This is the second in a series of articles featuring custom units that can be built from a starter set and an infantry pack, cavalry pack, and booster bundle from a specific faction. My hope is that it will be useful for people who want the extra power of custom units, but are still a bit intimidated by the unit builder.
To use one of these units, simply click on the appropriate link below, and you can view and print the unit from its page on the official site. As an added bonus, since the user name on the card is not Drake the Great, these cards will make your opponent over-confident.
This article is about the Egyptians.
Egyptian archery gets its strength from the Fire Arrow ability. The basic Egyptian artillery unit is Khet Wall, which has a double Fire Arrow plus Hail of Arrows. Its primary difference from the base card is the placement of the icons, which allow it to function better after taking damage.
The next step up is the Khet Elite, which adds two regular Egyptian Archers to give it more hit points and an extra range die.
An alternative is to increase the unit's defense to make it last longer. The Khet Eternals feature a Formation Legionary and Amenhotep III for this purpose. Not only does the unit have 5 defense, but the Lord of the Dead power can be used to bring back downed archers. The resulting unit is very hard to kill.
The basic artillery unit for the non-Fire Arrow archers is the Pitati Wall. This has Precision instead of Hail of Arrows, and it's also faster than the Khet units.
The next step up is the Pitati Elite. This unit uses the Roman Legionary Archer to get its extra hit points and range die. You want to save your Fire Archers for the Khet units, and Roman common units can be put on Egyptian bases for very little penalty, since the 13th Legion works for Imperium.
A more exotic approach is to add a trio of Kor Snipers. These don't give you an eighth range die, but they do make the base Elusive, which means your opponent has to spend an extra order point to attack the archers. In addition, you can use the Sniper ability to target individual figures. In particular, if you're facing a Roman turtle unit, you can snipe out one of the Wall of Shields figures before pushing to make your normal attack, greatly increasing the odds of doing serious damage.
The Egyptians also have a mounted artillery figure, the Centaur Archers, who are used to form the Imperial Scouts. The Scouts have Hail of Arrows and shoot forward and to the right.
The mercenary Kor Snipers come in the Egyptian boosters. This allows you to create a sortie with the Sniper ability, the Imperial Snipers. The Imperial Snipers differ from the base Shanyu's Dagger in two ways: first, they are on an Egyptian base. (This is important, because using purely Egyptian units allows you to take advantage of the awesome Hellenic Pride ability.) Second, the unit is configured so that you can push it without crippling it too severely.
For an extra 50 build points, you can add a pair of the Charging Hoplites (Hoplite Recruit) to the snipers. This boosts the speed to 4 movement points and allows you to push the unit twice before losing any of your sniping power.
The basic Egyptian infantry figures are the two mummies-- the Cursed Swordsman and the Cursed Spearman. The low-end infantry unit for these figures is the Unliving Wall, which uses 8 spearmen and 4 swordsmen. It attacks ferociously in close combat, but its slow speed is a serious drawback: you have to push to get it into play. Because it has Regeneration, it will recover quickly from the pushing; nonetheless, the order point cost is a serious drawback. On the other hand, with a starter set and an infantry pack you can build two of them.
The next step up is the Necrotic Wall. This unit has a three-peg Necrotic Reborn. It's worth noting that the Regeneration ability allows you to bring back a figure, not a hit point, so if you take sufficient damage to force you to down the Reborn, you can heal it all back on your next turn. This makes it sturdier than the Unliving Wall, though it also costs more (and to keep the cost down it has to use a ninth Cursed Spearman).
One way to mitigate the high order point cost of moving the undead units is to construct them as sorties. The low-end mummy sortie is the Unliving Patrol, which can attack with 9 dice if Aggressive applies.
A slightly more expensive variant is the Necrotic Patrol. This uses the Necrotic Reborn for more damage resistance and trades Aggressive for Fear. It is designed so that you can field four of them at once.
An alternative is to use a Hand of Isis to give the unit the power of Death Touch. This is the basis of the Isis Patrol. Death Touch works at a range of 2 steps, but it also works against a target unit in base contact, and it is in that situation that it is most frequently useful. You can issue Death Touch to down a figure with defense icons before attacking, or to do an extra point of damage where it will be most annoying after attacking.
The fastest undead unit is formed by putting Decidius Saxa on the sortie base, creating the Unliving Command. When placed on a sortie, Decidius Saxa imparts the Hustle special ability, giving the unit 2 extra movement points when pushed. The unit attacks with 9 dice normally, and 10 when Aggressive applies. Its downside is that it will tend to die quickly and your opponent gets 2 victory points for killing it.
