I was on vacation for a family wedding, and last Monday night I had the privilege of meeting up with @Willange and his brothers for some Runewars. It was great getting a chance to meet him, and to play in a new place away from the SoCal area. We played at Blakfyre Games, which was a nice venue. I enjoyed it.
Having recently tried out 12 trays of Reanimates, I decided it was time to give another list archetype a try: Ankaur Maro figure upgrade. Here’s my army:
Ardus IxErebus
[37] 1x1
Ardus Fury [1]
Total Unit Cost: 38
Reanimates
[26] 2x2
Profane Banner Bearer [5]
Ankaur Maro (I) [20]
Total Unit Cost: 51
Reanimates
[50] 3x3
Necromancer [3]
Front Line Carrion Lancer [5]
Cursed Signets [2]
Aggressive Drummer [5]
Lingering Dead [3]
Total Unit Cost: 68
Reanimate Archers
[18] 2x1
Combat Ingenuity [6]
Total Unit Cost: 24
Reanimate Archers
[18] 2x1
Total Unit Cost: 18
TOTAL 199
The focus of this monstrosity is Ardus. I need his Host of Crows ability to have enough points for Reanimate Archers and a small unit of Reanimates with Ankaur Maro. Because of that, I decided to double down on his ability to borrow surge abilities from friendly units. So I gave him Ardus’ Fury, and hoped for good dice. If he is close enough to both the Reanimates (with the Front Line Carrion Lancer) and the Reanimate Archers with Combat Ingenuity, then he can spend his Fury surge to blight the target, the dial surge to deal mortal strike, and any surges on his 2 white dice will be mortal strikes as well.
But that’s not all. While Ankaur Maro is adding trays to the 9-tray block of fighting Reanimates, the Necromancer in their front ranks continues to add figures. Because Stun tokens can royally mess with this strategy, I gave them Cursed Signets so all banes deal 1 wound instead.
Game 1
Willange brought a Daqan army that was, as far as I’m concerned, pretty typical.
Lord Hawthorne
[34] 1x1
Might of Daqan [4] 1x1
Shield of Margath [6]
Total Unit Cost: 44
Spearmen
[59] 3x3
Citadel Weapons Master [8]
Shield Wall [5]
Front Line Rune Golem [7]
Aggressive Cornicen [5]
Total Unit Cost: 84
Oathsworn Cavalry
[46] 3x2
Master-Crafted Weapons [4]
Moment of Inspiration [5]
Total Unit Cost: 55
Rune Golem
[17] 1x1
Total Unit Cost: 17
TOTAL 200
Being first player, I chose Standoff Deployment because I would get 3 defensive terrain, which could be useful for my archers. My opponent chose Bounty. I selected my 3x3 Reanimate unit as the bounty, and he selected Lord Hawthorne. Good choice. I was going to select Ardus, but I reasoned that if he wanted to kill Ardus, he could. By making the Reanimates my bounty, I could send Ardus to assassinate Hawthorne (who I had guessed would be the bounty).
I set up with my Reanimate Archers too far away from Ardus, which I knew was going to be a challenge.
I decided to bring my Reanimates over to engage his Spearmen, and allow Hawthorne to attack on the flank since he has pretty miserable attack power for such an expensive unit. Ardus moved up, and the Rune Golem fell short of his intended charge on Ardus.
Unfortunately, I realized that Hawthorne could charge and stop my Reanimates from charging his Spearmen. So being all wily, I dialed in a melee attack…but Hawthorne did a late charge, just barely missing his intended target of Ardus, and slamming into the Reanimates, but at least he avoided the Reanimates’ swing. He got an accuracy, and took out the Aggressive Drummer. After the battle, we agreed that he should have taken out the Necromancer. Ankaur Maro’s unit added trays to my Archers that had Combat Ingenuity. The Spearmen had shifted backwards expecting to be charged.
Ardus moves into position. He’ll need to reform, and then charge the following round. Ugh. The Oathsworn Cavalry perform a magic trick: they made my Reanimate Archers disappear. The Ankaur unit moves up to screen the remaining Reanimate Archers, who shift away from the Daqan forces to power up Ardus’ attacks. Rune Golem juuust falls short of the Reanimates. Ankaur continues to add trays to the Reanimates.
Rune Golem charges the Reanimates. Hawthorne is doing more damage with the Shield than anything else. I really shouldn’t have bothered attacking him. I shifted Ankaur’s unit down to block the Oathsworn from getting my archers, and his Spearmen fell short of the charge, while the Oathsworn reformed to charge the Reanimates. Ankaur does his tray-adding magic. Cursed Signets is turning out to be a good call, as the Necromancer + Regenerate is raising way more Reanimates than are being lost to banes, and helps keep trays attached.
The Oathsworn reform ended up being pointless because when the Spearmen formed up, so they had to reform again. Ardus charges Hawthorne and takes a wound, and the Reanimate archers marched into range for Ardus to deal blight and then mortal strikes. The Spearmen finished off Ankaur Maro.
