Farrow Warlord - SS, DD

Filler post!

The Farrow Brigand Warlord was just released at Gencon, and with it followed a wave of emotions (mostly positive for myself personally as a Gator player who does not play Pigs at all, but as a player of the game, a little more sombre).

 

This was the first thing released to the interwebs, posted on Twitter by Will Shick before the Gencon shop opened. 

Reactions were mixed: on one side, Gang and Reform are both really good abilities for any unit with some melee capability, and Prowl is also useful on a (potentially) Pathfinder unit. 

On the other side, these abilities don't particularly synergize with Brigands, who are at base a pretty weak unit. Reform breaks Dig-In, Prowl more or less depends on a forest being on the table (since Pigs have no cloud creation available), Gang is good but not great on a non-reach unit without melee focus. I mean, there are great synergies with Carver - reform is awesome with Quagmire, and Gang is great with Overtake + Weapon Master. But giving them CRA alone already made them decent with Carver, so they really needed to be more useful with other warlocks thatn even better with Carver.

Overall, at this point my opinion of the UA coincided with Immortan Joe's:

 

There was some discussion about whether he would be worth it for 2pts, and probably a good option for the unit at 1pt. Then 12 hours later, we got the front of the card:

3pts. Pigs - Same Shit, Different Day.

On the positive side, he is a pretty decent model with good stats, 2 RNG:10 POW12 gunshots at RAT 6, Gunfighter for 3 POW12 attacks and some decent options with all his abilities and access to Prayers. If he had everything he had with the unit, minus the unit, he'd be a good 2pt combat solo.

On the side of reality, there is no reason for this guy to cost 3pts as a UA. He brings the unit up to 1pt per model and doesn't really provide them with a specific use. Sure, it makes them even better with Carver and as noted previously, the abilities he grants are not bad. They are just not the right abilities. It makes them relatively worse with everyone else in Pigs. It is not what the Brigands needed to be useful or interesting. It makes them bad Trenchers, a different kind of mediocre.

Much like the Razor Boar's animus, this is wasted design space. 

What stings the most (other than the inexplicable 3pts) is not what is there, but what isn't.

Why is this a UA? A UA is supposed to either improve or redefine a unit.
For example the Legion Warspear UA (2pts AND a better model, trololol) makes them a lot more numerically efficient and gives Relentless Charge, both issues the unit previously had compared to other Legion options (and Gatormans). He brings a previously underpowered unit up to par.
On the redefinition side. Tyrant Vorkesh (Cetrati UA) is a model than make the unit better in some lists and worst in others, depending on its intended purpose and matchups. He allows you to use an already good unit differently, in different lists, against different matchups.

The Warlord neither improves nor redefines Brigands. He gives them more tactical options, for quite a few more points. Unfortunately, Brigands are an underpowered, ill-defined unit that needed improvement, or could have done with some redefinition.

Much like the Farrow, this release lacks focus. 

Nobody really knows what the design of Farrow is supposed to be. Some say chaos, some say combined arms, some say Mad Max, some say cool models, some even say just being bad.

It's like they designed this sweet mini-Carver solo, and attached him to a unit as an afterthought. There is no particular synergy between the two.
He's a pretty bad ass fighter, but his best two abilities are Granted rather than Tactics, so you really don't want to get him sniped (and he is a pretty good target to snipe out) therefore keep him back (reducing his combat potential until after engagement).
He has gunfighter, but it doesn't stack with gang

The more you think about it, the more you focus on what isn't there, rather than what is there. That is the sign of missed opportunities, and it probably all comes back to 'it's probably too good with Carver'.

TL;DR

Pigs are the joke that keeps on giving. Except the joke is more of a Comedian / Joker style of joke, or Rorschach's Palliaci joke.

Sorry, Farrow players. I understand your loss.
But then again, I just don't understand why you keep at it. Just on the other side of the pond, we just got Croak Raiders - who are better than Brigands with the UA, for less points, for every other faction in Hordes. GG.

