Warlocks Part 3

One more post about warlocks and then on to some other topics.

7) Thagrosh, the Messiah - The main man. His is the model that got me playing Legion (well, him and Typhon). I love his play style - he's good at buffing up his army, but he's also good at charging in and destroying the world in hand-to-hand combat. I found in Mark I he was very solid - definitely beatable, as a large base and only average defensive stats made him pretty easy to shoot or spell to death, and I rarely had more than one Fury to hang onto for transfers. You had to be very careful with him, but he rewarded intelligent play with legendary brutality.

He actually made the transition to Mark II relatively unscathed. He does have the fewest beast points in Hordes, which is painful, but nothing you can't deal with. It means you get Typhon for the same price as an Angelius, as I actually can't imagine running Typhon without Thagrosh (his three sprays at POW 14 are SO GOOD with Manifest Destiny). He's a hard warlock to run below 50 points, as he needs at least two heavies, with one of them being Typhon and the other in my experience being a Carnivean. He can run pretty much any beasts you want, though, and the nice part is that unlike our other beast 'locks like Vayl and Saeryn he gets the job done himself.

Some people will tell you he's overpowered. These people are silly people. He's strong, but keep in mind that a caster with a superior spread of stats and access to Khador infantry has a superior version of Manifest Destiny that affects his entire army for a mere one Focus point more. The Messiah also comes on a large base that's easy to peg and hard to hide.

8) Vayl, Disciple of Everblight - I like Vayl. A lot. But she's kind of boring. Honestly, she has kind of a weak spell list. Hoarfrost isn't that great - 3" AoEs are simply not impressive in Mark II, and you pay a lot for a simple POW 13 with a critical effect. Not a good spell. Malice is simply weak. Rampager has no use against six out of ten factions. So that leaves you with Leash and Incite. Leash is great. It helps you ping-pong her requisite Angelii all over the board and gives you the means to reposition and increase the speed of some scary beasts - Incited Angelii are MAT 8 with POW 16 thrusts. Incite is also great - a little tiny bit tricksy to make sure ranged beasts can take advantage of it, because the target has to be in her control area too, but frankly, anyone who tells you this is a problem for a warlock with a 16" control area is trying to sell you something. It's not significant. Her Feat is also very weak, in my opinion. If you want to get best results, you have to not do what you should be doing, killing enemy models. Don't like it. And without being immune to free strikes during the move, it makes you pretty vulnerable. Okay for a bit of repositioning, but kind of weak. You should probably count the number of enemy models when she pops her feat rather than at the end of the round. It still wouldn't be great, but it would be an awful lot better.

So where does Vayl stand? Because of Incite and Leash she's definitely a tournament contender. You have to be careful with her, because she is the squishiest caster in either game, but a 16" control area makes that a bit easier as long as you don't get her CRA'd. She just feels so limited. She's too squishy to move up front and participate, but why should she anyway? Her spell list is just so bad aside from Leash and Incite. Most of my games involve sending beasts forward, strafing stuff to death with RAT 7 POW 14 Seraphim, and spamming Tenacity. Not thrilling. I really wish she had old Hoarfrost back. It was a VERY good spell, but I don't think too good, and in today's world of unit formations being able to spread out across all creation, it wouldn't be any more powerful than a decent roll on Chain Lightning. It would also give her something to do with her awesome Fury stat.

In closing - I think Legion has a lot of really good, competitive warlocks. I don't want to rank them, because I think rankings are going to depend a lot on how the finalized rules shake out and on individual player preference. That being said, I think you can at least tier them. My tiers:

High: Thagrosh, the Messiah, Vayl, Saeryn
Mid-High: Absylonia, Lylyth, the Herald, Lylyth, the Shadow
Low: Thagrosh, the Prophet, Rhyas

I scored them that way for one simple reason - Menoth. Isn't that sad? I'll touch on the topic later, but the first three have answers for Menoth in general and Kreoss in particular. The mid-tier have problems with Purification - BIG problems. Absylonia lives and dies by her upkeeps, and can't afford to keep recasting them. Lylyth needs Parasite (even though a lot of the time you'll be killing what you cast it on) and Tenacity, as well as Safeguard from the Nephilim Protector a lot of the time. Epic Lylyth absolutely cannot deal with Purification. It completely shuts her down. She NEEDS Shadow Pack and Shadow Stalk. If those go away, she's pretty much doomed to be shot to death by all and sundry. Therefore, upkeep and animus hate hurts her unusually badly, but I'm finding she's strong enough in other matchups to bring as a viable secondary list in tournament situations.

That finishes warlocks. More general stuff later.