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Post by tiberius on Oct 16, 2017 12:06:36 GMT
Lich Lord Venethrax - Infernal Machines
Infernal machines is our thrall list and is, in my opinion, a better fit for Venethrax than Ghost Fleet because it brings a lot of what he wants as support. Warwitch sirens, withershadow combine, deathjack, just to name a few. Between casting terminal velocity and a mortality and upkeeping lamentation, Venethrax doesn't have any focus left to feed jacks. Free upkeeps, power booster and spell slave/necromancy all help him do other things than be a two spell pony.
Lich Lord Venethrax - Withershadow Combine - Deathjack - Harrower - Inflictor - Ripjaw warwitch siren x 2 Mechanithralls (max) + 2 Brutes Necrosurgeon Bile thralls (min) + skarlock commander
So the withershadow combine provides a free upkeep, spell slave for a free casting of mortality, deadweight or blood rain (or their standard dark fire spell with a RNG 10, POW 12) and can hand out magic weapons and provide a free re-roll to a model. Dark Fire does award the soul of the killed target to the withershadow combine model that killed it despite proximity to other models. This will rob the soul from another target like Venethrax himself. Aside from that, they are everything Venethrax wants as support. It saves him 1-4 focus every round, which is significant.
Deathjack, already a selfsufficient beast on its own getting two free focus per turn from its Skulls of Hate (as long as the arms are functional) and can be allocated 3 more so has the attacks equivalent of a 5 Fury beast, unheard of for warjacks. It can cast spells with pretty much the same restrictions as spell slave only not limited to Casting Cost 3 focus. As far as Venethrax is concerned, its the same as spell slave. Deathjack's combat abilities are impressive at MAT 8 and 3 initial attacks, two of which are P+S 18 (P+S 15 on the horns), and has snacking. Be careful of snacking as it denies souls. Venethrax doesn't need the souls as much as the other two lich lords but he still really wants them, he is just not as good at collecting them as the others.
Warwitch sirens are a great support solo with some offensive abilities. I take them for both the power booster ability and the ability to cast venom, the 8" corrosion spray that does auto-corrosion. They also have seduction that is a *action with no roll involved, you just need to be base to base with a living enemy non-warcaster warrior model. Then you can move them and attack with them once. This has a lot of applications but most likely will result in the death of your warwitch. Their melee weapon has reach and applies shadow bind on a hit which is -3 DEF and cannot move except to change facing. This is a shakable effect.
So we covered the support that venethrax can receive from Infernal Machines, he provides a lot to the list in the form of mortality allowing the thralls to hit more accurately and harder...mechanithralls especially appreciate this. Lamentation allows for good anti-magic control and really makes your opponent play back or suffer the consequences.
A countercharging deathjack or inflictor against a living model is always fun as well from Field Marshall Countercharge. I wouldn't waste the arc node doing it, but if lines are already drawn, it may be moot by that point and the possibility of a countercharging armor piercing weapon is a lot of fun.
Overall, I think Infernal Machines is a good fit for Venethrax as it really helps him support his army by providing him a lot of focus efficient options and support.
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Post by tiberius on Oct 16, 2017 14:11:35 GMT
Lich Lord Venethrax - Dark Host
So like every other lich lord, Venethrax likes Dark Host, though he doesn't have any special synergies with it other than making an already strong list stronger. The Banes hunt heavies, and he can help banes hit hard and protect them from more casty casters with proper placement. Or at least make the casters play back further. Dark Host does not bring much in the way of efficiency or support for Venethrax, but he really makes the banes monsters, as any good debuffer does.
Lich Lord Venethrax - Descrator - Harrower - Inflictor - Ripjaw x 2 - Stalker Bane Lord Tartarus Bane Knights (max) Bane Warriors (max) + CA
So my thoughts with this list are a good heavy jack spam counter or a counter to a synergy list with lots of warjacks or warbeasts. It is also a good drop against a lot of living models.
The banes wreck heavies on a charge, especially if you can get mortality up first and with a pair of arc nodes, that should not be a problem for anything short of Protectorate choir protected jacks. And bane warriors will still eat those, just without Mortality.