Post 100 - Acknowledging our "special" cousins

Yay.

To celebrate this monumentous occassion, I thought I should do an utterly biased/brutally honest review of our sister sub-faction, the Thornfall, in the style of this grading article. Please don't expect anything of serious value :)

Overview

Pigs have been pretty terrible thus far. I would argue they are the worst "faction" in Warmahordes. This is mostly because Pigs (like Gators) are super restricted, but unlike Gators don't have access to Posse. You can take Rhulic/Pirates casters and jacks in Highborn/4-Star with good troops/solos.
Pigs beasts are really bad for their cost, their infantry options are limited and in no way compare to Gatorman Posse as a faction backbone, they lack a strong sense of in-game faction identity and they are pretty much worse or equal to Gators in 95% of matchups.

Recently however, they got a few good releases that could improve to their viability as a faction: the Arkadius theme, Maximus, the Efaarit and the Meat Thresher. If things keep going like this, they might catch up to Gators within 2 releases cycles (circa 2017!)

Pigs' greatest strength at the moment is that nobody expects them. And Carver's massive balls.

Casters

Lord Carver - 9
Potentially one of the best warlocks in the game. Incredible spell list, very solid feat (damage boost + infantry shred in one package?), very survivable and good personal damage output.  He brings much destruction - one could argue the most destruction, in very large quantities. His biggest weakness, is of course being in Pigs, which keeps him chained down at a solid 9.
He is one of the best Who's the Boss casters out there, where he gets bumped up to a hard, highly overpowered 10 with almost any balanced Hordes list. At my last Who's the Boss tournament, I managed to get a free pick and chose Karchev because everyone always thinks Unearthly Rage with beasts is totally insane. It is indeed nuts, however the downside is you have Karchev as your caster (who sucks more than ever in a meta where lists have to deal with Colossals). Next time, I will not hesitate to take Carver, a man's pigman.
He even has his own tax, applied to Pig heavies and lights - the Carver tax. Ruthless imperialism has its downsides.

Arkadius - 8
A really good beast spamming warlock who finally got his time in the sun with a tier list that makes up for his garbage warbeasts by reducing their PC by 2 across the board AND giving him access to an even better version of one of the game's best light warbeasts.

PP: Pls buy plastic War Hogs, we will be nice from now on :(

Arkadius makes warbeasts grind hard and often. He also happens to have one of the most overpowered spells in the game (Crippling Grasp), which has made people believe he sucks because he doesn't have an arc node, rather than because his beasts are garbage.
Solution? The Ark's Ark, the best thing Pigs have received since Carver. The good thing about the list is that it specifically names out the 3 current Pig beasts for the discount (allowing for new, less garbage pig beasts in the future) and still takes a lot of practice to use effectively due to his very chaotic, frenzy-heavy playstyle.

Midas - 6
Midas does some cool stuff and has very solid spells. His tier is also sweet in that it gives you good Boneswarms and most of a heavy warbeast for basically nothing (at least pre-Efaarit and Meat Thresher).
His downfall (other than being in Pigs) is that he is skewed towards Hordes matchups due to his anti-beast abilities, and has no defensive tech to speak of yet needs to get up in the fray to have an impact (ie. mostly casting Calamity, Curse and using his feat). Not to mention that he wants to spend a lot of fury to cast his sweet spells in order to carry his army.
If the Bone Tokens gave him some defensive tech (ie. Ancient Shroud effect per Bone Token), he might be Carver-levels of legit since his spell list really is that good and he can grind pretty effectively (mass RFP not withstanding).

Sturm & Drang - 3
I love the design on this guy. He looks so fun. But.... he  actually kinda sucks to play and feels incredibly limped dick - again mostly because of his crappy beasts.
Sturm can do cool stuff with TK (one of the best spells in the game), his neat spray and his defensive spells. Drang brings really good bonuses to melee warbeasts.
But they are both polishing turds - badly. Sturm has lots of defensive tech, but none of it really stands out as serious playmakers with his current model pool. Drang only has access to craptacular heavies that are not even a quarter as good as Mulg. Not to mention they are on a medium base in a primarily small-based faction with no worthwhile anti-shooting tech and are SPD 5. WHY SPD 5? If they had SPD 7 with Ride-By, they could do a lot more stuff and not need to worry about constant death.


