I’m pretty happy with the Protectorate as a faction, I like the models and enjoy painting them. They’re pretty good on the table top too, maybe they don’t have some of the real top tier lists that get banded around the internet; say Hayley2 and Gaspy2 however they have quite a lot of answers to most other factions and can ask questions that are hard to find a counter to. I’ve found that with SR2013 the scenarios have rewarded Casters who can stick their noses out and ‘dominate’ a zone, flag or objective; but as I mused previously this can be somewhat perilous given assassination threats which increase when doing so. This led me down the path of choosing lists and Casters who are more survivable, the Feora’s for example.
After playing SR2013 for a few months now and getting a good 50 games under my belt I’m better versed at selecting lists and am going to
branch out beyond the three Casters I’ve been practicing since the beginning of the year. I’m keen to really try out both Intercessor
Kreoss and Harbinger and I’ve been designing lists to see how these two fair in
SR2013.
Harbinger
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| Harbinger (Source Battle College) |
Harbinger is a control Caster who will come into her own in
dominating scenario aspects, her feat will help shut down infantry advancing
towards her and hopefully force opponents to give up heavies, by moving them in
to contest, given infantry will auto die or allow Harby to go way ahead on
control points. I’ve contemplated a few
lists, but have been drawn to fielding Vengers and Errants with her, the
Vengers will form a screen to hide Harby behind and block LOS. Harby is a large based Caster with DEF14 and
ARM14 as base stats, so potentially easily seen and assassinated. After a few discussions with other
Protectorate players I’m going to try Gravus with her too – one of his
abilities is to make Exemplar models immune to stationary and knock down effects,
so handy for the Vengers valiantly shielding Harby with their lives! Gravus also collects souls of destroyed
Exemplar models, so Vengers and Errants synergise nicely there. I’m also looking for excuses to paint more
models so this fits nicely!
Vengers
I did have a minimum unit of Vengers painted, but have
recently painted another pair to make the unit maximum sized. Below are images of the two completed new
Vengers:
Intercessor Kreoss
As noted above I am
dabbling with the idea of Kreoss3 too, I quite like the idea of playing him in
tier as the benefits are quite good and unlike many Warmachine tiers it isn’t
too restrictive. I like the idea of
running dual Venger units, which spurred me on with the painting of the two
Vengers for the Harby list above. It is
quite an investment money-wise as Vengers are FA1 outside of Kreoss3’s tier, so
it might be wise to play test the list with some Khadoran Uluhans proxying as
Vengers (shussssh don’t tell)!
Fire of Salvation
With Kreoss3 in tier he is required to field Fire of
Salvation; the Kreoss character ‘jack.
Probably not the best character ‘jack in the game as he is basically a
Crusader that costs 50% more in point cost!
Obviously he has some skills to justify the extra 3 points and is
probably reasonably costed for what he does (even better at 8 points with the tier benefit).
His affinity with Kreoss grants him Dispel
which is OK if he hits something which has an upkeep and won’t be killing it
outright say a Stormwall with Arcane
Shield or similar. He has a few
upgraded stats, most notably his speed increased to 5, but still lacking reach
making the humble Reckoner far better value at 1 point less! Fire does have an imprint which allows
boosted attacks and if it kills a pseudo berserk, sadly the lack of reach makes
this ability less juicy than say Beast 09’s reach thresher and imprint for
boosted attacks – but still it is OK.
Fire does have Righteous Vengeance which is perhaps his saving grace,
the ability to make a 5” advance and an attack is great, more so for the
movement – combine this with Enliven moves, normal movement and Warpath moves Fire could get some cheeky
attack vectors off and quite possibly seal the deal for an unsuspecting Caster!
The model is quite old, but is still quite good and below you can
see the finished paint job:
My next paint jobs will likely be Gravus and Intercessor
Kreoss and I may end up purchasing a second Venger unit… See what the bank manager says ;-)
