The Orcnar Angilde are my favourite unit at the moment. Why?

Quite simply, the Orcnar lack mass long range support and often the battlefield can be a long way to slog across in your attempt to close with the enemy. This is made even harder if you are facing a gun line of the Brits or Nuem or the magical winds of the Vaettir.

Just because the Orcnar are a dying race doesn’t mean the need to die so quickly trying to get across your table! This is where the Angilde come in and show their worth – even if the tribe has banished them to live in the wilds.

A mistake is to think of the Angilde as a hard hitting force. They aren’t a hammer, they are far from the anvil. What they are is a thorn. To use the Angilde, you need to stick that thorn as deep into the enemy’s side and leave it there. Let’s have a look at their profile and see what it brings.

The Profiles Stat Line

Move: 6
Combat: 3
Ranged: –
Defence: 0
Damage: 1
Morale: 7

OK, so nothing especially great about the profile. Average Orcnar movement, pretty basic combat, no ranged, no defence and just a single damage point with average morale. Nothing to write home about, not really a stat line that makes me want to take them.

The unit is a 2 to 4 model sized unit with a points cost of 12 pts per model. So, in an average game of 400 points you can get a full unit of Angilde for 12% of your points. Not a massive investment but still the unit does not sing with that statline for that cost.

But there is more to the profile than just its stat line.

The Profiles Attributes

This is where the unit shines and where you will find their best use. Below is the profiles attributes overview.

Frenzy

If this unit remains in combat for more than one activation then it does not suffer the morale drop and also benefits from a bump in its combat stat!

Loners

This unit causes a -1 morale drop on non-Loner friendly units within 5” of the Angilde unit. It also means the Angilde can only count as a supporting unit for other Loner units in the army.

Outrider

The unit is always considered in command so does not need to stay within command range of a friendly commander to perform fully.

Special Deployment

Special Deployment allows the user to deploy the unit outside the players deployment zone and no closer than 10” to any enemy unit.

Suppress

The Drain value of any spell cast or kept up within 6” of this unit is increased by 1

Tactics

So, the statline isn’t impressive, the unit size and points don’t really sell it with the statline but once you look at the attributes!! Oh boy, this unit IS a unit EVERY Orcnar player should have in their force!

Why? Because it’s the unit that allows you to reduce the amount of incoming fire/magic your force may need to face whilst you cross the board. It’s the unit that you distract the opponent with. It’s the unit that you can tie up the enemies main units/commanders with for a turn or two and if you are lucky then it’s the unit that you can use to assassinate an enemy commander or wipe out a unit.

The Orcnar should work as a wave force. First wave being the Angilde, the second are the Docga then the rest hit. This is why the Angilde are so great, making good use of Special Deployment means right from turn one you are right in the enemies face – the thorn in the side I mentioned earlier. The enemy can’t afford to ignore the unit and if they don’t ignore it you have a turn or two to get across the table.

Facing an enemy magic user or two? Great! The Angilde increases the cost of spells, so allow you to reduce the amount you have to face for the first part of the table.

I don’t worry about Loner causing me issues later on as by the time my main force is within range to be affected by it, the Angilde should have done their job and died gloriously doing it. But if, by some miracle they survived long enough to still be there, then no problems as Loner only kicks into play IF the friendly unit is making a morale check and with the Orcnar if you hit them right THEY are the ones making the morale check!

Preferred targets

I tend to favour ranged units as the target for my Angilde. They are the biggest bane to the Orcnar early on in a game so if you can jump one or two of them early on (or at least force them to move enough so they can’t shoot or target the Angilde instead) then they are are not available to target you main units as they close.

Second up are magic users. The Suppress is great for reducing their total casting ability and as most magic users are Independents, there is plenty of gang up opportunity if you can catch them so the Angilde have a good chance of killing them.

So there you have it!

Any Orcnar player seriously needs to consider a unit or two of Angilde for their force. They WILL die, but that is fine as they are doing the player a major favour as they do!

Personally, for a 400 point game I like to have at least 4 angilde in my force as a single unit, but do find 2 units of 4 can be a right laugh! Yes, it’s 96 points, almost a quarter of your points, but they really do cause early game mayhem to your opponents tactics and at 4 models per unit they have a bit more staying power.