Cyclops Brute

The tenacious and vicious nature of the cyclops brutes makes them singularly responsive to training, and the skorne rely on them to hold the flanks of formations or stand vigil over tyrants. Armed with towering shields and massive polearms, brutes constitute a virtually insurmountable threat on the battlefield. Their unique vision focuses on evading blows, and they can extend this power to those they protect.

Basic Info

Abilities

• Template:Intuition
• Template:Set Defense
• Template:Shield Guard

Weapons

Shield
File:Sword icon.jpg		RNG				POW				P+S
		0.5				2				10
Template:Shield
Halberd
File:Sword icon.jpg		RNG				POW				P+S
		2				4				12

Animus

{{Category: Template:Safeguard }}[[Category: Template:Safeguard ]]

Theme Forces

• Template:Disciples of Agony
• Template:Masters of War
• Template:The Exalted
• Template:Winds of Death

Thoughts on the Cyclops Brute

Cyclops Brute in a nutshell

The Cyclops Brute is a defensive warbeast - cheap, resilient, and with shield guard. It's cheap and useful enough that you can argue for it in any army. Bumping it to Mat 6 has just made a good beast slightly better.

In other armies the argument would be made that the Brute doesn’t hit hard - but this is Skorne and beast handlers alongside warlocks fix these issues.

Combos & Synergies

• Paingiver Beast Handlers - More hitting power or clear the fury after attacking.
• Master Aescetic Naaresh - extra hitting power and ARM on feat turn.
• Anyone who likes shield guards or immunity to knockdown and stationary (Rasheth and the Morghouls come to mind).
• Wrong Eye & Snapjaw - Star Crossed skews Def, and the Brute has good starting Def that gets much better with Set Defense when he gets charged. To top it off you can use Intuition to reroll any attack rolls that do result in you being hit.
• Agonizer - the Brute is a beast with a shield, and so like Tiberion and the Titan Sentry, skewing the Arm even higher can be quite effective. Also, the Brute has many advantages over our heavy shield users, such as much better speed, much lower cost, and vastly superior Def.
• Basilisk Krea - Tough shield guards get enough tougher.
• Makeda3 - Bulwark, Set Defence and Intuition have good synergy especially with the brutes animus, Incite gets over its weak melee output add in a paingiver and a Mat8 pow 16 spear with a free charge and possible grievous wounds doesn’t seem that bad.

Drawbacks & Downsides

• The Brute has a one of the lowest damage outputs in the Skorne beast stable. If you're trying to count on his offenses, perhaps reconsider. Often enemy heavies can just move right on past him taking a pittance from the Brute's Free Strike.
• Intuition looks great on paper but realistically you need caster support to make it work or you have to be very careful with your fury.
• Farrow Valkyries cost the same so if you are just looking for a shield guard you get 3 instead of just one.

Tricks & Tips

• It's often worthwhile to make use of the Brute's reach weapon to tie up more enemy models instead of trying to make use of his shield's much lower melee range because the shield is exceptionally weak. Just forego the shield attack.
• If you run him full of fury he won't be able to use Intuition. Whereas forcing models to reroll charge, slam, or impact attacks to his front arc makes his effective DEF 15 much more relevant.

Other

Trivia

Released in Hordes: Evolution (2007)