KOW - Shifting the Odds

Over the break I Have been working on my Varangur army, bringing it in line with KOW v3.

In v2 I used a mounted Magos in conjunction with a Lord on foot. Reading the v3 army list, it is immediately clear that Lord on Frostfangs are hard to go past as characters but I was hoping to shoe-horn in the Mago as the model I have is one of my favourite sculpts.

At 90 points base with another 25 points for the mount, a Magos with Lightning Bolt (4) looks very pricey. It's probably not, but that's how it looks to me! There is an option to swap the Lightning Bolt out for Bloodboil but again, at the headline level, that seems very situational (particularly when it can't be cast into Close Combat).

I am of the general view that you can never have enough Crushing Strength AND, more importantly, the ability to bestow CS where it is needed is an extremely attractive proposition to have in the toolbox. That got me looking at the possibility of adding Bane Chant (2) to my Magos.

The key problem is that pesky (2). Each time it is cast there is a 25% chance of failure which if extended over five turns of a game, results in a likely 76%+ chance of at least one failure to cast. 

This got me looking at how to make the Magos more reliable - and there it was - The Conjuror's Staff. Having the ability to re-roll one failed attempt per turn changes the risk of a single failure to 12.5%, and increases the chance of being successful across five turns to above 50%. For a Varangur army a successful Bane Chant will likely correspond to an additional two wounds per combat, so tilting that balance can be significant.

The pricing of the Staff is 10 points. Mathematically, I determine the added value to be approximately 0.25 wounds/round of combat (best case therefore 1.25-1.50 wounds). I expect the real value is the confidence you would get when contemplating whether to commit or not.

For me, it looks like something I will give a try - the extra 10 points seem worth it to maximise the initial investment.