Aiakos, Scourge of the Meredius

Having honed his skills through years of piracy upon the Meredius, Aiakos moves with his battlegroup like a specter of death both at sea and on land, striking down foes with wicked effectiveness. Nowhere is his cruelty more apparent than in his weapon of choice, a chained harpoon he uses to impale his victims before reeling them in to deliver the death blow.

Basic Info

Abilities

• Template:Stealth
• Template:Battlegroup Controller
• Template:Leap

Weapons

Harpoon
File:Gun icon.jpg		RNG			ROF			AOE			POW
		10			1			Template:-			10
Template:Magical Damage Template:Drag
Blade
File:Sword icon.jpg		RNG				POW				P+S
		0.5				6				12
Template:Magical Damage

Spells

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Theme Forces

• Cryx
  • Template:Black Industries
  • Template:Slaughter Fleet Raiders

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

Thoughts on Aiakos1

Aiakos1 in a nutshell

He's half-support, half-melee asssassin. This guy is astounding for the points you pay. He is a great assassin solo by himself, his ability to boost to hit and damage and buy extra attacks cannot be overstated. His ranged weapon has a low range but has just enough POW to pull off a Drag on most small-based models. With a bit of luck, he can possibly even drag the higher ARM models.

He works very well with (certain) jacks.

He competes with the Iron Lich Overseer and Deneghra0 for a spot in your list as a "warjack babysitter". (Well, sure, you could take all 3 but then you're likely to suffer support bloat.) In comparison to the ILO, 9 out of 10 times Aiakos will be better. In comparison to Denny0, they serve different purposes. She's useful if you need more ARM-cracking, Aiakos is better if you want more assassins.

Warjacks and Aiakos

File:Kharybdis.jpg

Kharybdis is Aiakos' pet warjack

Of particular note, the following combos are good:

• Light jacks
  • Stalker - Probably the best warjack to put on Aiakos1. Two Stalkers is also good.
    With extended control range, it lets Aiakos hang further back and be safe(r). There is no need to cast Grievous Wounds, saving yourself a bit of focus. With them both having Stealth, they form a good harassment team.
  • Scavenger - Sprint allows you to bring the Scavenger back into Aiakos's control area after killing something.

• Heavy jacks
  • Kharybdis - Khary is Aiakos' pet warjack. They become an expensive combo, but Aiakos1 can turn Khary into a stealthy, fast, assassin warjack. Plus he can take it with him into any theme where Aiakos1 is allowed.
  • Leviathan - Good if you're running a gunline army, to take focus burden away from your Warcaster if nothing else. Although the +2" from Escort does let the Leviathan dig deeper with its shots.
  • Seether - Aiakos can spend 3 of his 4 focus upkeeping and casting spells and still load up the fairly autonomous Seether. With Escort up and Jump one can usually manage to get him down the enemy's throat fast, and then use Aiakos either as a melee assassin or have him reel his target in with the harpoon for the Seether to smash. This might not work with every caster but it does so extremely well with Denny1 due to the layers of debuffs she can apply on his target.

• Colossals
  • This is a high-risk, high-reward venture, as losing a low-cost, low-durability solo will make your high-cost colossal inert. On the other hand, Aiakos can cowardly hang out 8" behind the Colossal and, by the time you add the base width, he's about 13" away from the nearest action.

Combos & Synergies

• Skarre1 – Aiakos under Skarre1’s feat and Dark Guidance is a monster from hell. He could possibly get 5 melee attacks, at Mat 6+3d6 and P+S 17 (or slightly fewer attacks with boosted attack/damage) ... it's just pure glory. Anyone stupid enough to be within 11.5″ with a landing zone for Aiakos is in for a real treat, Cryx style. Or even 21" if you want to risk a drag (risky if you roll bad on to-hit). Now add in the fact he can run his character jacks under escort for her, too, whom she can ALSO feat on.
• The Withershadow Combine's Puppet Master ability can give him to a reroll for when you absolutely, positively, need to get a Drag off.
• Scaverous - Between Aiakos' Escort spell and Scav's Telekinesis spell, you can get at least +4" threat range on Aiakos' warjack(s). This goes up to +6" if Scaverous can TK the enemy model, too. Both he and his jack greatly appreciate the rerolls from Knowledge of the Damned as well.

Drawbacks & Downsides

• Drag sounds good until you consider stealth, Shield Guard, Sacrificial Pawn, stuff that can’t be moved, walls/terrain/other models ... it’s a long list.
• He dies to anything that can get to him. There is this strange mid ground, around ARM 14, that changes the weapons that will be used to target and kill a model. A POW 10 weapon is no longer reliable to kill him, so your opponent tends to go a bit bigger, and most of those larger guns can boost. A boosted POW 13 kills him on average dice, in the best of circumstances, and 13 is not even a particularly hard number to reach.
• He must take a warjack, which some players view as a "points tax".

Tricks & Tips

• Play him far back while his controlled jack(s) are still active. Once they have been killed by the enemy, you can start using him as a super-solo, as indicated above.
• His innate Stealth will prevent him to get killed by a random shot, but be aware it will not prevent him from dying to far-reaching sprays, boosted AoEs, or simply guns that ignore Stealth.

Other

Trivia

File:Aiakos1-ks.jpg

Kickstarter Exclusive sculpt

• Aiakos was one of the Journeyman Warcasters released as part of the WARMACHINE: Tactics videogame Kickstarter (2014)
• He has some backstory in the ebook anthology Rites of Passage, 2014.04, alongside the other Journeymen released in the Tactics game.
• There was a limited edition sculpt available for Kickstarter backers. There is now a non-limited sculpt for general purchase.
• His rules were re-published in the Warmachine: Vengeance expansion (2014)