Theme - Jaws of the Wolf
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Theme - Jaws of the Wolf Khador Theme Force |
Theme Force Deleted This mk3 Theme Force has no equivalent in mk4. You can build a similar army in Unlimited Khador (if/when the models in this theme get ported to mk4 rules) |
The deployment of warjack-heavy forces to eliminate hard targets is a standard response to military threats. A common Khadoran tactic involves augmenting such forces with a contingent of scouts who venture ahead to ensure the slow and steady column of Khadoran steel reaches its target intact. Once engaged, the warjacks rely on overwhelming strength and raw firepower to batter the enemy into submission.
Theme Rules
- For the core rules on how Theme Forces work, see this article.
Theme Restrictions
An army made use the Jaws of the Wolf theme force can include only the following Khador models:
- Khador warcasters
- Non-character warjacks
- Behemoth
- Black Ivan
- Battle Mechanik models/units
- Kossite models/units
- Kayazy models/units
- Widowmaker models/units
- Greylord Adjunct solos
- Greylord Forge Seer solos
- Manhunter solos
- War Dog solos
- Yuri the Axe
- Solos with the Battlegroup Controller ability
- This army can also include one Mercenary solo and one Mercenary unit that will work for Khador.
- These models/units can be included even if they have the Partisan [Khador] rule.
- Mercenary units can have attachments, but not a Ranking Officer.
Full model list
This list was last updated: 2020.12 (Edit)
Warcasters
- All Khador warcasters
Warjacks
- All non-character Khador warjacks
- Behemoth
- Black Ivan
- Other character warjacks can be taken, but only if they have a bond and they're in their bonded model's battlegroup.
Units
Solos
- Greylord Adjunct - (Warcaster Attachment)
- Greylord Forge Seer - ('Jack Marshal)
- Malakov1 - ("Junior Warcaster")
- Manhunter
- Ol' Grim
- Sorscha0 - ("Junior Warcaster")
- Underboss Vizkoya
- War Dog - (Warcaster Attachment)
- Widowmaker Marksman
- Yuri1
- Yuri2
Mercenaries
- Up to one solo
- Up to one unit
- Note that Valachev is not allowed.
Requisition Points
You can spend each Requisition Point on either:
- One Kayazy Eliminator unit
- One Khador command attachment
- One other Small- or medium-based Khador solo with a point cost of 5 or less
Theme Bonuses
- Khador warjacks in this army gain Pathfinder.
- Before models are deployed at the start of the game, you can place one 5" AOE forest terrain feature anywhere completely within 18" of the rear table edge of your deployment zone.
Thoughts on Jaws of the Wolf
Jaws of the Wolf in a nutshell
Jaws of the Wolf focuses on the mainstay of Khador armies in MK3: The Warjacks, supplemented by infantry options comprised of Khador's Stealth and Advance Deployment units. It is quite possible to run an army entirely made up of stealth models. Lastly, never underestimate the power of having Pathfinder on every single heavy warjack you bring.
A forest is a cool bonus, but the usefulness will vary between "great" to "minor inconvenience" depending on what your opponent has brought; for instance vs Circle it'll be nigh useless, in fact it may even be more useful for the Circle player and you may want to not deploy the forest at all! The forest can be used to block LOS to your jacks advance, as somewhere for Yuri and his posse of Manhunters to hang out.
Theme weaknesses
Low model count
If you go for the traditional jack-spam approach to list building in this theme, you'll end up with a small force that makes it difficult to score scenario zones.
If your opponent can land a few critical debuffs and stop even one warjack from participating meaningfully for a turn, it can completely kneecap your army.
With fewer models you have fewer attacks (unless you bring a lot of multi-killer attacks like AOE spam, Thresher, etc). This will make it hard to deal with infantry swarms or anything else that needs you to roll a lot of dice. Against those sorts of lists you're going to be faced with several enemy models surviving simply because you had to ignore them this turn; so you have to be smarter about what you can safely ignore.
