Skarre, Queen of the Broken Coast

Template:Cryxbox This model is playable only in an Unlimited format.

Skarre Ravenmane has become the commander of her own fate and the scourge of the western seaboard. Her utter mastery of the blood-fueled witchcraft of the Satyxis allows her to stand at the center of fate's web with full awareness of the endless possible outcomes for every decision. Auguries of blood and shadow guide her hand as with singular vision and inhuman ruthlessness she commands the Black Fleet towards whichever terrible destiny will best serve herself and the Dragonfather. The Queen of the Broken Coast may be a creature of flesh and blood, but she stands equal with immortals as she manipulates the tides of war

Basic Info

Warcaster abilities:

• Focus Manipulation

• Battlegroup Controller

• Power Field

• Spellcaster

• Independent Model

• Leader

Feat: Fate Weaver

Skarre immediately suffers up to 5 damage points. For each damage point she suffers as a result of Fate Weaver, one model currently in her Template:Control range can be affected by Fate Weaver. This model cannot spend focus points to reduce this damage.

• An affected friendly model cannot be targeted by charges and gains +5 DEF for one round.
• An affected enemy model suffers -5 to attack rolls for one round.

Abilities

• Template:Blood Trade
• Template:Future Sight
• Field Marshal [ [[:Category:{{{ability}}}|{{{ability}}}]] ]

[[Category:{{{ability}}}]]

Weapons

Hand Cannon
File:Gun icon.jpg		RNG			ROF			AOE			POW
		12			1			Template:-			12
Gun Blade
File:Sword icon.jpg		RNG				POW				P+S
		0.5				3				9
Horns
File:Sword icon.jpg		RNG				POW				P+S
		0.5				4				10
Template:Knockdown
Takkaryx
File:Sword icon.jpg		RNG				POW				P+S
		0.5				7				13
Template:Magical Damage Template:Life Trader

Spells

{{Category: Template:AdmonitionTemplate:BacklashTemplate:Black SpotTemplate:Blood RainTemplate:Death WardTemplate:Soul Strike }}[[Category: Template:AdmonitionTemplate:BacklashTemplate:Black SpotTemplate:Blood RainTemplate:Death WardTemplate:Soul Strike ]]

Theme Forces

• Template:Black Industries
• Template:Dark Host
• Template:The Ghost Fleet
• Template:Scourge of the Broken Coast

Thoughts on Skarre2

Skarre2 in a Nutshell

Skarre2 is a battlegroup caster with a defensive and ranged focus but no ARM debuff to speak of, in a Faction known for throwing fast and aggressive melee warrior models at ARM-debuffed targets. Her main gimmick is cutting herself for upkeeps and giving Future Sight to the battlegroup, making her army more focus-efficient than it has any right to be. The rest of her spell list consists of battlegroup support and viable solutions to occasionally-encountered problems. Between Life Trader and her Horns, she can mix it up pretty well in close combat, although her tendency to cut herself before even getting there makes this an exceedingly risky proposition.

Feat thoughts

Skarre almost always feats on herself, meaning you often have only 4 other feat targets to play around with. As a result her feat becomes more powerful the fewer pieces are on the board when she uses it (coincidentally making her very powerful in small games such as Brawlmachine). This leads to two schools of thought with regard to best using her feat and her overall strategy:

1. Use her feat early, to ram models down the enemy throat that are nigh-impossible to kill. This will hopefully a) give those models 2 turns of high damage output before they're brought down, and b) give the rest of your army time to cross the board mostly intact.
2. Use her feat late, when very few models are left on the board, to secure a victory.

Skarre wants a few high-value models in her army which are good feat targets, espcially if you're following the early-feat strategy. We'll discuss some of those "high-value" models in the #List Building Tips section, but in general they need to cover the feat's weaknesses:

• Enemy DEF-fixers

  +5 DEF is a lot, but sometimes the enemy can simply bring enough accuracy buffs to bear (such as Carnage) that they simply get through your high DEF anyway. As such you normally want your high-value models to have an already high base DEF value (DEF 14 or so) so the feat pushes it to a ridiculous DEF 19 or so.

