Hunters of Huanchi in Warcry 2.0

 


Here is my complete guide to The Hunters of Huanchi for Warcry. See below for the YouTube version but if reading is more your thing then welcome and lets go!



Reaction




Slippery is the reaction of the Hunters of Huanchi and one that you will probably get a lot of use out of in your games. The main distinction to make here is that unlike most other reactions that take effect when your opponent declares an attack but before the dice are rolled, with this you can wait until you have seen how much damage is done to you before using your reaction. This allows you to see what damage is done (if any) and make the next appropriate step for your skink; either reacting to leave or sticking around for an attack/ to tie up the enemy fighter.

Dartpipes



We all know that dartpipes are bad but the question is why? The 1.22 average damage puts dartpipes at joint worst damage profile in the game. The only other really similar ranged example is the brimstone horror but as we can see, even that has more range and strength 3 on its attack so there is the possibility that it will be able to wound more easily. The horror also has both a melee profile and is more survivable then the skink with its toughness 3 at a lower price point (marginally, though the extra cost is probably going into the skink's movement).

It's damage is also on par with some almost exclusively ranged fighter’s melee profiles like the Skyre Acolyte (which is a very good comparison to the skink having the same movement and wounds but an additional point of toughness and a much higher ranged damage profile) and the darkshard.

Because the damage on dartpipes are so low, they severely hit the damage efficiency of any fighter that they is on and as we will see; fighters with dartpipes also don’t have access to an additional melee profile so adds more unnecessary restrictions on how you would use the fighter. As a result, you almost ALWAYS want to take any other options you have, with the exception of your hornblower for reasons we will see later.

Alpha



The Skink Alpha is the only hero option available to the Hunters of Huanchi in-faction. It's cheap enough at 90 points but ultimately it doesn't unlock any additional abilities that your basic skinks cant already achieve so you will be looking to take only one in every list.

Agile Climbers
Use of Agile Climbers entirely depends on your board setup – if we are playing on the more terrain dense boards that Warhammer World likes to put forward (2x copies of sundered fate or heart of ghur), then it can get a lot of use allowing your skinks to get up and over the terrain in a pseudo-fly move. If you aren’t, then it might get some limited use either running away from fighters or leaping over terrain to go and get treasure or objectives. Its worth noting that unlike fly, you can still use agile climbers when holding treasure so that allows you to keep some maneuverability.

Envenomed Weapons (Dartpipe)
1 Attack = 2.11
1 Attack (Envenomed Weapons) + 1 Attack (normal) = 3.33

Envenomed Weapons vs Onslaught (Club)
Onslaught – 4.58 damage
Envenomed Weapons – 6 damage

Single attack with envenomed weapons + normal attack = 6+3.67 = 9.67
Double attack with onslaught = 4.58 x 2 = 9.16

In the case of Envenomed Weapons, the main take-away is that you always want to use that ability over onslaught as it nets 1 more point of damage on average which can be the difference between killing an enemy fighter and leaving it on one wound.

Hurled Bolas
Hurled Bolas is opened up by the Alpha with Moonstone Club and Shield option. Hurled Bolas is a very strong ability; It’s best compared with net abilities which stop your opponent from moving, or other abilities like the Epitome of Slaanesh’s Mirror of Absorption which stops enemy fighters from activating or making reactions that battle round. There are no other abilities that flat out reduce the amount actions a fighter makes so this is unique in that regard and in a game that is designed around fighters getting 2 actions as there are no very easy ways to get extra actions on your fighters as of yet, it makes for a very strong control piece.

It has a range of 8” so in your typical scenario you will be sitting at maximum range or near enough, throw your bolas at your opponent’s strongest fighter, hopefully roll your hit and then it is effectively neutralised for the turn – most fighters will in the early turns be doing move-attack actions, or move-move actions to get in position but if they are stuck with a single move if they aren’t in combat, or a single attack if they are (which massively reduces the likelihood of them killing your strong pieces) then that puts them behind not only for that turn but for the next also as they might still be stuck in combat or out of position.

Chance To Hit On
Triple 1: 17%
Triple 2: 31%
Triple 3: 42%
Triple 4: 52%
Triple 5: 60%
Triple 6: 67%

On anything less then a triple 4 Hurled Bolas is not going to be consistent enough to use but you don’t have any other value dependent abilities in the warband so you can save your good doubles and wild dice to make decent triples for Bolas. I would also recommend that you try to have at least one in each deployment group so that you have the flexibility to be able to use bolas both from turn 1, and also where and when you want. You will see that any skink with club and shield has access to the triple so definitely take this combo on your alpha, and then you can take two other skinks with the same loadout to make sure that you always have a bolas on the field.

