I have been
playing with Goreshade the bastard, just because I love his fluff. I am drawn
to the sad story that he wishes to help his people, but in the process of helping
his people he forgets about ethics and is shunned as a monster when he resorts
to extreme measures.
As a
warcaster he is not the easiest to get started with. He has a great feat in
that he summons a minimum unit of bane Thralls. He has 5 spells, but I rarely
cast more than hex blast, mage blight and Shadowmancer. He is a 7 focus caster,
but with expensive spells (3,5,3). I know that he is considered one of the “lesser”
cryx casters, but I have played him for a while and my last 4 games has been
with this 50 point list shown below.
This is an
explanation of the choices I made while list building.
I will
start with my choice of warjacks.
I picked
deathjack first. This is not only because he is a hard hitter but also because
he can cast spells. As I mentioned above goreshade has a five focus spell, mage
blight, and this leaves him with less focus than what is needed to cast hex
blast. By allocating 2 focus to deathjack, I can boost a hex blast and still be
able to keep up mage blight. This makes deathjack a great spell buddy for
goreshade. Beyond that, death jack is almost always able to show off by killing
a jack, beast or even hurt a colossal.
Next up, I wanted
an arch node to get hex blast on the opposing flank to the death jack. I am a
big fan of the Defilers spray as I can use its attack while using its arch
node. That is, however, just my personal opinion, and I know people who swear
by different arch nodes. Goreshade offers stealth and Darkshroud which arguably
is better on melee oriented bone jacks, but if my arch node is in melee I just
lost the reason why I brought it.
Since one
of the spells I use the most offers buffs that fit melee jacks rather than
shooting jacks I wanted to bring an additional one of those. Goreshade is a little
starved for focus, so seether was a logical choice. On its early turns, it
needs no focus, and when it goes crazy 2 focus is enough to fill it up.
Next up, my
choice of soloes.
I bring 2
pistol wraiths. These are good objective grabbers, but are quite expensive. The
shooting can clear some charge lanes, but I bring infantry that can do the
same. They are rarely what wins me the game, but my opponents play their soloes
more carefully and on the random occasion getting a colossal to forfeit
movement or action they pay back their point cost with interest.
I bring Bane
Lord Tartarus to increase the impact of Goreshades feat. Goreshade charges
forward, uses his feat to create 6 bane thralls as far in front of him as possible.
Then I activate Tartarus and hopefully charge a unit of living models close so
the target of my banes. On my best day he created an additional 4 thralls with
his thresher while being able to curse a colossal. They where then able to
charge and kill the big fellow. I have used just getting him close to the enemy
caster for the curse. This gives Goreshade a 23,5 inch threat on his banes. Love
this guy with Goreshade.
I also bring
my Styxis Raider Captain. I have used this model for some 50 games and I use it
to clear charge lanes by charging and killing an annoying model and using
sprint to get away. I always play it behind my front line, because she has no
survivability and it is always good to be able to run 14 inch and claim an
objective. For the first few rounds I use her to buff satyxis raiders with
desperate pace.
Finally units
As
Goreshades lacks defense debuffs beyond the fragile Deathwalker I like to
include bile thralls. Their purge ability makes to chances to get a caster
assassination with his feat much larger as well as gives you a great options
for taking out Iron Fleshed Winter Guards. Just about one purge will probably payback
your point investment, while giving loads of great options for the rest of your
army.
I see a load
of units with tough standing between my hardest hitters and the target I want
to get. To overcome this I bring a minimum unit of blood witches with UA. With ethereal
they can also be combined with bile thralls, as they become immune to purge.
To get a
unit to give me the alpha strike and force my enemy to stay on his side of the
board I bring Satyxis Raiders with UA. This unit can cover a flank, take out
soloes, harm hard model/units with UA mini feat, and can run and engage models
within 18 inch to reduce the impact of ranged models. Goreshade gives nothing
to this unit, but it does okay (read awesome) on its own.
The List
looks like this
Goreshade
the Bastard (+6)
Death
walker (0)
Deathjack
(12)
Defiler (5)
Seether (9)
Pistol
wraith (3)
Pistol
wraith (3)
jBane Lord
Tarterus (4)
Satyxis
Raider Captain (2)
Min size
bile thralls (5)
Min size
Satyxis Raiders with UA (7)
Satyxis
Blood Witches with UA (6)
And on a
picture something like this:
But don’t forget
that with his feat you will also get these
And with
this guy, I have had them almost double in numbers on a single turn.
I always
preffere to play with painted miniatures, but deathjack still needs some finishing
touches. I am extremely happy about how the freehand turned out, and even with colossal
all over the place I hope it will make him stand out as a centerpiece for any
army that includes him.
Before I made
this list I played some 5-10 games with Goreshade, with decent outcome (more
win then loss). Since I made the list I played with it against eStriker (in
this game mageblight was key to winning) Irusk with colossal (Shadowmacer until
feat turn for win) Vyros with two colossals (all feat, turn 2 attempt, dice
raped – luckily opponent made a ballsy call and failed his assassination run by
1/8th of an inch so I got a second chance. This time I did not fail)
and finally Zaal (won due to Seether, feat and Goreshade who destroyed an
objective and cleared a flag).
He may be among
the worst casters cryx has to offer, but he still manages to pull some wins against
the best in my local gaming environment and had fun while doing it. I can hardly wait to try out his epic version,
but before I get to that I have this urge to use my kraken more, as well as my
witch coven and it looks like they might go together due to infernal machine.
No comments:
Post a Comment