Post by osiris on Aug 12, 2020 20:15:43 GMT -5
Frankly, this isn't a seriously playable posse as it currently stands. There are only three units to choose from, in addition to a single unit of hands. and of those original three, one is unofficial and one is misprinted...
Lets take a quick look anyway, if you really want to play this nearly all flying posse.
The boss, Caym himself, is actually a pretty decent unit. He's got the amazing mobility afforded by the true flight ability, and he's a carpathogen boss, allowing him to resurrect constructs that die near him for fortune. death from above and frenzy make him appear to be a melee-style boss, and his melee isn't bad, but isn't great either. He also has a medium range shooting attack that also isn't bad, but nothing spectacular. one of his big disadvantages is split personality, making him totally unreliable and impossible to plan how many action points he will get in a turn, despite the ability to swap out low AP cards, this simply is usually going to make things more difficult for you.
SLOT 1: Vlad(imir) Ursul or a unit of hellions.
Honestly it doesnt matter what you pick, because you only need three slots in order to get all of the Scion of Caym units in the game, and there's 5 slots where you can pick from them.
Vladimir Ursul : a very average unit. He's one of the only units that doesn't fly in this posse. However, he just has a couple of mediocre shooting attacks. He does come with trapper, counter intelligence, and a couple decent abilities, like Elite, as well as his own fortune chip. at least he's not very expensive. that's about the best that can be said about this unit.
SLOT 2: Hellion unit AND/or an Apex Hellion:
So the Hellion unit is the Hands choice, the squad. Actually, other than the fact that it's unreleased and therefore not tournament legal as of this writing, it's not an awful unit. They're not good as a combat unit, but not totally helpless either. But they are modestly cheap unit (at a minimum of 90 points) with extreme mobility. Failsafe detonators are essentially completely useless on most unit in this game, but on these they are a somewhat useable option (although still not very good...) because you can fly, so you can drop in at exactly far enough range to be outside of engaged in melee, but close enough to lay blast templates on yourself and cover the enemy. you can also much more likely be able to overlap your blast templates on the enemy target and not each other, again due to the flexibility of the flight move option. But, even not using these as flying bombs, they're good for grabbing objectives or tying up enemy shooters. So, while they aren't very imporessive, again they are cheap enough to make a large enough unit to at least be combat effective, or cheap enough to make a small unit that can give you a flying bomb and or a sneaky victory point grabber.
The Apex Hellion - This is the face version. a single model unit. kind of like a 'leader' hellion. first off, there is a misprint on the card, it does NOT have teamwork. (this is confirmed by Warcradle) however, it can GAIN teamwork when it is near a unit of hellions, by using its special rule. Its not a very good unit either, but at least it is cheap. Also its not unique, so you can have more than one of them (which is a good thing for this posse, because you dont have alot of choices). it is a bit better at fighting than the hands version, with two attacks per action, plus death dealer to double those hits. technically it could give five hits in a single attack action if it crits due to brutal, but these are all still at only a -1 pierce. even its survivability is not very much improved, since its quick and the dead will be going off of a Quick of only 4 (50% at best), but at least it has mettle. Basically the only attractive thing about this unit is the fact that it has flight, and therefore insane mobility.
SLOT 3: any Scion of Caym unit:
The problem here is, the only Scion of Caym units are Vladimir Ursul, Hellions, and Apex Hellions, mentioned above. So, yeah. you get one more of those, as already mentioned.
SLOT 4: Same as slot 2. So probably another Hellion unit and an Apex Hellion to go with them.
SLOT 5: another Scion of Caym unit, but at least this time you can also at least take one Enlightened Hands unit as well
Sadly this is the only slot where you can pick a unit other than the three Scion of Caym choices.
Here's the Hands you can pick from:
Abomination Seekers - A very fast fairly cheap model with skirmisher. They DO carry a very good pistol for such a cheap unit, but their aim isn't very good. At first glace these guys seem almost designed to be used as bombs. Failsafe implants on cheap fast hands are much easier to use (and not as costly) than on the faces. Just remember, they're shooting weapons so you have to stay out of engagement range (which is difficult for these because they have a reach of 1") Massed fire also does not help, as the range is SELF, and anyone contributing RoA must be in range of the initial target (which is impossible in this case) and now 1.091 faq says Massed fire doesn't work on weapons with a range of self. So while you can use these as speedy little suicide bombers, honestly, for their cost, they're pretty good massed shooters, with the speed to get into position, and higher penetration than most hands of their cost. in this posse, a big swarm of shooters may be one of the only reasonable options.
