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Azyr

2022-06-28T23:04:04Z

2600:6C5D:617F:3C8C:158:690D:AC70:1BEB:

{{AoS-Stub}}

{{Topquote|The path to paradise begins in hell.|Dante Alighieri}}

{{Topquote|You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden.|Matthew 5:14}}

[[File:Sigmaron.png|750px|thumb|center|[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FRExQ3JSrU|"You'll say the world tomorrow without fear".]]]

'''Azyr''' was originally the Wind of Magic related to all things celestial, such as stars, lightning, and similar phenomena. In the [[Age of Sigmar]] it has become the realm of [[Sigmar]] himself, and the main [[Cities of Sigmar|stronghold of civilization and order]] in the multiverse. Seedless to nay, it's the greatest source of resistance against the forces of Chaos.

== Warhammer Fantasy Battle==
Back in the good old days of yore and the Winds of Magic, Azyr was the blue wind related with the heavens. As such, its users were skilled in Astromancy, invoking skills such as divination, casting lightning, and summoning comets. The lore surrounding Azyr was founded in its capability to bring understanding and comprehension even where none should exist. Azyr was therefore associated with dreams, theory, and scholarly desire - or, dare we say, hope [[Tzeentch|but without the chaotic implications]].
Back during the earlier days of [[The Empire]], the Chaos God [[Tzeentch]] managed to trap Sigmar within Azyr. However [[not as planned|this didn't go as well as expected]] as Azyr became linked to Sigmar's essence and, when the magical winds were released during [[The End Times]], Sigmar returned as one of the magical Incarnates united against Chaos, AKA The Warhammer Avengers (Obviously he was Captain America).

==The Realm of Azyr==
[[File:God-king-sigmar.jpg|thumb|right|400px|[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKW7yGsCMxQ| YES, I DO EXIST!] ]]

===Genesis===
At the climax of the End Times Sigmar couldn't save the <s>Earth</s>The-World-That-Was and fell, along with Archaon, into a world-ending Chaos Vortex. But being <s>everyone's</s> Games Workshop's favourite God-<strike>Emperor</strike>King, he came back. Sigmar and the core of Warhammer's world (baptized Mallus, which means Hammer in latin-lite, so yeah, the Warhammer world's name was "Hammer") managed to survive, flung into the Aetheric Void until entering Azyr, now condensed into a realm. After being saved from a comatose state and making pals with the godly Star-drake [[Dracothion]] (Who may or may not be [[Sotek]] all along), Sigmar was introduced to the Mortal Realms by Dracothion, seeing the still nascent realities and the primitive tribes of mortals he set out to rebuild all he had lost.

Meanwhile, the [[Lizardmen]], now <s>space dinosaurs</s> Seraphon, after the destruction of The-World-That-Was, drifted the void in their temple-ships until they too found Dracothion, maybe he is really Sotek, right? The star-drake helped settle the Seraphon in High Azyr (read: near space), where not even the Chaos Gods could reach, allowing for our scaly friends to start their task of ridding the Cosmos of Chaos once and for all.

===Age of Myth===
Over long centuries Sigmar built up the Realm of Azyr, taking full advantage of his immortality to ensure that there would be no End Times 2.0 Electric Boogaloo. From his palace-city Sigmaron, Sigmar directed his utopia: Azyr became a confluence for all races, epitomised in the massive celestial city Azyrheim where Human, Aelf, and Duardin coexisted peacefully.

Beyond Azyr, Sigmar succeeded over many centuries in promoting many prosperous nations and cultures, at its zenith his alliance engulfed the other 7 realms and had the support of Nagash, Alarielle, Gorkamorka, Grungni, Teclis, Tyrion, Morathi, Malerion and many other divine beings. The Warhammer United Nations managed to disrupt and beat back the first attempts of Chaos to do its thing and destroy the alliance shiny new worlds.

===Age of Chaos===
However, Chaos still had [[Archaon]] up their collective sleeve, who happened to have as much plot-armour as Sigmar as GW needed some sort of apocalyptic war (I mean, it is a ''war''game). So yeah, after a series of military disasters Chaos managed to conquer 7 out of the 8 realms and ensure their corruption.

Sigmar, of course, was very mad, and angry "I'll get you back <strike>evil boss</strike>Archaon!". So he did the intelligent thing and closed all the realmgates of Azyr and with the help of Tyrion and Teclis he activated some sort of realm-spanning camo-field so not even Tzeentch could see what he was doing.

Like [[The Emperor|the Emprah]], Sigmar decided he would need Space Marines. Unlike Emprah, he decided it would be a very good idea to make them immune to Chaos right from the start and since Sigmar already had "warp" powers in the form of the wind of Azyr, well, he put hands to work.

After many failed attempts to force the Gates of Azyr, Chaos decided to ignore them. This made a lot of Chaos Lords very bored, wishing for a real challenge as preying on little post-apocalyptic tribes loses all its appeal after a couple of centuries.

Meanwhile, back in Azyr, Sigmar started his great work. Across the centuries he worked with Grungni to forge his new weapon against Chaos. His beard singed from the heat of the star forges and his Manly Tears cooled the metal, as he could see what Archebag and the spikey boys were doing with the other realms [[grimdark|(eg: turning Warhammer not-Erza Scarlet into a statue by dropping molten silver over her, after some session of torture, sadly he couldn't get Sigmarabulum in time to spirit her away)]].
Eventually the task was done (except not, but more of that later): the [[Stormcast Eternals]], the souls of heroes who stood their ground to Chaos until (almost) death re-forged as divine soldiers. The Stormcast Eternals would form the tip of a lance composing the innumerable armies Azyr could now muster against Chaos after five hundred of years of peace (we wish the old Empire and the Imperium had had this).

