This shall be a summary of some basic do´s and don´t´s for those that do not read this forums five times a day and think about warrior combos each evening before going to sleep :-)

It shall by no means be a complete or absolute rulebook!

First of all, I and all those contributing have their own opinions, and second, there WILL be armies that do not fit the "basic army types" presented herein that are still effective or even better than most others.

On with the topic of this part:

THE DILEMMA OF ACTION USAGE
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Assumptions:
- You have at least a bit of a choice what figures to use, meaning you do not own only 10 or 15 :-)
- You build your army for a standard tourney. This means 200 points for you and 2 actions per turn.
- The "doubleturn": This is a time unit I created because of the nature the Warriors of Mage Knight use actions. In most cases, you do not want your figures to push if you do not have to or it is not beneficial, so we assume that each figure only moves every other turn. This is why I will use a time span of two turns (hence doubleturn) to measure action-usage.

So what does this leave us with ? In a standard game, you have 4 actions to spend per doubleturn.

So let us elaborate the action usage. How many actors in an army is good ? Whats the problem with too many or too few actors for your actions ?

Case 1) Fewer than 4 figures

This can work, but at the beginning, you end up either wasting actions, or pushing alot, or both. If one gets killed, things get even worse. Most figures are ok for their points, no matter how much, but an army that only uses 3/4 of its allowed actions will always be at a disadvantage! So while the Hierophant may be ok for his 145 points, if you are not using your other 3 actions and the occasional command bonus well, he will end up losing because while he shoots once, the enemy shoots up to 4 times in the same timeframe.

Case 2) 4-6 figures

Most of the time, this will work out good. Almost always, one or two of those figures is a support unit like a healer, or enhancer, and will not be used much until another figure is badly damaged, and this way just "borrowing" the action of the damaged unit.

Case 3) More than 6 figures

This is the hard one. IMHO most sucessful armies have more than 6 figures in them, but those are not individual warriors running all by themselves. This is where formation usage comes in. Having 4 actions means you can have 4 formations moving in each doubleturn. So whenever you want or have to use more than about 5 warriors, group them in formations. There are different kinds of formations, tough. Some of them just behave like one or two big units, for example in the Gunner/Demi combo, where the Demis are just there for the enhancement, but there are groups like a *** Boomer with two **Fusers at his side, where the smaller figures most of the time boost the better one, but some-times just shoot something themselves. This is where it gets complicated, and beginners get confused. How many actions does such a formation really use ?

Our Boomer/Fuser/Fuser combo uses just one action to move it. So in the first 4 turns or so, lets assume it uses one action. After this, it will shoot in formation to break the sometimes high defenses. So for another 2-6 turns, it will most of the time just use up one action. But as soon as some enemy troops are softened up, three seperate shots would be much more effective as one with an attack of 11. Does this mean you have to count those three figures as 3 actions when building the army ? Of course not, becaue after those 6-10 turns, you will have lost some other units OR some of this formation will be damaged/dead, freeing up actions. The gist is: a formation like this tends to use about one of your four actions at start, and later about two, which is ok because you will not still have all your figures in good shape by then.

Another classical case would be Troll/Troll/Priestes combo. To move them, you need one action. To shoot, you need two. To heal one Troll, you need another one. How does this resolve ? The last case can be dropped, because if the Troll really needs healing that bad, he is in no shape to fight, and the Priestess just "borrows" "his" action. Thats oversimplified, but lets keep it that way for now.

So it comes down to one action at start and 2 after moving into position.

By now you should have noticed that action usage breaks down into two to three seperate blocks:

Roughly for the first 4-6 turns, both armies tend to just move around taking positions and trying to commit the enemy to a bad move. During this time, any formation uses up one action per doubleturn, no more.

The next block is the heavy battle with fresh figures. During this time, groups with few heavy hitters and much support use up one or two actions, while groups of equally hard hitters take one for each warrior.

Then there is the last block, which happens after some of the Warriors of the formation have taken a beating and/or there are weakened enemies nearby. In this phase, our Rebel group would still use two or even three actions, and the Trolls would roughly stay at two.

So the two groups in our example here used up: 1/1/2,5 and 1/2/2 actions during a battle.

What did all this ramblings have to do with army composition ? Simple, I tried to show you that if you use more than about 5 figures, you have to use formations and try to look at the middle and late parts of a battle, not only if you can move them all at the beginning.

