Examining Alternate Butcher3 List Build Ideas

Kommander Zoktavir, The Butcher Unleashed (aka Butcher3) is one of the most interesting warcaster releases to come along for Khador in a very long time. His personal durability and killing power are off the charts, and he's been a welcome breath of fresh air for players seeking solutions to the Colossal problem (most specifically Stormwall, but Galleon, Earthbreaker, and Prime Axiom aren't super fun for a traditional Khador list to deal with either.)

Happiness is an axe that never stops swinging

Though he does have his weaknesses, Butcher3 is a very powerful warcaster. Along with that, he is a very potent solution to an issue that has been plaguing Khador players for awhile. As a result he's very popular in competitive play. A funny thing happened with him though.

When Butcher3 was first released (I want to say at Lock & Load 2013) it was like a bomb went off. Players were scrambling to come up with the best lists for him and counter-tech to mitigate him, all while he was screaming across the table and chopping everything up into itty bits.

Out of that chaos, one list rose up as the "best" Butcher3 list, and it has become very popular. However, that (and general exposure) has lead to a downturn in Butcher3 enthusiasm, as players begin to feel that he is "solved." His best list is known, and there are a number of dangerous countermeasures out there for him (though ironically not Countermeasures,) so players begin to wonder if he's really all that great or worthwhile.

I think this kind of cycle is natural in any competitive game. It's especially prevalent now that the Internet allows for much more information to be exchanged in a shorter time than it used to take. Players are much better equipped to discuss, show, and break down something like Butcher3, and as a result it can make things feel "figured out" even when they're still relatively new.

With all of that in mind, lets take a step back and re-evaluate some of the list builds commonly seen with Butcher3 and see if there isn't room to shake things up a bit (spoiler: there is.)

First off, I'm going to say something that is controversial, only insomuch as it shouldn't be controversial at all: anyone claiming that Butcher3 is overhyped or otherwise not that good is nuts, trying to be controversial, talking out of their ass, biased, etc. Butcher3 isn't the be-all-end all of Khador 'casters, he's tricky to play well against a skilled, prepared opponent, and there are some things out there that can make his life way harder.

But all of that is true for 95% of the 'casters in the game. And as is the case with many of the "best" 'casters in the game, Butcher3 requires some serious foreknowledge and preparation to be able to fight against. He can easily dominate a table all by himself, and he also brought 54 points of other models with him that you have to deal with. Butcher3 is by no means an insurmountable challenge (in this way he's a well designed "top tier warcaster",) but you need to have a plan for him and execute it well.

Butcher3 is one of the first 'casters in a long time for Khador that asks a question of your opponent (can you kill 'x' before it steamrolls your list?) And unlike many similar Khador lists Butcher3's lists aren't easily answered by the more powerful colossals; point of fact he kind of likes having one big target to dump his attacks into.

I think Butcher3 provides something very potent, effective, and frankly fun in Khador (it can be amazing to watch him just run a table,) and I don't think he's going anywhere. Using him or not using him is, as always, personal preference, but dismissing him for other reasons feels like a mistake.

Part the dismissal is understandable though. For a while, a lot of the Butcher3 lists you'd see would be made up of very, very similar components. The template looks something like this:

Kommander Zoktavir, The Butcher Unleashed (*4pts)
   * Juggernaut (7pts)
   * War dog (1pts)
Iron Fang Pikemen (Leader and 9 Grunts) (8pts)
   * Black Dragon Officer & Standard (2pts)
Iron Fang Pikemen (Leader and 9 Grunts) (8pts)
   * Black Dragon Officer & Standard (2pts)
Widowmakers (Leader and 3 Grunts) (4pts)
Alexia, Mistress of the Witchfire (4pts)
Eiryss, Angel of Retribution (3pts)
Iron Fang Kovnik (2pts)
Iron Fang Kovnik (2pts)
Madelyn Corbeau, Ordic Courtesan (2pts)
Ogrun Bokur (3pts)

That has been the most common "core" of a Butcher3 list I've seen over the past year or two. A couple of common variances include: adding in Greylord Ternion for clouds on Butcher and his dogs, and upgrading the Juggernaut to something else like Beast-09.

