Trident Realm

I ordered a bunch of Wrath of Kings miniatures during MiniatureMarket’s warehouse sale. They’re much more expensive now but they supposedly go on sale a few times a year. Perhaps see if they’re on clearance elsewhere.

Did a small TR warband summary (part 1). I hope this will be a good start to debate available units and warband tactics:

Before I start I would like to say that I am fairly new to Vanguard and will have my first game using new TR next weekend. This is why I will update my analisis in time when I get more experience.

Faction special rule

RISING TIDES (1)
Trident Realms is all about speed. Rising Tides makes it one of the fastest factions in the game. Most warrior and support units are SP6 even without Rising Tides’ buff. This ability can not only buff speed but also stand a knocked down model.
Rising Tides and unit profiles give the impression speed is TR key to victory. Most TR units are very fragile (Ar of 6+ in most cases with only few exceptions) so their ideal tactics should be hit and run.

FACTION SPELLS
We have 2 faction related spells like any other factions does. Both are what I call “control” spells that affect target’s positioning or ability to act.

Crussing Preassure (long) is a short ranged spell that can pin targeted model for the remining of the round to the ground. I think it is a good campaign spell for a spellcaster that will level up. It is harder to use due to limited range unless You get spell range increase from Ophidian Book of Secrets.
Riptide (long) is a synergy spell that pushes targeted model up to 3" away from the caster. This is good both to push models from charge range, objectives or into terrain but also to push models out of combat. The last one synergize great with net Lurker is armed with and Giga, that is designed to deal more damage for disengaging models.

GRUNTS
We have 2 grunt types.

OTTER BEVY
Otter pack based on a 40mm base. cheap, with 2 wounds (lost one in Ice&Iron supplement). Fast and vicious. 2D8 and Me 4+ in malee makes otters a valid choice. Better in CC than most other grunts.

NAIAD INITIATE
Solid, fast grunt. Cheap access to trident. Has a special synergy that grants her a better armour when close to water elementals

WARRIORS
We have 3 warrio type units. 2 shooting and one close combat oriented.

THUUL
Cheapest warrior option. A bit slow (SP of 5) but can out speed most infantry with Rushing Tides. They are very fragile (low Ar and Ne) but with Me of 3 makes them alpha strike unit. They are best when charging into already engaged models. +1 attack with high Me makes them a very good unit unless You engage high aroured targets.

RIVERGUARD
Fast (SP6, pathfinder with an optional Fly), fragile even with Stealthy. No piercing makes them less effective than naiads but Pound and Combined shooting makes them better at slowing enemy hard hitters down. Good in higher numbers. Good in taking objectives as they can re-locate up to 16" a turn.

NAIAD HEARTPIERCERS
Their nerve is a bit better than Riverguards’. They have piercing and regen 7+ that makes them a bit more durable to enemy attacks and more offensive with their harpoon-gun.

Any suggestions on how to pull off “hit and run”? The “run” part is conditional on not having to make Disengage tests, and that seems pretty iffy to me.

Several options really.

  1. double charge with Treeleapers/WE. WE charges into CC, Treeleaper (2nd activation). Kills the target, follow up away from an enemy and fatigue to get out of potential counters.

  2. Aquamage and Riptide. You can charge a target, deal damage, reptide the enemy away for aditional damage (gigas and scouts with nets are best for that role). This one is a bit tricky but You can limit number of enemies counter-engaging with waterlogged (this is amazing spell),

  3. Dambusters+waterlogged. Move a toad, target one model with her ability, attack in CC, use Aquamage to place waterlogged to prevent others from charging a dambuster and then either Riptide the model engaged with your toad for 2 more auto hits or push potential enemy out of charge range.

  4. Toads can be great at pulling units away too. If charged - disengage (unless You are 1 wound away from being dead). Then use dabmuster’s special ability (it does not cost ACTION to use!). You can move those 8-9" away and drag a model with You away from his fellow soldiers. You either fatigue to attack in CC or just wait for a free auto-hits in the End Phase. You can push engaged model back or charge him with Your thuul/treeleaper next. You can even position Yourself to allow You units a rear charge too.