Another good commander-based undead sortie uses Darius of Pontus to increase the attack strength. Thanks to a combination of Aggressive and Hellenic Pride, the Spears of Darius can attack with up to 14 dice, which is incredible for a sortie. Of course, if your opponent has any sense at all, it's not going to get close enough to make an attack. Still, it has strategic value simply because you can get your other units into position while your opponent spends order points to kill it.
The Thrown Weapon ability has become more of a factor since the special ability update. The basic javelin-throwing unit for the Egyptians is Javelin Line. It can throw for 6 dice, but it is relatively weak on defense and close-combat offense.
To get more juice out of your javelins, you combine them with Masika and a Hand of Isis. This allows you to use Death Touch Master on any non-white-circle figure or Death Touch on any white-circle figure up to two pegs. Since these attacks have the same range as Thrown Weapon, they are a natural fit, and this is one of the few cases where the Death Touch powers make sense at a distance. The resulting unit is Masika's Hoplites.
For the price of a Roman infantry pack, you can use Front Line Legionaries to create the ultimate Egyptian Thrown Weapon unit, Masika's Javelins. With 6 defense plus Wall of Shields and a close-combat attack strength of 8, it's both a credible threat and hard to kill.
The appeal of the Egyptians is their large family of monsters. For example, among white-circle figures, the highest ratio of close-combat damage to pegs belongs to the Cyclops. The Cyclops is a bit infamous because the base card requires five and the booster bundle only contains four. (If you played in the original leagues, you would have obtained the elusive fifth in one of the league boosters.) To get the most out of your four Cyclopes, the unit to field is the Cyclopean Irregulars. This formation uses a pair of Charging Hoplites to augment the attack and defense dice and provide pushing material. Because there are only two, the Cyclopes get to keep Resentful and Brutal (abilities that make them considerably more dangerous in a close combat attack) and they keep their speed of 5. As is frequently the case in units with powerful multi-peg figures, you have to regroup before attacking.
The sortie version of this unit is the Cyclopean Crusher. Like its larger brother, it has to regroup before attacking.
Another monster-based close combat unit is the Brutal Regiment. Here, three Anubian Guards form the heart of the unit, giving it four good sides, a speed of 5, Brutal, and Fear. The remaining figures (designed to keep Brutal active) contain the defensive icons, and are configured so that the unit can still attack at full strength even if you lose them. The Necrotic Warrior especially is set up so that it can absorb damage when the unit is being attacked. The combination of Brutal, Fear, and 11 attack dice means this unit will do an average of 8 points of damage when it hits.
At the high end of the Brutal unit scale, you have the extremely expensive Cleopatra's Wrath. It uses 4 Cyclopes, a Necrotic Warrior, and Cleopatra. Once you close with an opponent on the control point, you can sacrifice the Necrotic Warrior with Harsh Mistress for an automatic 3 damage, then do a close combat strike with 11 dice (13 against cavalry). Thanks to the extra damage from Brutal, you'll do an average of 8 hits with the close combat strike, for a total of 11, which is enough to kill almost anything. Because the attack is on the control point and Cleopatra has Calculating, you get an extra victory point.
The Protosphinx is the game's best source of the Cunning special ability. The Centaur Irregulars unit uses a pair of them to get 4 bonus dice when it is attacking through a bad side. To make it easier to get to a bad side, a trio of Centaur Chargers is added to the mix, giving the unit a speed when pushing of 14. Though it is intended that you sacrifice one of the centaurs when pushing (the unit only needs two), it can still function effectively if a protosphinx is lost, so you can use one of those figures to absorb damage.
Some of the best Egyptian infantry units actually use Roman figures. Most of them involve commanders. Just as the Roman common infantry figures are superior to the Egyptian ones, so the Egyptian commanders are more useful than the Romans.
First, there is the Shields of Saxa. The purpose of this unit is to enable Decidius Saxa to get to the control terrain and sit there for a turn or two, invoking Command Position for victory points. The unit has 8 defense against close combat and 12 against range. Like all Roman-based turtles, it is slow, so it is probably not going to be a factor until the end game; however, there is a spare figure you can use to give it an initial push.
A similar concept involving Darius of Pontus is the Shieldbearers of Darius. This has a defense of 8 against close combat and 12 against range, but thanks to Hellenic Pride, in an all-Egyptian army it attacks with an astonishing 11 dice.
