NQ 34: Wrath and New Tier Lists

February’s issue of No Quarter is finally out, and in it Privateer Press has some things which I’m sure every PP fan will be eager to check out; most exciting being the new Ranking Officer previews, Wrath art, as well as new tier lists for Cygar and Khador.

On the cover of NQ 34 is Lord Arcanist Ossyan, whom unfortunately is not previewed in this issue. However, thanks for spoilers from Templecon, we know that he’s a Time Mage. He’s also got a power gauntlet running to a backpack projecting a sphere of energy, so I’m guessing we can safely say he has some sort of deceleration/protective shenanigans up his sleeve.

But on to Wrath! We’ve got the rules for the Ogrun Assault Corp (which are a relatively simple multiwound unit with ranged AOEs), as well as the Khador, Menoth and Cygnar ranking officers. I’m not sure if Cryx will be getting a ranking officer, especially since Cryx doesn’t have that many mercenaries availabale to begin with.

I’ll have to say that the Protectorate and Cygnar Ranking officers look really good. The Attendant priest is the ultimate in toolbox, allowing his attached unit to either gain pathfinder, magical weapon, or immunity to enemy spells for one round. And you can field 2 of them! Jonas Murdoch instead really ups a unit’s offense, giving assault, which is great for any shooty merc unit. That he also gives a once per game go-to-ground isn’t that shabby either.

On the other hand, Mr Koldun Valachev looks a little more mediocre. It seems like everything he can do, the priest can do as well, if not better. Disbinding to remove upkeeps? Immunity to spells means that you can’t even target them with spells, be it upkeep or just your normal offensive ones. Frostbite? Holy Blessing means that everything is magic, not just one attack. Granted, a spray is an additional attack, and sometimes a 3-inch move is better than pathfinder, but well… I’m not sure. I’ll proxy him a few times with the Cutthroats or the Nyss Hunters to see if he’s worth playing with. I might still buy him though, since he’ll convince me to field my Cutthroats more.

We also have Wrath art, which looks to be really fun. I was jumping out of my seat when I saw what looked like a special MOW character, but was sadly surprised when I was reading his fluff. He’s a Mechanik UA in MOW armor? Why would I need more Mechaniks?! Still, he’s a Man-O-War dude, and I might just get him because MOW are awesome. But I’m a very sad panda.

Constance Blaize on the other than looks like a really nice model (as she should be, since she’s going to be a Warcaster). Her shield and two-handed sword looks especially nice. I am frightened by the amount of filigree on her though. It looks beautiful, but if translated to the model would be an awful amount of detail to paint. As for the Scavenger,we’ve already seen its art but it’s nice to see how the concept started off. Considering it’s a flying Cryxian bonejack, its design does creep me out sufficiently, but one think I have to ask is what its weird llong bird legs are supposed to be.

One thing I never expected to see was new tier lists available in No Quarter. I had always assumed (like everyone else), that every warcaster or lock would have one tier list, and not multiple ones. I guess it makes sense though, no one is stopping a warcaster from leaning towards different themes for different purposes, and these lists (for eCaine and Zerkova) do seem a better fit than their previous tiers.

eCaine’s new tier list trades off ATGMs and Rangers for Trenchers. Probably what’s even better is that he finally doesn’t need to carry around lancers to get tier 4. I’m not a Cygnar player (so anyone who know better please do correct me if I’m wrong), but it actually looks like a pretty good tier list.

I’m actually pretty excited about Zerkova’s list. It’s one of the few lists that allows a player to take models outside their faction. In this case it’s the Vanguard light jack, commandeered during Zerkova’s forays into Khador-occupied Llaelese territory. Not only that, it replaces Greylords and Doomreavers with Greylords, Widowmakers and Kayazy Assassins. Considering, Kayazys and Widowmakers are more or less staples in most Khador army lists, I doubt anyone is going to complain.

The new list actually trades a pretty confused Doomreaver centric list with a relatively effective ranged-heavy theme. Greylords, Widowmakers and Kayazy will essentially make mincemeat out of any one-hp infantry present in the army, while the jacks and widowmakers are more than capable of shelling things from afar. The Vanguard can also act as a very nice and significantly cheaper bodyguard, with both Shield Guard and Zerkova’s watcher to protect a relatively squishy caster. The only thing that I’d worry about is hard targets, but Khador warjacks are more than capable of handling hard targets, while Gorman and the Greylords are also able to neutralize threats for a turn (via Black Oil or Frost Cage). All in all, definitely one list I’m going to try out.

Those were the ‘big things that were released in this issue of NQ, but ít’s got so much more! I learnt a lot from the undercoating priming tip, and I definitely want to pick up Bethayne and Belphegore after looking at how they go together in the assembly walkthrough. From a lots of fluff and stories to modelling and painting, this is definitely an issue that you’ll want to pick up.