Playing The Vark Faction

[S1R_ART0R1US]

Prompted by a post of @Typhon2222 , I decided to create this post around playing the Vark faction.

I am by no means an expert with them, but did utilize a Varks-based build to win the VC Monster Mash event at ScapeCon III. I think the Varks are best at higher point totals where the benefits of Wolf Pack are magnified (like the Elf wizards who love their extra bonding options and buffs). Below are my thoughts, but please share your's and any armies you like!

The Wolf Pack power is shared by the squad figures and is critical to the army's operation (and what makes them so fun to play!).

WOLF PACK
After revealing an Order Marker on the Varkaanan "Squad Name here" card, before taking that turn with the "Squad Name here", you may choose one other Unique Wolf Army Card you control and take a turn with it. You may not attack with more figures from the chosen Army Card than the number of destroyed Varkaanan "Squad Name here" on this card.

While the heroes tend to hit harder, if you don't include enough squads you'll be leaving some attack potential on the table. If you're down one figure, it makes sense to move and attack with a hero. Down two figures, board state plays a big role in what makes sense but another squad is likely, and if you have three figures down (ie 1 Swiftfang or Greyspear) hopefully you can activate the whole of another squad.

Brief Unit Overview:
Arktos - 5L/6M/6R/4A/3D - A key ranged hero and cheerleader.
Greyspears - 1Lx4/5M/4R/3A/3D - The ranged squad, fragile but powerful as a 4-man squad. Even more so when boosted to 4A or 6R by Arktos.
Quickblades - 1Lx3/5M/1R/3A/4D - Squad figures with a special attack and the ability to get over screens
Swiftfangs - 1Lx4/6M/1R/3A/3D - The core melee squad with an OM1 burst of +2M/+1A. Use with initiative switch to kill a key figure (Raelin, Talingul, Kurrok, Grimnak, etc) and as your early round OM hub.
Darkclaws - 1Lx3/6M/1R/4A/4D - The strongest squad, capable of 6 attacks per turn, and in my opinion best used in mid-game where there are enough figures to get double attacks in but enough space to maneuver.
Manauvi - 5L/5M/1R/5A/3D - Charging assault and battle frenzy make for a high-speed assassin role, but the highest Delta discount is here.
Bahadur - 5L/6M/1R/6A/4D - The final Vark hero when you must absolutely destroy a figure to make a hole.

Army Discussion

Standard Army- All Varks with limited range options.
Arktos
Varkaanan Darkclaws
Varkaanan Greyspears
Varkaanan Quickblades
Varkaanan Swiftfangs
505 Points, 15 Figures, 15 Hexes (555 Delta)
Settings: VC, Standard Points

S1R_A Monster Mash Build - Boost a solid ranged squad for endgame cleanup
Arktos
Eldgrim the Viking Champion
Varkaanan Greyspears
Varkaanan Quickblades
Varkaanan Swiftfangs
Vulcanmech Incendiborgs
595 Points, 16 Figures, 16 Hexes (685 Delta)
Settings: VC, Standard Points

MW Splash - A lower point total army using Marro Warriors as either an opener or endgame figure with 8 range for improved kiting
Arktos
Marro Warriors
Varkaanan Greyspears
Varkaanan Quickblades
Varkaanan Swiftfangs
435 Points, 16 Figures, 16 Hexes (550 Delta, whoof)
Settings: VC, Standard Points

Don't Worry About OMs - If you don't want to worry about the difficult OMs after R1 and want a solid endgame option, throw in Rygarn. I was destroyed by a similar army swapping in the Stag Lord C3V figure during the Public Playtesting tournament by MegaSilver.
Arktos
Rygarn
Varkaanan Darkclaws
Varkaanan Greyspears
Varkaanan Swiftfangs
495 Points, 13 Figures, 13 Hexes (550 Delta)
Settings: VC, Standard Points

All-Melee 1 - An all melee version for lower point totals featuring the best melee squads. Delta discount courtesy of Manauvi.
Bahadur
Manauvi
Varkaanan Darkclaws
Varkaanan Swiftfangs
430 Points, 9 Figures, 9 Hexes (390 Delta)
Settings: VC, Standard Points

