WarCor in Caledonia

This is a first article of many that should be coming over the next several weeks (probably months). Majority of my Caledonia models are half painted, which in my case means that they have everything painted in basic colours, maybe a layer of wash/ink and a base but it all lacks highlights and detailing. I really want to finish my army and write about my experience with the units, so I have decided to try write about them as I finish painting them so I can include pictures of my models in the articles.

I wanted to do WarCor first because I think it is a very underrated unit and I use him in most of my armies. Next will be article about High Value Target.

So to get right to it, lets talk about how Warcors fit in Caledonia and why I think they are great.

Profile

At first look there is nothing really special about the WarCor profile, basic MOV, below average CC and BS, average PH and WIP in Caledonia, no ARM and BTS and standard 1 W. The Journalist L1 skill doesn't do anything in a regular game either and there are no official rules for Aerocam per say (though it has been used as 360 Visor). On top of that they are Irregular, which means generally they can only use their Order. Combination of all of this, despite its extremely cheap cost, is likely why many might not give this unit a second thought, I know I didn't use to.

Weapons

It is not until you look at the weapons that WarCor becomes appealing. We can more or less discount the Knife because you'd be lucky to hit in CC. The Stun Pistol is great on paper as it can send anything with Wounds (not Structure) Unconscious just by failing 1 BTS roll (thought I couldn't find if it works on 2W models or if those just loses 1W) but usually you'll be hitting on 12 at best, which you can bump to 15 if you plan ahead of Target the approaching enemy with FO first. Use of Stun is sure situational but it is a goo tool to have if you need to accomplish Coup de Grace.

This gets us to the best thing about WarCor, the Flash Pulse that can Blind. Since its a Technical Weapon, you use WIP instead of BS, which means between 8" to 24" you'll be hitting on 16. I would say the Blind state is very underestimated by players, in most games I get some "free" unopposed rolls because people don't think it will do much. Until their hard hitting unit is Blind and can do very little for rest of the turn. While Blind, you can only do pretty much only MOV skills and CC, anything that needs LoF is unavailable. The worst/best thing about Blind is that nothing can fix it, it remains until end of the player turn and there is nothing else that can be done about it.

In Caledonia

You might have thought this already; most of this applies to WarCor in just about any army but there is one thing that makes this unit even better in Caledonia (and two other armies in the game).

If you take William Wallace as your Lieutenant, his Inspiring Leadership makes everyone in your army Regular (among other things). This effectively means you are gaining an Order for 3 Points! This is the cheapest Order that you can get. You can only have one WarCor but it is almost always better to have that extra Order than not.

As I mentioned earlier, this can be also done in two other armies; PanO and Military Orders where Joan of Arc is Lieutenant. She is the only other model in the game (thus far) to have Inspiring Leadership.

On the battlefield

Taking all of this, how does it apply to a game? The best use of WarCor I found so far is mid-range or long-range ARO threat. If you put him in the right place, he can sit there the whole game and just generate an Order. People who know how crippling Blind status can be will think twice and spend their precious Orders killing a 3ptd mode, and people that don't know it are likely to leave their models exposed.

I like to use WarCor in what I call a "buddy sniper system". Basically you place this guy in a place where he can see the same places as one of your snipers (or other long range AROs). This will force your opponent to either split their Burst or give you a free unopposed roll. I can't promise this is guaranteed to work, but in my experience most of the time people either face the WarCor and the sniper, or they go around trying to pick off the WarCor first. Which again, helps you as well because while they are spending Orders killing the cheapest unit in your army they are not killing something more expensive (and likely more useful), or better, they are not doing the mission objectives.

Other but similar use that I found useful was protecting Deployment Zone flank. This is especially useful if you think your opponent has Airborne troops. If they land where your WarCor can see them, you have a chance to Blind them before they even do anything, which is definitely worth it.

Overall, I'd strongly suggest to anyone to get a WarCor and try it out yourself. Give it few games and found your best use for them.

My miniature

Last but not least the painting part of this article. The photos above were taken by James, you can find more awesome photos from events and games on his blog.

My intention with the WarCor was to make him look like a civilian with some military gear, so I went with white shirt and blue jeans for clothing and the same greens for the military vest and leg guards. I was going to make the helmet green as well but I really liked how the yellow looked on my Dozers.

I was quite happy how the detailing came out too. Though I might revisit this mini in the future to add Caledonia flag somewhere and put PRESS (or BBC) on his helmet.

I didn't plan to paint the eyes at first but on this mini they were quite big so it didn't look without them.

This was actually my first attempt at painting chips on armour. I only did very few, just to try it out and figured the WarCor wouldn't be too battle-worn. I am happy with how it looks so I'll be definitely doing more of these on other models.

It was hard to take a good photo of this but I noticed part of the basing was missing so I decided to make it look like a little mud puddle. In person you can also see slight gloss on the bottom of his boot.