Abomination Widowers - These appear to be inferior to the seekers. They do have 8 more inches of range on their shooting attack, which could make them specifically more useful as shooters (but at long range they're only aim-3) they come with trailfinder and agile instead of skirmisher, so they can get in position, although they are considerably slower than the seekers. Plus they are medium based instead of small. Which will help let them see over small terrain pieces for shooting, but increases their footprint on the table. They also lose nearly all melee ability, as they dont have the parry, reach, nor penetration of the seekers melee weapon, also they do not have close work like the seekers pistols.
maybe as a big sniper squad set up high in the back? probably not a great choice.
Constructed Menials - Extremely cheap, and they can be taken in a HUGE swarm. These units bring cheap buckets of dice from blades and pistols you'll want them in giant units (as up to 20 dice, even at aim-3 should still make quite a few hits) If you want to field a swarm, here's a great way to bulk up that swarm. All of their advantages however, require units that you can't bring (like sawbones, meat shields, and the like) technically you could use them with Carpathogen with the boss, but you already have hellions for that, so, these probably are also a poor choice.
Constructed Henchmen - Compared to the menials, these appear to trade away some abilities in order to gain a little bit of extra range. These dont trade away as much from their menials counterparts as the widowers do from the seekers though. As their stats, base sizes, and rules are the same. They are trading away the melee blades again, giving up the reach, parry, and penetration. and they give up close work and revolver fan, but gain 8"of range. A big block of these can potentially drop up to 20 dice of shooting at decent range, which again, even with their low aim, can land several good hits for a very cheap price in this swarm based unit.
K9 Attack dogs - if you want to bring some machine/automata, these are the hands for you. They're fast, and with a little more survivability thanks to durable and moving target, these are good melee tacklers. In decent size groups they can bring alot of dice on a melee attack. Still Seekers are probably a better choice because you can't use carpathogen with the robot dogs.
SLOT 6: up to two more Sion of Caym units:
Since you almost certaily already have Vladimir Ursul (or aren't going to take him) basically this slot is just two more Hellions, or an Apex and a hellions.
if you fill all the slots, oh boy nothing has tasked... whooptie doo. It helps a little bit in operating independently, but it's simply not worth it to bring this posse.
HOW WOULD I PLAY THIS POSSE: I wouldnt. Period.
The BEST I would do is bring him as an allied boss to an outlaws/enlightened/hex force. In which case, Caym could be useful, due to his mobility, and carpathogen. However, with the way this is currently set up, I would never try to field this as a standalone posse.
Lets take a quick look anyway, if you really want to play this nearly all flying posse.
The boss, Caym himself, is actually a pretty decent unit. He's got the amazing mobility afforded by the true flight ability, and he's a carpathogen boss, allowing him to resurrect constructs that die near him for fortune. death from above and frenzy make him appear to be a melee-style boss, and his melee isn't bad, but isn't great either. He also has a medium range shooting attack that also isn't bad, but nothing spectacular. one of his big disadvantages is split personality, making him totally unreliable and impossible to plan how many action points he will get in a turn, despite the ability to swap out low AP cards, this simply is usually going to make things more difficult for you.
SLOT 1: Vlad(imir) Ursul or a unit of hellions.
Honestly it doesnt matter what you pick, because you only need three slots in order to get all of the Scion of Caym units in the game, and there's 5 slots where you can pick from them.
Vladimir Ursul : a very average unit. He's one of the only units that doesn't fly in this posse. However, he just has a couple of mediocre shooting attacks. He does come with trapper, counter intelligence, and a couple decent abilities, like Elite, as well as his own fortune chip. at least he's not very expensive. that's about the best that can be said about this unit.
SLOT 2: Hellion unit AND/or an Apex Hellion:
So the Hellion unit is the Hands choice, the squad. Actually, other than the fact that it's unreleased and therefore not tournament legal as of this writing, it's not an awful unit. They're not good as a combat unit, but not totally helpless either. But they are modestly cheap unit (at a minimum of 90 points) with extreme mobility. Failsafe detonators are essentially completely useless on most unit in this game, but on these they are a somewhat useable option (although still not very good...) because you can fly, so you can drop in at exactly far enough range to be outside of engaged in melee, but close enough to lay blast templates on yourself and cover the enemy. you can also much more likely be able to overlap your blast templates on the enemy target and not each other, again due to the flexibility of the flight move option. But, even not using these as flying bombs, they're good for grabbing objectives or tying up enemy shooters. So, while they aren't very imporessive, again they are cheap enough to make a large enough unit to at least be combat effective, or cheap enough to make a small unit that can give you a flying bomb and or a sneaky victory point grabber.
