Feat
Butchers feat is incredibly simple, all Friendly faction models in his control area get an additional dice when rolling for damage. To put this into perspective, average troops charge and get 3D6 on the charge, this feat then takes that already impressive damage, throws another D6 on then slaps you on the back and shows you where to go, with weapon master this allows you to take 5D6 to the enemies face and it even applies to ranged attacks, so you are now looking at for example Behemoth, with two armour piercing fists and two bombards, not really even needing focus because it's got 4D6 of damage per fist and 3D6 per Bombard cannon. This also makes for some hilarious charges from a certain warcaster's best friend (referring to the Wardog who I'll do a profile on later), where ripping a warjacks' arm off can bcome a suprisingly common sight.
Abilities
Butcher automatically comes with the standard Warcaster perks (Commander, Fearless and Focus Manipulation), though if you plan on using infantry such as Winter guard with a low COM value, I'd suggest bringing the Officer and Standard UA as Butcher's own COM isn't going to stop them turning and running once they start taking hits. He has two very nice abilities on his axe 'Lola', namely Reach and Weapon Master, increasing both his melee range and his damage output in melee, to add to this he also comes with the special rule, Terror causing any enemy models in his melee range to take a command check and upon failing, flee. Whilst I personally haven't had this occur often when it does, expect that unit to be throughly smashed as being on the receiving end of a Butcher free strike hurts.
Weapons
As mentioned above, Lola (Butcher's axe, supposedly named after a long lost love that caused his anger issues) has both Reach and Weapon master, put simply this tends to mean if you end your turn within 10" of Butcher you will either be dead next turn, or in the case of warjacks, you'll be providing him with cover... As for Butchers 'ranged' option, the humble Blunderbuss, I have yet to find a reason to use it, I'm not saying there is no occasion where it isn't useful, I'm just saying if you find a reason then chances are you're facing another Butcher and you're trying to put terrain between him and you.
Spells
Given Butcher's personality it's hardly surprising to see a spell like Fury in his spell list. Fury is a relatively cheap upkeepable spell that makes average melee troops hit hard, good melee troops hit very hard and Butcher level troops or 'Jacks such as the Juggernaut rip several new holes into whatever it just demolished, it does come with the minor downside of a loss of DEF, but given how easy it is to hit most (Not counting Kayazy or Widowmakers) Khadorans this is a minor trade off compared with what you get out of it. Conversely Butcher also comes with a spell to make Khador units and Jacks harder to hit in the form of Iron Flesh, in a faction of low Def, High Arm models (Not counting Kayazy, Widowmakers and Winterguard) this is something of a god send when facing a gunline, especially one that left all it's AOEs at home, the trade off here however is slightly more worrying in that it decreases a unit/models SPD, meaning no charging, therefore a good way of using this spell is to charge a target, activate Butcher then cast Iron Flesh, as this way you ignore the SPD decrease, this tactic makes units such as the Kayazy untouchable when combined with their Duelist ability. If you want to run Jack heavy with Butcher then this is the spell you've been looking for, Full Throttle, for half Butcher's focus all jacks in his battlegroup and control area, Charge, Slam or Trample for free and gain boosted melee attack rolls for a turn, this combined with Butcher's feat can make mincemeat out of some of the toughest armies if used correctly, especially when you factor in jacks such as the Kodiak which has a far greater chance of getting it's chain attack and causing serious damage too. Finally there is Butcher's only offensive spell, Obliteration, one mid sized AOE with Moderately high POW and RNG, pretty expensive so somewhat situational, although I have very nearly managed an assassination on pVlad with it, don't discount it just for it's focus cost as there are occasions where getting into melee isn't viable and this provides a very powerful response.
Army Composition
Butcher tends to prefer units that can stand on their own in terms of their COM, however don't let this stop you taking winterguard, I can imagine a Winter Guard Death Star would be incredibly nasty with Butcher, though I don't feel he's best suited to using winterguard as a main unit. My personal preference tends to swing towards Man O Wars, on the basis that they make up part of his tier list and I've had a great deal of success with them, however you will find yourself outmanouvered very easily with such an army, to which end I'd suggest Kayazy Eliminators or Assassins, (if you take the Assassins take the Underboss UA, Tough Kayazy are really invaluable) due to their incredible speed in an otherwise slow tanky faction. Based on other players' recommendations I'd also suggest Iron Fang Pikemen, as Iron Flesh and Fury do benefit them very well. As for solos in a Butcher army, in fact any army where your caster is aiming to be in melee, take the Wardog, it's cheap, gives a DEF bonus to the caster as well as allowing the caster to ignore free strikes (not so great for pVlad as he already has Parry, but still worth it) and best of all when an enemy model moves close enough Counter charge allows the dog to charge the model, then make a full advance back to the caster he's attached to, put simply take him unless you're taking Zerkova or Irusk, as most other casters will want to be in melee and will love having him around. Manhunters are also well worth taking, as inexperienced players commonly move their army away from the lone man/woman with two axes swinging their way, not noticing the mass of army they now have to face instead, also if you take Manhunters, take Yuri the Axe, the Character variant who losing and axe gains Reach, Thresher (attacks all enemies in LOS and Melee range), Treewalker (Defense boost in Melee in a forest)and hands this out to Kossite Woodsmen and fellow Manhunters. Finally there is the Man O War that breaks the rules, being both fast and well armoured, the Drakhun Dragoon, who being a MOW solo, fits Butcher's tier and acts either like a giant war dog (he has counter attack, which is really funny when you opponent makes the mistake of being close enough for him to charge) and comes with the added bonus of having to be killed twice, as he is a Dragoon, first you kill his mount, then you kill him, which can lead to an interesting distraction to draw out a powerful model close enough to be wiped out by a unit lying in wait.
Weaknesses
Being on a medium sized base makes shielding Butcher somewhat difficult, as he can be picked off from range quite easily, this also leads into one of his main drawbacks he struggles against gunline armies. This is mainly because of the amount of turns it takes to run Butcher across the field before he can actually mess it up in melee that by the time he gets there, either he'll have a largely depleted army, or he'll be low on health, thankfully few armies tend to be gunlines (but if you see a Cygnar army you're likely to see one), though Butcher also has a tendency of struggling to deal with highly maneuverable armies, such as Cryx or Kraye lists, though this is more an army wide weakness rather than being a problem specifically with Butcher and one that tends to be countered with using terrain to slow your opponent down, or control angles of attack, allowing your army to then bring it's brute force to bear and smash the otherwise pretty flimsy (generally, a Full Tilted Ironclad or Stormclad isanything but flimsy...) force.
Hopefully this has been insightful, I appreciate I've only got a limited amount of experience playing in only my local meta, I will put up an analysis of Butcher's tier list at some point, once I get past Tier 3 as I don't feel I can give any real practical advice, other than don't be sucked in by the Manhunter FA increase, yes 10 Manhunters on the field is nice, but unless you have something to back them up that isn't an army.
No comments:
Post a Comment