===Age of Sigmar===
[[File:Space-frog.jpg|thumb|left|300px|You will need more than a moon-crash and an Apocalypse to keep the old froggy down!]]
Sigmar launched his forces, with the Stormcast Eternals as his superhuman shock troopers who give zero fucks about daemonically empowered vikings and chaos shenanigans.

[[Indrick Boreale|Making multiple simultaneous and devastating offensive storm-strikes]] from the astral fortress of Sigmarabulum into the territories where Azyr's Realmgates still stood sealed the sigmarines fought to reach them, once there they removed the seals, allowing more and more of Sigmar's forces to pour through, freeing vast swathes of territories and their remnant tribes of mortal-kind from the grip of Chaos.

The Stormcast Eternals were soon followed by Azyr's Free Guild armies(Imperial Guard/badass normals, read: the good, old Empire) supported by the Devoted of Sigmar(whose God-King actually has given them his thumbs up unlike certain [[Emperor|anatolian guy)]], the Collegiate Arcanum (Azyr's battle wizards) and the Ironweld Arsenal (because Sigmar may have realized even daemons have a hard time against tanks, weapons teams and artillery), together these armies forced the Ruinous Powers back across hundreds of battlefields.

Azyr's forces were aided in this multiverse spanning conflict by Aelf and Duardin auxiliaries, Fyreslayer mercenaries, the surviving reclaimed tribes of mortal-kind, and the mysterious and ostensibly random help of the Seraphon (we like our space psychic frogs!), while the Stormcast Eternals are the poster boys of the nascent Age of Sigmar all the other armies made equally huge and heroic contributions to Sigmar's cause.

At the conclussion of the Realmgate Wars the forces of Azyr had managed to establish beachheads all across the seven Chaos-tainted Realms and began the process of purifying and rebuilding civilization in the reclaimed territories, with the eventual emergence of a network of nations centered on Realmgate-based settlements commonly referred as the Cities of Sigmar, making Azyr the first Games Workshop kingdom of order to make a true comeback since... [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sw-GdthJGuo| Since forever, which is something many Imperial and order-aligned fans actually feel very happy, indeed, the Sun will Rise Again.] [[Skub|Of course, many players who liked the old Empire still hate this, why Azyr had a chance but The Old World not?]] [[Total War: Warhammer|(This is the reason why playing Mortal Empires as the Empire is awesome)]].

While innitially very idealistic on purpose and despite Sigmar's decree that everyone is equal, the Azyr-born citizens often have come to see with suspicion and mistrust the descendants of the reclaimed tribes, which in turn have replicated the problems of the Old-World Empire, social and economic disparity is common in many of the Cities of Sigmar, making for a breeding ground for cults of the Ruinous Powers, this in turn has call for action of the Order of Azyr, the AoS Inquisition, [[Grimdark|using many of the methods of their 40k equivalent to do the job to keep everyone in check]].

Still, [[Awesome|the majority of the descendants of the reclaimed tribes, now inhabitants of these footholds of Azyr, have earned their chance, however slim it may be, for a better life, and have proved for the most part to be willing to fight for Sigmar's vision of a new age of peace, prosperity and progress for all the Mortal Realms.]]

Of course, certain [[Nagash|skelepope]] decided everything was too bright and good and in the current edition the Realm of Azyr and Sigmar's armies have had to fight not just the regrouping forces of the Everchosen and the hordes of Destruction but the re-emerging powers of Nagash, his hosts of the Realm of Death and the onslaught of the realm-altering Necroquake. Old business, as usual.

==Forces of Azyr==
These are the most representative forces of Azyr, being supplied by [[Grand Alliance: Order|auxiliaries]] whose origins are from other realms.

===[[Stormcast Eternals]]===
Sigmar's elite, aka Sigmarines, they are like [[Grey Knights]] with far less grimdark and more humanity. Like the Space Marines they sport a wide array of variants such as the basic Liberator, the air-borne prosecutor, the heavy infantry Paladins and the Extremis Chamber heavy cavalry as well as the magic-oriented Sacrosanct brotherhoods. Similar to Space Marine Chapters they are organized in self-contained Stormhosts. Unlike the Space Marines each one of them was created from a mortal hero, be it king or beggar, knight or housewife, who willingly chose to fight Chaos in a doomed last-stand and are infused with the essence of Azyr itself. Since 2015 they have had many novels and short stories in Black Library, bringing diversity and characterization to what at first glance was a rather dull force, in the current edition it's revealed Sigmar didn't have time to perfect the reforging process which allows a killed Stormcast to be resurrected, resulting in loses of memories, emotions and personalities, this has made many Stormcasts fearful of losing their humanity, becoming lightning powered automatons, in order to correct this Sigmar has put to work the Sacrosanct chamber in finding a cure, it remains to be seen if they would be capable to save the day.

On a side note, it's important to clarify that while the Hammers of Sigmar have gold and blue in their armor the guys with the most [[Ultramarines]]-like color pattern are the Tempest Lords, who actually think themselves as the superior guys something which is explained by the fact they were all formed from Nobles.

===Devoted of Sigmar===
[[File:Priest-sigmar.jpg|thumb|right|225px|A Devoted of Sigmar in a typical work's day.]]
The church of Sigmar, bringing back flagellants, badass warrior priests and witch hunters, nobody expects the Azyr Inquisition! They are good at cleaning KAY-OSS via [[Slaanesh|whips]] and faith, unlike the old [[Empire]]'s Church or the [[Ecclesiarchy]] they seem to be very cool guys, making an effort to conciliate the people under the banner of Order, and their priests have healing and shielding powers, they wont necessarily choose as first step to bash the head of anyone who is not aligned with Sigmar, also, they seem to get along with the Stormcast Eternals, who in turn recognize their job in the name of the God-King, by the way, the Silver Tower of Tzeentch features a black priest, which shows GeeDubs has finally started to be more serious with the matter of racial diversity. On the other hand and like many other religious organizations, they have tendency to proselytize the hard way, making Sigmar the more equal of the gods, this in turn has created frictions with other faiths, such as Alarielle's believers, and of late they haven't seen eye to eye to the followers of Nagash and while Sigmar has a policy of non-chaos religious tolerance, perhaps in hopes of bringing Old Bones back into his team, persecution, particularly in Azyr's held territories at the Realm of Shysh, is not unheard of. On the other-hand, what religion doesn’t believe their deity is better than the rest? Especially when said deity has spent every moment since his balls dropped proving it.

