Welcome to the first of my (hopefully) many to come tactic’s and lists articles! To start off here, I decided to do something click-baity going with my top 5 favorite new or updated formations in CoK19. These formations are not going necessarily be the best, or most competitive, but they are going to really emphasize what I love about formations, by making you think and really branch out how an army can play. I will also include an example list, using the formations I chose, although for armies I haven’t played these may not be the most competitive builds out there.
The first formation I’m going to talk about is in “drumroll” Salamanders, with their brand new Inspiration of the Ancients. Can’t have an article by me that doesn’t mention this army after all, but this formation excites me, and hits every note of what formations should be doing.
1. Inspiration of the Ancients
The Inspiration of the Ancients is 20 points, requires 2 regiments of Ancients and a Clan Lord hero, giving each regiment of Ancients Inspiring and the Clan Lord becomes -/15 and has rally 1.
For 20 points you get 2 Inspiring Talismans, and a Banner of the Griffin, and Fearless on a guy. This can be a lot of value if you play to what the formation is letting you do. Much like Hell on Wheels in ogres, Salamanders getting access to Rally 2, by using Banner of the Griffin on the Clan Lord, is potentially army shaping. One of my biggest gripes with Salamanders is they’re really expensive, but they have lower nerve than the armies with comparable point costs. Their baselines being at 14/16, rather than 15/17, like more elite armies, while still costing comparable to elite armies, really hampered they’re effectiveness army-wide. Getting Rally 2 on a character, and making your support/line regiments inspiring, means you can buy those really nice heroes, like Mage Priests, and not have to miss out on a good bulky line.
2. King Crabs
The next formation is for the Trident Realms. King Crabs is 20 points, and requires 2 Hordes of Gigas. The both gain Elite and +1 speed, pumping them to speed 5. This is a nifty boost for cheap; Gigas just felt out of place at speed 4, hurting their natural role as wing defenders around your main infantry horde. My biggest complaint with this formation is actually the lack of Placoderms in it; they are humanoid crustaceans after all! Placs would’ve probably been a bit forceful, as you would essentially have the army either be King Crab based, or Naiad based, plus Mantic doesn’t have placoderm models yet, so I understand the exclusion.
3. Carriages of Carnage
Who doesn’t like the image of goblins riding riding makeshift steam engines/tunnelers? This formation takes 2 Mincers and a Mincer Mob, granting each unit +1 speed, for speed 6, making them mini giants! Only costs 20 points; 400 total for the formation. The mincer changes will almost certainly be a net improvement to the melee goblin build, they cant wound on 2s vs most things, but they do get better if they get a counter charge.
More importantly they lost Yellow Bellied, so the cheap, brutal, chaff can always get into the spot you wanted, setting up your Trolls and Giants for better hits. The Mincer Mob on the other hand is amazingly goblin. It’ll plow through most things on the first hit, but its points to nerve ratio is pretty low, especially for the lack of unlocks, and the units very weak to mobile shooting, such as lightning bolt, dragons, and nimble bow shots.
+1 speed on these 3 units is nice, especially if your going for a Rabble and Giants style list. Mincers also work very well with Trolls using this formation, keeping an army wide speed of 6, and being fairly reliable multi-chargers, or setup units, to get into combats with your trolls.
4. Ilona’s Thirstful Coven
The theme continues of me really liking formations that add speed. Ilona’s Thirstful Coven got a rewrite to include 2 regiments of Soul Reaver Infantry, and actually include lady Ilona herself! All units in the formation gain +1 speed and Fearless, for the cost of 25 pts; and a total cost of 825.
Soul Reaver Infantry are one of those units that’s actually decent on it’s own, but gets overshadowed, because when you put them on horses they get really damn good. It’s a tough sell to take speed 6 hammer infantry, when speed 8, defense 6, super heavy cavalry is right there too.
This formation doesn’t remove that from the internal list balance, but instead levels it, so you’ll likely see lists that make a choice between running this formation, or running Soul Reaver cavalry. Of the formations I included in the list, this one is the one you’ll have to build around entirely to get the most out of it. -17 infantry regiments aren’t soft, but they also will die in 2 hits from most units, so you need to build with chaff that can keep up. Lady Ilona is perfect for this role, as a speed 9, fearless, defense 6, roadblock, that’s also going to be throwing out 6ish wounds a combat, letting her fit into whatever role you’ll need her to do. She’s one of the few characters that can solo units, like the Idol of Shobik, if she gets the first hit in.
When running this, I’d look into troops of Revenant Cavalry, or if your feeling more thematic, troops of ghouls also can work, although the Revenant Cavalry are better at the job, since their fearless nerve let’s them always contribute, and more importantly they can 4″ side step, allowing your super regiments into combat, and then get surged into the fight themselves.
5. Undaunted Crusaders
Speed! Speed is king, and brotherhood took a formation nerf that I am really a fan of. Two regiments of Order of the Brotherhood as well as an Exemplar of the Brotherhood get you +1 speed for each unit, at the cost of 30 pts for a total formation running you 530 pts. This formation was famously described as OP on a certain podcast during TNT gt, and honestly I felt this was a very weak formation when it was just pathfinder. Pathfinder is a nice rule, but this formation wasn’t helping the knights do their job of hitting first better, and gave the exemplar a very awkward role of chaff interceptor and supporting spell caster. If you need a pathfinder unit in an army already packing a heavy flyer unit/hero just give someone the Caterpillar potion and spend the other 30 pts the formation used to cost better. Now though, they outrange almost all cavalry except elf stormwind cavalry and fliers. This is huge for letting them get that crucial first hit in, and the chaff interceptor hero at speed 9 gives a massive bubble for shutting down fliers/dragons. Like the old version, I wouldnt look at this formation as giving you your 2 hammers for a list, but think of the regiments as inbetween units that can reach out and win a trade with a similar costed unit or setup a positive trade for a bigger unit. The loss of bane chant hurts a touch, but lute would be a better buy on a flag guy imo than where it was in this formation anyways.