Of course you can move 4*3 Fusers in two turns, but when it comes down to fighting, you would have been better off with one single tough figure instead of three weak ones, because you will never get to use more than one of each group. Again, this is oversimplified, you would of course have the added flexibility of shooting all three of one formation and neglecting another one totally for this. But then, for what did you bring them with you if they just sit and watch the show ?

Another thing to take into consideration is figures that have a special way of dealing with actions, namely those with Quickness and those with Command. Except for the Amazon Queen, until now all figures with Quickness are more or less just harrassers and living shields. Because of this, I tend to ignore them totally in my action usage math. If you use many Shades or Scouts, maybe count about three of them together as 0/1/1.

Command gives you about 1/3 action every doubleturn. Again, so long as I have only one warrior with Command, I tend to ignore this for the math, but again, the Queen is an exception. She has both Quickness and Command, so IMHO she is almost paying for herself, letting you add her like a Shade to any army without really increasing the action count. If you have two or more Commanders in your army, then lets just assume you have 5 actions per doubleturn and wish you luck rolling sixes, ok ? :-)

So how many figures should end up in my army ?

Depends on the composition of loners, harassers, supporters, and formations. Most of the time when making an army, I try to get an army with an action usage like this: 2-4/4-6/3-4

This way I can set up fast, use most of my figures efficient once hell breaks loose and still have a good number of useful actions in lategame.

This ended up beeing rather long, but I tried to make some examples so my ramblings clear up a bit. I really hope all of you understood what I said :-)

General Stormfox

This part of the guide shall focus on the benefits or problems with specialization and generalization, as well as building an army out of warriors whose abilities complement each other.

Ok, so how do we start building an army ? That depends entirely on what figures you have available and which of them you want to base your army around. Maybe you want to use a certain unique or expensive non-unique, or even an entire formation. Your choice here.

So let us assume you chose one of your uniques to make an army around. So what now ? Look at the abilities your Unique has, then look at what figures you have. Which of those have abilities that would complement those of your unique ? If your unique has Flame or multiple attacks, do you have figures with Magic Enhancement to use them to greater effect ? Or if your unique has a low defense, can you boost it by adding a unit with Defend and/or Healing ?

I think by now you have gotten the idea.

But beware, do not overdo it. Adding 5 Shamans or Demis to a single figure may enhance it, but it will also eat up all your points, leaving you with a single formation that will fall apart as soon as either the biggie is dead or your other figures are damaged for 2-3 clicks. Same goes with Healing, more than one Healer is seldom needed, maybe two if you field many small figures. Any more just will only trade firepower for unneeded healing power.

So the gist is: Try to support the figures doing the damage, but dont use too much of your points for those support roles, or you will start to exchange too much damaging power for staying power. And just standing there and taking hits has not won many battles so far :-)

So now we have a strong figure or formation, some kind of support to boost it/them, and usually some points left over.

Now you could just expand your main group with similar figures, but that would make your army very specialized, and vulnerable to formation-breaking abilities like Flame and Shockwave and your enemy could easily run around the battlefield unhindered, securing the best positons for his figures. So I suggest either using at least two formations or at least adding some cheap cannon fodder to distract and intercept enemy singles and formations trying to get in a good position to hit you from relative safety.

When adding single figures, try to add those with abilities that either take away a weakness of your army or provide a new way to enhance your other figures. One example for this would be using a Ki Devil or Screeching Terror in an army that already uses so called push-spawn (Werecreatures and Worms) that gets better when damaged. They would add a nice ranged attacker with flight, and the possibility to "accidentally" enrage your spawn even more :-)

General Stormfox

Hey class, wake up! It´s time for lesson 3 :-)

Ok, this guides topic is acually a bit longer than the small line above. It more properly should read: "How to use melee, the benefits of range, usage of terrain and abilities and what are those imps good for ?" Or something like that :-)

So lets start with the benefits of range vs. melee. In Mageknight, you have a big problem when playing agressive. The enemy will almost always get to hit you first. If he has a good range (more than you can move in one turn), its even worse. But just by sitting there and staring at each other, a battle won´t be won by either side. So what are ways to close in on an enemy without being slaughtered ?

There are a good many of ways, but i will try to point out some of them (actually just those that spring into my mind in the next few minutes, hehe).

One thing is adding throw-away figures that either distract the enemy or just form a living shield. Good figures for this are Imps because they are cheap, Freelancers because they are cheap and have lots of clicks, and anything with Quickness (read: Shades and Scouts) because they do not waste actions, are reasonably cheap and can even pose a minor threat to the enemies support figures so he cannot completely ignore them.

How to use the shields is pretty simple. Just move your formation of 3 freelancers in front of your really dangerous troops, let them be shot down and step up with the real thing as soon as his fighters have an action token next to them (ok, it ain´t that easy, but you will figure this out yourself).

Imps, Scouts, and Shades can be used to move into the rear of the enemy formations (by flying/running a flank maneuver) and deny shooters their ranged attacks. Ok, they may spin to your harasser and blast him away, but thats ok. He will usually need 2 of his rangers to kill one Scout or Shade, wasting an entire turn, and has to wait one turn, then turn around one turn, and then wait a turn again if he does not want to push them. At the very least, it will take them 3 full turns, 4 actions, and 1 click of damage to get back into their position. More than enough time that even dwarfs could get up and whack them over the head.

Another way to get in is using terrain, stealth, and fliers. Use blocking terrain or hindering with stealth to move up unhindered as near as you can get. Fliers are great for this too, because they ignore terrain during their movement, and have a speed of 10". They can easily fly around the enemy and attack from the sides or even behind.

Most of the time its easier to stay out of an enemies firing arc than ot stay out of his range. And it will get you much nearer. Of course this is much harder with those few uniques with a 180° arc, but if you flank on BOTH sides, it should be possible. Personally i like ** and *** Screechers/Ki Devils for this, but the Neophant can work well, too.

You should really consider which terrain you want to use and even roughly where you want to place it (if possible) when building your army.

If you dont want to denote too much points to this, or you are faced with a Magus or Queen or something to that effect (both can blast even stealthed figures and have a good arc), you can stil get up to them with some figures. Blade Golems, Seething Knights, Living Elementals, and many others have abilities like Toughness and Battle Armour that help you get there in relatively good shape and still have decent stats when lightly damaged.

Another kind of figures i like for this role is those that actually get better after being damaged (we call them push-spawn), namely Werecreatures and Worms.

By now you should have sorted out what formations you can use, which combinations of special abilities will be helpful, and so should have a pretty good idea how your army will look like. Of course, if you have more than 15-20 figures, there will always be multiple ways you can build an army along this guidelines, but thats just the thing that makes MKR fun at last :-)

That should get you some ideas by now. I will not do an in-depth discussion of this, but this shall get you started. Maybe have a look at Shatki´s Domain, he has some really good in-depth strategy guides.

There will be a fourth part, which will deal with my personal recommendations and "ratings" for all of the special abilities. Read through it for a good brainstorm, then make your own decisions which abilities you like to have in your army most.

General Stormfox

Welcome again.

This is just my personal view on all of the special abilities a figure in MKR can have.

Movement
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Charge:

As charge is not used yet, i will not comment on it until after Lancers is out.

Quickness:

One of the better abilites, especially for figures that have a role as supporter or harrasser. It lets you actually add figures with your extra points even if you would normally get into action troubles. Of course, those units sometimes attack, but that does not happen nearly as often as they move.

Magic Levitation:

Without doubt one of the best abilites you can get. The only way right now to get a first strike in with a melee figure. Definitely a boon, even if you only use it once or two. Sidenote: can be used to move an attacker AWAY from your precious Magus!

Flight:

Again, a good one, because it is very often pairded with a move of 10". Great with a ranged attack, just fly next to them, then behind them, then hit them :-) And if you should get into more trouble than you can handle, just fly away. Its not that hard to roll 2+...

Aquatic:

Nice to have, but not really something you need. Is useful with the drowning tactic or if the scenario has lots of islands.

Stealth:

A great thing to have! The only thing that can hit a hidden stealther is Magic Blast or a melee attack, most of the time securing you the initiative. If the opponent uses stealthed rangestrikers (Stalkers!) you could fight fire with fire and use Werewolves to flush them out or block their LOS.

Bound:

As bound is not used yet, i will not comment on it until after Lancers is out.

