Mahabharati Initiates - Sorcerer Kings Guide (english)

Mahabharati Initiates

Mahabharati are warriors who stand between mortals and sorcerers, tasked with overseeing sorcerers and their summons; they are bonded from childhood to an elemental being whose powers grow with their experience and mastery.

Cost:

• 160 points for a glass cannon with clearly defined roles.

Strengths:

• Arcane Conduit: If the regiment ends the round in a zone, it grants a ritual marker. Cumulative with a character’s Arcane Conduit.
• Cleave 1: Reduces the enemy’s armor by 1 in melee with a Clash attack.
• Linebreaker: Ignores shields and the Bastion draw event of the enemy.
• High Attack Power: With Clash 3, Attack 5, Cleave 1, and Linebreaker, even some of the best-protected units only have D1 or D2 against the Initiates.
• Wizard (1): Hinders enemy spells and serves as a solid base for Sorcerer King rituals.
• Eminence: When this regiment is targeted by a spell from an enemy priest or sorcerer, it gains +2 Evasion and counts as +5 Stands for scaling purposes.
• Standard Bearer: The standard bearer is free and adds +1 Movement to the second movement action per round, with a reroll for charge rolls.
• Medium: As a medium regiment, the Initiates can score.
• Children of Ash: You can choose if they gain the Born of Flame or Born of Air trait when creating the army list.
• Born of Flame/Air: When a friendly sorcerer casts a fire or wind spell (depending on the trait chosen), this regiment instantly heals 2 wounds. This also creates synergies with other faction abilities.

Weaknesses:

• Low Defense: With Defense 2, Resolve 4, and 4 wounds per stand, they are vulnerable to concentrated attacks and can suffer heavy losses, especially from ranged attacks.
• No Elementals: While Movement 6 and the banner are solid, in an army that can sometimes take a third action, they are a bit slow and may need protection.

General Tactics:

The Mahabharati Initiates work well as a "trade-up" unit, meaning they’re often traded for enemy units that are far more costly. With Cleave and Linebreaker, they deal considerable damage to heavily armored melee units, such as knights and praetorians. Their flexibility as either a fire or wind unit makes them adaptable to mono-element lists as needed.

One major downside is that they typically need protection to safely reach the battlefield, something Sorcerer Kings armies rarely have access to. Comparing them to the similarly priced Sword Dancers is a tough choice: Initiates excel with Cleave and versatile synergies, while Sword Dancers tend to be more durable and often match the Initiates’ damage output through additional attacks and impacts. However, the Initiates’ smaller size (Size 1) does make them easier to manage when using brute-force ranged attacks.

The Eminence ability rarely makes a significant impact in most games, so it’s often overlooked. Although it might be tempting to pair the Initiates with a sorcerer to gather extra ritual markers, this tends to make them an easy target for enemy attacks. Other regiments are generally better suited for such combinations, as they’re less vulnerable. For this reason, I’ve found that running the Initiates as MSU without characters is optimal; even the Raj, their most obvious support character, offers the least out of the three sorcerers in terms of synergy.