The final variation on this theme is the Amenhotep Testudo, which adds the Lord of the Dead healing power of Amenhotep to the defensive unit. Unless your opponent can kill this unit in a single turn, it will keep coming back for more.
Using Formation Legionaries and a Cursed Swordsman, you can build an infantry unit with 8 attack, 5 defense, and Wall of Shields. To make it exceptionally dangerous, add Cleopatra. This nets two extra defense dice, giving it a defense of 7 against close combat and 9 against range. Cleopatra also has the unique attribute of providing Calculating to a full-strength formation, meaning that if you get the unit into position to kill someone on the control point, you get an extra victory point. To give your 8 dice more killing power, you can soften up your opponent with Cleopatra's Death Touch power before attacking.
The alternate-stat Hoplite with Javelin (Hoplite Javelineer Recruit) and Charging Hoplite (Hoplite Recruit) have Hustle, giving them an extra burst of speed when pushed. They are also fairly fast, but have poor defense, and take an extra defensive hit when attacked because of Cowardly. Nonetheless, units based on these figures can make a close combat attack from 12 steps away when pushed. This makes them ideal for striker units. The basic striker unit is the Hoplite Militia. This is a fast, cheap sortie you can use to stake an early claim to control terrain or to tie up your opponent's artillery units. You can build two of them with the figures available in a starter set and an infantry pack.
The most terrifying striker unit uses Darius of Pontus to give it real teeth. The Sword of Damocles has 11 attack dice normally, but in an all-Egyptian army, the power of Hellenic Pride raises that to a withering 15. Only the fact that it has 3 bad sides keeps it from being completely impossible.
The heart of the Egyptian cavalry is not based in Egyptian figures, but the Xiongnu horsemen. Most Xiongnu figures (that is, all of them but the commanders) can be put on Egyptian base cards without penalty. You want to do it that way because of the awesome power of Hellenic Pride in an all-Egyptian army.
To get the most out of these units, you need Warlord Khudu on the field. The cheapest way to do that if you're an Egyptian player is Khudu's Tent. It looks ridiculous, and it has no ability to defend itself, but it does the job for the lowest possible cost.
The most basic Xiongnu cavalry unit is the Imperial Xiongnu Lance. It is designed to be able to move and attack without regrouping, striking from a distance of 14 when it pushes to move, and thanks to Charger doing the whole operation for only 5 order points. It attacks with 9 dice in every case, which is very good for a cavalry unit. After attacking, it can regroup for defense.
If you add Gulug, you get Gulug's Imperial Lance. The unit remains Xiongnu (Gulug being a Xiongnu commander), but it attacks with 12 dice instead of 9. If your opponent has no defense icons, then Bully will trigger. In a Bully situation, even a roll of 1 will beat a phantom die, and since your opponent will almost certainly not be rolling any defense dice, you're virtually guaranteed 12 hits, enough to kill a full-health formation in a single blow. The downside, of course, is that the sheer number of dice the unit has makes it very expensive, costing 1550 build points.
The basic mounted Xiongnu cavalry unit is the Imperial Xiongnu Longbow. Like the other Xiongnu units here, it is designed to move and attack without regrouping. It moves 7 and can shoot a distance of 6, then retreat back out of range by pushing to move again, something that has very little cost if you're using Stormrider. Because your opponent can't retaliate easily, this is a very scary strategy. Of course, you can also push to attack twice, and you'll actually do that more often, but be sure to mention the safe-retreat tactic anyway when the game starts, because it will keep your opponent off balance.
The only way to get more range dice out of this unit is to add two Kor Snipers, since these are also Xiongnu figures and each brings half a range die onto the base. The resulting unit is the Imperial Kor Longbow. The Snipers make it easier to push the unit for a second ranged attack during your turn, but they take away the ability to shoot from the side and they reduce the unit's speed by one movement point.
One commander that has been conspicuously absent from all the above units is Achilles. Achilles is expensive, and his special ability Power at a Price is of limited use, so it's hard to make a good unit with him. The basic cavalry unit of this type is the Centaurs of Legend. This is an alternate configuration of the base card Achilles that actually costs 50 points less.
If you really want to maximize your chance of activating Power at a Price and you're willing to pay an exorbitant price for it, the card to use is Warriors of Legend. At 2250 build points, it costs as much as any two other cards, but it has Deadly, so you only need two sixes for a critical hit. This raises the odds to over 50%.
The following is a sample army built with these units. It features three artillery units, four sorties, and one turtle. Three of the sorties are mummy-based, and you'll want to keep these near your Lord of the Dead artillery unit during the initial part of the game so that they can be healed if needed.