The newly released Iron Fang Kovnik solo helps Khador players deal with troublesome situations, as well as giving new options to some of the faction’s less popular units.
A post by Battlemechanik
Of course it’s a stunning model as well – thanks to Steve Garcia for the painting!
The Kovnik has decent melee stats and survivability (think Great Bear lite), as well as a fluffy-but-useless Jack Marshall ability. He’s also a commander, for when that extra pip on a terror check might just save you the game. But the real reasons he’s going to see table time are a special rule, No Sleeping on the Job [Iron Fang], and a special action, Shield March.
No Sleeping on the Job is a passive ability that prevents any Iron Fang model in his 10″ command area from being knocked down, including himself. Aside from the obvious benefits against someone like Kreoss, lets take a look at what this means for the Iron Fang models that are available so far:
Uhlans get probably the biggest benefit from being immune to knockdown. Uhlans really need impact attacks in order to maximize damage output against heavy targets. They are likely to catch each other in the impact range, especially if you want to benefit from defensive line. Crit knockdown on their hooves means you need to carefully weigh the chance of the third uhlan impacting a heavy and accidentally knocking down the first two, before they can make their charge attacks. The Kovnik eliminates that concern, as long as he can keep in command range of them.
Markov has the same issue as the Uhlans regarding impact attacks, but his lance can cause an AoE knockdown as well. I’ve had to use him to clear a jamming model off the front of a unit of Uhlans, and that crit will completely ruin your game if it comes up.
Pikemen won’t knock each other down, but even a single knocked-down pikeman in shield wall is pretty much a guaranteed hit for whatever AoE or target model/unit nastiness your opponent wants to tag the rest of them with. The Black Dragon UA can minifeat for a single turn of steady, but the Kovnik can provide it to multiple units for the whole game, at the same point cost as a UA.
Great Bears are naturally steady as long as Kolsk is still around, but the Kovnik adds insult to injury if your opponent manages to snipe out Kolsk and still has to deal with 2 more no-knockdown bears.
Shield March gives +2″ movement to a friendly faction unit when it receives the Shield Wall order. Doing this expends the kovnik’s action, is only 5″ range instead of 10″, and can only affect one unit. But it’s not typed to Iron Fangs alone, and +2″ of movement is a pretty big benefit. Again, let’s look at who can make use of this:
Pikemen can shieldwall and threaten 10″, only 1″ less than a charge. If you don’t need the charge damage, this may be a better option. The bonus is to movement, not speed, so it doesn’t help on the extra end-of-activation advance for the original UA minifeat. But it does mean they can simply walk up 8″ in shieldwall, then walk up another 6″ with the minifeat. It’s only 1″ less than the charge-your-own-standard-in-the-back trick, doesn’t lose you a model, and doesn’t waste a bunch of time explaining to your opponent what you’re doing.
Shocktroopers can actually move a decent distance at arm 21, which can help keep them relevant to scenarios. It’s especially helpful if you want to try using them outside of the couple of theme forces that give them movement bonuses, because walking 6″ instead of 4″ on second turn is significantly better for scenario than it might sound.
Assault kommandos… well, even I don’t own assault kommandos. But a 4″ greater threat range on the guns than WGI, while maintaining arm 18 and saying “no” to legion and menoth shooting, means they might be worth a second look.
Using the Iron Fang Kovnik
As an Iron Fang solo, the Kovnik is available in several pre-existing theme forces. While I don’t think theme forces per se are necessarily the best way to play him, it is interesting that the casters whose theme forces include the Kovnik are among the best casters to use him with.
Irusk 1 can take him in Advance Assault Force. The kovnik’s no-knockdown doesn’t synergize quite as well, since the turn his troops are tough they’re going to be immune to knockdown anyway. Honestly, if Irusk has two points to spend on a solo, it’s gonna be Wyshnalyrr hands down… but if you’re running him in theme, the only thing better than 2 units of shocktroopers with advance move are 2 units of shocktroopers with advance move and 6″ shieldwall.
Irusk 2 on the other hand is tailor made for the Kovnik. Passive tough in a 10″ bubble, combined with no knockdown in a 10″ bubble, makes a mostly Iron Fang army really annoying to kill. Airburst can take care of removing anti-tough models like the Blood Hag. Tactical Supremacy combined with +2″ shieldwall means one unit of pikemen moving up the field 11″ a turn at arm 18, and a second at 8″ if you take another Kovnik. That jumps to 17″ for the original UA minifeat, but Irusk handles pathfinder, so you’ve got more incentive to take the Black Dragons for arm 22 on the turn it matters. Khador usually gets hosed by covering fire, and for most casters, shield wall doesn’t help. Even with the trick of standing one guy just outside covering fire range, you can’t really move tangent to both the covering fire template and the other shieldwall model at the same time. But because of martial discipline plus the rule that overlapping models are base to base, Irusk 2 solves that issue fairly well. Black dragons can shield wall, minifeat and walk 8″ through covering fire at arm 22 tough no-knockdown, then still deliver 3 dice of damage. I havent had much luck with the Heavy Armor Batallion theme force specifically (one of these days the pikemen will get to live the dream of charging out of the trench, killing everything with battle lust, then walking 9″ back into the trench), but Irusk 2 in general is clearly the biggest beneficiary of the Kovnik’s abilities.
Vlad 2 loooooves him some Uhlans. Loves. His feat even solves the problem of Uhlans accidentally killing each other with impact attacks. But it doesn’t solve the knockdown issue… enter the Kovnik. In a pinch, he’d even be a decent feat target since he’s non-character, and he makes the Uhlans marginally less likely to break if Markov is in another list. Feating defensively is rarely the right idea, but there’s something pretty funny about black dragons walking 11″ up the board at def 16 arm 25. His standard theme force is actually pretty good, and is almost entirely Iron Fang models for the Kovnik to work with.
Butcher 1 can take the Kovnik in Claws of the Dragon, which is again predominantly Iron Fang. Advance Move on Black Dragons plus Kovnik(s) means you can get two units of them farther downfield in Shield Wall than they would be running normally. Butcher’s feat and fury on Uhlans is one of the more numerically reliable ways of dealing with something like an arm 24 galleon, but before the Kovnik, he had no way of keeping them upright through Bart’s feat. Uhlans can also be a def 16 arm 19 no-knockdown screen for the Butcher if need be.
Found any interesting synergies with other casters?
Dad, Gamer, Publisher, Pilot, Texan. All games all the time since junior-high.
I started BoLS Interactive in 2006. I’m a lifelong tabletop & RPG gaming enthusiast, and internet publisher working to entertain and inform my readers every day.
I've been playing RPGs and Tabletop Games since the 1970s. I'm been playing and covering Warhammer and Warhammer 40K for over 35 years.
