Thursday 1 December 2016

Theory Thursday: Major Katherine Laddermore


As requested by the Cygnar facebook group!

Laddermore is a Dragoon cavalry solo. While mounted on her horse she has the exact same defensive stats as a Storm Lance. Her Mat and Rat are one higher than Storm Lances being 8 and 6 respectively.

Dragoon

When she is dismounted her armour drops by two and she loses the Electrocharger special rule which give Storm Lances +2 Rat and Pow on their ranged attacks while in her command area.
When she is dismounted you place her on foot model anywhere within the area her large base was.
You can try to deny further attacks on her by choosing where you place her well.

Weapons

Her weapons are similar to Lances too, though her ranged attack has 2 more pow. Also instead of the e-leap special rule that Storm Lances have on both their ranged and melee attacks she has the Lightning generator special rule instead.

Lightning generator her attacks make d3 leaps with the leaps jumping to the nearest model that hasn't already been effected within 4" of the last model. The big difference here is that its not optional.
E-leap states that you "can" have the leap happen, Lit. Gen. just states that it just happens.
So be careful with the placement of your low armour models that are not immune to electricity.   

With assault she can get two attacks per turn that each generate d3 leaps. Combined with her impact attacks she can mulch infantry. 
The limiting factor comes from the fact that if her assault shot hits its likely to kill then the leaps are likely to kill any potential target for her to swap her melee attack too now her charge target is dead.
(I know first world problems huh?)

An ideal target for her attacks is a model tough enough to take her assault shot and her melee attack to kill, allowing her to get use out of both of the d3 leaps.

You can also use her to free up your heavy warjacks or Storm knights by having her shoot the models engaging them. Always try to shoot the enemy models if you can get line of sight to them, even though their defence will be higher due to being engaged you might get lucky and hit. And if you miss you get to roll to hit on your own model anyway which will still generate the d3 leaps so you effectively get two chances to hit.

Use in battle

In early turns the best use for her is to advance up to 8" and shoot 8" then reposition 3" to a position to safety or to a place that gives her the range to buff your Storm Lances.

Its best to keep her back and alive until later in the game if at all possible.

To make positioning her and the Storm Lances she buffs you can have a Stormblade Captain nearby to allow them to see and move though each other. 
This lets you move Laddermore out in front to attack and get in position to buff the Lances, then they charge though her also blocking line of sight to her when they are done keeping her safe.

Its worth noting that she can be used to activate a Stormclads accumulator, giving it a point of focus.

Synergies 

Firefly for its +2 to electrical damage, works well with the Storm Lances too.

Silverline stormguard can buff the electrical damage by another +2

 Stormblade Captain for the above mentioned moving through other Storm knight tech.

Nemo3 makes her ranged attack and eleaps gain an additional die on his feat turn.

Stryker2 will make her generate another d3 leaps with her attack on his feat turn.

Stryker3 makes her hit like a truck on his feat turn. An additional die of damage on both her impact attacks and charge both of which with automatically hit.

Haley2 can cast temporal acceleration on her to allow her to shoot twice and move an extra 2". Useful if you need to clear out a unit of infantry.

As a solo she is not the best use for spells like arcane shield or blur as you will get more use out of them by putting them on the Storm Lances you will normally bring along with her. (You are bringing Storm Lances right??) Spells like bullet dodger though can be great with her, pushing her defence up to a level that makes her much more likely to survive an attack.


Here is my painted Laddermore. Overall its nice to be able to put her on the table now in mk3 without feeling like she doesn't pull her weight as she was not that great in mk2. I hope you get a lot of use out of yours, I have been loving using mine!


What are your thoughts on her? Was there anything you think I missed? Let me know in a comment below!

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