OK its time for my review of
Blood Raptor by krysto2002.
The Blood Raptor has decent stats, uses a widely available figure from D&D Dangerous Delves and has some thematic elements. But the unit lacks some punch.
Blood frenzy, is nice against Heroes, who have a few wounds on them. In one game a Blood raptor rolled 7 skulls (it had height) against Q9, after Q had been hurt by Drake SoTM and which was cool, but in most games this power did not helps this unit, because in most games it was hard to keep the Raptors close enough to activate the second power.
The Second Power is Pack Hunting, and this is where I think the Blood raptor falls short. It is just difficult to pull off. Let me explain. Pack Hunting says that after attacking with a Blood Raptor, you can move up to 2 more Raptors, if they end their movement engaged to the attacked figure. And that’s the problem with this power, for without some sort of bonding to be able to move more than one Raptor at a time, you have to spend your OM’s to move them one turn at a time. Unless your opponent gets his wounded hero close to your start zone, this ability doesn’t do much. You can’t attack after you engage, so it does is lock down the Hero with more Raptors. Then you have to spend another wound marker to attack with one raptor again. I found this mechanic boring.
The only time I had some fun with them was a scenario I created where a group of Heroes was trekking through a jungle that was invested with Raptors, that were hiding in the bush. It was basically a re-creation of raptor scenes in
Jurassic Park. It was fun, but one time is not enough to make me like this unit.
You see, the Wyrmling ability to form a two dragonette squad make them so much better for this price. Unless the Raptors can “gang up” they just cannot compete against the Wrymlings.
I think that this unit would make a cool 3-figure Unique Squad or you could change Pack Hunting to take a turn with up to two more Raptors you control…then this unit may have some flair. But as written, I just did not have much fun playing them, and they frustrated me when I kept wasting OM’s to move them into position, just giving my opponent time to close up on me.
So I have to vote
NO to induct Blood Raptor into the SoV.