Falcir, the Merciless

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

House Ellowuyr of Ios is known for a great many noble reasons, such as the quality of the soldiers they produce or their unique style of armor. Falcir herself is neither well known nor noble, but she is one the House’s most powerful assets. Those who know of her call her “The Merciless,” but these words do not do justice to the true nature of this warcaster. Falcir is House Ellowuyr’s executioner, and she is brutally exceptional at the task.

Basic Info

Warcaster abilities:

• Focus Manipulation

• Battlegroup Controller

• Power Field

• Spellcaster

• Independent Model

• Leader

Feat : Hunting Season

1. Place one bounty token on up to five different enemy models/units in Falcir’s Template:Control range.
2. Falcir’s Bounty Hunter gains an additional effect you can spend bounty tokens for during this Activation Phase.

   Prey Upon - Friendly Faction models gain +2 to attack and damage rolls against the enemy model/unit the bounty token was spent from. Prey Upon lasts for one turn.

Abilities

• Template:Bounty Hunter
  • Template:Confuse
  • Template:Execute
  • Template:Falter Courage
  • Template:Snare
• Template:Springing the Trap
• Template:Sprint
• Template:Unstoppable

Weapons

Iconoclast
File:Sword icon.jpg		RNG				POW				P+S
		2				6				13
Template:Magical Weapon Template:Weapon Master Template:Critical Amputation Template:Paying the Price Template:Thresher

Spells

{{Category: Template:Flashing SteelTemplate:Force HammerTemplate:Vanish }}[[Category: Template:Flashing SteelTemplate:Force HammerTemplate:Vanish ]]

Theme Forces

• Template:Defenders of Ios
• Template:Forges of War
• Template:Legions of Dawn
• Template:Shadows of the Retribution. She gains "optional Take Down" in this theme.

Thoughts on Falcir, the Merciless

Falcir, the Merciless in a nutshell

Falcir, The Merciless is a Retribution warcaster that brings a new style of gameplay both to Retribution and to WARMACHINE as a whole. Falcir herself is a melee powerhouse, best suited to fighting single hardier targets (such as Colossals or Gargantuans) on her own instead of wading into units of enemies. She relies of her army to deal with the “chaff” of the opposing force but aids them not only through her spells but also with her unique bounty mechanic. At various points throughout the game, Falcir can place bounty tokens on enemy models and units, which can be spent by her army to provide a wide variety of effects, such as reducing an enemy unit’s accuracy or speed or increasing the damage dealt to the enemy by friendly Faction models. This bounty mechanic requires players to plan ahead, knowing not only which models/units need to have tokens placed on them but also to what effect they intend to use them later.

Falcir is a brutal caster, meant to dictate the tempo of the battle through her powerful Bounty effects, and then win either through sheer attrition or by delivering herself into the enemy 'caster for an assassination. Her spell list is completely comprised of pure offense, while her bounty affects provide a mix of control and army wide offensive buffs.

Stack all of this with the fact that Falcir herself has a strong defensive profile, especially thanks to her Unstoppable rule, while also having an equally strong melee threat thanks to Cyclone, bounty effects, and her melee stats and you find yourself with a very mean caster that takes some time to learn to play with, and against.

Bounty Thoughts

Falcir is not a simple caster to play, but she is not also one of the most skill intensive casters either. Proper application of her bounties is crucial to playing her well. Knowing your opponent's army, which models/units to place bounty tokens onto, and when to utilize the debuffs versus the offensive buffs is vital.

You don't have to spend bounty tokens during Falcir's activation, just anytime during your Activation Phase. You could spend some at the start of your phase, activate Falcir later and add more, and then spend more later in the phase. This is intentional.

Springing the Trap and Paying the Price can be triggered during the enemy turn for extra bounties.

Enemy models can only have one bounty token at a time, but you can theoretically get two bounty effects on them. You need to spend the token to apply the first effect, then trigger Springing Trap or Paying Price before your Activation Phase ends, get a new token and spend it for the second effect.

Spell thoughts

• Flashing Steel - Her only upkeep, which is free if you bring Sylys. You put this either on a powerful melee unit like Nyss Hunters or Ryssovass Defenders, on a Trident for the cheeky double slam, or herself so she can really tangle down in melee because it saves her a focus she'd use to buy this extra attack.
• Force Hammer - It's a potent, if costly nuke, so you will cast this on turns where you don't go in smack stuff. Combining it with Snare lets you push an important model back D6" and with -2 SPD it likely cannot commit on the subsequent enemy's turn. Also it messes with focus efficiency if you use it to knock down battle group models. Finally, always remember that you can blast your own models in the back to knock down a key target, such as the enemy caster, and enable their removal.
• Full Throttle - You cast this basically every turn. It works great with any melee jack in Ret, i.e. Manticores, Aeternae and even Hydras and with easy access to empowers makes her jacks extremely focus efficient. Shyeel jacks are MAT 7, so they obviously shine with this and the aforementioned Manticore packs quite a punch with Mechanik support as well. This spell generally tilts her to more substantial battle groups with around 3 heavies, since the more attacks you make the more the spell pays for itself. The boosted attack roll part also affects herself, including her Cyclone attacks, which is easy to miss.

Tricks & Tips

• Slam a heavy into another one, then snare them both and potentially apply a Gorgon spray to keep them out of the game unable to contribute.
• Flashing Steel can be put on herself to increase her output. With Sylys you don't even need to spend a focus for it, meaning it's a net gain over buying one attack with her.
• The rerolls on damage rolls from Execute are better the higher the base POW of the attack is. It's not really a tool to make already weak attacks stronger, but to make already strong attacks peak more.
• If you Thresher, you can get multiple Paying the Price - one for each model you hit.

