Thursday, December 6, 2012

Wrong Eye + Snapjaw

Overview

Wrong Eye is a Gatorman Lesser Warlock and voodoo powerhouse, and Snapjaw is a huge Gator beast with tiny limbs.

Wrong Eye has decent Gator stats, about as tough as a Posse member but less potent in melee. Other than being a lesser Gatorman warlock, he has no abilities of note other than Life Drinker on his bite. He also brings Snapjaw, who is arguable the faction's best heavy warbeast. Snapjaw has a killer animus (see "Survivability" below), stats a little lower than a Wrastler (-1 ARM, STR), and these abilities:

  • Man Eater - charges living warrior models for free
  • Bloodthirst - 2" inches movement when charging living models
  • Warbeast Bond [Wrong Eye] - essentially Life Drinker on Snapjaw but you can choose to heal either Wrong Eye or Snapjaw after the kill
This means that Snapjaw can charge living warrior models at the rate of 10" + melee range, all without spending fury.

That bird is full of life and joy.

Damage

Wrong Eye is a more of a schemer than a fighter. He is MAT 6 with a reach P+S 12 and a non-reach P+S 13. Nothing really exceptional there. He does not have any direct damage spells, although Influence can do a bit of work in the right situation. Having 4 fury means he can boost or buy additional attacks when it counts though. I wish the Swamp Hook could still push targets to you.

Snapjaw is pretty much all about dealing damage. He hits about as hard as a Blackhide Wrastler (P+S 17), but has a much longer threat range due to Bloodthirst and having a P+S 14 reach tail with crit KD. Don't rely on the crit, but it's nice to have.

Survivability

The pair are very survivable on two fronts. First, they are tough Gators with good ARM values. 17 for Wrong Eye (8 boxes) and 18 for Snapjaw (28 boxes). Secondly, Snapjaw's animus is overpowered. It is called Submerge, and for 2 fury makes the user untargetable by ranged or magic attacks (they also don't block LoS). Fortunately, it is RNG: Self, so only two models in the entire game will ever benefit from it.

Essentially this means that they will not get damaged until they get stuck in and have done a fair bit of damage. Like all Lessers, if Wrong Eye is killed Snapjaw will also be removed, but this rarely happens.

One thing to note with Submerge - much like Swamp Pits, it does not fully take ranged attacks off the table. It just means that they cannot be targeted directly by ranged and magic. They can still get hit by sprays and AoE blasts that target something near them.

Utility

Whereas Snapjaw is little more than a fleshy and toothy beatstick, Wrong Eye has some tools up his sleeve with two spells: Influence and Voodoo Doll.
Influence is a neat situational 1 fury RNG: 10 spell to have, for example if you need to kill a certain support model outside your threat range, this thing can make it happen. You will almost always want to boost the hit since Wrong Eye's Fury of 4 is pretty craptacular.
His second spell, Voodoo Doll, "locks out" a warbeast's aspect of your choice for one round. Essentially, you treat that aspect as lost for a round, even if it still has some white circles.

Huge jaw compensates for tiny appendages.

Tactica

These guys are very independent and do what they do pretty well. Before the game starts, you need to decide on what you want them to do. They are pretty good at holding a flank, contesting points, dealing damage to a heavy target, or jamming into some heavy infantry (non-weaponmaster preferable). After choosing their mission, deploy them accordingly and keep them focused. They do not really need much support from your caster at all, unless you want to put an upkeep spell on Snapjaw (Fury, for example) on the first turn.

Both will cast Submerge and charge up the table, making them more or less immune to everything. Then you just focus on what you wanted them to do. There are two important things to remember: first is that Snapjaw charges pretty far for an unbuffed heavy, so you will usually need to activate Wrong Eye first and move up so that Snapjaw will remain in his 8" control. Second, if Wrong Eye dies you lose Snapjaw instantly. Therefore, you should keep him protected with Submerge and/or a fury (although Snapjaw will usually use all his fury on the charge so transfers tend to be off the table).

One of the coolest things Wrong Eye can do is cast Voodoo Doll on a stationary or knocked down warbeast. You can choose to "lock" its Spirit aspect so it cannot force for a round, which means it can't shake to get up. This spell is a pretty potent form of denial for only 2 fury and works on all warbeasts.

Additionally, as a merc/minion Gatorman warlock, Wrong Eye is able to take other Gator beasts in his battlegroup. In Blindwater, this usually means taking a Snapper so that you can get another 2 Spiny Growths out at zero resource cost to your caster (pretty good if you're doing a tanky Maelok Gator Bus strat). I've also heard that taking a Spitter with Wrong Eye in Calaban's theme force is really effective, because it only costs 6pts and gets AD. That means it's shooting things the first two turns of the game, and after that you just have a meatshield that frenzies around and/or dies while Wrong Eye takes care of Snapjaw.
In mercs, this leads to an ARM 24 Galleon or two (as long as Wrong Eye is casting the animus).

Outside of Blindwater, I would take the pair only when you have a specific role for them to fill. For example, in mercs, Wrong Eye + Snapjaw + Snapper can lead to an ARM 24 Galleon, tied to a very survivable support piece that cannot be sniped out and has a world-class counter charge. In general, they offer a reliable way to deliver a tough heavy hitter into enemy lines independent of the rest of your force. As such, they can be a great disruption tool against ranged-heavy lists and help deliver the rest of your army.

Conclusion

I like 'em. They are good.

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