There are several potential synergies:

  • Toad+aquamage,
  • Aquamage+gigas/scouts (net, large deals 2 autohits when disengaging away from them),
  • jevelins with pound and lucky charms can knock enemies down to slow then down too,
  • WE/treeleapers/envoys are very good hit and run type of units. Always use terrain to get a first charge. Target flanking, alone models. you opponent will have a hard choice either to keep his units close (chain lighting) or to get charged by Your flankers.

I’m not sure most of those work that well in practice. Here’s what I mean:

Most of the TR Warriors and Supports are Speed 6, but also Armour 6+ and Nerve 5+ (or worse). It feels like you need to do hit and run tactics with the Heartpiercers, Thuul, Riverguard, Lurkers, Otters, and Initiates to make them viable. Otherwise they die immediately upon contact. But that seems really hard to do.

The problem is most opponents maneuver their warbands in mutually reinforcing battle groups. It’s very chess-like: by attacking one model, you expose yourself to counter-attack from several others, and vice-versa. Except because TR is so fragile, nor particularly hard-hitting, nor cheap, they aren’t as good at the piece-trading game. So how do you actually pull off a hit and run with them?

So let’s say 11" away your Northern Alliance opponent has a combat group consisting of a chaff (Clansman), a tank (Huscarl), and a striker (Berserker). All in a triangle within 3" of each other, and arrayed so that the chaff is closest to you, and the striker furthest. A further 6" away, there is also a mounted or other fast model that moves 7+" (I dunno, a Mounted Berserker, say). You have unobstructed LOS to them.

You don’t want to start with back-to-back charges with your Water Elemental and Riverguard Treeleaper, because the opponent’s chaff is in the way. You could charge and kill the chaff with your Water Elemental, but then you might lose your Water Elemental. Not a good trade.

(The following paragraph is INCORRECT, see AlQuds below)
So maybe you move your Naiad Heartpiercer up, shoot, and then Fatigue to retreat - hoping to kill the chaff, and stay out of range of a counter charge. With 2 dice + 1(power, in the open, or elevation), you have a 66% of killing the Clansman, but at the cost of Fatigue and possibly power.

But you kill the chaff – hooray! – and pass turn. For whatever reason your opponent leaves his battle group unmoved, and play goes back to you.

Now you charge with the Water Elemental, and get +1 dice (charge, or power). It’s got a 61% of forcing a Nerve test on the Huscarl. But even then, with Nerve 4+ and Hardy Veterans, there’s a real good chance he’ll still be alive and even standing when the dice are done.

Now you spend a power and follow up with the Riverguard Treeleaper to finish the job. You spend 2 Power - one for a second model activation, and one for Bounder - and charge. Except you can’t. Your own Water Elemental is blocking line of sight to the Huscarl.

Well, s–t.

OK, you could spend 1 Power for the activation, run to engage the Huscarl, and then Fatigue to attack. But now your Treeleaper will get sashimi’d by the Berserker (71%).

Alternatively, instead of doing back-to-back charges, you could have done a Group Assault. But group activations don’t allow for Fatigue actions after, so again, the Treeleaper is stuck. If you score a kill, you would be able to position the Water Elemental in front of your Treeleaper, protecting it from direct charges, but not indirect Engage runs followed by a Fatigue attack.

But, for argument’s sake, let’s say the Water Elemental charged from a different direction and aligned to another facing on the Huscarl, leaving your Treeleaper with LOS.

You spend the power for a second activation and a power for Bounder and charge in. Assuming the Huscarl is standing at 1 Wound remaining, with +2 dice, there’s an 83% of forcing a Nerve test. On average, you’ll only do 1.7 damage, so there’s a real good chance that the Huscarl will still survive.

But let’s assume you kill him. Now you need to run away!

Follow-up moves must be in your forward arc, so if you slide sideways you can get maybe 2" further away from the Berserker. Then you Fatigue to move another 6" away. The Berserker was already 3" from the Huscarl, so now you are 11" away - not quite far enough to avoid being engaged! If we retroactively spend another power for Rising Tide, we can get to 13" and be safe.