Hawthorne tries a desperate attack to deal two wounds to Ardus, but it only deals one wound, and Ardus ends up with plenty of surges to blight and kill Lord Hawthorne with mortal strikes. My Archers shift away from the Spearmen, and the Oathsworn Cavalry charge my Reanimates. They just need to hold on for one more round.
End of the game. My Reanimate Archers blighted the Rune Golem. The Oathsworn attack the Reanimates, and so does the Rune Golem, but we still end the game with 6 trays, preserving some points. Final score: 89 Daqan, 130 Waiqar.
Game 2
Willange’s brother brought a Latari force. I was very much looking forward to this because it was only my second time facing Latari Elves.
Deepwood Archers
[42] 3x2
Tempered Steel [3]
Close-Quarters Targeting [3]
Blackthorn Assassin [7]
Rallying Starling [4]
Frontline Aymhelin Scion [6]
Total Unit Cost: 65
Deepwood Archers
[42] 3x2
Tempered Steel [3]
Close-Quarters Targeting [3]
Storm Sorceress
Rallying Starling [4]
Frontline Aymhelin Scion [6]
Total Unit Cost: 62
Leonx Riders
[40] 2x3
Column Tactics [4]
Metered March [2]
Aliana of Summersong [12]
Total Unit Cost: 58
Aymhelin Scion
[14] 1x1
Total Unit Cost: 14
TOTAL 199
The objective this game was Supply Raid, and the Deployment was Oblique Formation. This resulted in a Forest, a Graveyard, and Spikes. I put the Graveyard on the side of his deployment, preventing him from going around to pick up supply tokens. So he put the Forest waaaay on the other side of the battlefield because he didn’t want it clogging up the line of sight for his Deepwood Archers (I think that was his rationale). Then I placed Spikes so that he’d have to awkwardly thread the gap and reform if he wanted to come around the side of my army – I had a lot of confidence in my ability to charge straight at him after the previous game.
We were both set up to get a bunch of supply tokens. I charged ahead with my leftmost Reanimate Archers, and moved ahead with my Reanimates. He scooted one of his Deepwood Archers forward to grab a token, and he sent his Leonx riders through the gap, and then reformed them.
Reanimate Archers got annhiliated by the Leonx Riders. Fortunately, my remaining Reanimate Archers managed to deal the Uncertainty morale card, so I reformed his Leonx. Ardus misjudged the Scion’s moved, and crashed into him without charging. Doh. My Reanimates were in shooting range of the Deepwood Archers. As there were no Natural runes showing, I thought about doing an initiative 4 Rally +1 Defense. I didn’t, and I ended up losing the whole back rank. Ouch. Fortunately, our march collided, which was well worth it with Aggressive Drummer giving us an attack – hooray for fast skeletons!
The Leonx reform, the Deepwood Archers fire into the Reanimates. It’s deadly because they would keep using Rallying Starling to ready the other unit’s Tempered Steel. Fortunately, Ankaur Maro was hard at work…but he had a tough choice: if he added trays to the Reanimates this round, he would lose a tray for good. In the end, I decided it was worth it. My Reanimate Archers blighted the cats, and Ardus Ix’Erebus made short work of the scion.
My Reanimates are doing serious damage to his Deepwood Archers. Steady but surely. Ardus turns to get into position to flank the Leonx Riders, who have just connected with my Reanimate Archers. In doing so, he gets riddled with arrows by the Deepwood Archers, and gets a blight token from the Blackthorn Assassin! I wonder if I had reformed Ardus if he would have been out of range. I knew things were getting dire, so I moved Ankaur Maro’s unit up to activate the Profane Banner Bearer, and draw fire away from Ardus.
Ardus charges the Leonx, rolling 1 white 1 blue, activating his crazy surge abilities to take out 3 Leonx figures – but I make a huge mistake. I took away the far tray so we would still be engaged. If I had taken the other tray, I could have been safe from their return attack, and then charged them again next round. Oops. Instead, Ardus died, and Ankaur Maro put himself in harm’s way for no reason. And this is what happened:
Not only did I lose my two most expensive units, but the Leonx also got 3 objective tokens, two of which Ardus had been holding! At least my Reanimates destroy that single unit of Deepwood Archers. Moral victory I guess. I wish we could have at least taken a tray off the other one. In the last round, his Latari Elves consider their victorious position, and choose not to engage the Reanimates.
When the dust settles, the Latari have 191 points to Waiqar’s measly 113.
Overall, I think this army has legs. I think Profane Banner Bearer is important, but I can’t find a good place for it. I talked with my opponents, and we unanimously agreed that I should drop the Profane Banner Bearer to add Combat Ingenuity to my other Reanimate Archers. They’ve mostly been serving as a road block, so I hate to give my opponent more points. Alternatively, I could replace them with a Carrion Lancer, and give Ardus Fortuna’s Dice. Decisions, decisions.
Edited by Parakitor
. It really makes me wish there were more willing players in the area. Please come visit Utah everybody!