All-Melee 2 - An all melee version for lower point totals featuring all the melee squads. Identical standard and delta points
Bahadur
Varkaanan Darkclaws
Varkaanan Quickblades
Varkaanan Swiftfangs
420 Points, 11 Figures, 11 Hexes
Settings: VC, Standard/Delta Points

Key Concepts:

Army Flexibility

The biggest perk of the Varks is being able to mix-and-match attack types within a turn while moving non-attacking figures. To this end, it's important to develop your figures like traditional melee, keeping them developed at the same rate as the main power name "Wolf Pack" implies. Each squad has its strong points, and selecting the right tool against your opponent is important. The mix will almost certainly change round by round as figures are lost.

A typical opening round is developing Greyspears and Arktos into a ranged pod, placing Swiftfangs in spots they can launch OM1 attacks in the next round, taking advantage of Shadow/height defense bonuses for Darkclaws, and launching the first volley from the Arktos boosted pod, raining down up to 4 attacks of 5 at range, or moving in Quickblades to both act as a partial screen (4D is best of the Varks) and to get early hits. Their special is nearly equivalent to 4A at typical squad defense levels. See the spoiler table for details:

Spoiler Alert!

WOUND CHANCE
Defense | Special | 4A (Height or Arktos) | 5A (Height and Arktos)
1 0.88 0.85 0.92
2 0.75 0.76 0.85
3 0.67 0.66 0.77
4 0.49 0.56 0.68
5 0.34 0.48 0.59
6 0.23 0.38 0.51
Average Damage
Defense | Special | 4A (Height or Arktos) | 5A (Height and Arktos)
1 1.50 1.69 2.18
2 1.38 1.4 1.87
3 1.17 1.15 1.59
4 0.78 0.93 1.33
5 0.52 0.75 1.11
6 0.35 0.59 0.91

Quickblades are also great to get onto road, as they can vault to threaten height that is usually not on road itself or get height attacks down onto road.

Arktos is an interesting figure because he provides a boost both while alive and after death. +2R is powerful, but you can only place it on the Greyspears in an all-Varks build. While you may initially develop him alongside Greyspears to beef the ranged pod, moving him up to support Swiftfangs in the second round is also a good move, especially against a ranged army. The aura will help your Greyspears to be able to match/beat range, and can also give you the development staying power of a hero on the frontline while his melee bonus helps to thin out ranged forces more quickly. A R1 Arktos wolf pack development move to the pod, plus a R2 Arktos move gives him a threat range of 18 (SZ to SZ on most modern maps).

Example of an opening round: OM1 on Swiftfangs (Wolf Pack Arktos), OM2 Greyspears (Wolf Pack Quickblades aka QBs/Darkclaws aka DCs), OM3 Greyspears (Wolf Pack Arktos if down a member to attack, otherwise develop DCs/QBs) or Quickblades (Wolf Pack a squad for development, ie Greyspears to height).

Order Marker Management

Generally, you want order markers to be on Greyspears or Swiftfangs, as these are the 4-man squads and give the highest turn efficiency. Maximizing turn efficiency is important for the Vark faction because they generally are able to hit hard, but the potential of losing order markers due to limited unique figures is a significant risk. Contrast this with a Raelin-backed Q9 or developing Heavies under Nerak and Grimnak defense boosts. In those cases you don't mind taking potshots because risk of a wound is low (Q9), or there's low kill chances with expendable figures (Heavies).

The most challenging part of playing the Varks is mid-game when your squad figures are thinned out and your opponent has the opportunity to steal order markers from you.

Imagine a board state where you have a 4 life Arktos, 2 Greyspears, 2 Swiftfangs, 1 Quickblade and 1 Darkclaw left. This is 244 standard points, just about half your army. If you had an army of 4th, you'd just go all OMs on the 4th, and an X on whatever support you have. Easy. But here, if you want to go OM2 and OM3 on Swiftfangs, a smart opponent will try to kill your two 3D figures to deprive you of 2/3 of your round. Even 2A versus 3D has a 0.333 probability, so even Lizard-king less Greenscales on average would kill the first on OM1, the second on OM2, then get free reign on OM3 and potentially have another turn if they get initiative on the next round. This scenario leads to the third main concept of running the Vark army.

