Lord of battles wrote:Cool Thank You!
Im thinking of doing him along side Khador because i like the look of the butcher of kardov, plus They are Russian whats not to love!
So then you'll definitely want to go with the Four Star Syndicate and take things that say they'll work with Khador. That way, when it comes time to start Khador, you can get a caster and a jack or two and just use your mercs for the rest of the army until you get more Khador stuff you want.
Let's review Bartolo Montador:
Stats-- Melee Attack (
MAT) is higher than Ranged Attack (
RAT). He's decent when it comes to defenses but like most casters, he can be killed if you let him get attacked by the wrong thing. His focus is a nice solid 6-- average for Warmachine.
Blood-Quenched means that each thing he kills makes him stronger and more importantly, more survivable. While the strength bonus might make you want to try to kill more and more with it to get the cumulitive damage boost, I think it' better to think about it primarily as an
ARM boost. If your caster is in melee, he's definitely in danger of counter attack.
Overtake is what lets him shine offensively in melee and get the big damage and armour increase with Blood-Quenched. Sometimes you just can't charge into a position where you can kill multiple models. But if you get to move even a small bit between each one, you can get more into your melee range in a single turn. Also, sometimes an inch is enough to get into a better defensive position for the opponent's turn.
Ace - A shotgun built into a mechanic arm! He's got an ace up his sleeve (groan). With his
RAT of 5, it's not the most reliable weapon. I've played a lot with the warcaster Magnus who also has a
RAT 5 spray template weapon. Use it, but don't count on it.
Red Tide - a basic Warcaster weapon the damage output is acceptable. About the same as a melee attack from a melee oriented light jack. Not strong enough to go toe to toe with a heavy warjack unless something has softened it up first or will finish it off after. Perfectly fine damage output for killing other warcasters, solos and troopers though.
Spells
Batten Down the Hatches. Being knocked down is the fastest way to let people hit you automatically in melee and to make your defense 5 against shooting (that's the same as getting a -10 for Bartolo). So any spell that prevents that is a good thing. It also ups the armour and lowers the defense of his battlegroup. So they become easier to hit and harder to damage. Generally speaking, mercenary jacks are already fairly easy to hit, so you're probably not giving up too much when you cast it.
Broadside -- This is it. Generally speaking making extra attacks cost a focus each and you can't shoot more times than your
ROF. So casting this is like not needing to spend extra focus and increasing your rate of fire. You'll want jacks with ranged attacks in your battlegroup. Also, it's immediate. So the jacks shoot outside of their activation. So that means a jack that ran to get closer can still shoot.
Deadweight - generally speaking a knock down that cause you to lose either your movement or action aren't that effective because a caster or a jack can spend focus to shake the effect off. Not so with Deadweight. Also, you don't have to hit the target in question, you have to destroy something next to it. So you'll have to watch for the best opportunity to use the spell.
Hot Shot - incredible. For two focus and 1 a turn to upkeep, a jack in his battlegroup with a ranged weapon gets a minimum of 2 focus worth of boosting. If only there was a way for the jack to shoot twice in a turn...
Powder Keg - A huge explosion. It costs a lot of focus, but it's strong and big. Don't rely on the critical, but it'll be nice when it happens some times.
His feat-- Typhoon. It's sort of defensive in that your opponent will decide whether or not to end their turn in your control radius. For some models, they won't have a choice. Perhaps they'll be engaged and won't be able to run back from the typhoon. Generally speaking though, if you are aggressively close to the enemy when you use it, it'll definitley have a good effect.
More to come (which jacks work well with him)...