The Desecrator has special synergy with the spell terminal velocity. Critical shred has a much higher rate of activation with the additional dice. Against a heavy or light warbeast, you have a really good chance of getting at least one additional free attack from critical shred. And each time you crit on the attacks, another free attack. You are limited to take the free attack at the original target so no free attacks at random other targets in melee. So if you finish of the target on your first shot, you lose the free attack. Desecrator also brings a lot of focus efficiency for Venethrax in the form of Accumulator Bane, getting a free focus if it is near banes when it activates.
There is a lot of infantry removal in this list as well with bane knights, the harrower under terminal velocity, and the desecrator's scather weapon.
Overall, Venethrax makes a pretty good all comers list with Dark Host in my opinion. It just lacks a lot of the focus efficiency and support that he likes. But it will hit hard and wreck any list that is not ready to handle the banes and the accurate and fast warjacks.
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Post by tiberius on Oct 16, 2017 16:14:34 GMT
Lich Lord Venethrax - Black Industries
This list will put Venethrax's jack supporting abilities to the test. Really, with more warjacks in the list, the more worth it terminal velocity is. With Black industries, for every 30 pts of warjacks, you get a free 7pt or lower light jack for free. That is free arc nodes or one of the flyers or the helldiver.
With how burrow rules currently work, I really cant recommend a helldiver with venethrax over one of the flyers or a ripjaw. Burrow currently allows you to advance deploy the burrow marker 6" beyond your normal deployment zone and it doesn't have to surface until you want it to at the beginning of a maintenance phase. While it is burrowed, it can only move up to 3". For fast Cryx armies, that is just too slow. If you are doing some sort of defender/attacker mission and you are the defender, there is a niche for them there, but aside from that, or a hard to remove contester, I don't see them fitting into one of my lists.
Lich Lord Venethrax - Withershadow Combine - Deathjack - Harrower - Inflictor - Malice - Slayer - Reaper - Ripjaw x 2 (free) - Shrike (free) Machine Wraith
So I went all out with the battlegroup and free points. I was able to squeeze 90 points of warjacks in and got three free lights. That is a pretty substantial bonus for a group that will run very efficiently through power up and terminal velocity, not needing focus to charge or do power attacks and autoboosted attack rolls against living models. Oh, and a +2" movement on charges and slams against living models.
A warjack I have not talked about yet is Malice. It costs 2 points more than a reaper with the same stats and damage grid. It lost its 2" reach and sustained attack. It gained +2 pow on its harpoon (same range), is more accurate and gained magic weapon on its claw. It also gained some janky abilities with souls. If you manage to damage a warjack and spend a soul, you can basically do a machine wraith possession, where you can move the warjack and make an attack with it. That is pretty awesome...if you have a soul available. Malice used to start with a soul and now it doesn't. I included it in this list because I wanted the extra threat range extender, flanking with a reaper on one side and this guy on another, you can pull things out of control areas, zones, formation, etc. A lot of uses for drag. A savvy opponent can stop it pretty easily with the use of obstacles or other models, but its still a powerful tool that forces your opponent to consider it.
Black Industries, as a theme, provides carapace (+4 ARM vs ranged attacks and free strikes) to the heavy warjacks. That will help the really fragile cryx heavies close as Venethrax really doesn't do anything for them in that respect other than help them charge a bit further while closing. Or not have to close as far to get in charge range...assuming you are fighting living opponents. The theme also extends your deployment zone up by 2" so that helps reduce the distance to close as well.
The theme has available all the support that Venethrax likes. I could drop the shrike and cut out a heavy warjack to add in a pair of war witch sirens, which would greatly help with flexibility and focus efficiency, taking the fueling burden from Venethrax.
As mentioned in the Infernal Machines writeup, Venethrax loves the withershadow combine. Free upkeep, spell slave, and rerolls are all very much appreciated because Venethrax cannot do everything he wants to every turn. You have to pick, get his hands dirty in melee, or fuel the army, or cast spells. Sometimes a minor bit of two, but he definitely has trouble with all three. Venethrax doesn't have any special soul gathering powers like Lich Lord Asphyxious or Terminus, so a soul trapper may be desired. Instead of a machine wraith in the list, a pair of soul trappers would also work well.
The machine wraith I included is a good model, especially in a warmachine match up. It does what Malice does with a soul, possession of a warjack, on a successful hit of a machine wraith attack, you may move the warjack and take a normal attack with it. This will not work on a colossal. They are immune to control effects like that. Machine wraiths make great zone holders being fairly hard to hit and incorporeal. DEF 14 will make it not trivial to remove and will probably take a stack of focus from the warcaster, unless you are fighting Exemplar Errants or something. I would keep your incorporeal solo away from them.
