Hello.

My friends are having a Mage Knight night tomorow and we will have at least 3 tables up and running, which is cool. Any help you can give me on army choice as well as positioning is appreciated.

My info: I have played 1 game before (yesteday) with my army.

Relic: Book of Lighting
Land: Magestone Stripmine (spells have 50% chance of failing)
My Army: Starter Set consisting of:

Kienn Starsdawn 77
Orc Warbeast *41
Deathsinger **29
Rage Paladin **40
Apprentice Conjurer *27
High Elven Archer ***35
Khamsin trooper **18
Zombie Centaur **28
Vampire Archer *34
______________________

Total: 329

I am 29 pts over so 1 piece costing 29 or over needs to go.


Suggested build and Army Placement at the starting?

I was thinking the Elves (Conjurer, Archer & Starsdawn) are grouped together behind Rage Paladin and Deathsinger (which are grouped). On one of the flanks, I am thinking the Centaur and Warbeast, since they both have the hoof. The Khamsin guy is on the other flank doing whatever and the Vampire Archer is dropped as he is overpriced and I have many ranged units.

The hooved units can surge enemy archers and trouble spots at doubletime, and my Starsdawn can bound cleaning up trouble spots.

Deathsigner is just a blocker, but she has revenant so keep her alive long enough to use it, and the Rage paladin is alright, same deal, he might do as my brawler.

Starsdawn is my centerpiece.

Because I have a Conjurer, I am thinking of not using the stripmine, but she is faily weak, maybe I should to protect myself from magic strong enemies.

Any helps/strats/tactics is appreciated, and I shall let you know how I fare.

-Thanks.

I would advise bringing the Magestone Stripmine. You only have to use it once, so just use it against the army that appears predominantly :wand: oreintated. With what you have, I'd say you have a well rounded force and already prepped with strategy for it. Too bad you don't have anybody to use your book yet. That might be something that you should invest in soon.

Well you more or less already knwo exactly what you can do with your set of figures, there really isn't anything I can tell you tactic wise. If I where you, I would purchase some Sorcery boosters and try and pull a fig to put that Book of Lightning to use.

Ok, 2 questions:

I only have to use the Magestone Stripmine once. Does that mean I can only use it for one game that night, not all of them?

Also, I have some units with an item slot, can they not hold the Book?

I never considered the book, because it is 60pts for 3 magical ranged damaged, that might do damage to myself. I have archers that do better than that for less, Can you tell me why the Book Of Lighting is good?


_______________________

Also wondering, for future tweaking, should I try to get a healer to add to this mix, or is it not really that essential. My first game my opponant had one, but I just kept on concentrating fire one unit at a time so he didn't come into play that effectively.

Thanks.

Your domain card is only good for one match, and not all slotted figs can use the BOL only the ones with wand attack.
Book of lightning is hard to make work in a 300 pt game because of it's cost, it is a great relic and has unlimited range. With Sorcery out now many pieces have the wand immunity defense meaning your pieces that you can attack will be much less than before. It is great if you have a high attack wand equipable figure which will make the chances of hitting and not taking damage better. But to do that it will cost you over 1/2 your build total not leaving you as much supprt. A leadership figure would allow you to attack with it every turn. Drawbacks are the minus 2 to defense and if your opponent is fairly good he will base it asap to prevent the attacks every turn. Check the tactics forum and you should find some very good BOL builds that should help with figures and strategies. I have used BOL in only 2-3 matches as I am more of a close up kind of player myself. Good luck though.

UPDATE:

We played 3 games, the first game we were only 5, so we drew names, and I ended up at the 3 on 3 free for all table, then our 6th came in and he joined the other table so we had 2 FFA's and we we're off to my first night of Mage Night. All armies were 300 pt builds.

My first game I faced a HORDE of Undead accross from me and 4 Golems to my left.

The Undead emmidiately wheeled towards to golems to Swarm and 3 of the Golems met the Undead, fired a volee (bound) and then things got ugly between the two with a mass swarm happening and the golems mowing down.

I was left without no one to hit so I took my objective and the middle objective.

