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Post by tiberius on Nov 20, 2017 15:25:36 GMT
Goreshade the Cursed - Darkhost
Thematically, this is the theme that Goreshade belongs in and sure enough, he runs it well. You can build this one of two ways, in my opinion. You can go for speed, or you can go for resiliency. With speed, you will be bringing Darragh Wrathe for his death ride and using that and apparition to get a unit of banes up the field a lot faster than their SPD 5 would suggest. Or go crazy and get your bane riders up the field with a very large threat range. Alternatively you can add the Wraith engine and basically make your entire bane army immune to normal blast damage. If its boosted, you still may have to worry, but ARM 18-20 bane knights and ARM 18-20 bane riders still probably don't care much. ARM 17 + tough bane warriors may care, but probably wont. And if you bring enough scrap thralls, you can just replace your non-bane rider banes that get blown up on the way in with his feat.
Goreshade the Cursed - Skarlock Thrall - Desecrator - Ripjaw x 2 - Nightwretch Bane Lord Tartarus Darragh Wrathe Scrap Thralls x 2 (2 sets of 3) Bane Knights Bane Warriors + CA Bane Riders
Here is my speed build, where goreshade plays the part of support, casting around curse of shadows and mirage. Occultation probably isn't necessary with the list unless you want to protect Darragh or Goreshade himself thanks to the army wide benefit of Prowl from the theme and the 2 4" dense fog clouds given to you by the theme. Getting within charge range is probably not a problem given the benefits that most terrain will give this army and their innate ghostly to take advantage of it.
I would start with bane riders on a flank, bane knights as the first wave and bane warriors as the second wave. Knights have a resistance to being charged with set defense and have a naturally high armor so removing them is not trivial. With Goreshades Tactician ability, the bane warriors will be able to draw line of sight through and charge through the bane knights to get both the dark shroud and charging bonus on anything they want. They may even be able to get to anything behind what is jamming your knights if you can get curse of shadows on the jamming unit. The bane warriors will hunt heavies and with tactician, you don't need to worry about placement or getting in your own way as much. Mirage will help you get around even more and ghostly lets you ignore free strikes as you move through the enemy lines with impunity.
The skarlock is there for free casting of hex blast or abyssal gate. Nothing else in the list really uses souls so if it is close enough to the front lines, it may pick up a soul or two as the banes slaughter stuff. Then it can use those souls to boost its magical attacks.
The Desecrator is very focus efficient thanks to Accumulator: Bane. It gains a focus when it activates near a bane model, plus the free focus from powerup, that is a jack that rarely needs fed in this theme. It hits reasonably hard and brings legitimate anti-infantry support with its scather.
Darragh Wrathe has two jobs. One is to make your banes faster with deathride, giving everything +1 to their movement in his 9" command range bubble, so he will probably want to be close to the center of your force, probably right behind. He can also get work done himself as a competent melee combatant with cavalry rules. He takes a lot of concentrated fire power to remove as well as he is a dragoon and they have to kill him twice. In addition to all of this, he has the mortal fear ability that reduces damage dealt by living enemy models by two within his 9" command range bubble. You have to choose between deathride, mortal fear or hellfire when he does a spell. Hellfire is a single target long range, hard hitting spell that removes tough and removes from play. It also has uses, but in this list, Darragh is playing support until he needs to get his hands dirty, probably helping goreshade with an assassination run.
So overall, a solid list that uses all of goreshades abilities. It doesn't have a lot of support for him, but this is the one time where he is setting back and letting his army do the work.
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Post by tiberius on Nov 20, 2017 18:07:15 GMT
Goreshade the Cursed - Black Industries
All of Black Industries bonuses have to do with spending points on warjacks to get more warjacks and giving heavy warjacks carapace (+4 ARM vs ranged and free strikes). Goreshade loves arc nodes and you can get two free arc nodes pretty easily in this theme. It also provides a lot of self supporting warjack modules with Aiakos and the Iron Lich Overseer, so Goreshade doesn't even have to deal with them. The unit available with this theme is the Cephalyx Mind Slaver and Drudges. Compared with Dark Host and the banes, they are pretty subpar but with access to Mirage and curse of shadows, they can get some work done in addition to the 2" extended deployment zone from the theme. This is a theme you take when you want to play with warjacks. So lets build it like that, though in my opinion, Infernal Machines probably does it better for Goreshade.
Goreshade the Cursed - The Withershadow Combine - Deathjack - Ripjaw x 2 (free) - Shrike x 2 Iron Lich Overseer - Seether Aiakos, Scourge of Meredius - Stalker x 2 Eilish Garrity the Occultist Warwitch Siren Cephalyx Mind Slaver and Drudges
So it doesn't feel like I have a very strong board presence just looking at the list despite having 9 points more free over my Infernal Machines list that looks really similar. Its the difference in units really. This is a list I would drop against a very heavy casty caster or someone who relies on a lot of upkeeps to get the job done. Between Goreshade, Deathjack, withershadow combine that is like up to 4 hexblasts per round and Eilish has unbinding which just simply removes upkeeps and damages the caster all in one go. Eilish also punishes anyone targeting models in a 5" bubble around him by dealing auto damage back to the caster in the form of 1D3.
The withershadow combine and Garrity both have puppet master for re-rolls which greatly increases your chances of dice spiking and forgoes the necessity for something like the deathjack or goreshade to boost to hit a target. Though if it is that important of a round, you may want to boost that first hit for goreshade anyhow, just to trigger stationary.
Goreshade's feat is limited to the Iron Lich Overseer, the cephalyx Mind Slaver, warwitch or drudges. You will probably be sacrificing a few drudges to bring back the expensive non-character solos.
