Hordes/Tactics/Legion of Everblight

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Why Play Legion of Everblight?

Fuck you, I'm an army of dragons!

The Legion of Everblight consists of elves and ogrun who have been corrupted and beholden to the will of the army's eponymous dragon (who is currently a hunk of rock occupying some of said elves' chests: IK dragons are weird), as well as the monsters that said dragon has created from the flesh of his army's victims and the blood of his chosen generals. Said dragon is also the scrappy underdog (whelp?) of the dragon world, and unlike the other army led by a dragon he thinks that kaiju movies totally shit over zombie movies.

In many respects the Legion is a typical glass-cannon army: it wants to use its speed and ranged ability to its advantage, forcing the opponent into bad positions and trades that allow the Legion player to gain a strong lead before the relative fragility of their models becomes a factor. Aiding in this are ample access to Eyeless Sight, Pathfinder and Flight, allowing the Legion to more easily set up its attacks by using the terrain on the board as a shield from its foes. You may lack the tricksiness of the Circle and the raw balls-out melee power of the Skorne but fuck that shit, you have Ravagores.

Everyone will hate you, because you aren't really playing Warmahordes. You're playing a much simpler game with much easier rules that all favor you.

TL:DR; They are what the Dark Eldar would be if they were in a wargame which actually favoured melee glass cannon gameplay. And that's awesome.

General Strategy

Legion plays as a bit of a glass cannon army, but is fully capable of tanking with numerous warbeasts. Speaking of which, Legion of Everblight is one of the best factions to run warbeasts in the game.Your lesser warbeasts can be spammed quite easily, especially with eThagrosh. I always take at least one shredder in my lists, as they make great utility "missiles". Likewise, your Heavies can tear apart whole formations. Carniveans can chew through infantry and heavies alike on the charge, Ravagores sport one of the most devestating AoE attacks in the game, and Angelii are devastating with their Armor Piercing tails. Fury management for you is likewise cheap. Shepards are amazing one point solos for fury handling, and forsaken couple fury management abilities with awesome anti-caster AoEs and even combat prowess in a pinch. It can be quite shooty, depending on how your warlock and how many raptors/ravagores/seraphim you bring. With Eyeless sight, you can be devastating against armies that require certain protective effects. Between the pathfinder and flight you will have little trouble navigating the board. Many Circle armies can do nothing but sit down and cry as you wade through their forests and stealth and eat their druids.

Unit Analysis

Warlocks

• Absylonia, Terror of Everblight (Absylonia1): The freaky mutant Absylonia is a great warlock for the newbies, but isn't performing that well in tournament play because she suffers from some very nasty hard counters. Stat-wise she's very solid, if a little on the fragile side, and well-lent to assassination gameplay. She has four spells, three of which are awesome-but-cheap upkeepable buffs, and she doesn't pay for upkeeps on her personal warbeasts. Her feat fully recharges her health, and then lets her fully heal her warbeasts if she takes one point of damage per warbeast. Her tier list basically consists of nothing but warbeasts and beast support, and provides lots of Advance Deployment and Advance Move as well as a points cost improvement for warbeasts. This all leads to a lot of people playing her as a simple buff-then-charge warlock with the feat as backup if the game becomes a battle of attrition, but this strategy is easily countered by anti-beast or anti-magic armies (both of which are fairly common these days). If you want to play Absylonia in a more nuanced way, forget about the tier list and look to the Ogryn units to bring some extra bodies into play. Remember, you can cast Carnivore on Ogryns, but you'll have to pay for the upkeep.

• Mark 3 changed Abby a lot, though whether for better or worse depends on how you look at her. Her stat line traded a point of DEF to gain a point of ARM. Reach mutation is gone, replaced by Ashen Veil. Her flight grants a SPD buff. All her Forsaken models get Ashen Veil, which is a pretty sweet as it can help keep them alive. Spell-wise, she lost Carnivore, Playing God and Blight Field, picking up Aggravator, Blight Burst and Wild Aggression. Aggravator gives her warbeasts a bit of a boost in mobility, Blight Burst is a potent AOE which causes those caught in it to be unable to spend focus, channel spells, or be forced. Wild Aggression gives charges for free and boosted melee attack rolls, which is great.

• Absylonia, Daughter of Everblight (Absylonia2): Absylonia2 is all about her warbeasts, even more than her previous incarnation, if you can believe that. Alpha Hunter gives a passive that lets her battlegroup run, charge, or power attack without spending focus. If she gets a kill shot at any time, they gain buffs to SPD and MAT for a turn. She can steal focus/fury with her stinger, and she repositions quite far. Her spells boost defense, healing, and allow for counterattacks. Her feat is a massive boost for melee models. Unsurprisingly, she works best with melee battlegroups, and boosts their mobility in a frightening way.
• Bethayne, Voice of Everblight & Belphagor: Feat boosts all magic attack and damage rolls for a turn. Max out on Hex Hunters, Nyss Sorceresses, Blackfrost Shard and such and go nuts.
• Lylyth, Herald of Everblight (Lylyth1): The starter warlock in the Legion's Battlebox, Lylyth is not entirely typical of the Everblight playstyle, but still very much supports assassination-driven gameplay. When she tags an enemy with her bow, her warbeasts can charge that enemy without gaining fury, and she can automatically hit it with offensive spells. Ideally, she wants to shoot a key target, cast Parasite, run away, have her Raptors harry it for a while, and then send a couple of warbeasts charging in to finish the job. Her FURY stat is absolutely terrible, so bring Shepherds and Forsaken. Both she and her epic version favor shooty armies, so bring Bolt Throwers and Ravagores. Her feat gives an additional die to attack rolls for every model in her control zone (not a boost, so you can increase it even further), making her feat turn pretty powerful with some careful planning and setup.
• Lylyth, Shadow of Everblight (Lylyth2): Our go to ranged assassination 'lock. Often takes 2 or more ravagores because her feat not only grants snipe to friendly models in her control area, but also increases the ROF of beasts in her battlegroup by one. She's no slouch herself, acting as a deathstalker if need be. she also has +5 range on her spells, Eyeless Sight, and pathfinder. For spells she has Pin Cushion, that adds an additional die to ranged attack rolls (drop the lowest die) against the target. Also, Shadow Pack gives models in her control area Stealth. And she also has the spell Pursuit.
• Lylyth, Reckoning of Everblight (Lylyth3): Coming soon.
• Rhyas, Sigil of Everblight: Ninja twin #1. She makes a good infantry supporter, then can swoop in to finish off wounded targets. Despite this, she is often considered the worst warlock available to legion. That said, if you do take her, take her with Saeryn. The two of them have some amazing synergies, as befitting twins.

