Lucius/Warden list

[Ulfarr]

Hey all,

The local group has been tossing around the idea of a fixed crew tourney for the near future. Could I get some thoughts on the merits of this Lucius crew? (35SS)

Lucius - 3 Cache

Drill Sergeant

Guild Guard Captain

Guild Guard

Rifleman

Rifleman

Rifleman

Warden

Warden

I'd like to think it's a decent mix between good shooting and some respectable melee power - I'm almost tempted to drop the Guild Guard for a third Warden, but would this be overkill?

Thanks,

Ulfarr.

[Therril_83]

Perhaps get a pair of dogs in there for grabbing objectives and sacrificing for reactivate on Lucius?

Just theoryfauxing though, as I've not yet tried Lucius.

[pytrFenrir]

Lucius with Riflemen appears on paper to be a monster with Riflemen, 12 shots with Drill Sargent giving positive flips to attack. On top of that 3 shots will be 2CB higher while Lucius gives the the extra three shots (thus 12) from Issue Command. and when it comes down to a pinch, get lucius to punt off the Drill Sargent/Guardsmen get reactivate and get another 3 shots in

Running a 30SS Thursday and I'm going for a wall of bullets accompanied by a one trick pony (risky but why not? Don't know until you try) Warden is going to fly up to grab the treasure then run all that back to hide

I would do that list, sounds fun and as I say, you don't know how it will do if you don't try it.

Edited February 12, 2013 by pytrFenrir

[Cadilon]

My first impression is that its too shooty. But I wouldn't be able to say for sure until I tried it out. So much of a ranged crews effectiveness is based upon the terrain. Riflemen could really rock one board, and then just be a waste of points in another. Once someone gets up in their grill, they're toast with their Df of 4 and 5 wounds, unless you have a good counter punch. I had a line of 3 rifleman that were all killed in one activation of a Mature Nephilim last week.

The Wardens might be that counter punch, but I assumed you wanted them down-board, achieving objections with their speed. Though a bit card dependent, Wardens would be good for that. Add in Lucius's Reinforcements, and you have some decent speed.

Anyway, I guess my thoughts are this crew will really hinge on whether the Rifleman can gets shots off as the opposing crew terrain hops from cover to cover and up into their face.

[Ulfarr]

I'd be inclined to agree about the riflemen. I've run them in two games so far - on a fairly open board against a Raspy crew they absolutely decimated anything that came close enough for combined arms, however on a more heavily covered board against Lynch they got eaten up by an illuminated (although they did a fair bit of killing beforehand.)

That was why I was thinking of including the Captain - he's pretty resilient and with a decent damage spread on his axe, and in a pinch there's always the option of linking the Sarge to give a + twist to the melee flips.

What would you say to dropping the regular Guard for another Warden? That would leave two to grab objectives, and another to cover the rifles.

[Cadilon]

What would you say to dropping the regular Guard for another Warden? That would leave two to grab objectives, and another to cover the rifles.

I think I'd rather replace the Guild Guard with a Witchling Stalker instead of another Warden for defense. Same number Wds and Df, but you gain better to-hit and better damage profile on both melee and ranged. Also get some magic resist. Doesn't have armor or ITI that Warden has, but its one stone cheaper too.

I think its important to remember though, I'd only trust both these defense models against a minion up to 6-7 stones or so. Any stronger and it'd still tear up your rifleman before your defensive models could take it out.

Something else I've thought about is the Guard's Cordon. It seems custom made to use with Rifleman. If you have the card to set that up between the Guard and the Captain in front of the Rifleman, that would be worth trying. Downside is that it does nothing against flying or floating and it takes initiative and an 8:rams or higher to get off. Thats a lot of ifs, but something worth looking at.

[WaywardSun13]

A Witchling would be great, but in a Lucius-led crew they're unavailable. That's why I'm usually a fan of Lady J in my Lucius crews as opposed to the Captain.

So in a Lucius led list, your options to protect your Riflemen gunline are a Warden, a Guardsman, Hounds, or the Captain. And then there's Lucius (who isn't terrible in combat himself).

[Cadilon]

A Witchling would be great, but in a Lucius-led crew they're unavailable. That's why I'm usually a fan of Lady J in my Lucius crews as opposed to the Captain.

So in a Lucius led list, your options to protect your Riflemen gunline are a Warden, a Guardsman, Hounds, or the Captain. And then there's Lucius (who isn't terrible in combat himself).

