House Ellowuyr Swordsmen

The swordsmen of House Ellowuyr practice a unique traditional discipline of fighting that utilizes perfectly balanced blades and fluid movements. Employing great sweeping motions they can cleave an opponent in two and continue to the next without losing momentum, while also being able to quickly maneuver to deflect incoming projectiles with the flat of their blades. They fight at the request of Thyron, Sword of Truth, who offered the Retribution the aid of those heroic swordsmen most loyal to him.

Basic Info

Abilities

• Entire Unit
  • Template:Parry
  • Template:Blade Shield
  • Template:Cleave
  • Template:Gang

• Officer only
  • He has +1 MAT and 5 HP
  • Template:Officer
  • Template:Granted (Template:Overtake-alt
  • Template:Serpent's Coil

• Standard only
  • Template:Standard Bearer
  • Template:Take Up

Weapons

• Everyone, even the Standard Bearer
  • Great Sword - 2" reach, P+S 12 melee weapon

Weapon Attachment

House Ellowuyr Swordsmen may have up to 3 Soulless Escorts added to them. The Escort's info has been omitted from this article for brevity.

Theme Forces

• Template:Defenders of Ios

Thoughts on House Ellowuyr Swordsmen

House Ellowuyr Swordsmen in a nutshell

You have well armored, weapon master infantry with 2" melee range, you have less armored, weapon master infantry who deal with monsters and jacks, and you have these guys. Better speed, the same good MAT, increased resistance against direct shooting, but weaker ARM - they're skirmishers against enemy gunlines and jammers. Since the meta starts to favor more infantry-inclined approaches again (Gravediggers, Ghost Fleet, etc), they can find place in more and more lists. If you intend to use them as anti-jam unit, their CA gives them Defensive Strike, which is a great ability. If your opponent out threats you, or just run up to engage, they have a good change at cutting down the would-be jammers. This mini feat loses its value to longer the game goes, so the earlier you use it, the better the results will be.

Combos & Synergies

• Kaelyssa - With Blur they are DEF 18 against direct shooting. Their mini-feat combined with Kaelyssa's no-charging feat makes this unit ideal to be upfront in case your opponent tries to run infantry at them to jam them up.
• Ossyan - Quicken gets them to DEF 17 against direct shooting, and SPD 8 gets them in your opponent's front lines fast. Since Ossyan likes to play the shooting game, the ability for them to walk out of melee makes them the ideal unit to disengage what they jammed up rather than be in the way and providing the in melee DEF bonus. They can also ignore free strikes to get into their back line to get at support pieces or jam up opposing shooty units.
• Thyron - their de-facto leader helps them to dig really deep into enemy lines under his feat, and offers them crucial Pathfinder for charges through Onslaught.
• Ravyn1 - Veil of Mist lets them move through other models and Parry lets them ignore free strikes, so you can send them through the enemy frontline to harass backliners.

Drawbacks & Downsides

• Their elite DEF forces the enemy to direct all the AoEs toward their direction - and their ARM is not designed to withstand that
• A bit too expensive for a jamming unit, and they also lack native Pathfinder
• Tough infantry can block your Cleave
• Infiltrators in the SotR theme force are better in dealing with Tough infantries, while the Swordsmen receive no such bonus from any current theme list
• They don't quite synergise with Thyron like you want them to, since his feat only lasts for a turn while they could really do with boosted attack rolls for when they mini-feat.

Tricks & Tips

• You know what really shuts down a unit of trenchers, or anyone, who dug himself in under Siege2's feat? 4 Guys with reach that can walk through them.

Other

Trivia

• Unit & CA was released 2017.04
• Community nickname: 'Thybros' (after their "boss", Thyron).