Familiars?

[Inarah]

I don't see them mentioned often in game discussions. Are they worth the 15 points? Seems they'd be very helpful with LOS.

[Stubbdog]

I do take them all the time, or at least about 70% of the time anyway. But, having said that, I dont usually take more than 1 even if I have more than 1 caster because points are so valuable. The ability of a familiar to regenerate SPs is huge, just a fraction more important than the ability for a caster to sit still back out of charge range of the enemy and focus while the familiar double moves into position for the spell. Both of these reasons are why I tend to try and fit one in most of the time.

 

Of course, having said all that, it also depends on the caster and what I am trying to have the caster do. In the end, the familiar usually will recharge about 3 SPs. I have to weigh that against what my general plan for the caster is going to be. If those 2-3 SPs make the difference between casting the spells I want, then yep pack em in the bags.

[jdripley]

I tend to leave the familiar at home most of the time, but that's because I usually build a list that focuses heavily on melee to the exclusion of magic and ranged. It's not really a good habit. Also, when I do take casters, nine times out of ten it's the sort of caster that can handle itself in a brawl (Herryk, for example, or Thoth) and thus I play them pretty far up and the LOS benefit is not that big.

 

And when I play Moandain, all Undead leaders act like Familiars for LOS purposes so you don't need an extra one really.

 

I have actually been thinking of making it a point to bring familiars just to try it out since I think it might be something I could make work in a big way if I make the effort to figure out familiar-foo.

[kyaakone]

someday I'll take a unit of hospitaliers that will each have its own familiar to increase the chances of getting their healing.

 

but probably not.

[shakhak]

I usually don't take familiars. Players here know the cost of keeping letting a spell caster live to long so usually they are dead before half the game is over. It does provide some ability to hold back the caster, but for me, it's not enough to pass up one more soldier.

 

I am going to try and take them more often with large casters. Since large casters are easier to see and wound than the smaller ones they may benefit from them more.

[Castlebuilder]

I played a game yesterday with a guy who is getting back into Warlord. He took a familiar for all four of his casters. After the fact he commented that he probably wouldn't do that again, but we agreed that the familiars were useful. He used one to escablish LOS for a nasty fireball attack while Larach stayed safely surrounded by swordsmen. He also found the extra spell points useful, especially since he also took the faction SA that was giving him another point each round. It would have been worse for me if I hadn't killed off Lysette before she could do anything on turn 2.

[rgtriplec]

I take them but only with casters that can really do a lot of damage.

[Don Rodolfo Graziani]

I like to take familiars if I think my opponent won't be moving really fast towards me. Or, if I want to deploy my caster's troop on the back edge of the deployment zone and never move them yet be able to rush the familiar out to get the range to toss a spell or two before the enemy runs into the troop. That's always a handy thing to have.

 

DRG

[ViciousPanzer]

I find familiars most useful when I pair them with low SP casters and not high ones. For instance, a nice cheap Reptus caster like T'kay at at 59 points with 9 SP but tons of utility really benefits from the extra 3-4 SP that a familiar can grant. Heck, just one SP more and he can cast Divine might twice, or Stone Skin, etc. I find myself also doing the same thing with Ranthe the Evangelist from the Overlords as well. The added LoS is also fantastic and comes best into play for me by increasing the range of spells for me. Using Stone skin as an example, it's a 12" spell but with a Familiar it can become a 24" spell or however far I need it to be. And he gets all that for a mere 15 points which makes his total cost 75 points, not too shabby.

 

Joshua

[Brushmaster]

I find familiars most useful when I pair them with low SP casters and not high ones. For instance, a nice cheap Reptus caster like T'kay at at 59 points with 9 SP but tons of utility really benefits from the extra 3-4 SP that a familiar can grant. Heck, just one SP more and he can cast Divine might twice, or Stone Skin, etc. I find myself also doing the same thing with Ranthe the Evangelist from the Overlords as well. The added LoS is also fantastic and comes best into play for me by increasing the range of spells for me. Using Stone skin as an example, it's a 12" spell but with a Familiar it can become a 24" spell or however far I need it to be. And he gets all that for a mere 15 points which makes his total cost 75 points, not too shabby.

 

Joshua

But you do know that spells cast through a familiar have the range halved , so that familiar would have to be 18" away to cast Stone Skin .

[jdripley]

Well the familiar can be as far away from the caster as it wants. It must remain within LOS of the caster if the caster wants to cast a spell from it, but distance between caster and familiar is not a factor.

 

Once the spell is cast, however, the range of the spell from the familiar as point of origin is halved. So for example, a spell with range 18" cast from a familiar would have an altered range of 9" from the familiar, regardless of where on the table the familiar is (so long as the caster can see the familiar according to LOS rules).

[Brushmaster]

Sure , but if your opponents does not move , the best you are going to get is 12" in the first turn with a move+run . If I see a familiar running out away from its caster , I'm sure going to target it and its a pretty easy kill .

[ViciousPanzer]

Another nice thing about a familiar though is that it can move, have a spell cast through it, then retreat back to a safe spot all in the same activation. Teaming a familiar with a large or cav based caster (like Yagun Oog the ogre mage) is great because they can usually draw LoS to places standard size based models cannot thus allowing those casters to stay even further back from the fighting.

 

Joshua