Defensive Development

The flexibility offered by wolf pack should also be utilized to force your opponent to target certain figures when possible. If you have 1 Greyspear left, but they're your OM3, you need to either activate that Greyspear and get them to a safe place or activate another squad to engage/kill any potential threat to it Safe places would be on a glyph on the other side of the board (Ulaniva is great for this army), back behind glaciers/ruins, or for the more-risk tolerant, on height threatening a figure that your current OM can also attack if the Greyspear fails to kill it.

Additionally, you don't want to be left with 1 of each squad figure, in which case your turn efficiency tanks to two attacks per turn. In this case, running in your last SF/QB/DC to engage and attack is a good move. You'll have fewer places to put OMs in the next round, but you will be able to maintain a higher offensive output for longer.

At the end of each round, you need to position your figures for success in the following one. This means putting at least one Swiftfang out of reach of opposing figures for OM1 in case you lose initiative, getting Arktos, Quickblades or shadow-boosted Darkclaws into engagements that limit your opponent's ability to attack Greyspears/Fangs, and taking Dagmar or Wannok.

I also think an argument can be made that development dispersed laterally across the map is more beneficial, as it limits potential for your opponent to OM-hunt because not every army card is within range.

Game References
Great joecrazy production of Cleon/Cody vs. Pete at a MARS event. Cleon's a great player and does a good job of developing Varks at an even pace, leading with quickblades, trying to maximize attacks with darkclaws

In my matchup against Dysole at ScapeCon (her report is copied below) I was able to utilize an Arktos+height Greyspear pod (4 attacks of 5) to rapidly takeout her bonding constructs, then moved in Swiftfangs/Quickblades as they reached the pod and Greyspears fell. I followed the same approach against Gbizzy's Hydra x4, Ornak build, and MegaSilver's Vulcanmechs, Zeta, Axegrinders x2, Marutak army. Dysole had just beaten another Vark army, doing well to limit the Vark attacking options and moving into the start zone to accelerate the kill rate.

Spoiler Alert!

VC Monster Mash

It was simple. I wanted to run Constructs. Given that I expected Hounds, Dwarves, and Varks, GIE's engagement strike and Avernus's Wave of Flame all felt like good meta calls. Boreos would also be very helpful in a dwarf match. Lilja gave me a way to get multiple attacks. Final build was Talingul, Lilja, Boreos, GIE, Avernus

Round 1

Orculon (Arktos, Rygarn, Varkaanan Darkclaws, Varkaanan Greyspears, Varkaanan Quickblades, Varkaanan Swiftfangs) on Healing Waters

I knew I had to be careful not to get Talingul in trouble and so I set up GIE on the raised hexes in the middle of the map to deter movement there and Avernus up onto the hill while they moved up Varks. We got into a bit of a cluster mess around the bridges with me trading pretty well into the Varks. I also had Boreos go over and attack near their start zone to try and get more Vark kills. I wasn't so much interested in trying to kill order markers (because of Rygarn) as to reduce the power of each Swiftfangs and Quickblades for Avernus and Boreos. Lilja also did a lot of work cutting down Varks near the startzone. Orculon had set up a small pod of Greyspears and Darkclaws near the startzone but I kept whittling this pod down with Boreos and Lilja and a few hits from GIE. (I think a Darkclaw died to Ice Spikes) GIE managed to attack Rygarn before he could really start doing any range shenanigans and he failed both Temporal Jumps from 6 dice attacks.

