Trencher Warcaster Lieutenant

No journeyman’s life is without peril, but some brave men and women opt to take a nobler and more dangerous path. Enlisting in the trencher corps upon completion of basic warcaster training, these junior warcasters specialize in wielding magic to aid their fellow soldiers. Trencher warcaster lieutenants bunker down with the grunts and help secure crucial ground on the field of battle. With the aid of the warjacks they command, these soldiers can often turn the tide of battle.

Basic Info

Abilities

• Template:Tough
• Template:Battlegroup Controller
• Template:Dig In

Weapons

• Carbine - 10" range, POW 10 ranged attack
• Mechanikal Trench Blade - 0.5" reach, P+S 11 melee attack
  • Template:Magical Damage
  • Template:Brutal Charge

Spells

{{Category: Template:Fire GroupTemplate:Rift }}[[Category: Template:Fire GroupTemplate:Rift ]]

Theme Forces

• Cygnar
  • Template:Heavy Metal. He gains Reposition [3] in this theme.
  • Template:Gravediggers. He gains Rise in this theme.

• Other Factions
  • Infernal players can use this unit in the Template:Hearts of Darkness theme, but only if Sloan is leading the army.

Thoughts on Trencher Warcaster Lieutenant

Trencher Warcaster Lieutenant in a nutshell

The Trencher Warcaster Lieutenant can allow you to run more warjacks than you could typically use by expanding your focus pool. He has more of an affinity for ranged jacks because of his Fire Group spell allowing him to leverage more range.

Defensively speaking, he has several elements that keep him safe. If he is running ranged jacks, 4 focus lets him stand 8" behind your our jacks. With a Charger that's around 22" away from the front lines, a decently safe distance. His focus pool is frequently good enough to have something to camp, combining with his Dig-In, he can be unusually hardy. Finally, he has tough. Hopefully you don't have to use it, but it's there.

He will be best used by warcasters who do not have several buffs to their battlegroup. Kara Sloan, Kraye, and Caine3 do far too much for their warjacks to justify taking the Lieutenant. Casters like Stryker1, Stryker2, and Haley3 with less spells that don't specify Battlegroups are more able to make use of the extra focus he has to offer.

Battlegroup thoughts

The Lieutenant tends to favor ranged Warjacks thanks to Fire Group. With 4 focus, it's even possible to have him control 2 Warjacks and stay safe thanks to Dig In.

Grenadier

• The Lieutenant is a Trencher, so he's one of the two Trencher models you need within 1" to increase the Grenadier's number of shots.
• With Fire Group and a Snipe spell from elsewhere (i.e. your warcaster) you can aim and still threat 16", while being dug in, with the potential to boost damage if you need to take out an enemy solo or CA.
• Considering all that, you might even pick two to really defend a position, but it's a bit of a point investment.

Charger

• The Charger of course makes great use of an extra point of focus - and Fire Group doesn't hurt either.
• With Fire Group, they're excellent cavalry hunters. Boosted POW12s can reliably kill a lot of cavalry models while the 14" range means they're usually out of charge range if you don't kill it.
• They're also very capable in melee if the cavalry unit tries to run to engage. Instead of casting Fire Group you can fully fuel your Chargers instead and bring out the P+S13 hammers.
• Take 2 and destroy the world.

Hunter

• A little expensive, the Hunter can be 16" away from the Warcaster Lieutenant and still operational. Oh, and benefits from Fire Group.

Defender

• If you want to really invest, for 14pts the Defender offers more ranged utility against ARM buffed targets compared to a Hunter. Being able to aim to RAT8 and still fire a shot at a target 18" away gives you a lot of coverage (And can be well outside of various CTRL area effects). It also has some serious melee punch against anything that tries to get into your rear echelon.

Stormwall or Hurricane

• If you are using a caster with access to Snipe, you can stack the range increase with Fire Group. The result is absolutely monstrous threat ranges reach across the board firing as early as turn one. Shooting targets from 22" away almost guarantees you will have 2 turns to fire your weapons (switch to an armor buff when snipe is no longer necessary). Obviously this is weighed against the risk of placing a Colossal in the care of a journeyman warcasters, but if you are tailing behind 8" dug in, you can be reasonably safe.

Non-jack synergies

• Commander Anson Hitch gives Trenchers Tactician.
• Warcasters with Snipe tend to have fewer vital battlegroup specific bonuses.

Drawbacks & Downsides

• Lieutenant Allison Jakes generally does more for her battlegroup than the Trencher Warcaster Lieutenant if you want to use melee Warjacks, and costs the same.
• Dig In can be hard to use although you frequently just want to hand out focus and keep this guy safe
• In the Gravediggers theme, it can be hard to fit this model. Trenchers in particular have a very high amount of synergy and interactions with one another. You'll want Finn with infantry, dog with long gunners, hitch with busters. Points spent on the Lt.'s warjacks are points not spent on trenchers!
• There is a strange push pull in the Heavy Metal Theme. If you are playing Heavy Metal with a battlegroup oriented warcaster, trading all the potential benefits, battlegroup spells, field marshal abilities, and other effects means a warjack under the Warcaster Lt. might be weaker than one just under your actual warcaster.
  • Those Warcasters with a more...agnostic...approach to their buffs, such as Siege1 or Stryker1 can really value models that can lighten their focus burden such as the Lieutenant.
    • Basically any warcaster with a lot of upkeeps, few battlegroup-only spells and/or no Field Marshal (or similar ability).

Tricks & Tips

• Thanks to his Dig in ability, he's immune to blast damage. One of the greatest risks of running a journeyman is losing a relatively fragile solo to a boosted large template aiming for the 'jack, rendering the 'jack inert. Thanks to this ability, he can stay close to and hide behind a warjack pretty well.
  • Just beware of AOE weapons that apply continuous effects. Although he won't take blast damage, any secondary effects like Continuous Fire will affect him.
  • As mentioned above, this especially makes sense if you consider the Grenadier, which needs a Trencher within 1".
• Remember, he can use Dig in and still cast spells before or after that.

Other

Trivia

Released in the Gravediggers CID (2017.06)