Theme - Armored Korps
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Theme - Armored Korps Khador Theme Force |
With a hiss of steam and the tread of iron, the heavily armored infantry of Khador march to war with heavy warjacks at their side. Though Khador lacks the light warjacks of other nations, they make up for it with a dedicated corps of soldiers who go to war in steam-powered armor. Few opponents possess the weaponry able to chew through so thick a wall of armor, allowing the Man-O-War to crush enemy emplacements.
Theme Rules - Remix
Theme Restrictions
An army made use the Armored Korps theme force can include only the following Khador models:
- Khador warcasters
- Non-character warjacks
- Man-o-War models/units
- Battle Mechaniks units
- Greylord Adjunct solos
- War Dog solos
- 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 include non-Ranking Officer attachments.
Models allowed
This list was last updated: 2018.11 (Edit)
Warcasters
- All Khador warcasters
Warjacks
- All non-character Khador warjacks
- Behemoth
- Character warjacks can be taken, but only if they're in their bonded model's battlegroup.
Battle Engines
Units
- Battle Mechaniks
- Kommandant Atanas Arconovich & Standard
- Man-o-War Bombardiers
- Man-o-War Demolition Corps
- Man-o-War Shocktroopers
Solos
- Bulkhead
- Greylord Forge Seer - ('Jack Marshal)
- Greylord Adjunct - (Warcaster Attachment)
- Man-o-War Drakhun
- Man-o-War Kovnik - ('Jack Marshal)
- Man-o-War Suppression Tanker
- Man-o-War Strike Tanker
- War Dog - (Warcaster Attachment)
Mercenaries
- Up to one solo
- Up to one unit
Requisition Points
You can spend each Requisition Point on either:
- One Khador CA
- One Tanker solo
- One small- or medium-based Khador solo
Theme Bonuses
- When a model in this army is affected by the Repair special rule, remove 1 additional damage point.
- Man-O-War units and Tanker solos in this army gain Advance Move.
- Advance Move - Before the start of the game but after both players have deployed, a model with Advance Move can make a full advance.
Recent Changes
2019.01 Cornucopia Errata
- Greylord Adjunct added to the list of allowed models.
2019.07 Theme Remix
- Game-wide Remix changes
- Ranking Officer removed from the list of allowed models.
- Repair benefit is unchanged. Second benefit changed to giving Advance Move to every Man-O-War unit or tanker. (It used to give you one Advance Move per unit in the army.)
Theme Rules - Old Version
An army made use the Armored Korps theme force can include only the following Khador models:
- Khador warcasters
- Non-character warjacks
- Man-o-War models/units
- War Dog solos
- Battle Mechaniks units
- Greylord Adjunct solos
- 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, including a Ranking Officer
- For every full 20 points of Man-O-War and/or Mechanik models/units in this army, you can add free of cost either
- One Khador command attachment, or
- One Tanker solo, or
- One medium-based Man-O-War solo.
- Free models do not count toward the total point value of Man-O-War and Mechanik models/units in the army when calculating this bonus.
- Gain +1 to all Repair rolls.
- For each Khador unit in this army, one Man-O-War model/unit in this army can gain Advance Move.
- Advance Move - Before the start of the game but after both players have deployed, a model with Advance Move can make a full advance.
Thoughts on Armored Korps
Initial Thoughts on the Remix
It's pretty much the same theme. You probably get more Advance Moves overall, but you can no longer use it on Drakhun, Sorscha3, Forge Seer, etc.
Armored Korps in a nutshell
This Khador theme force is used to play with Man-o-War models.
Do you like heavy metal? Because this is a way to run it. When you run an Armored Korps list, you run a relatively slow, yet highly survivable army. Many opponents will find a MoW heavy army difficult to deal with due to the combination of high ARM and multiple hit boxes. Traditional armor cracking techniques are less effective due to the sheer number of models on the board and most infantry killing methods pose little risk for Shock Trooper units in Shield Wall.
Theme weaknesses
An Armored Korps army has three major weaknesses: speed/mobility, low defense, and versatility.