Rhyas is a great warlock to take if you want to psyche people out. The common prejudice that she's on the bottom rung of the quality ladder is actually an advantage that works in her favor. There's a couple important things to understand about Rhyas, though. She has a very different playstyle compared to other Legion casters: she is centered around one turn of bone-smashingly vicious melee offense that decides the game. You want to maximize bodies on the table, because her feat gets stronger with more friendly models. First, she needs a vanguard. I prefer Bayal + Hex Hunters, because giving them a 16.5" threat range with her Dash spell on top of Advance Deployment is pretty brutal. Hex Bolt's ability to shut down solos and warjacks/warbeasts can be extremely helpful (no special attacks or actions for you)! They also work very well with her feat, and can stay alive until she pops it. Second, she needs a bodyguard. The Nephilim Soldier is a good option, and Legionnaires also fill the role pretty well. With her Acrobatics, there's no reason you shouldn't be screening her with meat shields. Third, she needs a pet. Typhon and the Carnivean both work well, though the Scythean is also entertaining and you can put Rapport on a Nephilim Soldier in an emergency. Placing Rapport on this pet for the boosted MAT and RAT alone is really useful: the free damage transfer just sweetens the pot. A MAT 8, RAT 6 Carnivean or Neph Soldier is a great way to surprise your opponent.

Once you have these three elements in place, you're ready to use her feat for maximum effect. Rhyas games are made and broken on the feat turn, and everything you do builds around it. Shredders are really useful (four Shredders going Rabid on Rhyas's feat turn is pure comedy to watch), as are multiple Nephilim Soldiers (Massacre synchronizes really well with her feat, and Rapport is a great way to guarantee hits if you're not using it elsewhere). Typhon's spray counts as a melee attack thanks to gunslinger, and watching Typhon chain a free charge from Massacre and Rhyas's feat to ninja-teleport and then unload multiple spray attacks never gets old. You might even want to take a Succubus along to get an extra casting of Massacre and free Rapport upkeep.

The other thing Rhyas brings to the table is being a killing machine herself. Stack a few animi on her (Massacre, for example) and on her feat turn she can slice her way across the board. She won't be using many spells.. but that's fine, it leaves more fury for boosting, transfers, and buying more attacks. When the game comes down to the wire, Rhyas can usually outperform other warlocks in the brutal and small skirmishes that take place in endgame.

• Saeryn, Omen of Everblight: One of the better warlocks we have. A great all-around supporting caster, with an absolutely incredible feat. Blight bringer lets her bring down tougher models, and respawn is an awesome psychological tool. Her high FURY allows her to run a warbeast-heavy list as well. Deathspurs are trolltastic against trollbloods. (see what i did there?)
• Thagrosh, Prophet of Everblight (Thagrosh1): Big Pappa Everblight's sock-puppet on Earth, Thagrosh is a machine of death. With extremely high Fury and several abilities that give him even more Fury economy, Thagrosh can handle all three of his own Upkeep spells at once without breaking a sweat. You want to be running him with Warbeasts, preferably Typhon at a bare minimum (they've got an Affinity which lets them both heal every turn for extremely cheap). Not only is Thagrosh really strong in the Fury and spells department with five brutal offensive spells and Fog of War, but he's lethal in melee. Stack a few animi like Spiny Growth and Tenacity on him and he's very difficult to kill, especially with Typhon's Regeneration affinity and Excessive Healing to account for. To top it all off, Thagrosh can bring a fallen warbeast back from the dead with his feat (Typhon is hilarious for this, as killing him through Spiny Growth, Regeneration and Excessive Regeneration is difficult enough).

Thagrosh's limitations are primarily based around his list. He wants to be running multiple heavy warbeasts, but to safely do that and handle his upkeeps you need at least one Shepherd and a Succubus to help him manage all that fury. As the game approaches its end and models are removed from the table, Thagrosh gets a bit weaker: he excels at buffing models, but he himself cannot stand up to many melee-dedicated offensive warnouns without support. Luckily, with his feat, you can count on having at least one functioning heavy as the game draws to its conclusion, and that's typically enough.

• Thagrosh, The Messiah (Thagrosh2): Coming soon.
• Vayl, Disciple of Everblight (Vayl1): A support warlock. Vayl brings a lot for her army in power and mobility, but can't do too much herself. She has some decent defenses, with her DEF 17 against most shooting (15 against melee) and another two awesome passives, but anything that connects with her will often be lethal.

Vayle wants to play very aggressively; her signature spell, Incite, turns heavies in her battlegroup into walking murder machines; combine that with Chiller, and they will wreck everything they touch. She just has to be right in spitting distance to make it work, hence her various defensive tricks.

Vayl's theme list is no auto-take, but potentially brings the most benefit for the least sacrifice of all the legion theme lists. There are only three or so units in the entire faction that she can't use in her theme, and the biggest downside is being forced to bring 2 units of hex hunters. On the plus side, the free UA is awesome, and the turn 1 mobility and veil of darkness are absolutely amazing in scenario play. It isn't so great for caster-kill, though.

