Post by twity on Mar 14, 2018 15:26:55 GMT
I am not sure if I am qualified to do this, but I have won a few tournaments with pThags and he is my favorite caster in Legion (so here it goes). Constructive criticism is always appreciated.
pThagrosh, Prophet of Everblight
I really love pThagrosh in Mk.III, he has surprised me with his versatility repeatedly. I would rank him among our most powerful casters, and he compliments the rest of our lineup very nicely in steamrollers.
Overview
pThagrosh’s bread and butter is attrition. He excels at grinding away at your opponents army and possess a slew of defensive tools to help accomplish this. He can expand on this a little, and has a few nasty assassination tricks that you can employ in specific scenarios. His power level tends to remain constant turn by turn, as opposed to a caster who has a big burst of strength following a powerful feat.
Stats
Thagrosh is fairly different from most legion casters in this area. He is slow at speed 5, and has mediocre defense stats at 14/16. His defensive capability is actually pretty fantastic, but he relies on his abilities that we will discuss later. Offensively he hits like a truck, with offensive output on par with Rhyas (pow 16/12) and a respectable Mat 7 to back it up. Fury 7 is very respectable on a caster like pThagrosh, and he is not hurting for fury often. Lastly he does have a spray, which comes in handy for spot removal. Thagrosh presents himself as a difficult assassination target that can closeout a game if it comes to that.
Abilities
This is one of his strongests areas, and it takes his mediocre stat line and turns it up to 11.
>Athnac- Thagrosh always fills up on fury, even if he can’t leach enough from his beasts. This is relevant if you are taking a low number of expensive beasts and you are trying to close out the game after a grindfest. Even if you are out of beasts to leach from you remain a potent force on the board that doesn’t need to cut into the danger zone. It also helps if you are playing against someone who can add fury to your beasts, as you can keep them low and still fill up on fury without cutting. This ability seems mediocre at first glance but comes in surprisingly handy a lot.
>Attuned Spirit [Legion]- Thagrosh can cast an animus for free each round. This takes his Fury 7 and lets him act like his is Fury 8/9. In some lists I often find myself default to defensive animi (Typhon,s Excessive Healing, Carni’s Spiney Growth), and this makes Thagrosh very difficult to kill allowing you to play aggressively. If you have a Seraph the free slipstream is extremely powerful and almost always useful. Situational animi like the Nagas wraithbane or Azrael’s Vortex of Fire are often relevant on turns when you are fury starved, and the free fury is invaluable.
>Death Shroud- This is one of the main reasons you are running Thagrosh. The -2 strength bubble takes your beasts from a poor armor rating to a relatively tanky one in melee. It makes it difficult for more pillowfisted infantry to take out our medium infantry (ie Ogres) but anything with dedicated hitting power will still breeze past it for the most part. I particularly love this in the theme list Children of the Dragon, as combined with Unyielding your Nephilim heavys become very difficult to take out in Melee. It also compliments Typhon well, assuming your opponent cannot stop healing Death Shroud combined with the animus is extremely tanky.
>Eruption of Ash- This lets Thagrosh turn infantry into burning clouds. This is very useful for allowing you to put up a cloud wall in interesting places, allowing you to position Thagrosh in places your opponent will not expect. The easiest way to do this is with your own infantry, positioning them to protect Thagrosh from retaliation. It is also not uncommon for me to supplement a cloud created from enemy infantry with a cloud made from a spell martyr. These clouds also burn people who walk into them, protecting Thagrosh from hard hitting single wound infantry. Lastly of note is that this RFPs. Honestly I find that this is not as useful as most RFP mechanics, often things that end up in range of your speed 5 warlock are not slated for recursion.
This ability is one of the areas where you can apply your skill with your caster to outplay your opponent. It allows you to play unusually aggressive with your already tanky warlock, apply death shroud to a large part of the field. I also find that it is difficult for your opponent to see tricky plays coming. It won’t come up every game, but when it does it is very powerful.
>Tough- Make your opponent think twice about going for assassinations
Spells
>Draconic Blessing- +2 Str and Fire Immunity. This Thagrosh’s damage booster, always a welcome sight in Legion. The fire immunity is very useful against Menoth, with solid performance against Trolls and Legion as well. Don’t forget that this will Buff Azrael’s gun to a stupidly powerful pow 19.
