Let's talk worm cavalry!

So far, my impressions are:

Solo Lancers:

• Cheap as dirt. 15 pts for a 3 wound, 3 def model?
• Good blockers, can lend their blight at range while floating in front of archers to block potential incoming charges
• Yellow March 3 modifier. I love this thing. With a Rally/March the Lancer can surge forward at Init 3
• Assassins, getting a unit of golems or a hero flanked by a solo lancer while blighted is a death sentence.
• Somewhat reliant on reforms to turn, lacking a hard turn.
• Underwhelming when it comes to raw damage potential compared to the Rune Golem.

Support Lancers:

• With the white skill modifier on Reanimates, this lancer can move and THEN spit, which makes them ideal for opening moves. I spam the heck out of the white skill modifier any time I'm fairly confident they'll get any shot at all.
• Tougher than a tray of reanimates, makes the unit a bit more robust.

So far I dont really know why I would use multiple lancers in a single unit instead of just spamming them as single models. That way I have more dials and activations and atop of that I can spam multiple blight tokens across multiple targets. As you said, all that for just 15 points each.

I'm agree with you, I see no point to make a multiple model unit of carrion lancers. I prefer to solo them and try to spam blights, block charges on archers and attempt to flank units with blight tokens.

Red Dice: (2 Hits, 1 Hit-Surge, 1 Hit-Morale, 1 Hit-Hit) = Average 0.75 Hits per dice

Blue Dice: (2 Hits, 1 Hit-Surge, 1 Hit-Accur) = 0.5 Hits per dice

White Dice: (3 Hits, 2 Hit-Surge, 1 Hit-Morale, 1 Hit-Accur, 1 Hit-Hit, 1 Mortal) = 0.75 Hits + 0.08 MS per dice.

The numbers below assume you aren’t rerolling a Hit result for Hit-Hit, Hit-Morale, or Hit-Surges, and are rerolling Surges for Hits.

1x1 Carrion Lancers with melee attack: Rolls 1 red + 2 blue dice, threat 1, 0 rerolls

• Base Attack: 1x 0.75 +2x0.5= 1.75 hits x 1 = 1.75 damage

• No Rerolls

3x2 Carrion Lancers with melee attack: Rolls 1 red + 2 blue dice, threat 3, 1 rerolls

• Base Attack: 1x 0.75 +2x0.5 = 1.75 hits x 3 = 5.25 damage

• 1st Reroll: 1x 1.03 + 2x0.75 = 2.53 hits x 3 = 7.59 damage

I will doubtlessly try a block of lancers at some point, but generally I don't want them for raw damage.

I want them for mobility, blight spam, mortal strikes, and cheap deployment padding.

1 hour ago, Tvayumat said:

I want them for mobility, blight spam, mortal strikes, and cheap deployment padding.

Absolutely, but don't forget objective taking

Just now, Corto said:

Absolutely, but don't forget objective taking

Oh, believe me, I don't.

Gotta take full advantage of that init 3 Rally+March 3.

@drkpnthr a single tray carrion lancer can do up to 3 damage and 3 mortal strikes if your target is blighted. I see the lancers as more assassin units than frontline units. For the points if I was looking for raw damage output I'd take reanimates.

@Orcdruid So, I guess I'm still confused about this rule. With Kari's ability it has a surge+ showing that you can activate it multiple times. Carrion Lancer doesn't have this, so I thought you could only trigger it once per attack? or is it once per blight token? You don't -spend- the blight token to add the MS, it just adds result if it has a token and you spend the surge. I thought you could only trigger 1 MS based on the way I read the rules.

12 minutes ago, drkpnthr said:

@Orcdruid So, I guess I'm still confused about this rule. With Kari's ability it has a surge+ showing that you can activate it multiple times. Carrion Lancer doesn't have this, so I thought you could only trigger it once per attack? or is it once per blight token? You don't -spend- the blight token to add the MS, it just adds result if it has a token and you spend the surge. I thought you could only trigger 1 MS based on the way I read the rules.

Unique surges, which don't come out until the Latari do, will only let you activate the ability once per attack. Other surge abilities can be triggered multiple times, as long as you have surges to spend. The way I understand it, each time you trigger a surge ability, you have to completely resolve its effects before activating the next surge ability. IF Kari's ability did not have surge+, you would assign 2 damage, let it resolve against the target's defense, then assign the next 2 damage from a surge, let it resolve against the target's defense, etc. By making it surge+, you can assign multiple damage before resolving it, letting it bypass defense.