Point of fact, it has been the faith of their members that have allowed to create protective fields against the enemies of Order and keep evil entities sealed away, in fact, some of them have a faith so strong they have kept Penumbral Engines running for centuries, a task which obliterated a Stormcast Eternal in an instant.

===Collegiate Arcanum===
Proprietors of spells and arcane devices to channel the power of the God-King, with the very nature of Azyr being highly effective against Chaos. Aside from lending magical support in battle the Collegiate can develop magic devices and materials for peacetime projects, using them to bolster the economy and assets of the Realm of Azyr and help in the founding of new cities in the liberated realms. Learn in the Colleges of Magic in the Towers of the Eight Winds in Azyrheim or in lesser faculties in the Free Cities, but unlike the World That Was humans aren't restricted to one color magic (or fucking around with Dhar and dying horribly or falling to Chaos) but can learn all 8. A Battlemage who spends at least a decade in each Tower of the Eight Winds is deemed a Grandmaster of the Collegiate. Grandmasters develop new spells and craft new magical items. A specialist Order of the Chained Flame founded by the Grandmasters functions a mercenary bounty board that hands out official Spell Hunter licenses to dispell and capture rogue Endless Spells.

===[[Free Peoples]]===
The forces of the Cities of Sigmar, the rank and file of Azyr forces, the grunts, the doughboys, the duckfoots, only this time they can see their god and know that he truly cares about them and fights by their side. [[Awesome|They are the old Empire if things haven't gone so bad during its 2500 years of story, brought back as the citizens of Azyrheim and other enclaves of the Realm of Heaven, and they will fight Chaos with honest-to-Sigmar human courage, steel, gunpowder and grit.]] After the Realmgate Wars the cities of Sigmar have achieved the demographic and socioeconomic development to rise their own Freeguild regiments, while others own forces who declare their descendance from the first azyrite pioneers who ventured into the Chaos-infested realms.

===Ironweld Arsenal===
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbxgYlcNxE8| Say hello to the 19th century!] Steam-punk tanks and artillery. We hope you didn't throw away your [[Steam Tank]] when The End Times happened, but with this faction being so awesome you may want to bring a Leman Russ tank instead. As seen in the novel City of Secrets many cities of Azyr have regiments which count with some artillery teams and Steam Tanks, allowing them to fight off both enemy formations and airborne menaces, and even take down large monstrous creatures. The Ironweld Arsenal also provides with conventional engineering support, their members are seeing working after battle into erecting the foundation of new sentlements and fortresses, working in unison with the Stormcast ordinators to ensure the footholds of Azyr have the right urbanistic development.

It is noted these industrialists have come into conflict with Alarielle and her children, since as classic Industrial Revolution-esque engineers they don't seem to care that much for the ecological impact of their activities. Best to set up shop outside of Ghyran. Also of note too is the reference in some novels of the use of custom weaponry, automatons, walking fortresses and other marvels, we wonder when we would get <strike>warjacks</strike> Imperial Knights in Age of Sigmar.

===Seraphon===
While there is no formal alliance between Sigmar's armies and the Seraphon, both forces seem to recognize they have aligned goals; both have fought Chaos side by side. No other realm can boast magical space dinosaurs, or psychic frogs with the power to crush continents. The Seraphon seem to have inherited the poor communication skills of the [[Lizardmen]], on the other hand, they have become far more effective as they are anti-Chaos beings, with the essence being that of Azyr's wind of magic.

==Azyr's fauna==
Azyr has its own fauna, most of which follows the theme of dragons, felines and eagles (and combinations thereof). They're often described as having a keen intelligence and are associated with lightning or stars. Some major examples are as follows:

===[[Stardrake]]s===
[[File:Dave_the_barbarian_faffy.jpg|200px|thumb|right|Pictured here is a Stardrake in all his Dracothion given glory.]]
Considered the Children of [[Dracothion]], they usually live in high place, once they die they reincarnate, however, like certain space elves, the coming of Chaos has made the process difficult. There is a pact between their kind and the Stormcasts to fight together against the Ruinous Powers, with the Stardrakes being capable of taking down [[Greater Daemon]]s on their own. Like Stormcast, they return to Azyr after death to be reborn, barring magical nonsense preventing them from doing so.

===[[Dracoth]]s===
Theories are that they may be hatchlings of Stardrakes, while other people say they are a completely different race. Like the Stardrakes, they work together with the Stormcast Eternals to remove the taint of Chaos. Apparently, [[Vandus Hammerhand]], the guy of The Gates of Azyr, was the first one to tame one of them.

===[[Dracoline]]s===
Mountain dwelling reptilian thunder cats that sharpen and charge their claws on [[Celestium]].

===[[Tauralon]]===
Giant flying star goats. Normally found in the void between realms but have made roost around Sigmar's space station, [[Sigmarabulum]]. Their favorite pastime is headbutting dangerous asteroids into people.

