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Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Lord of the Feast threat range trivia

So at the end of yesterday's article on using Shifting Stones I asked a question about the potential threat range of the Lord of the Feast using the Slingshot tactic we discussed:
What is the furthest distance from your board edge that you can project the Lord of the Feast on your first turn, if you assume that he hits a target with his raven?
a) 34"
b) 35"
c) 39"
c) 41"
d) 43"
While there are lots of ways to get some added threat range to the LotF, it often will depend upon using warbeasts or spells that you might want to use for another purpose.  In order to be most practical with this, I wanted to use only the Shifting Stones and the LotF, but admittedly the greatest threat range is with a specific warlock.



The answer is actually d) a whopping 43" (in other words, you are just within 5" of your opponent's table edge)!!!  How did I get that, you may ask?  Well if you take eBaldur's theme force, one of the benefits allows you to place your Shifting Stones units within 20" of your table edge.  With that information, you should be able to figure it out on your own, but here's a diagram:
 Here's how it works.  First, the green Shifting Stones deploy back around the Lord of the Feast who advance deploys on the 13" line (assuming we're going first) and then teleport the Lord of the Feast ~9" (1" wide base) forward to position 1.  Then the red Shifting Stones slingshot him forward another ~9" to position 2.  Assuming that your opponent deployed 8" from their table edge, you should be within 10" range of your raven, and assuming you hit, you get propelled another 10" forward plus if they are on a large base you can place in B2B behind them, another 2" deeper into your opponent's deployment zone, at position 3.

The beauty of this tactic is that it only involves Shifting Stones, the Lord of the Feast, and eBaldur's theme force, and it can be done on the first turn!  I've been doing this ever since eBaldur's theme force came out, and while it seems really broken, the Lord of the Feast is a 4 point solo and is pretty easy to kill at DEF 12, ARM 17, and 8 damage boxes (especially since he'll be in your opponent's deployment zone).  Also, if you miss with his raven, you're hanging high and dry to get assaulted, so you'll want to make sure that you try to hit a heavy warjack or warbeast that's DEF 12 or less, and that can sometimes be tricky.

Also, since you're only swinging at P+S 13, he'll hardly get you a first turn win, but you might be able to score some transfer damage against a warbeast or kill off a key support solo that might be near the bulk of your opponent's forces (Gorman, Corbeau, and Rhupert come to mind)!

Well I hope that even if you don't play the Circle Orboros that you'll at least come to respect the versatility and threat potential that the Shifting Stones offer the faction for just a small points investment.  They are a must-have for any Circle player!