Warmachine: Mastering the Griffons with Una!
3 Minute Read
Jul 16 2014
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Circle’s newest journeyman warlock has a huge love for birds! Here’s everything you need to know about Una the Falconer:
Hordes Warlocks! Now With 100 Percent More Birds!
So pushing past the obviously glaring fact that the sculpt is deliciously gorgeous, Una is clearly made to work with the Griffon models. Have the specialization of Warbeast with Flight, pretty much locks her battle-group down to the Griffons. Let’s not forget that she also reduces the point value of those flying models by 1. This is great though because it gives Circle players another excuse to take the Rotternhorn Griffin ( Check out our review of the Rotternhorn here.) and it’s stupid good Shrill Shriek special action. Una gives her giant hulking griffons Bird’s Eye, which extends the front arc of a model in her control area to 360° and allows them to ignore cloud effects, forest terrain and intervening models. Una also has Pathfinder and Fearless because she’s a Circle warlock and controls giant griffons.
Una has good SPD and DEF, but very low ARM and Fury. It makes sense that she’d be sort of squishy, with her pretty awesome ranged weapons. The birds on her model aren’t for show, but are her weapons. I just have this amazing image of Una racing towards a Carnivean only to two-hand throw a bird at it’s scales like a little feathered kick-ball. Her weapon, Birds of Prey, allows her to shoot in melee and 3 attacks per activation. They have short range, but coupled with her RAT and the weapons POW, Una’s feathered friends could deal solid damage. Una has a melee weapon, Talonstrike, that is just atrocious and should be avoided. But, why would you use it anyways? She throws birds!
Two Spells and Not One Named Bird Flu…
Una’s spells are designed to help get her griffons to desirable targets and rip out their throats. That’s what bird people do apparently. Dog Pile is a low cost, up keep spell with moderate range. It allows war-beasts in Una’s battle-group to charge or make slam attacks without being forced and regardless of LOS. It also gives the war-beast +2” movement and Pathfinder. This spell allows your war-beasts a humongous threat range and ensures that whatever you’re targeting is getting smacked in the mouth. Una already loves the Rotternhorn’s animus, Acceleration, but this little spell allows for tons of Acceleration shenanigans to ensue. Play this spell right and you shouldn’t need to upkeep this bad boy. Unless you roll ones.
Watcher is Una’s last spell and continues the theme of helping Una’s murder birds, well, murder things. When a model ends it movement within 6” of Una, a warbeast within her battle-group can make a full advance and a free attack against that model. Oh, did I forget to mention that the attack and damage rolls are boosted? So it goes without saying that the target model should be eating your beefiest melee attack. Also choose your target wisely because the spell only lasts for one attack. This is Una’s standout spell. It’s not much more expensive to upkeep than Dog Pile, but allows for an insanely large presence in the early stages of the game. Watcher loves the Razorwing Grifion–as if that model didn’t already need help–which probably means we’ll be seeing a lot of Kromac and Una together on the table.
Who Brings Falcons to a Knife Fight?
Una’s stat line initially lead me to dismiss her. Yet, after mulling it over,she’s going to be surprisingly effective at machine gunning falcons at her opponents. She has three attacks with middle line stats that ignore certain cover and can be fired in melee. She’s either going to completely delete solos off the table, or help chink away at the bigger targets. Your opponents–annoyed by the consistent pelting of birds–we’ll probably make note her of her low ARM. This is fine because we can utilize Bird’s Eye and Watcher to have her bigger avian friends ready to protect their mistress. Plus if you’re running Shifting Stones, now what I’ve deemed Warp Murder Birds! Una seems like an insanely fun model and I can’t wait to get in more games with her.
That’s it folks! Let me know what you think of Una and her murder-birds in the comments below. If you want to see more from me, check the link here.
Author: bLank
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