The second gang box I purchased with the release of the Blood on the Water book was the Airborne Cannibals set. This contains five Strigoi all of whom can fly, in a game with a lot of vertical movement the ability to ignore the need to climb along and up terrain seems like a great advantage.
This is a 'Complete Gang' box so contains a Leader, 2 Heroes and 2 Henchmen (children), so it can be fielded as a legal gang coming in at only 70 Ducats.
The Leader is the Stryha Crone who likes to spend her time hanging around lamp-posts. This means she is a tall model in a true LOS game. In theory you can draw LOS to any part of the base or model, but it would seem harsh to shoot her in the light-bulb. She rather sets the tone for the rest of the models in the box with her decent Dexterity and low Protection, you want to avoid being hit and having to rely on Protection saves. Her Concealment (+2) gives her two extra Protection dice if saving whilst in cover, but the fact she starts off with only one means it practice it didn't seem like a massive boost. Her command ability is nice if you are up against ranged opponents but with only 3 CP's to spend I doubt you will want to use it more than once.
She is more expensive than the Noble Strigoi and more fragile as well, you are paying a premium for that 15" Flight range, so it's something you want to make the most of.
The first Hero is the Strzyga who is essentially a flying Hulking Moroi, for a few more points you lose the 2 extra attack dice whilst charging but gain 1 Protection, not being Mindless, not being Crazed (costs extra life to convert Life to Will Points) and Fly, you also get to re-roll two of your attack dice. Mindless means whilst you can pickup / control objectives you cannot gain VP's for them.
Given it's only 2 points I think the choice between taking a Strzyga or a Hulk is a no-brainer, the Strzyga wins out easily for me. You could run a list with both these big boys in, especially now you have an extra cheap Henchman unlock choice.
The Strige is the second hero and one I'm not so keen on, at 16 Ducats she feels a bit fragile for the cost. Having only 9 Life Points with Protection 1 means she will not stick around. Again with her Dexterity of 5 and Move 5 with Flight she wants to stay out of LOS as much as possible and ambush her enemies.
Lastly we have the Harpies, who are children who have received the Vampires blessing. At only 6 Ducats you can't expect much from them but they are a cheap and fast Hench-child unlock so you could use them in a list which concentrates on powerful Hero choices. Given how good the Common Strigoi is though, I'm not sure if that would be the best way to go. I can see a use for the Harpy for picking up objectives to take to another character who can score. You could also use them to tie down a model for a turn as throw-away chaff, but with only 6 LP's they probably won't last more than a turn.
I'm waiting on a pack of bases so haven't been able to base them both up yet.
We played another game this week and both took forces themed around the new models I'd completed for The Guild and Strigoi.
Playing the Strigoi I went with:
1 * Stryha Crone
1 * Strzyga
1 * Strige
1 * Highborn Servant
1 * Common Strigoi
1 * Thrall with xbow
1 * Harpy
1 * Flashbang
Mr T went with the following:
1 * Harbourmaster
2 * Fishermen
1 * Baba Yaga
1 * Shipwright
2 * Mariner
I won't do a blow by blow but will give some thoughts on the new Strigoi. In general the Strigoi are a high risk faction, you constantly need to balance spending life to gain extra dice to kill against retaining enough life points to not be wiped out. The flying versions double down on that playstyle with the low protection values the models have.
To offset that fragility you have decent Dexterity and flight. The tactic I tried to use and one which is made easier by Flight is to mob one enemy model at a time. Models which would normally be pretty safe against an opponent that needs to climb up and down and then walk along (or risk a long jump) can more easily be setup for multiple charges by enemies that can fly straight to them.
The Crone has a movement radius of 15" and the Strzyga and Stirge can manage 12" & 15" if given an extra action point, this is more than enough to cover most charges given the size of the playing area. You also don't need LOS to initiate a charge as you just move into contact, so hiding on a roof out of LOS is the ideal scenario. It's also worth keeping in mind the bonus for starting >3" above your target and getting into combat, it doesn't need to be a jump.
So in an ideal world your flyers will move into range of an enemy but out of LOS so they cannot be shot and then launch a series of charges until that enemy is dead. In a game with a low model count then losing one Hero or strong Henchman can put a real dent in your plans.
In the game we played I did manage to stay mostly in cover and swarmed a Fisherman who died in one turn and also took out the Shipwright in one turn. Being able to move from rooftop to rooftop against an enemy that was happier at street level gave a good advantage in the positioning party of the game.
You do I think need a more durable ground force to go with the fliers and in fact my Common Strigoi and Highborn Servant taking the mobile objective is what won the game, but the fliers made sure they could get away.
Next week we are taking a bit of a break from Carnevale to take part in the Deadzone global campaign. This is a Mantic run event that sees players playing games and uploading results which should then have an impact on the lore of the Warpath universe. So time for Mr T to pull out his Forge Fathers and for me to give those new Veer-Myn a try.
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