In the case of the Carrion Lancer, the timing is different from Kari's ability. Kari causes a unit to suffer damage during the resolve surges step of combat (step 6). The Carrion Lancer's ability adds mortal strikes during step 6, but they don't resolve until step 8 when you spend mortal strikes. As such, all the mortal strikes you gain from its ability will resolve at the same time whether the ability were surge+ or not.

Plus, bypassing defense doesn't matter in this case because they're mortal strikes, although there could be other effects in the future that make the difference between surge and surge+ relevant. Imagine a "bone spurs" ability for the Uthuk Y'llan where the unit deals a damage to a melee attacker when the unit suffers wounds. Now lets imagine an ability that causes the target to suffer wounds per surge spent during step 6, instead of adding mortal strikes for later. This hypothetical ability could be surge or surge+. If it is surge+, the target suffers wounds at one time, so only gets one chance to trigger its bone spurs ability. If the hypothetical ability is just surge, then the target will trigger bone spurs each time the wound-dealing surge ability resolves. At least, that's my understanding of how this would all work in a hypothetical sense. But let's focus more on the first two paragraphs here that are actually grounded in the rules a little more.

@Orcdruid I think the Unique surges are still a bit vague. In the Guardians of the Deepwood press release they said " The Leonx Riders' second ability highlights a new mechanic in the Latari Elves Army Expansion : unique surges. These can only be used once per combat , but offer a powerful effect in return; in this case, adding a mortal strike to a melee attack. " However, "combat" is not a defined term in the rulebook (it only actually shows up once in the Threat rules!), and until you pointed out the relevant multiple-use rule I assumed all surge abilities were once per once per attack, and uniques were once per battle. Now I agree with you that other surges are multiple-use abilities, and uniques are once per attack.

The relevant surge ability rule is 80.1.ii: An ability can be resolved multiple times if the unit has the surges to spend. Kari's ability is explained in 80.2, and apparently what distinguishes it is that it counts as a single use of the ability per target selected. So if I'm applying 2 damage or 4 damage to your unit, I still only used the ability once, whereas if I apply 2 damage each to 2 different units, that is using the ability twice.

12 minutes ago, drkpnthr said:

I think the Unique surges are still a bit vague. In the Guardians of the Deepwood press release they said " The Leonx Riders' second ability highlights a new mechanic in the Latari Elves Army Expansion : unique surges. These can only be used once per combat , but offer a powerful effect in return; in this case, adding a mortal strike to a melee attack. " However, "combat" is not a defined term in the rulebook (it only actually shows up once in the Threat rules!)

1) FFG News articles are notorious for having incorrect rules.

2) "Combat" is the word used in BattleLore in place of "attack." In Runewars, "Attack" has a sequence of events showing when each step happens. In BattleLore, that same sequence is called "combat." I think the writer just mixed up their game systems. While I would prefer them to use the proper terms, I have no problem substituting "attack" for "combat" in the news article.

I just want to know what new upgrade or mechanic is going to be supplying all of these surges!

"I guess the first two surges for my Leonx riders I'll spend as unique surges for single Mortal Strike, I'll dump the rest into adding hits"

On 4/26/2017 at 10:30 AM, Budgernaut said:

1) FFG News articles are notorious for having incorrect rules.

2) "Combat" is the word used in BattleLore in place of "attack." In Runewars, "Attack" has a sequence of events showing when each step happens. In BattleLore, that same sequence is called "combat." I think the writer just mixed up their game systems. While I would prefer them to use the proper terms, I have no problem substituting "attack" for "combat" in the news article.

I don't think we should be taking FFG News articles as any sort of serious rules definitions. They were also the ones that implied that Rune Golem's +[stable]Def ability added [stable] runes.

7 hours ago, Werewolf_nr said:

I don't think we should be taking FFG News articles as any sort of serious rules definitions. They were also the ones that implied that Rune Golem's +[stable]Def ability added [stable] runes.

A possible future ability? Perhaps a slip of the tongue in the article?

6 hours ago, Werewolf_nr said:

I don't think we should be taking FFG News articles as any sort of serious rules definitions. They were also the ones that implied that Rune Golem's +[stable]Def ability added [stable] runes.

