Very new, trying to maximize the usefulness of Artificer

[silenttank]

So I have two lists that I have been trying out, one a Rahn, the other an Ossyan. I am trying to really get more milage out of my Artificer since he never seems to really accomplish anything. How do you all use him? Simply as a guard for boosting def on mages? Or aggressively? He has pretty dang high MAT, and good physical attacks. But his low magic score (lower than house magisters??) means I often have some trouble.

[DesertSpiral]

ly i use him for force wall and polarity shield. In Rahn i think he has good application on the feat turn but otherwise having another polarity shield option is great. I use an AFG with Rahn and between that and PS Sentinels it can be very easy to muck up your opponants plans for melee.

With Ossyan hed probably be there more for force wall again, but with the def drop on Ossyans gun he might get some mileage out of magno blast, but personally i dont think its really a worthwhile ability. Most of the time it is a bit sub par, but harpooning people into the aura is certainly something of merit.

[Indy]

He's a great jack buddy against Cygnar, Khador, Legion, and other Ret shooting. DEF 14 jacks become challenging to hit without boosting, meaning they'll live that much longer if your opponent can't spare the focus to boost everything he throws at you. And to boot, you're immune to any AOEs too.

[Lord Sessadore]

Simply as a guard for boosting def on mages?

I feel the need to point out that the Artificer can't boost the DEF of battle mages or magisters - force wall grants force barrier to models within 3", and force barrier grants the +2 DEF. But since battle mages and magisters already have force barrier, they don't benefit.

[Tainted Coil]

I mainly use him with Ossyan in character restricted formats. Discordia goes with Ravyn but I also field two archer units with Ossyan. I use he Artificer in place of Disco for the force barrier bubble to protect my archers. Then if the enemy gets close he will surge out and charge them. He is not that bad in melee.

Against factions that like to shoot you he makes a great escort to jacks or assault troops, and if you combine him with Disco you can get an awesome little bubble of +2 def and arm and immune to blast. It's highly situational but a great trick when you pull it off.

[Tainted Coil]

Double post.

[Murkhadh]

I find him hard to maximize period, His large base makes him pretty easy to pick off.

[TIEActor]

the most lol's I've had with him was when I had him and Vyros behind a wall. So it was +6 def against range. Other then that, he tags along with my casters and helps them not be shot, which the aspis will help him with soon.

[Fragelrock]

best luck I've had with him was with garryth but it was a particularly slow moving game. Typically he has a hard time keeping up with garryth. The anti-blast is so nice vs khador and menoth (other then not stopping continuous fire).

[Faxmonkey]

I find him hard to maximize period, His large base makes him pretty easy to pick off.

This exactly. I want to love him, but i find it hard to

[DesertSpiral]

He's 17 arm with 8 wounds casual removal won't do a number on him and even a ravagore can't afford to roll badly on him.

[Murkhadh]

He's 17 arm with 8 wounds casual removal won't do a number on him and even a ravagore can't afford to roll badly on him.

I've had him killed a multitude of different ways, he may not be "easy" to kill but he's not "hard" to kill either.

[Gremlingsp]

What about using him With Ossy , put quicken on sentinels and the force barrier. Am I right in thinking it stacks? so we could have def 16 sentinels? I was thinking this might work against elylith. Ossy's feat can reduce the damage they deal and the high def helps to make sure more get there. I don't have too much trouble tearing up the striders and such with my mhsf but I generally never get a single sentinel near them to take out the heavies.

[Murkhadh]

What about using him With Ossy , put quicken on sentinels and the force barrier. Am I right in thinking it stacks? so we could have def 16 sentinels? I was thinking this might work against elylith. Ossy's feat can reduce the damage they deal and the high def helps to make sure more get there. I don't have too much trouble tearing up the striders and such with my mhsf but I generally never get a single sentinel near them to take out the heavies.

It does stack, but the previous problem remains, its not too difficult to pick off the artificer.

I do run Ossyan vs eLylth, but quicken goes on the MSHF, then they run and engage everything to tie it up while the rest of the army catches up.

[Gremlingsp]

I have a horrible history with eLylith. I've tried tying them up and it helped some. I don't have everything in front of me. Do they only get Force barrier while the artificer is alive? I thought even if its only a round it should greatly help increase the chances of the sentinels reachig

[Murkhadh]

I have a horrible history with eLylith. I've tried tying them up and it helped some. I don't have everything in front of me. Do they only get Force barrier while the artificer is alive? I thought even if its only a round it should greatly help increase the chances of the sentinels reachig

elyth and 2 deathstalkers (thats 2 solo's that are 2 points each, total of 4 points) Can kill up to 10 sentinels just themselves, All 3 of them have snapfire and Lylth has a rof 2 bow and an extra shot on feat turn. So she can shoot, kill, snapfire, kill, shoot, kill, snapfire kill, shoot kill, snapfire kill.
Deathstalkers each shoot, kill, snapfire, kill

They only need 6's to hit, The deathstalkers have sniper so if they hit they autokill. Lylth herself needs 6's to hit and 6's to kill. Below average rolls.

And all of this is happening from 16 inches away. So the artificer is increasing their chances from "way below average" to "below average" And he can't do force barrier and run so your advancing up the field 5 inches at a time, so now your giving that group 2 or 3 rounds of blasting your sentinels.

So um yea, this isn't going to work. The way to beat Lylth is to blitz her, you have to tie up her gun line and then counter attack.