W 5 life Talingul, 3 life Lilja, 1 life GIE
1-0

Round 2

S1R ART0R1US (Arktos, Eldgrim, Varkaanan Greyspears, Varkaanan Quickblades, Varkaanan Swiftfangs, Vulcanmech Incendiborgs) on April 9th

I felt decently good going into this matchup but he led with Greyspears and they managed to just annihilate Avernus and Lilja before I got to really kill much (Eldgrim and like a single Greyspear if I remember right, Eldgrim going on the VIs). Avernus whiffed with 5 dice on the first attack he took and Lilja basically got two shotted before she could engage anyone. GIE and Boreos did make it a game though with both of them killing a lot of Varks before they died. Unfortunately that also meant I had Talingul against the VIs with all their markers and he was just able to plop off one redundancy marker before dying. I think if Avernus and Lilja live a few turns longer, I should be able to reduce the Vark numbers enough that they have a hard time dealing with the remainder of my constructs and I probably remove enough redundancy markers that I can win the kite game with Talingul.

L 4 life Arktos, VIs with 2 redundancy markers
1-1

[ryguy266]

This is a great post with great information. I am surprised to see your proclivity toward the Swiftfangs. I've always thought of them as the weakest Vark squad. The other melee units have way better survivability and the Greyspears have the range to make up for it. I reached the OST S5 semifinals with Swiftfangs/Arktos/Greyspears/Bahadur (14 figure limit) and during the season I regretted not swapping out something else in my list to make room for Quickblades or Darkclaws. In their defense, I did have to drop a Swiftfang to meet the figure limit, which certainly hurt them overall.

While they technically allow you the most potential activations of the other squads, in practice they afford less. If you have OMs on Swiftfangs and you send all 4 into melee combat, you are risking losing OMs as your activations of the other squads rise. So, while you are getting 3 attacks from a separate squad, to keep the Swiftfang safe to avoid losing OMs you may need to keep it back, thus losing an attack by choice. The other three-figure squads higher survivability, and while their figure count is lower, the extra defense makes an OM much more secure. 3 figures is also plenty to tie down a board. Not to mention that both Quickblades and Darkclaws have the same attack power as First Strike-Boosted Swiftfangs, and in some cases with the Quickblades, as much development. I've also found that a turn 1 in game 1 on Swiftfangs finds the player not able to use First Strike movement to the fullest extent, as a full 8 movement can be in range of a turn 1 attack from most ranged squads. With their lower defense and larger sculpts, it's difficult to hide them until round 2 when First Strike kicks in again. Often you'll be missing a figure or two, and while they can retaliate, it's a lot of investment just for them to get mowed down.

This is a well-written article, would be interested to hear your thoughts. I think the Varks have a decent place in the meta, but I like them in pod drafts or as Greyspears+Arktos splash, rather than in blind bring 1s (outside of large/huge formats where they dominate).

[S1R_ART0R1US]

Thanks for commenting!

I do think the Swiftfangs are the weakest Vark squad on account of their defense, but have value in being a 4-member squad and in having the lowest per figure cost that makes them easier to throw into melee for tying down threatening figures. I generally would only put OM1 and OMX on them (maybe OM2 in some cases), preferring the bulk of OMs on Greyspears early on (maybe just rounds 1 and 2) transitioning to the QBs and DCs as they fall. Without First Strike, I agree that QBs and DCs are superior, and don't think it's problematic to play the army without Swiftfangs. That's one of the great things about this faction, you can build a Vark army lots of ways - Cleon's game I referenced above has neither of the 4-man squads nor Arktos.

I haven't thought as much about them in the meta, but definitely large/huge formats are great for them. The Greyspears+Arktos splash/pod is great, especially since his +2R spirit can be quite useful with a range of other figures suitable for pods (like a Guilty/Dreadgul pod) and the Hunter synergy touches on some other solid pod options (Marrden Hounds, Drudge, Death Chasers). I think they could also be good in the formats where point total each round changes from your overall draft pool based on a die roll as you can swap in/out Vark elements to meet points.
ie for 390+10*d6 roll and 640 point pool you can build:
400: Manauvi, GS, QB, SF
410: DC, GS, QB, SF
420: Manauvi, DC, GS, SF
430: Bahadur, DC, GS, SF
440: Manauvi, DC, QB, SF
450: Bahadur, DC, QB, SF