Introduction
“Let your faith be your armor, your fist be your sword”
Amon Ad-Raza, High Allegiant of the Order of the Fist, is a battle hardened monk who strides into battle without warcaster armour, relying on his monastic training to protect him. Amon is able to drive Protectorate warjacks to never before seen heights of power and grace.
Strengths
Metal Mayhem: Amon Ad-Raza’s obvious strengths revolve around driving Protectorate warjacks to new heights of offensive melee abilities while granting them some of the mobility usually found lacking in Protectorate forces.
Synergy is Amon’s signature spell and his primary strength. With proper planning and use, Amon can drive Protectorate warjacks to hit with greater accuracy and strength than any other jacks in the game. Unlike the other “warjack” casters, synergy isn’t quite the no-brainer that Full Throttle or Unearthly Rage is, Synergy builds like a wave, and it takes a well-timed and well-executed plan in order to drive that wave to its maximum crest. Using the Infuse choir chant on top of Synergy can drive the bonuses higher than any other faction can possibly achieve. Timing within the chain generated by Synergy can begin the turn before if planned correctly. Casting it the turn you need it is less focus-efficient and forces Amon into leading off the turn, rarely the ideal situation for a warcaster who is forced into being very close to his battlegroup based on his abysmal focus stat.
Along with Synergy to supercharge the melee abilities of his jacks, Mobility provides bonuses to Amon’s battlegroup that no other Protectorate warcaster can provide. The spell speeds up all of Amon’s battlegroup, grants them the equivalent of pathfinder, and grants the ability to stand up for free. This can help negate an opponent who looks to neutralize Amon’s battlegroup through knockdown techniques and will allow the battlegroup to stay in a much tighter bunch with less fear of being easily rendered ineffective. When combined with Amon’s own pathfinder-like ability, it is important that the army use rough terrain to its best advantage to slow the advance of the enemy so that they can be engaged piecemeal in order to avoid being overwhelmed.
Amon’s feat Union provides a strong boost to both combat effectiveness and maneuverability. On top of being able to effectively spend his focus twice, the big bonus is much more subtle. All of the warjacks in the battlegroup are able to move with Amon’s speed instead of their own. This blends perfectly with both synergy and mobility allowing even a lowly SPD 4 warjack to charge 10 inches on Amon’s feat turn. Tie this in with Synergy and solid planning and you can have a warjack with reach leaping across the table at the end of the turn and attacking with a massive bonus on all attack and damage rolls.
Crazy Ninja Shit: Beyond his amazing warjack capabilities, Amon also has a load of special attacks and passive special abilities that can be game-saving or even game-winning when applied in the right circumstances but are not his main strengths.
Meditative Stance when combined with a turn casting two Sandblasts can cause havoc with enemy lines with some luck or kill large swaths of lightly armored troops outright. Meditative Stance can also be used on Amon’s feat turn if no better options exist for Amon. Meditative stance can turn into a trap if overused as it takes away one of his primary strengths in his speed and mobility and also prevents him from helping build up the attack / damage bonus from Synergy.
Weaknesses
Paper Tiger: Amon’s primary weakness is the combination of his low armor fragility and his need to be in close proximity to the action (due to his extremely low focus stat and desire to build up the Synergy bonus). Amon can’t stay in Meditative Stance all the time, and when he isn’t in it, he is extremely vulnerable to being knocked down and becoming an easy mark. Amon has an average amount of health, but when you mix his low focus stat with the lowest armor of any Protectorate warcaster, even hoarding his focus will not save him against a determined attacker. This threat is partially offset by the inability of attackers to used combined attacks against him, but even modest-POW attacks pose a serious threat.
Amon’s army also has to be concerned with being overrun by an opponent that will most likely outnumber him. While his battlegroup can hit harder and more accurately in melee than almost any other force in the game, it also ends up being one of the most condensed applications of force in the game. Amon’s army will often find itself with a very limited number of very effective attacks, so the list must be played as a scalpel carving out the most vital parts of an opponent’s army before they can strike. It is imperative to make each attack count and lessen his opponent’s ability to strike back effectively; Amon cannot win a battle of attrition with an opponent since it will quickly lose effectiveness as it loses models. His warjacks need to build off of the success of each warjack that has gone before.
Arcane Limitations: Amon’s spell list only contains 5 spells, and 2 of them are at best extremely situational. Divine Judgment sounds good in theory, but in most cases Amon has to be far too close to opposing forces in order for it to be effective. Flagellation is useful in even fewer situations. It could be used in theory if a player brings a focus hoarding warcaster screaming up into Amon’s face expecting the high armour to keep them alive. This would be a very foolish move by an opponent though.
Army Composition
Obviously Amon needs to spend a large portion of his points on warjacks. He has absolutely no spells or abilities that support troops and definitely does not have the stats to be a significant force on his own. He does one thing well and an effective army composition will take that into account.
Light Warjacks: Due to how Synergy functions, numerous cheap members of the battlegroup become more effective than a small number of powerful models. This increases the overall number of attacks that can be dished out as well as the effectiveness of Synergy. Unfortunately, it also means that Amon’s battlegroup tends to have a glass jaw, much like Amon himself. Devouts obviously make great additions to the list as they are cheep and can also benefit from Synergy even outside of their own turn (though it does reset every turn). Devouts also help protect against spell-based assassination tactics that can end Amon's game quickly. Revengers are always a solid light melee jack – arc nodes can give flexibility in the use of Sandstorm, and powerful charge is a great way to start that Synergy chain as it will be attacking with an effective MAT 9 if Infused. Dervishes can also be used to add a bit of a different flavor to the list and grant the potential to make one very strong attack at the end of a turn using Combo Strike.
Heavy Warjacks: When building lists at higher point values, a heavy can also create some havoc, as it’s pretty hard to defend against a Guardian with an effective 12 inch threat range and a possible effective MAT 13 POW 25 pike attack. Other heavy warjacks are also worth considering with the unusual exception of the Avatar. Since it is not a part of the battlegroup, the Avatar does not benefit from Synergy, Mobility, or Union, making it a very poor choice with Amon.
Units: Obviously with all of these warjacks, a couple of full choirs is almost a must include. Don’t overlook their use in blocking charge lanes and lines of sight to keep Amon safe, either. This being said in most cases it doesn’t make complete sense to only bring out the warjacks with Amon. Most of the time, Amon will need to deploy close to one side of the table or the other in order to reduce the number of flanks that need to be defended by the small number of models in his army. A solid self-sufficient unit such as Zealots with a Monolith Bearer or a unit of Temple Flameguard in Shield Wall can hold that flank facing the middle of the table long enough for Amon’s battlegroup to get into the soft underbelly of the enemies forces and do some lasting damage. Deliverers are another option, helping to clear out low-ARM targets to allow the warjacks to focus on heavier threats.
Solos: A reclaimer solo seems like he would be a natural fit due to the Amon’s lack of focus, but a low count of living models in the list to collect souls from means he’ll require some finesse to use effectively. Wracks also help with focus management and also require finesse due to his small control area. Powerful melee solos are great tools in the right list, but Amon’s army is already full of powerful melee tools that he can actually buff with his spells and feat.
Mercs: Before an Amon list gets to the mercenaries, points are probably running tight. Rupert is not a bad choice, but he will often feel more like a unit attachment than a versatile solo in an Amon list. Eiryss or Kell can grant the list some much-needed ranged support if one can make the points fit without weakening the jack-heavy Synergy core.
Summary
Amon Ad-Raza is a great caster for those games when watching jacks do an abusive amount of damage just sounds like a great idea. He is the only caster who can reliably send a light warjack to deal with a focus hoarding butcher and expect the warjack to come out the better in the engagement. The learning curve on Amon is perhaps one of the steepest in the game; against a good opponent, one mistake will spell the end of Amon. He never will be as all around effective as Kreoss or some of the other warcasters in the Protectorate arsenal as there are some match ups that are slanted heavily against Amon. He will have problems surviving against any assassination list that can come from a large number of angles unless great attention is payed to protect against it. Using Devouts can help with this protection but Amon will feel the focus cost of activating Spell Barrier more than other Protectorate casters. Swarm armies can also present some issues unless Amon can control the flow of the battle or uses units outside of his battlegroup for crowd control. That being said, he can be a surprisingly effective warcaster who is arguably the most focus-efficient caster in the game under the right circumstances.
Amon can provide a fun change of pace in fun games or Mangles Metal environment, undoubtably some people will feel we have been too harsh on their favourite caster Amon - so please stop by and let us all know how much Amon kicks Kreoss' ass Here.
