Forth Round of Reviews

So this is the last article in which I review the previewed stuff in NQ 25. It's been a fun ride looking at everything that we're going to be using come September. In this last article I will be looking at the 2 units and 1 solo that are previewed. Firstly we have our 2 Dawnguard units, the Invictors and Sentinels and NARN (whose name shall always be capitalised), our most bad ass mage hunter.

Dawnguard Sentinels

The Sentinels are our melee experts being P+S12 weapon masters with Reach. The nice thing with reach is it's going to allow us to get more of our models into melee with whatever we're hitting. And for the most part, what we're hitting is dying. A charge from the Sentinels is doing 12 + 4D6 damage against you target, which against an ARM 18 jack they're doing 8 points a piece, which is more than enough for the whole unit to scrap 2 jacks in the turn that they charge.

Normally they are ARM 15 which coupled with their DEF 12 won't ensure that they last that long, but they do have Defensive line which will give them a +2ARM boost as long as they are in B2B. This is really nice as it means that at least half of the POW 10s that are going to be targeting them aren't doing anything. Couple this with Inviolable Resolve from Vyros and we now have a nice ARM 19 brick.

Their last ability is Jack Marshall (1). The is always a running debate as to whether or not jack marshalling is useful. For the most part it's not as jack's will always perform better with Focus. Given that, I still believe that the Hydra is best for jack marshalling as its ability to gain focus outside of a caster is essential for marshalling. Plus the chain attack: Smash and Grab will combo really nicely with the Sentinels as you can head butt that jack down and then trash it with the Sentinels charge. The is also a good one due to the fact that it has a reach weapon (and the only other reach weapon we have is on a node). The one drawback to all these abilities and potential is the fact that they are an expensive unit, expect to drop over a 100 points on a full unit of 10.

::Edit:: I was wrong about the Sentinels having Flank, but it really still doesn't change the overall damage that this unit can put out. They're just a solid melee unit that will fit into any of our lists.

Dawnguard Invictors

What the Sentinels do for melee the Invictors do for ranged. RAT 6 RNG 10 POW 12 is a very nice stat line for a ranged unit, most infantry are going to be taking heavy losses from their shooting attacks. What really pushes the damage out put of this unit is their flank ability, which is worded to work with their ranged attacks, the drawback being you are now shooting into melee, upping the DEF of your target by 4, which the flank bonus and aiming bonuses take care of. The real trick though is to either KD/stationary what you are shooting at; Head butt, slam, throw, arcantrik bolt and then move the jack into melee. Now you are doing POW 12 +3D6 to the KD/stationary target meaning that almost all of your shots are going to hit (barring the odd snake eye roll). Using flank, the Invictors are going to be doing 4.5 damage to an ARM 18 jack, couple this with backlash from Kaelyssa, and your opponent’s caster is going to take a hurting before that jack is trashed.

Like their Sentinel brothers they are only ARM 15, but they also have defensive line. Pushing their ARM up to 17 as long as they remain in B2B, making them a pretty tough ranged unit.

They also have Jack Marshall (1) like the Sentinels, not something I would normally use, but if you do again the Hydra is going to be best, mainly for smash and grab to try and KD your flank target so that you can put the hurting on it.

NARN

NARN is essentially the Melee version of Eiryss. Basically you want to point him in the direction of the enemy caster and let him do his thing. SPD 7 with pathfinder, acrobatics, sprint (when he kills an enemy model in melee he can make a full advance) and advanced deployment mean that he's going to get where you want him to. DEF 15 and stealth will help him survive the trip there. MAT 8 and 2 P+S 11 weapon master attacks with wraith bane and arcane assassin means he's going to hit and put the hurt on that caster. Warlocks will have a slightly easier time as they can still just transfer damage.

All in all he's a nice little cruise missile, but unless my opponent leaves their caster exposed, I'm probably going to use him to hunt down solo's, number 1 being my enemy's Eiryss.

So again, let me know what you guys think. Also, what combos/tactics have you all come up with?