Dawnguard Invictors

Invictors make up the bulk of House Nyarr’s Dawnguard order. When supported by the formidable Iosan myrmidons, invictors are unsurpassed on the battlefield. Firing their weapons as they close, the invictors are ever ready to charge into the ranks of the enemy and cut them down with the heavy blades set into their rifles.

Invictor captains are veterans who have endured long years of service under merciless superiors. All Invictors are extensively drilled and trained to take part in complex coordinated actions, and this is particularly true of the veterans chosen to accompany each captain. Relying on this discipline, Invictor officers can deliver devastating concentrated fire at unprecedented range.

Basic Info

Abilities

• Entire unit
  • Template:Assault
  • Template:Combined Ranged Attack
  • Template:Wall of Steel

• Officer only
  • He has +1 MAT, RAT, and 5 hitpoints
  • Template:Officer
  • Template:Extended Fire
  • Template:Granted (Template:Combined Arms-alt)
  • Template:Tactics (Template:Reposition 3-alt)

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

Weapons

• Leader, Grunts, and Officer
  • Sword Cannon - 10" range, POW 12 gun
  • Blade - 0.5" reach, P+S 11 melee weapon

• Standard Bearer
  • Template:Unarmed

Weapon Attachment

Invictors may have up to 3 Soulless Escorts added to them. Their info has been omitted from this article for brevity.

Theme forces

• Template:Legions of Dawn

Thoughts on Dawnguard Invictors

File:DawnguardInvictorUA.jpg

Command Attachment

Dawnguard Invictors in a nutshell

An elite heavy hitting ranged unit that is good in melee as well. Resistant to small arms fire and blast damage when base to base with each other. Very good for the points cost.

Thoughts on adding the CA and/or WA

The Command Attachment brings debatably more than 4pts worth of benefit to the unit, providing re-rolls to all CRA's (which on effective RAT 8+ allows them to reliably hit anything DEF 15/16+ without the need to aim or buffs/debuffs to be out) and the Snipe mini-feat which fixes their, for Ret, poor range. Given that they are the second slowest ranged unit (alongside the Stormfall Archers and just ahead of the Houseguard Rifle Team) and the joint shortest ranged (with the House Vyre Electromancers), they need all the help they can get to send their shots across the board.

Combos & Synergies

• Lord Arcanist Ossyan can do a few things with Invictors, including making them even more reliable with Fortune, letting their shots do splash damage via Shatterstorm and ramping up their damage output with feat.
• Issyria, Sibyl of Dawn can debuff DEF against squishier targets that they may not necessarily want to CRA against, along with improving their efficiency at everything via feat.
• Thyron, Sword of Truth can give them Blessed/Magical weapons to make the damage tell.

Drawbacks & Downsides

• Opponents who have stealth cause Invictors headaches as they have no way out ignoring Stealth outside of Issyria's feat.
• They're slow at SPD 5, without Pathfinder and a relatively short ranged gun compared to virtually everything else Ret can bring (theme gives them an extra couple of inches head start, though).
• Mini-feat and Ravyn's spell Snipe do not stack owing to having the same name, so it's difficult for them to extend their threat range, even if it is ranged.
• They have plenty of things they want to do and plenty they're quite good at, but they all conflict. Assault means their ranged output against targets further away is not as reliable (RNG 10/14 POW 12 with no re-roll, since Assault shots cannot be subject to CRA's), while Combined Arms means a maximum move of 5" if they want to maximise their chances of landing their shots.
• Unlike Sentinels, the Invictors remain comparatively easy to kill and no out of activation movement to help them up the board.

Tricks & Tips

• If taking them with Ossyan, tailor the application of his spells with what you want the Invictors to do and what opposition they are confronted with (in terms of Shatterstorm vs Fortune vs Quicken).

Other

Trivia

• Released in Forces of Warmachine: Retribution of Scyrah (Novermber 2009)
• The Latin word 'invictus' meaning 'unconquered/unconquerable'. If anything, the Sentinels evoke this more than the Invictors themselves.