Warmachine: The Butcher Unleashed (and Off the Hook!)
Formerly available only in a limited edition, mere mortals can now purchase The Butcher Unleashed (he has dogs, get it?). Is he a game-changer for Khador, or just more of the same?
So is he more of the same? Definitely seems that way at first, like the well of ideas has run dry. The real question is whether taking the old Khador axe-to-face approach and turning the dial all the way past 10 straight to 13 is enough.
For starters, why am I calling him a super-solo? After all, he has two cute little puppy dogs (well, snarling war argus) that are part of his unit. And don’t get me wrong, those dogs earn their keep with up to mat 7 pow 17 charges after Gang and Combo Strike. But despite having man’s best friend following him around, his abilities do almost nothing at all for the rest of his army. He’s probably the most selfish caster in Khador.
His only friendly model/unit spell, Silence of Death, gives melee weapons the ability to prevent healing, transfers, and Tough on the enemy model hit. Brilliant against Hordes warlocks and tough infantry spam, but still situational. There are plenty of games where he’ll never even cast it, as opposed to other Khador warcasters’ staples like Signs and Portents.
His feat has two effects, neither of which have any direct benefit to other friendly models. First, it lets him gain up to 6 focus back (not exceeding his normal limit). This has several uses, but the most important one is keeping him alive. Butcher 3, unlike his original incarnation, brings no way to protect himself (or anything else in his army) except camping focus. So his feat gives him one turn of being able to get work done, after which he should either have won, or used the feat to camp on 6 points of armor bringing him to a respectable 24. Other than that, at def 14 arm 18, medium base, and 20 wounds, he’s really not that hard to kill. Repeat after me: if he stops camping focus, he dies.
The second effect of his feat is to make enemy model/units in his melee range automatically fail command checks for one round. On the surface, this sounds really strong for scenario play, because it can make everything in the zone break and stop contesting. Because he always causes terror, the feat makes him effectively immune for one round to being charged by infantry that will fail command checks. It also lets you do sneaky things like trap enemy models in between Butcher and other parts of his army. This prevents them from even running away, thus increasing Butcher’s ranged defense by 4, which can stack with cover or concealment. As long as nothing knocks him down, def 18 to 22 is a lot healthier.
In practice, the effectiveness of the feat causing failed command checks is reduced by the prevalence of fearless / undead, and by order of activation issues. You see, enemy models make a command check as soon as he enters melee. But if he wants them to automatically fail, he needs to feat before he enters melee. But since his feat doesn’t let him exceed 6 focus, he needs to get some work done before he feats. But he’s a mat 9 pow 16 weaponmaster, so his usual method of getting work done is to enter melee… In a nutshell, if you want to break units with the feat, you need another way to cause command checks, or a way to move models into melee.
Thankfully, he has an incredible amount of movement shenanigans. The original Butcher hits harder (Fury, additional die of damage on feat turn) but has a very predictable personal threat range and no way to increase it, so he uses his army to get work done. Butcher 3 hits a little less hard but has a variety of non-linear threat extenders, all of which center on his battlegroup, so he gets work done personally.
First of the movement shenanigans is Vengeance. This sets up a mini game wherein you block line of sight to the Butcher with the dogs. If the opponent kills one of the dogs to get to Butcher, but doesn’t finish him, that means he (and the other dog if it survives) gets to move 3″ closer and make an attack. Just be aware of several things. If the effect that kills the dog isn’t an enemy attack during the opponents turn, it won’t trigger vengeance. If Butcher is knocked down, he can’t make the movement, because it happens before he can spend focus to stand. Finally, he only gets pathfinder on the charge as long as the dogs are alive.
Second of the movement shenanigans is Energizer. This lets models in his battlegroup (so butcher, the dogs, and the aforementioned single Khador jack) move 1″ for each focus spent, up to 3. Be aware you need to figure out in advance how far to move, since you can only cast it once, so err on the side of 2″ rather than 1″ if you’re unsure. Yes, this is technically helping models other than him, but he’s not usually going to use this like Epic Irusk moving a 4 focus Spriggan into range. He’s going to get the work done himself, because he’s Butcher and he’s off the leash.
Finally, the last movement shenanigan, and the only truly new thing on his card, is Impending Doom. This spell pushes enemy models within 5″ of him directly toward him 5″. This has some obvious uses of extending threat range, but be aware of some limitations. First, it’s surprisingly easy to get models hung up on each other even though you choose the order. Certain formations of base to base models just can’t be dragged effectively, because the movement is directly toward and will immediately cause them to bump into one another. Second, it’s a 5″ push, so rough terrain will halve distance and potentially leave models out of his range. Third, there are plenty of things that can’t be pushed (colossals, objectives) or pushed through (walls, obstructions).
In addition to his own movement tricks, Butcher can spend army points on other sources of movement. Madelyn Corbeau can give another 3″ of threat via Intrigue if someone leaves a model within her command. The (pricy) combination of Rorsh + Brine with a Road Hog can allow Butcher to sprint away 5″ after he does his dirty work. If Khador ever gets access to Refuge, he’d be straight up broken.
All this movement wouldn’t be as useful without Flashing Blade allowing him to make an attack against every enemy model in his line of sight and melee range. This is the “work” I’ve been referring to – killing multiple enemy heavies or clearing infantry. Because it’s a spell, he can do this before or after normal charge movement, energizer, and/or impending doom, allowing a lot of flexibility to kill things on the way to his target. Specifically, he can move up under Haley 2’s feat and still make attacks. Just watch out for things like arcane vortex, null magic, or bestial, because they will shut him down.
Finally, his spell list is rounded out by Obliteration. At only focus 6, it’s probably not his primary game plan, but his feat allows him to throw out a fully boosted oblit and then camp full focus, or two fully boosted if it’s guaranteed to win him the game. If this takes out a key piece, e.g. Eiryss standing too close to a non-stealth model, it’s totally feat-worthy. If you really wanted to build for it, adding Sylys and Reinholdt would allow you to kill average warmachine casters camping a moderate amount of focus, starting at 18″ away.
So in the end, Butcher 3 is more of the same. His spells and feat do nothing to make Khador jacks suck less, nothing to make Man o War suck less, nothing to change the reliance on single-wound infantry armies that get roflstomped by covering fire or continuous effects.
And yet, he is completely game changing. His personal threat versatility is such that he can camp, move up the board, and scare the hell out of people sufficiently that the rest of his army can get work done without his help. When that one turn comes up that you need to solve problem X, where X can’t be solved by an angry single-wound dude with an axe… chances are it can be solved by a terrifying 20-wound dude with an axe, armor 24 on the way in, 12 focus to spend, and a non-linear 27″ threat range. That is, IF you keep him alive.