Overall, Venethrax has a great spell list and abilities to make the Black Industries list really perform. In fact he may be the best caster we have for it short of Denegra the Soul Weaver. With terminal velocity, venethrax can run an obscenely large number of jacks fairly efficiently as long as you don't want to give them more than 1-2 focus each. The theme both supports Venethrax well and he supports it well. Great match.
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Post by tiberius on Oct 16, 2017 18:14:57 GMT
Lich Lord Venethrax - Scourge of the Broken Coast
When I think pirate, Venethrax is not the first warcaster that comes to mind. That does not mean he cannot support a satyxis army well however. Like with Ghost Fleet, he has a lot to offer a satyxis boat, as they are already accurate and usually just need some help in cracking armor, which can come in the form of warjacks that Venethrax runs particularly well. Unfortunately, also like Ghost Fleet, this theme brings nothing that Venethrax wants in a list as far as support goes. If its not a satyxis, its not here. That can be worked around with a mercenary unit or solo however.
Lich Lord Venethrax - Harrower - Inflictor - Reaper - Ripjaw x 2 Satyxis Raider Captain Satyxis blood Witches + blood hag Satyxis gun slingers Satyxis raiders + sea witch + 5 pt merc option (ogrun Bokur)
So as typical Scourge of the broken coast theme lists go, there are lots of satyxis, and with a target under mortality, they are almost guaranteed to hit and do some damage on a charge, even against heavier targets. And here is where your opponent has to start worrying about feedback damage coming from 10-11 satyxis. With their gang attacks and crit knockdown, they bring some self sufficiency and board control. They are hard to hit at range with whipping winds from the sea witch and are immune to blast damage while closing (unless you pick some other ability from her, but with pathfinder already given as a theme bonus, there isn't a reason to).
I listed a 5 Pt Mercenary option there in the list and stated Ogrun Bokur. The bokur is another shield guard for venethrax, the sea witch or any other unit leader or solo of your choice. While within 6" of his client, he has a P+S 17 attack with reach at MAT 8 and a secondary attack at P+S 13. He can also perform slam attacks if you need him to. He is on a medium base, so any large based objects he slams will only move half the distance, but for a 5 pt solo, P+S 17 with reach is ridiculous. He adds some more armor cracking in an otherwise anti-infantry list.
Other merc options would be Eilish Garrity, bringing some welcome anti-magic and upkeep removal. Though you can get by with lamentation, with him around, you probably don't need lamentation, or you can cover a larger area.
Orin Midwinter (who I do not own) and Gudrun the Wanderer round out the 5 pt merc solo options. Gudrun is a nice berserk missile who can charge a group, do some damage and is hard to remove on retaliation with his special abilities of getting knocked down the first time he is disabled and removes all damage from himself...called hangover. Now I want to make an all beer troll list with borka and the hooch hauler.
Anyhow, with field marshall countercharge, Venethrax and his battlegroup can follow up behind the jamming satyxis and any enemies moving into the satyxis lines can be countercharged by some of the reach jacks. Or using terminal velocity, the jacks can unjam the satyxis and allow them to get more charges in or move deeper into enemy lines. Keeping mortality on one or more targets is an option as well to ensure satyxis removing their targets.
So as stated above, Venethrax does a lot for this list, but the theme does nothing for venethrax with respect to support. Not a great fit and there are probably better casters for it.
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Post by Cryptix on Oct 17, 2017 4:11:28 GMT
If you wouldn't mind tiberius I'd like to do Scaverous when you get to him. I already have a few writeups organized, and he is my most played caster in Mk3 of any of my factions.
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Post by tiberius on Oct 17, 2017 10:41:37 GMT
Anyone is welcome to contribute, Scaverous was next up for me, as my OCD demands I do things in alphabetical order from where I started.
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Post by tiberius on Oct 17, 2017 11:06:48 GMT
Lich Lord Venethrax - Slaughter Fleet Raiders
Huh, I noticed that Madame Corbeau is in the list of mercs as options for this theme, I wonder why she isn't in some of the others? I cant imagine her hanging with Gerlak slaughterborne over Skarre Ravenmane. I wonder if its a bug for the other themes?