Mirage on the drudges will work really well allowing them to reposition after already in melee, allowing them to get the most out of combined melee attacks and the mind slaver's ability, prep for surgery. If something in the unit kills something and you had two or more drudges in melee with it (living enemy warrior models only for targets) you can add a drudge to the unit and remove the killed model from play. The minor teleporting around lets them gang up more efficiently. It works even better if you have curse of shadows on the target unit for ease of killing them.
The shrikes are your anti-infantry presence. They are medium based flying trample bots that can trample over any sized base, have boosted to hit rolls while trampling and are immune to free strikes while trampling. They can do all of this without focus so can range far from goreshade without any necessary support and can really mess up the support of a group.
Overall, I think Infernal machines is a better fit for a warjack and cheap unit oriented theme, but Goreshade can work with it. It has all the support he wants. Its just not easy mode.
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Post by tiberius on Nov 20, 2017 19:12:00 GMT
Goreshade the Cursed - Scourge of the Broken Coast
Like ghost fleet, this theme brings a lot of assassination potential and the ability to play a mean scenario game if you want. Goreshade can make the satyxis (one unit) faster with mirage. On an already impressively fast unit, a 2" placement out of activiation, is really big. It gets you 16" up the field and its your choice to either make them hard to shoot and immune to blast damage or give them pathfinder from the sea witch. It is probably match up and table dependent on how you want to play it. Obviously if your opponent brought all melee, go for pathfinder.
Goreshade the Cursed - Leviathan - Ripjaw x 2 - Corruptor Satyxis Raider Captain Wrong Eye - Snapjaw Satyxis Blood Witches + hag Satyxis Gun Slingers Satyxis Raiders + Sea Witch
Now having said that you can make the satyxis raiders incredibly fast with Goreshade, you will probably way outpace poor Wrongeye who only wants to help out with his 8" star crossed bubble, making the satyxis in his control area really tough to deal with. If they are moving that fast, you will probably need to run a round or two with wrong eye to catch up, and that is a round or two you will have your opponent eating your guys. Of course your ambushing satyxis blood witches may be a great distraction and Goreshades feat can help with refilling whichever unit you decide you need more, by sacrificing the other. Or bringing back the attachments or the raider captain, you get the idea.
I brought the corruptor and the leviathan for the assassination. Two leviathans may work better but the corruptor has a couple of nice utility tricks like making an arc node from a target, or healing goreshade, or having a nice POW 10 5" AOE burster ability. Between the raiders, the raider captain and goreshade, chances are good you will get someone with some sort of stationary or knockdown tech to the opposing caster, knock them down and let the ranged warjacks clean up. The corruptor has a legitimate gun at POW 14 and Range 12. Boosting damage will really put on some damage to the target. The leviathan may hit harder or less depending on the base size of the target.
The gun slingers bring an extra couple of guns for the assassination and are great infantry clearers in their own right. Their abilities are still in flux, as is their point cost with the CID so I don't have a lot more to say on them other than they can help finish a stationary or knocked down target just fine. Don't forget the sea witch and the raider captian have guns too.
So not goreshade's favorite theme, but it can make a mean assassination run or a mean scenario block out list if you really try.
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Post by tiberius on Nov 21, 2017 17:24:14 GMT
Goreshade the Cursed - Slaughter Fleet Raiders
Slaughter Fleet Raiders really doesn't bring much to the table compared to other themes where Goreshade is concerned. I mean you do get gang fighter on warjacks and you have access to Aiakos, so those two things right there are really good to put in as Goreshade loves the extra warjack support. The 2" deployment zone increase is helpful for the normally slow bloodgorgers. Curse of shadows and apparition really help them get down the field and do some work with their not so stellar weapons, letting berserk and overtake take over and do some work. So yeah, it can get the job done, there are just probably better options for Goreshade.
Goreshade the Cursed - Leviathan - Ripjaw x 2 Aiakos Scourge of Meredius - Stalker x 2 General Gerlak Slaugherborn Black Ogrun Boarding Party Bloodgorgers The Devils Shadow Mutineers Cylena Raefyll and Nyss Hunters
Cylena and the Nyss Hunters are an elite ranged group that are very versatile, and you pay for that versatility on the order of 19 points for the full unit. What you get is really accurate, fast long threat ranged combine ranged attacks and weapon masters in melee. They also ignore concealment and cover when making ranged attacks and have natural pathfinder to further protect them. Keep in mind you cannot combined ranged attack something in melee except for colossals, but you can individually shoot it with all the POW 10's. I bring this up, because Goreshade wants to play super solo again with this list, freeze something and let his army shoot it to death if he has not killed it himself. The group can combined range attack to increase accuracy, aiming and 2 man combined ranged attacks will bring the accuracy up to RAT 10, POW 12 at RNG 12. Five man combined ranged attacks can crack some armor with POW 15's. Or go for the gusto with a POW 20, they have the range to spread out and do it.
But really, your assassination will go one of two ways, Aiakos and the stalker twins will leap in and using gang fighter, annihilate something. Or Goreshade gets the charge, freezes it and if he cant kill it, the leviathan finishes it off. Zira from the Devils Shadow Mutineers is also there as back up.
The bloodgorgers make a good mirage target, allowing them to get up the field quicker and against a unit that has curse of shadows on it, they can really mow through it with their two melee attacks hitting with +2 dmg on their targets with a better chance of triggering berserk and overtake. Curse of shadows allows them to range further without worrying about free strikes. Gerlak can benefit from this too.
Goreshade brings his own anti-magic in the form of Arcane consumption and hex blast. He punishes anything near him that is enemy model that casts a spell, damaging it and healing Goreshade.
Overall, its not a terrible list and can do some work, there are just better options for Goreshade.
