Theory Thursday: Tempest Blazers

This Theory Thursday was chosen by Elias as part of the giveaway for my blog being 5 years old.

Stats

Speed: 9 This makes them the fastest infantry in the faction and one of their strongest assets.

Strength: 4 Fairly irrelevant except in cases which allow a model to use your models strength such as Satyxis blood witches or Tharn bloodweavers. So in this case having a low strength is a good thing!
Mat: 5 Pretty low but they will only ever use it for mount or impact attacks so its not the end of the world

Rat: 7 What might be the standard Rat for non character Gunmages is still amazing compared to other ranged units in the game.

Defence: 14 This is on the higher end of defence stats for infantry especially cavalry.

Armour: 13 While this is better armour than any other Gunmage models it is the lowest of all the cavalry units.

Command: 9 A decent command stat allows the unit to spread out more and effect a larger area of the board. It also helps them not be as bunched up, which with their large base size will often lead to them blocking line of sight to potential targets or lead to them being killed with blast damage.

Cost

They cost 11 point for a unit of 3 or 18 points for 5 of them.

At a cost of 3.6 points per member of the unit they don't come cheap so anything you can do to help keep them alive is really worth doing.

They will die to boosted attacks quite easily, something the other player is normally more than happy to do given their cost and abilities.

Weapons

Magelock pistol

At range 10" and pow 10 with magical weapon they have the same stats as every other gunmage with a pistol they are all even named the same so its more about the shot types each different type of gunmage has.

The shot types

Brutal damage: On a direct hit you gain an additional die on the damage roll. A great shot for taking out solos, Command attachments and damaging light Warjacks/Beasts.

Electro leap: The target is hit with a standard pow 10 magical ranged attack you can have lightning arc to the nearest model within 4" of the model hit, ignoring the attacking model. The model the lightning arcs to suffers an unboostable pow 10 electrical damage roll.

I will be writing an article on eleaps once PP releases whatever changes they are going to do to them.

This shot type is a great way for the unit to increase the number of models it can kill in one turn. 

Its also a great way to kill infantry and support models while also hurting a Warjack or Warbeast

Ward breaker: This makes the weapon have the blessed quality, which means it will ignore stat buffs that are from spells. Seeing as most spells improve defence or amour by an average of 1-3 this shot type is not often used. If the enemy model has a armour buff then the Brutal damage shot is more often a better choice. If the target has a defence buff on them its often better for the unit to pick the Eleap shot type and make each shot that hits kill 2 models to offset the lower chances to hit.

There are two stand out spells that come to mind in which Ward breaker might be a good choice against. Blur which gives a model/unit +3 def & Defenders ward which gives +2 def and +2 arm. 

Both of these spells can tip the odds of killing a model even using the other shot types into a lower possibility which might make Ward breaker a more appealing choice.

Mount

Their mount attack has a melee range of 0.5" and a pow of 10 it is tied to their less impressive Mat of 5 sadly...
On a turn they charge they get to make impact attacks, but on a turn they just make an advance they can't make mount attacks and ranged attacks in the same activation as they don't have a special rule like Dual attack. The mount attack is worth remembering if they are under the effects of a spell or a feat that stops them from being able to shoot.

Special rules

Tempest Blazers are cavalry and can therefore make impact attacks if they charge. Though they are only Mat 5 and pow 10 it can be worth doing sometimes

Gunfighter

Like a lot of Gunmage models they have the gunfighter special rule. I won't go into too much detail on gunfighter here. If you would like to know more about it you can find my article explaining it in detail here

Pathfinder

Not having to worry about rough terrain is a huge benefit for a speedy cavalry unit, allowing them to make great use of hit and run tactics during a game.

Reposition [5"] 

Being able to move 5" after they have finished attacking as long as they didn't run or fail a charge increases the mobility of an already fast unit. 

Caster synergies 

Nemo3: Can make their eleap from that shot type have 3 dice damage on his feat turn. I wouldn't recommend this however...

Kraye: They make a pretty good unit to put Countermeasures on with their high speed they can quite easily get into a gunline to shut it down.
They are also great models to trigger his feat to enable Kraye's battlegroup.

Stryker1: He offers them a lot, Blur is a great spell to keep them alive on the way in.
Snipe will allow them to play even further back, with reposition they can essentially be 19" away from whatever they shot at!

Arcane shield isn't as great on them as you might think, it still leaves their armour on the lower end for cavalry models. It won't save them from boostable guns unlike Blur. If combined with his feat though they do become a lot more tanky at armour 21.

Haley1: Do you know whats better than killing 10 infantry models using their eleap shot? Killing 20 models on Haley1's feat turn!