Anyhow, Slaughter fleet raiders is light on the support as is a lot of our other themes as far as Venethrax is concerned. This theme does allow access to Aiakos, but that is a support that Venethrax doesn't want because he wants to keep the warjacks in his own battlegroup for access to terminal velocity and his field marshall: countercharge.
Lich Lord Venethrax - Madalyn Corbeau, Ordic Courtesian - Harrower - Inflictor - Reaper - Stalker x 2 - Deathripper - Ripjaw Gerlak Slaughterborn (free) Black Ogrun boarding Party (max) Bloodgorgers (max)
This was another theme I took the bare minimum in units to get the free solo benefit and then packed in the warjacks to really get that warjack gang fighter thing going. A pair of stalkers under terminal velocity and gang fighter sound really scary to me, move up and jump behind the front lines that are engaged by your bloodgorgers, just be sure to leave room for all the medium bases. Placement is key here to really make that work.
Another reason to favor reach heavy warjacks in this list as well. The harrower, reaper and inflictor were all picked for their reach weapons and actuating gang fighter behind your front lines. Bloodgorgers charge in, followed by your warjacks to clean up anything left. Alternatively, if you take the alpha, if your warjacks are close enough to the front line, you can have field marshall: countercharge activate and take out whatever is charging into your bloodgorgers before they get a chance to attack. Powerful tool if used right, and it takes practice and forethought to really use it right.
Madalyn Corbeau, I am not sure how she is legal. Her parlay ability makes her and your warcaster not targetable by any warrior model, including warcasters/warlocks. So if you can keep beasts/warjacks away, there isn't anything that can target you directly. That isn't to say people cant do the target their own stuff with AOEs or sprays and catch you in the blast, but Venethrax really doesn't care about sprays short of the CoC battle engine or a mountain king. Her other abilities allow her to remove stealth from a model or unit in her command range and she has the seduction ability that warwitch sirens have. She is also protected from ranged attacks with sucker that is a must direct the range attack to a friendly non-incorporeal warrior model within 3" to be directly hit instead. Powerful, but can be abused by your opponent too since she is most likely hanging with your warcaster. Though the sucker shot can be shield guarded by the inflictor.
So once again, this theme is made better with Venethrax being in it as he brings a lot of debuffs and warjack efficiency but the theme doesn't do much for him.
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Post by tiberius on Oct 17, 2017 17:30:05 GMT
Master Necrotech Mortenebra and Deryliss - Ghost Fleet
Since Cryptix called dibs on Lord Exhumator Scaverous, I will jump ahead to the next warcaster on my list, Master Necrotech Mortenebra. Mortenebra's tool kit allows her to have a decent assassination game using warjacks with some movement shenanigans and applying ghostly where necessary to get something through enemy lines to a warcaster or key piece. Lets break her down a bit.
She has a decent stat line with a speed of 6, DEF 15, ARM 16, innate pathfinder and two reach P+S 12 initial attacks. Not the Butcher but really, who is? She has a focus stat of 7, but its her special abilities, spells, feat and attachment that come together making an interesting package.
Interface. Probably my favorite ability that she has but it is hard to use as she has to be base to base with a warjack and that leads to some problematic activation issues as you want to move her first and you don't want to expose her, so short of a flyer or a gun boat that is going to be standing and aiming, you will need to move it up beside her or move around her after she moves. Interface allows a warjack base to base with her to spend focus off of her as if it was on itself. This bypasses the 3 allocation limit allowing things like a leviathan to spend her full focus stack fully boosting its 1d3 shots. Or even better, a Sepulcher with its pair of D3 shots and big cannon. I like to take one really big interface friendly jack in every list I make for her. This also works well with her character skarlok Deryliss who can do tune up special action, which also requires base to base. This adds another level of order of activation problems. Practice practice practice is all I can say, or be good at planning out your turns.
Her other abilities include being able to repair a target friendly faction construct model d3+3 damage and innate steady. Oh she can collect and use souls too.
