The CMSP playtesting: Iktaras

Hey all,

In the wake of the discontinuation of our beloved Scape I've become more involved with some of the customs projects on the site. In this particular case the custom master set project (CMSP). I've never formally done any customs, and while I've some good ideas I don't think my personal expertise lies in full-fledged design. Rather I think my best avenue of contribution lies in helping review and refine custom works.

As such I took on the task of playtesting the first figure designed by the CMSP team, Iktaras. This is my first time formally playtesting a figure, and I must say the whole process has proven to be a lot of fun! Granted there is still a lot of testing to be done (there is a pretty formal and well designed process posted in the CMSP playtesting thread) but here are some notes from the games and some thoughts on the figure so far.

Oh, and for those that would like to know, here is the first draft of the army card.

Game 1
A very standard 1v1 meta-scape. 450-point blind draft armies, 24 startzones, smallish map with limited height, death-match.

Army 1 -(Mine)
Iktaras -120
MRT x4 -280
Brave Arrow - 50
Total - 450 / 14 start zones

The plan - While this army lacks a real screening unit, the MRT are a very flexible squad, capable of filling the role of both ranged threat and melee screen. While on the pricey side to be on the front lines, the idea is that Iktaras can deploy to a key point quickly, while helping the MRT move out of the start zones. Once in range of the tribe you can switch OM's and start taking pot shots. Ideally the enemy will have to crash your lines, at witch point the MRT start "bonding" with their choice of the two heroes. Since Iktaras should already be in an advantageous position to lay down support fire with his silverwing ability, he can rain down some hurt on higher defense figures or make use of his 6-move SF to try and assassinate a key figure behind the lines. If no such attacks present themselves you can get Brave Arrow moving up from the back, making use of his Tracking ability. The major problem with this plan is facing a range heavy opponent, but even a few concealment roles from the MRT can really befuddle your enemy.

Army 2
Sir Gilbert - 105
KoW x3 - 210
4th Mass x2 - 140

* I let my friend have the five extra points, it's about having fun first and foremost right? Besides this is a classic Screen and Shoot army and definitely one I was interested in playing against!

The Battle

Early rounds start off with standard deployment. 4th mass take a small hill that has local height on anyone tying to charge the start zones. Knights move up in tight formation, offering a screen to the mass, with the aid of Gilbert's Jandar's Dispatch. Iktaras starts by moving out to the highest point on the map (closer to the center) and moves three different squads of MRT in an attempt to start the slow role to the hills in the middle.

Knights start the charge, getting a little too close to Iktaras (but cleverly staying out of range of his silverwing ability. Iktaras, feeling the pinch has to abandon his high ground and fly back to a safer position, while still slow rolling with the MRT. Knights hold up once they gain the center hill, and allow the 4th still in the start zone to deploy.

This switch in OM focus gives the MRT time to set up for a first attack, with Iktaras perched safely atop a small hill overlooking several of the MRT they start popping some shots off at the KoW on high ground, managing to drop one in each of the two rounds of attacks. Now the forth are right behind the elevated knights.

Knights ready the charge and get a good roll out of Gilbert to help them close the distance. All three MRT get engaged, and two fall in the counter assault. The MRT are not phased however, as Iktaras has afforded them a wide spread deployment. One moves up to equal footing with a knight while the other stays below two more. A third MRT moves up next to Iktaras and lines up his shot... PAP! He drops one of the knights with an impressive attack with height, however the two in melee combat are unable to penetrate the knights armor. WAR CRY!

The first real tactical decision to be made for Iktaras. Activate him and take a silverwing attack with height on one of the KoW on the front lines? Or move up brave arrow? The attack will be some what fruitless because there are knights close enough to get back into combat and replace the dead one... but It's worth it to thin the lines a bit and keep the OM's on the knights (and OFF the mass!) First attack ever with the new hero - PAP! a big attack of 6 dice (base3+1height+2Silverwing) yields 4 skulls and a dead knight.

This continues for a bit, me taking turns with the MRT, trying to get my free activations with the War Cry ability. My opponent carefully moving up knights and trying to find places to attack that are outside of the silver wing range. (It's worth noting that War Cry is NOT easy to activate, on more than one occasion I killed a knight with a MRT that moved adjacent and thus lost the engagement requirement to activate the ability. It came up more on turns where the knights failed to kill 2 MRT on an activation, affording my MRT the chance to attack with range and avoid shooting the knights that engaged me).

Intermittently after a few full rounds of knight attack the mass would move up, eventually finding a good position for wait then fire on Iktaras (He ate 4 attacks from below on the turn they moved up suffering one damage). The enemy was not very keen to attack the MRT with range at all, and did so only when he had no other shots or movement left (he passed up a wait then fire round to move more mass up from the rear ranks on one turn). At this point I purposefully charged in with two MRT so that they were both adjacent too two knights each, took my attacks (killing one) and got the War Cry to get Iktaras the hell out of dodge! I wanted to keep him close to my remaining MRT (I had six left at this point) to continue to provide heavy hit support against the knights. My opponent was smart enough to keep Gilbert constantly out of his range though, which at least meant that he was not giving the KoW the +1 attack most of the time. After my repositioning there was five KOW left on the battle field.

