Snakemen Tactical Theory
by Thane Morgan

This is a very unusual army. It has a lot of positives, but some tricky negatives. It has a lot of offense in the form of multiple attacks, but it has very few high skill attacks. Snakemen have access to some great abilities – Eldritch melee attacks, magic missile attacks, evasion, first strike, infiltration and the unique slowing abilities of the charmers. But they have no multiwound troops, no cavalry, no berserkers or fearless troops. They are relatively expensive.

The combination of high cost, low speed and single wound troops makes them very sensitive to missile heavy armies. They also don’t have access to air magic, though water magic and nature magic may be used to block the LOS of enemy archers. Their missile vulnerability is somewhat mitigated by most of the army having Armor 3 Shield or Armor 2 Evasion 1. Standard skill 2 bows will not be especially effective. Elf and Samurai longbows are nasty. A big counter to bows is infiltration. If the snakes can start the game with a couple of units to harass the enemy archers, it helps get the rest of the army across the board safely. Other standard anti-missile techniques can be employed as well – the arrow immune shield wall, the assault flier squadron, and simply waiting for the enemy to come to your side of the board.

The base 2 nature of the army requires different tactics for maneuvering. Units of snakemen only 3 deep are difficult to maneuver around impassible terrain and other units. Four- and five deep units are prohibitive in most situations. They need to be especially careful about getting flanked, because enemies often have over twice as many models in the combat. The multi attack nature of the snakemen will mitigate this a bit, but getting flanked by an enemy with long weapons can be disastrous.

The weight effect of Rank and File snakes is enormous. A typical 21 man unit inflicts a –5 morale penalty by itself, whereas a 21 man base 1 unit only inflicts a –3 back. Two snakeman units supporting each other against a single enemy can get the enemy down to "snake eyes" morale most every time. Their lack of speed make this a little more difficult to achieve, but the reciprocal morale bonuses tend to keep a unit engaged past the first turn, allowing supporting units time to get involved.

In general, multiattack units do well when they skirmish to maximize their attacks. The morale bonuses for snakes staying in RaF make this a harder decision to make, similar to what cavalry units often face.

The lack of speedy cavalry is a critical issue to overcome for a snakeman commander. The snakemen are very adept at breaking enemy units, but because of their large flanks they often do not want to pursue and make a flank vulnerable. Cavalry are very likely to get away from snakeman units and get a chance to rally. Snakeman generals need to find ways to keep fleeing units broken and drive them off the board. Infiltrating units do a good job with this. Kaa Hurlers are especially good, as they can get within 6" of one unit and throw knives at a second unit. Mamba can set up outside of 6" and still get to their target. However, infiltration is expensive, especially with Nyoka Mambas or Kaa anything.

Another option is to take speedy monsters to compliment the Snakeman army.

Snakeman Troops

Nyoka Swordsmen

The standard rules apply for these basic troops – they are good for mass offensively and good for soaking up attacks defensively. Armor 3 Shield gives them a decent chance for resisting missile fire and other basic unit attacks. The dual attacks make these troops unusually effective when they skirmish, while the base 2 helps them stick out morale tests better in RaF. The tradeoff must be carefully considered.

Nyoka Spearmen

The dual attacks coming from the spearmen mean a RaF unit delivers 3 attacks per base frontage in contact with the enemy. Nasty. Otherwise, everything said about the swordsmen applies for the spearmen as well.

Nyoka Archers

Standard Archer tactics apply. Try to get them to places where they won’t have to move much. Protect them from fliers and enemy missile troops. The dual melee attacks means they can protect themselves a bit better than most archers, but they still should try to stay out of melee as much as possible, and use the missile attacks they have paid so much for.

Snakeman generals probably want to use their archers to take out enemy archers as quickly as possible, due to the melee troops sensitivity to archers. Also, snakeman melee units are typically more than a match for normal enemy melee units, so there is little need to soften up enemy melee units.

Nyoka Mamba

These are powerful. They are faster than most infantry, and have 3 (!) attacks each, one with first strike and Strength 1. Coupled with evasion, they can rip though two or three basic enemy units without taking a test themselves. But this doesn’t make them immortal; just like cavalry, if they are thrown up the center of the enemy’s battle line, they can get overwhelmed by multiple units and broken by shear mass. Never forget they only have one wound each, they need support. A Strength spell (nature magic) rocks on these guys.

Mamba are fantastic as a flanking unit at the end of a line, because they can move quickly to support the next unit beside them, and because they can respond quickly and effectively to enemy units attempting to flank them.

Nyoka Charmers

These are very expensive for fairly weak combat skills. Evasion 1 helps keep them alive, and the long weapon eldritch whip attacks work decently for offense, especially against high armor targets. Their special Charming ability is a hit or miss proposition – you can’t depend on it working. But when it does, the enemy should go away.

For these reasons, Charmers are probably best used in conjunction with a second unit. The second unit protects the expensive charmers by absorbing some attacks and holding up pursuing units. Furthermore, a charmed enemy unit will be more vulnerable to attacks from the support unit as well, so the charming ability is a real force multiplier when it works.

