Well, another Lock and Load has come and gone, and with that, we have an official release for Warmachine & Hordes MK3. As you can probably imagine, this is my favourite time for any game! When there’s something new and fresh, so that we can test and experiment to our cold undead hearts contents! By now, I’m sure everyone has had a chance to see some of the rules revamps and today, I’m going to talk about 2 of our most changed casters briefly.
First, the family picture.
As you guys know, I’m a sucker for fluff pairings and trios, and a while back, I made a post regarding how I like to pair up my casters. This is one of my trios that I call “Secret Agendas”. It was a strong trio before, albeit a boring one outside of Goreshade3. Scaverous and Venethrax in MK2 were quite powerful, but were certainly not the most exciting casters to bring onto the table. This has all changed with MK3. Moving over into the new edition, this trio is actually rather substantially more powerful than it was before, which has me greatly excited, as it was one of my favourite trios to play from a fluff perspective! First, we’re going to go through what changed about these casters and how they will affect the army.
Winter is Coming
Goreshade3 traded Ghostly for Immunity: Cold, and while Immunity: Cold is far more situational and circumstantial in usage than Ghostly, is something that can come in quite handy from time to time (I’m looking at you Sorscha). While I think I would still prefer Ghostly, it did feel somewhat out of place on Goreshade3, whereas Immunity: Cold is something that he should have always had. This is a buff that he gained on Goreshade2 and Goreshade3.
Spell Vortex also got a minor buff, as it now no longer requires it to be a living enemy model, but rather, just an enemy model that casts the spell for Spell Vortex to trigger. Goreshade3 gained Reposition[3], much like how all cavalry gained Reposition, while Voass, his feat and his stats stayed the same.
Goreshade3’s spell list saw some changes, not in terms of what spells he has access to, but more importantly, how the spells function. Infernal Machine retained the +2SPD buff, but now grants Murderous instead of +2MAT. Murderous grants an additional die to attack rolls against warrior models. In the majority of situations, this is a straight up buff. The only time this is worse is when using it to go after warbeasts or warjacks, and hitting warjacks and warbeasts in melee is not something our jacks have typically been known to have problems with. The Harrower and Kraken/Sepulcher were prime targets for Infernal Machine in MK2 and in MK3, this is no different.
The second big change on his spell list is the change to Scything Touch, which now grants Dark Shroud instead of +2 to melee damage rolls, and affects model rather than model/unit. This means that you will no longer be able to stack Scything Touch with Dark Shroud to offer a 4 point damage swing against ARM, which means that dedicated armour crackers are going to be more important to bring with him now.
The biggest change to his spell list has a direct impact on his assassination game, though it may or may not be as big a change, given that people won’t be camping as much for the most part I feel. Siphon Bolt was changed to cost 3 instead of 2, and has gained a point of POW. Given that the primary purpose of the spell was to strip focus or fury, and less of a purely offensive nuke, this is a significant decrease in overall power to Siphon Bolt, as you will only be casting half as many siphon bolts as you previously were able to. However, like I mentioned, this entirely depends on how much people camp going forward with the edition changes. While this is a direct nerf to his assassination game, he’s got quite a potent attrition game, and that is something that isn’t to be overlooked, given that we had about a year to get used to recursion mechanics that require forfeiting action, and a lot of other factions hadn’t gotten used to them yet.
