Hunter Cadre - Unit Guide (english)

Hunter Cadre - Unit Guide
Hunter Cadre are the second of the Imperial Officer's three Restricted selections and are classic monster hunters.

Overview and gameplay

This unit can both shoot and engage in melee combat, the latter being its intended purpose and the other being a trap. As a light unit, they hit quite well with Clash 3 and Cleave 1, but unfortunately only have 4 attacks. In long-range combat, the Barrage 3 and Volley 2 are just as good as the much cheaper Crossbows, but thanks to Fiend Hunter they can re-roll all attack dice against monsters and brutes. This generates a lot of hits against these enemy classes in both close and long-range combat, but you don't always get the charge against them with Movement 6. But a 4 stand does useful damage to most things - until they strike back. Thanks to Evasion 2 and Fearless, they mostly don't care about Cleave and Terrifying. But Resolve 3 is already a good value for people, but at 4 lives the levels dwindle rapidly. Therefore you have to choose your close combats with them carefully.

Now we still have crossbows with us and so we don't necessarily have to run forward straight away, but we can easily stand somewhere on the flank from the second row and shoot something around in rounds where we don't do anything else. This will be doubly interesting with the Veterans, as they can reach Volley 3 and hit significantly better than Crossbows. However, they cost twice as much in points, which is why you shouldn't focus on them. If they had funny rapid-fire weapons with explosive ammunition, it would be something different. No, we are simple people with crossbows and knives against monsters.

The Command Models have the Null Mage, which is either useless or completely overkill depending on the playgroup. Because every Wizard & Priest who casts spells within 10" of the Null Mage loses a life point for every dice they fail to cast. Focus mages don't care, the rest will leave the spells alone. 

Also the Imperial Officer with Double Time and Fire and Advance cann be a good choise and allows the unit one volley three move actions per round and with Standard therefore 16" movement. If you now add his Supremacy you get 32" in round 2 and have a 10" anti spell Bullet with a usable melee regiment. But this is very special and usually 4-5 stands and standards without a character make more sense, as the unit is really expensive for human standards. It should also be mentioned that the Hunter Cadre are by far the most beautiful Have kits of the hundred kingdoms and then you have enough heads and weapons to, for example, equip any other basic bodies with additional weapons.

Veterans
The standard is quite cheap and if you want a Null Mage it's always worth upgrading to get Volley 3. Of course, you can also go with Clash 4, since you are only rarely allowed to repeat attack rolls against their preferred targets anyway.

Relentless drills
The additional stands are damn expensive at 50 points and fall over easily, which makes Relentless Drills quite uninteresting. Personally, I would almost always play them four or five wide if possible. Back stands are just life points.

Conclusion: semi-good monster hunters who shouldn't mess with monsters or brutes in their points class without help