Her spell list is pretty solid for the most part. She has two attack spells, one is her answer to feedback, Doomspiral, which when it damages a warjack, it deals D3 damage to its battlegroup controller. Its a RNG 8 POW 12 spell that only costs 2, so it is quite spammable and can soften up a warcaster to open them up to finisher attacks from things like scavenger light warjacks. The other attack spell is Void Gate, her AOE that has a secondary effect that any enemy models in the AOE cannot cast or channel spells. Its cheaper and a smaller AOE than it was in MKII and it used to prevent allocation inside the AOE. Definitely a different feel, and it can now be spell slaved...assuming she could have a skarlok that could spellslave...which she cant because she has her own character one that does other things.
Overrun is her spell with the assassin potential and the movement shenanigans. How it works is you cast it on target model in the spell caster's battle group and when that target destroys one or more enemy models during its combat action, immediately after the attack resolves, you may move one model in spell caster's battlegroup in its control range as a full advance. You can only move as a result of overrun once per turn, however multiple models can be moved by it assuming you have multiple jacks or models with it on them. This is not an upkeep so you can spam it around and get a lot of extra movement for your battle group if you have something that can really actuate the ability...like a leviathan or a kraken.
There are a lot of applications for this as you can kill something and move something up, kill something and move yourself up in the case of a seether. The seether can charge in, kill something, berserk around, kill everything around it, activate the overrun, move to another area, and continue berserking. Its a trick that trollbloods use with Rok and the Doomshaper ability goad. Only they can keep going as long as you have fury, we get a further move but can only do it for the seether once per round. Make special note, the target you kill has to be an enemy model to proc overrun.
Spectral Steel is probably one of the factions best buffs. It gives +2 ARM and ghostly to a warjack. This is the other part of the assassination run, an overrunning heavy warjack with ghostly, immune to free strikes, can trample where it needs to go and under mortenebra's feat turn, get free re-rolls on all attack and damage rolls. Or maybe not even trample, if you can clear a lane for it, charge in your seether or leviathan or kraken or whatever. Or spectral steel + flying warjack means they get where they want to go and cause mayhem in the back ranks.
Sacrificial lamb is her support spell for warjacks. She removes from play a target warrior model and gives each warjack in her battlegroup currently in her control area 1 focus. This spell costs 1 and it removes the warrior from play so it goes against recursion units like the revenant crew. They have to be friendly faction warrior models as well. My favorite target for his are necrosurgeon stitch thralls, soul trappers or scrap thralls. Blackbanes pirates are okay to use as well because they use a different method of replentishing their numbers, as in killing other dudes and turning them into pirates.
She also has Jumpstart, which stands everything up and removes stationary from everything in her battlegroup. Not limited to warjacks. You can also change facing with this spell, which is another good reason to cast it, especially if you are like me and have poor placement skills.
Her feat, I mentioned earlier is pretty ridiculous. All friendly faction models in her control range can reroll any attack and damage roll (once each for each attack). On weapon masters and such, that gets pretty ridiculous and greatly increases the chances of dice spiking.
Deryliss has recently received a nice overhaul. It now has three magic abilities that are all very useful. Standard attack spell in the form of Doom Spiral, discussed above. It can also empower a la warwitch siren. That removes disruption and gives a focus to target warjack. Then there is tune up. This action requires base to base and all attack and damage rolls resulting from the next basic attack this turn are boosted. That is pretty awesome on something with a big AOE like the sepulcher or the Kraken. All the blast damage would be automatically boosted as well. It can also repair something in a pinch with D3+1 dmg.
So ghost fleet. Outside of her feat, Mortenebra doesn't do much to help ghost fleet hit or damage anything. She does bring a lot of warjack support and a really efficient use of focus when necessary. Ghost fleet is really good at providing good jamming screens for her and her warjacks, giving them time to get into position for the assassination run, or she can set back as artillery support and play the attrition game, which ghost fleet excels at.
Master Necrotech Mortenebra - Deryliss - Leviathan - Stalker x 2 - Seether - Shrike Captain Rengrave Pistol Wraith x2 Blackbanes Ghost Raiders (max) Revenant Cannon Crew Revenant Crew (min) + 2 riflemen Revenant crew (min)
So I was in the air between two pistol wraiths and a pistol wraith and the hellslinger phantom. But the chain attack stationary is more valuable to me for assassination runs, especially with a list this shooty. The leviathan (or two) can be supported by Interface and Tuneup to really rain down on your stationaried target, preferably their warcaster. Aiming pistol wraiths with re-rolls are RAT 9 with two chances to hit. That will hit most warcasters on average dice. POW 12 attacks will probably force a transfer or a focus expenditure to reduce the damage with decent rolling, or you ding them up a bit for the bigger attacks coming from the leviathan.