The Apex Hellion - This is the face version. a single model unit. kind of like a 'leader' hellion. first off, there is a misprint on the card, it does NOT have teamwork. (this is confirmed by Warcradle) however, it can GAIN teamwork when it is near a unit of hellions, by using its special rule. Its not a very good unit either, but at least it is cheap. Also its not unique, so you can have more than one of them (which is a good thing for this posse, because you dont have alot of choices). it is a bit better at fighting than the hands version, with two attacks per action, plus death dealer to double those hits. technically it could give five hits in a single attack action if it crits due to brutal, but these are all still at only a -1 pierce. even its survivability is not very much improved, since its quick and the dead will be going off of a Quick of only 4 (50% at best), but at least it has mettle. Basically the only attractive thing about this unit is the fact that it has flight, and therefore insane mobility.
SLOT 3: any Scion of Caym unit:
The problem here is, the only Scion of Caym units are Vladimir Ursul, Hellions, and Apex Hellions, mentioned above. So, yeah. you get one more of those, as already mentioned.
SLOT 4: Same as slot 2. So probably another Hellion unit and an Apex Hellion to go with them.
SLOT 5: another Scion of Caym unit, but at least this time you can also at least take one Enlightened Hands unit as well
Sadly this is the only slot where you can pick a unit other than the three Scion of Caym choices.
Here's the Hands you can pick from:
Abomination Seekers - A very fast fairly cheap model with skirmisher. They DO carry a very good pistol for such a cheap unit, but their aim isn't very good. At first glace these guys seem almost designed to be used as bombs. Failsafe implants on cheap fast hands are much easier to use (and not as costly) than on the faces. Just remember, they're shooting weapons so you have to stay out of engagement range (which is difficult for these because they have a reach of 1") Massed fire also does not help, as the range is SELF, and anyone contributing RoA must be in range of the initial target (which is impossible in this case) and now 1.091 faq says Massed fire doesn't work on weapons with a range of self. So while you can use these as speedy little suicide bombers, honestly, for their cost, they're pretty good massed shooters, with the speed to get into position, and higher penetration than most hands of their cost. in this posse, a big swarm of shooters may be one of the only reasonable options.
Abomination Widowers - These appear to be inferior to the seekers. They do have 8 more inches of range on their shooting attack, which could make them specifically more useful as shooters (but at long range they're only aim-3) they come with trailfinder and agile instead of skirmisher, so they can get in position, although they are considerably slower than the seekers. Plus they are medium based instead of small. Which will help let them see over small terrain pieces for shooting, but increases their footprint on the table. They also lose nearly all melee ability, as they dont have the parry, reach, nor penetration of the seekers melee weapon, also they do not have close work like the seekers pistols.
maybe as a big sniper squad set up high in the back? probably not a great choice.
Constructed Menials - Extremely cheap, and they can be taken in a HUGE swarm. These units bring cheap buckets of dice from blades and pistols you'll want them in giant units (as up to 20 dice, even at aim-3 should still make quite a few hits) If you want to field a swarm, here's a great way to bulk up that swarm. All of their advantages however, require units that you can't bring (like sawbones, meat shields, and the like) technically you could use them with Carpathogen with the boss, but you already have hellions for that, so, these probably are also a poor choice.
Constructed Henchmen - Compared to the menials, these appear to trade away some abilities in order to gain a little bit of extra range. These dont trade away as much from their menials counterparts as the widowers do from the seekers though. As their stats, base sizes, and rules are the same. They are trading away the melee blades again, giving up the reach, parry, and penetration. and they give up close work and revolver fan, but gain 8"of range. A big block of these can potentially drop up to 20 dice of shooting at decent range, which again, even with their low aim, can land several good hits for a very cheap price in this swarm based unit.
K9 Attack dogs - if you want to bring some machine/automata, these are the hands for you. They're fast, and with a little more survivability thanks to durable and moving target, these are good melee tacklers. In decent size groups they can bring alot of dice on a melee attack. Still Seekers are probably a better choice because you can't use carpathogen with the robot dogs.
SLOT 6: up to two more Sion of Caym units:
Since you almost certaily already have Vladimir Ursul (or aren't going to take him) basically this slot is just two more Hellions, or an Apex and a hellions.
if you fill all the slots, oh boy nothing has tasked... whooptie doo. It helps a little bit in operating independently, but it's simply not worth it to bring this posse.
HOW WOULD I PLAY THIS POSSE: I wouldnt. Period.
The BEST I would do is bring him as an allied boss to an outlaws/enlightened/hex force. In which case, Caym could be useful, due to his mobility, and carpathogen. However, with the way this is currently set up, I would never try to field this as a standalone posse.