Model Dojo: Alexia2

Time to talk about Alexia2, who sees table in my Shae list. I've not seen her much anywhere else, but we'll get into why I think that is, first lets look at why she finds a place with Shae.

For just 7 points you get a cavalry solo, Spd8 Def15 Arm16 10 boxes. She's got a fairly neat pow12 magical weapon and reposition 5.

Back of the card gets even better, Magic ability 7 with an ability to spend up to 3 souls for 3 thrall solos, or a high power solid range nuke. She has soul taker command range and can buy melee attacks or boost hit/damage rolls (including magic attack rolls) using souls. Finally, she can also spell vortex spells targeting her or models in 3", which is often forgotten but can be clutch.

All in all, my initial thoughts about her are along the lines of : cool model, decently cheap points cost, useful abilities. So why don't you see her too much? It could just be local meta, but I think the answer lies in the fact that she feeds off living infantry, which you don't see much of currently. Not only that, but she is only really good at killing a handful of infantry herself, she doesn't threaten hard targets. Then you have the fact that she's lacking in defensive tech outside of a decent speed stat and reposition. All of a sudden her bargain 7 points seem hard to justify in a competitive list.

Why do I run her with Shae? Well, that list is all about getting work out of the pirates, which includes recycling their souls. The summoned thrall warriors also offer a ton of options. Those guys threat a meagre 10" on the charge, but happen to be pow10 weapon masters. Alexia's speed lets her summon them in places where you can get a lot of leverage out of that charge attack though, and the Commodore offers a way to knock down targets reliably at long range, making the surprise thrall missile a very real threat. She can also offer some much needed magic protection to the pirate support solos.

That's just the tip of the thrall iceberg, since thralls can run into some really unexpected spots to take a cannon shot in the back. Their low defence lets you place an Incendiary Shot with frightening accuracy for instance, and Alexia herself can even lay on the hurt with boostable pow12s. With Shae she makes a decent phantasm target, helping her toe zones or flags while being safer from reprisal. She'd be a decent mobile Telgesh Mark target for Fiona as well, and I'm sure other mercenary casters I don't play could find a use for her.

Right, so can she do anything else? A medium base can screen a warcaster from LoS maybe? Sure, at Def15 it's not even that bad. People forget that she can make impact attacks on a charge, which is part of your combat action and so she is perhaps the only non-warcaster cavalry model that can boost impact attacks for a psuedo trample. Your charge attack also gains a boosted attack roll as a cavalry model, but this is all pretty last ditch isn't it, since if you have the souls you'll probably let the thralls do the work.

So, try to find 7 spare points in your next list and let me know what other tricks you can find for this versatile, powerful solo.