Bah! I never let little things like "rules" and "facts" get in my way. *grin*

(Nice catch)

[Ulfarr]

Lucius does have a pimp cane. Nobody messes with the guy who has a pimp cane.

[WaywardSun13]

A pimp-cane w/ a sick trigger. And he's terrifying. And he has all those negative flips. And Slow to Die/Use Soulstone.

[underdog6750]

Ive put lucius into combat quite a few times. Never with the intent of killing things more to tar pit them. Of which he does a very good job.

Plus the pimp cane looks ace

[Iron Skies]

Like the list, personally I'd drop the captain and one of the riflemen for two Austringers to give Lucius his full Cache

[pytrFenrir]

Had a game today at 35 I brought lucius, Drill Sargent, Warden, Lawyer and three Guardsmen. Flipped Turf War (later realising I should have swapped but never played it so thought why not) against 35 point misaki.

Important models on his side was the Torakagi and Kang. Now had I did ONE thing different I would have gotten 8 Victory points (possibly). A guardswoman (in this case) was about run into the woods on the left side of the table, having censured Kang from walking and "Halt!" with the guardswoman, so all she had to do was walk up, get stake claim from the forest, breakthrough AND land turf (possibly) BUT he swapped Kang with the Tora (which I hoped to god he had forgotten he could have done something like that too much wishing me thinks), walk, free ranged attack, poisoned and with that she would have died from the poison on activation and all I had was lucius and the lawyer my side so that was it. Had Kang not been friendly he would have to have went for the lawyer at best and the guardswoman would have walked up merely to hopefully hide for a turn.

[MisterSparkles]

Lucius has got to be favorite master, and so with that I wish the OP the best of luck.

As far as the list is concerned, I'm not convinced on riflemen, or with wardens for that matter. In a fixed list tournament being too one dimensional will seriously hurt the end results (I've learned my lesson) and the riflemen can put you in that category.

I prefer the basic guild guard for most encounters, as they can do it all. Armor is a blessing and the positive flip on damage is better (in most cases) than the riflemen's ignore hard to wound. The Guard are also nothing to laugh at in melee! A little theoryfaux in there, but I can say there are very few games were I wish the riflemen were there.

For having a speedy element, I'd be careful of sending the wardens at it alone. At least for how I've played, keeping things mostly together has worked quite nicely. Besides, This gives you more options to issue commands to. Also, having lucius around makes even the slow captain a speedster and he has reliably been my reserve unit/ objective grabber.

The only thing I'm surprised at is not many people have mentioned the Austringer. I swear by having at least one (again, I've learned the hard way).

Maybe I like the theme aspect of having a bunch of average joes out there too much.

[underdog6750]

A list im particularily fond of and had pretty decent success with is

Lucius 4ss cache

2x austringers

2x riflemen

3x guild guard

2x dogs

Or start depending i will swap a austringer for another guard. Despite loosing a stone having a 24" cordon across the board in something like turf war can be pretty amazing

[Ulfarr]

Ok! Taking the feedback on, how about;

Lucius (2 Cache)

Captain

Austinger x 2

Warden

Guard x 3

2 Cache might seem somewhat low but I've never found Lucius to need more - people are obviously quite rightly scared of his pimping.

[Adran]

Its a while since I last used Lucius, but I found I wanted as many stones as possible.

If someone wants to kill him he isn't that durable. And most of his abilities require mid-high cards to cast, so if you are finding yourself stone rich, he can always use them.

May well be a playstyle/local meta difference, but I try to get him as near to 4 as I can. Otherwise something with multiple Paired attacks can completly ruin his day.

[underdog6750]

Agreed. I find lucius is best with all 4ss. Even if you use one with with a mid to low ram in combat to get the trigger off. That can really ruin your opponents day

[MisterSparkles]

Hey Underdog, how does the 2 riflemen work? From my theoryfaux I've always felt they were a 3 or nothing type of model. Curious to how you use them and how efficient they are. I keep looking at them to buy, but still haven't seen he need. I'd love to hear your experiences with them.

For soulstones I generally run lucius with 2. The reason behind it is that I generally have lucius in the rear doing the support thing until late game. So with him behind the line the opponent has to chose between attempting to focus fire on him (and he is genrally out of range) or knock out the damage dealers. Generally lucius remains unscathed and supported until I move him up to grab objectives (if needed) late game. So with two soulstones I'll end up only using one on an important intuitive flip.