Late game My Zombie Centaur made a mad dash to the Golems token and controlled it. The Undead player than did the same to contest. I had a Kamsin Trooper and a Rage paladin at the middle contesting with the lone golem that came my way. My Warbeast then made use of his hoof and ran to the Undeads token and contested that. Mobility won me this battle as I was the only person to have a token in my possession.

VICTORY

Game 2:

Head to head vs an Orc Horde. We had concealing terrain in the middle and we each had 2 peices of blocking terrain on our side.

The game started out well with my archers wounding his grunts that went for the middle token. My Warbeast then went in with the centaur and had horrible luck, and I mean horrible, he then surged with his warbeast and eliminated mine and I had to run my centaur out of there. He then did the same with his warbeast as he was on his last click.

I was winning that battle pretty good with my ranged units, using my Rage Pally as a bodyguard when his formation made it over with the Craziest unique unit ever. This Big Orc was superstrong and hard to hit, PLUS he had Invulnerability. (Ignores first 2 pts damage.)

I only have 3 units that do 3 or more damage, plus my conjurer, I made him take a couple clicks but he was just too much to handle.

I used revenant to bring back the warbeast behind him, but missed. Where's a Thunderstrike when you really need it.

I wheeled my Centaur to my token, who hung on for dear life out of luck. I them used revenant on my dead conjurer, put her in contact with the middle token, zapped the Orc that was contesting it and took the middle for my side and that was game. Had it been any longer I was done. I could just not handle that 104 pt Orc.

VICTORY


Game 3:

My friend who introduced me to the game Sunday, that I beat with my starter set plays me again in a grudge match.

Same terrain set-up as above (we're lazy).

We contest the middle, (thought I was archer proof in hindering terrain with my Deathsinger and stealth) but I got ran down by a doublemoving Charging girl flying angel with Thunderblow. (Flying, charging, thunderblow, all for under 60 pts, that unit was killer.)

Lost my revenant right away, nooo. His Centaur also came into my ranged stupidly and all my archers fired and missed horribly, he then realized his mistake and pushed him back to his lines.

I was kind of stale after then, he took the middle with a girl in ghost form, whom both my Rage pally and Warbeast couldn't hit because they failed their fear rolls against her and couldn't move into base contact.

I needed to rush my archers, so I did with my Warbeast, then his centaur moved into range to take the middle token, and just when I needed it most, both my warbeast and Starsdawn drew snakeeyes.

Had it been beatdown only, I would have lost, however, I was able to doubletime my Khamsin trooper to his token on the 2nd last turn, he contested it, but left the middle open which I took for the win.

VICTORY

Overall, I had a BLAST and my Starter Set did a fine job.

Wow.....just.....wow. Awesome games dude.

That sounded like it was great fun! Regarding invulnerability, that is one reason I try to include 1 or more figures with pierce and/or crushing blow in my armies. :)

Pierce or crushing blow eh? I don't know what those do, but I'll be sure to look them up.

Last night was one of the best nights of gaming EVER. I'm still stoked of what I did with only a Starter Set army.

It was funny of how I would have lost the last 2 games had they been elimination battles, but because of the objective tokens I was able to steal the win. In the last game a poor decision to shoot my trooper with an elf and contesting the token with an Angel cost him the game, since if he had used the elf to contest and kept the angel there, I had 3 chances to drop the beast and then move in a token (bound) to claim it or I would lose, instead of just walking in.

In the future I doubt they'll let me do that, and I'll have to work on winning the brawl aspect, but for now that was hella fun.

I'm looking forward to getting more peices.

It was just really fun, I can't believe what a tank the Rage Pally is and the Zombie Centaur and Warbeast were crucial with their movement.

Thanks for the help, the Strategy worked nicely.

I bought a booster today, nothing seems to be better than what I already have.

***Oak Warrior seems like garbage
Some Unique Atlantean Empire chick, doesn't seem usefull.
Dwarven something something, has a big mallet and spear, has Thunderblow click 2&3. (If I surge, can I have the push damage resolve before the attack, or does it have the be after?)

bloodcultist, 25pts.

The only unit I have with healing, but to fit him in to what I already have, I'd have to take out my Apprentice Conjurer. She's not that consistent, but she has mage blast.