This template has some very potent things going for it:

1. It's an ARM skew that doesn't rely on warjacks or MoW (two obvious ways to do that in Khador that unfortunately don't pan out.) Butcher3 is often himself an ARM skew (camping to ARM 24 for most of the game) and the Black Dragon Iron Fang Pikemen (BD IFP) can either be running at ARM 18, or Shield Walling (with +2" MOV from Shield March) at ARM 22.
2. Lots of melee presence. Butcher3 is a wrecking ball, and the IFP do well on their own between Reach, SPD 6, and CMA.
3. It can be very fast. Everything can comfortably run up first turn if you go first, and probably even if you go second against a lot of lists. Even in situations where your stuff may be in danger you can pop Iron Zeal and protect Butcher3 to still get yourself some table presence early. And if you don't need to be conservative turn one, you can absolutely jam in deep on turn two.
4. Plenty of support for Butcher3. This style of list focuses heavily on delivering Butcher3 to a key area of the table (enemy colossal, 'caster, or clear a zone and dominate) and as a result it has several models in the list that are there to either protect Butcher3 (Bokur, Alexia2,) or facilitate him getting up the table faster (Madelyn.) It is not uncommon for remainder points to be spent on another choice or two that support Butcher3 (see: Ternion clouds.)

However, this template also has some significant weaknesses:

1. Butcher3 has to do some serious work in this list. This template is primarily designed to jam the enemy up with IFP and then deliver Butcher3 into something juicy, which he should eliminate with extreme prejudice. Because of that, you're likely going to have to play Butcher3 very aggressively, which then opens him up to control/denial/death.
2. IFP are solid infantry, but they're fairly no-frills 5/8 infantry. Aside from their one turn of Iron Zeal, the BD IFP aren't terribly hard for most armies to kill. While they can scale their attacks well with CMA, they're not the most efficient attackers on their own, especially if they start running into DEF 14+ models. They are reliant on Shield Wall for much of their durability, which can leave them very vulnerable to AOEs that have strong secondary effects, sprays, and continuous effects.
3. The list has a serious leaning towards melee. Serious control or melee denial are very bad things. Also you run into the issues common to melee heavy armies - lack of deep threat projection/odd angles of attack that come with ranged attacks, competition for attack real estate, significant hindrances from terrain or other models.
4. Maybe not a separate point from #1, but worth emphasizing: because this template requires Butcher3 to significantly contribute to the game, anything that kicks out significant spellcasting denial (Bestial, Mage Blight [har har], Covenant of Menoth, Orin Midwinter, even Lamentation) is a serious problem.

For those reasons, I find that this template isn't very good when trying to use Butcher3 in an "all comers" role.

Which isn't much of a surprise, as this template wasn't built to handle that role. Dual BD IFP has been a popular inclusion for awhile now in general, and it hit it's peak when this template came into popularity. This template became so popular because it is generally well equipped to deal with something that has been giving Khador players fits for awhile now: Cygnar denial gunlines, most specifically ones that include a Stormwall.

In that context, this template is very effective: Butcher3 will kill the hell out of the Stormwall all by himself (especially if Eiryss2 can strip off Arcane Shield before he has to go in.) Unlike the other popular colossals, Stormwall often operates in a vanguard role in whatever list it's in (it's seemingly designed for that purpose) which makes it even more likely that Butcher3 will be able to get to it and chop it right good. Most Cygnar lists can't muster enough to kill him after that, especially if he can feat back to full camp.

The BD IFP add another strong anti-Cygnar slant to the list by bringing decently fast, Reach melee models to the table in droves that are going to be very resistant to the type of anti-infantry Cygnar often makes heavy use of (POW 10 shots/Electro Leaps/etc.) Many Cygnar shooting lists will struggle to thin them out quickly (some will die, but probably not fast enough to stop engagements/charges soon after.)

Because Cygnar has been a competitive headache for many Khador players (and because they're relatively popular,) this template became a common way to play Butcher3. However, as noted, it has significant weaknesses that I feel hurt it's ability to play against a wider variety of opponents which seems like a damn waste. Butcher3 is a beast, and no one should be spared the joy of his wrath.

