Mystyc said:
Taeblewalker said:
With Warden 816, he moves 6. Even with five, he can get up close in two turns. Then, he can hurt the opposition.
He can get up close in two turns if they let him. If they choose, they can fall back behind/interpose some blockers like, I don't know, Deathreavers. The Warden actually does help, but are you really investing 190 points in this?
Interpose Deathreavers all you want. Against two-layer formation armies that want to engage you with layer 1, then shoot at you with layer 2, Oni will do his best work. He wants them to go through all sorts of contortions to keep the shooters out of engagement.
For instance, let's send Oni in against a blast/glad army. He's large, so he can't be clawed. He can break through melee defense with his special, and meanwhile, the blasts want to attack while non-adjacent, so he evil eyes them on their own turn.
How about roborats screening a firing line of some other ranged squad, like Aubriens or the Krav? Once again, he whomps multiple rats with his Scatter-denying special, then puts the evil eye on the non-engaged shooters.
You don't beat this guy with a line of board-cloggers in front of a swarm of weak shooters, or by running and gunning with your 2 attack. What you want are the more expensive ranged squads-- Omnicrons and Microcorps-- that first, have a reasonable possibility of rolling 3+ skulls, so that they can shoot into evil eye and have a better change of hurting than getting hurt, and second, have a solid enough defense so that if they can't get height and minimize the chance of a counterstrike, they can rush in, cancel the evil eye with engagement, and survive until they bring him down. That way they're a threat to him either by gaining height/boosts or, if they can't get either one, by rushing in and getting a first strike in melee. Tarn Vikings don't have a ranged attack to use against counterstrike, but Marro Warriors can go melee against evil eye.
I don't know his true worth, but he looks like should be a lot of fun to play against, at least. I love it when ranged units get an incentive to engage. Gives you some tension.
Mystyc said:
Evil Eye Defense is a great ability, but I wonder how much good it will really be. Unlike with a figure engaged with a samurai, it's pretty easy for a ranged unit to just pick another target. The special attack is actually pretty bad - your opponent decides if you can use it, and it uses less dice than a normal attack. It's only real benefit is the fact that it's, well, special, and can bypass certain defenses.
Just recently, we've gotten:
--The Templars, who benefit from many Jandar adjacent buffs.
--Kyntela's range 1 aura.
--Ashigaru Yari who must swarm an opponent to use their special attack.
--Captain America with his adjacent boost.
--The Marro Hive that drops newly formed Marro adjacent to it.
--Nagrubs who must
begin their turn adjacent to a Hivelord to heal him.
And we're about to get Spiders that must swarm the enemy to entangle him and Dupuis who, as a Knight, further encourages the use of Finn, Gilbert, Concan, etc.
So there's been no letup in the units that reward you for creating Tetsubo-ready clusters with your figures. Yes, the right opponent with the right army might never bunch up, but making it a priority will weaken many, many synergies and specials.