I've run him with more stones, however it always feels like a waste when I have 3 left at the end. As a support master I feel he is at peak performance with as many minions as possible. I really feel like he is the best henchmen master due to the fact he can really put the henchmen cache to its full advantage.

Something's else I want to rant a little about is the drill sarge. In any game against someone without serious burst potential I've found him to be well worth the stones. Having multiple guardsmen shooting at cb 4 doesn't seen very deadly until you consider a positive flip. I've really done well with a gun line supported with the sarge giving 2-3 guardsmen and 1-2 austringers positive flips. Also, lucius giving commands to the Guardsmen makes a wonderful cb 6 positive flip on both attack and damage (built in damage).

The sarge also pulls his weight when you have melee to deal with. His damage spread isn't half bad and the positive flip his linked model gets is nothing to sneeze at. An activation that's worked well for me is companion Lucius, the captain, and drill sarge after my gun line has been hit in melee (if you can). Where you reinforce the captain, issue commands, activate sarge who links with the fresh captain (as he will be with gun line) and either swings himself or gives the bonus. Then you have Cap with positive flips going to town and has the ability to continue your alpha strike.

Maybe we should start a new thread for Lucius....

[underdog6750]

Agreed 3x riflemen work to a higher potential. But they need to be concintrated in a single area to gain the effect. By placing one on the flank with a guard as support the will dominate a 14" bubble in which they can attack.

By having a guard in support people will be less reluctant to charge in with out small force to take out the rifle man. If they did charge in with only a model or 2 they will most likely not do so again as they will be reduced to a corpse counter (or thats the idea) the guard is really handy to prevent charges and you will want him/her there in order to get a good cordon in place.

This tactic is all about table domination and chanelling forces to where you would like them.

The austringers are best kept close to lucius to grant him the bonus to def and the bonus to cb for some extra attack shenanigans. The 3rd guild guard is placed in the centre.

This is all very dependant on strats and schemes but i find by only taking 2 riflemen i avoid clumping them together. Although having said that i have had a trio of riflemen take mcmourning down to a single wound

ive recently got a warden and am looking forward to using him to replace the old faithfull hounds and trying differnt combinations.

As for success with lucius i have only played a couple of games with him with about a 60/40 win/loose ratio. I started playing alot of ressurs in preperation for a local tournament. I ended up 9th (first ever tournie)

I have a few games on sunday and plan on using lucius exclusively. Ill write up my findings and post the results in a new thread for the discussion of tactics and lists that work well so hopefully we can get plenty of people on the band wagon.

Im also trying to get the lawyer to work although i find him very situational and dependent on the crew im up against. He is my newest guilty pleasure lol.

[Ulfarr]

MisterSparkles - Interesting to see your experiences with L-Dog! I too have found 2 is a good number of stones when he hangs back supporting. That said, as it has been suggested that throwing him at some fights isn't altogether a bad idea, in those circumstances a 4 cache might be better. I also share your love of the sarge... I had never really thought of Linking him to a melee model like the Captain, i'll try it out.

Underdog - let me know how you get on with the Warden! I've used him twice so far - the first game he closed on Raspy like a shot, and it was only due to horrendously bad luck on my part that he didn't paralyse her. Second game he gad the treasure halfway back to my deployment zone on his second activation... Seems like a very fast/versatile model.

[MisterSparkles]

Ulfarr- I just found a good reason to have 4 stones... Misaki. Pilfer made me cry a little on the inside.

As far as she goes, I don't have any clue how to deal with that crew with a lucius list.... I'm concerned a tourney will lead the OP to have to face her too. Pilfer and some ability she has that gives a positive flip, seriously reduces Lucius survivability.

Beyond just her, the smoke bombs and that the entire crew has something like 6-7 defense... I just don't know. Even with sarge's positive flip there was no way my gun line could work.

Reduced me to thinking of taking Lady J, a bunch of dogs, Lucius, an execution and possibly a SOC. I don't think Misaki would enjoy having a Fast and Melee expert executioner to the face.

[underdog6750]

Unfortunately i was unable to play a game at the weekend but am playing tomorow night so will let you know how i get on

I will be trying a hybrid of my list i posted except with the drill sergeant and a warden not sure what models i will be ditching yet. Ill wait to see what strat is drawn?

[underdog6750]

My lucius game the other night was against a guy new to the hobby so i took my standard list and played so he could learn the mechanics of the game as well as his crew and there interactions.

I didnt get to use the warden as of yet and am itching to play him. Hopefully this weekend (wife permitting) i can get a game or 2 in with him and have some better views