Against high value targets that get charmed, the snakeman general may want to fire archers into the combat. The enemy will be at +2 to be hit over the charmers (enemy slowness and Charmer evasion), so this can really rack up the damage. However, basic enemies can lose three or four men to every Charmer killed and still come out ahead, so consider the value of the enemy before putting the Charmers at risk.

Nyoka Pythons

Pythons are a solid backbone and very nasty against heavily armored troops, yet still relatively inexpensive.. They are the only armor 4 troop for the Snakemen, and have 3 attacks each as well. They are a bit slower, but these guys are great for holding objectives. If their constriction attack gets Enchanted (general spell), nothing is going to want to get near them.

Kaa Swordmen

All Kaa are very expensive, but with their skill 3 eldritch bites, all simply rock on heavily armored, low magic resistance troops. The swordsmen are otherwise not terribly special, normal grunt tactics work well for them. Extra care should be taken about getting them shot at, since they are still relatively high value.

Kaa Hurlers

Their huge, multibladed knives are essentially strength 2 javelins. However, their dual attacks and Armor 3 shield make them so much tougher than the standard javelineer. Consider – on the turn they charge, they get to make a strength 2 missile attack, a strength 1 melee attack, and a skill 3 eldritch attack. They probably have had at least one round of softening up the target at range as well. They are very expensive troops though. Try very hard not to get them shot.

Hurlers are a great unit to infiltrate, especially to keep broken units running.

Kaa Snake-Archers

Though only skill 2, these are exceptional troops. Almost everything has reason to fear them – dragons, elementals, artillery, even undead. Normal units are in severe peril from having their heroes killed by magical archery.

For this reason, clever enemy generals put a LOT of effort into killing these guys as quickly as possible. They are going to need other units protecting them from enemy fliers and missile attacks. Though their melee skills are quite nasty by themselves, that is not going to deter an enemy commander who properly respects and fears them. A unit of 20 will be 760 points even without a hero, and any enemy commander is going to be willing to sacrifice as many points to keep his leaders from being shot by them. 760 points buys a LOT of missile immune or flying models to deal with the problem. They will be natural priority targets for longbows and artillery.

Kaa Heroes

They are all built to fight, even the wizards. All of them get an extra attack over their more humanoid counterparts, and even though it is eldritch, it will still tend to give the snakemen leaders the ability kill enemy leaders in duels without dying themselves.

Snakeman Magic

Kaa Wizards have access to Water, Earth and Nature Magic. There are some spells that are very complimentary to snakeman abilities.

Water

Fog Clouds work very well to block LOS from enemy archers.

Create Pond is especially nice because the snakemen can move right through them, whereas most enemies will be hindered by them.

Cloudburst can be used to reduce the abilities of enemy archers, or cut the movement of enemy cavalry.

Geyser breaks up enemy RaF formations, allowing RaF snakeman units to really put a big morale penalty on skirmished unit.

Hailstorm is also good at hindering enemy archers, and to keep high value enemy units running.

Earth

Stone Armor The snakes’ armor is mostly 3 already, so Stone Armor won’t always be useful. It is a great added defense against enemy long bows or other high strength attacks.

Geyser breaks up enemy RaF formations, allowing RaF snakeman units to really put a big morale penalty on skirmished unit.

Tremors, Earthbind and Mass Earthbind all work well to slow down speedy enemy units. Tremors will also hurt enemy archers.

Nature

Tanglefoot is good for slowing enemy troops, especially cavalry.

Create Forest is great for blocking LOS and giving troops cover, especially archers. Snakemen can move through it freely.

Strength is a bread and butter spell for snakes. It gives them speed, and gives their attacks much more power.

Picking objectives

Again, the Snakeman army is not fast, though infiltration can make up for it. This means they are often on the defensive, and like it that way. They move freely through most difficult terrain, which can counter their slowness against enemies less lithe.

Terrain objectives are thus great choices for snakeman armies. Make the enemy come to you. Especially if the terrain blocks enemy archer LOS, or at least offers cover.

Python are the most durable snakeman unit against most enemies. Unfortunately, they are among the least expensive troops, so they often can't be picked as objectives. Typically, it will be the Mamba, Hurlers or Snake Archers. These are not the greatest of choices, because Mamba and Hurlers are going to typically be in the thick of the battle, and the snake archers are often Target #1 anyway.

Snakemen heroes are fantastic. But not invincible. Lords are good choices for objectives, but try to have another hero with him to keep him from being double teamed by enemy characters.

Set-up

Snakemen are slow to redeploy, so they need to be set up with a battle plan at least in mind. Because of their large flanks, snakemen units in RaF need to have supporting units on those flanks. A solid battle line not only protects the flanks well, but also looks very imposing.

Kaa Snake-archers should set up close to last. This allows them to select their targets, and avoid enemy lines of fire. Because of the cost of their missile attack, they don't want to spend a lot of time maneuvering to get a firing line. They need to be shooting right from the start of the game. They should get a meatshield of some kind to absorb enemy archery if possible. I like using treemen or water elementals for a shield wall, though it is an expensive technique to employ. Nyoka Pythons are a good meatshield, too.

© 2007
Thane's Games