===Gryph-creatures===
Because the Mortal Realms are too cool to settle with the common griffon, Azyr boasts an impressive variety of creatures of the griffin family. There are four varieties currently:

*'''[[Griffon]]''': The ol' chicken we all know and love. Frequently employed by the high-ranking members and leaders of the Free Guilds and Collegiate Arcane as mounts. They grow rather big and sometimes can naturally develop a second head at birth.
*'''[[Demigryph]]''': Another returning type from WHFB. Unable to fly, this species is used as mounts by heavy cavalry units, most commonly the Free Guilds' Demigryph Knights.
*'''<s>Kroot Hound</s>[[Gryph-hound]]s''': The good bork-birbs. These are new. Similar in the body to demigrypghs but smaller (like a big dog, give or take) they are employed as attack hounds or watchdogs as they can detect dangers at distance and are rather ferocious. Both the Stormcast Eternals and the Devoted of Sigmar can use them. Look at the one accompanying the Excelsior Warpriest. Surprisingly cute.
*'''[[Gryph-charger]]s''': Another new species. The size of a big demigryph but faster and more agile, with the ability to carry considerable weight. They are perfect for rough terrain and/or scouting. Weirdly, they are the only variant with horns and considering they have hooves instead of paws like the other variants, they actually resemble hippogriffons more than griffons. Usually employed by the Stormcast Eternals' Vanguard Chambers as mounts to Palladors and Lords Aquilor.

===Others===
*'''[[Dragon Ogres|Dragon Ogors]]:''' Former residents of Azyr before Sigmar kicked them out with his no chaos policy, renaming themselves the "Thunderscorn" in memory of this.

*'''[[Stromfels Gargants]]:''' A tribe of Gargants who worshipped the minor Chaos God Stromfels, whose sphere of influence includes sea monsters, pirates, and, most importantly in regards to Azyr as a realm of the Heavens, Storms. Sigmar made them GTFO, same as the Dragon Ogors.

==See Also==
* [[Sigmar]], the ruler, incarnate and god of this realm.
* [[Terra]], the roughest equivalent you may find in Warhammer 40,000, minus the noble-bright.
* [[The Empire (Warhammer Fantasy)]], the predecessor and first attempt of Sigmar to make a better place to live for humans and their allies.

{{AoS-Realms}}

[[Category:Warhammer Fantasy]][[Category:Age of Sigmar]][[Category:40k and Fantasy Gods]]
[[Category:Stormcast Eternals]]

Hordes/Tactics/Circle Orboros

2022-06-28T23:02:06Z

2600:6C5D:617F:3C8C:158:690D:AC70:1BEB: /* General Strategy */

{{Stub}}

==Why Play Circle Orboros==

Druids, furries, animals, earth robots.

The Circle's playstyle is quite trolly, run up through terrain, strip off your defensive buffs, smack you really hard, then run back through terrain while creating more to pin you down. Circle frequently causes headaches for armies like Skorne and Searforge who already struggle against terrain, have issues with armies with lots of Pathfinder and then the Circle which has near universal Pathfinder and can create terrain and cloud cover because its important you can totally justify our trollface than letting them play a game with their models. That said Legion of Everblight and to a lesser extent Cryx can shrug off your terrain and cloud creation as well as some of your other tricks making those 2 factions demand a different playstyle.

Circle warbeasts come in 2 distinct flavours, Living and Construct. You can run a mix, in fact its quite useful as they cover each other's weaknesses, but its often a case where you will see Circle lists being either Defenders Of The Wild, Tharns and Wolves, and lastly Sticks And Stones. Defenders of the Wild is considered the weakest style at the moment, you use Wolves of Orboros, Reeves and infantry warlocks to push your horde forward and jam up your the open spaces on the board with models to force your opponent into terrain where you can freely use your mobility to kite them out. Tharns and Wolves is a bit similar to Defenders but is more competitive by going heavy on the Tharn, a race of primitives that sort of shapeshift into nasty beastpeople when they get mad, it also means using lots of the Warpwolves to back them with serious hitting power units. SAS on the otherhand tends to look like a very grindy list but is actually a quite a good control and scenario archetype compared to the other two. SAS uses Druid units, Waystones, Sentry Stones, the Woldnoun warbeasts and a few druid solos. Its got a lot of options and can deal with a lot of list types quite easily, its also very shooty which catches a lot of opponents off-guard because the main shooting unit for the Circle is one of the few genuine garbage units in this game.

==General Strategy==

Lorax does guerilla warfare; run through terrain on their flanks and make them wish they too could just ignore the trees.

==Unit Analysis==

===Warlocks===

*'''Baldur the Stonecleaver''' - Cool old dude that is about the only level headed member of the circle and is more worried about what sneaky old Everblight is up to than getting promoted. Can swing a big ass sword like it's nothing. Is the go-to guy when starting Sticks And Stone lists because he can heal Constructs, doesn't have to always run constructs but they get more with him. He has the ability to teleport through forests and is very notorious for assassinating warlocks/warcasters with it and a few bits of created terrain.

*'''Baldur the Stonesoul''' - After his resurrection, Baldur went from being the level-headed sensible uncle/grandpa of the circle to a crazed eyes-wide-open-but-nothing-behind-them fanatic... You know like every other person who puts on the black cloak of this Druidic order. He is very similar to his original self, but trades defensive healing for acquiring a token each turn that does 1 damage to him and gives him +1 Str, meaning he just ends up burning life to hit like a rock. Megalith is practically mandatory so you can survive enough turns to build up a major stack of wurm tokens and then one-shot a light warnoun or cripple a heavy and use his special ability to purge them off before it kills him.

*'''Cassius the Oathkeeper & Wurmwood, Tree of Fate''' - The latest in a long line of druids bound to the oldest and creepiest tree in the world. If he hits you, you die and turn into a tree. Not a warlock for newbies, he has a lot of offensive spells and his feat can bog down whole armies, but its tied to the tree, which describes this guy perfectly. He is limited by the tree and it getting hit messes up your warlock up instead.

*'''Kaya the Wildborne ''' - The starter kit Warlock, she's a plucky newby who looks up to Baldur as the father figure who doesn't think she's a pagan witch. She has no patience for the Circle's politicking and a [[Furry|tight bond]] with her warbeasts. Uses a staff and has a spell list loaded down with movement shenanigans. Does a bit of everything but can run a larger battlegroup than most warlocks/warcasters thanks to better beast support spells and her Feat is incredibly good for fury management.

