Spirit Armor...

Okay, so let's take what we know already: Spirit Armor is good. Real good. Really good. As in, Spirit Armor is so good people are running in the streets screaming "God save Kossak! God save Kossak!".

So, that's what we know. Spirit Armor is good. With that in mind, how can we make it even better? We don't just want Broken. We want shattered. Tiny pieces!]

[If you want to skip all my talk and get to the armies, scroll down to the dotted lines... Wuss. :P]

Well, first off, it has abilities that don't really matter how tough or weak it's weilder is, and actually benifits from a shallow dial, because dying fast is a good thing. So this is a Relic for a low cost figure. [Duh. Zeph.]

So that's out of the way too. Now we know who will weild it. So what else does the Armor do, besides nerfing most figures carrying most relics, and anything else over 80 points?
Well, it Makes Elven lords awesome. Even the smallest of them are turned into heavy blasters. Plus, all your Range gets a +2 bonus. Translation: Elven Range becomes Insane. [Wheeeeee!!]

Zeph + the Armor is 78 points... which leaves us with a cool 222 points left. [Hehe... I said Tutu...]

We have several options. We can go with lots of little Elven Lords fighters, and see that Swarm put that additional damage to good use. [[Swarm

Or, We can use some Elven Lords heavy range and make it even Heavier. [Good time to whip out those Keirin Starsdawns everyone has 672 of...]

Another tactic that I and probably many other people are considering is Loading up a good Unique with stuff to let it kill things very quickly, in the hopes that once we off our opponent's biggest threat, the rest will fall with little resistance. [Kind of like dominoes. They have okay pizza, a little thin. But if it's late, I save money. And extra money means candy. Again, Wheeeee!!]

Another tactic is a very tricksy one, and I think it should be hated for a long time to come. It allows a turn-two Spirit Vengeance, and sets you up nicely. Take a good look at the Cloaks if you don't catch my drift... [I just made up that name three seconds ago... Kind of corny, kind of catchy. Cornatchy.]

So, here's some takes on armies with Spirit Armor. They try to incorporate the above strategies and thoughts into bigger, more complete entities. Not all of them are Faction-pure, but some are. [Interesting fact: If you are able to somehow drench a pidgeon with water, dousing it completely and thoroughly, it will not be able to fly for approximately three days because its wings will be weakened, and the water will make it heavier than the lift it will be able to generate. It'll probably never recover if you drench it with Coco-Cola. ]


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"String Section"

Zeph Wyndfenner + Spirit Armor = 78pts
** Master Archer = 36pts
* High Elven Archer x4 = 104pts
** [31] Snow Maiden x2 = 82pts

The boosts given by the Spirit armor are the focus of this army. Key domains would be Clear Skies, Rain and Mud to stop Surgers. The Range boosts are crazy here, but I prefer this army for casual play. You should put some Hindering for the Maidens to exploit, with the bonuses she becomes really viable.

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"Oh Lords"

Zeph+Armor =78pts
Keirin Starsdawn =77pts
High Elven Knight equipped with Inferno = 116pts
*** Dark Crusader = 29 pts

This is an army I really love. With three figures that can kill themselves to go off, a relic that can help them do it, two figures with ridiculously good range, a great Melee combatant in the Knight, and a revenant figure that can abuse the fact that you'll be offing both your freinds and your foes, this Army can really turn some heads, right before bashing them in. Good Placement of your Concealing terrain to Infiltrate into is vital, place your Knight close enough to hit something. Inferno gives it great power, and if you're worried about a bigger unique getting a few hits before you can off it, stick your Knight next to your Zeph for a few clicks of Inferno damage. It's free! If you're feeling more risk-taking today, try the Knight with Decap. It's boosts in all stats are incredibly benefitial to the Knight.

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"Two Guys and a Girl"

Zeph+Armor = 78pts
Keirin Starsdawn = 77pts
Chroma with Decapitator = 143pts

Now this is power. Risky power, but pure power. You have a Figure with a strike range of 20" and an attack/damage of 11/4, you have a Incredibly Powerful sweeping beatstick that can attack from 12" away for 5, and will take out most anything that's left over after you off your opponent's pride and joy. You could argue that your Dragons could outdistance her, but can your dragons hit her? Or evade Keirin's strikes? [Keirin is really good matched with Zeph and the Armor...]
She's not going to need to push, either... Zeph can take care of that for her.
I personally beleive this to be one of the deadliest armies I have ever built. I am always willing to take the risk of Decapitator, the benefits outweigh the negative possibility and hey, I play this game for fun. If you want a more reliable peice, use Heartsinger to give it uncrushable Dodge. I Would probably play the Death Domain with it against Swarm and to cancel any faith, Clear Skies to cancel downpour and storm gale[not a huge threat, though... If they have no range I'm confident a leadershipped Chroma can devour them anyway.]
I really like this army. It's be fun to play. The only thing I can think of that can beat it off the bat is... Well, Spirit Armor. :D [How interestingly Ironic... Iron the metal is fundamentally different than Iron the vitaman, but only slightly.]