Alternatively, a spectral steel seether with overrun can get around just fine. MAT 8 with rerolls will kill a lot of stuff as well and at P+S 17 can crack most armor fairly reliably. The seether in itself is focus efficient with being able to charge for free and wont waste precious focus getting there.
Two stalkers add in some mobility to the list with overrun + leaping can get to some really hard to reach places. And with extended control area, they are mostly likely always within 28" of Mortenebra to get focus and her feat and any benefits from overrun you want to give them.
The leviathan is your interface jack in this list. With the ability to fully boost all of its shots, it is very dangerous to most any target.
The weak link in the list is mortenebra herself. She will be most likely exposed unless you are really smart about using terrain and your other models to screen her. She is a medium base and is pretty easy to pick out of a crowd for a gun line. Bringing a shield guard or two may be the right call.
Overall, this is a case where mortenebra doesn't care about the troops in her list other than if they can fill her jacks with focus and screen her well. She runs certain jacks really well and loves mobile assassins and anything that can help the assassination run. Ghost fleet brings some aspects of that with recurring pirates, lots of shooting, and chain attack: stationary.
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Post by Gamingdevil on Oct 18, 2017 9:01:27 GMT
Blackbanes pirates are okay to use as well because they use a different method of replenishing their numbers, as in killing other dudes and turning them into pirates. Not relevant for this write-up but this also goes for Cephalyx Mind Slaver & Drudges.
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Post by tiberius on Oct 18, 2017 14:53:26 GMT
Master Necrotech Mortenebra and Deryliss - Infernal Machines
Probably one of my favorite lists with Mortenebra is the infernal machines theme. I have a good excuse to take a sepulcher and have a fully loaded - through interface - colossal with a lot of legit guns. They are shorter range than a leviathan so you want to be within 10" to really start laying down the hurt so you want to have a good screen available to protect your caster along with at least one shield guard. Infernal machines does all of that and brings plenty of support and fuel for the list.
Master Necrotech Mortenebra - Deryliss - Sepulcher - Inflictor - Scavenger x 2 - Shrike Necrotech x 2 Machine Wraith Soul Trapper Mechanithralls (max) + 2 brute thralls Necrosurgeon Carrion Thralls (max)
So there are a lot of ways to build this as long as you keep the sepulcher, necrosurgeon and mechanithralls + brutes. Literally everything else is expendable and interchangeable with whatever your fancy is. I wanted to do a flying fleet of light bone jacks with ghostly and finisher, are a legitimate threat to a solo or even a warcaster hiding behind the lines. Between overrun and a 10" charge, you can have a 17" threat range, ignoring everything in between to your landing spot. The scavengers are great for this. They are reasonably hard to hit and can hit very hard against an already damaged target and on a charge. I brought two of them to help ensure the assassination. Another way to do it would be to drop the machine wraith and upgrade the scavengers to stalkers. With two initial attacks, overrun, innately fast and leap, you can get almost anywhere that the scavengers could.
The list has a lot of powerful recursion assuming your opponent is not fielding a lot of remove from play tech. Between the necrosurgeon and the sepulcher, you can return up to 6 mechanithralls to play per turn. Or even a brute thrall if you want. And now you no longer are limited to enemy models only with the Sepulcher, it can gather the corpses of fallen mechanithralls.
The necrosurgeon stich thralls are my target of choice for the sacrificial lamb spell, to fill up the jacks fairly cheaply for no real cost.
The sepulcher is a pretty nice colossal in my opinion. Its only real weakness is that it has a shorter range presence than its older brother the Kraken, but it does have more guns. Each arm can shoot 1d3 shots at range 10 and its POW 15 vs large or huge targets. The cannon is RNG 13 and POW 13, AOE 4 with critical paralysis and arcing fire. With tune up on the cannon shot, you have a good chance of hitting the crit paralysis on your target which can really open up the assassination run with the other guns for ensuring hits with your flying jacks. The tentacles are powerful in melee - the kraken is better in melee - but 4" reach chain weapons at P+S 19 will one round most things especially when you are fully loaded, or have tune up going or interface.