Major issue: Low Speed/mobility
This problem only really applies to the Units and non-cavalry solos, as Drakhuns and Chariots can threat admirable distances. The theme also comes with the inbuilt possiblity to grant Advance Move to MoW units/models which offsets the problem somewhat. It can be further mitigated using various methods, most obvious is the Man O War Kovnik's Desperate Pace. For this reason alone at least one Kovnik is recommended in an Armored Korps army. Additional methods are through spells or feats which grant speed or pathfinder, such as Quicken, Dash or Tactical Supremacy, or Saxon Orrik.
Major issue - Limited Versatility
The theme is straightforward, and it's hard to take your opponent by surprise. Also simply mitigating basic threats like flanking or incorporeal enemies can be a challenge. Fixing your limited versatility is hard but possible if you carefully select the jacks and solos you bring. The best way to increase versatility is to take jacks and solos are not (necessarily) beatsticks, but bring other forms of utility to your army.
- Long Range jacks such as the Destroyer or Viktor - for protecting your flanks and the ability to reach your opponent's backfield. AoE helps to thin out cheap screening units that would otherwise roadblock the slow Man-o-Mars.
- Knock down/throw/slam capabilities - for controlling the battlefield and maintaining the ability for a sneak assassination from time to time
- Magic attacks - for ensuring that Incorporeal models don't completely ruin your plans, granted by the Greylord Adjunct and/or Aiyana
Major issue - Very Low Defense
Every model in the game will hit Man-o-Wars more often than they miss, and what few defense buffs are available to them rarely increase their survivability by a useful degree. Although Tankers and Shock Troopers can use their high armor to screen the squishier units, their low defense and reliance on shields to make a credible ARM skew means that any caster with Telekinesis or Befuddle can reliably ruin their day, and any form of debuff spell can be cast generally without boosting. The only credible exceptions come from cover bonuses or base-to-base Demo Corps under Vlad2 feat, who reach a very respectable 15/19 defensive stat line for a round.
ARM cracking
Outside of Shatter on Demo Corps, MoW don't hit that hard. Shatter is also tied to stationary, which gargossals are immune to. All Khadoran sources of stationary are prevented by immunity to cold as well. Most of the casters that run Man-o-Wars will have some form of fix for this, such as Battle Lust and Arcane Might. Merc options like Ragman can also assist in creating a credible threat to armor.
Low model count, attacks, & Crowd handling
Your expensive models can easily be bogged down by multiple cheap models. Use Man-o-War Suppression Tankers and/or the Man-o-War Assault Chariot to kill soft, cheap models attempting to tie your army down.
You field relatively few models with usually a single attack. Spammed infantries (and sometimes, warjacks) can provide simply too much target to engage them effectively. Look for solutions which provide you with additional attacks (Retaliatory Strike from Battle Plans, Dual Shot, Vengeance).
Starter Set & Other good early buys
Unlike most themes, the Armored Corps have a starter set. This is a decent purchase as you save about 20% over buying the contents individually. The contents are:
- A 5-man unit of Man-O-War Demolition Corps plus their character command attachment, Sergeant Dragos
- A 6-man unit of Battle Mechaniks.
- A 2-man character unit, Kommandant Atanas Arconovich & Standard.
- A Greylord Forge Seer solo
- A Man-O-War Suppression Tanker solo
- This adds up to 36 points, plus the Tanker who you'll take as your first free card.
You'll notice that there is no warcaster or warjacks included.
Alternatively (or in addition), an easy way to build an all-comers force is with a unit of Man-O-War Shocktroopers plus their Officer, and a Man-O-War Kovnik. Those three purchases are enough for a 25 point game, and even leave you some points spare for something like a War Dog or a mercenary solo.
List Building Tips
Casters
- Irusk2 is one of the best Armored Corps casters, which is true for Winter Guard Kommand and Legion of Steel, too, though. You shoudl keep this in mind when deciding your list pair.