Helga - 7?
I haven't seen Helga played much yet. I think she seems at least as good as Midas and her feat can be really devastating, especially against medium-base spam like Gators. Like most Pig casters, her spell list is incredibly solid. Dash, Defender's Ward, Distraction are easily top tier spells, and Cyclone + Muzzle are pretty close too. Her passive beast bonus is also really legit (especially since she also benefits).
The main issue I see is not being able to speed up beasts, or buff the damage of her troops. Again, another story of a good caster with a good feat and excellent spells, but is probably carrying too much.

Beasts

War Hog - 3
The War Hog is across the board a crappy heavy. Its one redeeming feature is being able to hit somewhat hard, and a crit KD initial attack. Apart from that it is slow, costly, not that survivable, has a bad animus and is not generally fury efficient. Pigs make do with what they have, and this subpar beast is it. You take it because you have to.

Bebop also does not understand why War Hogs are so bad.

Road Hog - 5
The Road Hog is also pretty lame. It is expensive, has bad base stats, and hits like a wet noodle. However it does have a somewhat useful animus, a speed buff, a pretty decent ranged weapon with auto-fire, and can offer an element of surprise - none of which the War Hog has. I think at a point less, it would be solid, but 9pts for a heavy with no real damage output is hard to stomach.

Gun Boar - 5
Useless animus, bad stats... the pig story. However it gets at least mediocre because it can two-handed throw and it has quite good defensive stats for a light. Also, has a gun.

Razor Boar -7
Pigs' best beast IMO. The animus costing 2 makes it basically blank which frustrates some people, but if you think of it as a really tanky 2pt solo that benefits from battlegroup buffs and doesn't really care about frenzying, then it's pretty legit.

Midas Boneswarms - 7
Boneswarms how they should be - starting with 3 tokens! Makes it a very tanky light, well worth the cost. The animus is also somewhat useful to Midas in cornercase situations since he doesn't have unrestricted access to Spiny Growth like the Gator Master Race.

Arkadius' Goraxes - 10
Holy shit, these are totally insane. Goraxes by themselves are probably 8s, and these have Shield Guard as well (big deal for Arkadius), and the animus does HUGE amounts of work since the downside (auto frenzy) is really an upside in Pigs. Also you can autoplink them in the ass with Arkadius for a free charge before buffing them up to the gills and sending them to one-round a heavy twice their cost.
And the best part is these Goraxes alone were not considered enough to make up for the pig heavies and light, you also have to include them in a tier with -2PC on your other warbeasts and some aggro deployment bonuses.

Troops

Brigands - 4
Mediocre in a nutshell. Have a lot of potential and Hog Wild is a pretty good rule, but bad base stats, pretty high cost, and no really defined role in Farrow (are they tarpits? counter-chargers? how do they trade?, etc) makes them not so great. They are quite a bit better with Carver due to CRA increasing their flexibility a lot.

Slaughterhousers - 6
I quite like these. Bring anti-tough/RFP and a good counter charging toolset. However they don't have access to a great tarpit in Pigs, so don't get to shine as much as they would behind a row of Gators in Skorne.... other most other factions for that matter.

Bone Grinders -7
Sweet unit. Very cheap way to get an accurate magical missile, save animi after beasts die (would be excellent in Gators), boost caster spell range - solid, no real downside other than horrible stats, but for that cost, who cares. They make Calaban less terrible too :)

Razorback Crew - 5
Phew, I almost forgot about these. I graded them very average because it kinda depends on the terrain and the rest of your list. It is a RNG 14, POW 15 AoE3 gun which more than likely gets to AD due to the Thornfall Pact. That's not too terrible for 3pts if you get to make at least 2 shots with it, which you are likely to do if terrain is in your favour. If you don't, then it's not really worth it. Still one of the better artillery models when it gets to AD. Without AD, forget about it.

