Warmachine/Hordes – Tharn Blood Pack
We recently received reinforcements to the Circle Orboros in the form of the Tharn Bloodpack, a hybrid ranged/melee unit. In a faction with some already-excellent infantry options, just where does this unit fit in?
The Tharn Blood Pack shares a pretty similar stat line and ability suite with their Ravager brethren. On the offensive end, they’re quick at SPD 6 and sport solid accuracy with MAT 7 and a slightly higher RAT value of 6. With the Heart Eater rule, Blood Pack models gather corpse tokens as well, save that the availability of ranged attacks on the unit allows them to boost those ranged attack and damage rolls with said corpse tokens. While their melee attacks don’t have quite the accuracy or damage of Tharn Ravagers, their ranged attacks do hit at POW 13, which is pretty solid for a ranged attack that is subject to the boost mechanic. It’s also worth noting that corpse tokens can be spent to make additional melee attacks, which takes us to the next rule that they have, the Assault and Battery order, allowing them to make ranged attacks before running or charging, giving them the potential to shoot-and-scoot or remove an incredibly high volume of enemy models.
Defensively, they’re DEF 13/ARM 14 with eight wounds, making them quite fragile where medium-based multi-wound infantry are concerned. Like the Tharn Ravagers, care must be taken in deployment, placement, and application of the Blood Pack, since focused enemy attacks can easily remove the entire unit in a round of shooting. They’re also a terribly expensive unit at seven points for four models and ten points for six.
Putting this whole package together raises some difficult questions. They fill a very specific role: hybrid ranged/melee infantry. This is troublesome for the Blood Pack in a few ways. First, Circle Orboros has solid units that exist exclusively in either category. You can get two units of Wold Stalkers for 10 points, and they arguably have more consistent ranged capability, have a way to escape from being engaged, and can hit pretty hard with Concerted Fire. Their impact is immediate, whereas the Blood Pack is a unit that needs to stick around for at least two rounds of combat if they really want to take advantage of corpse tokens on their ranged attacks. Wolves of Orboros with their unit attachment have solid accuracy and damage output between Powerful Charge, Power Swell, and Combined Melee Attack. Tharn Bloodtrackers with Nuala are direct competition as a hybrid unit since they have Quick Work and solid accuracy against their Prey target. Cylena Raefyll and the Nyss Hunters are also available to Circle as Minion models, bringing both ranged and melee weapons but without the ability to use both in one turn. With CRA and Weapon Master on their melee attacks, they do tend to perform quite well in either roll.
So, how and when do you take the Blood Pack over these other options? The Bloodtrackers comparison seems particularly damning for the Blood Pack save for the fact that Nuala is a character and can’t go in both of your lists in Steamroller events. Without Nuala, the Bloodtrackers lose a ton of that hybrid potential. It’s also important to note that Treewalker gives Ravager the ability to ignore forests when determining LOS, giving the Blood Pack a bit of a leg up against Bloodtrackers or Woldstalkers when they’re combined with warlocks or other models that create forests, specifically Cassius. Nyss Hunters do have Hunter, however, so they sport similar ability there. What it really comes down to is activation capability, specifically their ability to use corpse tokens.
Taking advantage of corpse tokens with ranged attacks can prove difficult since they can only be received from destroying models with melee attacks. While this is arguably situational, the best way to take advantage of this is against armies with jamming elements. If your opponent tries to shove Boomhowler and Co. or Press Gangers down your throat, place your Gallows Groves nearby to negate Tough, then charge your Pack in to reap some tokens for the following turn. Do whatever you can to help them survive the next turn; place forests, clouds, Pillars of Salt, anything. If they live to use those corpse tokens with their bows, they’ll really be able to take at toll on the enemy when they boost attack or damage at range, then charge in via Assault and Battery.
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| Cassius and Wyrmwood |
Looking specifically at Cassius and Wyrmwood as a pairing, the Blood Pack has some interesting synergies that are worth considering. First and foremost, the Heart Eater and Altar of Sacrifice mechanics don’t work against each other, so the Blood Pack and Wyrmwood aren’t competing with each other for corpse or soul tokens; you get to benefit from killing an enemy model twice. Second, Cassius’s feat creates an enormous forest around Wyrmwood that the Blood Pack effectively gets to ignore for all purposes while also giving them a DEF bonus for concealment as well as one for melee thanks to Treewalker. Finally, Cassius’s Curse of Shadows spell can serve the Blood Pack in two ways: removing target model/unit as a charge lane blocker and making them more vulnerable to the Blood Pack’s ranged and melee attacks. The first part of the spell can you give you an assassination vector or a way to get at back line support on the charge. The second part of the spell really can give the Blood Pack solid threat against warjacks or warbeasts. If you can manage to get a corpse token on every model in the unit, they stand fairly even chances of taking down a heavy at range provided it isn’t ARM stacked.
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| Mohsar the Desertwalker |
Like Cassius, Mohsar also has Curse of Shadows, which can dramatically increase the Blood Pack’s damage output. Mohsar’s Pillars of Salt gives you charge lane and LOS denial while his Mirage spell allows them to be placed up to 2″ at the start of the turn, potentially giving them increased threat range or pulling them out of melee so that they can take advantage of Assault and Battery.
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| Kaya the Wildborne |
Kaya’s only real strong tech that she brings to the Blood Pack is Occultation. Stealth will certainly help them on the approach, but it won’t help them survive the counter charge. Consequently, using the Blood Pack with Kaya1 will require that you use them with great care. Put them on a flank and have them sand away the exterior of your opponents forces, hopefully forcing them to commit something to go after them
In closing, the Tharn Blood Pack is not an easy unit to get a lot of mileage out. They require solid play in a strong build designed to cover their weaknesses while allowing them to shine. They don’t have the stand-alone effectiveness of Bloodtrackers or Woldstalkers, so you won’t (and shouldn’t) see them in every list. However, if played properly in the right build, they can take quite a toll under the right matchup.
How are you finding the Blood Pack? Success stories? Epic fails? Sound off!
