# A Guide to Warlord Traits



## Sephyr

*Who can be the warlord? *

The warlord is always your HQ with the highest Ld value. If you have two (or more!) models tied at that value, then you can pick who is the warlord.

*
Command Traits*

There are all area effects centered on your Warlord and spreading out to affect friendly units within 12 inches. Note that this does includes allies that are Battle Brothers!

-Inspiring presence: Units in range use your warlords Ld. A rather mediocre power in most situation, but can help some GeQ.

-Intimidating presence: enemies in range rol lthe lowest Ld in the unit. not clear if this affect the value for some Psychic powers, in which case it could b very good indeed. Not bad otherwise if your Warlord in a forward, in-your-face type.

-Dust of 1k World: Move through Cover in the AoE. Good for some armies, crap for others, and not much of a facotr in wide-open boards.

-Master of Vanguard: extra run die, using the highest. Great for footsloggers, situational for mech armies (reaching that objective after you lose your ride could mean a lot).

-Tgt Priority: Reroll 1s when shooting at enemies close to objectives. Can be godly for Long Fangs, IG, Necrons and Tau, and meh for Nids and other armies with low volume of fire.

-Coordinated assault: extra inch for assault distance. Decent for orks, nids, and other assault-themes forces, useless for IG, Tau and other pure gunlines.

*Personal Traits*

All of these center on the warlord and most often (but not always) his unit.

-Defence Master: Warlord and unit gain Counterattack while they are sitting back in their deploy zone. Usleess if your Warlord is Ghaz, Mephiston, Kharn or anyine meant to charge forward and ruin enemies all over the board, average for defensive play and gunlined. Funny when rolled by Space wolves. 

-Offence Master: Warlord and unit gan FC in the enemy deploy zone. Nice for 'average' assault armies, whiose specialists normally don't have this rule. Useless for support warlords and base-sitters. Hilarious when rolled by orks and Khorne armies. 

-Maneuver Master: Lord and unit become outflanking. Too random to be of use, since now Outflanking mostly suck. You're not going to put your Lord in shooty unit hoping for this result. 

-Legendary Fighter: Extra VP from winning challenges. Great for CC beasts, not much fun for anyone else. 

-Tenacity: FNP to the lord and his unit near objectives. Can be very nasty when necrons, orks and some Eldar units get it (FNP Wraithguard, anyone?). Useless for Nurgle and some BA builds.

-Immovable object: Warlord becomes scoring all on his own. Can be very handy even if your warlord is defensive, letting him tend the home objective.

*Strategic Traits*

These are broader modifiers that change the environment or alter something for your army or the enemy's.

-Conqueror of Cities: Stealth and Move Through Cover in ruins. Playing a forest/desert/polar board? Sucks to be you, mate! 

-Night attacker: Night Fighting on the first turn. Great for DE, Orks and others who have reason to fear long-range fire while advancing. Meh for all others. 

-Master of ambush: Your Outflankers have Acute Senses. No Outflankers in your list? Hope your opponent also rolls crap. 

-Strategic Genius: CREEED! Ahem. You can rerolls all reserves while your warlord lives. Quite decent and allows you control over what arrives when, but not as much for reserve-poor armies.

-Divide to Conquer: Enemy has -1 penalty to his reserve rolls. Sadly this is determined before deploy, so he may just not reserve stuff and make your trait useless. Good when he actually has no choice.

-Princeps of deceit: Limites redeploy after both playes deploys. Either move one unit a lot or 3 units a little bit. Handy for mximizing cover once you can see enemy positions, or making up for a too bold or too cautios deploy.


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## merp141

I haven't gotten the new rulebook yet, but having read this I am not looking forward to it... =/


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## The Sturk

merp141 said:


> I haven't gotten the new rulebook yet, but having read this I am not looking forward to it... =/


Why do you say that? These are traits that an HQ gets for free for the battle. The worst that could happen is you get a trait that has no benefit in the current game, in which it shouldn't effect your game play.

And if it really is an issue, speak with your opponent about not using them.


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## Sephyr

The Sturk said:


> Why do you say that? These are traits that an HQ gets for free for the battle. The worst that could happen is you get a trait that has no benefit in the current game, in which it shouldn't effect your game play.
> 
> And if it really is an issue, speak with your opponent about not using them.


The main issue (I think) is you rolling a useless trait whle your opponent rolls a good one. It can be a big disadvantage based simply on RNG.

Assume your Orks roll that they have Furious Charge in the enemy deploy zone; they have it anyway, so you gained nothing. Then consider that your Necron rival rolled to get Feel No Pain around onjective in a scenario with 5 objectives, effectively giving all his infantry three saves, two of them static.

There is no planning or strategy involved, and the deck is already quite stacked.


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## clever handle

in the example you've provided only the squad with your warlord in it would gain FNP and only while holding an objective. Warlord traits have the potential to be powerful, but none of them are game breaking... my gaming group has decided to roll the dice then pick the table - effectively giving you 3x the odds to get a beneficial warlord trait. The implementation of warlord traits leaves much to be desired (maybe should be granted one reroll on the same chart, must take the 2nd result or something), but none of them are going to be game breaking.

"Mysterious objectives" however, can be broken as fuck. Stand a large dakka squad on an inertial dampener (pretty sure thats the one that 1/2's charge ranges declared against units holding objectives...) & laugh as your opponent struggles to remove an entire squad through shooting


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## Archon Dan

I'm confused by what you say about Maneuver Master. The Warlord Traits are rolled before deployment, so if you get it, you can change how you would normally deploy. I actually got this trait in a game tonight with the Hammer and Anvil deployment map. So I put my Destroyer Lord with my Warriors instead of my Immortals. I was then able to Outflank to the opposite end of the table and Gauss some tanks to death. It really helped to avoid advancing through all that fire. I think this trait and some of the others can open new strategies to you, though they are random and it forces you to be flexible.


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## Word Bearer 81007

broken try the forest random effects, iron bark on a squad of fifty guardsmen held up in the forest terrain. thank god my transported made it to them with a crap load of flamers. only thing that saved my sorry ass. 

as for warlord traits I find they at times create weird scenario's and encourage players to play outside there comfort zones in an attempt to accomplish something out of the ordinary, kinda cool


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## falcoso

I like the warlord traits and mysterious objectives, yes its irritating when you get something useless or even a 1. Personally I always go for a personal trait if it is a 3+ objective game otherwise I go for strategic, for necrons command traits are pretty useless


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## Antonius

That, or a skyfire nexus surrounded by heavy weapon squads with auto cannons or lascans. Ouch. if youre worried about trees, try the aegis line when gone to ground. that explodey objective result punishes geq builds, particularly those not blobbed up such as dismounted vet mech. Tbh, I have only found the warlord traits to be loaded once, when my opponent was being a dick and got conqueror of cities and plopped his entire army into this one ruin, brimming with lascans to keep me away.


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