Damage
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Start Slot:

Not much to say here. I like it because figures tend to have their best clicks here :-))

Berzerk:

The ability in itself is actually a disadvantage most of the time (ok, you can try to "accidentally" kill captives with this). But the stat increase that goes hand in hand with it, is worth it generally.

Magic Enhancement:

A very good ability indeed. Works best with attacks that damage multiple targets (multiple attacks, flame/lightning) or just dont do much damage. I dont think its useful to boost an already existing 3+ damage, because that just wastes points.

Battle Fury:

Most of the figures that have it, need it or at least are not really suited to capuring anyways, so its a nice one to have. On the Crypt Worm for example, its essential!

Demoralized:

Not much to say about this. We all hate it.

Necromancy:

A really good thing, no matter what the current rules are at the moment you read this. Just do NOT use it with every figure you have. Its mainly for undead, long-lasting units (10 or 11 clicks), pushspawn (especially bears and worms)and maybe figures with vampirism. Can get better if you pair it with a healer.

Command:

Most people seem to use this mainly for the extra action. Most of the time, you cannot rely on this, so i tend to ignore Command in my action usage analysis if i do not have at least two figures with it. But there is that added effect of healing Demo´ed figures back into useful slots. This works great with some units. Screeching Terrors for example can heal until vampiric, attack damaged enemies to heal themselves back up, and shock away Or you can move harassers in, get hit, run back, and get healed for another run.

Attack °°°°°°

Healing:

Definitly a boon for every army. Especially good if you have a damage value of more than 1, because you can get a reliable healing. I say add a healer in almost any army.

Weapon Mastery:

Its usefulness depends entirely on the damage value it is paired with. If this is 1 or 2, its great. If the unit already does 3 clicks, it can make a difference if used in the right moment, but on average just does not make a huge difference. Choose carefully if that normal damage would not cripple the enemy already without risking rolling a 1.

Magic Blast:

The main reason this ability is good is because it can blast anything in range that is not already engaged in a melee. Other than that, its like Weapon Mastery for ranged attackers. Very useful to have, but do not rely entirely on it. Can hit Stealthed warriors.

Flame or Lightning:

Formation breaker. Until now, figures with F/L tend to have a good damage value (3 to 5), so you should only use it when enhanced or if those one click to a whole formation can really make a difference (like on Stalkers that drop down by 3 attack after one click). No bomb, but good.

Shockwave:

Speaking of bombs, here we have it. It has an entirely different usage as F/L, and its more difficult to pull it off, but i tend to include a shocker in most armies. Two is even better. Remember you ignore all abilities of the victims, so Defender and Battle Armour and even Toughness are of no use for them. Personally i like this even better than Flame/Lightning.

Vampirism:

This is one of those abilities you should not rely on too much, but it has a major benefit: it heals you without using additional actions. I tend to see about 3 clicks of Vampirism as if the creature had one more click of life.

Magic Healing:

Like Healing, but can heal over a distance while not being able to use a fixed value. Depending on the strategy and situation, it can be better or worse than Healing. Again, use one healer in almost any army.

Defense
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Battle Armor:

A really good thing. It helps solve the problem with closing in on ranged attackers, and can even be paired with terrain benefits and Defend. A must have for melee troops.

Pole Arm:

Right now it just does not really cut it. In dungeon scenarios it might be useful, and if Lancers come out maybe even more.

Magic Immunity:

One of those abilites that entirely depends on the opponent. If he has good Magic Blasters or lots of Enhancement in his army, MI is great. If not, it wont do any good but prevent you from being Magically Healed or Enhanced. Most of the time a good thing, though.

Toughness:

Toughness most of the time translates into: Subtract one from the first hit you take. Because of this, its not as useful as it may look at first. IMHO not better than Vampirism.

Defend:

Very good ability, especially with Knights, Queen and Priest. They have 17 or 18 Defense, and the benefactors could even add Battle Armour or terrain boni. One of the best ways to boost a formation.

Regeneration:

I do not really like this one. If you have the action to spare, use it. But do not expect wonders, the -2 on the die roll makes it a bit impracticael. I at least tend to roll a 3 when i push my figure to regenerate :-)

Invulnerability:

As Invulnerability is not used yet, i will not comment on it until after Lancers is out. But you can guess from the description that it will propably be the best ability there is in MKR.

General Stormfox

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