- Tough + Solid Ground + 8 damage boxes + ARM 21 turns your opponent's tactical problems into strategic ones. It's one thing to kill a single hard-to-kill model, but 20 models with high ARM, Tough, and immunity to knock down is a different challenge altogether.
- Tactician is huge in mitigating the crowded nature of MoW armies where dozens of models are crammed together with little space to maneuver (while attempting to avoid difficult terrain where possible). The ability of Demo Corps to hit your opponent's models behind a Shield Wall makes Supreme Kommandant Irusk crucial to the efficiency of an Armored Korps army.
- Battle Lust is an expensive spell but it's exactly what your Men-O-War need in order to crack armor
- Fire for Effect has two great targets in this theme, outside of your ranged jack of choice: Strike Tankers and the Siege Chariot.
- Desperate Ground gives your slow army a turn of Pathfinder, ignoring clouds and forests. In other words: Much needed mobility.
- Vlad2 is a great caster as well and is raking in the most tournament results as a pilot of this theme.
- Wind Blast makes it so you don't fold completely into gunlines, as it protects your force on the advance.
- Put Hand of Fate on a Demo Corps unit, let one of them boost to hit on an attack. One attack will have a 53 % chance to trigger crit freeze, 3 attacks will have a 90% chance, rolling 4 dice drop lowest on attack rolls. This set up their Shatters, turning them into pseudo weapon masters.
- This theme provides exactly the kind of quality troopers Vlad2 is looking for, his feat will turn them all into absolute combat monsters for a turn. Demo Corps, Eliminators, Drakhuns and Kovniks and even the Battle Engines will zoom into the enemy to crush them utterly!
- The Siege Chariot can put clouds in front of your troopers, which together with Wind Blast, makes for some good anti shooting tech.
- Sorscha3 was made with this theme in mind, so it's not a wonder she works well in it.
- Flanking Kodiaks are a great way to crack armor and they also provide utility in throws.
- Storm's Embrace and her feat clouds provide some protection against shooting on the advance.
- Iron Flesh on Shock Troopers is just plain good.
- Most importantly, she can freeze enemies for the Demo Corps to shatter.
- Orsus Zoktavir The Butcher of Khador has three extremely useful upkeep spells. Shock Troopers love Iron Flesh, charging Demo Corps one round the toughest colossals under Fury, and retaliatory strike on a Chariot or Drakhun can allow them to potentially knock down or outright kill an attacker. His feat also makes everything credibly threaten even the most durable models in the game. This is particularly good for Bombardiers as even their blast damage starts to hurt higher armor infantry and heavy jacks that would have taken several turns of shooting to remove can be completely destroyed in one activation.
- Malakov2's feat has some interesting interactons with the Demo Corps CA.
- Tactical Supremacy is great to bring the MoW further up the table. Especially great on Shocktroopers so they can repo back into shield wall.
- Veil of Mists is a cloud so it protects against shooting. Most importantly however, it is a bubble of extra mobility.
- Battle Mechaniks are great Sucker targets.
- MoW make great use of his battle plans. Giant soldiers in steam powered suits of armor sneaking around are both hilarious to imagine and a great way to deliver them.
- Strakhov2 is different from Irusk 2. Instead of giving uniform benefits to all the units in the army, he can give each unit a spell or an ability which will help it accomplish a specific task.
- Mission Critical is very useful in sending your slow troopers running towards the enemy with little risk of being torn to pieces on the way
- Inviolable Resolve and Quicken are useful to any infantry unit and when a push comes to shove, Last Stand can also buy an expensive victory
- Vlad3 has Dash which is great for a bit of extra speed, but that's about it. Although Hand of Fate can help one of your units. Drakhuns and Chariots are great target for his feat too.
- Lord Kozlov, Viscount of Scarsgrad is not the first choice for leading an Armored Korps army but his feat, Fury and putting Tactical Supremacy on shield walling Shock Troopers can be of some assistance to your army.