• Vayl, Consul of Everblight (Vayl2): A very magic-heavy warlock who loves to play hit-and-run shenanigans. She has the Purification spell, which rips off all upkeeps within 14" of her (including her own). Her feat lets her cast each spell on her list once for free in that turn, which negates the downside of Purification by letting you put the upkeeps back where they were for free.
• Kallus, Wrath of Everblight: is a melee infantry focused warlock who plays like an alternative to Thagrosh1 with the difference being Kallus is more concerned with getting more out of infantry. While pThag's animus can bring a warbeast back, Kallus' feat turns warrior models killed in his control range into incubus as gives +2 DEF to Soulless models for one turn. Not only does this give him an advantage towards attrition games but you might become aware of just how many models in Legion are soulless, including Kallus himself. He also has the spell Dark Guidance that adds an additional die to all melee attacks made by friendly models in his control area. He has Flashing Blade for clearing swaths of infantry or casting a spell to kill something standing in his way so he can charge. Ignite gives a +2 to melee damage rolls as well as critical continuous fire, which is upkeepable. he also has Eruption that is a 3" AOE cloud effect that deals a POW 14 fire and remains in play for one round. entering or entering that cloud deals another POW 14 fire. He has reach and if he boxes an enemy model with it, enemy models within 1" get continuous fire. He and friendly faction models get +2 ARM when engaged while under he control area. and finally. He has Hyper Regeneration. When Kallus activates he heals d3 damage. So, if you're feeling ballsy you can run infantry spam with just one Scythean and if you go over your fury and need to cut, you have a reliable chance of healing back what you cut for.

Kallus has several subtle but substantial advantages that're often overlooked by players comparing him to the Thagroshes. The first big advantage is Eruption: It's not a POW 14 blast, it's an AoE that applies a (boostable) POW 14 damage roll to everything inside of it. This makes it absolutely brutal for clearing out infantry, and things that are immune to blasts are not immune to it. (Surprise, Battle Mages.) The extra AoE cloud effect is just funny if you manage to throw someone into it with a Carnivean (since it blocks LoS, they can't charge out of it, and they eat the PoW 14 damage roll). The second big advantage available to Kallus is his innate melee ability combined with Legion animi that lets him resist assassination runs. You can often win games with the sheer shock value of Kallus on his feat turn, under Spiny Growth, Tenacity, and Excessive Regeneration (Carnivean, Shredder, and Typhon respectively). While engaged in melee on such a turn, Kallus is DEF 17 (19 if he's got cover or concealment), ARM 21, and he's both healing back from damage taken and dishing out flat damage to warbeasts and warjacks that manage to hurt him. There are few things in the game more amusing than baiting someone into an assassination run on a prepared Kallus. That doesn't work, you can only have 1 animus on him at a time- no stacking. And then you can drop Dark Guidance and launch a brutal counterattack. Flashing Blade before or after a charge, combined with his very solid melee weapon and Dark Guidance can do a lot of damage when you position it properly. You'll only have the one transfer, but if you lined it up properly, one is all you'll need.

Kallus is an infantry caster, and Everblight has great infantry. Legionnaires are very cheap and very buffable - Ignite puts their damage output at respectable levels, Defensive Line + Unyielding means that their deaths are not foregone conclusions, Vengeance and Reach weapons give them good threat, and when your opponent does commit to killing them, Kallus can pop his feat and bring 5 to 10 of them back as Incubi to start the whole dance over again. You definitely want to run multiple warbeasts on top of your infantry: they're so inexpensive, you can run 20 legionnaires in a 30 point match and still have enough points left over for two heavies. Hex Hunters are very synergistic with Kallus, as Ignite's extra damage and Dark Guidance's extra die mean Battle Wizard is a lot more likely to proc (and they can dish out damage twice per model). Attaching Bayal for Advance Deployment and Igniting them on turn 1 is a great way to take control of the board, especially when playing for objectives: with intelligent use of Pathfinder, Hunter, and Stealth you can sit outside of LoS and ranged attack threats but still be capable of countercharging to deadly effect. More straightforward melee units like Swordsmen and Warmongers are also an option: they do very solid damage, but lack any tricks to help you outmaneuver the enemy in the way that Hex Hunters and Legionnaires do.

Warbeasts

Lesser Warbeasts

Okay, so Legion is no longer the special pony princess: now Skorne and the Farrow (of all fucking factions) have lessers too. That being said, Legion lessers are still the standard by which all others are judged, as they generally combine a useful role, good animus (that they can use effectively themselves, unlike say a Reptile Hound whose animus is mostly a wash on itself), and have the advantage of flexibility when you bring a Spawning Vessel.

Despite what the fluff (and Legion battlebox) would have you believe, the Legion can generally not run herds upon herds of lessers effectively. Legion fury control is designed to pull large amounts of fury off of a few large targets, not several smaller ones, and so running a herd of Shredders often means you are running an army that has the chance to frenzy and go full retard just by running up the field turn one. Additionally, while each lesser has 13 health boxes, this is a deceptive amount for a warbeast with base ARM 12: lowly POW 10s have a good chance of taking off an aspect, and most elite melee troopers worth their salt can kill a Shredder outright with little fuss. Bring lessers as seasoning for your army, not as the main course itself (The one exception to this is eThagrosh Shredder Spam lists, but that is a special case).

Things change when the Spawning Vessel gets involved. Since you can spawn a lesser after moving the Vessel effectively acts as a launchpad, dropping a Harrier or Stinger in just the right place at the right time instead of bringing one in your main list to have it slog up the field before ignominously taking a Defender shell to the face and dying. The vessel tends to be the preferred way of bringing Harriers and Stingers into a battle, since their ideal targets tend to be more situational and they lack the Shredder's all-purpose animus.

