This thread is a compliment of Video's thread in which he asks the question whether or not Soaring figures can target grounded figures (on unelevated terrain).

Draddog and at least one Developer are currently saying YES, but Video along with others in his thread (in the Rules of Battle) have pointed out a few things that may need to be brought to the Developer's mind so Draddog is taking that back to them for more research.

Aside from your feelings as to if you think Varatrix is broken, unbalanced, or just right, what we need to give Draddog is scenarios and armies and conditions before they hit the Tournament scene so he can help clear up any problems that may or may not exist.

Barrel has also suggested and been active in finding out the answer as to whether or not a Soaring base can completely overlap the Objective token while not touching it and so far he has found out that this is legal. We will assume that for this thread that that ruling will not be the case, as I'm sure it is a matter of wordsmithing that particular portion of the rulebook.

The army types can either be Pro Varatrix or Con Varatrix (i.e. armies that use Varatrix or armies that eliminate Varatrix). Include Domain and terrain as well as those simulate a tournament environment come Nov. 19th.

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Shall I go first? OK


Army 1 PRO Varatrix
Varatrix 156
Venthia's Mask 24 equipped on Varatrix
Phalanx 70
*** Amotep Gunners x2
298 total

Basic Strategy: Highest Unmodified Defense available in the game with Phalanx, put Trix down on the ground the whole time, forcing players to base combat him and attack at a De of 21 risking Counterattack. This does not even utilize his Soaring, but does utilize his Ghostform and Surge. Trix should go after the center objective while the Gunners sit back and position to prevent control of the back objective and keep range on the Center one as well. Not domain specific, this army can Surge and has Range, but is weak as it only has 4 figures total. Defense is pretty high as long as Phalanx is keeping it and protected by the Gunners.

Weakness: Very low figure total. Can be easily swarmed. Relies a lot on Phalanx being uncontended.



Army 2 PRO Varatrix
Varatrix 156
Magestone Shield 36
*** CP
Elroodon
Mocooch
* Shade
300

Basic Strategy: This army relies again on Varatrix being on the ground, not Soaring, utilizing his GF and Surge and Counterattack abilities. The Shield gives him a natural 21 Defense while Elroodon and Mochooch cover the board and flank. Again, this army is low on figure total with only 5.

Weakness: No bound. Range in general would do well against it. Not enough figures to hold Objectives.

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As you can see, you really cannot get much more effective figures in an army while using Trix + Relic. However, his Counterattack and Ghostform seem to be extremely heightened, and Soaring is not even needed.

Remember, Varatrix only deals 3 damage while Soaring. He cannot Double-Time ever. Blade of Dominance essentially turns off his Ghostform and Surge and only works during Close Combat against him, not Range (Khan Rava anyone).

I could go on for days, but I'll digress now. Any counter armies? And how about counter armies to those counter armies? How about mentioning Domains (more than I did obviously).

either of those armies will get spanked by a rangeless army, and even worse, Single-Faction!! :P

Khan Harrowblade with Paragon's Shield 134
2 *, 1** Marauders 40
Orc Warbeast *** 56
Blood Shaman 2* 68

Gang up and the power of our soaring Hexers will prevail!!!
Make sure Healers face each other in case Trix wants to shoot one for damage, if Trix soars, bring these guys down where the others can protect them...

edit for jgklaw by XC:
Don't forget Warbeast Shake-off.

Domain: Downpour
Terrain: Hindering
Units:
3 x *** Werewolf - 90
*** Impaler - 38
* Technomancer - 25
General Volkare - 69
Galeshi Sunsword equipped to Volkare - 40
** Mortar Altem - 37
Total: 299

The object is to use the Werewolves in hindering terrain to get within surging distance of Trix, but because of the hindering they can't be shot. The lack of souring keeps Trix grounded. The technomancer send the impaler ahead 10 to either base Trix or Phalanx. Volkare is there to hold an objective and take out the lesser units. Lastly the Altem rains artillery on Phalanx, or if it works Trix. Biggest weakness is that the altem is the only ranged attacker so bound will injure this army. Only chance is to have Volkare take em out.

Following jgklaw's mono-faction trend, I'll do a Drac mono-faction army.


Caldera(w/Decapitator)- 166

x2 Whelp Monk***- 60
Shatter- 33
Whelp Master-40
299pts.

Domains- Grasslands, Downpour against #2, Darkness/Smoke and Fog/Storm Gale against #1

Terrain- hindering and concealing

Depending on my opponents postion on the field Caldera may or may not be in formation with the rest of the army. If I feel that the defend is need is she will, or against army 2 she will, but against army 1 most of the time she will be out of formation.

Army #2 is basically a walk in the park. The whole army has has a faster movement than 'Trix, allowing me to basically kill it without being attacked at all. Mochoch is no problem, as the whole army has toughness. Both Mochoch and Eldroon have too low of an attack to hit Caldera and the defended monks.

Army #1 Caldera will for the most part seperate from the group. The formation will go after the Phalanx and gunners, using terrain for cover. Caldera will attack more of a cover for the monks, preventing 'Trix from interferring, as they have the same speed.

Either army Caldera will always have first blow on 'Trix. Both situations Whelp Master will seperate from the Monks and go hold the center objective. Decapitator give Caldera a 14 attack, so 'Trix's defense won't be a problem. The added damage will make so that I don't have to risk using thunderblow on 'Trix.

Here yo ugo Xen you asked for it. I will post more once I work a few bugs out. Now there is more than likely a better varient then this but here it is


Kyma 29
Sniper 32
Deathsinger ** 29
Trix 156
Shade * x 2


Terrian: Concealing x 2 blocking x2 more than likely curtain walls but Iam not sure.

Domains: Smoke Fog, Darkness, Stormgale

Relic: Karrudon Bow

Basic Strategy: Equipe Kym a the bow and infiltrate into concealing. there shoudl be little trouble gaining controll of the center objective are in the least contesting it. I limited range for a reason. that means bounders have to end their movement with in 6-8" which is fine. Now unless my opponent rolls a 2 then there is a very good chance his objective token will be within 12" of the center objective. Since Kyma has a unique base you have to kill her to get her off on the objective token. Which by all means go right ahead because when you kill her or when i push her to death everything takes 4 damage that is within 12". Then comes Sniper to pick up the bow and self destruct again causeing another 4 damage. Then I can revennant your dead figure to take objectives or whatever or I can Rev back Kyma and sniper to blow up again since the bow will go off when they are removed from play due to Rev. With range being limited you have to come close if you want to attack and once a bow goes off most units will not be able to hit Trixs. In the base case, or worst case depending on which player you are, I can set off the bow 4 times during the game plus bring back your figs.

Here's another-

Drakor- 110

x3 WHK***- 120

Wandering Mochoch- 43

CP***- 17


Domains- Storm Gale, Smoke and Fog, Darkness

Terrain- blocking(curtain wall) and hindering(the hedges)
WHKs, Drakor, and Mochoch stay within movement's range of each other. I'll go after support pieces first, and wait for 'Trix to engage me. I shouldn't have much trouble with the support, as half the army is in 'Trix. My pieces will almost always be out of 'Trix range, and if 'Trix surges anything its looking at an easy 4 clicks on my turn, killing blows on the next. I can time so that I will never have to push to Ram the 'Trix with more than one WHK. The CP will stay back and hold an objective, either center or mine. It will also double as a healing station.

Thanks a lot so far everyone, great stuff here. Now how about some other armies that include Varatrix, maybe ones that use his Soaring (which seems to be the complaint) and no Relic so more figures can get in with him. Where are the "broken" Varatrix armies??? Show everyone why the Developers must be asked about Varatrix and Range to ground units...

If you want things added to your post, PM it to me and I'll edit it in there. I want this entire thread to be clean so Draddog can look it and take the data with him, easily.

Feel free to post specific counter-armies to others armies in this thread. Point out the user, the army, and why you chose the figures...