[Murkhadh]

I have a horrible history with eLylith. I've tried tying them up and it helped some. I don't have everything in front of me. Do they only get Force barrier while the artificer is alive? I thought even if its only a round it should greatly help increase the chances of the sentinels reachig

elyth and 2 deathstalkers (thats 2 solo's that are 2 points each, total of 4 points) Can kill up to 10 sentinels just themselves, They only need 6's to hit, The deathstalkers have sniper so if they hit they autokill. Lylth herself needs 6's to hit and 6's to kill. Below average rolls.

And all of this is happening from 16 inches away. So the artificer is increasing their chances from "way below average" to "below average" And he can't do force barrier and run so your advancing up the field 5 inches at a time, so now your giving that group 2 or 3 rounds of blasting your sentinels.

And all of this happens before her units and beasts activate. Next you have 1 or 2 ravagores shooting you and then some raptors.

So um yea, this isn't going to work. The way to beat Lylth is to blitz her, you have to tie up her gun line and then counter attack.

[High Artificer]

I mainly use him with Ossyan in character restricted formats. Discordia goes with Ravyn but I also field two archer units with Ossyan. I use he Artificer in place of Disco for the force barrier bubble to protect my archers. Then if the enemy gets close he will surge out and charge them. He is not that bad in melee.

This is the general idea that I prefer. Have him protect my shooty units with the barrier, particularly things like Archers that already have decent defense. If an enemy then starts to move up to engage, I've possibly got the option of preempting the charge with a charge from the Artificer, a nice couple solid hits. Or, depending on positioning of my Archers and enemy unit, I can just move the Artificer up and Polarity Shield, forcing enemy infantry to either attack him without boosted damage or else try to go around him and maybe eat free strikes.

As for the Artificer being easy to shoot down, you still get to keep him 3" behind the unit he's shielding. That can sometimes mean it'll cost the opponent another turn of shooting at shielded Archers before he can get a unit far enough up to cover the extra ground needed to blast the Artificer. While there are deadly exceptions, it doesn't seem like most lists have enough extreme long range shooting to swat the Artificer from far away until he's given the Archers a least a couple rounds of great protection against return fire.

Also, medium base or not, it's a lot easier to get a single model behind some protection that it is a whole unit. The Archers or whatever can just hang out in the open as long as their trusty guardian is a little more protected, given suitable terrain.

Obviously, Mega-Mittens is one of my favorite models, but I'm not going to make him out to be a perfect choice. He just proves really useful in a defensive role for some of my lists.

[Vilicate]

I often use him with Rahn. He's a decent manipulator, and the POW of the magical hit is better than the HSBMs.

He's almost always hanging out near my Halberdiers, giving out Force Barrier. He tends to fall behind after the second movement (I tend to use TK to movel him up two inches before advance so he keeps up better with the effectively 9" moving halberdiers), but I've found that usually by the second turn they're either engaged or have a good charge target.

[silenttank]

Very awesome advice all! I think I am going to use him in a Ossyan List and use him to bunch soft targets together for my archers! Also a random side question: Do models that use magic attacks get aiming bonus for staying still? I just have a very basic intro to the game rule set.

[Keeler]

He is nice for breaking up things like Champions in DL or Shocktroops in Shield wall before opening up with Feat mages or Archers.

Obviously as menitioned, people tend to pick on it, I think just because it appears threatening and it can be hard to keep alive.

My favourite though, as I am one of these players that likes Jacks, and particularly double Manticores... It can be a bit abusive to lay down covering fire on some chump and suck a bunch of his pals into it...

[Lord Sessadore]

Also a random side question: Do models that use magic attacks get aiming bonus for staying still? I just have a very basic intro to the game rule set.

Unfortunately they don't. Aiming only benefits ranged attacks.

[silenttank]

Unfortunately they don't. Aiming only benefits ranged attacks.

Ahhh Ok. Me and another player were wondering that since I have so many battle mages. It mentioned ranged attacks and we were unsure if it meant ALL range (so magic with distance = range). Thanks!

Great idea using him to break up shield walls! Most likely perfect before a Discorida spray lol.

[Lord Sessadore]

Ahhh Ok. Me and another player were wondering that since I have so many battle mages. It mentioned ranged attacks and we were unsure if it meant ALL range (so magic with distance = range). Thanks!

Great idea using him to break up shield walls! Most likely perfect before a Discorida spray lol.

Yeah, the rules clearly differentiate between ranged and magic attacks. They use similar rules for determining LOS, checking range, and defensive bonuses, but they are two separate things - neither term can mean the other.

Getting your hands on a copy of Prime Mk II (or even the field test pdf, though it's not 100% accurate) to find the terms used in the game and what they mean can really help. In general, the rules don't leave any significant terms to the players' interpretation. Ie - attack, action, target, ranged, magic, magical, spell, movement, etc... are all clearly defined if you look them up.

[ErBaZ]

I field artificier almost always on my vyros and rahn. Mostly opponent has fun time killing other things than artificier... Mostly i just protect mu sentinels/halberdies with it

[TurdFerguson]

Have him PS your MHSF and smack anything that gets too close.

[Oulak]

Have him PS your MHSF and smack anything that gets too close.

Is that Force Wall your MHSF so they'll be immune to blasts and +2 def to ranged, or Polarity Field himself while positioned in front of the MHSF to that enemies can't get within melee range of them without suffering a free strike from the artificer?

[PG_Chris Cuevas]

I've seen the artificer used to great effect against legion. Pumping up your def by 2 greatly increases your odds of not catching 'ranged death'.