What makes this theme list fun and different from her previous one is simple: PIRATES! In fact, I was shocked when I first saw the Cryx book released that neither of her normal theme lists heavily featured the Cryxian pirates - despite the fact that she's the Pirate Queen Skarre! That's all well-and-good now, though, as this theme list allows her to take some fun stuff. Let's break down the theme list first, and then we'll jump into some thoughts about what to take, followed by a 35-point list and as a bonus, I will include a 50-point list today, with some discussion, that will not appear on Kirby's site (think of it like a loyalty bonus!)
Freebooter and Mariner warjacks (count as Cryx heavies), and non-character Privateer units, meaning Sea Dogs, Press Gangers, and Sea Dog Deck Guns - although I'm still not sure if Sea Dogs can take Mr. Walls, as he is a character unit attachment, so for this article I'll assume they cannot. While the other tiers are okay, we certainly want to get up to Tier 4 to get us a 1-point discount on Privateer units! This is potentially huge as pSkarre wants to take lots of infantry anyway, and being able to take 10 Press Gangers for 5 points makes me giddy. Before we decide exactly what we will be taking, let's look at what Skarre offers the force itself.
 |
| Cheap bodies! |
In the case of pSkarre, I actually look first at her feat:
she can suffer up to 5 points of damage, and for each point of damage suffered,
friendly faction models in her
control area gain +1 STR and +1 ARM.
Whoa, that’s a pretty substantial feat!
This is where her theme list is pretty strong – the privateer models
count as friendly faction models
while taken in the theme list, meaning they can benefit from her feat! Not only that, but her feat is an extremely
impressive feat, offering not only an ARM buff (better than what can be granted
by most warcasters, mind you), but ALSO a STR buff! Sure, she has to suffer some damage, but the
benefits far outweigh the small price she pays.
This feat means that for that one turn, her infantry will be quite
capable of wrecking entire warjacks with ease, as +5 STR takes most infantry
weapons into the realm of the P+S of heavy warjacks and warbeasts.
Okay so what about her spell list? At first it seems relatively unimpressive,
but there are a couple of spells that stick out. The first is the unique spell Ritual Sacrifice that allows Skarre to
remove one of her friendly warrior models from play and during her next control
phase, she gains D6 extra focus points.
While this is fairly unreliable, it’s a decent price to pay if you take
an abundance of cheap infantry (we’ll get to that later). This means that she can effectively rocket a
warjack forward with some extra focus, should she need to. Another potentially powerful spell that she
has is an offensive upkeep Backlash
– which means that everytime the targeted warjack is damaged by an attack, its
controller suffers one damage point.
While hardly devastating, it can be significant to soften warcasters
which camp a lot of focus, but this is only useful against Warmachine – not
Hordes. Lastly, Skarre has Dark Guidance – a very powerful spell that gives friendly faction models an
additional die on their melee attack rolls in her control area, but is quite
expensive at 4 focus. If we remember Ritual Sacrifice, however, it is
possible for her to cast this spell if she really needs to (like on her feat
turn), and still be able to allocate a focus or two to a key warjack.
She has several other important abilities which relate to
her sacrificing damage points for certain benefits (upkeeping a spell,
additional die on damage for her main weapon) and can even gain more life back
for killing enemy models, but Skarre isn’t really built for assassination and
you should be careful about how you spend her damage points. She can also, in a pinch, Sacrificial Strike a key enemy model by
killing off a warrior model (especially since it ignores the in-melee penalty!)
and can even boost it if she needs to, but again you need to be careful of
“diminishing returns” – removing your own models for less than what you get
back. Skarre using her life and her own
models as another resource to manage, but unlike focus, it’s finite.
Okay so what should Skarre be taking? We should definitely try to max out on
infantry models, for sure. Her abilities
multiply quite quickly with lots of bodies, as well as feed some of her other
spells and powers. Fortunately, Tier 4
of her theme list gives us the wonderful benefit of reducing the point cost of
Sea Dog units by 1 point, which can allow us to take lots of models
cheaply! More infantry also means that
her feat will go much further as 30 models at +5 STR and +5 ARM is quite scary
and difficult to dislodge! As for
warjack selection, she’ll want warjacks which are fairly efficient and capable
of doing some damage without needing lots of focus, as she’ll want to save it
for Dark Guidance. Ritual
Sacrifice can help a bit, but there’s always a chance that you’ll only get
1 extra focus point, so it’s not reliable.
 |
| Although often maligned in favor of the Nomad, I think the Freebooter will be great with Skarre |
The theme list is already pretty limiting about what she can
take, but there are a couple warjacks of interest here. The Freebooter is a welcome addition for
Skarre, as a bodyguard since he can synergize well with Skarre’s knockdown on her Great Rack (hehehe,
snort) and grants her protection from being knocked-down if she’s in B2B. Other warjacks of interest include the
Scavenger and the Stalker. With Skarre
having so many bodies on the field, both of these warjacks will be a great boon
for her. First, the Scavenger might not
seem terribly impressive, but benefiting from +5 STR and +5 ARM will make the
thing scary with Finisher, and with Flight it can comfortably sit behind a
wall of bodies until it wants to strike down an enemy heavy warjack. Similarly, the Stalkers have an extended
control range, meaning they can stay 24” away from Skarre and still benefit from her feat and Dark
Guidance! These guys are quite
comfortable sitting on the flank until Skarre
and her tons of infantry clear out enough of the enemy models for them
to go in for the final kill, and with Greivous
Wounds, these guys can also be great for dragging down warlocks or heavy
warbeasts that you might not be able to take down in one turn. Stalkers can sit on the flank and not get in
the way of the rest of your force getting stuck-in - and that’s huge!
 |
| CACAW!!! |
So let’s look at a sample 35 point list:
Pirate Queen
Skarre (+6)
- Freebooter
(6)
- Scavenger
(4)
- Stalker (4)
- Stalker (4)
- Skarlock
Thrall (2)
Blackbane’s
Ghost Raiders (min, 6)
Press
Gangers (full, 5)
Press
Gangers (full, 5)
Sea Dog Crew
(min, 4)
Sea Dog Deck
Gun (1)
So what are
some interesting features about this list?
