We're all pretty familiar with the Haw-thorns build by now, I believe.

Lord Hawthorne
-Might of Daqan
-Shield of Margath.

Lord Hawthorn has a defense of 3, but Might of Daqan boosts that to 4. He also has a white defense modifier, allowing him to get up to 5 defense. Shield of Margath says, "After defending against a melee attack, the attacker suffers damage equal to your defense. Now, this works decently on Hawthorn because 5 defense is a big deal, so he's not taking as much damage while also hitting enemies back.

Well, I was looking at Kethra and wondering if she might not be another decent recipient of the Shield of Margath. Kethra has some early-initiative options to pair with her blue +1 defense modifier, such as an initiative-2 speed-1 march or an initiative-3 rally. This boosts her to defense 4. With Shield of Margath, she'd dealing 4 damage to an enemy making a melee attack against her. But wait, there's more! She can choose to give herself the Unnatural Growths condition during setup. If I'm reading it right, it deals 2 damage to an enemy making a melee attack against her. With Shield of Margath, she could be doing 6 damage in retaliation, beating Lord Hawthorne in terms of damage!

It's a fun idea, but I think it probably won't work for 2 reasons. First, she doesn't have as high a defense as Hawthorne. You're basically trading 1 point of defense for an extra point of damage. I'm not sure she would last long taking damage like that. Second, you're forfeiting a lot of her utility by having her activate early and buff her defense. With 2 white dice and her neat skill ability, you probably want to be doing more with her than just rallying. At 6 points, you can probably find better options for Kethra A'laak than Shield of Margath. Still, it looks like she wins the static damage competition!

Hawthorne and rune golems have taught me that five is a pretty crucial breaking point for defense. Eight and nine damage are fairly easy to do, but getting up over ten takes a lot more effort. The more attacks you survive, the more thorns damage you do.

Also, because the thorns damage resolves 'after' defending against an attack, I'm pretty sure it doesn't trigger on the attack that kills you, since the upgrade is at that point discarded from play.

Yep. You have to survive the attack to deal damage back.

Actually, now that I thonk about it, I'm not sure you would pool the damage from the two sources anyway, so it would be 4+2, not 6. In other words, you could deal 1 wound to a Carrion Lancer, but not 2, so it isn't much better than Haw-thorns after all.

9 hours ago, Budgernaut said:

We're all pretty familiar with the Haw-thorns build by now, I believe.

Lord Hawthorne
-Might of Daqan
-Shield of Margath.

Lord Hawthorn has a defense of 3, but Might of Daqan boosts that to 4. He also has a white defense modifier, allowing him to get up to 5 defense. Shield of Margath says, "After defending against a melee attack, the attacker suffers damage equal to your defense. Now, this works decently on Hawthorn because 5 defense is a big deal, so he's not taking as much damage while also hitting enemies back.

Well, I was looking at Kethra and wondering if she might not be another decent recipient of the Shield of Margath. Kethra has some early-initiative options to pair with her blue +1 defense modifier, such as an initiative-2 speed-1 march or an initiative-3 rally. This boosts her to defense 4. With Shield of Margath, she'd dealing 4 damage to an enemy making a melee attack against her. But wait, there's more! She can choose to give herself the Unnatural Growths condition during setup. If I'm reading it right, it deals 2 damage to an enemy making a melee attack against her. With Shield of Margath, she could be doing 6 damage in retaliation, beating Lord Hawthorne in terms of damage!

It's a fun idea, but I think it probably won't work for 2 reasons. First, she doesn't have as high a defense as Hawthorne. You're basically trading 1 point of defense for an extra point of damage. I'm not sure she would last long taking damage like that. Second, you're forfeiting a lot of her utility by having her activate early and buff her defense. With 2 white dice and her neat skill ability, you probably want to be doing more with her than just rallying. At 6 points, you can probably find better options for Kethra A'laak than Shield of Margath. Still, it looks like she wins the static damage competition!

One thought though, you could not worry about the +1 armor, and still do 5 (equaling Hawthorne, but not negating her great damage options). I think not picking her range upgrade though would be silly.

On 9/30/2017 at 9:44 AM, Budgernaut said:

Yep. You have to survive the attack to deal damage back.

Actually, now that I thonk about it, I'm not sure you would pool the damage from the two sources anyway, so it would be 4+2, not 6. In other words, you could deal 1 wound to a Carrion Lancer, but not 2, so it isn't much better than Haw-thorns after all.

I'd like to see FAQ on that, as you are alive when it triggers and as it already triggered I don't see why you need to remain alive. Or are we hinging on you didn't really defend if you died? So much for glory and last stands.

After defending, when it would trigger, the upgrade is removed along with the unit so there is nothing left to trigger.