Hello battle brothers! It's been a couple months since the Balance Dataslate raised out fortunes, so I thought I'd talk about some of the units that are making it into competitive lists. One of the units that's not unusual to see is the progenitor of the
legion chapter, Lion Dad himself!
The Lion brings a lot of capability to a list. He's a big 2+/3++ murder monster that has Deep Strike and can walk through walls. He's apt to kill virtually anything he can make it into combat with, he's hard to target with his conditional Lone Op, he's challenging to bring down even if an opponent can target him, and he hands out some buffs that, while not amazing, do have some value. You can put him the center of the board and have him march to midfield with some degree of confidence he'll make it there, because opponents have to chew through the units escorting him before they can target him, and they'd have to charge him with a ton of models (or activate a Fights-On-Death) to survive his melee with enough attacks to stand a chance of bringing him down. He's even got a decent pistol, so if you have opponents within 12" of him, don't sleep on his shooting.
For all of that, the Lion does have one significant downside: he's 300 points. That is literally enough points to buy a squad of Deathwing Knights and a Scout Squad. The Lion can swing 8 Damage 4 attacks, but a squad of Deathwing Knights with maces can swing 21 Damage 2 attacks, and with swords 26! That's a much higher damage ceiling. The DWKs take more effort to pick up too, with 20 2+/4++ wounds against The Lion's 10 2+/3++, and the Knights reduce all attacks' damage by 1, so an opponent has to do a minimum of 25 wounds to pick up the squad. and are absurdly durable against Damage 2 attacks. So, for the same investment, you can have a squad of DWKs tanking and murdering better than the Lion does, while a squad of Scouts is out scoring Secondaries for you. There's a reason for the last 2 months every competitive list has featured multiple units of DWKs, but not all of them have featured Lion Dad.
That said, there are other considerations to factor. The first is his auras. We can choose between having him mess with stratagems played on nearby opposing units, giving friendly units +1 to hit in melee, or giving friendly units a 4++ versus Mortal Wounds. The last became more relevant with the change to the Hazardous rule. If you weren't aware, now all units that fail Hazardous tests take 3 Mortal Wounds instead of Infantry and Mounted units just dying outright. That creates the potential to save models that failed Hazardous tests. This is relevant to Dark Angels players because we tend to favor using Hellblasters, so having them degrade their own squad size more slowly is of benefit to us. It would also synergize really well with Ravenwing Knights if only they were a competitive choice, as it would only take negating 1 MW to save a whole bike.
The Lion also has Deep Strike, and he doesn't have a very big footprint for the magnitude of the threat he represents. I know that seems counter-intuitive, because that seems like we'd be dropping him too far away from friendly infantry units to trigger his Lone Op, but I think there's some value to it. He's harder to screen out than a unit of Deathwing Knights, so you might be able to drop him in the corner behind an opponent's home objective, and then that opponent either has to send something back to deal with him, or just be okay with him waltzing over and murdering whatever chaff unit is holding his backfield objective - and that's assuming he doesn't just make the 9" charge roll that turn.
If you want to straight Deep Strike the Lion AND give him Lone Op, you could drop a Phobos Lieutenant next to him. The Phobos Lieutenant has Deep Strike and a shoot-and-scoot datasheet ability, and he only costs 55 points. Dropping that guy behind a wall where he can trigger the Lion's Lone Op seems feasible.
That said, I'm harboring a notion to start using Rapid Ingress on Lion Dad with an eye towards messing with my opponent's target priority - maybe because I've been playing into Adeptus Sororitas a lot lately. Seems like every time I play against Sisters, I'm facing 3 Castigators, Morven Vahl and a unit of Nundams, Dominions riding around in multimelta Immolators, and assorted other nonsense. They put a pile of shooting into their chosen targets, and then bat cleanup with jump pack Canonesses or similar characters. I've got the notion it could be valuable to suddenly insert Lion Dad on the table where they can hit him with some of their shooting, but not all of it. That obliges them to either reassess their shooting priorities to respond to the threat, or just be okay with the Lion just murdering whatever he can reach in my following turn.
I wasn't kidding about him being hard to bring down either. I played into a T'au player at a local store tournament, and he dumped all the shooting from a Riptide, Farsight and a unit of Crisis Suits, a Breacher Squad, and all the other assorted junk he could put into him, and at the end of it the Lion was still standing with 1 wound left. He doesn't bracket, so damage output wise he's good till the last drop. That wasn't playing any clever Rapid Ingress tricks either, that was just with him marching up the field. If I had plopped him in where just one or two of those units could target him, I don't think that particular opponent would have known what to do about it.
Against assault armies, you'd probably just want to have the Lion on the table instead of doing clever Deep Strike tricks. Your opponent is going to be coming to you, so you might as well just let him do that and oblige him to get within Heroic Intervention range. Don't sleep on the Epic Challenge strat if you have him facing a unit with a major assault character and a beefy bodyguard unit. The bodyguards are there to die to let the character swing, so bypassing them is a smart play.
I have not discussed aesthetics much on this blog as yet, but it is a big part of the hobby, and the Lion is a gorgeous model that is a joy to paint, and makes a great centerpiece model for an army. He's well worth breaking out new brushes for and taking the time to do the very best job you can on him. He looks great on the display board surrounded by the forces of the Unforgiven! It's really nice to have that centerpiece model to act as a focal point for the whole display.
Yes, I painted my Lion Dad blue. It matches my army. I figure in the heat of battle, it can be important for quick friend-or-foe identification to be wearing the same colors as your allies. I also figure he's got a magic sword, a magic shield, and super high space-fantasy-tech armor. Having it be able to change colors at will is trivial. His armor can match the armor of the rest of my boys.
That, battle brothers, is my review of Lion Dad. He's been in my competitive list since I got him assembled and painted, which was shortly after the Balance Dataslate dropped. I haven't felt stupid for having him in my list, and he's helped me win painting prizes at the last couple events I attended. He may come out when I get my 3rd squad of DWKs, but he does bring capabilities that I'd lose by replacing him, and there's something to be said for having more variety in your toolkit. I'm not saying he's the best competitive choice you can make for your list, but there's an argument to be made for him, and you might build a list around the synergies he has with other units and have it be more than the sum of its parts. At the very least, you can use him without handicapping yourself too badly, which is more than we can say for a lot of our units. I say put him on the table and have some fun!
Comments
Post a Comment