• Harrier: The tactical drone strike of the Legion lessers, the Harrier is essentially a flying POW 10 with the best base defensive stats of all Legion lessers (don't get too excited, as anything that hits it will still probably instagib the thing). What sets it apart is its animus:

Animus(True Strike): This is why you take/spawn a Harrier. True Strike causes the next melee attack made by the model to hit automatically, so not even Iron Flesh-DEF infinity Kayazy fuckheads are safe. While generally not terribly useful on most Legion warlocks (who are either backline casters, have no melee ability worth mentioning or are Rhyas and desperately need to roll for that crit Decap), this animus makes the Harrier an ideal solo hunter: many priority solos (Eiryss and Gorman, to name just two) cannot reliably survive a POW 10+3d6 attack, and with True Strike their only real defense is to stay as far from the little flying bastard as is practical. Avoiding a Harrier to the face is more complicated when it's being launched from a Spawning Vessel: with the vessel moving up to 6", a 3" place and a ~1" base, AND the Harrier's SPD 7 there are few places for most solos to hide and still be able to contribute to the battle. Remember that this is an animus, not a boost, so be sure to cast it before charging if you're trying to attack something outside of your warlock's control area.

• The Harrier also gets Sprint, which gives it a significant mobility advantage over its counterparts: you can True Strike charge a model outside of control, kill them and Sprint back so that your warlock can reave their fury next round. You can also kill models contesting/controlling flags and then use the Sprint move to position your Harrier so it is contesting/controlling the flag itself.
• Beyond its use as a flying, toothy sniper, the Harrier is the cheapest warbeast in Legion with Flight so keep this in mind when trying to meet certain tier requirements.

• Shredder: If you're bringing a lesser warbeast in your list straight-up, this is probably the one. Best known for:

Rabid: The Shredder's bread. For one fury you get +2 SPD, Pathfinder and boosted attack AND damage rolls for one turn. This ability is as powerful as it sounds, limited only by the Shredder's FURY 2 and dinky single POW 10 bite attack. Since all rolls are boosted, you ideally want to walk into combat with your target(s) instead of charging so that you can get two attacks instead of one. A Shredder generally isn't as good against single target solos as the Harrier or as good at going against heavy living targets as a Stinger, but Rabid allows it to attack a wide range of targets with at least some effectiveness. For many Legion warlocks using the Shredder as a Tenacity caddy this also makes it their de facto melee weapon.

Animus(Tenacity): The Shredder's butter. A 1-fury animus that gives the target +1 DEF and +1 ARM. Not a massive boost, but cheap and spammable compared to most defensive animi (and unlike Spiny Growth, comes in a 2-point package rather than an 11-point one). Generally best used on models who have a defensive stat that just needs a slight nudge over the bell curve: you'll get more milage out of Tenacity on an Angelius (which becomes DEF 15, a dicey proposition for even some elite infantry to reliably hit) versus a Scythean or Carnivean (where going from 11/18 to 12/19 does not generally shift things very far in their favor, although it's still better than nothing). This is also a cheap way to shore up the somewhat-mediocre defensive stats of most Legion warlocks, and seeing a Shredder hanging out in the back spamming Tenacity on its warlock is not uncommon.

• It also has Snacking. A Shredder rarely lives long enough to actually use the rule, but sometimes the do stars align so don't forget about it.

• Stinger: Is there a heavy warbeast that needs to get taken down a peg? Is some low defense, high-ARM caster like the Butcher camping his focus and being a douche? Spawn a Stinger and give them a face full of POW 12 poison (further boostable, allowing you to roll 4d6 on the damage roll!) dragon wing-wong. You also get a cute little 6" POW 10 spray, but no one has ever used that in an actual game so you can pretend it doesn't exist for all intents and purposes.

Of all the lessers, this is the one you're least likely to bring in a list: it has a narrower range of ideal targets compared to its bretheren, and the Suicidal Attack rule on its tail (mark all boxes in the Stinger's Body aspect if it damages a target with the attack) means it has a hilariously low life expectancy even by the low standards of most lessers. On the other hand, against its ideal targets it's VERY good, so it makes ideal pot fodder for those times where you need to wipe the last half dozen boxes off a Titan but don't want to commit a 9-point warbeast's activation to do it. Buy a blister with your Spawning Vessel, and keep them on hand when you play against armies with lots of livng multiwound models (e.g. most Hordes factions) or against beefy warcasters who rely more on their ARM than their DEF stats.

Animus(Lurker): Friendly target gains Bushwhack (can take its combat action before its movement, and then move afterwards) for one round. Potentially useful (one example: start a turn stuck in with someone, kill them, Bushwhack out of realation range from the rest of the enemy army), but generally not often enough to justify spending the points compared to many other 2-point options in Legion.

Light Warbeasts

Probably the most situational section of the Legion bestiary, as none of the below are auto-takes by any means. Rather, like most lights you're looking for something they bring to the table that you can't get in their larger (or smaller, in the case of lessers) brethren.

• Afflictor: A flying warbeast with the ability to spawn Incubi when it stabs things. So that's fun.
• Naga Nightlurker: Exists solely to boost the Legion's access to non-elemental ranged weapons and ability to overcome magical defences. No other reason.
• Nephilim Bloodseer: Animus fucks with enemy casting, gives a +2 to Magic attack rolls made against enemies that he's within 5" of, can cast the animus of any friendly faction warbeast within its command range, ARM 18, Flight, Reach, Brutal Charge. what's not to like? the fact that this fucker's model has yet to be released. They have had a model since August 2014. How outdated is this fucking page?
• Nephilim Bolt Thrower: One of our best ranged 'beasties, equipped with a FUCKHUEG ballista that knocks enemies backwards. animus grants essentially flight.
• Nephilim Protector: A defensive light warbeast with Shield Guard, allowing it to pull attacks off enemy models. Kind of runs antithesis to the Legion's balls-out offensive playstyle, so overall not very popular.
• Nephilim Soldier: A dedicated melee light in a game that doesn't favor this sort of warjack/warbeast design: guess how this is going to go? The Soldier is good with his sword (POW 14, reach) but doesn't have much of a role due to lacking the volume of attacks to take on hordes of infantry, the raw power to scare heavy targets or the durability to tank. For 5 points you're taking him for his animus if you're taking him at all.

