Wednesday 1 May 2013

Merc Solo Profile: Saxon Orrik

saxon_orrick.jpgA good merc solo to pick up, especially if you have issues when facing down Hordes armies. As a Mercenary Minion model he can be fielded most of the factions, so even if you don't want to use him in a Khador faction he has his uses.

Orrick's stat line is very impressive for what you pay, with normal infantry speed he also gets Doom Reaver MAT and Widowmaker RAT, along with DEF equal to Eliminators and damage boxes, making him ideal for throwing out front provided he picks his fights, his average ARM means he'll be engaging Beasts and only shooting at units rather than charging them.



In terms of his weapons Orrick comes with a Gun with the same RNG as eSorsha's Quad Iron and a point of extra POW extra, primarily you'll be using this when he's not using his abilities and can't charge Beasts, still it provides him with a way to kill off solos if they get too close. His two Melee weapons are a little POW wise weaker than his rifle (his sword by a point and his knife by 3 points), however if you hit an enemy Warbeast with it you can either add or take a point of fury from that beast, this is an excellent way to mess with a Hordes army as their fury is generated by the beasts so by taking away fury you take resources from their warlock, or alternatively add some to force the beast to frenzy and charge into one of their friendly models, just try to be in their back arc if you go for the frenzy option, as the model will charge the closest model in it's LOS.

Then we turn to Saxon's abilities, Pathfinder, Stealth, Fearless and Advance Deployment. On top of these come some of Saxon's more interesting abilties, Dismember effectively makes all attacks against Warbeasts Weapon Master attacks, so 4d6 on the charge against all beasts, add into the equation Blindspot and you start seeing why Saxon is a beast hunter, as it allows him to make a melee attack at an enemy Warbeast that missed him, this essentially means your opponent's Warbeasts will be wanting to give him a wide berth. A useful ability when facing Cryx or Trolls is his takedown ability, meaning that when his melee attacks kill a model with tough, it can't make it's tough roll and as this removes models from play there are no corpse or soul tokens for Cryxian's to use either. Finally the main ability I tend to use Saxon for is reconnaissance, this * action allows Saxon to hand out Pathfinder to a friendly warrior model or unit that is close by, this is an awesome ability when you lack natural pathfinder units or wish to field units such as Man O Wars who would be otherwise unable to charge anything even with Reach due to their low SPD.

 Overall Orrik is avery useful tool, either to tie up enemy heavy warbeasts or to throw Pathfinder around, he tends to not be as versatile on his own so ensure he has some support, Alten Ashley springs to mind as he does what Saxon does in melee at range making them a very nasty pairing when facing down a hordes army.
Otherwise I'd suggest running Orrik in the second wave behind your front line troops so he can hand out Pathfinder if needs be or charge a flanking Beast that would otherwise tear through a unit as if the Beast goes for a free strike it will likely lose a branch or two for the trouble.

1 comment:

  1. Unless the warbeast is a lesser, or very likely to die I would not be charging them. His def is not so high as to offer much protection from a boosted attack roll. If you are using these abilities it's not so much about killing a beast as tying it up from engaging to prevent it from going after something more valuable or getting a backstrike at a poorly positioned beast to hopefully get it involved in frenzy induced friendly fire (often a hail Mary more than solid strategy). I have had good luck with him and Madelyn Corbeau in Butcher3's retinue (b3 and the arguses only have pathfinder on the charge, but positioning them with pathfinder really makes for some interesting assassination that can catch even opponents who know what they are doing on the wrong foot). And his rifle has picked off fellow Vinter loyalist Orin Midwinter (a common b3 counter) several times. He's not a beast hunter, that is ultimately Alten Ashley's job, and his impression of Alten leaves him dead, a lot. He's a mobility enhancer that's good with a rifle, attempting to muck around with beasts should only be attempted once his job as boy scout master is done.

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