Kings of War/Tactics/Varangur

Why Play Varangur?

You like vikings and dark knights.

Army Special Rules

Fanatical Devotion: All clan warriors in this list have higher Nerve than normal. This is already included in their profiles.

Gift of Korgaan: A unit with the Gift of Korgaan may choose to take one of the following options for +10 points:

• Brand of the Warrior: The unit gains the Brutal special rule.
• Guise of the Deceiver: As of Clash of Kings 2018, The unit gains the Fury special rules.
• Mask of the Reaper: The unit gains the Lifeleech (1) special rule.

Unit Analysis

Hero

• Cave Troll King: What it says on the tin. Over a chieftain he gets 2 more attacks and slightly better nerve. He also comes with a Big Shield, Breath Attack (10), Crushing Strength (3), Nimble, Regeneration (5+) and Very Inspiring, but only for Trolls.

• Chieftain: Your run-of-the-mill general, Chaos Lord equivalent. Has Elite, CS 2 and Inspiring, and is slightly pricey for a general type character. Can take a mount for 20 points, which does nothing but increase his speed.

• Chieftain on Direfang: Over the regular Chieftain, this one gets twice the attacks, a notch better nerve, CS 3 and Strider for 60 points.

• Cursed Son: Slightly lesser version of the Chieftain, exchanging Elite and Inspiring for Vicious. Also has lower defense, but has more attacks and doesn't get wavered.

• Herja of the fallen: She is basically a must have in any army. Herja is in fact a female character, but a lot of players erroneously assume she is male for some reason. Take her in your army and rock out to Wagner's Ride of the Valkyrie whenever she does something awesome. SHE DEAD, as of Clash of Kings 2018. Literally.

• Magnilde of the Fallen: The lady who killed Herja. Speedy with a move of 7 and pretty respectable melee capability at 3+ Melee, 5+ Defense and 7 attacks. Crushing Strength(2), Elite, Iron Resolve, Individual, Inspiring and once per game can gain Wings for a turn to become 10 speed and Fly. Relatively costly at 175 points though.

• King on Chimera: Basically a chieftain, but with twice the attacks, twice the speed and a much higher nerve. Also adds a breath attack and a higher CS (3).

• Magus: Chop up some Elite lightning bolts to add a bit of shooting value to the army. It's great to finish off wounded enemies, and they've good chances to win the occasional wizards' duels. Maybe not against Elves, but who does.

• Skald: A ranged hero with Inspiring and throwing axes.

Infantry

• Bloodsworn: Basically Chaos Warriors. Heavy armour, has crushing strength and the works. Can swap their shields for great weapons, increasing their CS but dropping their defense by 1.

• Night Raiders: A troop of fragile bowmen with Pathfinders, Stealthy, and Vanguard. Can take throwing weapons, granting them Piercing.

• Reavers: A fast berserker unit with a shitload of attacks, doesn't waver and has Thunderous Charge and Vicious.

• Sons of Korgaan: Comparable to Chosen, these guys are good melee fighters and have better crushing strength than the Bloodsworn.

• Thralls: A cheap tarpit unit.

• Warband: A notch above the Thralls both on melee and defence. Marauders equivalent.

Large Infantry

• Cave Trolls: Peeps said they're worse than The Fallen (see below). Prove them wrong and give us a call.

• The Fallen: So these guys are height 1 (instead of 2), have movement of 8", roam about with Nimble and Pathfinder, and boast a 'rather basic' combat statistics of 3+ Me, 5+ De and CS(1). Which is rather basic, to be fair, for any combat unit worth their salt. They play more like medium cavalry than anything else. You'll struggle to find so maneuverable fighting units in any other army, though, and they easily seem the best unit within the Varangur for multiple situations. First impressions playing against them is "srsly?". Take it as you will. 2018/19(?) update: Pathfinder has now been removed.

Cavalry

• Horse Raiders: A more evened out statline than the Mounted sons, but with a ranged attack and Nimble. Great for flank harassment.

• Mounted Sons of Korgaan: Excellent cavalry, with good speed, melee and defense, 10 attacks, CS 1 and Thunderous Charge 2.

• Tundra Wolves: Your not-so-ordinary warhounds, and the only wolf/dog/hound type unit in the game (if you don't count daemons or the dwarf/abyssal dwarf mastiffs introduced in CoK18). Instead of chaff duty, they whop at 110 points, and are way better than you'd suspect. Defenses equal at shield wielding warriors (which leads to suspect these wolves have been injected with liquid mithril), and 10 attacks are nothing short of decent. Movement 9 and Nimble make these pups one of the most mobile units in the game alongside Kingdoms of Men and Elf fast cavalry.

Large Cavalry

• Direfang Riders: Costs the same as Mounted sons of Korgaan, but have their melee taken down a notch in favour of 5 additional attacks over the Mounted sons. They also have better CS, and exchange Thunderous Charge for Strider.

Monsters

• Cavern Dweller: A large lumbering monster with good melee, good defense and an average of 10 attacks. To go with that you get CS 3, regen 5+ and Strider. Could be used to represent anything from a giant to any other hulking monstrosity.

• Devourer: A much more mobile monster, with Nimble, Pathfinder, Stealthy and Strider. Has a decent statline but makes 10 attacks in melee. Personally I imagine this as some sort of land kraken or hydra.

• Jabberwock: The cheapest of the three. Has better defense than the Devourer but less than half the attacks. It does however have Brutal and Feeding Frenzy, which boosts its attacks by amount of damage its target has already suffered, making it great for cleaning up already weakened but stubborn units.

War Engines

• Magus Conclave: A pretty decent warmachine, with 4+ ranged and D3 Blast and Piercing 2.

Tactics

Tactica here.

Use the fallen a lot, especially when it's a new player you're up against. They won't remember all the special rules well enough to form a plan for dealing with the fallen. They'll hide a unit in the woods because they forgot about pathfinder or he'll think "oh zombies=slow" and move his knights within 16".

Use Herja of the fallen a lot. She is a good character.