A few more turns of MRT and KoW activations yield little in the way of damage (I lost one MRT, he one knight) but I took the opportunity in the combat lull (Iktaras was in no danger of a knight rush or a WTF attack) to move Brave Arrow up. His tracking ability really got him up into the lines quickly, and I chose to skirt around my weak side (away from the MRT and Iktaras) to threaten the 4th that had taken up position there (on a hill).

This play forced my opponent to shift two knights over to brave arrows side in order to offer a screen for the mass. This gave my front with Gilbert some reprieve, and allowed me to switch OM tactics for the next round of combat. I took my first turn with Iktaras, who moved two MRT up to be engaged with Gilbert and one of his adjacent KoW body guards, and got a third moved up to some local height from the back. After this deployment I moved Iktaras to a hex I had been eying for him, height on a KoW and within range of silver wing on Gilbert. The attack is a success and the KoW drops to the might of Aquilla's newest hero. The gambit pays off as my opponent takes a WTF turn with the fourth on Brave Arrow, who never takes a damage from the 4 attacks of 4 due to some great Concealment roles.

I win initiative (perhaps the most important one in the game) and it's on my MRT. Two are already engaged with a KoW and Gilbert so I get a third on some height and take a musket shot on a KoW guarding the 4th on brave arrows side... PAP drop him with a 3/3 attack! The last KoW on Gilbert side survives the first melee attack, but not the second and now Gilbert is unguarded and the KoW are down to a single figure. WAR CRY! Iktaras is on the same level, three spaces away (as planned) and he gets his silver wing attack doing a single damage to Sir G.

At this point the knights and Sir G are abandoned and all the OM's get stacked up on the mass. Rather than risk more chances at concealment the Mass move in to attack Iktaras who sustains two damage in the volley and is now on life support. The two MRT still engaged with Sir G are just left there, so more MRT from the back ranks move in to take some shots on the 4th while still getting to activate War Cry. I switched over to Brave Arrow at this point and he charged the front line of 4th mass, gutting one.

The next round of attacks are split between the two heroes with Iktaras some how surviving and brave arrow finally eating one wound from an adjacent attack. More MRT move to take some height and blow away the last KoW and another Mass. Then with the war cry BA moves in and guts another mass (good attack rolls from him really helped at this point in the game, the mass were in good position to rain some hurt down on my remaining MRT). At this point there is only one Mass left on the center hill with 4 more deploying for WTF opportunities, and the rout was on. Though I ended up loosing all but two MRT I managed to keep the mass off the hill (WTF is pretty effectively counted by Brave Arrow's big concealment) and put them down pretty effectively. The game ended with Sir G making a run at Iktaras but finally succumbing to the last two MRT's melee fury.

A great game that could have very easily gone the other way if not for a few key concealment's from both BA and the MRT, and one or two critical initiative rolls.

Game 2
Again a very standard 1v1 meta-scape. 400-point blind draft armies, 24 startzones, smallish map with limited height, death-match.

Army 1 - (Mine)

Iktaras - 120
Mittens - 120
Venoc Vipers x4 - 160
Total 400 / 18 start zones

The plan - This one plays much differently than my previous army. The idea here is to try out Iktaras in a first wave - assassination role. He loads up on OM's in the early rounds, charges the startzone and does as much damage as he can before falling. All the while he's getting the VV's out of the start zones and closer for the eventual frenzy rush. This is clearly a high variance build, dependent on Iktaras getting a good kill or two on his early rush and the VV's hitting some frenzies at the right time.

Army 2

Nikita Agrents - 120
G'Nators x2 - 180
KMA - 100
Total - 400 / 12 start zones

*A decidedly non-competitive build, but as it turns out a very strong counter to my own. I gave up some big props for having the balls to try running G'Nators!

The Battle

This one is not nearly so exciting a report...

The agents start out with the Nikita's getting the apes moving on either side of the map. I change out with Iktaras moving up a single squad of VV's.

The Nikita's get a round of shots on Iktaras (from below) scoring one damage. My VV's are in attack range (9 spaces!) of some G'Nators so I start moving up another squad from the back ranks. Iktaras charges at the one Nikita he can get height on and eats an engagement strike for his troubles, but kills the agent with his attack of 4.

I win initiative and again move up another squad of VV, then fly to the back ranks of my opponents start zone to make a rush at the KMA. Not in range yet, but one more turn and I can make an engagement with two of them. Unfortunately for me my opponent had his turn on the monkeys, and with their massive move they are able to double back off the main hill and gain height advantage on Iktaras... PAP! I can't defend the primate rage, and Iky is dropped.