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I hope you liked this article and my armies. Remember that they are not my claims to unbeatable armies, as I believe that any person who fancies his creation to be invincible is a braggart and a fool. These are just my ideas of themed, interesting, and powerful armies [interestingly, they are also arranged in that order.] These are also not the most viable things to win Tournaments. In fact, I'd love to see everyone's ideas on what Spirit Armor Army they think is most viable in the current environment.

Please let me know what you think!

:D Kallacato :D

This article gave me a bunch of chuckles to say the least.

Anyway, I don't know why everyone and their grandma are up in arms against the Spirit Armor. I mean does anyone actually play those fatty uniques with big ol' relics in Tourneys anyway? And if they do, what can threaten their "uberl33t" combo anyway? I am much more afraid of first turn MB/B amd MC combos that kill me in the deployment zone (thusly frequent spells of cold will rip through my battlefields a bunch).

Anyway, I think the key to fighting Spirit Armor is the use of Cavalry, and medium/heavy fighter non's. Using one of the horrendus first turn strike armies I talked about, I could actually kill Zeph before he even declares a target for his armor to hit. But that would reduce the game to homever went first, and that's no fun.

My solution, don't bring an obviouse target to the battlefield. If I field duo Healers or Revenanters I cover my own but from the acursed armor. If I field a duo of anything I can put a hamper on the armor. So how about this army:

The Wonder Twins:

59 *** Ub-Khan
47 *** Orc Warbeast
25 * Harka Orc

59 *** Ub-Khan
47 *** Orc Warbeast
25 * Harka Orc

20 *** Orc Marauder
16 ** Orc Marauder

298pts

I can throw down any of a slew of range limiting Domains to fight of your range figures, and plenty of blocking terrain if you toss down Clear Skies. I have two different Marauders to help cushion me from Death.

Anyway, you must pick some figure to target with the armor, and I'll just have that figure go on a death charge into you. Figure dies, Zeph goes poof, Starsdawn is nolonger uber (plus he'd probably be who I go after anyway...). That leaves me with a darn fine chunk of army left, and hopefully the kamakazi warrior did some damage to something along the way.

See folks? It's easy to break the armor. Heck, you might as well go kamakazi with your "uberl33t" unique when he targets it. A swift death in the middle of combat is just oh so much more fun.

Anyway, if I where to use the Spirit Armor, I would do my best to benefit from the insane bonuses, rather then the "broken" bits of the text. Slap the armor on Vale, and have him lead a swarm of High Elven Warriors. That would just be plain scarey I think. But that's just me using the armor for non suicidal purposes, so don't give me a second thought;) .

Vapor ... at the venue where I play this is often the case. At least one fatty unique (or 2) in every tourney loaded up with the relic "du jour".

Put Potion of Water Breathing item on Zeph + Spirit Armor and place a pc of deep water close at hand. Move Zeph into the water. Use Spirit Armor's proficiencies as long as needed, but when it's time to eliminate Zeph and set off the Spirit Armor, simply drop the item and Zeph dies. This can happen in your second command phase.

I'd like to pose a question for debate. Will Spirit Armor on Zeph lead to the reduction of fatty uniques in tournament play ? Why play Vextha, Chroma, Varatrix, or other high pointed unique when it can be eliminated in 2 actions. This is an uber relic.

Steve

I have a simple way to beat Zeph with Spirit Armor, BPR Sally + Nepharea Pike + rage hammer + Fen swamp/river valley = dead anything first turn (if you go first). or a fast mounted unit wielding Relic Breaker and some hex to make your attack miss.

Gauntlet, you have a very powerful combination. Lots of first strike capacity. A few comments:

1. This only works if you go first. The key is to kill Spirit Armor BEFORE it's first command phase. If you don't go first then the advantage of this tactic is lost.

2. If I saw this being set up, I would put the Spirit Armor wielder in a defensive position surrounded by figures limiting your ability to kill the wielder in the first action,

3. 128 points to kill 78 ? If you kill the 78 points on the first turn before Spirit Armor is put into play then this is a fair trade since you still have 128 points.

4. Exposure. After your attack (even if you do kill the Spirit Armor wielder the first action) your Salamander & rider are now in striking distance of any ranged attack. You only need to kill the rider to eliminate the cavalry unit. If you move out of any deep water you can be surged.