*'''Kaya the Moonhunter and Laris''' - After maturing, turning into a fanatical harridan, turning her back on Baldur and getting tips from Morvahna, we get an updated Kaya. She comes with her companion warbeast which is pretty decent, they can yo-yo like before but for less of a cost. Kaya2 can't run as a large a hunting pack of warbeasts as Kaya1 but she gets a lot out of her companion warbeast that it makes up for it.

*'''Krueger the Stormwrath''' - Growing up in a Protectorate area means his only grasp of religion is the fanatical extreme unacceptable variety and so fits right in with this druidic sect. A pretty mobile warlock who has a nice diversity of spells and good but not great combat potential. Early on he was frequently taken with Woldbeasts but its now common to see him run a more diverse battlegroup with a Woldwarden. He's a magician too, take him to the table and watch infantry disappear with his lightning spell, take him with Woldwardens and watch as infantry will disappear from your local meta as you abuse geomancy to throw more lightning than even Cygnar can.

*'''Krueger the Stormlord''' The the cold uncompromising fanatic of a whole order of fanatic moves up a notch when partaking in eating human hearts with his Tharn friends. More complicated but also streamlined, comes with flying instead of needing to buff himself to fly. Is able to push and pull things around like Rahn but without being a condescending elf about it, instead being smug religious fanatic. Is one of the Big 3 for this faction. Tends to be one of the stronger Sticks And Stones warlocks as his spell list feeds their control powers but equally good in a Defenders or Tharn list.

*'''Mohsar the Desertwalker''' - An interesting bloke, taught Baldur about stone and is the old man who keeps saying "I'm too old for this shit." and yet continues to do said shit without being asked. He can mess people around in scenarios, turning an ally into sand and stepping out of said sand so he's always where you want him. His signature trick is spam summoning pillars of salt that due to rule wording can't be shot at with 90% of all ranged attacks and can't be charged at, using them to pretty much lock your opponent out of doing anything you don't want them to do. Gallows Groves are pretty much mandatory and between them and his teleport ability you can reach a lot of the board with your spells without ever being in your opponent's reach, cue trollface.

*'''Morvahna the Autumnblade''' - Once the premier infantry warlock of the Circle, like all women, she delights in having men and fight and die for her because of absolute bitchiness (wow, warmahordes players are assholes). She supports infantry well, with lots of healing both for them and her and can turn their deaths into a benefit for her so that when a stalemate occurs, she can leverage a slight advantage out of it, or if an infantry stalemate starts turning in the other side's favour, she still has some ability to comeback. She really likes to play infantry vs infantry games as she gets benefits for both sides dying, and can heal/resurrect her own while getting free terrain and aoe damage on enemies near someone she or someone on her side kills. Because of this, she does dislike some of the infantry hose builds like Kruger with 2 Woldwardens.

*'''Morvahna the Dawnshadow''' - Now she literally looks down on men to the men she sends to their death instead of metaphorically, very similar to her non-epic form, she overtook her previous incarnation as our go-to infantry commander. Fog of War is a cheat spell in this faction especially with anything packing Prowl, cast it, upkeep it and move as many infantry units under its cover as you can while being smug in the huge amount of protection your horde gets to his horde. She is one of our Big 3.

*'''Grayle the Farstrider''' - This guy exists to rationalize the existence of Wolves of Orboros and Reeves of Orboros. An infantry general who can fight as good as a berserk Kromac in combat and comes with Stealth. Not bad per se but sort of upfront and direct, which is completely alien to this faction where being a irritant who refuses to fight fair is the defining characteristic. He tends to take Defenders of the Wild hordes along with Morvahna.

*'''Kromac the Ravenous''' - He transforms and can be either melee butcher with no abilities other than to kill things or a decent supporting warlock with good melee stats. When he's in combat mode he can't upkeep spells or cast anything new, so choose carefully when to transform back and forth as he loses a lot of his ability to manage his beasts when he himself becomes a rapebeast.

*'''Bradigus Thorle the Runecarver''' - Circle's latest warlock. He builds golems and can use landslides to move around. Can be incredibly powerful but he's also incredibly difficult to use. Bradigus is restricted to only constructs in his battle group but his kit is such that you'd be all construct anyway.

===Warbeasts===

'''Light Warbeasts'''

*'''Argus''' - Isn't great, nor is good something you use to describe him. The model has its uses, it can paralyse a larger beast with its Doppler Bark animus, buying time for you to get something lined up to beat it. The standard battlebox gives you two, but paint one white and use it as a Winter Argus (which is, in fact, legal for battlebox-only games!).

*'''Argus Moonhound''' - Basically a two headed hunting dog. He will help your dudes see and hit their targets at range. His Animus negates stealth on enemies in 5" which means pairing it with at least 1 ranged unit like Reeves of Orboros, the Celestial Fulcrum, or a Druid Stoneward and Woldstalkers unit. It has an aura that adds +2 to shooting attacks against enemies in 5". Another trick with this beast is to charge an enemy bodyguard unit with the Shieldguard ability which is negated by being in combat, while granting the range attack bonus on the real target. Being cheap & squishy means this is like a once-off buff on a stick, rather than a beast, and your only concern should be positioning missile units to be ready for that one turn of shooting before the Moonhound is killed. Meh in a vacuum, but becomes great the more ranged attacks in an army, easily one of the best light warbeasts in Circle.

*'''Gorax''' - If you're running Living warbeasts, you take this guy first. His Animus is amazing on Warpwolves and Satyrs and he himself can use it to destroy any other light warbeasts. He's mostly used for his animus, but when battlegroups collide send him after any utility lights while your heavies focus on the harder stuff.

*'''Scarsfell Griffon''' - Has the Long Leash ability which means your Warlock's control area is calculated as double its size for the purpose of controlling this beast, this means that Kaya1 can pretty much cross the battlefield to wherever she wants, while Mohsar can reach anywhere from near the centre of the table. Is a good combat light that kind of invalidates the other 2 griffons, its animus grants dodge so that enemy attacks that miss grant a 2" free move.

