My friend and I played a game last night. He has two expansions of Latari, so we were able to play a 200 game. I play as Waiqar and was running an Ankaur battery. The armies were as such:
Waiqar Latari
Ardus Aliana
Fortuna Ambush Predator
Precise Packleader
Reanimates Deepwood Archers
9 Trays 6 trays
FLCL Moment of Inspiration
Blighted Vexillum Close Combat
Necromancer Wind rune
Flank guard
Reanimates Deepwood Archers
4 trays 2 trays
Ankaur Maro moment of inspiration
Wind rune
Reanimate Archers
2 trays Amyhelion Scion
Precise 2 trays
Reanimate Archers Leonx Riders
2 trays 4 trays
Precise
Total: 199 Total: 195
I’m sure some of the upgrades are wrong, but this was the gist. The problem came in selection. Being first player he got to pick the army set up. He was lucky in getting the long terrain (play the game down the long away instead of across the table). This gave his archers a heavy distance advantage. Then when the terrain came in he was lucky to get the Latari totem (Players within range 1 gain 1 inspiration at the end of every turn).
He was able to place the totem on his side, so he was first to the totem, being an archer heavy army, he camped the totem.
The length of the battlefield gave Ankaur enough time to make my 3x3 reanimates a 3x4 (back ranks full, not threat; obviously). One of my trays of archers was now 2x2.
My Ardus charged forward and was dispatched before I got too far. Archers dropped him low and Leonx Riders came in to finish him off at the end. My Ardus was lined up to charge Aliana, but her shifts got her out of my way quickly. She literally shifted around my Ardus and ignored him completely, as the Leonx Riders charged in. My large army was moving down the other side, to the awaiting Scions.
There was some poor decisions made by me in army set up, namely that my archers that were in front of Ankaur’s group was not fast enough to stay ahead of Ankaur, making him get stuck. My big army destroyed scions quickly, but by this time we’re round 6, because it took 3 rounds just to get into the action. Aliana pushed in and using Ambush was able to dispatch of everyone in my Ankaur army except Ankaur himself, the next turn he was dead before I could even do a thing. My big army was poised to charge into the archers, they shifted out of the way.
My take away:
Do NOT let them get the long run. If they do; turtle, make them come to you. If they just sit back you lose so many units by the time you even get to them. If you can Cavalry right into them. Force them to melee. They tore through my army, had the setting been across the table instead of down it, like normal. I think it would have been a completely different battle. The totem he hung around really shot me in the foot, he was able to Moment of Inspiration every single round. Prepare for their mobility, they are fast. Wind rune makes them even faster. They seem really powerful, but I honestly think it was just because he had a lucky draw on the terrain and the army placement. They can be right in front of you and then shift to your side, shift forward and rotate towards you, ready to attack your flanks. Prepare for that. The Waiqar move/attack so late that it was difficult to do much before they had their chance to go so play reactively a lot if you’re Waiqar. At one point I killed his Scions and turned towards his two archer groups (2x1 and 3x2) ready to charge. Was going to charge in and got attacked from behind by his Leonx Riders. They just move too quickly and I didn’t play reactively enough. My archers, due to the narrow playing field had line of sight only a couple of times so blight was non-existent. Also the archers roll two blue die, which means they can be very accurate. My blighted vexillum and Necromancer were killed before they could do anything, since my FLCL needed blight, he was rendered useless and was just ignored after the blighted and necromancer went down, and when my archers weren’t able to capitalize on their blight production. I think the wider playing field would have changed this fight drastically. I’d have had more area to spread out my archers and keep LOS and I would have had a shorter distance to charge into the archers.
All in all was a fun match, but make sure you’re not letting it go down the long path it was too narrow to move units around each other effectively, and make sure they aren’t turtleing around a totem or overgrowth. Hit them early, Aliana especially if she has Ambush Predator. Get Aliana into combat early so Ambush isn’t built up (Lethal X, where X is the round, on first attack of game). Also get those archers into combat. Being able to attack from that range and multiply at higher numbers (since archers are more abundant than melee for them) is a nightmare.
Hope this helps, let me know what you think. Also… sorry it’s so long.
It's about me dying to them. lol