Sure. And I mentioned that caveat in the post you quoted, too. But you also have to consider that they introduce and review a lot of rules in their news articles, so missing just one thing per article isn't too bad. At this point we aren't going to have concrete evidence of what the new mechanics do. For example, the Overgrow mechanic is basically complete speculation. But we have been given some information about unique surges, so I see no problem in leveraging that information until the time that we do get the full rules. Plus, the only people that care about how this new mechanic works are those who are already proxying the elves in their home games. They're proxies anyway, so if the rule is slightly off, it's no big deal at the moment.

They are called "unique surges." They can only be used once per combat. What does that mean?
1) Once per attack?
2) Once per combat phase?
3) Once per game?

To me, a writer making a mistake could confuse "attack" and "combat phase" with the word "combat," but it's a stretch to think the word "combat" applies to "once per game." I think it's one of the first two, and even those are usually the same thing because there aren't a whole lot of ways to get an extra attack currently. Further support for this idea is that most of FFG's games that use the surge mechanic do have a rule stating that surge abilities can only be spent once per attack. Runewars' base rules break that trend, so it seems logical that this new mechanic is just an application of the normal rule for surge abilities as used in other FFG games.

But that doesn't really matter because the particulars of unique surges are not relevant at the moment; the relevant part is that unique surge abilities can be used once per something, further supporting the rules as written that state that you can use normal surge abilities and surge+ abilities multiple times per dice roll.

27 minutes ago, Budgernaut said:

Sure. And I mentioned that caveat in the post you quoted, too. But you also have to consider that they introduce and review a lot of rules in their news articles, so missing just one thing per article isn't too bad. At this point we aren't going to have concrete evidence of what the new mechanics do. For example, the Overgrow mechanic is basically complete speculation. But we have been given some information about unique surges, so I see no problem in leveraging that information until the time that we do get the full rules. Plus, the only people that care about how this new mechanic works are those who are already proxying the elves in their home games. They're proxies anyway, so if the rule is slightly off, it's no big deal at the moment.

They are called "unique surges." They can only be used once per combat. What does that mean?
1) Once per attack?
2) Once per combat phase?
3) Once per game?

To me, a writer making a mistake could confuse "attack" and "combat phase" with the word "combat," but it's a stretch to think the word "combat" applies to "once per game." I think it's one of the first two, and even those are usually the same thing because there aren't a whole lot of ways to get an extra attack currently. Further support for this idea is that most of FFG's games that use the surge mechanic do have a rule stating that surge abilities can only be spent once per attack. Runewars' base rules break that trend, so it seems logical that this new mechanic is just an application of the normal rule for surge abilities as used in other FFG games.

But that doesn't really matter because the particulars of unique surges are not relevant at the moment; the relevant part is that unique surge abilities can be used once per something, further supporting the rules as written that state that you can use normal surge abilities and surge+ abilities multiple times per dice roll.

my guess is once per attack. each time you roll the dice you are allowed to spend surges and can activate unique surges once. some speculation on my part but that's how I would rule it until I get something more concrete.

3 hours ago, Klaxas said:

my guess is once per attack. each time you roll the dice you are allowed to spend surges and can activate unique surges once. some speculation on my part but that's how I would rule it until I get something more concrete.

I definitely think it will end up being once per attack. I'm basing that on the way that surges typically work in other FFG games and the power level of the effects that we've seen. While they are better than standard surge results they aren't strong enough to be a once per game effect or even need to be capped at once per round.

7 hours ago, Ywingscum said:

A possible future ability? Perhaps a slip of the tongue in the article?

Much more likely the latter since they were pretty explicitly referring to the dial. But a card may always come along and modify that so I won't speak for the future.

On 2017-4-23 at 8:37 PM, Tvayumat said:

Let's talk worm cavalry!

So far, my impressions are:

Solo Lancers:

• Cheap as dirt. 15 pts for a 3 wound, 3 def model?
• Good blockers, can lend their blight at range while floating in front of archers to block potential incoming charges
• Yellow March 3 modifier. I love this thing. With a Rally/March the Lancer can surge forward at Init 3
• Assassins, getting a unit of golems or a hero flanked by a solo lancer while blighted is a death sentence.
• Somewhat reliant on reforms to turn, lacking a hard turn.
• Underwhelming when it comes to raw damage potential compared to the Rune Golem.

