Alrighty, I’ll be honest. Before I dove in and tore the Merchant Prince to shreds online I wanted to at least play him. So I gathered up my buddy Dex and we played a very fun game of Conquest. Neither of us were playing extremely competitive lists but we had a blast with smooshing our dudes into each other. This entire game is an excuse for me to barf words about the Merchant Prince, because I love him, he just sucks.
My List
=== The Last Argument of Kings ===
I’ve Come to Bargin [2000/2000]
The Spires
The Directorate
== (Warlord) Merchant Prince [120]:
- Bound Clones (3) [150]:
- Vanguard Clones (3) [145]:
- Incarnate Sentinels (3) [220]:
- Incarnate Sentinels (3) [220]:
== High Clone Executor [95]: Grafted Limbs - Onslaught Drones (3) [130]:
- Siegebreaker Behemoth (1) [230]:
== Biomancer [100]: - Force-Grown Drones (3) [90]:
- Force-Grown Drones (3) [90]:
- Abomination (1) [180]:
- Desolation Beast (1) [230]:
Alrighty, the big elephant in the room. I don’t think the Merchant Prince is worth taking. I think he’s got some neat ideas! But he just is non-functional for any sort of competitive Conquest environment.
First off the good things – I think flavor wise, the Merchant Prince is a slam dunk. Having every single regiment available as restricted is really cool. I love the “Make a Deal” system In Theory and I think his warlord ability is actually quite good.
Then the bad – I absolutely hate his Mainstay options. I cannot stand how the “Make a Deal” system is implemented and he costs So. Many. Points. It’s as if someone at PBG had to play against early 10th edition Wraith Knights and they decided that dice fixing mechanics would be prohibitively expensive. I’ll dive more into the changes I think would make this character shine, as I think he is worth polishing and changing. There is a diamond in the rough here!
His List
=== The Last Argument of Kings === Dragged in [1960/2000] The Hundred Kingdoms
== Theist Priest [90]:
- Sicarii (5) [240]:
- Archangel (1) [240]: Aspect of the Avenger (Sword)
== (Warlord) Crusading Noble Lord [105]: The Flesh Cleaver, To Cast Out the Daemon
- Sicarii (5) [240]:
- Sicarii (3) [160]:
- Trebuchet (1) [200]:
- Longbowmen (3) [140]: [Veteran]
== Mounted Noble Lord [155]: Dynastic Ally, Elysian Fragment, Tourney Champion, Eccentric Fighting Style
- Mounted Squires (5) [220]: [Veteran]
- Household Knights (3) [170]:
No quite sure why his list is 1960…. but that might be just a list builder error. But hey…look! Sicarii! I love this list, first time fighting the Trebuchet so I am excited about that!
Scenario
This is actually a good scenario for me! Thank you dice gods! A classic one, and one of my favorite for Conquest.
Early Game
Round One – Dex doesn’t wanna take any of my deals 🙁 So I get to have really fast lights, giving the Merchant Prince (MP) Vanguard 3 to the Force Grown Drones (FGD) and then the Vanguard. We are laughing so hard about the Elysian Fragment Mounted Squires unit. Some jank has been brewed in this tank.
Round Two – Some more posturing. I get SUPER outplayed here, as I extend quite heavily on the left flank with the Vanguard Clones and the right flank with the move 10″ Abomination with Vanguard 3 (This is awesome, this is something the MP does right) Then two huge blobs of Sicarii step in front of the juicy targets. My rust is showing! Man does the Trebuchet do work against monsters, I think…it definitely is best when it is able to use Boulder ammunition and just snipe monsters.