Animus(Massacre): Allows the target to charge without being forced, and if the affected model destroys an enemy model with a charge attack they can advance 1" and make an additional melee attack. A decent animus, mostly hampered by the fact that it's on a warbeast that otherwise won't be contributing much. This does enhance some of Rhyas' feat turn shenanigans though, and it's worth considering if you're playing her.

• Raek: Very cheap, and comes equipped with Stealth and various other manoeuvrability boosters; makes an excellent flanking model. Also, its animus grants immunity to free strikes, which some warcasters will adore. The main use for Raeks is to run behind enemy lines with its great speed abilities, and two-handed throw a warcaster of choice into the jaws of your local carnivean (in a list with Abby).
• Teraph: Probably the worst thing in the Legion point-for-point; not so much a bad model as one which is far outshone by the Nephilim Bolt Thrower and the Ravagore. Its animus is rather fun for ranged support, though, and all of Lylyth's incarnations love it for that alone, so it isn't all bad.

Heavy Warbeasts

The movers and shakers of a Legion list: taking 3 heavy warbeasts in a 50-point list is typical.

• Angelius: A crazy-fast flying warbeast with a heavy assassination focus. Armour Piercing is truly brutal, but you can only use it once per turn, so make it count.
• Carnivean: The OG Legion heavy (and in Mk I, the only Legion heavy until the Angelius and Typhon came along). The Carnivean comes stock with the most powerful melee output of all Legion heavies with 3 base attacks (a POW 18 bite and two POW 16 claws). Additionally, you get a POW 14 RNG 10 spray attack: while the Carnivean's RAT 4 is somewhat mediocre, it does give you added flexibility for those times when you aren't able to charge into melee, and you can use it on the charge as well thanks to Assault (although generally you should treat it as a nice bonus rather than as something to bank on). It also comes with an animus that can significantly increase the survivability of 11/18 Legion warbeasts.

Despite all this though, the Carnivean has fallen out of favor as a primary beater heavy for a couple reasons. First is cost: at 11 points the Carnivean has a cost that rivals (or exceeds!) that of some character heavies. Second is a lack of Reach, which reduces its threat range and ability to guarantee the alpha strike: this is exacerbated by the relative fragility of Legion warbeasts, and a Carnivean that gets charged surviving long enough to retaliate is often a toss up even with Spiny Growth up. This isn't to say that the Carnivean isn't capable of cracking skulls, but you will need to take these factors into consideration when building your list to ensure that doesn't wind up as expensive cannon fodder for the Reckoners and Bronzebacks of the world.

Animus(Spiny Growth): The Carnivean's selling point over the Scythean, Spiny Growth grants the target +2 ARM and enemy warjacks/beasts damaging the target suffer d3 damage after every hit provided that the affected model is not destroyed. Good for non-Angelii Legion heavies, as going from 18 ARM to 20 gives them a considerable boost to survivability. The d3 damage per hit is minor but can quickly add up, especially against warbeasts (who typically rely on volume of attacks over sheer power):. Additionally, this can soften up the target for retaliation, and many opponents will choose to boost the damage roll rather than buy additional attacks (which can further reduce the overall damage you receive). In general this animus is most valuable to both versions of Thagrosh (who are able to stack it with their own defensive buffs) and Absylonia (who needs the survivability boost for her warbeasts to make her feat a credible threat).

• Ravagore: The artillery version of the Carnivean; shoots AOE attacks with decent range and an animus which grants Continuous Fire, and is no slouch in melee. Commonly regarded as one of the more OP things in the Legion book, although it isn't really -- it's just difficult to hide from its attacks because of Eyeless Sight. Its biggest disadvantage is that its attack has the Fire and Corrosion damage types, meaning that anything which is immune to either of those types won't be hurt.
• Scythean: The Carnivean's slightly underperforming but 2-points-cheaper brother. It comes with one fewer attack base, a weaker animus, and no spray attack. In return, it gets reach and thresher. In general, the Scythean is better at cutting down the masses, while the Carnivean is better with elites. Overall, because of its lower price, it tends to overshadow the Carnivean except with specific casters (Absylonia comes to mind). Despite conceived flaws, it has the potential to make up to 7 attacks (if Blood Bath goes off, which Kallus and Abby can assist with) at one POW less than the Carnivean's Bite. His animus removed models from play and ignores tough.
• Seraph: This MkI workhorse did not survive the transition to MkII particularly well, and the major reason is performance for cost. The Seraph comes with a mediocre melee attack (P+S 14, with Critical Poison) and a P+S 12 gun a D3+1 Strafe (albeit slightly short ranged). Taken alone this isn't a bad setup, but the cost is the killer: at 8 points, the Seraph faces competition from other heavies in that price bracket (Scythean and Angelius) and its damage output is pitiful by comparison. It has an excellent animus (arguably one of the best in the game), but even so you're paying quite a bit for a heavy that often struggles to otherwise contribute to the game in a meaningful way. Generally best taken with warlocks that can buff its ranged output (with pVayl and Incite the Strafe attack becomes very scary, pumping out multiple P+S 14 shots), or when you desperately need those extra two inches of threat range.