Support Lancers:

• With the white skill modifier on Reanimates, this lancer can move and THEN spit, which makes them ideal for opening moves. I spam the heck out of the white skill modifier any time I'm fairly confident they'll get any shot at all.
• Tougher than a tray of reanimates, makes the unit a bit more robust.

The problem is that they're very blight dependant and after the rounds you have very few tools to blight your enemy, at least until new upgrade cards are released.

To the date after 5 games I've only managed to apply their surge wound once. Daqan have many ways to lead with blight, as they can easily collect a lot of inspiration or place a war crier on the main units.

They also fashion very poorly on infantry units, as it's a unit designed to be engaged in combat and in that situation you can't use the skill.

The positive aspects is that it's has a good reach, it forces the enemy to advance and that future upgrade cards make us have a possitive perspective on the future (more blights by archers = more likely to apply surge kills).

2 hours ago, druchii7 said:

The problem is that they're very blight dependant and after the rounds you have very few tools to blight your enemy, at least until new upgrade cards are released.

To the date after 5 games I've only managed to apply their surge wound once. Daqan have many ways to lead with blight, as they can easily collect a lot of inspiration or place a war crier on the main units.

They also fashion very poorly on infantry units, as it's a unit designed to be engaged in combat and in that situation you can't use the skill.

The positive aspects is that it's has a good reach, it forces the enemy to advance and that future upgrade cards make us have a possitive perspective on the future (more blights by archers = more likely to apply surge kills).

That's why you have to time the initiatives right.

Target a unit that can't Rally or activate on init 5. Activate archers, blight, activate lancer, mortal strike.

It's a finesse weapon.

3 hours ago, Tvayumat said:

That's why you have to time the initiatives right.

Target a unit that can't Rally or activate on init 5. Activate archers, blight, activate lancer, mortal strike.

It's a finesse weapon.

If you cannot reroll die or the enemy is careful with and prepares himself with inspiration it is not that easy. Their cavalry is their key, they are extremely flexible, and can engage archers from 6" without being shot even once.

I recognize that de dice didn't help, on 2 blue dice scoring 0 surges twice the same game is quite bad luck (carrion engaged with a blighted enemy)

Not having a re-roll on the solo lancer can be problematic, particularly since they don't have a surge modifier, but if you're hunting for the mortal strike combo it's worth it to pony up the 4 pts for rank discipline.

Since getting my fourth lancer I've been playing around with the 4 tray lancer unit, and it is capable of the same mortal strike fun as well as getting some decent regular damage with 2 threat. Now I can't wait for the alternate sculpt so my lancer blocks don't look so homogenous.

I'm considering to start using 2x1 carrion lancer units: that would prevent the waste of impact result on dice and makes them a better option to place your upgrade cards.

I think one of the problems is the dependence on surges to do damage on solo carrion lancers, but with threat 2 and a single improvement they should be more flexible and face enemies better even without blights.

The moment of inspiration will be key for damage dealing. Archers will be able to shoot + regroup (letting them refresh the card every turn) and therefore tey'll do it ok in close combat without close quarters targetting. Combat ingenuity would be probably be not so important if you have an extra die to produce extra sourge.

In fact moment of inspiration looks quite suitable for reanimates as well. As they have no damage modifier, they could be quite powerful if regroup to refresh the card every turn.

In my first non core vs core game I played with 2 solo carrions. One on each flank. One was going up against kari and golem and got to spit blight on the golem who had inspiration so it did nothing and kari had like 3 inspiration tokens when I got close enough so didn't do much there either. He did almost kill kari in a 1v1 melee fight untill kari got a lucky roll last turn and did 6 dmg. The second one was on the other flank and wasted 2 turns trying to blight oathsworn who where slow playing and then he got charged and hit for 10 dmg and insta died.

I might have been bad with deployment but against a slow playing inspiration stacking daqan it's really hard to do anything worth with them as solo units IMO. They need alot of archers with combat ingenuity to make use of their ability as single models I think.

I'm gonna experiment with 2x1 with rank dicipline since at 4 straight charge and 3 bank charge they can work as long reaching high dmg unit. Threat 2 with dmg modifier on 3 dice with re-rolls is a good potentional for damage. I also think if you are using ardus as a single unit then support carrions with the cheapest reanimates is a better way throw out blight.