WarMachine Units and Solos

I've covered the basic battlegroup to a warmachine game in the battlebox entry, but there's a bit more going on. Specifically, there are units of troops and expensive and powerful solo models who work well by themselves.

Also, I haven't really gone over gameplay. In a nutshell, combat is handled by rolling 2 six-sided dice and adding the result to the attacker's melee or ranged attack score. So Stryker's 7 melee attack plus 2d6 will, on average rolls, hit defense 14. Stryker and quick warcasters tend to have higher defense stats. Stryker's is 16, so it will be difficult for him to hit himself in the mirror match.

Warcasters and warjacks can spend focus to "boost" attacks, giving them an extra die on that attack. Also, knocking down high-defense units with special attacks or spells like Stryker's Earthquake reduces a target's defense to single digits.

Damaging after a successful attack is handled in much the same way. The attacker rolls 2d6 and adds the power of the attack to the roll, then compares he result to the attacker's armor to do damage. Stryker's disruptor pistol is a power 10 gun, which is about as weak as gunshots get in WM. On an average roll he'll do 2 damage to himself in the mirror match, as his armor is 15.

Focus can also be spent to boost damage. The Ironclad heavy warjack has a hammer that hits for 18 damage plus dice. Hitting Stryker with that is sure to do some serious damage. Damage can be boosted with focus as well.

Units and solos can't boost. But they also don't drain the warcaster's precious focus, so it's a trade-off.

Units:

Units are groups of like-armed dudes who fulfill battlefield roles for their army. There are long-range units, melee units, mixed-arms units, and special ops units. Most don't have an explicit defined role, but for Cygnar, some of the units are named for what they do, like Long Gunners or Sword Knights.

It's hard to mess those up. Of course, It isn't always obvious. Stormblades, for instance, are sword-toting armored troops, but they can also shoot lightning from their ridiculous swords, so they're actually a mixed-arms unit which can perform either role (or both on a good turn).






Units tend to run in several categories of defense and armor combinations: some are high-armor, low defense. These tend to be slower, melee units. Some faster units are high defense, but with abysmal armor. The average is about 13 defense and 13 armor. Stormblades have 12/15 def/arm. Long gunners have 13/12.

Most infantry is single-wound, so penetrating their armor at all will kill them. Solos, warcasters, warjacks, and some butch infantry have multiple wounds.

Infantry also have to stay in formation, which just means that the unit can't spread out too much. All troopers in the unit must be within range of the unit leaders command stat in inches. Most unit leaders have an 8 or so in command, so troopers can be pretty spread out if need be, but there is a limit.

Units also have unit attachments, additional bodies which can be added to a unit to fulfill some tasks or add functionality. The Stormblade unit attachment is expensive, but it adds a multi-wound officer with an impressive command stat to the unit. He also can give the 'blades a special Assault order, allowing them to fire their lightning swords on a charge. This effectively doubles their already devastating offensive power.





Solos:

Solos operate well on their own. They tend to be above-average with stats, or they might fulfill a special role on the battlefield. Most solos are characters, named units that can't be fielded in multiples. Rutger Shaw, Professional Adventurer is one example. He's a mercenary solo who will work for many factions.






Other solos are faction specific. Captain Arlan Strangeways is a Cygnar solo who either helps power warjacks with focus or repairs them. He does have weapons, but most often he's going to be using his special abilities to assist in warjack management.

Some solos can be fielded in multiples, such as Cygnar's Gun Mage Captain Adept. Two of the GMCA can be fielded in any given army. He's a dude who channels spells through a magelock (magic flintlock) pistol. The GMCA's role is one of support, often hunting down enemy solos or unit attachments (like the officer from the Stormblade unit attachment pictured above) and picking them off with his gun.

A decent army tends to have a good mix of units and solos to go with the warcaster and his warjacks. Cygnar has a few "auto-include" solos and at least one unit that's so awesome it's hard not choosing them for an army list. I'll go over them some other time.