Animus(Slipstream): What makes the Seraph. At its most basic, this gives a model an extra 2" of threat range, but since this is a place effect you can do some interesting tricks like pulling a friendly model out of melee without incurring the free strikes. Since Legion lives or dies based on getting the drop on people this is a very strong animus, but you need to decide if it's worth dealing with the unfortunate 8-point warbeast it's stuck to.

Character Warbeasts

• Proteus: In a lot of ways, Proteus is a warbeast of "buts". It has Herding, but in a faction where Shepherds come in at 1 point each having an 11-point warbeast with this ability is situational. It has a ranged weapon with Drag, but the range is fairly short (with a threat range that is only slightly longer than his charge range). It has 5 fury, but it's extremely pillowfisted for its cost which limits the havoc you can cause. It has Snacking as an animus, but it's in a faction where warbeasts are generally not durable enough to make use of it. For the most part, you're paying a Carnivean price tag for a grab bag of abilities: it still might be worth it for certain lists, but be very sure that you're getting the most of out of him compared to any equivalent heavy you could be taking for its price tag.
• Typhon: A three-headed regenerating hydra-thing which spews fire everywhere and throws things by biting them. Very expensive, and even worse defensive stats than most Legion heavies, but not bad if you can keep it healed up and charge it into combat first. Your enemy will at the very least have to pay attention to this thing to keep it from doing too much damage, its healing makes it hard to kill, having three attacks means its deadly in melee against heavy targets, and tarpits will barely even slow it down since it can use it's ranged attack (which are spray weapons) in melee.
• Zuriel: The result of Saeryn playing mad scientist with the dragonspawn and Rhyas, a heavy 'beast nephilim with two P+S:16 swords and a ROF 2 SP8 POW12 spray that it can fire as a chain attack which cause continuous fire. Can channel for Saeryn and gets Stealth from Rhyas. Also has Flight and Gunfighter. The model is, like PP's models sometimes tend to be, really awesomely posed and I can only imagine what a bitch it must be to assemble. Whoever the fuck thought it was a good idea to have it stand on one leg in some sort of cheap-ass kung-fu flick pose is a genius.

Gargantuan

• Archangel: Something of an odd duck, the Archangel caused no end of rage when its stats were announced. It isn't quite so bad as that, although its animus came from the darkest pits of crappy wargame design hell and should be returned there posthaste. It stands among the game's highest SPD stats for a Huge base and has some impressive hit-and-run capabilities to back that up, but as the Legion is very reliant on things which teleport models (and Gargantuans can't be teleported) instead of just buffing their SPD or movement, it actually has a tendency to move a bit slower than other Gargantuans. It goes very well with Lylyth3 if you really desperately feel the urge to have more than one huge-based model on the table at once.

Units

AKA the "an army of dragons is too cool on its own, how can we lame it up with elves?" tax.

Seriously though, don't get too hung up on spamming dragonspawn that you forget to consider these guys. At the most basic level, these are cheap(ish) bodies: as a beast-heavy faction you will frequently be outnumbered, so having a unit or two that you can sacrifice to hold ground or tie up more dangerous units is invaluable. Your warbeasts are also generally mediocre at dealing with swarms of enemy infantry on their own, so the ability to bring a unit that can spread a larger number of attacks over a wide area is also useful, and you have a couple units (Hex Hunters, Warmongers) that are designed to go through enemy infantry like shit through a rat.

Be mindful that in Legion troop buffs are fairly sparse: your Nyss and Ogrun can generally hold their own, but there's no ur-buff like Iron Flesh that will make your opponent tremble in fear. Your selections will therefore generally be built around what hole needs patching in your list more than what units your warlock can turn into unstoppable murder machines.

• Blighted Nyss Archers: Blighted Nyss Archers are your basic infantry unit. They are fast, fragile, and accurate enough to be effective. Their bows are low powered, but have longish range. What makes them stand out is their two abilities:combined ranged attack and volley fire. The first allows them to effectively target heavies with a RAT 15 POW 20 shot. Suppressing fire is a great anti-infantry tool, and can deny charge lanes. All in all, nothing special, but still a good unit.

• Officer and Ammo Porter (UA): A good choice if you are bringing archers. Combined arms is great for making sure that you don't fluff that one important roll against a beast or jack with two damage left. Ready Ammo is what makes this worthwhile. ROF 2 bows?! The caveat that you have to aim matters little: you still are getting two RAT 19 POW 22 shots that re-roll to hit!! With this, you can bring down light jacks or beasts reliably and scare the hell out of some poor caster.

Blighted Nyss Strider Rangers: Advance Deploy, Stealth, pathfinder, Combined ranged attack, and with the auto include UA, you get Reform, Hunter, and CMD 12 all give you a handy hard to hit unit.

• Blighted Nyss Legionnaires: Somehow, a bunch of guys called legionaries, decked out in armor and well trained, are the inferiors of a bunch of half naked swordsmen (swordelves? swordnyss?). These guys are your basic melee unit. Use them for cheap bodies for spawning vessels, or screen more important units. A good choice with the right, infantry-centric warcaster *cough*Kallus*cough*.They are slow for legion, which means that they can keep up with regular infantry just fine. Combined melee gives them a wide threat range, and defensive line and vengeance make them a pain to bring down. When they do fall, you won't care because they are 10 for 6 points and your opponent has probably just exposed whatever nasty he killed them with to the full wrath of your carnivean. Throw in an incubus or two (or ten with Kallus's feat. Seriously, this guy is great for legionaries) for extra trolling.

• Farilor and Standard Bearer (UA): You pay for it, but these two will turn your little speedbump into an unholy tarpit. Farilor possesses a minifeat that give the entire unit +4 ARM. Enjoy your one-man khador warjacks. and set defense and mage static make them quite resistant to warbeasts and warlocks respectively. Again, this is expensive, but arguably gives more defense than just plain old extra bodies.