Whew!

And including Clear Fatigue, it only took 5+ Power to pull off and a lot of “ifs”. Oh, and now your Water Elemental will eat 12+ dice of Berserker fury. :confused:

I’m not sure that most TR Warriors and Support are all that good at the hit-and-run game, at least for melee.

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To be fair, MiSiO has presented several nice ideas that might be helpful in some specific situations. However, I agree with generalsloth that they look quite a bit difficult to pull off.

I got just one comment on what generalsloth wrote. One cannot walk, shoot and then retreat (another walk action) as a fatigue action in one turn.

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You are absolutely correct! Confused myself, there.

Agreed, MiSiO_1 definitely raises some great tactics! But they don’t really get at hit-and-run, or involve the majority of the Warrior and Support models we have to work with.

Aquamage + Riptide: Riptide as a short action is indeed super sweet. It’s good for potentially putting a wound on a model, bumping off objectives, and setting up a combo attack on a knocked down foe. But as a hit-and-run enabler?

Best case I think is one of your squishy models has been engaged by a single foe and it survives the attack, you can use Riptide to free up the model to run away. But really, you don’t want to be engaged at all because most of your dudes are Ar 6+ and Ne 5+.

The Dambuster combos are fun but difficult/conditional.

These are all good gambits to keep in your bag of tricks, but none of them are strategies that you’re going to build your warband and game around.

The current plan I’m mulling over is focused on Parthian shots. Let the enemy come within range of your shooting, attack, fall back. Use Force Fatigue if you have to. Knock-downs and attrition hopefully disrupt your opponent’s advance. Finally, use your superior speed to rush your opponents’ key units.

This strategy also focuses on sacrificial pawns. Throw grunts into the enemy path, and when they are inevitably killed, the enemy are in an exposed position for your Riverguards/Heartbreakers to gun them down.

But that only works in some scenarios. I’m not sure how to play this warband aggressively.

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The NA example is ok but it miss one point that models worn out during turn. What I mean by that is that with charge range of 16" You just can pick a model You want then follow up away from it into woods etc. and some models should be already activated and unable to counter. In general units can support each other yes. But There is no screening against i.e. treeleapers. Dambuster can out-range any SP5 model IF You use his ability from behind a wall (9" vs 10"-2").

Regular riverguard and naiads are support pieces and they avoid combat in most cases rather than hit&run. Most warbands are built around a CC pieces, support pieces/screens and there are just good and bad targets to hit.

I agree that Ar of 6+ suck in general but in games I plaed recently Treeleaper+WE or 2x Treeleaper did what they supposed to. We were playing scenarios where You could not make one, huge group of units and make a frontal charge. I was able to pick commanders (i.e. Butcher), disable 3 reapers from getting into combat for more that 3 turns! (waterlogged then used Dambuster to pick one activated model at a time to prevent his from retaliating).

I am not sure if I like heartpiercers. Rivergard are more mobile and have a better, acceptable Me of 6+ which is not that bad especially if they charge into multicombat an get +2 extra dice.

I use Riverguard as lockers. They get into/behind terrain (again, waterlogged) and shoot. I then move back or pick 1 model at a time with a Toad).

I do not think this is an aggressive army to play with but You can get behind enemy models with high speed. Being out of LOS means You care way safer and picking targets is easier.

To su up. Hit and run is limited maby half of the models in a warband. The rest are to support.

Agreed, there are a lot of factors to consider, and turn order management is a big one.

TR is especially great at picking off activated models. Lurkers and Initiates, while not great at killing stuff, Fatigue their target and so don’t have to worry about Retaliation.

Can you walk me through the 3 Reapers + Waterlogged incident? I’m not getting how you were able to tarpit them for 3 turns.

Sure.

I have moved an aquamage, few riverguard ans a dambuster in a middle. Reapers were moving foward to engage me ASAP as riverguard and company are not a great match for them. I have used a Dambuster to leap foward to be exactly 9" to reach only one of them. Pushed him towards me and attacked. Dambuster was safe from retaliation.