>Fog of War- Gives everyone in Thagrosh’s control area concealment. This spell is fantastic as it tips a lot of our army into a range that is tough to hit at range without boosting. If you are running two thrones this won’t do much, but usually it makes his army very difficult to shoot at. Hex hunters and the naga just get stealth too, which is very useful. This spell can hinder your army a little due to the fact that it gives the enemy concealment, but most of Legion sees through it anyway. The main time this is a problem is when Thagrosh wants to cast spells at the enemy.
>Mutagenesis- If you box a model and you did not arc this Thagrosh can replace the boxed model. This spell is very niche, and you will hardly ever use it. Honestly I just like to remind my opponent about it when they ask about threat ranges. Still it is a nice tool to have in your back pocket.
>Obliteration- Cost 4 Pow 15 AoE 5 nuke. Thagrosh’s token nuke spell is a tad more useful than most warlocks. The high pow and large AoE mean that he can drop some serious power if he wants to. Don’t forget you have this.
>Twisted Form- Target warbeast gets -2 fury, can’t have damage removed from it, and can’t have damage transferred to it. This spell is amazing against Hordes, -2 fury is pretty crippling on an important heavy warbeast (especially a gargantuan). However my main uses are to prevent healing and prevent transfers. If you want to engage on a heavy but don’t necessarily have the kill, tag them with this first and neuter their retaliation. This is especially effective if you are running CotD with Zuriel, as he can scalpel systems. Second, you can often remove their last transfer option if a warlock is in even a semi vulnerable position. Look for opportunities where they only have one beast not fully loaded, or they only have one beast you can’t just kill. Typhon is very good for finishing off warlocks with his three sprays, and honestly with his recent buffs he should be in most pThagrosh lists.
Feat
Pretty self-explanatory, note that the warbeast only forfeits its combat action, it can still move and use animus. Know what your opponent has that RFPs, as that will stop this. I like to include valuable warbeasts in my lists to maximize the power of this feat (see Typhon), plus your opponent really takes a morale hit.
pThagrosh, Prophet of Everblight
I really love pThagrosh in Mk.III, he has surprised me with his versatility repeatedly. I would rank him among our most powerful casters, and he compliments the rest of our lineup very nicely in steamrollers.
Overview
pThagrosh’s bread and butter is attrition. He excels at grinding away at your opponents army and possess a slew of defensive tools to help accomplish this. He can expand on this a little, and has a few nasty assassination tricks that you can employ in specific scenarios. His power level tends to remain constant turn by turn, as opposed to a caster who has a big burst of strength following a powerful feat.
Stats
Thagrosh is fairly different from most legion casters in this area. He is slow at speed 5, and has mediocre defense stats at 14/16. His defensive capability is actually pretty fantastic, but he relies on his abilities that we will discuss later. Offensively he hits like a truck, with offensive output on par with Rhyas (pow 16/12) and a respectable Mat 7 to back it up. Fury 7 is very respectable on a caster like pThagrosh, and he is not hurting for fury often. Lastly he does have a spray, which comes in handy for spot removal. Thagrosh presents himself as a difficult assassination target that can closeout a game if it comes to that.
Abilities
This is one of his strongests areas, and it takes his mediocre stat line and turns it up to 11.
>Athnac- Thagrosh always fills up on fury, even if he can’t leach enough from his beasts. This is relevant if you are taking a low number of expensive beasts and you are trying to close out the game after a grindfest. Even if you are out of beasts to leach from you remain a potent force on the board that doesn’t need to cut into the danger zone. It also helps if you are playing against someone who can add fury to your beasts, as you can keep them low and still fill up on fury without cutting. This ability seems mediocre at first glance but comes in surprisingly handy a lot.
>Attuned Spirit [Legion]- Thagrosh can cast an animus for free each round. This takes his Fury 7 and lets him act like his is Fury 8/9. In some lists I often find myself default to defensive animi (Typhon,s Excessive Healing, Carni’s Spiney Growth), and this makes Thagrosh very difficult to kill allowing you to play aggressively. If you have a Seraph the free slipstream is extremely powerful and almost always useful. Situational animi like the Nagas wraithbane or Azrael’s Vortex of Fire are often relevant on turns when you are fury starved, and the free fury is invaluable.
>Death Shroud- This is one of the main reasons you are running Thagrosh. The -2 strength bubble takes your beasts from a poor armor rating to a relatively tanky one in melee. It makes it difficult for more pillowfisted infantry to take out our medium infantry (ie Ogres) but anything with dedicated hitting power will still breeze past it for the most part. I particularly love this in the theme list Children of the Dragon, as combined with Unyielding your Nephilim heavys become very difficult to take out in Melee. It also compliments Typhon well, assuming your opponent cannot stop healing Death Shroud combined with the animus is extremely tanky.
>Eruption of Ash- This lets Thagrosh turn infantry into burning clouds. This is very useful for allowing you to put up a cloud wall in interesting places, allowing you to position Thagrosh in places your opponent will not expect. The easiest way to do this is with your own infantry, positioning them to protect Thagrosh from retaliation. It is also not uncommon for me to supplement a cloud created from enemy infantry with a cloud made from a spell martyr. These clouds also burn people who walk into them, protecting Thagrosh from hard hitting single wound infantry. Lastly of note is that this RFPs. Honestly I find that this is not as useful as most RFP mechanics, often things that end up in range of your speed 5 warlock are not slated for recursion.
This ability is one of the areas where you can apply your skill with your caster to outplay your opponent. It allows you to play unusually aggressive with your already tanky warlock, apply death shroud to a large part of the field. I also find that it is difficult for your opponent to see tricky plays coming. It won’t come up every game, but when it does it is very powerful.
>Tough- Make your opponent think twice about going for assassinations
Spells
>Draconic Blessing- +2 Str and Fire Immunity. This Thagrosh’s damage booster, always a welcome sight in Legion. The fire immunity is very useful against Menoth, with solid performance against Trolls and Legion as well. Don’t forget that this will Buff Azrael’s gun to a stupidly powerful pow 19.
>Fog of War- Gives everyone in Thagrosh’s control area concealment. This spell is fantastic as it tips a lot of our army into a range that is tough to hit at range without boosting. If you are running two thrones this won’t do much, but usually it makes his army very difficult to shoot at. Hex hunters and the naga just get stealth too, which is very useful. This spell can hinder your army a little due to the fact that it gives the enemy concealment, but most of Legion sees through it anyway. The main time this is a problem is when Thagrosh wants to cast spells at the enemy.
>Mutagenesis- If you box a model and you did not arc this Thagrosh can replace the boxed model. This spell is very niche, and you will hardly ever use it. Honestly I just like to remind my opponent about it when they ask about threat ranges. Still it is a nice tool to have in your back pocket.
>Obliteration- Cost 4 Pow 15 AoE 5 nuke. Thagrosh’s token nuke spell is a tad more useful than most warlocks. The high pow and large AoE mean that he can drop some serious power if he wants to. Don’t forget you have this.
>Twisted Form- Target warbeast gets -2 fury, can’t have damage removed from it, and can’t have damage transferred to it. This spell is amazing against Hordes, -2 fury is pretty crippling on an important heavy warbeast (especially a gargantuan). However my main uses are to prevent healing and prevent transfers. If you want to engage on a heavy but don’t necessarily have the kill, tag them with this first and neuter their retaliation. This is especially effective if you are running CotD with Zuriel, as he can scalpel systems. Second, you can often remove their last transfer option if a warlock is in even a semi vulnerable position. Look for opportunities where they only have one beast not fully loaded, or they only have one beast you can’t just kill. Typhon is very good for finishing off warlocks with his three sprays, and honestly with his recent buffs he should be in most pThagrosh lists.
Feat
Pretty self-explanatory, note that the warbeast only forfeits its combat action, it can still move and use animus. Know what your opponent has that RFPs, as that will stop this. I like to include valuable warbeasts in my lists to maximize the power of this feat (see Typhon), plus your opponent really takes a morale hit.