Incidentally, with the change to spell slave, not being able to cast upkeeps and siphon bolt specifying that the “spellcaster” gains the focus, the skarlock has actually lost his place in Goreshade3’s lists, which opens up place for the Combine or Corbeau. I’m actually going to go on a limb now and say that in the majority of cases, I’m going to want Corbeau with him over the other 2 potential caster attachments. The overall nerf to spell slave hit us quite hard and as a result, a lot of our casters who have lots of upkeeps are going to be forgoing the Skarlock now. The Combine is quite strong still, but once again, the nerf to spell slave, and the inability of spell slaves to cycle upkeeps, or cast Mockery of Life means that you’re wasting a rule on the card. This puts me firmly of the opinion that Corbeau is 100% the best caster attachment for Goreshade3 now with her ability to strip Stealth for our various ranged options and make Goreshade3 safe against opposing warrior models. The interesting thing about this is that if you can remove or neutralize your opponent’s battlegroup, Corbeau can make it so that your opponent will have a great deal of trouble targeting Goreshade with anything they have due to Parlay specifying “warrior models”. If you want to make it even more of a nightmare for your opponent, add Wrongeye and Snapjaw to the mix and watch your opponent struggle to remove the trio between Starcrossed, Parlay and Stealth.
Overall, I’m quite happy with Goreshade3 still, and will be playing a lot of him. Even though his role has changed to primarily an attrition based caster, he is still incredibly flexible and will be dominating a lot of tables still. He is still going to be my number 2 caster right behind Deneghra2, but today’s topic isn’t Deneghra2, as there will be a lot of Deneghra2 content coming down the pipe.
At the Gates of Castle Black
Continuing with Game of Thrones themed subject headings, we move on to the second caster in the family, and the one who received few changes, but the changes make a huge difference to his effectiveness.
Lord Exhumator Scaverous has always been one of the most underplayed casters in our faction. In MK2, he brought a solid debuff game, and a really potent assassination threat, but other casters like Deneghra1 and Deneghra2 simply outclassed him. Now, Scaverous has his own identity as one of our strongest abusers of the soul gathering mechanic, and all it too was for him to gain a new passive ability and to take one of the spells from Lich Lord Venethrax (who will be the last caster we talk about today), while everything else remained unchanged.
Knowledge of the Damned is his new passive ability that he gained. It’s an incredibly simply ability that allows Scaverous to spend a soul token to force a model to reroll an attack or damage roll. This can be a friendly model, or an enemy model. This is an incredibly powerful ability that also now encourages you to get into the mix with Avernus to gather up some souls, as you can force your opponent to reroll their successful attack or damage rolls against Scaverous with the souls that you gain with Avernus. This is a great ability that you can use for protecting your other heavies as well, and can seriously mess with your opponents ability to be effective on the battlefield. Once you start gathering up souls, Scaverous and his army can be incredibly hard to move. But what about those times you don’t want to risk Scaverous? What about those times when you need to get the Soul Train started before you can risk his big slayer-framed body?
There are 4 reliable means of getting those souls. Remember Erebus? The jack that everyone probably forgot existed? This is number 1. Erebus gained the universal warjack buffs which makes him a particularly attractive option with Scaverous, due to having 1″ reach which is a significant buff due to the presence of Overtake, as well as the free focus. Additionally, Erebus is naturally tougher than the majority of the Slayer chassis at DEF14 ARM18, and has Poltergeist, which is a particularly useful ability when combined with Knowledge of the Damned. A fully loaded heavy is no longer something that your opponent can reasonably put into Erebus if you have souls on Scaverous and can do something to stop from getting base to base with Erebus. Erebus furthermore gained the ability Freeze on his fists, which allows him to stationary anything he hits that isn’t immune to cold, and Erebus himself gained Immunity: Cold. This works particularly well with one of my personal favourite Cryx models, which isn’t actually a Cryx model (but in my mind, is a Cryx model). One of the buffs that Wrongeye gained was Starcrossed, and if there’s something that sounds like a ridiculous amount of fun, it’s having souls on Scaverous to force an opponent to reroll while they’re under the effects of Starcrossed for maximum levels of frustration. Combine that with Poltergeist on Erebus and you’ve got a very effective zone holding model. Stick Death Ward on Erebus, and you have a DEF14 ARM20 model where your opponent can’t reasonably move him from the table.
