It’s that time of year again….we’re starting to get teasers for what will be coming out in Vengeance and beyond! I’ve been formulating thoughts on what our new releases are going to be as well as doing some wish-listing, as much as everyone else has been. With that being said, I’m going to start with a caster that we knew we were getting, but without so much as a lick of information on him, this is perfect for rampant WILD speculation.
Goreshade, Lord of Ruin – We knew we were getting a Warcaster on a horse, the question was always going to be who would figure out how to ride a horse first. After Lock and Load, when we finally got the concept art for Bane Cavalry, it made the most sense for Goreshade to be our first mounted Warcaster. I can safely say that I am excited for Goreshade3. I like horses and any time I can have more horses in a list, that makes me happy. I’m going to wishlist a few things that I would like to see on Goreshade3.
First thing that I would really love to see on Goreshade, Lord of Ruin is Shadow Pack. I feel that Shadow Pack would be perfectly fair and balanced on him, as it would finally allow for a different style of play that we have been sorely missing in Cryx. Shadowmancer simply wasn’t a good enough spell due to having to recast it every single turn, which would leave Goreshade1 unable to do anything else (including fuel his jacks). With Shadow Pack, he would be able to actually run jacks effectively, which would finally give us the ability to run more of our heavies (especially Slayers) because they might actually have a chance to make it up the board without getting their arms or cortex shot off (and otherwise being a general waste of points). How we balance Shadow Pack is just to make sure that he won’t have spells worth arcing so that we don’t have the issue of stealth arc nodes being a little too much.
Continuing on with the jack theme, Mobility is the other spell that I really want to see Goreshade3 have. These 2 spells would set Goreshade3 up perfectly to be an efficient jack caster and would finally allow us to change up our list building instead of just our usual infantry spams. This would fit into a theme of a speedy battlegroup that would be able to keep up with Goreshade while he leads the charge.
I’m now going to ask for a spell that we have never had. The reasoning here is simple. In his first iteration, Goreshade had mage blight, which allowed him to turn off all spell casting and feats. In his second incarnation, he lost the ability to turn them off, and instead, was able to punish people from casting through arcane consumption and get rid of upkeeps through Hex Blast. I’ll give you a second to see if you can follow where I’m going with this…
…
Got it yet? I’ll give you another second…
…
Yes, that’s right, I want Purification. However, lets change it up a bit so that it has more flavour because it doesn’t seem very Cryxian to want to “purify” anything. So here’s a change to it that would fit more into theme:
Desecration – COST3, RNG CMD. All upkeep spells, animi and continuous effects in Goreshade’s command expire. Models suffer d3 damage points for each of those spells they controlled.
This seems overtly stronger than Purification. However, the big thing here is that it is only command range instead of control area, which goes a long way towards balancing the effect of it. This gives it an interesting flair that keeps it Cryxian in nature without going overboard.
However, this last one really is just me stretching. What I really do want him to get is Shadow Pack and Mobility so that we can finally get an interesting spin on how we can choose to play and start making use of models that never get table time.
Another interesting idea is that instead of getting the jack support, he gets a spell like Road To War, or a spell that can target a unit to grant them desperate pace for a round at the cost of killing a model in the unit after the unit has finished its activation. However, that one may just get a lynch mob out. However, that would be something different as well because we have never had a caster who really can speed up anything in mass, while we have always had ways to help us hit and do damage. If Goreshade3 is a caster who can finally start to give us that, then that would be an interesting new way for us to play and that is something that I am really looking to find with new releases.
The other thing I would love to see with him is an elite cadre of some sort for Bane Cavalry. It feels like that would be a very Goreshade thing to do, having his own elite honour guard following him around.
What do you guys think? Am I asking for too much or would these actually be reasonable to ask for? Let me know in the comments below!
Until next time!
Welcome to the Midnight Carnival 