It's all down hill from there. My VV's get a grand total of 3 Frenzys, and get blown away by the all-ranged agent core of my opponent. G'Nators tuff ends up saving them on a few occasions, and Mittens just can't get it done as my end game figure, with only one attack per turn (though he did make it intresting for a while).

A good game to be sure, and my battle plan was effective, but I faced a tough match-up and could not overcome my survivability problems against so many ranged squads.

Thoughts on Iktaras

A great fit for the MRT! The 450 point combo from game 1 was super fun to play. It offered many tactical decisions and really lends it's self to several different styles of play. While a powerful ability, Silverwing is balanced nicely by the fact that Iktaras cannot move in order to activate it, at it's three range means that clever opponents can simply stay away to avoid eating the hit. Ranged squads have little worry for it because they can simply stay outside it's limits and peck at him with attacks. The MRT are obviously the guys that benefit from him the most, because as a Tribesmen he can enjoy the free activations from War Cry, but this is itself balanced by the fact that War Cry can be very difficult to activate, particularly when facing ranged heavy opponents. The combo seems best suited to counter melee screens / bonding armies where Iktaras can deploy early and get the MRT moving, then switch over allowing the freshly moved MRT to take some pot shots at the charging melee opponents. Once they crash the line the MRT become a decent melee attacker and you start getting your free turns (hopefully) with Iktaras who can punish opponents that ventured into his Silverwing range in order to get some attacks on the MRT. This is particularly effective against bonding heroes, because it will often keep them off the front lines (like in the case of sir G in the first game) either denying their attacks or their auras (or both!). Its extremely effective but definitely requires a fair bit of forethought in terms of both deployment and OM management (It's not always obvious if you should take a turn with Iktaras for the one attack /movement bonding or if you should take a turn with the MRT and take your three activations with the chance at getting a turn with your hero-tribesmen).

Its also worth noting that this tandem is lacking in the survivability department. Iktaras is a flexible hero capable of assassination runs (with 6-move-SF) and heavy hits (with silverwing) but is still a 4L3D single attack hero. His synergies with scouts and hunters help him against squads to be sure (by allowing them to run screen for him), but out side of the MRT all other squads are going to require major foresight with OM's and deployment to get the most mileage out of them. The MRT themselves are not the most reliable defenders for a 3-man-70point-squad, and while melee defense and concealment are a nice help, a few bad rolls can drop a whole squad and/or Iktaras with little trouble. This drawback to the army (the sense that it's good against pretty much everything, but not great against anything either) is a good indication that the army is fairly balanced, and definitely capable of giving many different builds and strategies trouble (particularly when that concealment roll is hot!)

To touch a bit more on the assassination type role he can play...His ability to keep squads moving even while he charges the front lines is very effective in terms of early game deployment. The stealth flying allows him to circumvent enemy screens and silverwing can give him some big offensive pop once he reaches his targets. The major problem with this battle plan is his flimsy life/def score. It's not hard to drop him in just a few attacks and loosing OM's that early on can really hurt you. That's always the risk you take with the early rush I guess, that figure becomes an immediate threat that has to be dealt with, and while capable of doing some damage in his own right Iktaras just doesn't have the staying power to last very long when he's far from his support staff.

Thoughts on tweaks to the card
I think the current version of the card is pretty well balanced. In terms of game play, I found the limited range of silverwing was a big problem in activating it against key targets, and at times the bonus range is ignored and it's used essentially as a melee bonus (charge in on one turn for the melee attack, then not move on the next turn for the bonus damage). I'd suggest that for Silverwing to get more use that the attack bonus be dropped by one (to +1) while the range bonus get upped by 1 or 2 (to 4 or 5 range). This would allow Iktaras to be a bit more of a ranged threat, without getting to big of an attack.

This point is only if you consider wanting to activate the ability more often though, as it is I think the current form of the ability is equally as valid, it makes him scarier to melee figures that would need to charge into it's range to attack (particularly scary if they have to charge into a few MRT just to get a chance at hitting Iktaras). A higher attack boost (the current +2 over the proposed +1) also makes him a better assassin type figure, as the extra dice is more likely to get that big hit and critical kill. I'd keep him as is, but the change to silverwing makes sense to me too.

On the other side of his functionality, I like his role as the early first wave assassin. He can keep your scout/hunter squads moving whilst he hits the front lines to cause a much havoc as possible. While his stealth flying and high move are a good base for this (and silverwing gives him the pop he needs for that key attack) I think he's a little too fragile to depend on in this role. Upping his life or defense would go a long way to helping this (perhaps bumping him up to the magical 4D mark) but this would come at the cost of higher price. As it is now I think he's useful in this roll, but you have to accept the fact that he's not going to last long, so you need to take advantage of the deployment he affords your scouts / hunters. This can be particularly effective with the right support staff on the right map. But I question the worth of the tactic in many situations. Just tossing a 120 point hero out to do whatever damage he can never seems to be a very good plan unless you are getting some big deployment advantage in return.