Unit Strategy Review: How to use Nerak, Glacian Swog Rider

[Taeblewalker]

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Unit Strategy Review
Unit: Nerak the Glacian Swog Rider
Author: Taeblewalker (with thanks to my sewing circle)

Nerak. The first GenCon exclusive. The wonderful tease that told us that snow terrain was coming. The first official repaint. Nerak.

In spite of not his being a beast, Nerak the Glacian Swog Rider has charmed his way into the hearts of Orc lovers everywhere. And yet, despite his champion class, this unique hero doesn’t always see as much use as he should. Why should this be? Perhaps his Snow Strength power, so strongly reinforced by his color scheme, tells players at a glance that you shouldn’t draft him without snow on your map. On wintry maps, players considering drafting him may opt out at the last minute because they feel his Orc allies are poor units for ice and snow terrain.

We will see that Nerak – snow, ice, or otherwise – can enhance any Orc army to new heights that will leave you wanting to use him again.

We will begin with his stats.

Vital Statistics
Cost – 50 – Knight Class
Size – Large 6 – Visible
Life – 3 – Low
Move – 8 – Very Fast
Range – 1 – Melee
Attack – 3 – Average
Defense – 3 – Below Average
Disengage – Nerak is never attacked when leaving an engagement.
Orc Defensive Aura 1 – All Orc figures you control within 4 clear sight spaces of Nerak receive on extra defense die.
Snow Strength – Add 1 to Nerak’s attack and defense while Nerak is on a snow space.

In-Depth Analysis

We shall now look carefully at Nerak’s the Glacian Swog Rider’s statistics, and draw strategies from our conclusions. Let us start with cost. Below is an explanation of Agatagary's cost classification:

Pawn class (expendable, units that can be useful, but are not worth enormous trouble to protect)
Bishop class (more useful than a pawn, but still somewhat expendable)
Knight class (units that are interestingly powerful and can have a significant impact on the game in of themselves. It is advisable that they be kept alive, but if absolutely necessary they may be sacrificed)
Rook class (units that almost inevitably have a significant impact on the game, and whose death should be avoided as much as possible)
Queen class (devastatingly powerful or important units that should be protected at all costs)

Class
Nerak the Glacian Swog Rider is a Knight class unit. He can be lost without too many tears shed; after all, he is only 50 points. However, he can change a battle drastrically by improving the Defense of other Orc units significantly, especially those units that have only a Defense of 1 or 2 to begin with. His ability to bond with Blade Gruts and Heavy Gruts, plus his ability to keep pace with Move 8, all elevate him from Bishop to Knight.

To examine Nerak’s core stats, we will break them up into two categories—offensive ability and survivability.

Offense:
With an Attack of 3, Nerak’s offense is average. His height of 6 and Move of 8, however, improve that somewhat, as will be able to reach opponents both higher and farther away than most melee units would. In fact, with a threat range of 9, the only real impediments to his offense are extreme height such as castle walls and uneven terrain that makes double-space movement so difficult. Even that is balanced by a double-space figure’s ability to cross single-space water more quickly.

Survivability:
Nerak’s survivability on his own is below average. This is mitigated somewhat by his low point cost, and by the immunities he enjoys due to his large size. His Disengage ability, however, really improves his chances of living to fight another round. As we will see, this is key to his success as a Knight unit, as both his mobility and his ability to enhance Orcs around him are what allow him to fill that role splendidly.

Being a Large size figure, Nerak is immune to certain attacks and conditions like Chomp, Lethal Sting, Maul, Poisonous Acid Breath, Throw 14, Trample Stomp, and Ullar Enhanced Rifle Special Attack.

Strategy:
Nerak’s real strength comes from the strength he lends to others. Like the regular Swog Riders, he can inspire his allies to greatness. However, never discount his own abilities! We will first consider him in his primary role as leader of your Orc hordes, but we will not neglect to explore what he can accomplish on his own.

Nerak enhances the Arrow Gruts, the Blade Gruts, the Heavy Gruts, Grimnak, Tornak, and the Swog Rider. Grimnak’s Defense goes from average to good and Tornak’s goes from good to excellent. The Swog Rider gains average Defense as well, as do the Heavy Gruts. With the low Defense of both the Arrow Gruts and the Blade Gruts, they improve immensely from one more defense die.

Improving their survivability is one thing; making a battlefield configuration that works with them is another. Fortunately, you will easily be able to keep Nerak close to your forces.

Let us say you want to build an Arrow Grut army where Nerak is there primarily to enhance the Arrow Gruts' and Swog Rider's Defense. If he is keeping up with the Arrow Gruts and Swog Riders, the occasional order marker on him with his Move of 8 will allow him to stay within 4 clear sight spaces while your army moves. The Arrow Gruts only have a Move of 6, so the Swog Riders themselves will probably not use their full Movement and get too far ahead for fear of abandoning adjacency with the Arrow Gruts. This means that you will have to place one order marker on Nerak for every two or three on the Arrow Gruts; fewer if you manage to advance to a strong position and hold the line.

