Field Test Part 1: Legion Warlocks

I don't think I'm saying anything too controversial when I say that the Legion has the best warlocks. This isn't to say that I think Legion is the best Hordes faction (primarily because I don't) but in general their warlocks are just a touch more powerful than those other factions. Here are my thoughts on how they are turning out as of today, in no particular order. Well. In alphabetical order.

1) Absylonia, Terror of Everblight

As far as I'm concerned, she's the success story of the entire Field Test. Her incarnation in the original rules document was pretty much exactly the same as her Mk. I incarnation except nerfed in a couple of ways, which made her a mess, to put it nicely. She was kind of a melee assassin without the juice to actually assassinate things in melee.

Her updated version is just fantastic. Basically, she synergizes with each of our three melee heavies to grant them something they need, and acts like a beast-booster, until the end when she can finish the opposing caster herself if she has to. Carniveans with Reach (or Typhon, now that he doesn't have it inherently...) and thumbs? Angelii with base DEF of 16 and POW 16 thrusts? MAT 9 Typhon that heals Abby for d3 every time he kills a living model? Yeah, she's got all that. AND free upkeeps for her battlegroup. AND the ability to give herself a free Tenacity or True Strike every round. Throw in warps that she can actually use, unlike her Mark I incarnation, and she's a very solid, very Fury-efficient caster. Don't listen to people who say she's too much - she's not. She is, however, incredibly fun to play, and according to my opponents, to play against. I'll probably

2) Lylyth, Herald of Everblight

Lylyth is my lady. I rarely played the Herald in Mark I, because I found her incredibly boring and one-dimensional. She didn't do much but stand back and pick off support solos such, and didn't support her army in the slightest, a super-solo type of caster like Caine but significantly worse at shooting units to death. Epic Lylyth was so much better at, well, everything, than her.

How things change. In Mark II, she's a remarkably fun caster, and amusingly, all they did was swap out Taint (which was useless) for Parasite (which is amazing). She now supports her army, and unlike most other support warlocks, she supports infantry as well. Essentially, she points at one target, be it unit or single important model, every turn, and she and her army remove it from the board. She can do it from quite a ways out, and with Eyeless Sight it's hard to hide from her. She's squishy and dies to harsh language, but definitely a good caster, probably one of my favorites.

3) Lylyth, Shadow of Everblight

Lylyth is still my lady. I'll be honest: When they posted her new version, I was skeptical. More than skeptical: I thought she was awful. Spell list was unremarkable outside of the amazing Shadow Stalk, and generating only two attacks was pretty rough. Not only that: She had to be immobile in order to do her best trick, and an immobile Legion caster is a dead Legion caster, right?

Well, wrong. She's incredibly mobile - she just moves on your opponent's turn thanks to Shadow Stalk (15"!) and Pursuit (13"!). I saw that in the original rules, but discounted it to some degree. It's hard to discount it on the table, though. Watching her move 14" on my opponent's turn was remarkable, as was how it's started to make my opponents completely shut down. It is a little harrowing to let your opponent dictate how your warlock moves, but if you're even reasonably good at targeting things with Shadow Stalk she's pretty easy to keep safe. I've gotten into a habit that will eventually lose me games with her where I use ALL of her Fury every turn, saving nothing for transfers and depending on Shadow Stalk to keep her safe. This is because I haven't been playing a lot of ranged armies with her or armies that can mitigate or ignore the Stealth she gets from Shadow Pack. Obviously things would run differently against those sorts of armies.

I'm very surprised with how much fun I've had with her. I think she's very close to being perfect. She's a pretty solid ranged assassin, though her army composition fairly dictates itself - dual Angels as spot removers, Striders to help thin out infantry, et cetera. She needs a little tweak, though. Specifically, Lock the Target is not a good spell for her. She's VERY rarely going to have the Fury to boost damage on it, which means that you're probably not going to be damaging the kinds of things that you want the secondary effect of the spell on. I've said, and I've always said, that Calamity would be about a hundred times better, and it would give her a unique role as the Legion infantry warlock. Most of my opponents agree. That being said, if she went to press exactly as she is now, I would still play her frequently. I just probably wouldn't reach for her first at a tournament. I have some real doubts about how she'll perform against Menoth when they can just remove her upkeeps and animi with their best casters then blast her into paste. Nobody's perfect, but Rhoven and company ensure that she'll have a problem.

This is getting long, so I'll finish up in another post.