With all that in mind, lets break up the template a bit and see what kinds of alternates are available, along with their merits.

Battlegroup:
First off, there's the battlegroup and 'caster attachment:

Butcher3
   * Argus [x2]
   * Juggernaut (or popularly Beast-09)
   * War Dog

The Argus aren't going anywhere (not that you'd get rid of them even if you could,) and the War Dog is pretty much a lock; what it brings to the table for it's 1 point cost in the context of Butcher3 is a total steal.

Where things can get interesting is in Butcher3's warjack loadout. The thinking goes like this: Butcher3 is a big selfish murder machine, but the two things he can do for other models - Energizer and Silence of Death - present some interesting options with using his battlegroup.

Energizer allows Butcher3 to bullet off a warjack each turn. Granted, it's on the low end of a "bullet" (9.5" threat on non-Reach models, 11" threat on Reach models,) but that's a pretty good threat range for a Khador heavy. It may not allow you alpha strike, but it can probably enable counter charge situations (assuming you can lead with infantry) and any threat extension is welcome for Khador's heavies.

Silence of Death less consistently useful when fighting Warmachine, but against Hordes it can allow your battlegroup to fight the opposing battlegroup with something resembling damage parity. Any damage you put on their warbeast sticks for at least a round, which can be a huge swing for you if you manage to take out an aspect. Against a battlegroup heavy Hordes army they can very likely still commit warbeasts to killing your warjacks, but Silence of Death may force them to start clumping up to get the job done, and Butcher3 sure does love it when your opponent puts a bunch of valuable models near each other.

Khador heavies tend to be best at killing other heavies (though the Mad Dog Beserker variant may change that, if it's High Command rules are anything to go off of) so this approach works best when applied against another battlegroup oriented list (including any list with a colossal.) Lead with the warjacks and infantry with Butcher3 hanging back, fueling it all. Cause as much damage as possible, then come in and clean up with Butcher3.

The core of this approach is making your battlegroup a more prominent feature of the list, which in turn requires a fairly substantial battlegroup. Most of the builds I have seen that use this approach opt for a set of 3 warjacks, though the make up varies wildly. Khador has a solid, relatively cheap throwaway melee beater with the Juggernaut, and you can scale as far up or down as you like. For my money, that triad should include a Reach warjack who can lead things off, so a 'caster group like:

Butcher3
   * Argus [x2]
   * Juggernaut
   * Juggernaut
   * Beast-09
   * War Dog

Should be a damn fine place to start.

Combat Unit/Solo Choices:
Another area where you can potentially change things up is with the unit choices in the list. The beauty of Butcher3 is that he's totally self-sufficient, so you can bring kind of whatever you want with him and it's not really going to drag him down (unless they're Bombardiers, blech.) The possible downside is that Butcher3 is self-sufficient because he's a selfish jerk, so anything you bring along should be relatively self-sufficient itself. This is not the list to be trying out sexy new Assault Kommando tech.

Although we're looking to shake things up, one unit of IFP is probably still a good idea. Butcher3 is most likely going to be your anti-armor list, and even without any damage buffs IFP of any stripe can do a decent job against warnouns. Double bonus if you have a damage buff/ARM debuff in the list. IFP are also probably still a good choice because Butcher3 may still be your Cygnar drop (due to potential table runner ability,) and IFP are probably the best suited of all Khador infantry to stand up to common Cygnar anti-infantry measures.

If you're going with two units, changing out one of the IFP to another unit can give your list some flexibility against the broader meta, at the cost of making it weaker in the specific anti-shooting match up. But that broader application may be more beneficial to you, depending on how you're designing your lists.

Kayazy Assassins are a solid choice for a second unit with Butcher3. They're a very self-sufficient unit (aside from those pesky command checks) that can run around and cause trouble, and they have some very nice built in defenses between Stealth, DEF 14, and Duelist. Assassins have fallen out of favor as the meta adapted super hard to counter them, but as part of a multi-faceted force they can still be very useful.