Theme forest
Be on the lookout when you place the theme benefit forest patch. You probably don't want to give concealment /LOS block to the enemy's outflanking units, and definitely don't want Baldur1 teleporting to your caster mid-game.
List Building Tips
More than anything else, this theme list makes playing lots of warjacks more viable across the board, and largely does so regardless of who you choose as your caster. Battle Mechanics should be taken to fill out the army and provide repair for the large number of Jacks and few Man-O-War solos included.
A completely different approach to list-building is to spam all the high-DEF stealth models available. Kayazy are excellent at gumming up the opponent's army while your battlegroup gets into position to either line up the assassination or prepare for the attrition.
Some wise investments include:
- A unit of Widowmakers and their supporting solo the Widowmaker Marksman. They're good long-range skirmishers and excellent counters to single-wound infantry, which is a nice complement to an otherwise jack-heavy list. They can all be re-used in the Winter Guard Kommand theme, which is nice.
- Ol' Grim is a character Widowmaker ghost who's everything you've ever wanted in a sniper. He can put out two shots per turn, provides much needed magic weapon support, and can be very hard to remove while camping on a flag.
- Two units of Kayazy Eliminators as they are the best free option in the theme. They contest and do work without help from your caster. Also, they're technically mercs so you can reuse the models in the other Khador themes.
- Sorscha0 is generally considered to be the model that makes the theme work, because Boundless Charge is such an incredible spell.
- Malakov1 is the other junior. Incidentally, he also brings a much coveted speed buff in Red Line, which can even be stacked with Boundless and any other movement buff your caster might bring.
- Both Sorscha0 and Malakov1 can also be taken in Winter Guard Kommand.
- The Greylord Adjunct is a solid option for giving warjacks magic weapons or eyeless sight. He can be taken in any theme and most Khador players consider him an auto-include with all but a few casters.
- Yuri1 is a competent combat solo that also contests and camps flags very well, and makes a great free card choice.
The more niche pieces include:
- Behemoth is a very dangerous jack that can do lots of work with the right support. Don't feel obligated to take him though, depending how your caster supports your army, quantity can be better than quality.
- Greylord Forge Seers
- are generally considered to be a bad investment if their only role is to trundle up behind the jacks and empower them.
- As jack marshals, they have a niche because of their drive that works very well with guns with Arcing Fire, as it lets the shot ignore a bunch of defensive buffs. A Destroyer or even Behemoth are popular.
- Battle Mechaniks - You can do worse than spending your last few points on these little dudes. They do what you expect them to do: Repair, contest, then die. Just note that with casters that speed up jacks (such as Karchev1 or Strakhov1), the jacks might actually outrun the mechanics.
Starting a 25 point Brawl list
In 2020.10 Phillip Melvin, one of the LOS authors, put together this list for the Brawlmachine format. It was then updated for the 2021.10 errata. He even wrote about it's playstyle and expanding it beyond 25 points, which you can read here.
- Karchev1: [+30 WJP]
- Devastator: [14 pts]
- Juggernaut: [13 pts]
- Rager: [9 pts]
- Yuri the Axe: [Free] (4 pts)
- Widowmaker Marksman: [3 pts]
- Manhunter: [2 pts]
- Widowmaker Scouts: [7 pts]
- Kossite Woodsmen: [7 pts]
For more Brawlmachine list ideas, see Category: Brawl List
Casters of Note
Most casters that play in this theme are either Battlegroup casters (good at running lots of warjacks) or Babysitter casters (good at looking after junior warcasters and jack marshals, and they run lots of warjacks). Very rarely, you can find a caster that synergises with the infantry in this theme.
Chosen Ground is a nice enough spell for warjacks, if it weren't for the fact that the theme already hands out pathfinder. The real synergies lie with his Field Marshal granting Gang Fighter to his Battlegroup, which is easily set up by Kayazy Eliminators and turns Khador jacks into legitimate power houses. And then there is Jack Hammer, which lets you spend his focus to buy attacks for his jacks effectively. this means you can run them into position and start wailing. Tactical Supremacy and Fury also have a multitude of applications on jacks, eliminators and solos. Lastly, the feat fixes the speed issues of Khador jacks for a turn, while also exacerbating their strengths with +2 ARM and the extra damage die on charges.