*'''Razorwing Griffon''' - Has Long Leash. He got blades on his wings and can use them to trample everything, vector strike-like. Is kind of meh in combat directly compared to the Scarsfell, and because trample power attacks lack supporting buffs it needs to start close to light infantry which is risky for a light beast. Rotterhorn does the same job but less risk and less predictable.

*'''Rotterhorn Griffon''' - Has Long Leash. This bird screams loud enough to hurt, this is it's animus. Once per turn if it kills a model in melee it can use its animus without being forced. Its kind of meh, its suited for killing light infantry, especially blobs where you can cram a lot of bodies into the 2" radius of its scream.

*'''Winter Argus''' - Basically a two headed dog that barks ice breath. His Animus is a Self-range buff so you can only use it on the warlock and the Winter Argus, but if you're in a battlebox game and you find yourself fighting Sorscha she suddenly can't feat assassinate you, the cold immunity is niche but applying stationary to anything in 2" is potent whether you're attempting melee assassination or defending against it. Is too niche to take regularly, but ok if cold effects are an issue or you want to go all-in on warlock assassinations.

*'''Woldwatcher''' - Bodyguard golem, can shield people from arrows and bullets and harden itself. It also has a pretty solid ranged attack and any living enemies it kills turn into forests, which is nice for most warlocks but with Bradigus and Baldur can be hilariously powerful.

*'''Woldwyrd''' - The most niche of the Woldnouns, a specialised anti-magic warbeast, usually taken when you have issues with Druids of Orboros but want to fuck over magic heavy lists.

'''Heavy Warbeasts'''

*'''Feral Warpwolf''' - You will learn to love this guy, or play pure construct, definitely the workhorse heavy beast of the Circle. He's got the most straightforward Controlled Warping list that makes him faster and tougher than the other Warpwolves and he's got lots of high-POW attacks to wreck armour with.

*'''Gnarlhorn Satyr''' - He's a ram, so he loves to charge things headfirst to slam them away. So much in fact he can do it during your opponent's turn.

*'''Pureblood Warpwolf''' - Usually run with a Feral at the least, a very common sight. Hits very hard and has bark that is arguably as bad as its bite. He lets your Warpwolves walk through walls to kill people.

*'''Riphorn Satyr''' - The bodybuilder Satyr. Tough and strong, he can push people around.

*'''Shadowhorn Satyr''' - Light Satyr, he knocks down people who miss him in melee and can jump around.

*'''Warpwolf Stalker''' - Usually taken with a Pureblood, a Feral or complementing a Gorax and Argus. This werewolf uses a bigass sword and can go berserk on people with it, or hide really well in the woods. Considered the best non-character heavy currently. His Pathfinder and Animus let him move in, trash something and then back into the cover of nearby trees, sort of like a lurking predator... because you know its a werewolf with a sword trying to be a ninja. If you're only taking one heavy he's usually a strong contender since he's good at killing almost anything.

*'''Wold Guardian''' - The big brother golem bodyguard. Slow, but hits hard, immune to explosions and can become impervious to ranged attacks. Pay attention to the knockdown on his melee attacks.

*'''Woldwarden''' - One of the more infamous beasts in Circle, Geomancy is a very strong ability and was responsible for Mk1 Kruger's reputation for evaporating infantry from whole metas. He's good in normal lists and the goddamned backbone of Sticks And Stones lists. Also something that is frequently overlooked is that Geomancy functionally makes this guy a shooty beast and having 2-3 of him means you have better ranged output than many Warmachine lists. Keep in mind that he's pretty pillow-fisted and takes support to take on heavy warjacks in melee. Woldwardens heal themselves 1 point every turn which adds a little bit more resiliencey.

'''Character Heavies'''

*'''Ghetorix''' - Boss Werewolf. He used to be one of the half-furry people but became so angry he flipped off the druids, specifically Morvahna. He was pounded into submission by Kromac, at Morvahna's request, because she needs to see men fighting for her to get off and then was force fed <strike>bong water</strike> the Warpwolf Elixir because Morvahna can't go a day without being a massive fucking bitch. If you want to run 4 Dogs, then this guy is the 4th instead of a second Feral. Hits like a truck etc.. Really just a REALLy strong Warpwolf.

*'''Megalith''' - Very good and often the second or first construct purchase for Circle players, subs for a Woldwarden. Baldur always takes him because of their synergy, Baldur1 and Megalith become a solid pair of unkillable badassness, while Baldur2 benefits from being able to run hot on wurm tokens with Megalith's healing mitigating the burn, late game Baldur2 can swing for stupid amounts of damage thanks to Megalith's assistance. Bradigus also likes having him around, as Woldwardens B2B with Megalith heal D3 from their Mending ability instead of 1.

*'''Brennos''' - Morvahna's character warbeast, a Satyr wizard who works for the Circle in exchange for their protection for Satyrs in general. He's got a weird assortment of abilities; his affinity is great for EMorvahna, but his animus support and Mage Killer almost make him better in a warbeast-heavy Kaya list.

'''Gargantuan'''

*'''Woldwrath''' - Huge golem that shoots lightning from his eyes. One punch knocks everyone around on their ass. Is sort of a mixed bag, some warlocks find him a straight upgrade to the mainline Wolds, while others can't really do much due to his Construct nature.

===Units===

*'''Druids of Orboros''' - Magical tricksters: they heal warbeasts use magical smoke grenades, push or pull things around and their boss can stop enemy magic around them. People either love them of hate them.
**'''Overseer''' He can make the unit immune to most elemental effects and throws spells much better.