Mechanithralls are your backbone of the army and as long as you are not facing remove from play, your recursion should be good enough to replentish most losses. The brutes have shield guard and help protect key pieces near them and they hit like trucks at MAT 6 and can be recurred through the sepulcher.
The carrion thralls were chosen as a fast mobile screening unit that can handle most infantry with combined melee attacks for accuracy fixing. Their DEF 13 is a bit of a pain to deal with as is their mobility.
Overall, this list brings a lot that mortenebra likes to see, good screening units, cheap fodder and some mobile assassin jacks.
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Post by tiberius on Oct 18, 2017 18:45:34 GMT
Master Necrotech Mortenebra and Deryliss - Dark Host
Dark host does little to support Mortenebra apart from being a sea of banes that your opponent needs to chew through. So screening is covered. Cheap fodder however is in short supply, in fact pretty non-existent. Banes are not as expensive as they used to be but they are all quality pieces and are worth not sacrificing to your warjacks.
Master Necrotech Mortenebra - Deryliss - Desecrator - Leviathan - Reaper - Stalker - Shrike x 2 Bane Lord Tartarus Bane Knights (max) Bane Warriors (max) + CA
The dark host theme gives you two 4" dense fog clouds to place within 20" of your deployment side before models are deployed. It also grants banes prowl and they already have ghostly. So using the clouds and existing terrain, should not challenge you with your banes closing on the enemy intact. That includes your warjacks too, many of the ones I chose have built in pathfinder, fly or leap, with the exception of the reaper who can easily be replaced with a shield guard jack like an inflictor if desired.
The leviathan is my interface jack. The desecrator is here because you have banes everywhere for accumulator, is a decent front line jack and would do well with spectral steel on it.
I would actually send deryliss off with the reaper. With tune up, it will completely boost its first attack, such as the harpoon attack, without spending focus and let it spend its focus stack on additional attacks from the sustained attack helldriver.
I have a pair of shrikes that are great anti-infantry jacks. They can trample over any size base and get boosted to hit attacks while trampling with P+S 11 attacks. In addition, they are immune to free strikes while trampling and it costs them no focus to do it. You could trample into the back ranks and when the opportunity presents itself, go head butt the caster and shoot it up, or charge it with a bunch of banes. The stalker pretty much has the same job, get behind enemy lines, heat butt the caster for assassination.
This list, like most dark host, is a pretty good all comers list and can handle infantry, armor, guns, pretty much anything. Mortenebra's feat with the charging bane warriors can really spike the dice up and increase your odds of hitting. As always, banes fit with almost any caster. Very strong theme.
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Post by Gamingdevil on Oct 19, 2017 9:42:46 GMT
Cheap fodder however is in short supply, in fact pretty non-existent. Banes are not as expensive as they used to be but they are all quality pieces and are worth not sacrificing to your warjacks. Scrap Thralls, Necrotechs, Machine Wraiths and Soul Trapper are all allowed in Dark Host. I like the Infernal Machines write-up for Mortenebra, makes me want to give it a shot.
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Post by tiberius on Oct 19, 2017 10:02:47 GMT
Good point, I could drop one of the light warjacks and load up on a few scrap thralls, a machine wraith and a necrotech.
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Post by tiberius on Oct 19, 2017 12:16:28 GMT
Master Necrotech Mortenebra and Deryliss - Black Industries
Back in MKII, there was a list floating around called Mortenebra's flying circus put together by the forumite Lamoron. He had a blog called the Overseer that had a lot of good write-ups for Cryx...in MKII. A lot of my lists are pretty representative of that list as it had a fleet of bone jacks that flew, jumped and burrowed. Well, as I have discussed before, with how they have changed burrowing, I cannot really recommend the helldiver as there are just plain better choices for almost any application. The Stalkers, Shrikes and Scavengers however are all very solid in their own right and if you want to make a fleet of bone backs, it is a high threat range, hard to protect from group that can slam, headbutt and maneuver around almost anything. Black Industries is the perfect theme to recreate that list. Again there are lots of ways to build it, so season to taste.
Master Necrotech Mortenebra - Deryliss - Kraken - Leviathan - Seether - Stalker x 2 - Shrike x 2 Warwitch Siren Necrotech Cephalyx Mind Slaver and Drudges (max)
So as I mentioned above, I have 4 bone jacks capable of leaping and flying. I could replace something like the leviathan (as I already have a good interface warjack in the kraken) with 2 scavengers and another necrotech. That would complete the flying circus.