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Post by tiberius on Nov 22, 2017 13:12:45 GMT
Goreshade Lord of Ruin - Ghost Fleet
So what do you do after you steal a god's sword and lose the body to a bunch of elves? You get a horse and ride! Horseshade, Gor3shade, goreshade on a horse, whatever you like to call him, can run a mean attrition list with his spells, run a mean assassination list with his feat and is fast and mobile enough to run a very fast force and do scenario well. Most of his spells are useful but are very list dependent. He typically wants undead units or a very hard to pin down unit that can get to where he wants them to go.
So Goreshade bought himself a horse which means his speed increases as does his armor, but his defense decreases. So he is now SPD 8 with reposition 3", MAT 7, DEF 14, ARM 17 on a large base, has cavalry rules, immunity to cold and a two inch reach melee attack that causes stationary. He kept Voass, Nyssor's sword, because why wouldn't you? He also has a POW 12 mount attack for impact attacks which makes him a decent infantry clearer himself. Voass makes him a great melee assassin and his natural speed gives him a great threat range.
He has an innate ability called spell vortex. If an enemy model casts a spell in his control range, he can cast one spell without spending focus during his next activation. Very useful and saves him a lot of focus because he has a lot he wants to do with his focus. There is no limits on what he is allowed to cast using this ability.
His spell list is pretty good. He has one attack spell called Siphon Bolt. Its RNG 8, POW 13 single target and if your target has focus or fury on it, upon hit and before damage, you remove a point of focus and give it to the spell caster. Spellslaving or necromancying this spell does not reward the focus to the spell caster, as the spell caster has to have the focus manipulation ability to get the benefit.
He has three upkeep spells. One is a warjack buff called infernal machine. It gives target warjack in spellcaster's battlegroup Murderous and +2 Speed. Murdurous gives an additional die on melee attack rolls against warrior models.
Occultation is another upkeep that gives target faction friendly unit or model stealth. Goreshade is typically a good target for this so he doesn't get shot off the table as it is hard to protect a large base and he lost ghostly in the MKII-MKIII transition and can not use terrain as well as he used to.
Scything touch is his third upkeep and is a nice buff that gives a single model dark shroud. Dark shroud gives all enemy models in melee range of the model with dark shroud -2 ARM.
Finally, goreshade has mockery of life. This is an attrition spell with some limitations. It can only return undead grunts to their existing unit with a single unmarked damage box and they must forfeit their combat action when they return to play. This costs 2 and is a control area spell, so it cannot be spell slaved or necromancied.
Goreshade's feat makes him a great assassin or scenario player as it does have many uses. Winters Grasp allows you to center 3" AOEs on any number of friendly faction non-warcaster warrior models currently in Goreshades control range. Enemy models within the AOE become stationary for one round unless they are immune to cold, then models the AOEs are centered on are destroyed. This has great synergy with his ability to return grunts to play, or a unit like the revenant crew that automatically restore their numbers. Or even mechanithralls with necrosurgeon and sepulcher to restore them to the field.
So what does Goreshade want? Spell slaves are almost useless for him. He wants at least one warjack to take advantage of infernal machine, something with reach preferably, or a colossal. He likes 1-2 arc nodes to spread around his upkeeps or go for the assassination run with siphon bolt. He would like some form of protection as he is on a large base model and putting occultation on himself is not always the most desired use of that spell. He would like a unit to fuel his feat and mockery of life, or some disposable solos. He prefers undead units for mockery of life. Anything that gives him a free upkeep or focus efficiency is always welcome.
Goreshade Lord of Ruin - Kraken - Deathripper x 2 Captain Rengrave Pistol Wraith x 2 Hellslinger Phantom Ogrun Bokur Blackbanes Ghost Raiders Revenant Crew (min) + 2 Riflemen Revenant Crew (min)
So this list does assassinations really well and runs a mean attrition list for scenario. Goreshade will be super strapped for focus with this theme because it doesn't give him much support. But the game plan will probably be run the ghost raiders base to base with key models, pop goreshades feat, cast siphon bolt a few times at the warcaster/warlock that is now stationary to strip off any focus or fury, then shoot it to death with the rest of your list, primarily the kraken and pistol wraiths.
The ghost raiders have apparition which will let them get up the field really fast, effectively spd 6 + 2, and that +2 will let them get away or around guys with magic weapons if they need to avoid something like exemplars. Alternatively, if getting around troops is not an option, they can always just charge in and light the exemplars on fire, maybe killing some (but ARM 15-17 is a problem for POW 10's) and adding to your unit. They are incorporeal, cause fire continuous effect with their melee weapons and reanimate living enemy models they kill as ghost pirates as long as black bane is alive. Putting scything touch on one of these guys wouldn't be a bad idea. Or occultation on the unit if you are facing a lot of ranged magic fire power. These guys are my plan A with Goreshade, to facilitate the assassination run.
The revenant crew also make good feat fodder because they replenish themselves automatically thanks to the deathbound rule and goreshade can replenish them with Mockery of Life. They can jam well, are almost as fast as the ghost pirates (lacking apparition), hit a bit harder with gang, and have guns that can really take advantage of the feat. If you go for the scenario use of the feat and stationary up the front line or so of your opponent, these guys can move and shoot with RNG 8, POW 10 guns and hit stationary targets reliably, clearing zones or jamming the stationary groups out. DEF 13 is not trivial to hit for most units.
The Ogrun Bokur is my shield guard for Goreshade, though he may have trouble keeping up as he is only SPD 5, so he will be running to keep up the first turn or two. He does make a great body guard at DEF 12 and ARM 18 (with shield) and hits like a truck at MAT 8 and P+S 17 and P+S 13 within 6" of his client. He can also do power attack slams for getting something out of a zone or knocking something down.
