Dread Prince/Captain
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| Pretty sweet art depiction.... |
I have one on a Raptor and another on foot. Stat-wise they are excellent compared to base Legionnaires with the difference between the two being an extra point in WS/BS/W/I/A/LD for the Prince over the captain. Looking over the options there are some definite choices to be made for this Lord/Hero. For one, both can take a variety of mounts with the common trend that the Lord can take more options than the Hero. Secondly they both can be given cult membership or Nabh or Yema. They also can be upgraded to be either Fleet/Beast masters (for your Corsair/Beast themed lists). Finally they both can take magic items up to 100/50 pts respectively, and the Prince can be upgraded to be the BSB.
Hoo boy, where to start?
Well there are just so many options you can take with these that to list them all would be another post or two on this blog. I'm already a bit wordy anyways so really it will boil down to this: what do you want them to do? Naturally they are going to be nasty fighters in melee without the staying power due to the Elf toughness of 3, but true to Dread Elf style you would probably want them to be the ones striking hard first and killing whatever you can before taking hits back.
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| What I actually have |
With so many options available in making your own Prince/Captain, I am not even sure if I will go over every option there is. What I will do is toss out my initial build and see where it goes. So for my Lord choice Dread Prince this is what we will be taking: Armor of Fortune, Sword of Haste, Shield, Raptor, and Obsidian Rock. This will give me a decent armor save, ward save, resistance to magic, allow me to accompany my Dread Knights, and handle myself in a challenge. Being able to wound a +4 always is never a bad thing, though it doesn't directly affect armor saves aside from my base strength. This is a generic build but one of many and hopefully it will show the potential this character option has in your army.
Exalted Oracle/Oracle
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| My ladies of Magic |
My wizards of the army, the casting ladies of doom! Stat-wise they are pretty much similar except for an extra point in W/LD for the Exalted Oracle. Similar to other wizards the Lord version starts off as a 3 whilst the Hero is a 1 for wizard levels, both can be upgraded. These ladies can choose spells from any of the 'standard' battle lore spells or go for the Dread Elf Black Magic lore. If I choose to upgrade either of them with the Cult of Yema rule then I have the option of having the Path of Lust, but I HAVE to choose either Lust or Black Magic. It's a bit of a trade-off all things considering but it limits options in favor for some special rules. I can give the ladies a mount, but the Lord version has access to some of the more esoteric/awesome mounts whereas the Hero version can ride horse-equivalents. Also both versions can take some magic items up to 100/50 points respectively. Finally they each have Master of the Black Arts helping me channel power dice by adding 1 to the roll.
So how would I use these ladies? Well that's probably another article since magic plays an important role as it has in the past with WHFB. Knowing my play style I would have to tinker around with some of the lores on the field before settling in on a preference. Each lore has some nasty potential but they do it in different ways, meaning that to just say "lulfirelul" is not really effective. I would look to either debuffing the enemy or buffing my own troops as a preference over just flat-out blasting power. The Dread Elves have some great strengths but equally strong weakness as well, so anything to help expose/mitigate is good in my book.
The Assassins
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| Cold-hearted killers |
Assassins are back and in some ways they are just as nasty of a surprise if you plan them correctly. Stat wise these killers are pretty much superior in combat to most of the army. Their WS/BS are sitting at 7's, their I is a 9, 3 attacks naturally, and they come with the standard Dread Elf rules. They also have Scout, Armor Piercing (1) in addition to S4, Hidden, Poisoned Attacks, and Not a Leader. So you can't use them as a leader, which makes sense since they are freakin' assassins! Option wise they can bring magical items up to 50pts, become a cultist of Nabh, have a 4+ ward save, an additional hand weapon, and take any number of points. A note about poisons though is that you can only use 1 each combat round, so you can't combine unfortunately.
So how to best use these killers will all determine on how you outfit them and for what purpose. The poison selection allows you to get a bit creative with your targets, and if you know what you are facing ahead of time you can make some preparations (as any assassin would do). Nightshade lets you hurt models with a higher toughness and get a nice strength bonus, up to S6, which also stacks with Armor Piercing for a nice -4 to armor saves. Wolfsbane grants you Lethal Strike and you get to re-roll failed to wound rolls. Bloodroot gives you an additional +1 to the wound rolls, and Multiple Wounds 2 on most targets.
Ultimately it will come down to what you need the assassin to kill which will determine how to outfit them. It's almost a given that you will be a cultist of Nabh (gaining Hatred in return) and get a +4 ward save, so the option you choose for magic items/poisons will be up to you. If you need to murder high toughness/armor models then go with Nightshade. If you need to clear out multiple wounds then go with Bloodroot. If you need to take out a character then I would go with Wolfsbane. Of course this might change as time goes on but these are my initial reactions with the assassins.
Conclusion
So that wraps up the series for my 9th Age army...for now at least...if I do manage to get some games in I will of course post it up. Since we are starting the local Journeyman League my focus will be on that coverage/ramblings for now. Still if you have any suggestions for tactica/discussions please leave a comment below, until then happy gaming!
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