Even if you choose to follow some of the excellent advice in the Swog Rider Strategy Guide and send your Swogs ahead to take bites out of the enemy, you might be able to position Nerak midway between your Arrow Gruts squads and the enemy your Swog Rider engages. If you cannot do that, fear not, for the tactics that send your Swog Rider ahead to rip into enemy units work just fine without Nerak’s enhancement!

A squad of Blade Gruts or Heavy Gruts walking in the shadow of Grimnak won’t get too far ahead of you either, and you needn’t place an order marker on Nerak’s card – use Orc Champion Bonding, and keep the Gruts moving. They will have to wait slightly longer for their leaders to catch up when you move Grimnak twice and Nerak once for every three order markers on the Gruts, but this can be an opportunity. When you are on the warpath with an Orc army and headed toward a specific goal, ranged units sometimes snipe from the sides. “Soak off” a few of your Gruts to climb up and engage them, especially dangerous units like Dead-eye Dan and Syvarris. As your entourage slows down for terrain or gets caught engaging enemy shooters, bring up any extra squads of Blade Gruts or Heavy Gruts you have waiting in your start zone.

Tornak moves faster, but don’t be afraid to send him on ahead. His survivability is high enough that you will be able to send Tornak into your opponent’s forces while he waits for Nerak to bring up the rear. As you move Nerak into place, don’t fear that you have wasted an order marker that could have activated Tornak. After all, part of Tornak’s presence is his Orc Warrior Enhancement, and right after you take your turn with Nerak, you will move your Orc warriors into place next to Tornak and attack your enemy with them.

When you do decide to move Nerak up with either his own order marker or with Orc Champion Bonding, remember that he is not a walking glyph! Your opponent may expect you to simply move Nerak up perfunctorily to ensure that he continues to confer his Orc Defense Aura.
His Attack of 3 is high enough that you can use Nerak himself to harass your opponents. Make his glacian swog mount bite your enemy’s flank. Don’t fear placing him in engagement, as his Disengage ability allows him to ride away unscathed. As a bonus, if he is on snow terrain, his Attack of 4 makes him a more dangerous unit.

If you are playing on a wintry map, remember that with the exception of Grimnak and Heavy Gruts, all of the Orcs in Heroscape have above average move. Most snow areas are fairly small, which means that you won’t have to slog through heavy snow and tip-toe over slippery ice for long. Bonding further mitigates the slow movement blues that snow and ice can present. As an added benefit, you can utilize Snow Strength on such a map.

We have seen how order marker placement can keep Nerak effective with an Orc army on the move. What about when the horde reaches its goal, or if you are defending a position? Your flexibility with Nerak becomes even greater. With Orc Champion Bonding, you can use him to take surprise swipes at your enemy, who may expect you to field Grimnak or Tornak on that turn. He gives you 150% as many options with Bonding than if you only had Grimnak and Tornak. This can throw your enemy off balance if you play it correctly. Nerak will be able to reach some targets the other Orc Champions cannot, due to his higher Move and his different positioning on the battlefield. Your opponent may fear your activation of Grimnak or Tornak so much that he does not place order markers to guard against Nerak.

An Arrow Grut + Swog Rider + Nerak combo does not let you pull a change tactics on the fly, but if you have only one order marker on Nerak, your opponent may well assume it is your X, which gives you some power of unpredictability.

So how do we make Nerak useful on his own? Even if you use him in a non-Orc army, you have a Swog Rider with a Life of 3, for only the cost of two Swog Riders. Sometimes you need the Attack of 3, and the Marro Warriors just won't cut it. On snow, even Me-Burq-Sa is poorer choice. Like the Swog Riders, his Move of 8 lets him rush in and make an attack, then pull back with Disengage and choose another taret. On snow he easily earns his place for the point value. Crossing the threshold of an Attack of 3 to an Attack of 4 makes him dangerous even to higher Defense units. On snow, Nerak is the perfect Dzu-Teh hunter; he has more Life and more Defense, with exactly the same Attack. His Move of 8 means that his is only one point slower than the Dzu-Teh – combine this with the fact that he is a melee unit and can therefore ignore Glacial Camouflage.

And all this for a measly 50 points!

Optional Strategies

Triage
You might find that even with the strategies above, Nerak does not last as long as you would like. Rememer that Orc units are fairly cheap – you can have two Swog Riders, two Arrow Grut squads, Tornak, Nerak, and two Heavy Grut squads for only 420 points. Adding Kelda the Kyrie Warrior to your army for only 80 points won’t likely break your bank.

Pack Leader
When you send the Dzu-Teh out to tackle foes that intrude on your wintry terrain Dzu-Teh Strategy Guide, throw Nerak into the mix. His Attack will be equal to theirs, but his Defense will be higher. His Move will also be almost equal on heavy snow, and vastly superior on normal snow. By mixing him in with them, your opponent will never know whether to try to tie up your Dzu-Teh with swarming units to keep them occupied or whether Nerak, with an order marker sitting on him, is the real threat. For only 50 points, you force your opponent to second-guess who his greatest threat is. This is especially true if your opponent has the Fyorlag Spider or Dund.