So overall, this is a very strong list for Goreshade as it will play very well into both attrition and assassination plans. It is missing any type of support Goreshade wants, but you shouldn't need it with the assassination focus.
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Post by tiberius on Nov 22, 2017 13:53:44 GMT
Goreshade Lord of Ruin - Infernal Machines
Another strong theme for Goreshade in that he gets spell and warjack support, strong attrition assistance, cheap disposable undead units and solos, and a strong ranged presence to take advantage of the feat. Theme gives hyper aggressive to warjacks which is probably lost on this list, unless you want to trade out the colossal and/or a few arc nodes. But Goreshade really likes arc nodes and I really like colossal.
Goreshade Lord of Ruin - The Withershadow Combine - Sepulcher - Ripjaw x 2 - Nightwretch Pistol Wraith x 2 Necrotech x 2 Mechanithralls + 2 Brutes Carrion Thralls Necrosurgeon
This theme is a pretty good all comers theme in that it can do really well shooting for assassination, going for scenario through attrition, killing infantry and cracking armor. The carrion thralls are your fast jamming unit that can also fuel the feat really well. They move at SPD 7, have combined melee attack (and probably need it to hit the broad side of a barn with MAT 5), have finisher for something that is already damaged by a gun from your list perhaps, and reposition 5". They also fly so can move through models if you want to risk free strikes. Better to charge into the front or a flank, do some combined melee's to kill some front line troops, and reposition further into the enemy lines. Scything touch on them helps break some armor and ensures at least a kill or two. Then Goreshade can pop his feat as the rest of the list moves up and clears things at range.
The mechanithralls can ambush. They are also fast and can hit hard if they can hit, but their two attacks help make up for being MAT 5. Though against heavier targets they can combo strike for extra damage. The brutes are harder to put down and hit like trucks and are more accurate at MAT 6. Combo striking, they are hitting at P+S 19 without buffs.
The necrosurgeon can collect corpse tokens from mechanithralls or living enemy models and turn them out into any type of thrall, carrion, bile or mechanithrall as long as the unit is still around and close by the necrosurgeon. The sepulcher can do the same, only it can put out Brute thralls as well but it can only do mechanithrall units or weapon attachments to mechanithrall units. It cannot do the other types of thralls. Between the two of them and Goreshade, you can bring in up to 9 mechanithralls a round assuming you protect at least one guy from the unit, or 6 mechanithralls and a Brute. That assumes you are collecting max corpses every round and goreshade is doing nothing but casting mockery of life. That is some attrition that some lists just cannot handle. Especially since that is a passive ability on the Sepulcher and it will most likely be blowing up a lot of stuff with its impressive gun platform. It has a RNG 13 4"AOE POW 13 cannon with critical paralysis and on either arc it has a RNG 10 POW 13 gun with D3 shots, much like a leviathan cannon, it gets an additional +1 damage for bigger base sizes (+1 for medium, +2 for large/huge).
The necrotechs are there to follow around the sepulcher and keep it up and running. 2D6 damage removed from it every round especially when the enemy has to wade through a zone of recurring mechanithralls can be quite difficult to bring anything of note to bear on the colossal, that just cant be quickly eradicated by Goreshade or the sepulcher itself.
The withershadow combine bring a free upkeep and a free use of puppet master for a reroll on your assassination run or just every day combat. Spell slave wise, they are not doing that great, though siphon bolt will still do a bit more damage than dark fire (their standard spell) and they will still strip off a point of focus or fury from their target, they just cant gain one.
Overall, while not as strong as a Blackbane facilitated assassination, it is more versatile and the recursion may be just as strong or stronger if you can keep a single mechanithrall alive.
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Post by tiberius on Nov 22, 2017 17:14:29 GMT
Goreshade Lord of Ruin - Dark Host
This theme plays well with almost anyone and Goreshade is no different. It delivers itself thanks to the theme wide benefit of banes getting prowl and the 2 4-inch dense fog clouds you get to place within 20" of your side. In addition, every bane in the list has ghostly which means they ignore terrain and free strikes which makes getting them to where they need to go fairly effortless. That really sets up a good feat turn. Move in bane knights through the opponents forces if they have space between their troops and get to the meaty back rows, then pop Goreshade's feat and kill with the other banes, or shoot it to death with a ranged jack, or have goreshade do it himself. In fact, he can just use his feat to cripple the opponents forces to allow the banes to get all autohitting attacks on the charge, and then have goreshade replentish a unit or just charge on through and kill what is behind. His sword causes stationary as well to he doesn't necessarily need to feat to kill something.
Goreshade Lord of Ruin - Kraken - Ripjaw - Defiler Bane Lord Tartarus Bane Knights Bane Warriors + CA Bane Riders
The Kraken makes a great target for infernal machine. A SPD 7 Colossal is something to fear, especially one with a great long range gun and competent melee capabilities. It gives it a really long threat range with its RNG 16, POW 14 5" AOE unicorn cannon and its RNG 12 D3+1 shot POW 12 flayer. It also gets kill shot if you decide to just charge something with its 4" reach chain weapon harvesters, which if it kills something living you get the corpse token, increasing the damage of all your weapons (except the flayer). It can also convert corpses to focus.
The defiler is an arc node I typically don't use because it costs more than the others but with access to goreshade's feat making multiple things stationary, the spray can come in really handy. A boostable spray is always handy anyhow and this one causes continuous corrosion.
So the bane knights will probably be my feat target after they close and engage the opponents jamming forces or front line. They make a good target for scything touch (pick one near the middle for maximum application of its 2" reach). With good placement, you can turn them into charging P+S 16 guys (or the equivalent anyhow). They are also not trivial to remove at ARM 18 base to base with wall of steel. Charging them is hard as well with -2 to hitting them from charges from set defense.
