Croak Raiders - Blindwater's first ranged unit... which synergizes better with every other faction in Hordes.
On the surface, at least. And if we know anything about the swamp, it's what's under the surface that should concern you.....
Damage
First, their melee output is garbage in general but adequate in a pinch thanks to the frog people's predisposition to teamwork. MAT 5, P+S 8 hand weapons is crap, but MAT 7 P+S 10 is workable. As a result, they can do things in melee if they have to. Put Fury on them and that's equal to a Gatorman. Not bad for a ranged unit.
Where they really pull their weight is their ranged weapons - RAT 6, RNG 10, POW 12 auto-fire Fire-typed weapons. Boom. That is some nasty damage right there. You can use them to stand still and clear out most single wound troopers in the game, or set those tankier medium infantry (Cetrati, Warders, etc) on Fire where they don't benefit from their stacking ARM buffs. Tasty.
On top of that, each Raider also carries oil bombs with them. Like Gorman's bomb, this is a 3" AoE that leaves a sticky Oil residue on its target. Unlike Gorman's Black Oil however, this sticky residue only makes the target take automatically boosted damage from Fire-typed attacks (this includes Continuous Effect Fire), rather than make them completely incapable of doing anything. That makes the rest of the unit POW 12 ranged weapon masters, which is very good. Just don't throw it on your own guys and get shot by Legion beasts, because that would suck. A lot.
This ability is ridiculous for three reasons - first is the AoE, which allows it to hit multiple targets at once (two nearby heavies, 3 base-to-base shield wall guys...). Second, as an AoE it never "misses" but has a chance to deviate - often all you need to kill a squishy high DEF caster is one Oil Gourd, one direct spear hit and one boosted fire roll. Third is that it lasts for a round, so the POW 12 fire damage roll from the continuous effect is also boosted.
Survivability
Pretty average here - 13/14. No special survivability rules other than amphibious for the Mystical Gator God Table that has deep water on it. Basically, they will die to anything that manages to hit them, except Conquest's Secondary Battery.
They also have immunity to corrosion, which can come into play especially vs Cryx and Legion (ie. Bile Thralls). It's a neat bonus, especially when these will probably go into anti-Cryx lists.
HOWEVER - if they do survive a melee attack, the attacking model suffers the Corrosion continuous effect thanks to the Vitriol rule. Thanks, PP!
Utility
First off the bat, the obvious in-built synergy is Oiling something with the Oil Gourds and shooting it with fire attacks. As you may have guessed from a water/corrosion-theme force, Blindwater currently has ZERO fire-based attacks. ZERO. This means the Oil debuff is only of any value to other members of the Raider unit, which to be honest is perfectly fine.
Besides being Blindwater's only ranged unit and all the benefits that inherently brings (ie. being able to attack things from a distance), the one useful bit of utility they provide is Advanced Deploy. This is very powerful ability combined with a 16" threat range on decent guns - if your opponents lack the ability to punish them (and/or if you can protect them with Swamp Pits, Occultation or Rask's feat), then you can get a few good turns of shooting out of them, giving Blindwater some valuable early game aggression.
If your opponent can deal with them off the bat, then you just deploy them at the back so they can support your Gatorman advance and pick things off and clear charge lanes mid and late game. Since they are capable of dealing so much damage at range thanks to the Oil, this is a perfectly valid way to use them.
The one thing that took me a while to get my ahead around is unpacking
the rest of my army behind/beside the Croak Raiders, as having an AD unit is
not something I am used to!
Synergies
Some cool synergies:
Spitter - GIRDED IS FINALLY USEFUL OMG - and you can also shoot them with Spitter shots to unjam them in melee as they are immune to Corrosion! Synergasm!
Croctor - Tough them so they have a 1/3 chance of Vitriol proccing! Skilltastic!
Croak Hunters - Hide them in the unit so your opponent forgets they are there, then hit them in the face with a POW 12 charging weapon master! Tricksarific!
Gatormans - if you take Gators, your army becomes instantly better!
WAOW!
More seriously, like many Minion models, they don't synergize all that well with other Minion models, especially given the lack of fire attacks anywhere at present. However, also like other Minion models, they do synergize quite well with our warlocks (besides being amazing on their own):
- Barnabas - Iron Flesh for DEF 16 (same as Dirged Posse), Swamp Pits to protect them early if you're using them aggressively with AD. His feat allows for very legit ranged assassination and generally killing of many things. Good stuff.
- Calaban - Parasite for POW 15 weapon master guns is sickeningly good. Occultation to protect them early. Feat will give Calaban a lot of fury that he will camp and make his beasts frenzy and/or spam Spiny Growth on things. Cool in theory, but it's still Calaban.
- Jaga - Spellpiercer, of course. And the extra threat from an AD ranged units could potentially make the feat crippling in a scenario game (although it's a bit of a gamble). Pinning a Colossal in place with Deadweight also allows them to go to town!
- Rask - Rask likes guns since he can potentially camp his side of the table like a boss if he wants to, between Inhospitable Ground, Feat, Admonition, and his gun's control potential. Fury in a pinch makes them hit like Gatormans, just like the Shamblers. You could easily build a Rask list without Gators, just Shamblers, Spitters, Vaults, and a lot of Croaks, and play pretty cagey while shooting your opponent to death Cygnar-style.
- Maelok - not really any straight synergy between the two. Different gameplans entirely, but his toolbox certainly can be useful to them. Incorporeal to disengage or walk through enemy jammers, Death Pact for resilience to blast damage, and Revive is some potent threat range in any situation. Regardless, ranged support helps out A LOT, and Croaks are thus very useful as a second wave rather than the alpha strikers (leave that to the tanky Gatormans!)
Conclusion
Capacity for Burnination:
[Ice]------------------------[Cooking bacon while drunk at 3am]-----
X---
[Trogdor]
Croak Hunters are legit. I think they are slightly OP - you could have the Oil Gourd only work on a direct hit and the ensuing debuff only last one turn and they would
still be a
very good unit.
But hey - I'll take it. Unfortunately for the game though, so will every other faction in Hordes.
Disclaimer: this article has been sitting on the shelf for many months and it thus mostly theorymachine. After getting 2 good games with Croaks, I feel comfortable enough confirming most of what I've written but will update things as needed.