The second effective means of getting the Soul Train started are Soul Trappers in conjunction with soul gathering models such as Malice, Harrowers, and Soulhunters. This still requires solid board positioning and good setup of the Soul Trappers the turn before you want to use them, but remains an effective means of soul gathering, especially since Harrowers and Malice now collect from 5″ out, which makes the positioning and order of activations significantly easier to plan out now.
The third means of getting the Soul Train starting is the spell that Scaverous picked up from Venethrax, Soul Harvester. This spell turns a model or unit into a soul collecting unit, and allows all of the souls to end up in Scaverous’ possession. This is a significant boost to his effectiveness, and works incredibly well with Knowledge of the Damned. Remember that any souls left over at the start of the turn convert to focus so any leftover souls that you don’t end up using aren’t completely for naught, as you will be able to utilize them next turn to power up his incredibly potent spell list. Granted, Scaverous has traded away Ghost Walk in order to attain Soul Harvester, but it’s not all that difficult to get Saxon Orrik into the list to provide pathfinder if needed. This will likely be the most common way for Scaverous to attain souls as it is also the safest way for him to do so. The gift from Venethrax, combined with his Knowledge of the Damned is something that grants Scaverous incredible game, however, that will once again be opponent dependent, so there is a possibility that he can be very strong, or be incredibly weak depending on how your meta shapes up.
The last means that he has of getting the soul train started is Feast of Worms. While it works similarly to how it worked before, they added an additional effect where Scaverous collects souls from models that are underneath the template.
At the moment, my Scaverous lists are all starting here:
Lord Exhumator Scaverous (*27pts)
* Withershadow Combine (9pts)
* Erebus (16pts)
* Deathripper (6pts)
* Deathripper (6pts)
Soul Trapper (1pts)
Soul Trapper (1pts)
Wrongeye & Snapjaw (17pts)
This gives you a starting point of 29/75 points, and packs the core models that I want with Scaverous.
Wrath of the Dragonfather
This is by far the most changed caster in the entire faction, and quite possibly the most changed model in the entire faction. Venethrax has changed from a slow campy caster who gorged on souls to become an invincible super solo, and has turned into a fantastic control caster. So, given that he mostly changed entirely, what did Venethrax actually keep?
The first thing that Venethrax actually kept was Lamentation. An incredibly potent upkeep that doubles the cost of spells, as well as upkeeping spells, this is one of the best ways of hampering a lot of caster oriented strategies. Lamentation has stayed the same and no longer fights with Dragon Slayer for which upkeep to put on Venethrax, as Dragon Slayer no longer exists. He kept Dismember, which still gives him an incredibly significant damage output against warbeasts of all varieties, especially since he’s still MAT8 and SPD6 with a 2″ melee range for good personal threat. He still has Blood Rain, which is a fairly average nuke and still has Cull Soul as per all the Lich Lords.
This is where the similarities end.
First off, Venethrax gained a point of ARM and gained an additional point of STR to compensate for losing Dragon Slayer. I much prefer this as it removes the need to gorge and cycle between Lamentation, Soul Harvester and Dragon Slayer. This also makes him less hampered by upkeep removal and the changes to overboosted powerfields means he can actually afford to cast and stay safe while doing so.
Venethrax’s old clunky feat is now gone. Instead, Wyrmbane now has Eruption of Ash, which is the same rule that Thagrosh has on Rapture. Instead of having to feat to make hazards now, Venethrax just has to get in there and kill a pair of infantry models to make the clouds instead, which allows him to do it every turn, albeit in a far less broad application. This means that Venethrax is able to keep himself extremely safe from single wound infantry. His new feat is far simpler in application and simply doesn’t allow allocating or leeching in his control area. This is a great way for Venethrax to protect his army against opposing jacks and beasts, while getting up there to put Eruption of Ash templates to protect against opposing infantry. It’s a strong denial tool that goes great with his new spell list.
