Therion Unit Write-up

A very useful article from the AT-43 Forums http://en-forum.at-43.com/viewtopic.php?t=5814 . An overview of the units from the Therian AB. I am not going to go into statistics for each unit, the type of “if you include a third such and such your chance of hitting goes up by 3% at each range band” as that is not my play style. I play with the units I enjoy the look of, and the ones that fit my play style a bit more then others, nothing else. I play to escape RL and have some fun with friends. I write that, so you know where I am coming from on this review. Storm Golems Our general purpose unit, good at lots, master of none. A decent all around unit, but a bit lacking in the ranged department in my opinion, but I like shooting. A max sized unit with three sonic cannons is a decent enough unit to handle just about anything that gets into their path. They can, if lucky, take out some of the lighter armored vehicles with the sonic cannons, or use them to obliterate a unit of soldiers if they get a good enough shot. Armed with flamers, you have a unit that is devastating at closer range fights, especially since whatever isn’t killed by the flames will be grounded, which is helpful.You will hopefully be killing alot with the flame salvos and the blaster fire also. Then if you are close enough, a move into close combat with the enemy is usually a good choice. As the reaper blades will shread most infantries armor, and even a few lower armored walkers could get taken out by them. If you don’t have the range to get in close, their move of 18, gives them a decent chance of shooting and finding some cover somewhere to hide in. I almost always take a unit of these boys/girls/ unknowns in a platoon, They are your swiss army knife unit, useful in many situations.

Grim Golems The butcher knife of the golem frame. These guys are created for one purpose, rend flesh from bone. I’ve used them in a few games and I can say, if they make it to combat, they are brutal. Two reaper blades per figure can give you allot of attacks on the unit you are killing, so use them to jump the bigger units in the opponents army. Also, like the storms, with a pen of 7 they can also take out those lower armore3d vehicles. Getting them into combat is a bit of the tricky part, but they come equipped with camo that lets them run up the board with out being seen, unless your opponent spends points on things that let them see cloaked fighters, which means he isn’t spending them on fighters. They special weapon for these boys is also a brutal in close weapon, the flamer, as described above.

Assault Golems One of my favorite units, but as I said I like shooting. Golems with ranged weaponry, and still has their CC weapon also. Their base weapon is only one point stronger then the storm weapon, but they have an accuracy of 6. Meaning I can bring these guys on, leave them further back on the board to hold a flank or a good firing lane. But if I need to, I can move them up the field and get them in close where they can do damage with their ranged weapons and their reaper blades. They have the option of flamer or nucleus gun for their special, but except for a few rare cases I would never field them without the nucleus gun. Most vehicles and combat suits should fear this unit and try to take them out quickly. Because the amount of fire and the type, they can disrupt the enemy lines pretty well.Their downside, is they are a pricier unit ,points wise, the either of the other Golem units.

Assault Medusas Probably my favorite unit in the game, just their look alone made me love these things. The floating squids is what I nicknamed them. With their very slow speed, 10cm, you better know exactly your plan for these guys before you bring them on the board, as they will not be able to reposition to well mid-battle. Unless you use a routine to run them across, but then they loose their shooting for that turn. And shooting is where these guys shine, they have the same weapons as the assault golems standard load out with the nucleus rifle and gun, but they have 1 better accuracy on both weapons so they just have a bit more range. Yes, they do have a CC weapon, the electrolash, but if they are using it, something went horribly wrong. With these guys I recommend a rush move onto the board into some cover, then give them overwatch and take cover if you can spend the LP, Talk about a scary situation for your enemy. Bane Goliaths-Vehicle hunters, thats what these guys are. No ifs ands or buts about it, with there weapon load out. 6 nucleus guns shots at pen 14 per turn, they should kill one vehicle a turn with proper rolling (which is why it takes me two turns). Another unit that I recommend rushing onto the board and using cover and overwatch for them. You could use these guys and a unit of assault golems and play leap frog in cover with them. That would be enough fire power to make most opponents try the other side of the board for movement.

