Throne of Everblight CID

Pretty much what I expected - a new spell and continued focus on magic. Did not expect to lose the corpse mechanics. I feel like it would be in a much better spot if it still could use those to boost, but maybe not heal, since I imagine it lost them in order to account for ARM20/36HP.

Perhaps if the new spell was something more akin to Chiller that would be nice too - Winter's Grasp seems too fiddly to get any reasonable work out of. I've said it before, but the truly good battle engines either hit like trucks or safely support their armies while softening targets at a distance, and I don't think the current rules for the Throne even begin to mark either checkbox. All it really has going for it is the durability, so if you want a really durable list, maybe it's worth bringing there as your anti infantry.

So I always felt the way that the Throne should work is to really capitalize on its LoS blocking big base. With lots of flying heavy beasts, it could be used to screen them on the way in, and then they could charge over it. For it to do this it would need to be able to keep-up (at Speed 5 and with no Slip-streaming, this isn't really going to work, but I suppose it could screen our Carni-chassi). It would also need to be fairly durable vs shooting... which it is a bit, though I don't think sufficiently enough, especially compared to our similarly costed options.

As it stands now, it doesn't extend threat ranges, it doesn't protect anything, it doesn't threaten anything with high armor or high defense. It's decent at threshing infantry, but not really much better than our other anti-infantry options. It's durable, but not really much more so than a Carnivean (just what.. 6 boxes?). It's a bit cheaper by 2 points, but it gives up boosting, assault, and can't be slip-streamed. Carnivean punishes other heavies charging it with Spiny Growth fairly well, while Freezer gives us big accuracy buffs instead of extra damage. But accuracy has never really felt like Legion's issue: Shadow-bind from Hex Hunters, Flare from Seraphs, many many feats and spells that boost it, Ice Cages on the ubiquitous BFS...

But there is one thing we are over-looking: It boosts assasinations.

Charging any infantry reliably at 12" away, it kills some and then uses Freezer. Enemy models have to risk free strikes from it or they become Stationary, which allows all our flying bests to leap frog over them without fear of free strikes (especially now that it has a normal front arc)

I think for it to be worth this function, it needs to be cheaper and probably have "pull" on its tentacles. Right now you lose so much just to put it into your list, yet because it is sub-par at anything offensive compared to our other options, it has to be worth being the sacrificial lamb it is meant to be, or be better at tanking. I think dropping it to 15 points and giving it Pull would make it perform this function as expected. Or make it better at tanking melee than our other similarly costed options.

I could see using it in either Thags at the moment because of their ability to boost its armor and how it blocks LoS to them, but that's really about it.

There's a distinct problem with your proposal: Freezer only works at 2", andif you're charging something at the max threat of 12" with the Throne, the things that didn't die are 4" away and can happily walk away from or around it. Worse, they're far enough away to charge so if it's something that can reasonably kill the Throne in an activation, you're kind of hosed anyways. If it's some kind of cheap/flimsy screen maybe there's some merit but I'm not sure.

On top of all that, the amount of things that need to line up properly for this to happen relaibly doesn't really seem like something you should base a game plan around, but more something to keep in the back of your head I guess. It don't think it's really something to hype the Throne up for.

But anyways yeah I don't like Freezer. It has some corner case as an area denial against a subset of models that can't kill the Throne alone, but anything else you want to deny to an area will just kill it and not care about the stationary. Would much rather see some other kind of army support as it's third spell, or triple down and make it swing for the fences on damage. Alternatively, if they want it to be a board control piece, Freezer needs to be easier to utilize (maybe the ability to stationary on its own activation?), or it needs out of activation movement capabilities - pull/drag, or maybe a Slipstream-like capability.

Agreed. This is why I said it needed Pull. But I hadn't much considered the idea of "well, what if there is no models near the targets that you want to make Stationary that it can kill to trigger Necrophage?"

Still, I think this does give us a hint into what they were really thinking of with it: a tarpit designed to enable assassinations. But it's too expensive for a tarpit and hasn't got the tools for an assassination.

Or, just maybe, it could be designed as an anti-infantry monster that is hard for non-weapon master infantry to remove. Like it's rules are useful for... Nothing in it's kit tries to make it good for assassination. Freezer is not the new reason this model exists.

Trying to get a huge based model within 2" of the enemy caster to threaten a stationary proc is less than likely. Yes flying things can charge over it so in that regard it could be useful in killing the infantry in the way instead of relying on the opponent letting things sit in freezer.

There are plenty of just plain good things about it. It has the highest mat and magic ability of non-characters in Legion. It has the highest base armor and health in Legion. It has the highest base threat range. It's cheaper than any carnivean chassis heavy. It has the most initial melee attacks of any Battle Engine. It has a unique spell that nothing else in faction has.

Well based on the cid changes to banes, mechanithralls, and the new bane theme force we might need all the anti infantry we can get.

I feel people are missing the point. You're not threatening freezer on their casters. Instead, you give the opponents a puzzle to solve. How to approach a 36 life armor 20 huge base model that makes models stationary if they don't kill it. It's more the threat that it exists more than saying you'll have freezer next to their caster. On top of that, in matchups where you can't range it down easily, I can see people committing a lot of resources to take this out in melee. Then, all the models that were committed before it died aren't left punished for it unless the model killed it.