Warmachine Kung Fu is a meditation on the styles of Warmachine. The series focuses on individual characters in the Iron Kingdoms for both Warmachine and Hordes.
In Warmachine Kung Fu 01 - The Curse of Amon Ad-Raza I related the disappointment with a warcaster who should have been fierce as the Hierarch himself in hand-to-hand combat. This week the focus moves back in time a little more to the introduction of Feora, Priestess of the Flame.
Introduction
Feora, Priestess of the Flame was introduced back in Warmachine: Escalation. I played my first game with Feora against Lieutenant Allister Caine. Both warcasters used their feats; Caine shot everything in sight with Maelstrom and Feora's Scorched Earth lit the lightly armored Cygnaran infantry on fire and left just enough for Feora to charge and wipe out. The game boiled down to Feora chasing Caine all over the map. I was sure that I had done something wrong, but wasn't impressed enough to find out.
Her appeal at the time was the ability to light a warjack up like a roman candle and kill some unwitting soldiers. I wasn't leveraging her real asset, however, which is as a combat warcaster.
Models Featured in this Issue
- Feora, Priestess of the Flame
- Temple Flameguard Unit
- Temple Flameguard Officer and Standard Bearer Unit Attachment
- Flameguard Cleansers Unit
- Daughters of the Flame Unit
- Knights Exemplar Unit
- Idrian Skirmishers Unit and Idrian Chieftain and Guide Unit Attachment
- Rupert Carvolo, Piper of Ord Solo
- Devout Warjack
- Avatar of Menoth Warjack
- Castigator Warjack
- Hierophant Solo Warcaster Attachment
Rating
I'm rating the warcasters on their abilities in:
- leading Troops
- fielding Warjacks
- fighting in Combat
- casting Spells and using other special abilities
- overall Background and Theme
In the end, I compile the five point system to come up with a final score between 1-5.
Troops
As a commander, Feora doesn't have too many special abilities. She keeps her Temple Flameguard from running while they're in CMD range through Inspiration, and a major part of that is that there are Temple Flameguard units: the Temple Flameguard Unit, the Flameguard Cleansers Unit, the Daughters of the Flame Unit. Each infantry unit serves a different role, but in order to function without fear they can't afford to run on the flanks outside of the range of Inspiration.
The Temple Flameguard Unit is the obvious first selection. With Feora, the Temple Flameguard Officer and Standard Bearer Unit Attachment is somewhat redundant unless you want to cause Terror or gain ranking attacks. With Ranking Attack, its tempting to give the Temple Flameguard the Ignite spell to improve their damaging abilities, but chances are you might prefer to give the spell to a Knights Exemplar Unit instead.
So first thing against her is that you're using Knights Exemplar in her armies (they don't much like her, I think).
Feora has to stay close enough to her Temple Flameguard if she wants to benefit them with Inspiration, and in Warmachine it's not always the best way to protect your warcaster. In fact, a Flameguard Cleansers Unit can be pretty dangerous to keep near your warcaster to benefit from your Commander as their Irregular armor is highly susceptible to deviating area effect attacks.
And of the Flameguard, the Daughters of the Flame Unit are much too fast with their Speed and Advance Deploy. If you want the Daughters to charge something specific and not worry about command, you have to align Feora behind them at the start of the game, preferably with the Rupert Carvolo, Piper of Ord Solo so that he can advance play March for the Daughters (a rare occurrence).
The Idrian Skirmishers Unit is also reliable and dangerous, but advance deploy and their speed puts them far ahead. Ignite on their weapons in conjunction with their unit attachment, the Idrian Skirmisher Chieftain & Guide Unit Attachment gives them the ability to combine their two attacks to hit at P+S 12 or P+S 14 (when combining each attack with one other skirmisher) on an opponent's turn.
Tasty, but not really a true commander of troops.
2/5
Warjacks
If you've played enough Protectorate of Menoth, then the following should be familiar to you.
The Devout Warjack is a common sight with Feora, since her main abilities hinge around close combat. Devouts can protect her from direct ranged attacks, spellcasting, or they can use their Defensive Strike's special melee attack debuff to reduce an incoming charger's attack by 2.
In a pinch, however, you can save some points and hire this guy:
Yes, I painted him yellow. His Stealth is THAT good.
For melee, there are three warjacks to consider:
The Dervish Warjack can use its Combo Strike with Ignite and Infuse from a Choir of Menoth Unit. The numbers add up to a single strike that hits at P+S 21. This is probably an overcommitment of resources for a single strike.
The Castigator Warjack has two melee attacks, can deal with infantry or hard targets, and is fairly cheap for a heavy warjack.
In both cases, it would probably be better to cast Ignite on one of Feora's Units.
So that leaves the Avatar of Menoth Warjack. It generates its own focus, which leaves Feora with her own focus to play with for combat.
Warjacks Rating: 1/5
Combat
When Feora casts Engine of destruction, she's capable of disfiguring and dismantling heavy warjacks. However, that means she's relying on magic in order to get the first charge in. There are many models today that prevent arcane effects, and Feora has no way to cope with movement penalties.
Finally, it is impossible to use the soon-to-be ubiquitous Hierophant Solo Warcaster Attachment to save her a focus point for additional attacks on a turn when she needs to move using Engine of Destruction as both models have to move before either one can use its action.
Combat Rating: 4/5
Spells and Whistles
Here are two tricks with Feora. One should only work once, and the other only two thirds of the time.
If you opted to include a warjack in your army, and if that warjack happens to be the Avatar of Menoth and IF your opponent is using models that are subject to command checks, then the trick that will work once requires Blazing Effigy:
The Avatar causes the initial command check, Blazing Effigy causes another, and if your opponent was kind enough to place his models conveniently near to where you want to Blazing Effigy, then the unit gets cut in half, which triggers a third command check. You'll only get to pull this off once.
Otherwise, Feora is an unremarkable spellcaster who isn't really built to cast Immolation due to her lower Focus stat.
Instead she uses Wall of Fire to keep her safe from swarms and charges, and her feat.
There is a 1/3 chance that the fire will go out on its own. It's very random and annoying.
Spells and Whistles Rating: 3/5
Background and Theme
While I like the idea of Fire and a leader for the Flameguard, I don't like Feora's temper. Of course this means she'll discover a way to channel her inner fire, blah blah blah, but we know who that Feora is, and that's the much less huggable (yet more likable!) Feora, Protector of the Flame.
Also, her two Wolverine-esque daggers or swords or what have you look pretty dumb.
2/5
Conclusion
2.4/5
This is NOT a score any regular Protectorate of Menoth player would assign her. Barring background and theme, I think her effectiveness is far more consistent than this meditation that I've produced. When players talk Feora, they talk about skillfully maneuvering everything so that her feat gets the maximum impact, her Wall of Fire protects her from attack, and then casting Engine of Destruction and wrecking face.
I guess Feora's point and shoot approach to combat kind of bothers me. In a straight up fight, She'd probably tear Amon Ad-Raza to shreds, but the whole time it would still be more fun for me to use Amon's special attacks and try to figure out his warjacks. I may be completely misinterpreting her style, but I know she wins more games than Amon. By a lot.
But I'd rather use Amon, which is completely opposite of what a sane person would do.
Such is the way of Warmachine Hordes Kung Fu.