Assault Goliaths The all around killers of the army, 3 nucleus guns and 3 sonic cannons, these boys are meant to kill just about anything that gets in their way. Not as deadly to higher armor vehicles as their bane brothers, but these guys could if they are very lucky, take out a unit of infantry and a vehicle in one turn, hows that for killing power. I haven’t had a chance to use these yet, but I may proxy some to try in a game soon. When I use them a bit more, I will post up my thoughts on them. That is it for part 1 of this write up, part two will be the vehicles of the Therians, and if I’m up to it, part 3 will be hero’s and routines (including talking about overseers).

Wraith Golgoth The general purpose vehicle of the rank 2 golgoths. Like the storm golems, this vehicle is an all around tool, not a specialized one. It comes with a decent armor value at 14, with 4 structure points in the body which will keep it alive for a while. I never leave home without one of these bad boy/girls in my army. and for a paltry 15 points, you can make it an Alpha overseer, which I do almost all the time. That way the overseer can run the repair routine (which will be talked about later) on itself and fix any problems. The weapon load out on the wraith is, like I said, general purpose. You have a nucleus cannon and a sonic cannon. The nucleus cannon is definately made to rip apart other walkers with its 15 pen and the sniper ability (if the wraith doesn’t move, the person who shoots chooses the target of the impact), so you can snipe off a FT’s weapons or its legs and leave it stranded. Or turn the cannon on a unit and snipe out it’s commander, or the armies high commander if your real lucky. I very rarely use the snipe ability as my wraith is always on the move to better cover, and closer to the enemy. The other weapon, the sonic cannon, is a little stronger version of the sonic gun carried by storms, with a 9 pen value, and a better accuracy. With four shots a turn, you can use this to try and rend a lower armored walker, or take out part of an infantry unit. I use my wraith as a mobile weapon platform that expels another vehicle a turn (another routine that will be talked about later) and takes shots of opportunity. I never try to expose the wraiths to much, as lock shot weapons can cause a head ache to them.

Poltergeist Golgoth The same frame as the wraith, but two sonic cannons instead of the mix. It is about 25 points more the the wraith, but so worth it in my opinion. The weapons are still very general purpose at pen 9 and 4 shots each, that is either a very dead infantry unit ( with some good rolling) or a good chance to take out a lower armored walker wit that amount of shots. This has become my prefered golgoth to use on the field of battle, but I have not really faced allot of rank 2 vehicles from my opponents, so the 9 pen has not hindered my army. Perhaps when the snakes come out for UNA, I won’t find this build as helpful, but for now, I love my red poltergeist. One thing I definately would do with this golgoth is use the hyper nanonucleus routine on it to let you reroll those couple of unlucky 1’s on the wound roll. Incubus Golgoth- You knew it was coming, a two nucleus cannon golgoth. Two sniper shots a turn, if you don’t move, how nasty can you get. All for no increased cost over the wraith golgoth, just a bit of loss in the amount of shots per turn. I haven’t used this variant to much, for the reason I stated under the wraith that I try to keep my golgoths moving as much as I can. If I get up into some higher pointed games 5-6000 I could see taking this as a second golgoth and sitting it somewhere in cover and sniping out overseers/medics/mechanics/ETC with it. I have a buddy that I believe will be using this variant exclusivly, but it is not the option for me.

Hekat Golgoth What can I say, a small ,quick, bladed nasty golgoth. These guys are feared by many a UNA player (mainly cause Therian players can create them out of nowhere using a routine). Four attacks a turn at a 13 pen value will rend flesh easily, and cause most walkers to not want to see these guys running at them. Give these guys the dash move (50 cm move) and they can get to an enemy pretty quickly. When done in a unit of three, they can cause some problems in the enemy lines by causing them to loose their combat drills by being engaged by these guys. I use these guys kind of like wild cats, the run the perimeter and hunt for week or injured units to pick on. In a unit of three with an overseer, they definately cause problems in your opponents lines. Succubus Golgoth- I have not had enough experience with these guys as I would like, but from what I have proxied they are my favorite between them and the Heks. 25 points more per golgoth then the Heks, but all range weaponry, which is what I like. A light sonic cannon, which seems to be like the one carried by storms, just a better accuracy on it, and the better of the two weapons, the light virus cannon. This weapon dosen’t have the best range, with an accuracy of 5, and only one shot per turn, but it is a lock pen weapon. It always penetrates on a 2+,versus any armor. This is the wepon for Baal or firewalker hunting. With their normal move of 30 cm (50 rush) you can bring those virus cannons to bear very quickly if you need to. I do believe these will be my choice of rank 1 vehicle pooping rather then Heks, but I will have to proxy them in a few more games first.