• Knockdown or Stationary

  Anything that can apply this to your feated models is going to ruin your fun, espcially if that effect doesn't need to roll to hit you (such as Tremor). So you want your high-value models to be immune to knockdown and/or stationary, if possible.

• Auto-hitting attacks

  Simiarily, anything that can autohit (such as Electro-Leap) is going to circumvent your feat. On the other hand, these auto-hitting effects tend to be low-POW so as long as your high-value models are decently durable it shouldn't be an issue.

A decent opponent will play around your feat by ignoring or stalling the protected models in favor of wrecking the rest of your army. As such it can sometimes be better to feat on enemy models rather than buff your own, but only if that enemy army contains few enough important models that your feat can cover them all.

Lastly note that her feat is fully functional on friendly Mercenary models, which is unusual.

Spell thoughts

Admonition, Death Ward, and Black Spot form the core of Skarre's spell list; the first two provide excellent defensive tech to the warjacks she takes, while Black Spot allows her army to remove warrior models at range with high efficiency. Backlash is situationally good, as are Blood Rain and Soul Strike when the opportunities present themselves. But most of the time, Skarre will want to use her focus to land a clutch Black Spot on an enemy unit and allocate the rest of her stack to her battlegroup for future-sighted boosts.

Drawbacks & Downsides

• She works best versus infantry-heavy builds (due to Black Spot) and struggles vs high-ARM builds (due to having no ARM debuff). Unfortunately, the later is (currently) more common than the former.
• Her feat has several weaknesses, as described above.
• She ends up half-killing herself, making her easy to assassinate. Doctor Stygius can alleviate that, but watch out for anti-healing effects (such as enemy Void Archons).

Tips & Tricks

• Future Sight is even better with Puppet Master as a safety net.
• Life Trader needs to be declared before you roll the damage dice, and Future-Sight-boosting the damage happens after rolling the dice.

List Building Advice

Strategy

As mentioned above, Skarre2's strategy and army list design is largely dictated by her feat, especially if you plan to feat early & use the feated models to spearhead an offensive push up the board. This board position is usually then traded the turn after for either an assassination or a scenario victory. If you can leverage the power of an early feat you can swing attrition in her favour, but her normal turn-to-turn attrition game is relatively poor.

With only 5 feat targets available, one of which is normally Skarre herself, she likes to concentrate the power of her army into 4 high-value models. Sometimes she might take 1 high-power model (i.e. a colossal) and plan to feat on 3 enemy high-power models that might threaten that colossal.

Good options for these high-value models are:

• Archons, whether it be Void Archons or Death Archons. Archons are great feat targets due to being naturally high DEF, ARM, and hitboxes. Moreover they're immune to knockdown (but not stationary - watch out for that). They're also self-supporting, which is good because Skarre does nothing else for Archons except the -2 DEF from Black Spot.
• Huge based models are inherently immune to knockdown and stationary, so are good feat targets. This, in combination with Black Spot and Future Sight, makes her one of the few Cryx casters that can run a colossal quite well (Kraken or less commonly the Sepulcher).
  • Her feat is surprisingly effective on colossals, even though they have a measly DEF 10. The thing is, there is normally only 2 or 3 enemy models that have high enough POW to really threaten your colossal, so you feat on those enemy and your colossal and suddenly it is effectively DEF 20 vs the 2-3 models that can hurt it, and DEF 15 vs stuff that might chip the paint.
  • Also her Black Spot turns their shooting up to 11, letting them fire their main gun every time they get a kill with their secondary guns.
• A Wraith Engine is also a huge-based model so can be fun to feat on, but it's unlikely to be game-breaking.
• Asphyxious4 is an expert combatant even in his new celestial body and will be downright impossible to get rid of under feat with the DEF bonus and not being able to be charged. In return he gives Skarre a much appreciated ARM debuff. However he is not immune to knockdown nor stationary.
  • Asphyxious can bring a Privateer heavy warjack with Lash which does provide conditional knockdown-immunity.
  • Asphyxious can bring a colossal Blockader which synergises fantastically with Skarre's feat and her Black Spot spell (for much the same reasons as the Kraken described above).