*'''Druid Stoneward & Woldstalkers''' - a druid with his pet laser-shooting golems. A good ranged unit. With the Druid's Concentrate Fire spell they hit harder for every member of the unit who hit the same target previously, this means that they start at POW 12 and get to POW 16. The unit is fucked if caught in melee so use Zephyr to GTFO as <strike>PP didn't give these guys gunfighter</strike> they still don't fair well in combat but they have gunfighter now. Have lost their title as workhorse shooting unit as Reeves are good now and Mannikins got buffed.

*'''Reeves of Orboros''' - Hunters with double-shot crossbows. <strike>Considered poor for their cost</strike> Now they're actually good again. Reeves continue a trend of Circle having good anti-infantry options, recent changes to themes have lowered their popularity a little from everywhere to just common, but they're no longer the joke they were awhile ago. Keep them out of melee and and away from blasts as each casualty is 2 shots lost.
**'''Chieftan & Standard Bearer''' <strike>generally considered the most useless unit attachment in the whole game because it attaches to Reeves</strike> Now its almost mandatory to take the CA with Reeves as the Chieftan's mini-feat protects against blasts, gives you some ability to respond to melee threats, while the standard bearer lets you spread out wider to avoid blasts.

*'''Sentry Stone & Mannikins''' - Wooden golems and their control tower. A utility unit that can kill easy-to-hit units, provides fantastic Fury management, and provides forests for defense; it's not going to kill a lot alone but it's crucial to some lists.

*'''Shifting Stones''' - Magical stones that heal or teleport things. One of the best support pieces in both games. With several spaced apart properly you can chain teleport things across the board to deliver them anywhere.
**'''Stone Keeper''' Hides the stones to protect them, allows them to spread more. Often used for the forward set of stones while you leave a set without the Keeper in your deployment zone to start the teleport chain.

*'''Tharn Bloodtrackers''' - Women who are really good at throwing javelins on people. This is our other main ranged unit, it can hold up better in combat than Reeves or Woldstalkers but it brings very mobile shooting and coupled with terrain generation they can dance out of combat range throwing their Weaponmaster Javelins.
**'''Nuala the Huntress''' Tharn queen, allows the Bloodtrackers to hit and run, makes a great unit fucking amazing.

*'''Tharn Bloodweavers''' - the Tharn priestesses, they gut people to do magic. They're a quick melee toolbox; they can clear light infantry, crack heavy infantry, and take buffs off of enemies.

*'''Tharn Ravagers''' - Furry lovers who took things too far. Now look like monster movie rejects. Our heavy infantry, and true to form, softer and more mobile than the next leading competitors. Have an advantage if they can alpha strike a light infantry unit and get a bunch of hearts before hitting their main targets and using the hearts to boost. They can get places they really shouldn't be if you can put forests on the field.
**'''Ravager Chieftain''' - He gives the unit Advance Deployment and a bonus to charge damage to get the Heart Eater chain going.
**'''Ravager Shaman''' - He provides a mid-POW ranged attack with Assault and Electro Leap to soften up the enemy before the heavy hitters get into the fight.

*'''Tharn Blood Pack''' - Ravagers who decided to grab bows. They can do a respectable amount of damage if the dice cooperate, but they're pretty dependent on killing things with their charge.

*'''Tharn Wolf Riders''' - Bloodtrackers on wolves to go faster. They're about twice as expensive but they come with some extra damage output tricks and they're a fair bit tougher.

*'''Warpborn Skinwalkers''' - Man-sized werewolves. They are tough and go faster when you hurt them. Most Circle players swear by them when they have their Alpha.
**'''Warpborn Alpha''' Makes the skinwalkers be able to attack twice and eat their enemies to regenerate. No point taking the Skinwalkers without him thanks to the sheer damage boost.

*'''Wolves of Orboros''' - Basic grunts and all around expendable troops. Cheapest infantry in the faction.
Potential attachment - Chieftain & Standard: can make the Wolves of Orboros very effective in melee one turn per game.

===Solos===

*'''Blackclad Wayfarer''' - This dude can warp to shifting stones anywhere on the board, or make your dude charge from further away. Immune to most elemental effects. His main trick is using Hunter's Mark and terrain to setup unexpected charging lanes to deliver Tharn Ravagers or Skinwalkers into your opponent's face.

*'''Druid Wilder''' - Druid apprentice learning the job. Helps micromanage your beasts, this guy can take the stress of keeping things in check, but is usually unnecessary with Constructs as they don't Frenzy.

*'''Reeve Hunter''' - Reeve boss, teaches the others reaves to use camouflage. Can theoretically kill 6 things <strike>before breakfast</strike> each turn thanks to Quick Work and Snap Fire. Unlike his underlings, this guy is actually respectable, not a super assassin like the Elf Hooker, but he can breakup light infantry units and becomes a "can't ignore, but too wasteful to commit a unit to killing" factor in games.

*'''Tharn Ravager White Mane''' - Old tharn man who fought a lot of battles and lived to tell stories about them. He's there to wander through infantry units with Overtake and Heart Eater to keep going.

*'''War Wolf''' - Trained wolf. Can charge things Reeves put bolts in. To get the most out of this you need Reeves... so thats pretty much another miniature gathering dust on the shelf. Has some funny synergy with EMorvahna's feat, but that's about it.

*'''Gallows Grove''' - Barknodes and a big middle finger to Toughness/Healing. Gallows Groves are mandatory for the control heavy casters as its giving them so much reach and the ability to just flatout deny areas of the board because even though you're not near there, your warlock can still fuck things up there. Tends to get targeted by players who've experienced them before because trees mean your warlock is going to stay back and poke them until the trees are lopped. Their cost and FA means that you will always see two of them unless your opponent is going to just go for your throat.

===Character Solos===

*'''[[Lord of the feast]]''' - The manifestation of an old, angry god. Called that because he feasts on enemy infantry. Can theoretically kill a light infantry unit, bird into another light infantry unit kill that one and then start ripping into a third because it was bunched up next to the second. You will like never pull this off, maybe once, and then everyone will space their units apart because of stupid Circle ploy. Hell this guy earns his value back because your opponent must react to his presence on the board. Hilarious if against a Damiano tier 4 list where you have like 40+ Silverheads to rape.