• Blighted Nyss Swordsmen: Half naked dragon thrall psycho killers. In contrast to your defensive legionnaires, these guys are the glass cannons. Coming in at the same price as warmongers, they are faster, more fragile, and lack reach. Their Claymores also come with Weapon Master, letting you throw down four dice on the charge. They're fairly solid on their own merits, but you probably won't be taking them as a general rule since they compete with your heavy warbeasts in the armor-cracking role (when you have an army of can openers, why do you need another set of can openers?). That being said, in lists where you're running either beast-light or with beasts that aren't strong in melee, these guys become a good option for dealing with hard targets.

• Blighted Nyss Abbott and Champion (UA): The main advantage of this little duo is cleave and overtake. This sort of makes up for their lack of reach, and helps them mow through other infantry. A pretty situational UA overall: the benefits are nice, but generally only worth it if you need these guys to be pulling anti-infantry duty as well since Legion has better models suited to that role.

Blighted Ogrun Warspears: Seeming a but underwhelming at first glance, this unit begins to shine when given their UA. Warspears with UA and pThagrosh make for one strong unit doling out 12 POW 17 attacks when assaulting their prey with Draconic Blessing cast on them.

Grotesques: Hopefully they will be receiving a UA in the new book. otherwise their low speed and small CMD make them a questionable inclusion.

Blighted Nyss Raptors: Light Calvary Weapon Masters with Poison Arrows and pathfinder. they're great for flanking as well as jamming. In the right position, they can work much like the Tau's Crisis suit teams by utilizing Jump Shoot Jump tactics. they really like seeing Annyssa Ryvaal on the board but please note she is a Solo and not a UA. you can take her and a min unit of raptors for the same price as a full unit of raptors, and will more than likely get more out of them in the former combination rather than latter.

Blighted Nyss Hex Hunters: For 8 points, you get 10 magic weapons with the same power as a Nyss bow. They come with pathfinder and stealth, but their main benefit is their magic ability. Their Blight Bolt has a high pow for infantry and keeps anything it hits from performing a *action or *attack for a round. Add battle wizard to the mix, and these could kill twenty weaker models in one turn. Their only real bad points are that they are very squishy, and they have an annoying lack of fearless. Now, if only there was some 3 point walking crocodile doctor that could give them tough and undead.......

• Bayal, Hound of Everblight (UA): A 3 point 5 health model that grants hunter and Advanced Deployment. He has two melee attacks with Shadow Bind, Weapon Master, and Magical Weapon. He has blight bolt as well, but the main spell you will use with him is his Pow 12 cold spray. A solid option, but those three points may be better spent on something else.

Spawning Vessel: Costs 3 points, and usually is taken with legionnaires. Something dies near it, you get a corpse token. When you get three, spawn a lesser. Sounds great, right? well... the thing is slow. Like, REAL slow. So think about what you want your army to do instead of just throwing this in every list you take. It's a damn good lesser factory, though.

Solos

Shepherd: A must have model and a near auto include in our commonly beast heavy lists. While in her command range, beasts can be forced as if they were in their warlock's control range. She can add and remove fury from one warbeast within 3" as a special action, or heal d3 from a beast within 3". They're a great sidekick for a Ravagore.

Forsaken: Another solo to help with fury management. she can pull fury off your beasts and store up to 5 of it for her own use later. she can use it in melee or she can spend it all and auto hit enemy models within 1" per fury with an additional die damage per focus or fury on the target (fuck you, camping warcasters!). Watch your shepherd, succubus or any other non-fearless models because she's an abomination and can accidentally force command checks on your own guys.

Nyss Strider Deathstalker: The bane of Protectorate Choirs and other single-wound support models. RAT 8 POW 10 handy infantry clearing solo with stealth, pathfinder, snapfire, swift hunter and advanced deployment. Usually taken in pairs.

Annyssa Ryvaal: Character light calvary for when you absolutely must hunt and kill enemy solos and UAs. Her combination of speed, accuracy, defenses and movement shenanigans make her an excellent thorn in your opponent's side. Did I mention that she also has stealth?

Warmonger War Chief: A melee monster who would more likely see play in Kallus' lists that most other warlocks who would otherwise hire the above options.

Sorceress and Hellion: Flying Calvary with Reach that lets beasts with flight starting in its command range charge for free. Comes with a handy toolbox of spells with effects such as: RNG 8 POW 12 Cold Spray, placing an AOE that enemy models cannot make ranged attacks from within, and creating a 5" AOE that makes it so whenever an enemy model within the AOE is hit but the damage fails to exceed ARM, it automatically suffers 1 damage. That last one is great for Black Dragon IFP.

Spell Martyrs: they have one job: to get into position for the warlock to channel a spell through them. once they finish the job they an hero.

Incubi: solos that pop out of friendly living non incubus, non warlock small based models. you could take them for 5 points for 5 or only buy them to use with Kallus who uses them for free on feat turn. also his feat makes no stipulation about base size, so even Warspears can become Incubi because they are generated by the feat and not the ability on the incubi's card.

Beast Mistress: a lesser warlock who can only have lesser warbeasts in her battlegroup. they made a new tier list for pThagrosh (Thagrosh1) to make use of her. for spells, she has a 3" AOE that does corrosive damage as well as Energize. Energize with a bunch of rabid shredders who run and charge for free in her battlegroup can be fun, and doing so within Kallus' control range after he casts Dark Guidance is even better. she has fearless and pathfinder. She is a bit gimmicky, ymmv.

Succubus: Attaches to your warlock and can cast one animus of friendly faction beasts as a spell as a special action, and as long as she's within 6" of her warlock, she can upkeep one spell for free.

Fyanna the Lash: she has, like, a whip. and she does things.

