Warcaster Types by Endgame

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**malfred**

Jack Caster -- These casters have spells that effect entire battle groups of warjacks in their control areas. Notable casters would be: Karchev (Khador), Darius (Cygnar), Kraye (Cygnar), Amon Ad-Raza (Protectorate), Reznik (Protectorate), Broadside Bart (Merc, see above list for contacts he will work with).

Spell Caster / Spell Killer -- These casters have high FOC stat that have multiple offensive spells. Usually these casters can win games by killing an enemy with offensive spells, or using spells to setup a direct assassination. Notable Casters would be: The Coven (Cryx), Epic Haley (Cygnar), Zerkova (Khador), Severius (Protectorate), Fiona (Merc)

Support Casters -- These casters normally have several upkeep spells that buff models and / or units, or CONTROL area spells that benefit the entire list. Typical casters would be: Vlad (Khador), Styrker (Cygnar), Severius (Protectroate), Magnus (Merc)

Melee Casters -- These casters can destroy jacks and other casters in a single turn. Examples are: The Butcher (Khador), Epic Stryker (Cygnar), Feora (Protectorate), Terminus (Cryx)

Feat Caster -- These casters have incredibly powerful feats, usually at the cost of other aspects (defense, offense, or something else). Examples are: Sorscha (Khador), Kreoss (Protectorate), Siege (Cygnar), Denegrha (Cryx), Gorten (Mercs).

There are other roles, but that gives you the general idea.

Limited to mostly Cygnar there is the Ranged caster (Caine, eCaine, Stryker for Snipe, and Siege).

Most factions haev some form of board control casters (Gorten, Harbinger, Irusk)

There are attrition casters, which are mostly tied to protectorate (Harbinger, Testament, High Reclaimer)

There are Denial Casters, though this is a harder one to define. This would be something like the Harbinger where she removes your upkeeps, keeps her models alive, etc.

I'm interested in developing this further.

Types as listed by Endgame:

*'Jack
*Spell Killer
*Support
*Melee
*Feat
*Ranged
*Denial
*Attrition

Automatically Appended Next Post:
'Jack Caster

Possible Features of a 'Jack Caster:
*Focus Multipliers
*Battlegroup Abilities, Feats and/or Spells

**solkan**

For Jack caster, Cryx has Mortenbra.

**malfred**

The roles are somewhat weird, I'm discovering: Take the 'Jack Caster list.

Karchev (Khador)
Darius (Cygnar)
Kraye (Cygnar)
Amon Ad-Raza (Protectorate)
Reznik (Protectorate)
Broadside Bart (Merc, see above list for contacts he will work with).

Karchev is 'jackcaster-melee
Darius is 'jackcaster-attrition
Kraye is 'jackcaster- ???
Amon is 'jackcaster-melee, but completely different from Karchev
Reznik is 'jackcaster-melee, but different from Amon
Bart is 'jackcaster-ranged

Should there be other designations, or is 'jackcaster-melee Reznik and
'jackcaster-melee Amon a fair enough comparison?

Automatically Appended Next Post:
A thought:

Types:
*Assassin- kills on his own
*Infantry- supports infantry
*'Jack - supports warjacks
*Control/Denial- prevents the opponent from doing things

Modifiers
*Ranged- relies on ranged attacks
*Melee- relies on ranged attacks
*Battlemage- relies on offensive effects
*Delivery- relies on speed
*Brute- relies on strength

So working on the list above:

Karchev is 'jackcaster-delivery-melee and assassin-brute
Darius is 'jackcaster-attrition-melee
Kraye is 'jackcaster-delivery
Amon is 'jackcaster-melee, assassin-delivery
Reznik is 'jackcaster-melee, assassin-brute
Bart is 'jackcaster-ranged

Does this work? Or are there things I'm missing?

**sarxsvt**

Protectorate Casters

pSeverius - Troop Support, Crowd Control, Spell Killer, Jacks, whatever you want Sevvy can do it.
eSeverius - Jacks w/Bond, Denial, A little troop support.
pFeora - Melee Beatstick minoring in Troop support and some movement denial.
eFeora - Mixed bag. Troop support, movement tricks, good with certain jacks, spell killer with Feat.
pKreoss - Feat/Denial king. Lamentation ... wow! Minoring in troop support and spell killer against low armor Warcasters.
eKreoss - Feat (Troop Support) and Denial
High Reclaimer - Feat / Troop Caster .. sorta. Hard for me to classify him, can deny LOS within his control area.
Testament - Feat/Troop support/Revive battery.
The Harbinger - Promoted to front line Troop Support, denial with rebuke and purification.
Amon Ad-Raza - Jacks (Dervish) Synergy tricks.
Servath Reznik - Mixed bag, Jacks, Troop Support and Melee Beatstick.

**Endgame**

malfred wrote:The roles are somewhat weird, I'm discovering: Take the 'Jack Caster list.
Does this work? Or are there things I'm missing?

It works but it gets kind of messy -- I would first probably try to avoid nicknames like "brute".

Like I said in the original post, most casters cross into at least 2 different types, usually three. For example, the Habinger:

Attrition Caster: The harbinger will normally win a long term game due to martyrdom.
Support Caster: Guided hand boosts units in melee and Crusader's call effects 40" of the board.
Denial Caster: Rebuke denies your opponent orders, Purification removes upkeeps, anmi, and cont. effects, Godhead prevents enemy models from moving closer to the Harbinger, and martyrdom even denies your opponent the ability to kill your infantry.

So the Harbinger would be, to me, as a theme, strongly attrition based, with army supporting spells and a strong denial aspect. I'd say that means we get a "Attrition based Denial and Support caster".

Lets go to Kraye next:

Jack Caster: Obviously his feat is pure Jack Caster, as is Iron Horse, and Full Tilt.
Support: Easy rider gives faction models in CTRL pathfinder, while Mage Sight allows battlegroup shooting at stealthed targets, and guided fire grants boosted ranged attacks. You could almost call Kraye a Range support caster, but not quite due to Easy Rider.
Mobile: Kraye is the only SPD 8 caster in the game. Light jacks gain light cav rules for the extra move. Full Tilt doubles a jack's speed. Pursuit allows an out of turn move.

Kraye's overall theme, to me, is a highly mobile jack caster with several support spells.

**malfred**

I like the word Crowd Control. Memories of MMOs.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
MK2 Severius: Ranged 'Jack Caster

**malfred**

*'Jack Caster
*Spell Killer
*Support
*Melee
*Feat
*Ranged
*Denial
*Attrition
*Crowd Control
*Mobility

**Endgame**

Thats a pretty solid list. I'd suspect that you could classify any caster in the game by picking 2 to 3 of those.

**keezus**

Khador:

The following Khador Casters are toolbox types, mixing troop support, jack support and are also able to threaten on their own:
The Butcher! (Gained Full Throttle, making him much more versatile)
Irusk
Vlad
E-Vlad
E-Sorcha

The following Khador Casters rely heavily on spellcasting:
Zerkova
Old Witch

The following Khador Caster specializes in jack support: Karchev

The following Khador Caster specializes in infantry support: E-Irusk

The following Khador Caster is a feat on legs. (Low FOC stat and revised spell costs make her VERY inflexible): P-Sorcha

**CATACLYSMUS**

Have you thought about subcategorizing by faction? What I mean is, come up with a list of traits that each faction uses as it's M.O., and then develop smaller lists with in each faction group. For instance, if you want to tell someone about pKreoss, say something like:
Protectorate qualities:
Denial
Jack Buffs
Unit Buffs
Attrition/Sacrifice
Melee
Ranged
Killer Feat
Assassin

In this case, Kreoss would be, IMO, Denial/Jack Buff/Killer Feat.
This would allow someone to focus in on the faction he/she likes, and then pick the qualities he/she wants in a caster. This way, you can leave out categories that factions don't have.( i.e. PoM has no ability to repair 'jacks, while Cygnar is dripping with it.)

**malfred**

Not sure if I like the formulation of faction-specific descriptors. I think the descriptors are meant
to help universalize them a bit, and then you read the article to see specifically how the particular
caster does or does not fit.

I do like keezus's descriptor "Feat on Legs." Maybe that would go into the articles description
rather than anywhere else, though.