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I managed to finally get myself some sentry stones for my circle of orboros force.

I have been wondering about using them with baldur and how the actual in game application would go. As in; what I would need to do to actually set up an assassination attempt using forest walk and a mannikin.

I have only a single set of shifting stones currently. Do you need to use a second set of shifting stones if you have 2 sentry stones in your force, or would it be redundant?

Wondering about the best applications of the mannikins on the enemy? Is slowing the best for enemy jacks or simply tying the enemy up? I understand that aimed splinter bursts will murder infantry close to the stone, but what can you do about infantry with longer threat ranges? Hmmm actually they could never charge the stone because its invisible could they?

I'm really just trying to figure out what will the most common sense applications of the mannikins before I put them on the table. Any help is appreciated.

Cheers,

i use 2 sets of shifting and sentry stones in nearly all of my circle lists. i usually run kreuger, but i have baldur as well.

sentry stones are GREAT. your gonna want to use the shifting stones to teleport the sentry stones around if you want to play like that, but i normally just AD them up as far as i can, in a woods if i can. i think the greatest asset of sentry stones are manakins that go BOOM to make forests. it may sound trivial, but it has saved me in alot of games, especially in conjunction with baldur making forests, gobbers making smoke and gators making swamps.

baldur get into combat that he didnt want to? have a manakin walk up to baldur, explode to make a forest then have baldur tree walk away from the combat, no freestrikes even.

i rarely use the root or spray attack stuff, but on the rare occasion when you can get a focus or fury point on the stone, then give it a try. at this point im usually throwing the manakins into combat to support my combat troops. but overall i use the forest making ability the most. i kept a unit of MOW's out of the game for 4 turns becuase of 2 x manakin forests and smoke from a gobber crew.

shifting stones are another animal all together. they are my FAVORITE unit. with kreuger they become quasi arc nodes. the ability to arc forked lighting off of a stone into high def/stealthy/inv models is great.

studderingdave wrote:
baldur get into combat that he didnt want to? have a manakin walk up to baldur, explode to make a forest then have baldur tree walk away from the combat, no freestrikes even.

This does not work.
Baldur can only forest walk if he is completely within a forest. If a Mannikin walks into base contact with Baldur and creates a forest, Baldur will not be completely within that forest. The only way for Baldur to use a Mannikin forest as a starting point for Forestwalk is if he is Pushed/Thrown completely into it before he activates.

And, no, using two Mannikins to cover Baldur in Forest templates doesn't work either. Baldur must be completely within a single forest, and multiple forests are just that, multiples. He must be pushed completely within one of the templates in order for it to work.

Having said that, Mannikin Forests are indeed great for generating an end-point for forest walk. They don't have the same placement restrictions as Rapid Growth templates, so it is much easier to put them exactly where you want them. Have Baldur begin his turn in his own Rapid Growth template or within a naturally occurring Forest and then send a Mannikin out to pop right in front of their caster. Profit!

Some good tactics thier. Thier biggest impact is just acting as a constant annoyance until you destroy the Stones. A friend of mine once used a bunch of stones to copletely sorround Balder preventing LOS to him completely.

"If a Mannikin walks into base contact with Baldur and creates a forest, Baldur will not be completely within that forest."

Thanks for that tidbit blue loki. I wasn't aware of that detail.

Thanks to others for their input too, making forests seems to be the mannikins primary duty.

Anything else regarding their implementation?

I usually end up making Spray attacks instead of forests.
Placing the Mannikin such that it can aim and spray a group of troops is fantastic. Remember that you can sometimes target something out of range with the spray in order to get more in-range models under the template.

Root is occasionally good too, and can really tie up a heavy jack/beast.

Also remember that the Mannikin is not too shabby in ordinary melee either. Two base attacks with a decent P+S is nice.

Cheers for that.

I've read that stocking up on the mannikins for a couple of rounds at the start of battle is sometimes a good strategy as you can use their not too shabby melee to tie things up quite well.