Minions in Legion

Like most Hordes factions, the Legion is pretty ambivalent about minions: there aren't any real gaps in the faction that you desperately need to patch over, so unlike some other factions *coughCygnarcough* you can run a minion-free list and still be perfectly effective. On the other hand, since most Legion warlocks are so beast-focused to begin with there isn't necessarily any major benefit to keeping your infantry in-faction, and some minions do bring some unique tricks to the table, and so are still worth considering.

Minion solos

• Croak Hunter:
• Feralgeist: There are two primary uses for this solo. The intended (and crappy) use is for the Feralgeist to take over a warbeast that dies in its command range, allowing you to turn your opponent's Mulg or Warpwolf Stalker against him and see how he likes it. While this is a cool ability, what you get for your trouble isn't much: the possessed warbeast comes with only 3 boxes and no ability to force whatsoever, so most of the time about the best you can expect your new warbeast to do is be a speedbump before dying a second time. There are some situations where you might want to possess a warbeast to deny it to your opponent (e.g. possessing a heavy warbeast from a pThagrosh player so that he can't feat to bring it back until he kills it again), but these are pretty situational uses in the aggregate and not really worth even the 1 point asking price.

The second use (and the reason you'll see it in most Hordes list) is for Steamroller scenarios. As a 1-point solo the Feralgeist can contest and control flags, objectives and zones, and since it's permanently incorporeal some factions have no easy way to get rid of the thing. If you have a free point in your list and no use for a Spell Martyr, this is not a bad solo to take to fill it.

• Gatorman Witch Doctor: Tough AND Undead on a stick. What else do you need to know?

Unfortunately, turning your infantry undead means that they can't be fed to the Spawning Vessel, which means that you will need to decide if you prefer Tough rolls or flinging Shredders at people (and the latter often wins). As a general guideline, you're probably better off with a Witch Doctor when you're running a unit that will outpace the Spawning Vessel or has a small enough body count that harvesting them isn't efficient: Ogrun (or a Posse) are good units for the Witch Doctor to babysit, and turning Hex Hunters undead (who are usually too fast for the Vessel) helps rectify their issues with command checks.

• Gobber Tinker: Are you taking a Throne of Everblight? If yes, take one or two of these guys to help keep it alive (yes, they can repair it thanks to the Battle Engine rules: no, you are not allowed to ask how or why). They have no purpose in a Legion list otherwise.
• Gudrun the Wanderer: So you're paying the same cost as a War Chief for this particular ogrun, except where the warchief makes your other ogrun hit things better this guy gets drunk and doesn't give a fuck. With SPD 6, Advance Deployment and the ability to heal all damage the first time he is killed Gudrun is built for trolling: either trolling scenarios by taking more effort to kill than his point cost is worth, or trolling enemy ranged units by running to engage as many of them as possible and laughing as they struggle to get rid of the bastard. Be wary of the lure of Berserk tempting you to get Gudrun in over his head, as he only fights about as well as a regular Warmonger and decent melee units can kill him back without much effort if they aren't sufficiently weakened first. Not one of your first picks, but not necessarily a bad choice if you play to his strengths.
  • A note on Binge Drinking: once per game Gudrun can choose to knock himself down, which in turn triggers Feign Death (cannot be targeted by ranged attacks while KD). This is obviously a situational ability, but it can help in situations where the only force your opponent can bring to bear on the Ogrun is shooting, as it will help him live a bit longer. It probably goes without saying that you should think twice about using this ability if you're in an enemy model's charge range.
• Rorsh and Brine:
• Thrullg: Hordes' answer to eEiryss, and a pretty crappy one at that. eEiryss struggles to do her job at times, and she benefits from an excellent statline, a 12-inch gun and one of the highest RAT scores in the game along with some other defensive abilities. After taking all that into consideration, you then look at a Thrullg which will be as much of a priority target but suffers from needing to get into melee, with no real defensive tech and no real way to give it any thanks to Spell Ward. Add to this being on a medium base and you have a recipe for disaster. Do not take unless you have 3 points to burn (and how did you manage that?).
• Totem Hunter:
• Wrong Eye and Snapjaw:

Minion units

• Bog Trog Ambushers:
• Farrow Bone Grinders:
• Farrow Brigands: Brigands are in some ways the Hordes equivalent to Trenchers, and suffer from the same problems: you're getting a unit with a hodgepodge of abilities and potential roles, none of which they perform particularly well and ultimately paying dearly for the privilege. Each Brigand comes armed with a decent rifle and a club, and while they're competent enough with both they lack any sort of CMA/CRA rule or equivalent: this means that most heavy targets will not give a shit about the clubs, and Farrow RAT puts them in an awkward place where they have issues hitting what they can hurt and hurting what they can actually hit. Combined with their defensive "victim stats" they will struggle to beat most units of equivalent cost.

However, like the Gatorman Posse the unit comes with a set of prayers, giving them either Fearless+Tough, Pathfinder, or Hog Wild (which is basically the bastard child of the Assault and Bushwhack rules). These rules go a long way towards giving the unit some flexibility and staying power, but generally speaking you'll probably be reaching for your Nyss units before your Farrow in most lists.

• If you're looking for a speedbump unit, these guys do have a unique niche: they're the only unit Legion can take that can innately have Tough. This means you can roll up the field with a Tough jamming unit that still qualifies as living models for the Spawning Vessel to pick up. Worth considering, but unfortunately the full unit comes in at 8 points while a full unit of Legionnaires with Farilor come in at 9 so this tends to be a situational niche at best.

• Farrow Razorback Crew: Look at the rules for the Scather catapult, which pretty much poop all over this thing in all the areas that matter. Further consider that you will almost never take a Scather catapult: how often do you think you'll be playing this thing? It exists for Farrow players, not for you.
• Farrow Slaughterhousers:
• Gatorman Bokor and Swamp Shamblers:
• Gatorman Posse:
• Swamp Gobbers Bellows Crew: