Can an archmage take the reaver bow?

[Razzy Mac]

He has a BS stat, and my archmage is gonna be in an archer bunker, figure I might as well get the extra 3 S4 shots per turn. I can't see any reason why not but thought I'd ask!

[John Rainbow]

An Archmage certainly can. They get the same allowance as any other lord level character as well as an 'arcane' item. See the BRB pp.172 for more details.

As an aside, I think it is a waste of points to give a mage the bow. You are better off spending the points on magic-related items and protection with a mage IMHO and then saving any spare points for other more useful stuff.

[Prince of Spires]

Agreed with John, you certainly can take the reaver bow on a mage. I would say, give it a try and see how you like it.

One thing to keep in mind is that you do need to shoot with him at the same target as you're shooting with the archers.

Rod

[SpellArcher]

High Magic, Scroll, Reaver, Potion of Strength, MR2.

Hand of Glory FTW.

[John Rainbow]

My feeling that it is a waste is thus: BS4 means you're likely to be hitting things on 4s or 5s after modifiers (who wants an enemy unit within 15" of their archer bunker?) and Str.4 isn't all that useful in the current meta. You also have to take shots at the same unit as the archers so will likely be clearing chaff units which the archers don't need help with in most situations. Add in the fact that moving to cast spells or whatever adds further modifiers and the bow becomes relatively worthless on a BS4 model.

You could go for hand of glory but to me that seems like throwing good power dice after a bad investment.

[Ferny]

High Magic, Scroll, Reaver, Potion of Strength, MR2.

Hand of Glory FTW.

To mirror JR's comments and to add...you have to chug the potion before you roll your magic dice. HoG might not be cast or could be dispelled or might roll low. And even BS5 soon becomes 4+ with modifiers. It could be done and I was briefly excited by the idea as it could be very characterful, but I'd rather have MR3 or a true ward or even just to save the points and get an eagle, some command models or whatever.

[SpellArcher]

But which meta?

Seredain spends a lot of his time casting Hand on his Archer block and it gets through a lot. That's 20 BS6, think Trueflight. He gets a lot of joy vs war machines, Warlocks, Wild Riders, Waywatchers, Skinks (Cloud can be too many to deal with normally) etc. If you're going to cast the spell anyway, then spending 25pts to add 3 BS5 S4 shots per turn is reasonable, like Bow of Loren say.

You drink the Potion the turn you have a good target available. Your opponent then has to let Hand through , or eat something equally unpleasant. Vs a war machine the S7 helps, vs MC or Cowboys for example, BS6 hit volume will often get a wound through to help. Even if he dispels Hand and eats Convocation or whatever, you could get lucky and score 3S7 hits anyway.

[Ferny]

But it isn't 25pts with the potion, it's 45 - and by that stage you're invested.

To be clear, I don't think it's terrible in the same way that I don't think having a bolter mounted on the skycutter is terrible...it's still extra shots with decent BS and potentially decent strength. But as with the bolter, it is extra expense which I think could be better allocated elsewhere. I've never played woodies (and hardly against them) so I'm not familiar with Bow of Loren, but I used to take Reaver/PoS BSB a lot and I found it very frustrating how unreliable it was. I'd still take it as a utility kit if I felt confident my list could keep the chappie out of any combats I don't want him in (it is, after all, a nice bit of utility on a flag-waver), but I don't miss it terribly with other BSB builds.

[Seredain]

Hand of Glory on archers is outstanding and really turns them into light unit & machine shredders. For 10 points per model they're a bargain with this spell. So yeah if you've got the points for a bunker archmage who doesn't want to see combat, and is going to spend all game sitting with your (at least my) chief Hand target, then why not have the extra shots? You don't need to cause many wounds for a 25pt item to earn its points.

I agree with Ferny though that adding in Potion of Strength adds another layer of expense which, for me at least, never really paid off - and it was fiddly to use, too. 20 points for wounding with maybe 2 hits... It never seemed worth it somehow (though I can of course see reasons for taking it). I'm taking the Reaver Bow for another spin on a cav noble at the moment (plus lance in place of sword of might), and I felt much more comfortable keeping the pip of extra defence, and the other trickster's shard, which the potion would've denied. Likewise with the archmage build there are other things to spend points on. How about a machine gun bunker archmage with reaver bow and ring of fury, eh? Pew pew!

[SpellArcher]

All good points. I'm not saying it's awesome, just worth a try.

I can see Book of Hoeth being an obstacle for example. But it depends what mages you have and how they work with your list.

[Seredain]

SA I do agree the Potion makes good sense helping the archers assassinate war machines. Here the extra wound or two makes a difference and, if it's the difference between live machine and dead machine, would surely be worth the 20 points. Here, being forced to shoot the same target as the archers wouldn't matter at all. It's something of a hard counter option, and a level 4 caster has plenty of always-useful options to choose from, but if your other heroes are all carrying other important kit, it's worth a look if you're concerned about facing gunlines. It's not like you won't pop the potion every game anyway. In that sense it would probably see more action than my BSB's featherfoe torc.

[SpellArcher]

I keep considering these unusual combos I'll never use Seredain! Like Bow of Loren/MR2 on WE BSB. Asrai is full of the High Magic Unicorn ATM, some dude suggested sticking Hail of Doom on her! I believe Featherfoe Torc is being considered there too. Of course I have my own tricks to refine, like the Beasts Moonstone.

[Razzy Mac]

Ok thanks for the answers and opinions. I'm some way off from having an army to field at the minute so it was more of a rules query, of which I'm sure to have many over the next few months, the last edition I played was 6th!