Hit and Run
One of the new Rampage+ style abilities that Games Workshop are printing for their Quads. Considering that this is essentially more flexible then Rampage (which allows a move then attack), you essentially want to always be using this if you have your quad and really want to do a lot of moving over just using your quad as a triple for Bolas or some other ability. If you really needed to, it offers a 4x move action for a total of 24" which is pretty nice to get over to objectives very quickly.

Skinks



Skinks are your cheapest fighter in the warband at 70 points each but as we will soon see with the Huanchi's claws, they are probably one of your worst. I would recommend taking two with Moonstone Club for the bolas ability so that when combined with your Alpha you can put a bolas in each deployment group.

Envenomed Weapons (Dartpipe)
1 Attack = 2.11
1 Attack (Envenomed Weapons) + 1 Attack (normal) = 3.33

Envenomed Weapons vs Onslaught (Club)
Onslaught – 3.25 damage
Envenomed Weapons – 3.88 damage

Single attack with envenomed weapons + normal attack = 3.88+2.25 = 6.13
Double attack with onslaught = 3.25 x 2 = 6.5

In the case of Envenomed Weapons, unlike the Alpha you want to be using it only when you have one attack action available to you. If you are able (and willing) to attack twice, it's better to use Onslaught for increased damage.

Terrawing



90 points for a flyer isn’t terrible but I think that it’s hampered severely by the beast runemark; not being able to claim treasure, and not having access to any in faction abilities or reactions. The Terrawing itself can’t really achieve much that a regular skink with shield and moonstone weapon can already at a higher price.

Hornblower



The Hornblower is probably the only fighter you would even consider using the dartpipe on due to not getting a shield with the moonstone club; he will almost always want to avoid combat due to always being wounded on 3s thanks to the T2, and die easily from the 8W so you might as well give him a weapon that he will be more likely to use.

Envenomed Weapons (Dartpipe)
1 Attack = 2.11
1 Attack (Envenomed Weapons) + 1 Attack (normal) = 3.33

Envenomed Weapons vs Onslaught (Club)
Onslaught – 3.67 damage
Envenomed Weapons – 4.5 damage

Single attack with envenomed weapons + normal attack = 4.5+2.75 = 7.25
Double attack with onslaught = 3.67 x 2 = 7.34

Call of the Hunt
The unique ability available to the Hornblower. It requires both the Hunters of Huanchi and Beast Runemarks so it’s only target is the Terrawing but that causes some issues; We have seen that the terrorwing is essentially a very average fighter with only T3 and 8 wounds doing average 2.75 damage on its attacks against T3, so the prospect of getting it into combat quicker, which it will then have to wait for an enemy activation in order to then attack is not all that great from a survive-ability perspective.

Considering also that it’s a triple, which you will generally be saving for your bolas or bellow of the Carnosaur abilities, its unlikely that this will see all that much use during your games. That being said, if you were building out of one box for example, it does put the Terrawing in the unique position to be able to fly 30” across the board with the free move and then carry out it’s two normal moves of 10” and capture objectives that are very far away so perhaps on missions that have five objective points you can bait enemy fighters off them with your skinks and then jump in with the Terrawing to capture. Again, if Terrawings weren’t beasts and could carry treasure it would make this ability a very different prospect.

Huanchi's Claw



This is the best fighter in the warband for obvious reasons; For only 5 points more then a regular Chamelion skink you get an additional point of toughness, more damage and range on its attacks, 2 more wounds, and access to the Bellow of the Carnosaur triple. Unfortunately though you only get one in the box for the Hunters of Huanchi so you will have to look at either buying multiple boxes or converting them for yourself.

That being said, they are essentially everything you would want out of a unit in terms of synergy with the skink reaction (10 wounds and toughness 3 is enough to be able to take a hit, react to disengage and then either attack or move away), and have just enough damage when attacking twice with envenomed weapons to be able to half health opposing basic fighters.

Envenomed Weapons
Single attack with envenomed weapons + normal attack = 3.33+2.17 = 5.5

Bellow of the Carnosaur
The other high value triple in the warband. The average melee stat in the game is 3-4 attacks at 4/2/4 which is shared by a lot of popular fighters in warcry nowadays. Bellow of the Carnosaur makes them 1/3 which puts those fighters on par with some of the weakest in the game, and severely reduces their damage output.

It’s worth noting that on average, most fighters will also be sitting at movement 3 or 4 so bellow has a good chance of making it so that your opponent will have to use two actions to get into combat with you instead of 1, or in the case of movement 3 fighters; effectively take them out of the game for the round that you are using it.