Jacks
- Conquest or Victor - directly opposing the previous recommendation by eating most of your meager surplus points budget, a Colossal behind lines of Men-O-War is challenge indeed as it is all but safe from melee attacks until it can engage. Additionally, it mitigates some Armored Korps weaknesses like range, armor cracking and it also brings utility in form of Creeping Barrage, two handed throws, Flares etc
- Destroyer - a very straightforward shooter with some armor cracking if you need it
- Kodiak - Pathfinder and Grab & Smash are two "surprise" utilities which will assist you in creating tactical solutions normally not available to a slow and ponderous Men-O-War army.
- Marauder - Cheap and accurate, it can create tactical options for you by precision slams. Also, remember that Gargossals cant be frozen, so models with Siege weapons are extremely valuable. Sorscha 3 can get it rolling 5 damage dice against a huge base on the charge.
- Devastator - An excellent choice to contest faraway zones or clear pesky chaff infantry.
- Spriggan - it brings Bulldoze, anti infantry AOEs, anti stealth and a long shiny stick to stab the enemies of the motherland from 2" away.
Units
Any good Armored Corps army features minimum 2 MoW units. One of them is always Shocktroopers, the other depends on your caster.
- Man-o-War Shocktroopers easily the best defensive unit in the theme. They screen, are hard to remove and they shoot and whack stuff.
- Man-o-War Demolition Corps are the best platfroms for damage buffs in the theme, so Vlad2, Malakov2 and Sorscha3 will want them, other than that they are not mandatory.
- Man-o-War Bombardiers probably the most maligned of the three mostly due the rarity of applicable buffs and the difficulty of using them to their full potential. If you want more of a gunline style army, go for them plus Victor or a Spriggan to strip stealth. They absolutely love Butcher1’s feat.
- Kayazy Eliminators are just simply great units. Ideal for harassing solos or contesting flags.
- Kayazy Assassins With Irusk2's Tactician you can buld a one-two-punch style army where MoW go in and Kayazy go around and through them to harass the backline.
- Battle Mechaniks minimum units without CA can be squeezed into also most any list.
Solos
- Man-o-War Suppression Tankers are amazing, simply put. So long as there’s any enemy infantry or solos they have a role to play. That's why you always, always want one or two.
- Man-o-War Strike Tankers are great too. Grievous Wounds and Armor Piercing on a stick? Yes, please! Usually two, but one can be enough if you just need a source of grievous wounds or with Irusk2’s fire for effect.
- Man-o-War Kovnik every AK list will likely have at least one for Desparate Pace. If you can fit two then that's great.
- Forge Seers are good, they bring a magical axe/spell and focus for a jack. If they fit and/or you them they're great but they don't fit into every list.
Chariots
Both of the chariots bring some more much needed speed and thus scenario presence to any AC list.
- The Siege Chariot brings a slamming POW 20 gun, Line Breaking POW 15 impacts and a Smoke Launcher. This means it is a prime recipient for damage buffs such as Fire for Effect or Vlad's feat, but also contributes to the delivery of Demo Corps, as a huge base in front of them and a 3" cloud protect them expertly.
- The Assault Chariot bring high volume AOE fire to decimate single wound infantry, even though this is a role that Suppression Tankers and possibly your jacks already fill. The Chariot is much faster than those options are though.
Mercs
- Saxon Orrik pathfinder on a stick is great in a theme with no native access to it. He is also great at contesting due to stealth.
- Ragman Your army will be full of P+S 14-16 weapons, so -2 ARM will make them truly terrifying.
- Orin Midwinter He unjams like a champ with Chain Lighning and Arcane Vortex protects you from spells.
- Gobber Tinker Cheap repairs and contesting.
Starting a 25 point list
If you want to try this theme but are still stuck for ideas, try this. It's relatively newbie friendly.
- Man-O-War Suppression Tanker [Free]
- Max unit of Man-O-War Shocktroopers plus CA [20]
Other
Trivia
- Released in the Themeopocalpse (2017.09) before many of the models in the theme were available.
- Previewed in PP Insider September 5 2017
Other Khador models
Rules Clarifications
Rules Clarification : Advance Move - None yet. (Edit)
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Rules Clarification : Repair (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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