To the absolute delight of horsegirls and monster-romance enthusiasts everywhere (a suspiciously slim Venn diagram), Eachann is here! This article took some time to compile after having to read through all the non-official lore from which Corvus Belli obviously took their extensive inspiration.
Picture very much related
How does a centaur even work? Does he have human organs as well horse organs? If not, is one half just like, full of flesh? Do the two gut systems connect like a long human-horse human-centipede situation? All these questions, so few answers. Let’s check out his profile instead.
This horseman is made of speed with a 3+4+3+4 = 14-stride move and a 17-stride charge. Combining that with his innate preference for rugged terrain and forests, he’s going to have no trouble racing across the board to hulk smash your puny monospecies units. Adding in the usual Sÿenann movement shenanigans with the Grand Captain, Sÿenann Captain, Walker of the Leaf Storm, etc and it’s going to be clear he just can’t stop, won’t stop.
His melee attack is pretty good when stressing, rolling 6 hits 40% of the time, and 5 hits 70% of the time. Notably for Eachann, it is actually his switch which is the more important part of his attack than his damage dealing. He has a 67% chance to get 2 switches, and 93% of at least 1, so he is reliably going to be able to shove stuff wherever he wants to. You can do the switch as many times as you have the symbol, and since you measure back to front with the shove, using the switch once in reality pushes the enemy 5 strides, twice 10 strides, and 3 times a total of 15 strides away! If you choose to place yourself engaged with them at the end of the shove and won the combat, you can still do the normal end-of-combat push too! The shove must be directly away from you, but since you can teleport next to them after each shove you can set up the direction for the next one and be able to Tokyo Drift your way around obstacles like enemy units and walls. Note that shove is allowed to put units engaged, so you can shove your enemies into your allies to trap them engaged, like with the ever-hugging Sprigs or Shadow of the Hawthorn.
Even Eachann gets the zoomies
He has a ranged attack in The Waybreaker with an unreliable damage output but a guaranteed shove which hits ALL units within 3 strides of the target (including the target of course). The shove is unconditional, so unlike the Protectors you don’t have to get a damage through to trigger it. I cannot find any rule against friendly fire, so this shove affects your units too, INCLUDING YOURSELF. Since this is technically a skill rather than just a ranged attack, you can declare it in the same turn as a melee attack if you are not engaged. Actually, maybe you can declare it and do the shove part without the attack even if you are engaged, I’m not sure…
Picture this dream scenario. Eachann is sitting grazing delicious clover on the middle objective. Some punk charges him and fails to knock him out in one swing. On your turn you attack back, shove twice (67% chance) to move the enemy 10 strides towards another objective, place yourself on the other side of them to now have one of your edges 16 strides away from when you started and inside a new objective, then you shove your opponent at the end of combat back towards where they started so they can’t contest the objective, THEN you use the Waybreaker to auto-shove everyone who was guarding the new objective out of it so you can easily swing it with your mighty conquest 1. Hegemony hates this one weird trick – being the only one on the objective and ignoring their conquest 1000.
Centaurs are natural experts on geometry
At the end of your insultingly efficient turn, you rub it further in by spending a command token to Stomp the Ground. This excellent area control ability lets you create an 18-stride bubble of Rugged terrain from the centre of the man-horse-monster. Rugged gives slowed when a unit touches it during their activation and stops all charges that would touch it (assaults are still allowed). Slowed means you can only use one of your two MOV values when moving or assaulting and goes away at the end of an activation in which you moved, charged, or assaulted. Note however that if a unit starts outside of the zone my understanding is that they can assault through it, picking up slowed on the way but not being affected by it because their movement is already declared, and then lose the slowed at the end of this activation (because they have performed an assault this activation). Effectively they weren’t slowed at all, but they did have to assault instead of charge so that’s still something.
Rugged – sturdy, robust (e.g., equipment, landscape) or a tough, weathered, and masculine appearance.
I’m not 100% sure if this Rugged terrain bubble counts as a terrain element, but if it is then it’s very important for several other abilities, namely Camouflaged – If you are within 3 strides of any terrain element, enemies further than 7 strides of you cannot draw LoS to you. This is on the Clouded, Shadow of the Rowan, and newly also the Shadows of the Yew (their Camouflage used to be different). It would also work with the Shadow of the Hawthorn’s Innate Agility, letting him place himself 3 strides of a Rugged terrain within 7 strides of him – so potentially a 7+18+3=28 stride jump! Conversely, the Hegemony Engineer would also be able to use her Explosives to blow it up, making a 28-stride bubble of fiery explosion. I hope to see it happen one day, but unfortunately all Eachann would have to do to stop the bomb is declare move, which is rather anticlimactic.
One interesting side-effect of his large girth is that he can physically block line of sight to allow ambushers to deploy behind him. Line of sight is drawn only from the troop leader, and all models not in their unit block it, so two Shadows of the Yew plus a character could easily pop out from behind Eachann’s legs and assault around him to gang-up on his opponent.
An effective if embarrassing way to surprise your opponent
So, he’s fast, extremely pushy, and a huge disruptor, what are we meant to do about this big bully? The first answer is kill him, but with 5 wounds and a defence roll expecting 3.5 blocks with a max of 5, I would hope for at least 9 hits to kill him in a single turn, no easy feat even for Shadows of the Yew. Add in the fact that he will often be hiding behind rugged terrain or forests means you won’t be able to charge him, losing the reroll on the attack, and additionally intimidating might take away the stress you needed for the modifier, further softening your assault. He doesn’t rely on defensive switches so ranged attacks are no more effective than melee ones. He does however have a big fat base, so ganging-up on him is possible if you can just get him to stay still. Unfortunately for you, staying still and playing by the rules are not what Eachann learned in horse-school.
Riding is taught extensively in horse-school, however
His one major flaw is a morale value of 2 and a reliance on stress for his melee attack to do any real damage. Against immovable units he is particularly useless, especially on the objective where his skills won’t be effective, his damage will be too low to kill them, and their conquest will likely be higher than his. Really the way to beat him is the same way you beat most annoying units in Warcrow – outstress them, don’t present them with easy targets, and play the mission above all else. A boring, but effective strategy.
I had to learn this exists so now you do too. I’m told it’s surprisingly good…
That’s it for today, let me know your thoughts here or on the Discord! If you want to support me financially, use this affiliate link to the Corvus Belli store and I’ll get a little something something at no cost to you.
If you want to keep reading, check out these posts about the Clouded or the first Syennan releases. Thanks for reading!
Great article ! Thank you.