Let’s start with 32 warrior models in units – 20 of which are tough.
While there are many lists these days packing magical weapons for
dealing with incorporeal, the reason
why we’re using Blackbane’s raiders in this list is to allow them not to move
through enemy models, but to sit back behind 20 Press Gangers and then move
through our own models on feat turn
to get where they need to be. The full
units of Press Gangers are brutal with Skarre, especially compared to the same
price of Mechanithralls. Press Gangers
might not hit as hard, but they’re harder to kill (+1 DEF, tough) and her feat will make them scary enough anyway with gang.
Shanghai is just the icing on
top, allowing you to potentially beef up those Sea Dogs until you’re ready to
unleash another wave of pirates. Best of
all is that Sea Dogs have point blank,
meaning that they can benefit from the additional damage die from Dark Guidance on their pistols when
they’re in melee!
It’s also
worth noting that the Sea Dog Deck Gun is technically a unit and thus benefits
from the discounted price for Sea Dog units afforded by the theme list – making
it the most hilariously cheap artillery piece in the game.
Let’s also
not forget our extra theme list benefits: Advance
Move for Blackbane’s raiders and Advance
Deploy for the Stalkers and Scavenger.
This essentially means that while you have a massive block of infantry,
you’ll be able to spread them out during deployment, and more than half aren’t
even deployed right away (Press Gangers have Advance Deploy!). Not only
do you bring a massive group of infantry and some flanking warjacks, but your
enemy doesn’t even get to see where
they’re going until it’s too late!
All told, this is a theme force which catches an opponent off-guard,
takes the hits really well, and hits even harder back. The biggest challenge, of course, is using
it, but that’s where the fun is anyway, right?
Let’s take
this even further to 50 points to see what we can do differently. Games at 50 points typically involve a
greater number of threats and we can no longer really rely on our massive amounts
of infantry to save us. No, at 50 points
Skarre needs some harder hitting models or needs to end the game earlier by
moving key pieces out of the way to clear some charge lanes. Skarre also can’t really run warjacks very
well and is better supporting her infantry, so we’ll need to keep that in mind
and continue to play to that strength.
Remember that we also have a “staggered” deployment where Blackbane’s
Ghost Raiders get advance move (and
remember that they can even move through our own models) and the Press Gangers advance deploy further upfield, so we
can have room for EVEN MOAR INFANTRY!!!
Here’s the 50 point list I want to look at:
Pirate Queen
Skarre (+6)
- Freebooter
(6)
- Scavenger
(4)
- Stalker (4)
- Stalker (4)
- Skarlock
Thrall (2)
Black Ogrun
Boarding Party (full, 6)
 |
| 1 point? Lulzy |
Blackbane’s
Ghost Raiders (full, 9)
Warwitch
Siren (2)
Press
Gangers (full, 5)
Press
Gangers (full, 5)
Sea Dog Crew
(full, 7)
Sea Dog Deck
Gun (1)
Sea Dog Deck
Gun (1)
So what’s
new? We took a couple of our units to
full size (Blackbane’s, Sea Dogs) which gives us more bodies and more threats
for our opponent. We added another Deck
Gun for the lulz, added a Warwitch Siren for focus-management help (especially
useful on the Scavenger for charging), and we purchased a full unit of Black
Ogrun. Why? For only 6 points we get a nice beefy
medium-based unit (trample prevention) that have 8 damage boxes each, naturally have ARM 15 (making them
ARM 20 on feat turn or we can sacrificial
strike with one of them for a POW 15 magic attack), and can use a combined
ranged attack to drag a model closer so
they can bash it’s face in! These
guys are largely underrated in Cryx and I think they will do wonders with
Skarre to help clear out lanes for the infantry charges. Oh and on her feat turn, Skarre makes them
hit with P+S 18 in melee, each. These guys hit harder than most light
warjacks or warbeasts, for the same cost, and have more damage boxes. A solid choice indeed!
 |
| So underrated! |
To recap,
here’s what we have at 50 points:
1 Heavy
Warjack
3 Light Warjacks
40 Light
Infantry models (20 tough, 10 incorporeal)
5 Heavy
Infantry models (40 total damage boxes)
2 Artillery
Pieces (remember the Grunt can be sacrificed or activated!)
1 Support
solo (essentially able to grant a free charge to a warjack)
While there
can certainly be some factions or lists that can do a better job with the
number of infantry, pSkarre’s theme list gives some interesting advantages to
taking all of these infantry and has quite the variety of ways to threaten an
enemy warcaster/warlock, regardless of scenario. I must admit, however, that Terminus would
probably love facing this list, so it’s definitely not without it’s own
disadvantages.