Nyss Hunters can also be a great unit to bring along with Butcher3. Nyss give your Butcher3 list a very respectable, far reaching shooting presence that can still contribute in melee. Guns - particularly Hunter, CRA guns - can be very valuable in a Butcher3 list because they can allow you to more easily clear out intervening models so that Butcher can get to where your opponent doesn't want him. Nyss are also sound defensively, though they bring in the same weaknesses as Assassins (ARM 11 is bad,) without things like Stealth and Duelist to offset them. That said, guns count for a lot. Nyss guns count for even more.

Eliminators are another unit that is seriously worth considering for Butcher3 (that I don't see taken very often) for at least one crucial reason: Eiryss. She's a big confounding factor in a lot of Butcher3 power plays so getting her dead fast is very important. Unfortunately, Khador is lacking in ways to consistently do that consistently at range (or at least a long enough range that she's worried about it) - you can hope to float a template over her, but that's just as likely to do nothing - so melee is usually the order of the day. Even if you fail to kill her (DEF 16 is kind of a big deal) at least she'll be engaged and threatened by a freestrike which is way better than letting her run free.

Eliminators give you a fast, accurate, mobile melee option that you can use to tie her up. She's very unlikely to kill either of the ladies in melee, and even shooting one on the approach is risky (it will put her in the charge range of the other one due to Stealth.) The Eliminators threaten MAT 9/11 w/Gang freestrikes, and even P+S 9 is enough to kill her comfortably on average damage rolls if the freestrike connects. And as an added bonus: Eliminators are an excellent small unit that can run shenanigans aplenty if they don't have an elf to hunt (or if they somehow kill her and emerge from the ordeal intact.)

In a similar vein, Manhunters (with or without Yuri) may not be a bad solo choice with Butcher3. They're aggressive, self-sufficient models that can do decent work against enemy solos or warnouns. I think their stock has gone down as anti-Stealth measures have increased in the game, as well as things like colossals making their relative damage output seem more measly. Even considering those factors I think they'd probably still do fine. They serve largely the same role as Eliminators (which is one of the biggest strikes against them, as Manhunters aren't as fast or flexible as the Eliminators are,) but Manhunters do have a few pluses in their column that make them at least worth considering. Especially if you're looking for a model or two to run in and give Eiryss something to deal with.

Support Unit/Solo Choices:
Butcher3 likes to play aggressively; even if he isn't leading from the front - viability of that varies based on what he's fighting, and will probably become generally less common as the meta continues to adapt to him - you still probably want him in a moderately aggressive position to keep his threat live.

A lot of the support that goes into a Butcher3 list is there to allow him to hang out in that aggressive board position and not get debuffed/controlled/shot/charged. So you see him with Alexia2 (anti-magic,) Ternion (clouds for +DEF, LOS blocking on the dogs,) Eiryss2 (offensive upkeep removal,) and a Bokur (boostable gun and Eiryss insurance.)

The upside of that support package is that when it works, it works. It can cover most everything you're worried about, and it can do it fairly well. The downside is that when it doesn't work, Butcher3 has bad things happen to him, and that's usually a very bad thing after you've spent so many points trying to shepherd him into the sprinkler.

Where this defensive package usually falls apart is that it's based on reaction and mitigation; none of it is straight up denial of attacks on Butcher3. As a result, there are enough things that can get around one or more of the defensive layers you have built up to cause problems with relative frequency. Preventative/denial based defenses are going to be overall more effective in keeping such precious cargo safe.

On top of that there are the issues that some of these defensive measures have: Alexia2 is reliant on enemy souls to work (so useless against some armies and less likely to be a factor against dense armies,) Ternion clouds disappear if the model they're centered on dies, and a Bokur is usually only good for surviving one boostable shot (that you're scared of eating with Butcher3 anyways.)

With that in mind, there is a very interesting option that is available to Khador which may shake up how Butcher3 approaches the game: the Tactical Arcanist Corps (TAC.)

Or, more specifically, TAC with Valachev. While some 'casters can get away with having their cloud wall moving 4" up the table, Butcher3 probably needs an 8" run followed by a 7" "advance" on the second turn to get that cloud wall in a really juicy spot. Maybe I'm wrong, and I'd love to be (Valachev is in hot demand,) but that would require testing. And my gut says that it probably wouldn't pan out well in the end.

