Breaking down 3 new units and a new ability for the Vitawaasi faction.

The Vitawaasi faction is going to be hitting the battleground in a couple of months, so we are going to start a new series that previews some of the tactics and units of the faction. If you haven’t pre-ordered your copy, you can right here!

Vitawaasi uses “savannah” as their home terrain and are one of 3 factions (Doom Sand and Kragg being the other 2) with 2 terrain tiles that have no water spaces.

Vitawaasi’s combat style is to impact enemy units from a distance through range and several vicious new abilities that can wound or score points without having to rush to combat. Despite having relatively low overall health compared to other factions, they have several units with abilities that make clean melee and ranged attacks difficult. One area of weakness for Vitawaasi is defense against spells, so while Vitawaasi players can mitigate and out-maneuver range and melee, generals will have to be particularly cautious of opponent’s direct damage spells.

How do they control the battleground? Let’s preview the Vitawaasi signature ability!

ABILITY PREVIEW: Trapper

Vitawaasi has several units that can use their activation to place a trap on an unoccupied space on the battleground. This can be a tremendous advantage if used well. How about dropping a trap down right in front of the enemy basecamp? How about sabotaging a gold mine? There are lots of ways to completely disrupt the first couple of moves your opponent might want to make.

Trapper is not just an early game play though- it can be used to interrupt an opponent offensive if they are beginning to press towards the VW basecamp. Your opponent might have to re-route, buying you some time to build up reinforcements.

The great thing about Trapper is that you can adjust your strategy based on your opponent’s movement. Sometimes, they will elect to send either a cheap, low health unit to take the trap damage and get eliminated, or they will send a tough but one-dimensional unit like Bonesteel Colossus or Grove Umuthi to soak up the traps. If your opponent aggressively tries to take out the traps, wounding units in the process, look for abilities and units that score some extra points or take advantage of wounded enemies (We will preview some of these abilities in the next blog post). The other choice your opponent might make is to simply ignore the traps entirely…. and this is when Vitawaasi shines. Let’s preview a unit.

UNIT PREVIEW: Veteran Hunter

Veteran Hunter is a great unit to get on the board when you have a couple of traps deployed. Enemies might decide to stay back and gather resources before sending their top tier monsters into combat. The Veteran Hunter’s elite range of 3 drastically reduces the spaces that are safe. 4 rank is elite as well, meaning the Veteran Hunter is great at pumping out 1 damage to units sitting around and avoiding traps. At 4 gold, it’s 3 range and 4 rank make it a really useful offensive unit, despite the very low prowess… Oh and look at that, they can lay a trap of their own! Vitawaasi’s roster is full of ranged strikers, and when paired with a couple of traps they are extremely effective.

UNIT PREVIEW: Bladefang Olitiau

One type of unit that the Trapper does not impact is Aerial units. Vitawaasi has a few units that can help slow air raids. Another 4 cost unit, the Bladefang Olitiau is not as good as the Veteran Hunter, but it still is very useful against factions that deploy a lot of flying units. Severing Bite is an underrated ability. Delivering 2 damage while ripping off 2 attack is especially impactful against flyers. Outside of a handful of elite, expensive flyers, most flyers do not have an attack much higher than 3, nor do they have a health much higher than 3. The Bladefang Olitiau can turn one or both of the attack and health attributes to 1 or 0 of many Aerial units– and wounded units are a very good thing for Vitawaasi (next week I’ll preview why!).

UNIT PREVIEW: Bultungin Berserker

Of course, many games, enemies will push past Vitawaasi’s traps and ranged attacks. You’ll need some good, old-fashioned units that like to hit hard and mix it up on the frontline. Bultungin Berserker fills that role extremely well for Vitawaasi. Championslayer is crucial for Vitawaasi because they don’t have a lot of high attack units outside of a couple exceptions. 5 gold makes the Bultungin Berserker the most usable of those options. The Bultungin Berserker also uses Menace to avoid cheap little hits, but it’s not going to usually last too long anyways. It’s perfect for rushing in, busting some skulls, and maybe scoring some big victory points. It’s role in Vitawaasi is simple and necessary, meaning it likely will be in most of your Vitawaasi warbands.

Next week we will preview 3 more units and a couple more abilities for Vitawaasi so you are ready to dominate the battleground!