List Building Advice

Theme thoughts

• Arcanist Mechaniks - All three of them. No really, she never want to allocate at all, because she needs that focus to beat enemies to a pulp and camp what she didn't spend to survive the retaliation.
• Sylys - He saves her an extra focus, whcih essentially equates to an extra attack and makes her Force Hammer better with an extra attack die and extra range, makimg her much less reliant on an arc-node.
• Fane Knight Guardian - Decreases her odds of dying in melee and gives her Parry to go where she needs, as well as being a Shield Guard.
• Elara1 - Ghostly is absolutely essential for Falcir so she can charge through buildings and bring the pain. Her being able to fuel jacks for her is also very nice. Give her one or two Gorgons to double stack the Speed debuffs and make your local Khador player cry.
• Hermit - Mad Visions is important in keeping Falcir safe as she plays very far forward. Telemetry lets her land Force Hammers more easily, which can also be used to slam the Hermit in the back for some extra inches on his bubbles for the price of 4 focus and a hitpoint. Master of Ruin and Prey Upon make pretty much anything in her list hit very hard.
• Dawnguard Trident - That's 2" extra threat range and a very nice gun platform to boot.

Falcir is very weak against guns, having no innate defensive abilities against them and not granting them to her forces either. Conversely, Forges is a stellar theme for her, granting all of her jacks Shield Guard and among Elara, Mechaniks and Arcanists, she will never have to fuel them either, which lets her focus on casting Full Throttle and/or laying down the hurt herself once you have delivered her. The restriction to Shyeel jacks doesn't hurt her at all, as Manticores under Full throttle are excellent and should keep melee focused armies honest with Covering Fire.

• House Shyeel Arcanists - Among these guys and Arcanists Mechaniks you should be able to top of your jacks every turn.
• House Shyeel Artificer - He hands out the important Force Barrier buff to either Falcir or her Nyss Hunters and is otherwise a sturdy flag contesting solo.
• Nyss Hunters - They are Weapon Master infantry so they make excellent use of Flashing Steel. They are also your only 10 man unit in this theme to really take the buff (you really don't want to put the spell on Battle Mages).
• Battle Mages - The pushes can add another control element to her list and Prey Upon make their spells actually dangerous, damage wise. Generally you either play Nyss Hunters or Battle Mages and another light.
• Discordia - Thanks to Full Throttle you don't mind spending one focus for the Imprint, at which point Falcir gets a buff to her defensive stats that stacks with Force Barrier. Overall a good, albeit pricey package. Three initials with Full throttle is still amazing though and the spray adds yet another control element to her list.
• All of the above mentioned support models are available in this theme.

Defenders is another excellent theme for her. Cyclone behind the wall the theme gives you turn one, then use it to hang out for the rest of the game and project her assassination threat in a 15" circle around her (+2" with a trident, +2" from Lanyssa). Defenders also allows unrestricted access to Retribution Partisans, many of which provide excellent value to Falcir. Building a list with Sylys, Hermit, Lanyssa and Scythe is only possible here.

• Ryssovass Defenders - POW 10 Weapon Masters with Precision Strike are excellent Flashing Steel targets, probably the best in the faction other than herself.
• Aelyth Vyr - With him the Defenders get really abusive. Defensive Line + Tough and Dying Breath man they are a nightmare to remove in melee for a whole slew of armies. A well placed covering fire from a Manticore as well as Falcir's Spring the Trap further exacerbate this. Oh and he also has Veteran Leader [Nyss] on top of this.
• Scythe - She is already in the running for best non-archon solo in the entire game, but Reposition 3" from the theme benefit, Master of Ruin, and Veteran Leader push her to silly, over the top levels. Add Prey Upon or Execute into the mix and you have an absurd solo.
• Lanyssa - Loves repo and Veteran Leader as well. You can even stack Telemetry from the Hermit for effective MA 10. Falcir loves Hunter Mark to project her personal output two more inches
• House Ellowuyr Warden Executioner - With an obscene amount of 6 attacks per model and an FA of 4 for no good reason, these guys will set the world on fire with Execute or Prey Upon. Windmill slam the include-button on War Room if you can, you don need to take regular wardens with them either.

• Dawnguard Sentinels - They are a ten-man weapon master unit. Meaning they make the absolute most of Rapid Strike. They are very slow, however, and Falcir does nothing to fix that.
• Imperatus - One of the most solid character jacks and really good assassination tool. As such it loves Full Throttle.

Battlegroup

• Aeternae - They accumulate off of her and pack quite a punch in melee which is excellent under Full Throttle.
• Manticore - She runs these exceedingly well thanks to Full Throttle and with Covering Fire and Spring the Trap you can punish your enemy for coming closer to you and claim scenario.
• Phoenix - They hit hard and accurately and with 2" reach to boot. Also the are arc-nodes which makes landing key Force Hammers an easy prospect.
• Gorgon - Kinetic Grip and Snare result in a -4 SPD for enemy models. Enough to make Khador jacks cry. Two are a very good investment, but one will also serve you well. You should outsource them to Elara1, so they can back up after spraying something thanks to Speed of Death, because they will get deleted if you don't.

Other

Trivia

• Sculpted by Doug Hamilton
• Released 2021.02
• Her weapon's name, iconoclast, means a person who attacks or criticizes cherished beliefs or institutions.