Three surivors of an Iron Fang Kompany, the Great Bears are the Khadoran triumvirates character unit and they are pretty exceptional even by Khadoran standards. This unit makes for a great offensive unit, mainly serving the second wave role, charging in after the inital combats have begun and tearing a hole in enemy lines.The Bears stats line is similar to their base line unit (Iron Fnag pikemen) barring their excellent MAT (just one short of either Butchers') their ARM and damage boxes are enough to keep them safe from stray blasts, but their DEF puts them in the range of being likely to be hit by anything RAT 6 on average.
The axe's used by the Great Bears are also pretty special with decent P+S, having both Reach and Weapon Master, with Backswing thrown in for good measure, ensuring that anything that any unit that this unit charges will be either dead, crippled or running. Generally it's best to use the Bears to get through units like Bastions or even Jacks (as the Bears are on small bases getting all three in melee range is going to be relatively easy) as given their damage output it's often the best way of getting their points back.
The special abilities are where the Bears really shine. The first ability Defensive Line, granting a small ARM buff when the models are in base to base contact, slightly increasing their survivability though making them very vulnerable to canny opponents using sprays and AOEs against them. Next is the staple of elite troops Fearless, as well as Tough, which when combined with other abilities discussed later on is another way of ensuring the Bears get where they are trying to go. Finally their last and one of their best abilities Prescion Strike, having rolled for damage against Jacks you then allocate the damage where you want it to go, ensuring that last box of a Jack's cortex is knocked off and not left so it can then load upon focus and make Bear pie of the three characters.
Being a character unit, each individual model brings it's own special ability to the unit, the leader Volokov grants Relentless Charge to the unit, granting the unit pathfinder in any activation it charges, also being the unit leader once Volokov dies, he is not replaced, being a character. Kolsk grants Steady to the unit, making the unit immune to knockdown, this combined with Tough makes it so that if the Bears don't die and end up in charge range of a target, they will be charging it next turn. Yarovich grants the unit Circular Vision, giving the unit an LOS of 360 degrees, essentially this stops models backstriking the unit and allows the unit to threaten a far wider area. It is well worth noting that these abilities are Granted, in other words they are only active whilst the model that grants the ability is alive, so once the Bears start dropping the units effective threat follows suit very swiftly.
As mentioned previously, the Bears are a very hard hitting unit, however they are not in anyway invincible, they can be killed suprisingly easily. This doesn't take away from their overall usefulness, it simply requires that they are not thrown forward unsupported, with some planning, it's best to use them as a second line or bodyguard unit, either charging a tarpit unit to free up a unit or to provide a threat to draw a unit awayto open up a charge lane for a further unit to exploit it. As for who to field the Bears with, they tend to be very independent and work well under any caster, though Iron Flesh casters are a good choice to make the unit harder to hit, if you want to take down a collosal pButcher the combination of Fury and his feat gives 5d6 damage on the charge and 4d6 on the Backswing, with you choosing where the damage goes if the dice don't roll your way.
Overall the Bears are a very fun unit to field and not such a fun unit to face down, unless you have options available to take the Bears down before they get to charge you, they have various applications be it as a very expensive missile, bodyguards, or potential tanks (there to generate threat and pull units their way allowing other units or models to exploit openings.
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