Solos

Gudrun - 5
This guy would be really sweet if he had Perfect Balance or some other ability that lets him stand up for free so he could deliver himself effectively after getting shot or whatever. I am guessing he will also be pretty legit with Helga + Defender's Ward as a Turn 1/2 tarpit. Aside from that, I have never seen him really pull his weight despite his pretty solid base stats - when he dies, he just gets killed again.

Maximus - 7
I like this guy a lot, and it mostly revolves around him being like Gudrun, but better, for a point less. Basically just the unmounted version of Fenris, but trading a little bit of damage output for survivability and Pathfinder charge (excellent way to protect himself on the advance). Great raw combat solo.

Efaarit - 8
I am really tempted to give these a 9 because they are so good - basically a free, accurate, no consequence ARM piercing every turn on a really fast pathfinder solo. However, I will stick with an 8 because Pigs don't really have much good ranged support to really push them over the top.

Saxon - 8
Saxon would be worth his 2pts without the ability to give something pathfinder. Great stats, good survivability, and some good combat potential. But on top of that, he can also douche warbeasts and give pathfinder to your Slaughterhousers (one of their biggest drawbacks as counter chargers). I am probably slightly biased about how sweet he is, because he is the manliest man on Immoren. Also, his book art makes him look a lot like our favourite Slovenian Press Ganger :)

Alten - 6
It's hard to say really bad things about a RAT 8 RNG 14 hand cannon shot with AD, Camouflage and Swift Hunter. And he gets some free damage against beasts on top of it. Basically a better Widowmaker Marksman (the archetypal mediocre ranged 2pt solo in my book), minus the Stealth.

Pendrake - 5
Ha, I didn't even grade this guy in Gators (would be a 6). Usually Pigs will want Saxon over this guy (as they are mutually exclusive), but Beast Lore can do some cool stuff for your Slaughterhousers, which means they can shred high DEF warbeasts. Aside from that, meh. In Gators he is a bit more valuable because guns are so rare, which isn't really a Pig problem.

Targ - 4
 The only Farrow solo, and he wears their trademark crappiness with pride. He can heal, he can Anxilliary Attack. Wow. Again, polishing turds. Herding does help with control area, but that isn't a problem I've seen Pigs have. Since his special abilities only work on Pig beasts, I assume he was supposed to be a tag-along for Brine in other factions, while also giving those other factions Herding?

Rorsh & Brine-5?
You only hear about them in super janky theorymachine because they are hypothetically able to go super fast. Can do cool stuff but I literally cannot remember a time I have seen them played in Mk2 :(

Raluk Moorclaw also goes here, but I will continue to pretend he doesn't exist. Hypothetically best in a Sturm&Drang list with a marshalled Vanguard so he can repair your BE and Shield Guard for your caster.

Battle Engine

Meat Thresher - 7
I like it. It's not the Gator BE but it's still one of the better battle engines in the game. Again, a good counter charging model in Pigs with no good tar pit in front of it. It is DEADLY in melee with Trash and auto-KD - it basically one-shots Gatormans reliably, which is scary. Not to mention boosted hit rolls against small bases. Bulldoze is also one of the best abilities in the game, and having it on a huge base is really good. It doesn't quite make up for the lack of reach, but it comes close in a lot of situations. The gun is also pretty decent, despite the targeting restrictions and low RAT.

Conclusion & Discussion:

Can you win games with Pigs? Absolutely. I'd go so far as to say that if you are a player with sound fundamentals, you can even win the majority of your games with Pigs in a casual setting. However, if you were put in a situation where there was big money on the outcome of a game (ie. a serious competitive situation), Pigs are very likely the very last lists you would reach for, regardless of familiarity.