Deadeye is a great way to up their accuracy seeing as they will rarely be aiming due to always wanting to leverage their manoeuvrability. 

Arcane shield: See above.

Temporal barrier helps increase their accuracy, which is never a bad thing. It is a very expensive spell however.

Haley3: They make a decent Revive target for Haley Future, as the more expensive the model you are bringing back the better value the 3 focus cost of the spell feels.

Temporal Distortion increases their defence to 16 while within 5" of a model in Haley's unit though this does increase their vulnerability to blast damage so it might be better to spread out further and not get the defence buff for the whole unit if you are facing a lot of aoe's.

Siege1: His feat makes them hit a lot harder using their brutal damage shot, combine it with any other damage buff and they will likely one shot kill most multi wound infantry or do a decent amount of damage to a warjack/warbeast.

Foxhole: Can keep a few of them safer against ranged attack by giving them cover, be aware that they won't block line of sight to models while in the fox hole though.

Sturgis: He can use his feat to drag models closer increasing their effective threat range, if used well you can drag shieldwall models so they aren't base to base anymore to make it easier for the Tempest Blazers to kill them.

Snipe See above

Caine1: He has a great combination of spells to support them, Blur on the approach then later swap to Snipe with Deadeye to increase their accuracy.

Caine3: He can put Calamity on a target to improve their Rat and damage

Maddox: Dauntless resolve is a decent spell to help keep them alive by giving them +3 armour and tough, though like Arcane shield there are often better targets for this spell. The addition of tough makes it more appealing than Arcane shield on them though.

Snipe: See above

Tips and Tricks

Free strikes: As they have Gunfighter they can make freestrikes using their ranged weapons gaining +2 to their attack roll and a boosted damage roll. This gives them and interesting choice of either doing a Brutal damage shot which will get 4 dice damage if it hits, or they could pick Electro leap and potentially kill a second model with your freestrike. Just bear in mind that the eleap would happen at the point the model moving away leaves the Tempest Blazers melee range so deciding if an eleap would go to the model you want it to is based on this position so make sure it won't go to one of your own models when you declare it!

Using terrain to your advantage: As they have pathfinder they can really get the most out of terrain. Combining Pathfinder with speed 9 means they can move into a wood make their ranged attack then reposition behind the wood to prevent the enemy from targeting them with ranged attacks or declaring charges on them. This will really help to keep them alive later into the game.

Examples of deployment and use during games

When deploying my army there are a lot of factors that I think about when deciding where to put my Tempest Blazers such as the terrain, scenario and where their best targets have been deployed (if I'm deploying second)

In this example I deployed them on the right to make use of their high speed to allow me to contest the far flag should I need to, also allowing me to ignore the water rough terrain and make great use of the wall defensively.

In this game I deployed them on the left to be able to send them into the far left zone to contest it, again their high speed helps. There is also a wood in the middle of that zone which they used later in the game to stay safe. Repositioning behind the wood after shooting.

In this game I deployed them with the water terrain directly in front of them and there is a wood on the far side of the right hand zone I wanted them to try to get to. Hit and run tactics using woods is a great way to use them.

And here they are later in the game using the wood but also helping me contest the far rectangle zone.

Again like in the other examples I deployed opposite the far zone to help contest it. Flags are less important for my list to contest as I can always just kill what ever solo gets put on them to score, warjacks on the other hand are harder to destroy.

In this game I wanted the Blazers to get good use out of the wood on the left as well as the wall.

Unfortunately for me the Issyria player casts Blinding light onto my Blazers (and a unit of Gunmages)

I had to feat this turn even though 2 of my units couldn't shoot, otherwise there would be nothing left to benefit from the feat later... I decide to send the blazers into the Mage Hunters in melee using their mount attack and making a second mount attack with Haley1's feat. I got lucky and some of them managed to roll the 9 needed to hit! I would have been ok with them just jamming the Mage hunters for a turn as I had basically written them off as dead at that point but they came through for me.

In this game against Grymkin I deployed them on the left to use the woods and hopefully move up towards the trench and house on the left to do some hit and run later on.

Deployed on the left here to make use of the woods in the left zone and to move up to contest the flag at the far end of the zone.

As cryx have no real problem killing them I only sent one at a time to contest the flag so that I could keep doing it later into the game.

I hope you found this a helpful insight into Tempest Blazers

If you spot anything incorrect please let me know and I will amend it, likewise if there is anything you think I missed feel free to put it in a comment!

If you want to support my content consider taking a look at my Patreon which you can find here. I don't put any content behind a paywall but I do offer rewards to people who support me in ways like getting to vote on what content I work on in the future or outright just picking the next subject of an article.

See you all next time!