If you want to convert more Huanchi's Claws, look no further then the Bloodbowl Lizardmen team. It's got 3 headdresses per sprue and 2 sprues per box for a total of 6x headdresses to use for your conversions.

Allies



The core of a Hunters of Huanchi warband that you would want to take (Alpha, 5 Claw and 2x Base Skinks) only comes to 605 points so there are plenty of points left over for a big heavy hitter to compliment your movement shenanigans.

Kharybdyss
Cheap enough to add a 6th Claw for a 10 man warband. I think that it synergises well with what the skinks want to do anyway; its got enough damage and wounds to provide a real distraction for your opponent, letting your skinks get in and around the terrain, and also has the abyssal howl triple for some very good, wide range disruption.

It’s also got a movement boosting double which, in addition to its base move of 6” will really help it get to where it needs to go for either drag and maul or abyssal howl. One very important thing to mention is that the Kharibdyss, as a monster, takes up an entire deployment group by itself so you will be deploying 4-5 skinks in your other groups. This is probably the best thing about taking the monster in this type of warband as having a lot of skinks turning up at the same time and ready to go is potentially very strong.

Akhelian King
If you wanted a bit more fight in your warband, but not necessarily bringing a monster, an Akhelian King is a very good option. The speed and fly gets around a lot of the Kharybdyss’ movement weaknesses whilst having a very good damage output with its base attacks and storm of blows double to grant a possible +3 attacks depending on the value of your double.

Of the two loadouts (sword or spear), I'm leaning more towards the spear due to the increased base strength allowing you to wound most fighters on 3s and the increased range which plays into wasting opponent actions a little more vs 1” range fighters.

Bloodwrack Medusa
The Bloodwrack Medusa is a little cheaper then the other two options I have here but very on-theme if you wanted to do a sotek themed force instead of Huanchi (Huanchi being the Lizardmen Jaguar God and Sotek being the Snake God respectively) but still has respectable offensive and defensive capabilities with her 35 wounds and 3/5 damage profile. Like the Kharibdyss, it takes on a dual role with her triple Bloodwrack Stare for a very reliable net ability. She is a little slower then the other options which is why I would tend towards probably the Akhelian king instead.

Other options that I've seen banded around include the Judicator Prime with Crossbow; Due to not having a dice requirement and just putting flat damage on the battlefield to try and pick off opposing fighters to keep your activation advantage, or any number of Stormcast heroes on Dracolines for much the same reason as the Akhelian King; Fast move, high damage.

Sample Lists



Here is my base Hunters of Huanchi list (6x Claw, 2x Skink, Alpha) plus an Akhelian King. I think that the Kharibdyss build might be better but that will come out in testing. Its worth saying that up at Warhammer World, with the dense terrain there isn’t much space to place walking monsters so the king definitely has an advantage in that situation being much more maneuverable with the fly and higher movement. This is the list that I'm taking to events for the first half of this year; I think that given the terrain situation for Games Workshop run events, and also the other advantages that this warband gets out of the Gnarlwood Rumble tournament pack; specifically being closer to objectives and where you want to go along with the majority of fighters coming in turn 2; Which stops your skinks dying early whilst wasting turns for your opponents fighters that you aren’t necessarily even looking to kill anyway, they are looking to be very strong this season. 

For the second list, because the Hunters of Huanchi very much act and play like a supplement to some other hard hitter, and not everyone will want to convert or buy a lot of Claws, I’ve got here what I would play if I only had access to the one box with some other ally options. I quite like the Gorgai from the whole Sotek = Snake god perspective. It does a lot of damage by itself (average 9 in one attack) so wont be vying for your Huanchi’s Claw or Bolas dice, and if necessary can use the bathed in blood double after a unit has been damaged by a ranged attack for +1 strength and attacks for some very high damage numbers. A pair of these gives a lot of combat punch whilst giving a 3/3/2 split on your deployment groups and allowing for a bolas in each of your deployment groups between the Alphas and regular skinks.

Final Thoughts


Overall, Hunters of Huanchi; with their high numbers of fighters, good movement and maneuverability and disrupting abilities have a good time vs more elite warbands, or warbands that rely on one or two high value pieces to do the work whilst the rest captures objectives/treasure/etc. You should be looking to neuter your opponents key pieces with Bellow of the Carnosaur or Bolas to stop those fighters just walking through your skinks, whilst the rest of your warband gets on with actually playing the mission as opposed to devolving the game to an all out kill fest.

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