Playing some matchups of Latari vs Uthuk yesterday I came across a few new thoughts. First of all, because Uthuk are fast they tend to dictate the battle, deciding who fights who and when the battle begins. So my thought was to play more evasively for the first few rounds, as well as deployed more spread out. This allowed me some say in which units paired off.

First up I want to talk about Meagan. As a player who has consistently run her as an Fdice ranged battery, I’ve rarely considered her a melee hero. I gave her a go with martial magic and reaping blade for a change. She paired off with a 2x1 ripper, which turns out has to roll really well to get past protected 1-2 and armor 3. She slaughtered rippers in two games consistently, and can do serious damage to zerkers on flanks as well. All those dice with no precise makes reaping blade give her a decent armor buster as well. All around, choose the right unit to hit with Meagan, and her melee will far outdo her consistent ranged output.

Leonx- cats are highly mobile glass canons. If they bide their time moving on the flanks you can almost always get a good flank charge. If caught in melee against the wrong unit though, and they go down fast. Cats are best I think, when run in the 1x3 with CT. This build is agile and packs a huge potential damage output. Prime targets are zerker flanks, and threshers, so long as the thresher is a guaranteed kill. The best situation to use cats in is to flank a unit already engaged by a scion. The scion can skill and armor up at 3 to sit and soak hits while the cats either shift bounce out to avoid a heavy melee or keep pounding away if their on a low threat flank.

Derpwoods- These guys are great archers which can toss a lot of damage if run with tempered steel. They also work as a dispatch battery, rally battery, or a mobile ranged fortress with windrune. Surprisingly, if archers have to engage something from uthuk, it’s Ravos. He struggles against infantry more than anything else. Even on a flank it took 3 activations for him to clear a 3x2 archer unit, which was meanwhile making use of CQT to pick apart 2 threshers. I look forward to seeing what darnati will do to ravos.

Scions- the trees if run solo will never do much but get in the way. They make great blockers, and if the runes play right can thwart a lot of charges with an early charge of their own. They become a fairly powerful unit when run 2x2 with tempered steel. Throwing threat 2 ranged attacks make enemies have to close on them, but they do well in melee as well. Keeping scions back and throwing ranged shots early, and then closing on flanking units seems to be the ideal way to run them. They actually pair well against threshers (they will die though), and can stall them for at least two turns if the thresher rolls poorly.

I don’t play Alliana much, she struggles against uthuk a lot (at least how I play her), if you have any thoughts please comment.

3 hours ago, Jukey said:

Derpwoods- These guys are great archers which can toss a lot of damage if run with tempered steel. They also work as a dispatch battery, rally battery, or a mobile ranged fortress with windrune. Surprisingly, if archers have to engage something from uthuk, it’s Ravos. He struggles against infantry more than anything else. Even on a flank it took 3 activations for him to clear a 3x2 archer unit, which was meanwhile making use of CQT to pick apart 2 threshers. I look forward to seeing what darnati will do to ravos.

Very insightful. You typically don't want your archers engaged with anything, but you found a situation where the engaged enemy suffers more than your archers do. It makes me want to think more carefully about each engagement and consider how my opponent would feel about the engagement. Even if the match-up isn't ideal for my unit, if my unit is better off than the enemy, it might be worth forcing it anyway.

As a fellow Latari player, you've got a lot of good thoughts.

Regarding Maegan, I've not tried the reaping blade, but I do love Fortuna's dice and her melee ability. I often look to bring her in on a flank where an extra die can really help trigger her surge ability. She's a great hero.

I've not run the 1x3, as I'm a little scarred to go without rerolls (assuming you're using CT pretty much always). The 2x3 hits very hard and very consistently, and I will deploy it first and then redeploy with Aliana. The redeploy ability on a key unit is extremely powerful.

You pretty much nailed the main ways that I've used Derpwoods. Tempered steel really increases their damage output, and there are surprising initiative effects with Dispatch runner. I've not run the Windrune version, though it looks pretty good too.

Scions: AFter running 3x2, I've been tempted to make some adjustments and put a 2x2 on the field. The 3x2 was to help me set up Dispatch runner on a big hit, but 2x2 is going to have some pretty surprisingly consistent damage output.

Regarding Aliana, if you're not going to specifically build around a powerful Leonx unit that gets redeployed optimally, and which benefits your total deployment in a number of key ways, then I wouldn't run her. You definitely feel the armor/health values when you play her. I think the Uthuk problem is that she normally wants to sit back and pounce only later in the game when Ambush Predator has had some time to build, but Uthuk are just so fast across the map that it doesn't work out as well. Also, Maegan's surge ability gives her some flexibility in spreading out damage to many bunched low health Uthuk units. I suppose one could try to pair her against small units and run PackLeader's spear, ideally breaking them there and then readying Packleader's spear for the next attack. I like her in Fire Runes lists with Malcornes Bequest to fish for the right runes.

If one does run Maegan as the main hero, Aliana is a pretty powerful figure upgrade in a 2x2 Leonx. You can stack Moment of Inspiration if you'd like for 2 additional white, which help immensely in getting your Leonx double surge abilities to trigger, and the overall damage output is basically comparable to a 2x3 CT for a similar price. In the event that you have MoI, I find the rally + 2 forward or shift-1 to be a good first turn action that leaves you with the flexibility to maneuver on turn-2 where you'll need to be to smash something on turn-3, and your two good uses from MoI are pretty much what you need.