This is a situation I wrote before. You either spread Your units to avoid chain lightining or clump up to be able to counter dambuster.

Dambuster was engaged, aquamage moved foward and casted a swamp in from of my units. Reapers lost their chance to charge me and I was able to chain lighting them the next turn. Thuul helps to kill dambuster’s reaper. Remining 2 were just unable to engage and we lost to spells and my own charges.

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I think the part that’s confusing me: Isn’t Waterlogged is a Long action? Can the Aquamage can move and use it in the same Turn?

If not, if Turn 1 the Aquamancer moves next to the Dambuster, and then Turn 2 it casts Waterlogged this still works.

Long. He got into position turn 1. TR requires a lot of planning :smiley: He had no targets to shoot turn 1 anyway.

BTW - finished 2nd Treeleaper. Now I have to figure out how to build my list. I was thinking to drop WE and replace it with 2nd Treeleaper and a cool item for an Aquamage. Ophidian Book of Secrets (+3" range) or maby Energy Crystal or Rune Staff of Silibar to cast the same spell twice a tun.

@MiSiO_1: Nice idea with your dambuster and aquamage combo. Though, I would be afraid to run my mage ahead of the raiding party against the opponents I usually face. I can imagine it may be fine in some situations but not so much when you face opposition with good ranged attacks.

Could You be more specific about those lists?

I face elves, Northern alliance and abyssals.

The elves usually field:
mounted prince
battle mage (can cast lightning bolt at 18")
guardian shambler
kindred gladestalker (scout, marksman, with long bow)
2-3 kindred archers
some more grunts?

Last time I played the NA guy he took
theng on battle mount
snow troll
ice kin hunter (scout, marksman, can shoot at two targets)
2 human clansmans with bow
3 huscarls

The abyssals do not take any shooting but are most difficult warband for me to face. I wrote quite a rant about it here, https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/778273.page
Fortunately, the battle mount got nerfed a bit in Ice and Iron …

I see that heavy shooting You talked about is from 1-2 models. This can be delt with. Dambuster is a great tool to deal with socuting shooters too. Speed of 4-5, 6-7" with faction boost + 9" special ability range (You can fatigue a Toad for additional 5-7" move so total threat range is 30"!) can push a shooter into melee. Sure this is partly a theory-crafting but what I ment is that there are answers. Even a regular riverguard with speed buff can lock a great shooter in CC anf RG outrange most shooters with 16" charge range.

I agree that Tormentior was a joke but now no heavy weapon nor +1 to hit for him. Also - he can use his ability once per round so You can multicharge him and he can try to nerf to-hit only on one of Your models.

Well, in the warbands I posted it is more than 1-2 shooters. :wink: You should not disregard the lightning bolt mage and the elven archers can be quite devastaning with their combined fire ability. And the NA player also fields his Ice Queen plus 3 shooting models time by time. It is always 3-4 models with ranged attacks when I play these opponents. I think I even faced the mage, scout plus 3 archers once. But the real problem is that the shooters advance supported by combat models. If you lock one or two engaging them, be sure that your engaging model(s) will be charged … :wink:

I would really not dare to use a dambuster to engage a shooter just for a sake of stopping a relatively cheap model from shooting and expose it to a charge by a mounted prince or a large model.

LB is very good. I was playing against a Mind-Screetch with LB and R:15". But regular dudes with bows are as good as naiad with a harpoon-run or a riverguard. They can do damage but are not “good shooters”.

Dambuster - here comes tactics. Terrain, unit placement etc. Using high number of shooters means You do not have high number of good, CC untis and You can take an adventage of that. A lot depends on how batle groups are formed too.

I do not argue that some tactics can be found to deal with the ranged opposition. In fact, my FoN warband has still not lost a game to the elven opponent (though, he is a very good player and sometimes luck has helped me). I do argue that your tactics of running your mage ahead of your raiding group does not work against group of shooters supported by combat models.

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It can. I consider a 10 point spell that makes my mage immune to shooters and melee attacks :smiley: