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The Book of Charos

dnutt99

Well-known member
The Book of Charos
Orm's Return - Heroes of Laur

CWTmKAR.jpg
Spoiler Alert!
If you cannot see the Army Card graphic, check Hasbro's Unit Page for stats and special powers, plus "character biography" and other non-game unit info.

Character Bio: Dragons should never be underestimated, and those who do so usually don¹t live long enough to regret it. This sentimentis doubly true of Charos. Approaching him is dangerous, and one should think twice before attacking him. His great wings can buffet any attack and counter it, striking the unsuspecting assailant. Of course General Ullar knows the value of Dragons; that nothing is quite as terrifying as a huge armor plated flying monster. Charos, however, is not all brawn and no brains. He is as valiant as he is intelligent, and a king in his own right. (Hasbro)

COUNTER STRIKE
When rolling defense dice against a normal attack from an adjacent figure, all excess shields count as unblockable hits on the attacking figure.

FLYING
When counting spaces for Charos's movement, ignore elevation. Charos may fly over water without stopping. Charos may pass over figures without becoming engaged. Charos may fly over obstacles such as ruins. When Charos starts to fly, if he is engaged he will take any leaving engagement attacks.
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-Rulings and Clarifications-
- COUNTERSTRIKE : Counterstrike Against Samurai
Does Charos' Counterstrike work against Samurai?
Yes it works against everyone. No one is safe from Charos. (Hasbro FAQ)
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-Combinations and Synergies-

Synergy Benefits Received
- ACOLARH : Ullar's Amulet
As a unit that follows Ullar, Charos may benefit from Acolarh's ULLAR'S AMULET movement bonus.

-GREENSCALE WARRIORS: Lizard King Bonding
As a Unique Huge Dragon Hero, Charos may benefit from the Greenscale Warrior's LIZARD KING BONDING activiation bonus.
Synergy Benefits Offered
- 4th MASSACHUSETTS LINE : Valiant Army Defense Bonus
Having a Valiant personality, Charos may aid the 4th Massachusetts Line with their VALIANT ARMY DEFENSE BONUS
*NOTE: See The Book of 4th Massachusetts Line for proper application.
C3V and SoV Custom Synergies
Spoiler Alert!
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-Strategy, Tactics and Tips-

Strategy Notes:
- If your opponent doesn't like the Izumi Samurai, just wait till their faces drop when you bring out Charos. At 210 points, drafting him takes a chunk out of your army, but he fills the void well. His attack of 5 allows him to mow through squad figures and his defense of 5 with Counter Strike makes him just as deadly as the Samurai. However, with his ability to take 9 wounds before he falls, he is a force to be reckoned with on any board! Charos can be used in almost any situation; however, he is best used on the front lines. Don't be afraid to throw him out there, he can hold his own in any fight. Here's another tactic that can be used with Charos. Try to take out all your opponent's figures with range first. Don't use Charos to do this, use the other figures you have drafted. Charos is most deadly when he is facing non-ranged characters. (Hasbro FAQ)
Who else could I draft with Charos?
- 4th Massachusetts Line
Once Charos becomes engaged to any number of figures, they will be stuck adjacent to him for a bit. To support Charos, make sure you have plenty of ranged figures. The 4th Massachusetts Line is perfect for this task because of their Wait Then Fire ability. The longer Charos can stand engaged against an attacking army; the longer the 4th Massachusetts Line can add that extra attack die. Charos, being valiant, can also help the 4th Massachusetts Line's defense. (Hasbro FAQ)

- Kelda the Kyrie Warrior
Absolutely nothing will irritate your opponents more than when they get Charos up to 7 or 8 wounds and Kelda flies over and can completely heal him. They are almost unstoppable together as long as you can keep Kelda safe while Charos takes the bulk of the attack. This plan will probably only work once though. Your opponents will start to target Kelda as soon as they figure out what your plan is. (Hasbro FAQ)
Who does Charos work well against?
- Melee Figures
Any figures with a range of 1 that must get adjacent to attack another figure is subject to his Counter Strike ability. At some point, your opponents will have to fight Charos while engaged. He will ultimately be their undoing. (Hasbro FAQ)

- Minions of Utgar
Charos eats Minions for breakfast. He can withstand enough of their deadly strike hits and will eventually land his killing blows either with Counter Strike, or with his base attack of 5. (Hasbro FAQ)
_________________________________________________________________
-Heroscapers Community Contributions-

Power Rankings

Jexik: Charos- The release of the Raknar's Vision dragons bumped down Charos’ worth. Still a viable option, Charos can excel in the right situation. B+

OEAO: B+

Cleon: Tier 7 (56/208)

dok (VC inclusive): B+

Master Index
TBA

Unit Strategy Review
 
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Charos is sturdy and mobile, and a great answer to that timeless question, “what do I do about Q9?” Take maximum advantage of Counterstrike by engaging quickly, bludgeoning your opponent’s heavy hitters with 210 pts of wings and teeth. Supported with Raelin, Charos rolls SEVEN dice for Counterstrike. That’s right. Seven. :mrgreen:

While your opponent deals with having this terror in his midst, you bring up your ranged support. Counterstrike means Charos doesn't need order markers on him to earn his keep, but help him out by focusing your fire on any opposing ranged troops.

(If you're going against Charos, you obviously want to try to whittle him down from a distance. Tie him up with squad members and turn all your ranged attacks on him.)

That's my :2cents:. Cheers!
 
Charos is definately a figure you don't want to take lightly on the battlefield. He is a straight up beast!!!! :twisted: Even though he is 210 points and is almost half of the standard 500 point army, he is well worth it. Counterstrike allows him to wound/kill figures without having to put any order markers on him. If you draft Eldgrim and put him on Charos, you have 6 move flying beast that can reach you from almost anywhere! With his attack of 5, he will be able to wound a figure or kill them every time you put an order marker on him(unless they have a much higher defense or if you whiff)

*Note to self* Draft Charos more often :twisted:
 
I agree, I think Charos is one Hell of a monster when you see him on the field, but, then again, for all those points? I guess 9 life is reason enough, but then you get counterstrike too! Still, though, I don't think the ends justify the means for me...

Well...then again... Thinking about it, this guy can pretty much run over anything you throw at him. I think the only people who CAN beat him are range fighters, but, really, the only range fighter that MIGHT be able to hurt him is Q9...And Q9 has a nasty little habit of not being very mobile, while Charos is quite the opposite. Even if you were to drop the Deathwalker 7000's 20 roll, you wouldn't kill this guy.

Those points, though...I dunno, I'd prefer the samurai if you were getting Charos for his counterstrike ability. It sure is alot for a counterstriking flier, and in most armies, he doesn't leave alot of room for anything else. I was originally going to say that the answer to him was Su-Bak-Na, but, I really began to realize that, even if you're swinging that much damage, you're not going to get to him most of the time. He's a tough beat, ol' Charos.
 
The times that I have played against Charos, I have faired very well.

I have used my legionaiers and Marcus to surround him then brought up the Roman archers to volley against him. Raelin was mine (and usually is) so he had no back up. 6 dice versus 5 is pretty good odds you'll hit, then I was getting swings in with Marcus and the legionaires. I think that in a turn and a hlaf I had him beat down. When I have used him, he served his purpose, before I acquired Jotun, he was my Deathwalker slayer. In one game though, he was brought down sooner than I would have liked by Utgar's minions who were on a little higher ground.

He is worth the points if you're lucky and know how to get hiim in there to wreak havoc.
 
One of my favorite aspects of Charos is that his high life allows you to leave an engagement while shrugging off the free strikes. This plus his flight makes him ideal for hunting down the heart of the enemy. If my opponent has Raelin I go eat her first then whoever is close by.

Partnered with Kelda you can do the disengage romp all over the map then fly her in when he is low to pump him back up to full. He is one of the few figures that can stand there taking it a couple turns while you are able to move Kelda into place to be of use.
 
TheRealQ said:
One of my favorite aspects of Charos is that his high life allows you to leave an engagement while shrugging off the free strikes. This plus his flight makes him ideal for hunting down the heart of the enemy. If my opponent has Raelin I go eat her first then whoever is close by.

Partnered with Kelda you can do the disengage romp all over the map then fly her in when he is low to pump him back up to full. He is one of the few figures that can stand there taking it a couple turns while you are able to move Kelda into place to be of use.

Which is why the Knights of Weston are an ideal means to hold Charos in place. While 1 undefended attack die is easy to ignore, it's not so easy to flee from a possible 8 undefended skulls.
 
Charos is also a good figure for kids (7-11). It's always easier for them to play a big and robust dragon then many figures with plenty of special abilities to remember.


Aranas
 
Eclipse said:
TheRealQ said:
One of my favorite aspects of Charos is that his high life allows you to leave an engagement while shrugging off the free strikes. This plus his flight makes him ideal for hunting down the heart of the enemy. If my opponent has Raelin I go eat her first then whoever is close by.

Partnered with Kelda you can do the disengage romp all over the map then fly her in when he is low to pump him back up to full. He is one of the few figures that can stand there taking it a couple turns while you are able to move Kelda into place to be of use.

Which is why the Knights of Weston are an ideal means to hold Charos in place. While 1 undefended attack die is easy to ignore, it's not so easy to flee from a possible 8 undefended skulls.

The KoW are a good counter but not quite as capable as you might suspect. In the last Dallas Tournament my son played Charos and mercilessly ate two squads of knights although they did hold him down long enough for reenforcements to appear. Unfortunately, Kelda wasn't in play or Charos could have continued his meal with the Sentinels and 4th Mass who finally took him down.
 
TheRealQ said:
Eclipse said:
Which is why the Knights of Weston are an ideal means to hold Charos in place. While 1 undefended attack die is easy to ignore, it's not so easy to flee from a possible 8 undefended skulls.

The KoW are a good counter but not quite as capable as you might suspect. In the last Dallas Tournament my son played Charos and mercilessly ate two squads of knights although they did hold him down long enough for reenforcements to appear. Unfortunately, Kelda wasn't in play or Charos could have continued his meal with the Sentinels and 4th Mass who finally took him down.

It takes a minimum of 8 turns for Charos to go through 2 squads of Knights . What in the world was your sons opponent trying to take him down with that couldn't inflict enough wounds in 8 turns to take him out?
 
Eight turns...Does that include Counterstrike? Nothing like being able to attack during your turn and deal damage on your opponent's turn too. TECHNICALLY, it could take only ONE turn after Charos becomes engaged to eat a squad of knights.

Adam
 
Eclipse said:
TheRealQ said:
Eclipse said:
Which is why the Knights of Weston are an ideal means to hold Charos in place. While 1 undefended attack die is easy to ignore, it's not so easy to flee from a possible 8 undefended skulls.

The KoW are a good counter but not quite as capable as you might suspect. In the last Dallas Tournament my son played Charos and mercilessly ate two squads of knights although they did hold him down long enough for reenforcements to appear. Unfortunately, Kelda wasn't in play or Charos could have continued his meal with the Sentinels and 4th Mass who finally took him down.

It takes a minimum of 8 turns for Charos to go through 2 squads of Knights . What in the world was your sons opponent trying to take him down with that couldn't inflict enough wounds in 8 turns to take him out?

This a team tournament and Charos wasn't the only thing the opponents had to be concerned with. I had Q9 who drew quite a bit of attention. The opponent had a bunch of 4th Mass. , Sentinels, KoW, and Concan. I can't remember what else they had if there was anything else. If you want confirmation ask RevDyer as he and his partner were our opponents. They did end up winning but Charos had his day...and knights. :p
 
MKSentinel said:
Eight turns...Does that include Counterstrike? Nothing like being able to attack during your turn and deal damage on your opponent's turn too. TECHNICALLY, it could take only ONE turn after Charos becomes engaged to eat a squad of knights.

Adam

If you're using the Knights to tie up Charos, you're out of your mind to attack him directly. The Knights need to hold him in place so OTHER units can attack him without fearing his terrible Counterstrike. The Knights aren't supposed to try and damage him, merely stop his ability to damage your own troops until you can take him down. It works very similar to playing the Glad/Blast combo, except without the Homing attack bonus and the simple fact the Gladiatrons can't Cyberclaw Charos.

This a team tournament and Charos wasn't the only thing the opponents had to be concerned with. I had Q9 who drew quite a bit of attention. The opponent had a bunch of 4th Mass. , Sentinels, KoW, and Concan. I can't remember what else they had if there was anything else. If you want confirmation ask RevDyer as he and his partner were our opponents. They did end up winning but Charos had his day...and knights.

Well, a team tournament is a very different situation. It sounds like the Knights did their job quite well. They don't Counter Charos, simply stop him. For 70-140 points you can take Charos out of the game for quite a while, which is often all you need to win considering how much of your opponent's army has to be dedicated to Charos to field him.

On that note, a great thing to have alongside Charos is DW9K or one of the shotgun boys. If your opponent tries to swarm Charos to keep him down, you can do a LOT of damage by targetting your own Dragon with an AoE attack. Charos certainly has the life/defense to take it, but most swarm troops sure don't :D
 
Anyone else look at Charos and think that he was designed with a cat in mind?

He's the only Hero so far to have 9 lives.
As the only non-samurai with counterstrike, this speaks to some pretty high reflexes for a creature of his size.
Unlike the other Dragons which are remarkably offense-oriented, Charos has a habit of playing with his food before he squishes it with his capable claws.
 
I've always seemed to had great luck with Charos. He seems to be one of my favorite ways of taking out an army of Zombies. His fairly good defense + counter strike kill very quickly. Also, since he is hard to kill when attacking with low attack figures, he has enough life to take out at least 12 Zombies (at least I've done it before) .
 
This guy is a beast at my weekly free for all game.

But as much as I would like to, I can't seem to build a 520 point army around him to take him to my first tournament.

I just see so many other uses for the points and am worried about special attacks and such.

Not sure who made the comment earlier, but I do agree that Charos can be a great beginning hero for younger players. No special abilities, just pure muscle....

And as you can see from my avatar, Charos does really well with kids
 
Charos is good, just not the best. If you want to use a fun army, I suggest this:

4th Mass x4 280
Eldgrim 30
Charos 210
Total 520/19

Lead with Eldgrim/4th Mass, and put the spirit on Charos; a very simple army that works well.
 
I found out in a recent game that an attack of 4 should be pretty sufficient to bypass a counterstrike, because more than 2 shields is hard to get on 5 defense dice.

Brave Arrow and Mohicans need not fear, as they can run up close or shoot from far away, once BA is with them they have 2 possibilities to bypass the CS. in fact, Charos went down in 3 active rounds, pretty good considering his 9 health
 
How many Greenscales are people using with the Greenroller?
Matching GSWs to their dragon is tricky, because you want enough GSWs to last, but not so many that you're stuck with a bunch of lousy 2/3 figures after your king dies.

With the other dragons, I think you want no more than three squads, and just two squads might actually be the sweet spot for some of them. For Charos, given how tough he is, I think you want three squads minimum, and possibly four.

In some sense, the goal is to make your opponent unsure whether they should go for the squad first, or the king first.
 
Interesting. In a way that makes sense, but if you are up to 4 then you are talking about (a) a *very* slow roller or (b) leaving some behind in the start zone, which has its own perils. Which path do you take?

Thanks for the quick answers, gentlemen.
 
Charos is a tank for sure. I got mine in the mail yesterday, and played my first (full) game with him today. He pretty much overthrew the castle by himself. As odd as it sounds, I had placed a bunch of road tiles in front of the door. The first turn, Charos flew over onto them and engaged DW9K and two Blastatrons. The Deathwalker died from a disengagement, so that might not count. However, After he was gone, Charos flew over the battlements, destroyed at least 5 or 6 Blastatrons, Shurrak, and 6 Deathreavers. Needless to say, he is my new favorite unit. :D
 
I used to love Charos, but the abundance of special attacks and the realization that you can tie him up pretty easily with cheap melee units (then only attack him with your ranged units) made him lose some luster. In fact, I've been wondering if he's a bit too expensive compared to the other dragons-- do you really want him more than Braxas at 210? Nilfheim and Zelrig, at 185, seem like more reliable anti-common units than Charos, since they can target both melee and ranged units. But with the Greenscales, I think Charos has gotten a second life-- the little lizards can clear the way for Charos and give him a bit more mobility so that he can engage the big dogs he needs to. I'm looking forward to playing Charos again for the first time in years!
 
I used to love Charos, but the abundance of special attacks and the realization that you can tie him up pretty easily with cheap melee units (then only attack him with your ranged units) made him lose some luster. In fact, I've been wondering if he's a bit too expensive compared to the other dragons-- do you really want him more than Braxas at 210? Nilfheim and Zelrig, at 185, seem like more reliable anti-common units than Charos, since they can target both melee and ranged units. But with the Greenscales, I think Charos has gotten a second life-- the little lizards can clear the way for Charos and give him a bit more mobility so that he can engage the big dogs he needs to. I'm looking forward to playing Charos again for the first time in years!

Exactly. I played a small 450 point army using gsw/charos and it performed well. Bonding given to a huge menace with only one attack per OM really boosts its effectiveness.

I only found two problems with the army- the first is that there is no range in the army and stingers or other squads (4th mass, arrow gruts, glad/blast, etc.) can tear them apart. This leads to my second complaint- a different dragon like nilfhiem, braxas, Celtic, or even moltenclaw, can be a batter choice. Even though they lack charos' survivability, they can attack more than one figure per turn and will earn their points more often.
 
I used to love Charos, but the abundance of special attacks and the realization that you can tie him up pretty easily with cheap melee units (then only attack him with your ranged units) made him lose some luster. In fact, I've been wondering if he's a bit too expensive compared to the other dragons-- do you really want him more than Braxas at 210? Nilfheim and Zelrig, at 185, seem like more reliable anti-common units than Charos, since they can target both melee and ranged units. But with the Greenscales, I think Charos has gotten a second life-- the little lizards can clear the way for Charos and give him a bit more mobility so that he can engage the big dogs he needs to. I'm looking forward to playing Charos again for the first time in years!
True... But Charos lifense (life and defense... I don't know who made this up, but it's not my phrase.) is far greater than that of all the dragons, suggesting that he is more defensive. But, I must agree the other dragons were better chocies (and maybe still are; It's more a matter of opinion.) pre-D1. But Charos could still earn his worth pre-D1 by engaging enemy range and counterstriking melee. Sure he's not the most competitive, but he is by far the bulkiest and hardest to kill figure in the game.
 
If you play the 4th Massachusetts Line, Charos, being "valiant," is well worth those 210 points. (Charos + 4 x 4th Mass = 500 points of crunchy goodness.)
 
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