  It will be able to live the dream with Black Spot, Death Ward, Dark Shroud (and Gang Fighter when playing in Scourge), while also not being able to be charged under feat.

  If you run this combo in Scourge, use the psychological threat of ambushing Satyxis Blood Witches to make the enemy clump up in the middle of the board so you can get extra milage out of the Blockader's sprays.

• Kharybdis is an excellent jack in its own right, and it's immune to knockdown. It's also able to leverage Black Spot quite well with its spray or tendrils.
• Barathrum is another excellent jack in its own right, and it can become DEF 22 while Dug In and feated on. However he isn't immune to knock down nor stationary, so your mileage may vary. Also worth noting is that his Countercharge ability stacks very nicely with Skarre's Admonition spell.

Theme thoughts

• Units
  • Satyxis Raiders are some of Cryx's our best infantry and synergise well with Skarre's backlash spell.
  • Satyxis Gunslingers and Severa Blacktide both pack excellent guns to make use of Black Spot. With Feedback and Backlash damage they become a threat to any battlegroup controllers as well.
  • Blighted Trollkin Marauders- Stacking Ashen Veil and the feat makes them surprisingly dodgy, although possibly a waste of a feat target. They also have ranged weapons for Black Spot usage.
  • Jussika Bloodtongue, Bloodgorgers, and Satyxis Raiders have Overtake, and Satyxis Blood Witches have Side Step. These models can really make use of the Black Spot spell to pacman through single would infantry.

• Solos
  • Death Archon - You can get two here, and that by itself is honestly the biggest reason to play Skarre2 in Scourge.
  • Satyxis Raider Captains are excellent for Skarre, they give her and other Satyxis immunity to knockdown which is a must for high-DEF casters. If you're using Skarre in Scourge, you should have at least one Captain.* The Satyxis Blood Priestess is useful for Skarre for free upkeep and Sucker. Also, in a lucky set up, you could use Black Spot to heal Skarre three times. Unfortunately the Priestess competes with Doctor Stygius for the Warcaster Attachment slot.
  • Black Ogrun Iron Mongers - Lowkey the best unit int his theme. They help your jacks hit and hit reasonably hard themselves, especially so against constructs.

• Erebus can reach DEF 19 under feat, and trigger Poltergeist when he is missed, and is immune to cold-based stationary effects.
• Malice is generally good and makes good use of Skarre's feat. Death ward can also make Malice a massive tank once she has collected a few souls during feat turn.
• Withershadow Combine help her focus efficiency tremendously with the free upkeep, though points can often be hard to find for them.
• Asphyxious4 - we've already talked about him, but note that he doesn't take up your Mercenary unit slot in this theme.
• Although Skarre normally wants an arc node, Master Gurglepox is a nice alternative if you've already spent your WJP.

• Wrong Eye offers strong synergy with her feat in Star Crossed.
• Under the feat, Orin Midwinter or even Madelyn Corbeau can also maximize their denial abilities.

Battlegroup

There's not much to add beyond what's already been said above - she'll spend her WJP on either a 2 to 3 heavies, or a Kraken, and maybe throw in an arc node (or two).

Future Sight makes her battlegroup more efficient, but despite this she doesn't want a huge battlegroup. Trying to give lots of different warjacks enough focus to take advantage of Future Sight is too draining on her resources.

First Seven Purchases

A few veteran players have put their heads together and tried to figure out the seven best things to buy for this specific caster. This is not designed to add up to a nice round points limit, nor be balanced vs other "First Seven" lists you find on this website. It is simply going to give you some of the essentials this caster needs most of the time.

1. Warjack: Barathrum
2. Warjack: Deathripper x2
3. Solo: Satyxis Raider Captain
4. Solo: Aiakos1
5. Warjack: Kharybdis
6. Unit: Asphyxious4
7. Warjack: Cankerworm

Other

Trivia

• Released in Warmachine: Superiority (2006)
• Sculptor: Werner Klocke

Video Battle Reports

• 2019.05 Feat Fetish, vs Baldur2
• 2018.10 Deathclock Dave, vs Lucant1
• Template:VBR