The BAAL What can you say about a vehicle that carries it’s own nanoresource generator iinside of it. Amazing, thats what. This vehicle causes all routines used by an overseere version of it to cost one LP lessThats right, free repair on itself. At a base cost of almost a three vehicle unit of succubus, this one is a beast. It’s weapon load out seems to be similar to the Wraith Golgoth in that it is general purpose and not specialized to hunt any one type of unit. The heavy flamer is definately made to hit a unit of infantry and burn it to a crisp, with a pen of 9 and a AOE of 7. The heavy particle accelerator, YIKES. Do not let a fire toad or hek/succubus get hit by this bad boy. 3 shots at pen 18, with each shot doing 2 damage points. If everythin hits, that is 6 damage points to a walker a turn, turning most rank 1 vehicles to slag or almost useless in one turn. Probably causing some serious damage to most rank 2 vehicles also. I still have to try one of these boys out, but when I do I will share further ideas for it here.

Overseers and Routines Here is part three of the write up on the Therian army. Overseers and all they can add to the army. In a 1500-2000 point army, I usually try for at least three overseers to be present. Two infantry and one vehicle overseer, that way I have a good coverage with them. Our three units that can get overseers are the three golum units. So you have your choice of leader type depending on your style of play. For general purpose, select the Storms to have your overseer, for shooty goodness, select the assaults, and for hand to hand brutality, take the grims. My minimum level for my main overseer personally is a Sigma , a bit point heavy, but a decent authority and LP amount. He/she usually runs up a side of the board trying to stay in some cover, but will take part in the battle. I have seen some people hide their main overseer in the back and never move them, but in my opinion, that just wastes a unit. My second infantry overseer depends on the points I have left when making the army, more then likely it will be an alpha or a delta if I’m lucky. This back up overseer is here for one reason, to resurect the Sigma if he/she gets killed early (and do other nasty things with routines). The vehicle alpha, is a Golgoth, but depends on what I am facing on which variant I use,. This one is used as a heavily armored (more then allot of other therian equipment) killing machine, that once in a while spawns a new vehicle (another routine). If this guy is my last overseer left, something went pretty wrong, but at least I have one left that can withstand a good amount of firepower. I really don’t use the numbers bonus for the overseers in their units, as therian units a pricier thern anything else yet, on an entire army basis. Now for the real reason you want to bring the overseers, Routines. These are the extra little things that allow you to create new vehicles, bring back dead fighters, and reroll failed wounds, plus other fun things. These are the reason you want the biggest LP pool you can get. For those of you who have never used them before, the only overseer that can use routines on anything besides his own unit is your commander. He can use any of the proper routines on any unit of his type. IE: an infantry commander can use any infantry routine on any infantry unit. So lets look at the routines.

Infantry Routines
1. Transfer (1 lp) - This one lets you swap one figure in the unit for one that has already been killed. This is a cheap way of bringing back a special wepon trooper, or the sniped out overseer. The only stipulation is that unit composition rules are followed. So no bringing in a fourth sonic gun on a storm unit.
2.Dash (2 lp)- The unit preforms a rush move that lets it cover 30 cm. I love to do this with my assault medusas first turn, as they can get pretty far onto the board with 30, then go on overwatch. Also good for getting a unit from cover to cover
3. Hyper nanonucleus (2lp) - Make this one your best buddy, don’t ever forget about it, tattoo it on your forearm so you always see it. For 2 lp, your entire unit can reroll it’s failed damage rolls. The great thing is, you can activate it after you’ve done the first rolls, so if you didn’t damage enough, you pay and roll again.
4. Reconstruction (3 lp, this was forgotten in the Therian AB on page 31,but is included on page 61, editing error)- This is one of my favorites for my medusas and banes, it brings a dead fighter back into the game, back with the unit he was from. So if no unit left, no bringing back from the dead, but if one guy is left, you can slowly rebuild them. This one is especially usefull when the unit has an existing overseer and your commander is a infantry overseer. Two rebuilds a turn, that will help with reforming a unit.