He then ruins my Elf group, and I'd have to run a Dark group of Deathsinger, Rage Pally and Bloodcultist instead.

I was thinking of trying it, but I don't know if lowering my damage dealing power is worth having a healer. Thoughts?

Could you clue us in on what cards you pulled from the booster?

Anyway, the Oak Mage is trash, but the others may not be. First of all, when you surege, you take the push click before the attack, so the dwarf would Surge and make an attack with his much better secondary values.

Next up, the Blood Cultist is argueably one of the best healers in the game. for a low, low 25 pts you get a healer wit an OK attack, Magic Healing, and the ability to take an action every turn. His Blood Cultist ability actually builds him up as a beter healer as you can manipulate the target's dial a bit. If the figure your trying to heal has a defense a little too high, you can syphon energy from it and attempt a heal against a lower defense. He is definetly worth a look if you find figures in your army dieing frequently.

Finally we have your Delphana Master (I believe) who is actually a non-unique. Sorcery introduced slotted dials for Non-unique warriors so that you could have an easier time fielding spellbooks and spells. Some of these figures are rather good, others are so-so, but in general, having slots is better the not haveing slots as they allow you to manipulate the figure's stats. If you can pull a non with slots that is 60pts, you can use the Book of Lightning, though the only figure that much that comes to mind would have to be one of the new Revered Mystics, which are tanks on their own.

Just a brief note of Pierce and Crushing blow. They let you ignore all defensive abilities of your target when you make an attack. Pierce works with ranged attacks, and Crushing blow works with close combat. A solonavi piece (Varatrix) has both of these abilities, making him an interesting piece to play. Basically, Pierce would've ignored both the +2 penalty to hit and the 2 damage reduction on that Orc. (which I'm assuming was Kzar Nabar, from he Uprising set) You would've turned him into a pincushion.

A side note: Kzar Nabars incredibly low defense on his invul clicks makes for an easy capture attempt if you know what you're doing. If you have an Imperial legion fig doing the capturing, you can capture kill easy.

And like VaporGecko said, Sorcery contains slotted non-unique figures. Every booster of Sorcery should contain either a slotted non-unique or a unique figure. If they have stars on their dial (which the Delphana master should have) then they are one of the slotted nons. They can wield relics and items just like uniques, but remember that no figure can wield a relic that is over its point cost, unless it has a faction requirement for the relic.

Also, what cards did you pull? You pulled a wand user, so you might be able to start working on a spellbook.

I pulled exploding Undead and Technomantic Overload. I don't see any use for these 2 cards.


Delphana Master is indeed the girl I pulled. Didn't know she had a spellbook. (she does right?)

The Dwarf is Dwarven Forgemage.

Blood Cultist needs to have 1 damage on it to heal. Do I just push him turn 2 to get him into healing mode?


Capture the big orc eh? Good idea, I might try that. I don't have pierce or crushing blow.


Here's what I have now:

Domain: Magestone Stripmine
Relic: Book Of Lighting
Spells: Technomantic Overload
Exploding Undead

Kierin Starsdawn 77
Orc Warbeast *41
Deathsinger **29
Rage Paladin **40
Apprentice Conjurer *27
High Elven Archer ***35
Khamsin trooper **18
Zombie Centaur **28
Vampire Archer *34
Oak Mage ***41
Delphana Masters
Blood Cultist *25
Dwarven Forgemage * or **, I forget, but he's 25pts.


I was thinking my best army now would be the following:

Kierin Starsdawn
Orc Warbeast*
Deathsinger**
Rage Paladin**
High Elven Archer***
Khamsin Trooper**
Zombie Centaur**
Blood Cultist*

Basically, the only diff this time around is the swap of the Blood Cultist for Apprentice Conjurer. I never had a huge problem with units dying, but almost always I have some that could use a heal after making a run, especially my Hooved units. I was just semi-worried because a lucky hit followed by a good mage-blast roll won me the game already, and got me out of a few sticky situations. Problem is, her to-hit is low.

Suggestions about the new cards I pulled or my army build?

how many stars does the delphana master have?

:golem:

Didn't think she had stars, my Delphana Masters is **.