Venethrax’s spell list is the most altered part of his game. The only spells that he kept from his previous incarnation were Lamentation and Blood Rain. Lamentation fits into his strong denial game by really stifling opposing casters unless they back out of the Lamentation bubble. Since Venethrax will be midfield or further forward, this means that opposing casters will need to back up quite far, and potentially risk kill box in order to do so.
Venethrax gained another excellent control spell in Deadweight. While everyone may be going nuts over him gaining Terminal Velocity, I personally feel that Deadweight is the strongest spell that he gained. Deadweight is a deceptively simple spell. Use it as a nuke to snipe out an opposing warrior model, then make another model within 2″ forfeit its movement or action next turn. Another awesome thing about it is that because it isn’t an upkeep spell, you can cast it through a spell slave and control even more things than you were able to before. Another advantage to Deadweight is that you can’t shake it, which means that you’re getting value through it no matter what, as the spell is effectively a 2-for-1 at all times. One thing that you need to be wary of when you’re trying to abuse Deadweight as a control spell is the presence of Tough, as Tough can seriously hamper your control game in that regard if your opponent gets lucky. Thankfully, Venethrax has a means of mitigating that.
Venethrax gained a debuff in Mortality. Once again, Mortality isn’t an upkeep which means that you can cast it through Deathjack or a Spell Slave, and applies -2DEF/-2ARM and removes Tough from the model/unit that you hit with Mortality. This is how you can get around tough to fully abuse Deadweight, which will be quite strong with all of the big battlegroups that everyone will be excited to play early on. However, even if you aren’t using it to abuse Deadweight, Mortality is a fantastic debuff that allows you to really get work done, significantly increasing the damage output of your army with it. The importance of Venethrax’s spells leads me to strongly always consider the Withershadow Combine and Deathjack with him. Don’t forget that Mortality now affects repair as well, as healing and repairing are both means of “removing damage”, which Mortality stops. This is another great control mechanism as it allows you to stifle an opposing heavy hitter that is damaged, by preventing it from repairing any systems or aspects that are knocked out.
The last spell that Venethrax gained is Terminal Velocity, which he outright stole from Mortenebra (who no longer has Terminal Velocity). This is one of the 2 battlegroup abilities that Venethrax gained, which allows him to efficiently run his battlegroups. His strong spell list means that I won’t be spamming heavies with him, but at the same time, I definitely want at least 2 or 3 combat jacks to take advantage of his battlegroup support abilities. Terminal Velocity is fantastic. It is excellent on any of our jacks that can effectively go into groups of infantry and run through them. Harrowers, Krakens, and Sepulchers are great examples of jacks that can do this with their 2″ and 4″ melee ranges, and the ability to Thresher or Sweep, while jacks such as the Inflictor are good because of the added likelihood of triggering Critical: Poison.
In the vein of battlegroup support abilities, Venethrax also gained Field Marshall: Countercharge. The thing about Countercharge is that you don’t need a lot of jacks to take advantage of this. 2 or 3 strong heavies is rather adequate for it. My feeling at the moment on Venethrax’s jacks is that building for Terminal Velocity and Countercharge is a trap, and you need to leverage his full spell list to really maximize his effectiveness. That being said, this is where a lot of my lists with Venethrax are starting:
Lich Lord Venethrax (*26pts)
* Withershadow Combine (9pts)
* Deathjack (23pts)
* Harrower (16pts)
* Inflictor (13pts)
* Deathripper (6pts)
This leaves you with 34 points left for the rest of your army, which gives you about half of your army points left to massage in some units and support. This gives you 2 additional spellcasting outlets, while not stretching his focus so thin that he is unable to power his battlegroup. The 34 points allows you to add in 1 to 2 units, and maybe 1 to 2 support models to fill out any gaps that you may have for the match ups that you want to cover.
We’ll be testing more, but these are just some initial impressions that I have on these 3 casters. MK3 has made it a very exciting time for testing and this is something that I’m greatly looking forward to for the next few months!
’til next time!
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