As you can see, Pigs do have access to some good models, especially in the warcaster and solo department. Where they fall down is crappy warbeasts, lack of consistent engagers and lack of an effective tarpit. The best tarpit they have at present is a swarm of Razor Boars, which is just a tad expensive, and small bases without reach don't take up enough of the board to really jam up. It seems to me that if the beasts were cheaper on the whole, they could be used as good frontline models..... and lo and behold, the Ark tier (one of the two good Pig lists). I guess this is also part of what makes Carver so good (the other good Pig list) - making heavies fast and high ARM allows them to take the initial hit and/or engage.

There are many perspectives on what Pigs as a "faction" are supposed to be, since PP has certainly not made it obvious over the years. Many believe they are a combined arms factions - if that is the case, they are a really bad one as Cygnar and Khador both do that significantly more effectively even at only their Prime release level. By this reasoning, Pigs are then purely aesthetics.

Others, like myself, believe the primary design of Pigs is supposed to be chaos, frenzy and gambling: their warlocks are built heavily around improving warbeasts (two of which have random, self-damaging mechanics); they have no fury management to speak of (one warlock actively encourages frenzy); and their beasts are mostly crap and work best when thrown away to frenzy and hope to get lucky.
The latest wave of releases confirms this approach between:

• Maximus (literally: a Pig Doom Reaver, just because) 
• Meat Thresher (a crazy Mad Max contraption) 
• Helga (slams everywhere, fat Valkyrian lady singing)
• Arkadius tier 

Let's see if the design keeps going this way. If Pigs get a few more releases in this style, they will develop enough of an identity and tactical niche to make them a viable competitive choice over Gators in the realm of Miniondom. Right now, they still suck and are mostly just things for Carver to carry on his manly back and look neat. Sorry, Bacon lovers :)

Also, gator meat tastes better than pig meat. Sjakk matt, griser.

Extending an olive branch

In the meantime, if anyone wishes to contribute Minion-themed quality guest articles, please get in touch. I'd be happy to discuss it! I made this blog primarily as an easily accessible, semi-permanent (1) depository of Gator information for players interested in playing the faction, and I have more or less kept it up to date these past years despite lulls of interest and long periods of no gaming activity. Especially with my tournament attendance about to take a massive nose dive for the next year, and only getting one release in the next ~18 months, there won't be too much to write about.

However it'd be really nice to have a foreign and/or Farrow element to the website: either stand-alone tactics articles, fluff articles, hobby articles, you name it. So if you know your stuff and can write nicely, leave a comment or send me a PM on the PP boards (Yertle4 - the guy who only posts in sarcasm).

Article on the Sacral Vault will be posted when the model comes out (late 2015 is likely!).

Also thanks to anyone who takes the time to comment or let me know they value this site, your comments and opinions are appreciated.

(1) Unlike the PP forums, I have control of what gets posted here and can be as critical or expressive as I want :)

A short article on Piece Trading

 I made this pretty good post on the PP forums a few months back about piece trading and thought I should archive it here. The question posed was "explain piece trading to me". Here is my response:


I think piece-trading is one of the fundamental concepts of Warmachine. It is one of the pillars of an attrition-based strategy.

One of the first things I try to impress upon new players is that some or most their stuff is going to die almost every game (a lot of people have a hard time with this concept because they get emotionally attached to their models and how cool and badass they are supposed to be, and forget their opponent's stuff is also cool and badass). What matters is what you get in exchange for it on the following turn(s). You should always expect stuff to die, but you should likewise always have a plan for what you can get in return for something dying.


For example, as a Blindwater player, good piece trading is how I can beat Runes of War. That's fundamentally what that matchup comes down to for me.
If you as the Troll player lead with the Runeshapers, then I can just kill them with unbuffed Gators (assuming you don't pull out high-skill, uncounterable plays like making lots of tough rolls), and in return I lose a couple of those Gators in exchange for your heavy, and generally don't have to worry about the heavies as much if they are in the back and just exposing themselves to kill a few Gators.
This pushes you to lead with beasts instead and make good use of the walls to mitigate my charges. Because I have longer effective threat ranges on my heavies with Boundless Charge + Reach (not to mention Rask's feat), and they hit really hard with Fury + Rask's amazing gun of wonder, I can probably use one of my heavies a turn to kill one of your heavies and initiate the trading. That heavy will in turn be killed by another of your heavies. Something like this:

