Vlad3, you look at his card and you feel underwhelmed. The feat is kind of unimpressive. The spell list is nice but Infernal Machine feels like poor mans Superiority and if you wanted Hand of Fate you would have played Vlad1 or Vlad2. Dash gets your threat range up but Vlad2, Strakhov and everyone with Boundless Charge can do that in bigger bursts. You finally realise the interactions between all in the saddle, blood quenched and flashing blade but you think that just chewing through tightly packed infantry is not really enough because, after all, the Winter Guard can go in every list and lots of armies have undead infantry or lots of beasts and jacks. But he is on a horse, so you will buy him anyway.
I went through this exact process and now I am pretty sure I understand what Vlad3 brings to the party and its soap. He is slippery and, if used correctly, cleans out all the irritating dirt. To put it plainly, he and his army is very hard to pin down. You can see this in the way Vlad himself does business. He can make attacks before he moves, mid-move and also after he has done moving. On feat turn he then can get out. He also can get himself protected from non-magical guns. His feat is very Circle-esque with side-steps and sprints. It all comes down to Dash. This is the spell I intend to leverage and it is not the +1 speed but the immunity to free strikes that has me excited. To understand why you need to understand a little of my introduction to this game.
My first game was Irusk1 against Stryker1 in a 15 point affair. Apart from learning the rules I discovered that being tied up was lame and that casters can kill lots of infantry in a turn just by buying attacks. I also sent Beast in did damage to a Lancer and a Hunter, lost my cortex and had the hunter back out and shoot me again! The next game was 15 points against Kraye where I got jack bulleted, teaching me that a long way away is not far enough. The third was 25 points and Parry weas my bane. I tried tying down a Hunter and Kraye and it just didn't happen. Pursuit also hindered me but the final straw was Kraye waltzing away from lots of Winterguard and a Spriggan and two shooting Irusk.
So from day 1 I have had respect for Parry. If you read the PP Forums most people seem to be using Kayazy or Man-o-War (or the theme force with lots of cavalry) with Vlad. This is strange to me. The all-cavalry thing I get from an aesthetic perspective but from a gameplay and effectiveness stand point it looks weak. Kayazy are the last unit I would put with him. If you want Kayazy you would be better off with pretty much anyone else but Vlad2 or Irusk1 or either Butcher scream out for them. That is because these guys make Kayazy hit like a truck. What Vlad3 does is yet your guys into position and immunity to free strikes wants guns. Sure you can push further in with Parry but it seems mediocre. I think guns is where it is at and specifically sprays. This means Winterguard. There is some nice interaction going on here. Firstly, walking out of combat to spray bunched up infantry is glorious but backing up 7 with an 8 inch ranged gun seems pretty fun too.
The Winter Guard with Joe and Bob and Weave is just survivable enough to not disappear to a stiff breezes and, contrary to widely held belief, they offer a lot more than defence 17 with Iron Flesh. I value their offence far more because they are accurate and POW12 (or 10 spraying) and under Hand of Fate they are hit accurately enough to take out everything with pseudo-boosted boosted attacks (can CRA if needed) and pseudo-boosted POW12s go through heavy infantry quite fast too (Cetrati under Xerxis feat or Champs under the rock are no easy feat but against that sort of armour the jacks can come into their own).
I am trying to keep other models in the list with some utility in terms of staying out of the mire. All the infantry can walk out of combat but I have included Saxon as well to stop a literal mire keeping them at bay. For jacks I will take Beast and Torch. It is a tough call for Torch (see the other days post) because Spriggan has bulldoze that plays into the theme but I have decided that the combination of that spray with Virtuoso and Gunfighter gets the effect I want a bit better. Beast is there as a heavy hitter and also because hyper aggressive triggering for a 6" advance turns out to be a slippery moment all in itself. I also like both jacks rocking MAT7 which means they can get up to 9 but generally don't need HoF on them.
I hope to run the list this coming weekend but it depends on people's availability. It seems very sound from my thinking. The plan is once again to try attrition and grab points and if an assassination comes up to take it. We shall see.
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