Here is my army....
Varatrix 156
*** throttle worm 35
** throttle worm 27
Maximillion 38
Caeronn Luckblade 43 points

Basically the idea to this army is pretty simple. *** throttle worm takes the center objective since he can doubletime if necessary and still hold toughness. ** throttle worm to hold first objective closest to me. Maximillion with Caeronn Luckblade to run around and Charge with thunderblow and rack up damage. And varatrix to pick people of or get into close combat if necessary. As for domains I would play possibly heat wave since none of the figures become demoralized. The Smoke and Fog domain to limit everyone elses range minimal without hurting varatrix. Or Magestone Storm to make it fun, plus if Varatrix is soaring pickin people off he won't get hurt by that either.

PRO Varatrix army

Varatrix - 156
Helm of Rule - 38
3x * Blood Shaman - 102

Domains are Heat Wave and Clear Skies, both to counter downpour.

Army begins by moving to take out any enemy range units, using varatrix as the big gun and the shaman for support damage and hex ( to negate the slight attack loss of using the helm ). Once enemy range units are dealt with, move to attack command / leadership. After that's done, just have Varatrix drop and clean up.

If a player uses an opposing unique flier to deal with Varatrix, keep all 3 shaman near the maximum hex range and keep rotating hex each turn. Surge Varatrix to get the initial blow in, hex if something foul occurs. As before, once the only threat is dealt with, float around, shoot the groundlings, and laugh.

and if Kyma with Karrudan's Bow gets captured and not killed???

look, all these Trix armies so far look decent, not one of them will Dominate - plus everyone is just picking the best Domain (for the most part), remember, in a tourney, you will be changing all the time, and have to play at least 1 round with NO Domain at all - so people should leave Domains out of their posts - otherwise we could all post anti-Trix armies based on no Soaring...

anyway, I see from these armies that Trix is just what I said very good, but not broken at all, and not even that Dominating. The Trix hype right now just comes from people not playing enough....

OK gang, I've deleted enough posts yesterday and today that I think we have a good first page base of armies to go by and start discussing.

You can post whatever you want now in this thread (i.e. counters, questions, etc.)

No more posts will be deleted.

jgklaw: My army has 3 domians to use so mine is prepared for a 4 round event. So I amjust fine with that. If you cpature Kyma then Trix can still hunt you downa nd kill you. Captives are neutral for all purposes so Trix can just shoot you. In truth I would attempt to push Kyma to death before any had a chance to capture her.

I also have no problem with playing with no domain during my one round. The army would run much better without Trix but that was part of the thread to make a Trix army.

Exactly right.

Trix is a very efficent piece, but I highly doubt he will dominate the game.

Not sure if you all saw this, but it has been officially ruled that Bombardment attacks cannot affect figures with Ghostform or Limited Invisibility.

I assumed that this was the case from the wording of the Bombardment rules, but I wanted clarification and started a thread on the official site.

The Rules Arbitrator stated:

"Bombardment attacks are Ranged Combat attacks that target.

Bombardment attacks cannot target figures with LI or GF."

Scratch one method of dealing with Varatrix - I was kind of hoping that the ruling would go the other way, since artillery seemed like a good workaround for dealing with Varatrix.

Now I am starting to look at 'Trix in a different light. Can't shhot at him, can't Bombard him, and if he's wearing the Helm of Rule you might have the most diverse army possibly, but if you don't have Leadership, Command, or a Relic, you're out of luck.

Ugly. Looking forward to playing against a few more 'Trix armies now, see if he's really as bad as he sounds on paper.

How about:

Veratrix 154
12 x Shade* 12 144

300pts.

The strategy is simple, have Veratrix soar while 4 shades wrap themselves around the dial. Now he can't be based because other soarers can't be above grounded figs. This also leaves 8 Shades to scamper off until the end of the game so they can DT up to objectives to either take them or contest them (either would be good enough since Trix will probably have killed plenty of your opponent's figs to win by points incase of a tie with objectives). Furthermore, with all these Shades, you can Gang-up like crazy.

Pros - Plenty of figures to take objectives and Gang-up. Lots of harrasers to get in the way of anything. Trix can't be based unless atleast one shade is killed first (i.e. it takes 2+ actions just to base Trix).

Cons - Trix is your ONLY combat peice. Domains that limit ground movment will be troublesome with the mass swarm of Shades.