Wrastler (+a few extra damage points) kills Mulg -> Earthborn kills Wrastler -> Swamp Horror kills Earthborn -> Mauler kills Swamp Horror -> Furied Gators/Snapjaw kills Mauler -> I have Snapjaw + a lot of Gators and you have Runeshapers that although really good will have trouble dealing with that much ARM and attacks, and Horluk without transfers easily dies to a Gator or two.

Horluk's feat can potentially be a problem of course, that's like the ace in the hole for the Troll player and makes for a real good game.


Doom Reavers are a good example of a piece-trade oriented unit because when used effectively they force a choice - if your opponent ignores them, they get charged by MAT 7 POW 13 reach berserk weapon masters. That is not a sweet for them, and super sweet for you. However, if you opponent uses attacks on killing the Doom Reavers, then they aren't damaging your other stuff. The key to using Doom Reavers effectively is to make sure that choice exists. If you throw them out front and they get shot without consequences, then they accomplish nothing. If they get shot at, and in doing so means your other, potentially more important pieces get where they need to be (all it takes is one Reaver to force command checks and tie up stuff), then that could be worth 6 pts in itself.

Likewise, I've won a lot of games because I was able to just throw a crapload of troops in my opponent's face to stop him getting into a zone. Jamming, as this is called, is basically trading models for control points/board control. It doesn't matter if you give up 25pts of your army in one turn if you can win the game next turn.

In terms of factions, Cryx is really good at the piece-trade game because they can trade cheap garbage for your expensive stuff in almost every list using all their crack-fueled buffs/debuffs and mildly OP troops. That's why it's really important to take out the lynchpin models like Necrosurgeons, the very last Bile Thrall, Tartarus or whatever to reduce the impact of their retaliation OR, more effectively, just shoot them from a distance where they can't really hit back. That's why Cryx doesn't do so well vs ranged factions like Ret, Cygnar or PoM and curbstomps melee-centric factions like Trolls, Skorne, Gators, etc. It basically comes down to piece-trading.

------------------------------------------------------------

Building up from there, I would expand on the Runes of War matchup by looking at the Nilsson vs Flanzer matchup that took place at the 2013 WTC. This was Maelok with 3 Posse, 3 Croctors, 3 Bull Snappers and WE + Snapjaw vs the standard Runes of War list (with Axer).

Flanzer realized that if he lead with the Runeshapers, as one often does with Runes of War, they will simply get killed by unbuffed Gators and not kill too many of them in return. The heavies might then kill a couple, but by then, Revived Gators would have infiltrated the rear ranks, started killing the Krielstone and probably would have gotten to Doomshaper. This would be quite bad for the Troll board position.

Instead, Flanzer decided to put his heavies up front. He realized that Gators without Rask suck at cracking ARM 19+ really bad and he was rocking ARM 21+ due to walls, Krielstone and animi. No problem. As a result, he was able to cockblock Maelok's feat using Mulg's magic stick as well as the anti-incorporeal aura at a safe distance and just slowly grind the Gators down by throwing them away and plinking them off with Runeshaper AoEs, giving almost nothing up in return.

Despite officially being the (Kanye-approved) Greatest Minion Player of All Time, Rickard was not able to trade the Gators for anything given the board position. Beating on the heavies was a highly unlikely proposition for him, and his only real chance in the matchup was to push aggressively for the assassination, which is really tough given Runes' defensive layers.

The Runes of War of Minions

Non Gator news I'm afraid, but given that I have only managed to get in two games with Jaga-Jaga since she was revealed (she is alright), this is the best I have at the moment.

Here is why I want to talk about this list - it is ridiculously overpowered. Or would be, if the current lot of Pig beasts weren't so bad. This is basically PP acknowledging that the Gun Boar, Road Hog and War Hog have the value of steaming road apples at their current points cost.