Round 3 – My Abomination is going to die, so I activate it first and just take 3.5 stands of Sicarii with me. I run into another error here, looking back I wish I had split my forces a bit better, having one Incarnate Sentinels unit to be a roadblock for the Desolation Beast and anchor that flank, then take over the right side with another Incarnate Sentinels and the Siegebreaker Behemoth
Mid Game
Round 4 – Scores are relatively close thankfully, and I have a lot of pressure on me. Dex has range on me, speed on me, and a points lead. Meaning I got to get a bit desperate and start sending units in. The Incarnates strain and march charge, ALMOST killing the Sicarii. The Siegebreaker eats the Elysian Fragment and thanks to the MP dice and some hot rolls, only takes 9. Desolation Beast….Tangent. I LOVE the Desolation Beast. What an awesome gun platform. Just so brutal. Anyway, I do quite a bit of damage to the Mounted Squires, but I whiff on the amount of 1s I roll and don’t get to spread the love to all the regiments around him.
Round 5 – The right side sadly has just crumbled. I had a glimmer of hope, the Incarnate was out of combat with the Archangel and if they had just survived the Broken Sicarii clash it would’ve been fantastic, but they failed so hard. Dice went awry at a wrong time, but that happens! The Sicarii were the heroes and the Archangel was able to Reform and Charge into my next Incarnates instead of eating the Charge Clash next round.
This is the round where MP dice went absolutely frustratingly (For Dex) Bananas, the Siegebreaker survives on one wound through multiple activations. Poor dice from the Longbowmen, combined with auto saves, made him live. I really, really need to go first next round (A sure sign you’re in a bad spot)
Late Game
Round 6 – The attrition goes off the rails, the Siegebreaker is STILL ALIVE because Longbowmen just decided to not do anything…again…but the other creations are falling fast.
My Incarnates get to go first and they do 14/18 wounds onto the Archangel, it was SO close. Needed a bit more of a spike there (or the impacts) but the writing is on the wall now.
Siege-y has to reform and get some points and the Desolation Beast attempts to kill the Longbowmen.
Rounds 7-10
A bloodbath ensues. The Desolation Beast murders the left flank…HORRIFICALLY. I LOVE avoiding evasion. It’s like the sweetest vat grown drugs from my home Spire directly into my brainstem. I won’t be taking the Desolation Beast out of my list for a long time.
We talk out the last 3 rounds, having had a great time and before this round was only 2 points of difference.
I made some key errors, I think this was a winnable game, but my errors were too potent and my opponent took great advantage of them!
Closing Thoughts
Things I Did Well – I think I played the Desolation Beast really well. He got a lot of high value shots on targets that he is good into!
Things I Hope to Improve On – I should’ve either committed to controlling the right flank, or spread out a bit better. Looking back, with my perfect hindsight, I should’ve just controlled the left and played a Declined Flank style
Things Dex Did Well – Dex is a good friend and always a blast to play against, but I really like how he played excellently with a more janky list, it was the perfect mix of fun but still competitive. Also the plays of guarding the important range units with the big Sicarii blocks caught me so off guard! Well Played
Things I Wish the Merchant Prince Would Sell Me – Sweet sweet Spires biomass. No. Here’s what I wish the Merchant Prince did. I wish there were multiple different deals you could propose. I love the idea of different stages of the game offering different things, Aimed shot for a ranged unit? Charge rerolls for Cavalry? Relentless Blows for your 20 stand block of FGD? So many cool ideas available and it’s really painful when the ability just turns off after round 4. And then you’re paying 120 points for nothing. The Warlord ability feels great and if there were some tweaks to the Deal mechanic and his points cost I could see him being a real Warlord Option. Also, if he could get like…a gun? And sit in some ranged units? Or even if you don’t change the deal mechanic he could get some support abilities/auras? Just something. I think it’s a great idea and I would love to see him get some love.
Thanks again for reading! Feel free to comment and tell me what you think about the Merchant Prince and Spires. Here at Line of Sight we will have a lot more content coming, Conquest, Star Craft, Dropfleet, GW games, it’s all on the table! Hobby, Tournaments, Battle Reports, and Podcasts. Subscribe so you don’t miss out.
