approach my right flank, but using Kaelyssa's feat meant that he was forced to run up his infantry to close with my Stormfalls. Skarath, parked just a bit behind the Stormfalls and to the right, was able to forfeit his movement to aim, and fired his spray through six models, killing them all. He later fought Molik Karn, and my opponent was not happy to learn Skarath's bite is a P+S 16, although in the end it took my Sentinels to help finish him off. Discordia ended up winning the game for me, by claiming a control point in my zone, and forcing Morghul to engage it to try and contest it -- which didn't end well for Morghul.

In my final game, I ended up playing against a Naaresh list. Skarath and the Stormfalls on my right flank took out an entire unit of Swordsmen, with Skarath picking off the officer. I moved Kaelyssa to that flank, but my opponent managed to move his Cannoneer enough to get a shot at her and brought her down to three life. He then feated, and moved Naaresh over to try and pick Kaelyssa off with a spell, but failed to hit her, leaving Naaresh at DEF 18 ARM 20, but exposed. Kaelyssa and Discordia shot him, with Kaelyssa removing his last fury to deny him transfers, but against ARM 20 they only brought him down to about half of his life. In the end, I sent Skarath into melee, needing 12 to hit on boosted attack rolls -- but managed to hit with both his initial and a bought attack, and did enough damage to finish Naaresh off.



I've at least got a picture of that moment. It does show my method of protecting Dahlia, at least -- I nearly always keep her behind some kind of terrain. Our tables may be a bit terrain heavy, though. (And yeeeah, unpainted models. My Ravyn army was mostly painted, though. XD)

Conclusions

In the end, I was pretty happy with Skarath's performance. Dahlia didn't get to do much, although if I was more familiar with Haunting Melody I'd be more tempted to use her to disrupt enemy infantry. So far I've been able to keep Dahlia pretty safe behind obstructions, because I typically run Skarath on the flanks.

So Skarath and Dahlia, eh?
What they did, do you feel was something that was particularly suited to them, or could have Discordia achieved the same role?
Both in that situation and also in your list.

I think, given the choice, I'd pick Discordia first over Skarath -- Discordia has certain advantages that are certainly worth the extra point, although it'd be interesting to see if I could get more use out of Dahlia, which might add some extra potential to the combination.

On the other hand, I've been quite happy with Skarath filling the role of an additional heavy. I tend towards using heavy warjacks to deal with other heavy targets, but with the focus limitations of Retribution warcasters it can be hard to run more than 2 in a list. At 50 points, in particular, I've enjoyed using Skarath as a third heavy, and the flexibility that an additional spray brings has been quite useful.

I'll have to try Skarath more at 35 points as a second heavy, particularly with warcasters that would want to conserve their focus for themselves a bit. I'd definitely want a heavy that could deliver a beating for my warjack, though.

[Marshal Wilhelm]

Thank you for the write-up

It does seem like Skarath is a good secondary/tertiary heavy, and allows for a good savings of focus for the Caster.

As you say, if the Caster has a good selection of spells, not having to run a heavy would be a handy thing.

Now, I am even more newb about Hordes things than WM, but I have noticed a few things about Hordes. Correct me if I am wrong.

• The beast can be healed, and so is something like having an Arcanist built into it?
• The beast can be overcharged on Fury, meaning if something has to go, a beast is better in that situation than a jack.
Which also means, if somehow the beast is in a bad situation (by whatever means) then you can kamikaze it to more effect than you can with a jack.

So whilst jacks and beasts are supposed to be balanced (and I believe they are), they are not the same. So if you can put the beast into situations that favour the beast, you'll get better bang for buck from your efforts and micromanagement. And WM/H is all about micromanaging, from my understanding....

Many people point out they would like a simpler jack for RoS. A generalist is fine, but sometimes a specialist is easier to use, or more desirable. It looks to me that an overcharged Skarath works as a beatstick, on par with the Manticore.
A correct assessment, or am I ascribing too much to those four Fury points?

Something that I think would be worth figuring out, is how to get use from Dahlia, without her getting squashed. Can she be hidden in and around a unit, blocking LoS and attack runs to her?
It seems a waste to not have her contributing, but no sense risking her death (and so losing Skarath) for a small gain.
If she can gain such a benefit from unit, what unit suits that role best?
Shooters like Riflemen, Generalists like Invictors, or Choppers like Sentinels?

[Cyryst]

This has been an interesting write up
I'm a predominantly circle player who uses Dahlia and Skarath fairly consistently with some of my warlocks.
Recently I have developed a strong interest in retribution and have started to proxy armies to test out what ill be buying as the foundation for the faction in my collection.
Being a complete ret noob I dont know how the combo compares to other jack options but I can affirm that it is a rather solid choice.
Her haunting melody definitely shuts things down, amusing so as its an upkeep, which you can pay at activation and then run into the midst of an enemy unit.
Shes very survivable with prowl up, but she is a warlock thus she can transfer to her snake, as long as the snake is not on max fury it can absorb hits she would otherwise take, if being immune to melee and ranged attacks was insufficient.
Also dont forget the snakes animis, being a walock she can cast this as a spell, its targets are specified as friendly models, so she could potentially drop serpent strike on 4 individuals, while skarath would use it on himself or a 5th, my immediate thought for this application would be screenening the halbadiers (The set defence guys) with it, so they can respond to a missed charged attack with a pole axe to the face.
Finally I dont remember Hypnos too well but I think his void lock stopped things from being forced? If so Dahlia can hang around with haunting melody up, as long as her biggest threat (in my experience models that can boost attacks) is denied its ability to boost she can be a general defence 16 with 4 transfers nuisance.