Vehicle Routines
1. Repair (1lp)- One of the most useful routines for AFVs, the ability to repair structure points, and rebuild dead weapons. Always nice when your AFV has lost both mobility points to regrow one and go tearing across the table after whatever hit you (or maybe thats just me)
2. Dash (2lp)- Same as the infantry routine, but the AFV movement is upped to 50cm. They also have the ability when running like this to stomp on units to cause kills. Nothing like rushing around the edge of a building and crushing an enemy underfoot (claw,paw,whatever they have). Great for getting Heks into combat quickly, or getting other vehicles into better firing areas.
3.Hyper nanonucleus (2lp)- Same as the infantry one, didn’t wound enough with your rolls, pay the LPs, pick up the non-damages and roll again.
4.Creation (4lp)- The cause of all the comotion sometimes, this routine lets you create a rank 1 combat strider on the battlefield. Thats right a free Hekat or Succubus for only 4 LP, and has to contact the overseer. I have used and seen this routine used to great effect, and I have seen it cost someone the game. The downside is, it cannot do anything till next turn, so you may want to create it out of LOS, cause it is a sitting duck. I have used this to create a few proxid succubus, and I think that is how I will be using this ability more then Heks, as the Succ have the virus cannon. The down side to this routine, is that in most missions, if your opponent can take out the created vehicles as you feed them to him, he will get VP for them. I watched someone win a game and never claimed one of the objectives, just by destroying Heks for four turns. Use this one at the right time, and you will cause mass headaches for your enemy, use it wrong, and you may well loose the game.
5. Fusion (4lp)- This allows you to fuse two combat striders that are from the same unit and fuse them into the next highest vehicle type.This routine can be nasty, but not as useful as others. I see this one as a last ditch routine for a unit of heks or succs. It does not allow you to take two heks that were created onto the field and fuse them together, that would be to powerful I believe. The vehicles have to be a unit together. So at the moment, the only thing we can fuse is two heks or two succs that were bought at army creation in a unit. I have yet to try this one, but I will soon. The thought of taking an almost destroyed unit and fusing the two into a Gogoth type of my choosing (the really nasty part, as I can see if my opponent has AFVs left or more infantry and create accordingly.)and have it undamaged at all. I think this will be very useful for late unit tactics.
There are a few hero only routines, but we wil talk about them when we talk of heros. There are also Damoclese dependent routines from what I have heard. When I read these, I will put them in also. Now a quick discussion on the three alternate army compostions.

The Cyphers
Adv- overseers have access to both types of routines. So a infantry overseer can use vehicle routines, but they cannot effect unit tpes other then their own. So the only real one they could use would be the creation routine. Which if this army is tooled right, it can be a spawning machine. Unfotunately, there is no infantry routine that a AFV overseer can use, as they all effect infantry units. So this advantage real isn’t the greatest, unless you wanna spawn.
Disadvantage- You cannot wager LP for the authority test. Not that big of a deal to me, I would like to win this roll, but do to my luck in rolling, I am used to going second.

The Warriors
Advantage-Each unit that can have them, can change a figure into an alpha overseer for free. This one is nice for saving points if you use allor of golum units, but if you use goliaths and medusas allot, not as useful. This does allow you to get Atis into your Grim unit for free though, so it is a BIG point saver if your bringing her on.
Disadvantage- A unit with melee weapons must always engage a unit if the movement choosen can get you into contact. A smart opponent will use this to their advantage a draw your units off of objectives by sacrificing a unit to your melee guys. This army doesn’t really appeal to me, as I said before I like shooting, so HTH style army isn’t my favorite. The free alphas would be good like I said, if I played with allot of golum units, but most of my infantry is banes and medusas, so no free alphas there. Web

Striders
Advantage- Each routine costs 1 LP less, they will always cost at least 1. Oh do I like this advantage, all my routines costing just a bit less, giving me more LP to play with every turn, it is great.
Disadvantage- No more “nerves of steel”, they get morale 8. So the Therians are now forced to take morale checks, the nice thing is, it is always a 4+ for them. I don’t know how this one would effect normal people, but with my rolling, I would be using allot of the extra LP gained from the advantage to bring broken units back to order, but thats just me.