The more jacks he brings, the more focus efficient his Full Throttle spell becomes, so he feels right at home in this theme. He can also bring Ruin with him who will gain Pathfinder. Iron Flesh and Fury are also great upkeeps for both jacks and infantry in this theme and under his feat everything in your list should be able to crush even the hardest targets you encounter.
Harkevich does not want to play in Jaws. Although he definitely is a jack caster, the Pathfinder aspect of his Mobility spell is wasted in this theme and he rarely has the focus to do everything he wants to do at once. Thus, he is much better off running a jack-heavy build in Wolves of Winter, where he has damage and to-hit buffs as well as loads of focus support from the Greylord models.
He only wants to be in this theme if you plan on running it infantry heavy, in which case he is probably the best caster to do it. The combination of no knockdown, tough, and stealth is very obnoxious to deal with for many opponents. He can put Fire For Effect on Behemoth, so he needs to spend only one focus to get two fully boosted Bombard attacks.
Probably the best caster in the faction to run a jack-spam list with. Road to War or Battle Charged will give you all kinds of movement tricks to use and abuse and thanks to the theme benefit you can even move through forests unhindered and the second theme benefit gives you another forest of your own! This means you can hide your jacks behind forests then counter charge through them, then swap to Road to War and move up the board some more and unleash an Unearthly Rage.
He runs probably the best Behemoth in the faction since he can protect Big B from shooting via Occultation. The rest of his kit works very well with all kinds of jacks. Nothing is more satisfying than flinging a bunch of beefy jacks 20" across the board!
Old Witch is a weird one due to her unorthodox kit. She and Scrapjack are experts in clearing out infantry, so they can clear charge ranges and unjam. Apparition is useful for two things; You can hide SJ and her behind a forest, then apparate one of them through to attack (ideally Old Witch herself so she can collect lots of souls), then jojo back with Unseen Path. Secondly it is a very nice threat extender for your battlegroup jacks. Furthermore she greatly benefits from the presence of Sorscha0, as she triggers Prowl on her and SJ via Fog of War and Boundless Charge combines very well with OWs other threat extenders. OW's feat can work like a time warp against armies without mass knockdown immunity and thus buy your jacks a precious turn to get into position to strike.
She plays well in this theme, too. Not only can she reconstruct fallen jacks, she can also hand out Boundless Charges like candy, packs an every so useful damage buff and protects against shooting.
- Casters to avoid
These casters make neither good battlegroup casters nor good babysitter casters:
- Irusk1 - Pure infantry caster that prefers other units than Kossites or Kayazy.
- Strakhov2 - Pure infantry caster that prefers other units than Kossites or Kayazy.
- Vladimir1 - He will want to cast S&P every turn, which doesn't leave him with enough focus to effectively run a large battlegroup and the units in this theme don't become nearly as dangerous as Winter Guard under S&P.
- Vladimir2 - While he does have buffs for jacks, he mainly wants only one or two good jacks and non-character troopers for his feat.
- Vladimir3 - He wants cavalry en masse and he won't find it here.
- Zerkova2 - Zerkova 2 works much better with far more Greylords and offers nothing to the models available in this theme.
Other
Trivia
Originally released 2017.03
Other Khador models
Rules Clarifications
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Rules Clarification : Pathfinder (Edit)
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Rules Clarification: Theme Forces (Edit) Themes that change a model's Faction [Show/Hide]
Rerolling the starting roll [Show/Hide]
Warjacks/Warbeasts with bonds [Show/Hide]
Including Mercenaries [Show/Hide]
Number of Mercenaries
Mercenaries and Ranking Officers
Other
Including Partisan Mercenaries [Show/Hide]
Partisans & Theme Forces (Edit)
Requisition Points [Show/Hide]
Free models and Specialists (ADR) [Show/Hide]
Unit Attachments [Show/Hide]
When to apply theme benefits [Show/Hide]
See also these Theme-Specific Rulings [Show/Hide]
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