The best thing that TAC bring for Butcher3 is straight up targeting immunity; you're not trying to mitigate incoming attacks, you're cutting out the possibility entirely in many cases (and in the cases where the enemy ignores the TAC clouds, Ternion clouds wouldn't help you anyways.) You don't need to worry about attacks that won't be targeting you.

By giving Butcher a "safe" (always relative in Warmachine) place to bunker up for a bit, you can relieve some of the mental stress of using him as a threatening piece. Part of the impetus to commit Butcher3, at least in my experience, is that no matter how much you can protect him, you're always much better off having everything that could threaten him just be dead instead. This can lead you to jump into situations where you were better off holding back, but you also couldn't afford to hold back due to Butcher3 being relatively vulnerable (he's usually much better protected than anything else in your list, but he's also priority #1 for your opponent to deal with.)

The TAC bunker provides that possibility. Many lists don't have a great way to break up the cloud bunker, and the few that do you can see coming. Valachev serves a dual purpose: he allows the TAC to deploy clouds more aggressively in the early game, and then he allows the TAC to drop clouds then shuffle behind them to keep them safe in the mid-game. Both are very valuable, and considering how potent a rolling cloud wall could be for Butcher3, it's enough to at least consider using him in the list.

One of the nice things about TAC + Valachev is that it is a relatively cheap package (6 points for 4 models,) which may make it easier to fit into lists. There is also the possibility that having that cloud wall frees up the "need" to bring other defensive support elements for Butcher, so it may be more of a points swap than finding more points. Swapping some of those defensive elements out may also be nice in that it can free up characters for other lists. I hear that Alexia2 is pretty good with Sorscha1.

Other than the TAC, the other support element worth considering is bringing the Koldun Lord along if you're planning on running more of a battlegroup centered approach. All of the things the Koldun Lord brings to the table are a big help when you're running warjacks, and he brings some decent anti-infantry tools to the table as well.

Bringing It All Together:
There are many different ways to try and shake up your normal Butcher3 list. You can try something relatively simple, like swapping out one unit of BD IFP for Kayazy Assassins or Nyss. Or you could try a completely new archetype and see how it works out.

Sometimes crazy is the best tactic. Nigel's semi-famous "Ocean's 18" Sorscha1 list highlights that point: on paper it looks like a silly, discombobulated list. But in practice it is reportedly extremely effective, so much so that it's become "a thing." And it's just some zany combination of models that one person thought would be fun and work well together.

You may or may not find the next "Ocean's 18", "Miserable Meat Mountain", etc, but even if you just shake up opponent expectations, that can often make quite a bit of difference. Considering what many players are going to be expecting when you say you're playing Butcher3, they're going to be rather surprised to see something like:

Kommander Zoktavir, The Butcher Unleashed (*4pts)
   * Beast-09 (11pts)
   * Juggernaut (7pts)
   * Juggernaut (7pts)
   * War dog (1pts)
Cylena Raefyll & Nyss Hunters (Cylena and 9 Grunts) (10pts)
Kayazy Eliminators (Leader and Grunt) (3pts)
Kayazy Eliminators (Leader and Grunt) (3pts)
Tactical Arcanist Corps (4pts)
   * Koldun Kapitan Valachev (2pts)
Widowmakers (Leader and 3 Grunts) (4pts)
Koldun Lord (2pts)

Or another sort of shake up. Even just changing out one unit, or putting the TAC + Valachev module in instead of your normal defensive package may make a huge difference in how the game plays out. The only way to know is to try it out, and Butcher3 has the luxury of being a monstrous anchor so even if things go south he can probably just kill everything anyways.

So with all of that in mind, go out there and experiment! Have some fun with Butcher3. We have another release cycle slowly approaching for Warmachine (the first release from Reckoning is coming out in December, so we should see a steady trickle of new goodies for all factions after that,) which makes this a great time to get the creative juices flowing again. There may be some amazing new stuff coming for Butcher3 (or there may not, who knows right?) and it'd be a damn shame to miss out on it due to being too married to a specific list build.

As always, thanks very much for reading!