5. Water domain nerfing .... I think we will see lots of blasted lands played.

What I like (and dislike) about Spirit Armor is that it can be set off quickly if played correctly, it provides benefits beyond the unintended "suicide" mission, and it is almost impossible to stop with a domain. About the only sure thing to reduced the effectiveness of it's suicide capacity is to field a low pointed army with no fatty uniques or combos.

Steve

Exactly right.

The problem with Spirit Armor is that its very existance makes it unlikely that any uniques over 78 points will play nationals.

Why would you play any combo over 78 points when your opponent can kill it on turn one.

Vapor, I like your army a lot. And I usually don't like armies that are posted in response to someone's army. I like your style, because the army you posted was not merely a hate army but a viablie, fun army that would fare well against other army builds as well.
The first thing most of my armies would do against your army would probably be setting up Keirin in a position to shoot anything that comes closer. I beleive that I can drop the Spirit Armor to make it so that I won't die from your death, Which Is what I find most insane. I may be wrong. But I would definately use my army to the fullest against you before you can even kill your own figure.

Again, I'm not trying to shoot your army down. I see that a lot here, and I truly do despise it. I think your army and any of my armies would have a very interesting match, especially the last one.

Maybe we should all play the Armor for a few weeks before judging it completely. Everyone thought Varatrix was unbeatable, and now even a slapdash army can outmaneuver his Majesty.

Well, with potion of water breathing it's a little more then 78 points. IMO one of the huge unbalancing factors is that it's not useless if your opponent plays a swarm army. You won't auto lose like a big unique will if he plays you. You still get lots of bonuses from that 78 points. And with the mounts, there's usually going to be something worth the points to kill...

Being BPR when I first saw the set I saw the Crown of Khamsin and thought, man this is a sweet relic that will make my BPR armies stronger, 31 points with a slight down side.

Then I saw the spirit Armor. The big part of the bonus (the damage), no downside, and the ability to suicide to take out any piece. Total cost: 40 points.

One gives you 3 damage 17 point pieces, that have to surge to hit (10 inch effective range).

The other gives you 14 inch, Arcing Fire for 3 damage.

The relic is ridiculous. I have never complained anything was broken, I was even willing to accept Varatrix with Blade of Dominance (for the 2 hours before the FAQ). But this relic upsets me.

Even IF there is no big fatty to kill, spirit armor will give 0 range attackers 2" range and all EL figures in your army get +1 range AND damage, with the option to take out your opponents biggest figure.

So whats the downside to Spirit Armor? You can use it in a EL swarm army to give everything enhanced range and damage, or you can use it to destroy your opponents relic wielding unique, all with the same army.

Omg stop ur whining its about time the elvs got something decent... for examplke in 2.0 they got General Vale... waow.. its like and over priced Wear Bear with a few pretty colors on its dial, the Paladin's Great Sword... pfft peice of shizen, Master Cyrus... he's getting better now that Dark Riders is out and there are relics to suit him.. but still Anub is like half his points and 100 times better, ok.. where r we... umm, all figures that die with in 6 to 7 clicks.. and are useless with in 2 - 3 ( eg blue Cloud warrior) the range potential of Elven lord in 2.0 wasnt bad till i first layed my eyes on storm gale... then we go on to 2.0 River Charger... WOW he rocks... attack bonus of 2!!! he can dismount anything! pfft our war horse aint bad the griffon will die as soon as it loses dodge... and for 63 points... hmpp... makes u think twice about putting it into ur army. Ok now to the subfaction abilities, Temple Masters isnt bad... but all the temple master figures are over priced by wat... 10 points? Free Armies OMFG most useless thing ever special since most figures with Free Armies subfaction thingo are 8 movement! Cmon people try make an elven lord army that stands a chance VS a cheese cake army such as a Trixie army or Revenent Army, they have NO chance its about time they got a decent relic i say.

I think wizkids should change it so it can only kill something with the same point value or less than the equipted figure. It would still be a strong relic, even if they did that

or maybe they should keep it how it is and watch u guys complain more....either one

Gee, it sounds like you described not just the EL, but the BPR, the AE, and the EF. It's not just the elves that suck right now, actually they are one of the stronger factions. A heck of a lot more powerful then the BPR and AE. You call Trix and revenant cheese, can't you recongnize REAL cheese when you see it? Don't you feel the ability to, on the first turn, auto kill one of your opponents figure with NO ROLL required for under 100 points just slightly cheesy?

To be fair though, the BPR do have an advantage over every other faction. The imense skill and stunning good looks of its players.