Units to Avoid:
Cyprien Eisenwein This vampire could drain Nerak on a lucky roll of 18 (16 with Sonya). You won’t be able to get away from him and he gets another attack even if Chill Touch fails. Plus, on a 13 (11) or higher, he takes away at least one of your few Life points.

Omnicron Snipers When these guys are on height, they pose a serious threat due to their receiving three Attacks of effectively 4 or even 6 at once. Stay out of their range, or rush up to take them out in person.

Minions of Utgar Unlike the Zettian Guards, who pose only a moderate threat to Nerak, this high Defense unit packs three Attacks of effectively 4 or even 6 with higher ground. You can’t take them out easily, and they can clobber you quite good. Your best defense against them is your speed.

Continuously Attacking Units Deathwalker 8000 and Sir Hawthorne are two units that can keep right on shooting or hacking away at the same target, and their Attacks of 3 are effective against Nerak’s Defense of 3. If Nerak is on snow, it helps. However, given Sir Hawthorne’s Life of 6, you probably don’t want to have to deal with him for long, even on snow. Laglor is the least threatening of these units as the only way he can attack again is if he rolls low enough to probably not wound Nerak in the first place.

For additional information see the Book of Nerak the Glacian Swog Rider

[Taeblewalker]

The "r" at the end of "Rider" wouldn't fit, so I took "the" out of the title and replaced it with a comma.

[Zombie Hoard]

Cool!
Some Promo figures!

[jcb231]

I think the reason this guy doesn't see more use is simply that he's a rarity. If everybody had easy access to him I bet he'd see a lot more play. He's a great addition to Orc armies, or as you point out, pretty good on his own too.

[Jexik]

Originally Posted by jcb231

I think the reason this guy doesn't see more use is simply that he's a rarity. If everybody had easy access to him I bet he'd see a lot more play. He's a great addition to Orc armies, or as you point out, pretty good on his own too.

I agree. This is the promo figure that I'd like to find most. I like him because he works a bit differently than the other Orc Champions, and is much cheaper in points. That's the reason I like Arrow Grut armies: Swog Riders, Mimring, and Krug all do completely different things for your army. Nerak helps make the melee ones more like that, and he even buffs the defense of any Arrow Gruts you might have.

[ArcturusII]

I just took a white oil pastel crayon and colored over one of my Swog Riders, printed up the card on some card stock, and Nerak was good to go!

[killercactus]

An army I'd like to give a shot:

Grimnak - 120
Nerak - 50
Heavy Gruts x2 - 140
Raelin - 80
Airborne Elite - 110

Total = 500

This army gives the Grimnak and the Gruts a possibility of 7 defense - that's formidable. Order Markers arent much of an issue - just give Raelin one once in a while so she keeps up, and move Nerak instead of Grimnak once to keep the Orcs within his range. If you can get Chompy and his Gruts within both auras, you're talking about 5 attacks plus Chomp per activation from figures with 7 defense..... yikes.

[C.R.U.D]

(my first post) very nice article table walker!

[Taeblewalker]

Originally Posted by C.R.U.D

(my first post) very nice article table walker!

Thank you! I am honored to receive your first post. Welcome to the boards!

[Browncoat]

Being an orc fan, Nerak was a must have for me. I made it a point to locate one on eBay as soon as possible. He's a great figure to have, and I use him probably 90% of the time I field an orc army. A figure that is great to use with Nerak is Ornak, the flag bearer. The one downfall of Nerak is his non-beast status, but with Ornak, you can still use a free turn with him if needed.

Due to his 8 movement, I like to use Nerak as a "middleman". I keep him between my ranged and melee units so that he may freely move to support whichever unit needs it the most. Generally, he spends most of his time supporting the Arrow Gruts in lieu of another Swog Rider. But if my typical unit of Grimnak/Heavies comes under heavy fire, he can easily disengage and run to aid.

[Taeblewalker]

Originally Posted by Browncoat

Being an orc fan, Nerak was a must have for me. I made it a point to locate one on eBay as soon as possible. He's a great figure to have, and I use him probably 90% of the time I field an orc army. A figure that is great to use with Nerak is Ornak, the flag bearer. The one downfall of Nerak is his non-beast status, but with Ornak, you can still use a free turn with him if needed.

Remember that he is a Champion and thus bonds with Blade Gruts and Heavy Gruts.

Due to his 8 movement, I like to use Nerak as a "middleman". I keep him between my ranged and melee units so that he may freely move to support whichever unit needs it the most. Generally, he spends most of his time supporting the Arrow Gruts in lieu of another Swog Rider. But if my typical unit of Grimnak/Heavies comes under heavy fire, he can easily disengage and run to aid.

Since the Arrow Gruts' range is 6, you could easily station Nerak between the front line of melee Gruts and the rear line of Arrow Gruts and have them all within his 4 clear sight spaces, all at the same time.

[jcb231]

It would have been great if Nerak was a beast AND a champion. He's still good as is and I use him frequently, but I'd have paid a big point increase to have him be two classes.