Here is what you get in this theme force at each tier:

Tier 1 - Goraxes. Perhaps one of the best light beasts in the game, with a really good animus that is crazy good in Pigs, and especially with Arkadius. This is because guaranteed frenzy is not a disadvantage in Arkadius list - it is actually a sizable advantage. You want your beasts to frenzy after they go in and end up on full fury - that is the Farrow form of fury control. Arkadius does nothing for troops, and everything to keep beasts running as aggressively as possible at full efficiency with the use of Aggravator (Hyper Aggressive on everything), Psycho Surgery and his feat. Also you can stack it with Forced Evolution for a +4 damage swing because f*ck subtlety. Or +6 with Crippling Grasp... or +8 with the War Hog STR dial.

But wait - these Goraxes also have Shield Guard! Because the good Doctor has a tendency to get shot, they casually give him a super sweet, cheap Shield Guard that also happens to do lots of other stuff. Literally no downsides to this ability other than pissing off Circle players (which many would consider yet another benefit).

Tier 2 - 2" extention to your deployment zone. Sure, why not. It's not like your entire list is built entirely on the premise of running into your opponent's face as fast as your piggy legs will take you, frenzying everywhere and picking up the pieces afterwards.

Tier 3 - Free Razor Boar for each Gun Boar, Road Hog or War Hog in the list (1). In other words, a 2pt reduction on each of those. Put yet another way, your average 50pt list with 5-6 of the above beasts gives you a 10-12pt advantage over your opponent. 
TWELVE POINTS. That is almost a 25% points advantage over the whole list. It's like they looked at the 25% points reduction on Runeshapers in Runes of War and decided that going full retard wasn't enough - they had to go ludicrous speed.

That, dear readers, is how bad Pig beasts are at baseline, and what some would call a Carver tax. Except Razor Boars, which for 2pts are totally worth it in an Arkadius list with all the BG buffs you get and you would likely be bringing 3-4 anyway. And now you get 10pts to spend elsewhere.

4 - Running first turn without being forced. See Tier 2 above. Not as big a deal since you will probably be forcing a few beasts to make up for casting your upkeeps, but it sure as hell helps with all those Razor Boars you get for nothing.

Also you can take Bone Grinders AND Slaughterhousers, aka. the only two Farrow units I respect. And if by some direct intervention of God Himself, Farrows get a decent heavy in the next book, you can take that too! All you have to do is give up one of your free Razor Boars.


So what do you have to do to get the above goodies? Let me tell you:

Tier 1 - Don't take non-Farrow solos or Brigands.  Oh noes.

Tier 2 - Take the one solo you have that interacts with warbeasts.  The humanity.

Tier 3 - Take 5 warbeasts. With Arkadius? You poor, poor bastard. I am so sorry.

Tier 4 - Take 2 Super Goraxes. The horror.


Now, if you are willing to make the above sacrifices, you can play the Arkadius theme list, stop asking for an arc node and play this caster as intended with your 20% points advantage. I mean, even if you have a massive incurable hard-on for Crippling Grasp and must absolutely try to cast it every game, you now have access to excellent Shield Guards to significantly reduce the chances of almost certain death!

It won't make Pigs into a legit faction by itself (like Rask almost did for Gatormans), and it does have some glaring issues (lack of pathfinder, for one) but it does finally give you a skewy as f*ck, extremely characterful list that refines Arkadius into doing what he does even better via a sizable across the board points reduction on your overcosted Pig beasts, some Shield Guard beasts, the Primal animus, and moar speeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeed. And the best part is that you actually have to know what you're doing with the list, because Arkadius is not that easy to play with his wussy defensive stats and highly chaotic beast-heavy playstyle.



TL;DR: Another caster you will never play out of tier ever again. Literally the best thing released for Pigs since Lord Carver.


(1) I know the tier requirement above uses the word 'and' but DC more or less confirmed in this post that PP is not really that swell at logical analysis and use of the English language.