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My blog is primarily my own personal fluff in the Warhammer 40,000 universe regarding the Draconis system such as the Knight House Yato in Ryusei, their Household Militia, the Draconian Defenders, and the Forge World of Draconis IV with its Adeptus Mechanicus priesthood, Cybernetica cohorts and Skitarii legions, and the Titan Legion, Legio Draconis, known as the Dark Dragons.

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Tuesday, December 6, 2016

Oh, the Horror!

The new Wrath of Magnus has datasheets for the new Horrors! Let's take a look at them and see what has changed.

Pink Horrors

Well, there are a few major changes to the Pink Horrors we're all so familiar with. Their point cost has remained the same - 90 points for 10 of them. Most of the stats are the same, you can add 10 additional Pink Horrors for 9 points per model, upgrade one Pink Horror into an Iridescent Horror for 5 points, are at WS, BS, S, T, I 3, 1 wound and attack each, with a pathetic Leadership 7 (though being a Daemon of Tzeentch that will rise to 10 if you successfully cast a spell...Flickering Fire, I'm looking at you). They come with the same upgrades at the same points, you know, the usual Rewards, Instrument of Chaos and Icon of Chaos. Though now you have more options for your Icon of Chaos, you can upgrade them to arcane icon, blasted standard and icon of fire. And they retain the Magic Made Manifest rule, so if you want to spam warp charges, get 11-15 for 2 and 16-20 for 3. I wouldn't bother though, considering how easily they're killed, so you might as well invest those points elsewhere unless you happen to have 9 or 18 points left over after building your entire list.

What are the major differences then?

Well, the giant difference that first stands out is their new Special Rule, Split. Split allows each slain Pink Horror to ceate two Blue Horrors. Yes, you read that right. For each dead Pink Horror model (we're counting PER model here), you spawn 2 free Blue Horrors in its place. Awesome. They have to join a Blue Horror unit if there is any within 6" (this is to make sure all the Blue Horrors spawned froom slain Pink Horrors end up in the same unit), but that 10-strong Pink Horror squad you just wiped out ended up spawning 20 Blue Horrors 6" away. Just awesome. There is no end to them, and I'll explain why later. Anyway, yes, that's the new rule granted to the Pink Horrors, so yay.

The other new difference is that Pink Horrors only have powers from the Change discipline. They can no longer take powers from the Daemonic Malefic discipline. So no more spamming giant squads of Pink Horrors for that Primaris Summoning spell to generate even more Pink Horrors. This is to offset their Split rule, I guess, so don't worry too much of not having access to that Summoning. Honestly, it's cheesy and not that effective unless your sole goal is to flood the table with units, and it's hard to pull off anyway, so it's not a loss. Comparatively you don't need to spend warp charges and pass psychic tests to spawn Blue Horrors when your Pink Horrors die, so it's a win-win here.

I think you've to take note that even if you take Pink Horrors as your Troops choice in a Combined Arms Detachment, the Blue Horrors they spawn do not share that same Objective Secured that your Pink Horrors have. Why? Because they count as a different unit and detachment, and do not count as your selected Troops choice. So don't let your opponent fool you when he claims his newly spawned Blue Horrors can contest that objective with Objective Secured when you have scoring units on it.

Blue Horrors

Discount Pink Horrors, basically, that cost a little more than half of their predecessors. 50 points for a squad of 10 is really cheap, and allows you more points for your other options. Plus each model only costs 5 points, so you can bring 20 for 100 points! Yay. On the other hand, their stats are a little weaker - while they retain WS, BS and I 3, 1 Wound and 1 Attack, they only have S and T 2 now. As with Pink Horrors, they have only a meager leadership 7, but again you can buff that to 10 if you successfully cast a psychic power. They are also Brotherhood of Sorcerers, and only have access to the Change discipline, so yeah - spam those Flickering Fire Primaris power. Similarly to Pink Horrors, they have the Magic's Offspring that allows them to generate 2 Warp Charges instead of 1 if you have 11-20 of them. Nice.

What makes them stand out is Split Again, which like Pink Horrors, allow Blue Horrors to split when they die. Each slain Bue Horror will create 2 pairs of Brimstone Horrors So you'll have 20 pairs of Brimstone Horrors if your 10-men Blue Horror squad is killed! Follow the rules as above - put the newly spawned Brimstone Horrors within 6" of the slain Blue Horrors, blah blah. You know. The usual. Pretty awesome, eh?

Brimstone Horrors

And now the star of the book and the newest units yet - the Brimstone Horrors! These guys are the best Troops choice in the game right now. Think about it. Just 10 pairs of them cost 30 points (and you can have 20 pairs for 60 points! And each of them has a 5++ invulnerable save. Not only that, they differ from their Pink and Blue brethren by having 2 wounds. Yes, you read that right. TWO wounds each. Not only are they simply the cheapest units or Troops choice in the entire game (I think, someone correct me if I'm wrong), they have 2 wounds AND a 5++ invulnerable save each, making them resilient for a model that only costs 3 points.

Wait, you cry. But they're only T1, so their 2 wounds don't matter as every and any weapon, including S3 lasguns will Instant Death them! Well, you're right. But that still makes them incredibly useful against S1 Haywire weapons, S1 Poison weapons and allows them to survive Perils of the Warp. Not only that, stuff like Psychic Shriek and other attacks or Witchfire spells that makes a unit suffers a wound without having any Strength value will simply be ineffective against their numerous wounds. 20 wounds for 30 points? Yes, please.

But yeah, given their S1, make sure you don't charge them into combat. They retain WS, BS and I 3, but their Attack got buffed to 2. Hmm...no point, since they're only S1 and probably can't hurt anything. But that's not why you're using them. You're spamming Brimstone Horrors because they're cheap, spammable and unusually resilient. Thanks to the formations, you can bring 9 squads of Brimstone Horrors (I'm looking at you, Brimstone Conflagration), flood the table with them and spam Flickering Fire thanks to them generating powers from the Change discipline. And they're cheap and expendable! You can lose all those squads, it's fine. They're just there to grab an objective and then die. And when they die, there's more where they came from! Even 9 squads of them take up a mere 270 points in your list (so a Brimstone Conflagration costs 320 points). The rest of the 1,530 points you can spend on whatever you want, 3 Renegade Knights, Screamer Star with Fateweaver, Magnus the Red and his super-expensive Thousand Sons Detachment (I actually have one of my Thousand Sons Grand Coven incorporating a single allied Brimstone Conflagration for grabbing objectives and putting more bodies on the table), you dream it you have it. Sure, you might not have Objective Secured, but you're supposed to use the heavy firepower that you invested the rest of your points in to wipe the unit off the Objective before running your Brimstone Horrors over to grab it. That's probably the best way to use them - and if they die, so what? Your opponent basically erased a 30-point unit that already scored you a VP. No skin off your back, or so we say. Or you can congratulate your opponent for a job well done and snicker to yourself, "Just as Planned!" the Tzeentch way.

So what do you guys think of these new Horrors? They're horrifying, right? This is why horror fans love Horrors!

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