Bethayne

And we have rules! Noms on razor boars for fury, can eat her entire battlegroup for crazy assassination runs, has an arm debuff, nice battlegroup speedbuffs and out of activation attacks from feat.

"Bethayne had once been captured by the mad Dr. Arkadius, who was fascinated by the strange creature unconscious on his operating table. Though she eventually got free, what if things had gone differently? What if, to further strengthen Lord Carver’s growing empire, Dr. Arkadius had extracted Bethayne’s athanc and rebuilt her using his mad science? This would have included, of course, adding a flamethrower to her face."





Absorb flesh actually can be cast for profit more than once per turn (also note that the soul slave can cast it too). The only limitation is on the healing and +1d6 fury benefit. You are still able to use it to RFP then reave from your beasts for a fury profit of 1 (lights) or 2 (heavies). Beth can theoretically put out ~20 anatomical precision melee attacks this way to plink an enemy caster to death (2 initials, 6 fury base, +1 from bone shrine, +3.5 from inital cast, ~8-10 fury profit from reaving an entire battlegroup) or throw out ~4 boosted damage disintegrations.

Skarath notably has gunfighter, paralysis, and boosted attack rolls to really take advantage of that feat

Legitimately a little bit sad that she's not SR legal. She's a cool concept and an actual model of her would probably look kind of amazing.

That said, pigs don't really need more Warlocks in the "offensive spell reliant" category when we're still limited to Bone Shrines for channelling. It's cool that she can actually afford a Dog Pile, Disintegration, and upkeep Battle Host though.

Quick brainstorming on lists gives me something like:

Bethayne
-Battle Boar
-Razor Boars
-Road Hog
-Road Hog
-War Hog
-War Hog
-Soul Slave
Min Bone Grinders
Dahlia
-Skarath
Kwaak and Gub
Lanyssa
Bone Shrine
Bone Shrine

Honestly, with a Soul Slave tossing out Disintegration, and Dog Pile being a 12" range off of the Bone Shrines, she probably doesn't need to be all that exposed. And unlike some Warlocks (looking at you Midas) her statline is reasonably survivable. 16/16 no knockdown isn't anything to sneeze at.

The main change I'm considering is Kwaak for a Witch Doctor. There's some mad bullshit assassination runs I've been ruminating on involving getting a Warbeast or two base to base with the enemy Warcaster and having Bethayne weave her way through to the enemy 'caster with Sidesteps so that she can Feat and actually make use of Flank.

Has to be the single most bizarre Field Marshal I've ever seen...

I am increasingly sad that I can't treat her like a real Warlock. She actually looks more and more fun to play the more I think about it.

shortcutbacon RFP=remove from play. You can reave whenever beasts are destroyed or RFP'd, unless it died to a friendly attack or a damage transfer. Precedent from Mordikaar's essence blast lets him reave as the model is removed by a spell effect not directly by a friendly attack; Absorb Flesh is one step more secure in that ruling because it's not even an offensive spell (unlike essence blast). They also just released Barny2 whose feat lets him do the same thing. In the specific case of altBeth, Hungerford commented "Yuuuuuppp!" on a facebook thread confirming the reaving use.