I brought a decent screening unit with the drudges. You can use them as sacrificial lamb fodder and they can replentish their numbers with some luck and a good setup. Prep for surgery requires the mind slaver to be in formation and two or more of your models in the unit is in melee range of a living enemy model and box it, you can add a grunt back to the drudge unit. The drudges have tough, combined melee attack and eyeless sight. Though they do lack pathfinder so apart from clouds, that probably doesn't come up very often. They are pretty slow at SPD 5, have a low defense and moderate armor. The mind slaver has combined melee, pathfinder and stealth. They are a cheap unit at 12 pts for a group of tough infantry.
As I mentioned above, the Kraken is my interface target. It has a very high range for a Cryx model with RNG 16, AOE 5 and POW 14 on its hellblaster. The flayer is RNG 12 getting d3+1 initial attacks at POW 12. Neither weapon is restricted to a side (L or R). The melee weapons are 4" reach chain weapons at POW 19. And most of its weapons get stronger as you feed it corpses of enemy models (living or undead). It gets +1 damage on the hellblaster and its melee weapons per corpse tokens up to a max of 3. That means your hellblaster goes to POW 17 with a 7 + 3 blast damage in a 5" AOE. That is fairly impressive if you can get it fed. The kraken also has killshot so if it destroys an enemy model it gets a free ranged attack and colossal are not restricted to the cannot shoot while in melee rule so it always gets its shot off. The harvesters also remove from play so no soul token is generated...FYI.
I included a seether for some additional armor cracking and the ability to split up the group a bit as the screening unit will most likely be on the kraken and most likely spectral steel will be too, because an ARM 21 colossal is pretty hard to deal with while trying to get through a screen of tough chump blockers.
The flyers and stalkers will be flanking and trying to get into the back lines to take out support or look for an opening to slam or head butt the warcaster/warlock, opening it up to assassination from the kraken and leviathan.
The warwitch siren is in the list because you really need one with this many warjacks. Sacrifical lamb helps but she is more focus effiency and help. And her toolbox is always useful. There is something for her to do every round.
Overall, while this theme would have been much better with MKII mortenebra, MKIII mortenebra can make it work well and will be just as effective. The end game is the same.
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Post by tiberius on Oct 19, 2017 13:02:42 GMT
Master Necrotech Mortenebra and Deryliss - Scourge of the Broken Coast
Scourge of the broken coast does about as much for Mortenebra as Dark Host does, only you don't have access to cheap disposable solos here. What you do have instead is faster more mobile infantry with some knock down and feedback tricks. The flying circus works well here too to help with assassination setup.
Master Necrotech Mortenebra - Deryliss - Kraken - Scavenger - Stalker x 2 Satyxis Raider Captain Satyxis Blood Witches + CA Satyxis Gunslingers Satyxis Raiders + CA
Your interface and spectral steel target is probably the kraken which will protect it from most attacks and your superior jamming units in satyxis should be able to keep most threats off of the kraken by providing lots of jam.
Satyxis raiders are pretty key in this list with their reach/feedback/crit knockdown whips and gang. They are accurate with gang and will clear most infantry easily. They can ding up and hurt hard targets which Mortenebra's feat will really help with dice spiking on the charges. The sea witch brings a few interesting abilities. The first being whipping winds which grants force barrier to the unit. That makes them immune to blast damage and gives them +2 DEF against ranged attacks. She also gives them relentless charge which is redundant to the pathfinder bonus given by the theme. She can also give them overtake, which will help in mirror matches or more infantry centric matchups.
The kraken's 5" AOE is great when shooting into your blast damage immune jamming unit. You don't need to worry about killing your own fragile infantry with the hellblaster. Also, the kraken brings a lot of armor cracking to the list when you finally decide to bring it into melee.
The flying and leaping bone jacks can flank and get behind the front lines easily. Especially with the satyxis clearing anything trying to jam them up. This list has access to a lot of knockdown tech between the satyxis raider captain, the raiders, and the bone jacks power attacks.
After your target is knocked down, you have the kraken and the satyxis gun slingers to really light them up. Its pretty much the same end game as most other Mortenebra theme lists. Pop and drop. But your tools can work around steady opponents by playing a decent scenario jamming game as the satyxis are fast and you get an ambushing unit in the blood witches.
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