Captain E. Dominic Darius is a Warcaster for Cygnar in Warmachine Mk2.

Background and Description

Captain Darius began his career as a field mechanik, but it was obvious that he had fine control of the warjacks he repaired. As a warcaster, Darius repairs and maintains his own stable of warjacks making him the expert on warjack mechanika. He uses this knowledge in battle to push his warjacks from near wrecks into formidable fighting machines. ^[1]

Special Abilities and Weapons

• Feat: Pit Stop
  • Darius and Halfjacks in his control area completely repair a friendly warjack in Base combat.
• Activate Halfjack: Creates one halfjack in his control phase. (up to a maximum of three)
• Crane: *Action. Picks up nearby knocked down models and can place one friendly model nearby.
• Detonate: Can explode one or more friendly Halfjack mines.
• Repair
• Weapons
  • Quake Hammer (melee)
  • Critical Knockdown
  • Tremor:*Attack that knocks down all nearby models if Darius matches their Defense.
  • Steam Cannon (ranged)
    • AOE
• Spells
  • Arcantrik Bolt: Offensive spell that makes warjacks damaged by it stationary
  • Fortify: Upkeep spell that enhances the ARM of a battlegroup warjack. The target and models in base contact with it can't be knocked down, pushed, or slammed
  • Full Throttle: Battlegroup warjacks in his control area charge, run, slam and trample for free. Affected models gain boosted melee attack rolls.
  • Jack Hammer: A battlegroup model in his control area can make an out of activation attack.

Strengths

• Warjack Mobility: Use Full Throttle in conjunction with his Crane to place a heavy before moving them up the field. If a Warjack is tied down by a single model, spend a focus to cast Jackhammer to try to shake them loose so they can be freed to charge.
• Warjack Attrition: Fortified Warjacks allows Darius to avoid spending precious focus to shake knockdown. And if his warjacks take too many hits, he and his halfjacks can attempt to repair them on the field to bring them up to spec. If the need is dire, he can fully repair the warjacks with his feat.

Weaknesses

• Limited Feat: Pit Stop is limited to a maximum of four models, and is wholly reliant on Halfjacks. An aggressive enemy can control how many are returned by sniping at halfjacks.
• Focus Intensive Spells: Arcantrik Bolt requires Darius not only to hit a warjack in order to make it stationary, but also to damage it. Boosting damage in order to have a chance to damage a heavy warjack (which means you're rolling at dice minus 6 or 8) leaves Darius with three focus. Re-casating Full Throttle and upkeeping fortify every turn will leave Darius with 1 focus to allocate or boost with.
• Medium Base: It's easier to draw LOS to Darius, and he's slower than your average warcaster as a result.

Synergies

• Sentinel: Protect Darius from getting sniped by high POW ranged attacks or Armor Piercing shots with Shield Guard
• Centurion: Turn the formidable Centurion into an ARM 23 warjack that cannot be slammed or charged with Fortify and its Polarity Shield. Darius's Crane can place the Centurion an extra inch in the early stages of a game to help it advance without losing its Polarity Field.
• Hammersmith: Put out two P+S 17 attacks (boosted from Full Throttle) that push the target.
• Ironclads: Higher MAT and P+S and boosted attack rolls increase the odds of critical knockdown with the quake hammer.
• Stormclad: If your battlegroup centers around a Stormclad for its combination of Reach, average SPD, Stormblade synergy, and Buckler, you can Fortify it to bring its ARM up to 22.
• Ol' Rowdy: Will still be able to run/charge for free when there is spell denial on the table.
• Thunderhead: Increase the chance of Critical: Disruption attacks with the shock fists by casting Full Throttle.
• Sword Knights: The presence of warjacks increases the opportunities for Flank to trigger in melee, especially if you consider bringing Reach warjacks.
• Field Mechaniks: Further bolster Darius's repair abilities with this unit.
• Journeyman Warcaster: Increase the average ARM of Darius's battlegroup with a well placed Arcane Shield.
• Squire: Increase the range at which Darius can affects his warjacks with Full Throttle and give him an extra focus point to allocate for extra boosted warjack attacks, or so he can use Jackhammer.
• Captain Arlan Strangewayes: Evasive lets one of Darius's battlegroup warjacks to break away and charge.
• Trencher Master Gunner Solo: Allows deviations of Darius big gun to be re-rolled or allows it to be fired without any chance of catching your own troopers in the AOE.

Rules Errata

Articles