Re: The Book of the Werewolf Lord
I actually think he could be a pretty good figure for a tourney as his ability to shut down bonding options and race/class synergies is pretty nice.
Plus, the new darklord has the stats to go give him staying power on the battlefield. The biggest problem is including enough support units to keep him alive. At 500 point builds, you have to figure 300 for the darklord and 2 squads of Badru (this book, and prespeculation, seems to establish this as the the baseline build, if you want bonding). So far, I have had the best luck with:
Werewolf Lord 140
Badru X2 300
Brunak 410
Raelin 490, 11 spaces
(at 510, throw in Marcu for a wound soak)
I don't think that a wolf army can afford to draft either version of Raelin, at least at any builds around 500.
I contradicted myself from an earlier post in this book; via playtesting, Raelin does seem like a doable option in a wolf build.
~Pretty simple OM management: everything goes on either Brunak or the Badru, at least for the first couple of rounds. Although the Badru seem adept (albeit suicidally) at clearing out screens, Brunak does a much better job of it via Blood Frenzy; having Raelin in tow makes it very hard to wound him. Once Brunak has cleared screens, or at least engaged the enemy, I moved the Badru out and made a B-line for the nearest enemy heroes. With the speedy Badru move, their reinforcements can quickly catch up to the werewolf.
I tested this against Greenscales/Braxas/Raelin/Brandis Skyhunter (aka 90 point, ranged filler) , which worked fairly well (All of these have a hard time wounding Brunak, and the Badru are pretty adept at engaging or pouncing the Greenscales--although pouncing into four defense can make you sweat a bit). I was able to infect Raelin and Brandis, and then started feeding some OMs on the lord, who can take and dish out a woodshed beating. He eventually fell, and the final game ended with two Badru left against his infected, 3 wound Raelin (I actually used her to attack Braxis, at one point); the wolves pulled out the win.
With the lack of numbers in my build, it did not seem realistic to pull the darklord back once he infected heroes; I needed the werewolf on the front lines. Luckily, he can last for quite a while with the enemy, but losing him early, especially after spreading the infection, would be a let-down. Although two darklords in play would be nice, it just seems like a waste to not include a bonding squad, especially one that is so adept at supporting the darklord, version 2. Plus, in the event your opponent is not hero-heavy (or, her heroes fall quickly, before you can infect them), having the Badru makes more sense.
My lessons learned:
- The 300 point baseline seems like a standard werewolf core
- Rely on something else to lead with, preferably a beatstick such as Brunak (having Raelin in tow helped the wolves as well). Stingers might be another option
- Plan on your werewolf staying near the front lines; his stats require his presence in combat
More play-testing to come, as I want to see how the wolf troupe does against range (10th, Stingers, etc). The lack of numbers could be a real problem.
Here's a River of Blood/Any Campaign Question I just asked in the Ask The Design Team thread. I checked here also; not finding it, you might want to put the answer up here on page one when we get it.
