Bane Dev talk

You think the 10.5" melee threat range Bane Thralls had with curse is far reaching? There's a reason I never put banes on the table in Mark2. They simply weren't good enough outside of the few power casters that turned them into monsters. The whole package absolutely was not complete, it was survivable and hit like a truck, but even with Tartarus's +2 movement the package was extremely slow. There's a reason that when you saw Banes in Mark2 you would see them with either Asphyxious2, Goreshade2, or 30+ with Skarre1. The first two can make use out of the Banes that die, and Skarre only needed a handful to make it alive as her kit was ridiculous enough to kill an army with a single unit.

If Banes were actually complete they would have been in every Mark2 Cryx list out there, but the fact is they weren't. You had plenty of people who opted for Satyxis, Mechanithralls, & Mercenaries because they offered one of the most important things in the game, and the most important thing Banes lacked. Threat Range. Satyxis Raiders charged 14". Mechanithralls charged 9.5", but you could create 1-6 new ones that could come from anywhere ahead of the leader. Mercenaries gave us access to things like Nyss Hunters who's aiming threat range with guns is longer than the threat of charging Banes and who's charging threat is exactly the same and only hitting at 4 pow less. All of these projected threat range vastly further than the harder hitting Banes, and in a faction that has a multitude of ways to make their troops hit harder (every caster except Mortenebra & Skarre2), and very few ways to make their troops threat further, I'll take the further threating troops every time.