The bane warriors are the second wave and bring their own dark shroud. Their unit attachment can bring back D3+1 of them as a mini-feat and combined with Goreshade's Mockery of Life spell, can keep the unit going long after it should have been destroyed. They are all 1" reach weapon masters with P+S 11 and dark shroud, ghostly and prowl in the theme. They also get dead rise from the officer and tough from the standard bearer. All in all, they hit like trucks and if you just stationaried a bunch of stuff, they can hit it without much worry. Even if you don't, Tartarus provides +1 to hit with Veteran leader banes.
Tartarus can also refill the units with deathtoll on his weapon. He has MAT 8 and 2" reach P+S 12 weapon master weapon with rapid strike (giving him two attacks) and each living warrior model he boxes he can turn into a bane in a friendly unit within his command range. He also has natural stealth and ghostly so he is very hard to pin down and kill. His stats are no joke either with DEF 12, ARM 17 and 8 boxes.
So overall, not as strong of an assassination theme as the previous two themes for goreshade, but with the elite troops playing attrition, there isn't much that will stand against a recurring bane swarm.
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Post by tiberius on Nov 22, 2017 18:18:48 GMT
Goreshade Lord of Ruin - Black Industries
I initially wanted to take a colossal and no units with this theme as well and realized that would play against theme benefits and not help out goreshade at all. The theme benefit of Carapace only affects heavy warjacks so bone jacks and colossals cannot get the benefit of +4 ARM vs ranged attacks and free strikes. In addition, the theme gives you a free bone jack for every 30pts of jacks you requisition. But Goreshade really wants a unit or some cheap solos that can get there to use his feat.
Goreshade Lord of Ruin - The withershadow Combine - Shrike x 2 - Stalker x 2 - Seether - Ripjaw x 2 (free) - Harrower - Leviathan Warwitch Siren x 2 Cephalyx Mind Slaver and Drudges
So right away we see no undead units so we are not enhancing any attrition with Mockery of Life. Well I guess Goreshade has enough to do with his focus anyhow giving out scything touch, infernal machine, occultation, and fueling warjacks. Oh and camping though you could replace the seether with an inflictor if you really want a shield guard.
The harrower makes a great infernal machine target and comes with a free thresher special attack and a 2" reach to really just murder a good section of infantry that it can reach. Its P+S 16 melee weapon will pretty much automatically kill any single wound infantry and should kill most multiwound infantry unless you are facing something like man o wars under shield guard or something. But you can boost damage on things like that. Then you can mostly likely trigger quick work and use a soul you gathered to fully boost the shot and ignore line of sight to the target.
The leviathan is there as ranged support and an assassin finisher in case you manage to stationary the opposing warcaster/warlock. Its gun is RNG 13 and POW 13 and gets D3 initial shots. It does more damage with larger base sizes, +1 for medium and +2 for large/huge bases. It is a focus hungry warjack though and the initial shots are unreliable with the D3, as you could give it full focus and only be able to use two of it if you roll 1 shot.
The shrikes are also great anti-infantry warjacks. They are focus efficient and independent of the warcaster. They trample for free with a 10" trample over any size bases and get automatically boosted to hit rolls and immune to free strikes while trampling.
Stalkers are another great target for infernal machine. I would start on the harrower unless you have an early assassination avenue. The stalkers can also facilitate an assassination with a head butt after leaping into base to base with a warcaster or other prime target.
As far as units go, you are stuck with cephalyx. Nothing wrong with them, they are just not synergistic with any of goreshades abilities and he would rather have any undead unit rather than any living unit. They will work just as well for his feat however and the drudges can refill their own unit with Prep for Surgery if you manage to keep the mind slaver alive. It takes two drudges base to base with their living warrior model victim and they need to box it. Then you can add a drudge to the unit as the mind slaver performs his surgery on it. But they work well as a tough jamming unit and can freeze up the front line of your opponents army. They just are not going to be slipping through the lines with any movement shenanigans like banes or Blackbanes.
Overall, Goreshade can work with it because he is awesome and it does bring a lot of focus efficient things and support that goreshade likes. But it lacks the synergy that ghost fleet or infernal machines has.
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Post by tiberius on Nov 27, 2017 13:12:18 GMT
Goreshade Lord of Ruin - Scourge of the Broken Coast
Like most living unit themes, there are probable better casters to run them than Horseshade, but that isn't to say he cant run it and run it well, he just misses out on a few of his abilities like Mockery of Life. the satyxis are strong enough on their own to carry the day and between their innate knock down abilities or Goreshade sacrificing a few to stationary up key parts of the opponents forces, the scenario play and assassination prowess of the theme is strong.
Goreshade Lord of Ruin - Kraken - Deathripper - Ripjaw - Inflictor Satyxis Raider Captain Satyxis Blood Witches + hag Satyxis gun slingers Satyxis raiders + sea witch
The kraken is my infernal machines target to give it +2 speed and murderous. That greatly increases its ability to eat through infantry and gain corpse tokens that greatly increase its melee and ranged prowess up to +3 (one per corpse token, maximum of three) and it can feed itself corpse tokens as focus in a pinch, but you should probably just hold on to them as damage buffers. P+S 22 with 4" reach and chain weapon is really good for Cryx and a POW 17 or POW 7 + 3 blast damage at RNG 16 is really good as well. The kraken also gets kill shot so you can immediately let loose with a unicorn cannon shot after getting yourself a corpse token. Because the kraken removes from play with its melee attacks (until you are full of corpse tokens) that typically doesn't generate corpse or soul tokens. The special rules of the kraken allow it to get the corpse token and still do a kill shot.
The inflictor is there as a body guard for Goreshade, as he is a large base model and satyxis are not going to screen him and hiding behind the kraken all game may not be viable. Shield guard on a heavy warjack with reach can deter a lot of guys wanting to get at goreshade. Or at least take care of any that get close. It excels against living targets with its critical poison on its reach weapon. It also has an ARM 19 in its front arc thanks to its shield claw, making it one of our more resilient warjacks, though it still has the crappy armor diagram of a slayer. It just takes a little more oomph to knock an arm off.
Goreshade's feat destroys friendly faction warrior models and freezes any model in a 3" AOE centered on the destroyed model. You are limited to sacrificing your satyxis for this, so I would suggest using the bloodwitches as the raiders are a bit more valuable in combat with reach and gang. The bloodwitches also have gang and are great against infantry but so is the rest of the list, and they are ambushing so have a better chance of getting to where you need them to go. Goreshade doesn't have any way of helping them get to where they are going as he has occultation as a buff spell but nothing else. Mockery of Life only works on undead units.
So the game plan here would be to either jam out your opponent and last ditch freeze them out of scenario; or get behind enemy lines, knock down or freeze the caster and shoot it to death with the kraken / spell it to death with syphon bolt. There are better fits for themes for goreshade, but he can work with this as the units are innately powerful.
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Post by tiberius on Nov 27, 2017 15:22:49 GMT
Goreshade Lord of Ruin - Slaughter Fleet Raiders
As I have said before, using Goreshade with living units and no access to undead units just feels inefficient because you are ignoring a powerful portion of his kit, recursion. That being said, Goreshade does a lot of things well and can run a living theme, he just prefers undead troops. Gang fighter on warjacks is a powerful ability and Goreshade can make good use of infernal machine to get key warjacks behind enemy lines or engaged with a target that is also engaged with a friendly faction warrior model to trigger the effect. And with his feat, you can sacrifice some jamming grunts to ensure that someone like gerlak automatically hits and eats his way through a swathe of infantry if you get some good placement. You are still limited by the normal 1" reach and overtakes 1" movement, but you could live the dream by taking away the chance of missing on stationary targets.
Goreshade Lord of Ruin - Kraken - Deathripper x 2 - Stalker x 2 General Gerlak Slaughterborn (free) Ragman Black Ogrun Boarding Party Bloodgorgers The Devils Shadow Mutineers
The kraken makes a great infernal machines target and with infernal machine probably doesn't need trigger gang fighter to get the extra oomph. That being said, it may be better after closing lines to put infernal machine on a stalker to increase its threat range and ability to get further and leap to set up an assassination. The stalkers have innate stealth and can leap 5" for a focus expenditure. They have two initial attacks with a 1" reach and MAT 7, P+S 12 + grievous wounds. They are reasonably hard to hit from non-boosted attacks and are innately fast. Great for their cost in my opinion.
The kraken is your armor cracking, can increase its own damage output by eating living enemy models and collecting their corpses and can get a boost from Ragman who can give darkshroud in an area effect around him. Darkshroud + gang fighter on a 4" reach chain weapon means dead stuff. And if you time it right, you can take away your chances of missing by stationarying the targets with goreshades feat or melee weapon.
With the exception of the mercenaries, all of your troops are medium based and tough. You can play for scenario or jamming but chances are, your forces are not that fast so you are going to have to play for assassination since recursion is off the table outside of the Devils Shadow Mutineers. Who, fun fact, can return themselves to play if one of the unit kills a living enemy model. So send in Mar and Morland, use Goreshade's feat to freeze some stuff with those two, then the following turn, kill a few things with zira to bring them back. Zira is typically the important one anyhow as a ranged weapon master, even POW 10's hurt things if they are boosted. You can always get a dice spike if you are lucky. Keep her safe, as she is key to bringing the other two back.
Between Zira, ragman and the kraken, you should not have a problem shooting something you freeze to death. Or alternatively you can head butt it down with a stalker and then shoot it to death. Like the satyxis theme, this theme can be run and run well by goreshade, he just prefers something with undead troops.
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Post by tiberius on Nov 27, 2017 18:41:10 GMT
Captain Aiakos - Ghost Fleet
Note that I have little experience with this warcaster so anyone with a good story or tips to share, please do. Captain Aiakos, the full grown version of our journeyman warcaster, has a great spell list, a threat extending feat in an already fast faction and personal mobility. What he is lacking is some self defense because his kit wants him to be near the front and his stats say stay far away from the front. In addition, his low focus score of 6 means that he can only do so much per round and his spell list wants him to do a lot every round. His stats are a little low for a Cryx Caster, and in my opinion stats him out like a Hordes warlock, only without the damage transfers. He is a SPD of 6, MAT 7, RAT 5, DEF 15 and ARM 15 and 6 focus. He has innate tough. He has a RNG 6 POW 12 magical harpoon that he can drag small based models and a 1" reach P+S 13 sword with grievous wounds.
Aiakos is one of the most fun and dynamic feeling warcasters we have in our arsenal with all of his movement shenanigans, drag, and spell list, he really feels like a pirate. He can jump. After his full advance during a normal movement but before combat, he can place himself completely within 5" of his current location. If he cannot charge, he cannot jump either.
His spell list has a range extender, a MAT fixer and a damage buff so he is what folks can call a turd polisher. A good warcaster is typically considered good if they have two of these three things and he has all three. Too bad his low focus score keeps him from doing those and cast any type of attack spell and contribute meaningfully in combat.
He has two really good attack spells. The first is stranglehold, a 2 cost, RNG 10, POW 11 spell that if you damage your target, they have to sacrifice movement or action during their activation. This is great for neutering a threat to a warjack or Aiakos himself for a round. The second is his signature spell White Squall. Its a 3 cost, range 8, POW 12 spell that throws the target d6" directly away and doesn't deviate.
Someone came up with a completely over the top yet awesome maneuver called the flying Dutchman where Aiakos charges a target with his feat up (giving himself assault and +3 SPD) after movement, casts white squall to throw them back, cause collateral damage, knock them down, maybe hurt some other stuff, then use the harpoon to hit them and drag them back in, and then get your free melee attack to hit them and apply grievous wounds, then you finally get your charge melee attack. Then you can buy additional melee attacks after that, but I am pretty sure you just spent you entire stack doing that completely over the top and expensive maneuver. But it sounds hilariously awesome just to try once. Very dynamic feel. Totally not worth it in game, but it has a great dynamic feel to it.
He has two upkeep spells. The first is a warjack buff called Assail that lets target friendly faction warjack charge or make slam or trample power attacks for free and gains +2" of movement on charges and slam or trample power attacks. Models slammed by the target warjack are moved an additional 2". With his feat, that is +5" of threat range on a charge or slam. An assaulting Kraken with its 16" gun can literally shoot anywhere on the board if you have a target.
His other upkeep is scything touch. A classic Cryx spell that gives a model dark shroud, its an armor debuff for anything in melee range of the model with dark shroud. So its his damage buff.
His last spell is Carnage, where friendly faction models gain +2 to melee attack rolls against enemy models in Aiakos's control range. It is a self and control area spell so cannot be spell slaved.
As mentioned above, his feat gives all models in his battlegroup +3 speed and assault. That implies you can either polish some slow crab jacks to let them charge and shoot and really get up the board, or you can take one of our faster jacks and let it go nuts giving a seether a 15" threat range is pretty good.
So overall, he brings a lot to the table, so why isn't he competitive? Well he is super squishy compared to other options and he has too little focus to be an offensive caster or really play a support role well. His abilities want him to play up front but his stat line and inevitable low focus stat means he will get murdered by anything that can get to him. He needs a lot of help and support in the form of spell slaves or necromancy for attack spells, withershadow combine for upkeep help, jacks that feed themselves or are otherwise efficient with not using focus for specific things.
And ghost fleet brings him none of those things. However, it is thematically appropriate (though slaughter fleet raiders is probably more appropriate) that he is part of a pirate list. He can help the pirates hit more accurately or hit harder. He can greatly increase the threat range of warjacks including stalkers to facilitate a knock down and assassinate maneuver. Then all of your pirates and other warjacks can shoot the target to death. But that is probably what is going on with Ghost fleet. He doesn't have any real way of protecting the pirates or delivering them or his warjacks (aside from a potential +3 to speed and +2 to movement...).
Captain Aiakos - Kraken - Kharybdis - Nightwretch Captain Rengrave Pistol Wraith x 2 (free) Blackbanes Ghost Raiders Revenant Crew (max) + 2 riflemen
Kharybdis is Aiakos's character crab jack. Every crab jack has a melee weapon and a ranged weapon and this guy takes it further by having two melee weapons and a ranged weapon, though his rules work against him a bit. I think it was fixed in CID by giving him gunfighter, but before, he could not use his 8" critical blind corrosion spray if he was within 4" of his target because during his activation, his tentacles are 4" long instead of 1" long with chain strike. They are also chain weapons so they ignore shields and shield wall. So it had 2 P+S 16 melee attacks at 4" during its activation and a 8" spray POW 12 corrosion damage with critical blind. Its bond with Aiakos gave it prowl and all crab jacks have innate pathfinder and amphibious and steady. It can also make a 4" corrosion cloud as a *action. Unfortunately it is an action instead of just spending a focus or something but it stays in play for 1 round and gives out the continuous corrosion effect to anything in the cloud when its placed or if they enter or end their activation in it. It will also trigger stealth with prowl. This jack is very expensive at 19 points but under Aiakos, there is a lot of utility with the cloud or a long threat range or a crit blind spray. It is more accurate than other crab jacks with a MAT 7, but that is the only difference in stats or damage boxes.
If you can get the crit blind off, it is shakeable, but is debilitating to the target with -4 DEF and you can really use that to your advantage for assassination potential. If the target doesn't have access to focus or fury, they are pretty screwed for a round. They cannot make ranged attacks, -4 MAT, cannot make magic attacks, cannot run, charge or slam or trample. It has to forfeit either movement or action during its next activation.
Aiakos likes having an arc node because he has some nice buff spells he likes to distribute and some nice attack spells he likes to sling. Or rather he would if he has the focus to do it. More than likely you will have something else casting for Aiakos when possible. In Ghost fleet, he will be reserved to putting out Assail (on the kraken?) and Scything touch (on a random pirate or kharybdis) somewhere and upkeeping those every round. You may get a shot out there with stranglehold but more than likely you will be either boosting to hit or boosting damage. So that leaves you on 0-1 focus after that. Hide behind the kraken.
The kraken brings a lot of armor cracking to the list and brings a really long threat range with its 16" gun. Even its smaller guns will have a long threat range with assail or the feat. Though the feat gives assault which requires a charge so more than likely you are using the unicorn gun anyhow. If you do manage to get into melee and kill something, you can kill shot with the cannon again.
The pirates love carnage and they love scything touch and they love knocked down targets from white squall. All of those things increase their effectiveness and mean they may hit the broad side of the barn even outside of gang.
Your end game here probably involved getting one of your 4" reach melee jacks onto a target and eating it, or getting a white squall onto a target and shooting it to death. Aiakos really wants some support.
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Post by tiberius on Nov 28, 2017 17:17:31 GMT
Captain Aiakos - Infernal Machines
I feel that with the support that infernal machines offers Aiakos, that a really good list can be built. The problem is fitting it all in and building to his strengths. He definitely wants focus efficiency so the withershadow combine are in. Aside from that, its debatable. Warwitch sirens would be nice, as would self sufficient jacks or a jack module apart from Aiakos. But if you do that, they may not benefit from his feat. All things to weigh and what your purpose for the list is. Do you want Deathjack or some jacks with ranged weapons to go with the feat or a colossal?
Captain Aiakos - The Withershadow Combine - Sepulcher Iron Lich Overseer - Leviathan Necrotech Warwitch Siren Carrion Thralls Mechanithralls + 2 Brutes Soul Hunters
Potentially a very fast list with ambushing mechanithralls, soul hunters, and carrion thralls. The withershadow combine will probably hang back with Aiakos and provide a free upkeep, a free reroll for the sepulcher or Aiakos, and an occasional white squall or stranglehold. Aiakos will be providing buffs in the form of carnage for the thralls, scything touch on either one of the carrion thralls or a soul hunter, which would greatly increase their damage potential.
The leviathan makes a great assail target giving it more focus efficiency under the Iron Lich Overseer, who is free in the list thanks to theme benefits. As opposed to the Seether with the same jack marshall, another command is better suited for the ranged jack, Take Aim! allows you to aim for +2 to hit and get +2 damage on all of your ranged attack damage rolls. So that is POW 17 at RNG 13 for D3 shots if you aim. Under assail, you can get into position quicker and run or charge for free. The warwitch siren can provide additional support with a free focus and allow you to boost a damage roll or a crucial to hit.
The sepulcher is really fast and pretty dangerous under Aiakos feat and is another great target for scything touch, assail and really appreciates carnage. Also, stranglehold can protect it from heavy threats as it cannot be shaken off and effects anything including colossals.
What this list is missing I am seeing is an arc node or two. Aiakos really wants one. I could drop the sepulcher and add Deathjack and an arc node, maybe drop the soul hunters and add another crab jack. The list can probably do without the sepulcher and the carrion thralls, though they make a good screen. That would be 46 points to spend where you could get Deathjack (23), a night wretch (7), and a harrower (16). Its really match up dependent and if you want to play into scenario or just go for the kill. You really need an arc node to do a white squall assassination and then hit it with a lot of your ranged support. I guess you could drop the soul hunters for a pair of arc nodes and another warwitch siren.
Anyhow, this theme provides Aiakos with a lot of good options and those options are going to depend on what you want to do as your game plan.
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Post by tiberius on Nov 28, 2017 18:41:28 GMT
Captain Aiakos - Dark Host
The theme with our elite troops brings a lot of things that Aiakos likes. Powerful and self sufficient troops that he can help hit more reliably, self sufficient warjack and a spell slave. The theme list even has access to a threat extender in the form of Darragh Wrathe and his deathride ability. While Aiakos can concentrate on delivering jacks, Wrathe can help deliver the banes. And the banes mostly deliver themselves with the theme wide benefit of prowl for all banes and the 2 4-inch dense fog clouds you get to place at the beginning of the game. Most of your forces will be using ghostly to move through terrain and give themselves stealth.
Captain Aiakos - Skarlock Thrall - Desecrator - Reaper - Nightwretch - Deathripper Bane Lord Tartarus (free) Darragh Wrathe Bane Knights Bane Warriors + UA (free) Bane Riders
The skarlock provides a free casting of white squall or stranglehold, saving 2-4 focus for Aiakos, and the magic ability 6 doesn't really lose you anything here as that is Aiakos's own skill. If you can manage to get a soul on the skarlock from following behind banes, you can even boost the too hit and/or damage of the spell.
The desecrator brings some focus efficiency in the form of Accumulator: Bane. In addition to the free focus from power up, the jack mostly fuels itself for anything it really needs to do and brings some good anti-infantry support in the form of its scather.
The reaper goes well with the feat as it is a really nice threat extender and is probably a good target for Assail, making the reaper a 16" threat range with charge, or 22" threat range with assault. It can boost to hit and damage its harpoon to ensure the drag, get its free melee attack and set up for a bane charge by dragging the target up to 8" closer.
My game plan for this list is to use the reaper to clear charge lanes, move an arc node close and use white squall to knock down the target, then charge it to death with banes. Remember, white squall is a throw of D6 inches away, so you can easily knock your target too far away. You could white squall something like the desecrator onto or into your target, and as a crab jack, its immune to knockdown. Rules say that you still have to sacrifice movement or action (movement in this case). After knocking down what you land on top of, you can proceed to kill it with the desecrator. Its like what Trolls used to do with toughalo bowling before the stupid ruling of no targeting your own stuff with power attacks.
Anyhow, this is one of the stronger themes regardless of the caster and Aiakos brings all the support that the theme wants. Carnage helps the MAT 6 banes hit.
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Post by drillbossd on Nov 29, 2017 2:01:19 GMT
This is a wild thread and a great read! I wonder if we can do something similar for Skorne.
In the Goreshade2 list with Nyss, do you think a version with Croe's (to take advantage of Abyssal Gate) makes any sense? Shame it can't be used with casters but it seems like it could do really awful things to heavies--a poor mans Scaverous, but with other nice tech.
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Post by Gamingdevil on Nov 29, 2017 9:22:37 GMT
Thanks, it is a bit more work than I intended to do, but it is kind of fun to break down the lists and the themes. If anyone knows how to do forum coding and can make a table of contents and keep that up, or show me how and I can put it in the first post, for people to find the warcaster they want to read about. The thing I overlooked here was usability of this thread. I should have made a different thread for each caster. When you click the arrow next to the cog at the top right of every post, you can choose "link to post", select the URL you want based on your needs and copy it. Then, in de BBCode view, you can use the url tag like this [ url="your link"]your text[/url] (without the space) and it will look like this: Asphyxious 1, The Ghost FleetCould do something like: Iron Lich Asphyxious:
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