*'''Wolf Lord Morraig''' - A general for Wolves and Reeves of Orboros. Mounted on a big wolf, he hits fast and hard with flank for five damage dice on the charge.

*'''Una the Falconeer''' - A lesser Warlock who can only take Griffins, though at a discount. Not a must buy, but a respectable purchase to fill out a list. Works good with the various builds. Used to be great with Scarsfell Griffons before the nerf stripping them of Long Leash.

===Battle Engines===

*'''Celestial Fulcrum''' - Giant weather machine able to cause floods, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. Do not leave on.

{{Template:Privateer Press}}

[[Category: Hordes Tactics]]

Hordes/Tactics/Circle Orboros

2022-06-28T22:59:36Z

2600:6C5D:617F:3C8C:158:690D:AC70:1BEB: /* Why Play Circle Orboros */

{{Stub}}

==Why Play Circle Orboros==

Druids, furries, animals, earth robots.

The Circle's playstyle is quite trolly, run up through terrain, strip off your defensive buffs, smack you really hard, then run back through terrain while creating more to pin you down. Circle frequently causes headaches for armies like Skorne and Searforge who already struggle against terrain, have issues with armies with lots of Pathfinder and then the Circle which has near universal Pathfinder and can create terrain and cloud cover because its important you can totally justify our trollface than letting them play a game with their models. That said Legion of Everblight and to a lesser extent Cryx can shrug off your terrain and cloud creation as well as some of your other tricks making those 2 factions demand a different playstyle.

Circle warbeasts come in 2 distinct flavours, Living and Construct. You can run a mix, in fact its quite useful as they cover each other's weaknesses, but its often a case where you will see Circle lists being either Defenders Of The Wild, Tharns and Wolves, and lastly Sticks And Stones. Defenders of the Wild is considered the weakest style at the moment, you use Wolves of Orboros, Reeves and infantry warlocks to push your horde forward and jam up your the open spaces on the board with models to force your opponent into terrain where you can freely use your mobility to kite them out. Tharns and Wolves is a bit similar to Defenders but is more competitive by going heavy on the Tharn, a race of primitives that sort of shapeshift into nasty beastpeople when they get mad, it also means using lots of the Warpwolves to back them with serious hitting power units. SAS on the otherhand tends to look like a very grindy list but is actually a quite a good control and scenario archetype compared to the other two. SAS uses Druid units, Waystones, Sentry Stones, the Woldnoun warbeasts and a few druid solos. Its got a lot of options and can deal with a lot of list types quite easily, its also very shooty which catches a lot of opponents off-guard because the main shooting unit for the Circle is one of the few genuine garbage units in this game.

==General Strategy==

Run through terrain on their flanks and make them wish they too could just ignore the trees.

==Unit Analysis==

===Warlocks===

*'''Baldur the Stonecleaver''' - Cool old dude that is about the only level headed member of the circle and is more worried about what sneaky old Everblight is up to than getting promoted. Can swing a big ass sword like it's nothing. Is the go-to guy when starting Sticks And Stone lists because he can heal Constructs, doesn't have to always run constructs but they get more with him. He has the ability to teleport through forests and is very notorious for assassinating warlocks/warcasters with it and a few bits of created terrain.

*'''Baldur the Stonesoul''' - After his resurrection, Baldur went from being the level-headed sensible uncle/grandpa of the circle to a crazed eyes-wide-open-but-nothing-behind-them fanatic... You know like every other person who puts on the black cloak of this Druidic order. He is very similar to his original self, but trades defensive healing for acquiring a token each turn that does 1 damage to him and gives him +1 Str, meaning he just ends up burning life to hit like a rock. Megalith is practically mandatory so you can survive enough turns to build up a major stack of wurm tokens and then one-shot a light warnoun or cripple a heavy and use his special ability to purge them off before it kills him.

*'''Cassius the Oathkeeper & Wurmwood, Tree of Fate''' - The latest in a long line of druids bound to the oldest and creepiest tree in the world. If he hits you, you die and turn into a tree. Not a warlock for newbies, he has a lot of offensive spells and his feat can bog down whole armies, but its tied to the tree, which describes this guy perfectly. He is limited by the tree and it getting hit messes up your warlock up instead.

*'''Kaya the Wildborne ''' - The starter kit Warlock, she's a plucky newby who looks up to Baldur as the father figure who doesn't think she's a pagan witch. She has no patience for the Circle's politicking and a [[Furry|tight bond]] with her warbeasts. Uses a staff and has a spell list loaded down with movement shenanigans. Does a bit of everything but can run a larger battlegroup than most warlocks/warcasters thanks to better beast support spells and her Feat is incredibly good for fury management.

*'''Kaya the Moonhunter and Laris''' - After maturing, turning into a fanatical harridan, turning her back on Baldur and getting tips from Morvahna, we get an updated Kaya. She comes with her companion warbeast which is pretty decent, they can yo-yo like before but for less of a cost. Kaya2 can't run as a large a hunting pack of warbeasts as Kaya1 but she gets a lot out of her companion warbeast that it makes up for it.

*'''Krueger the Stormwrath''' - Growing up in a Protectorate area means his only grasp of religion is the fanatical extreme unacceptable variety and so fits right in with this druidic sect. A pretty mobile warlock who has a nice diversity of spells and good but not great combat potential. Early on he was frequently taken with Woldbeasts but its now common to see him run a more diverse battlegroup with a Woldwarden. He's a magician too, take him to the table and watch infantry disappear with his lightning spell, take him with Woldwardens and watch as infantry will disappear from your local meta as you abuse geomancy to throw more lightning than even Cygnar can.

*'''Krueger the Stormlord''' The the cold uncompromising fanatic of a whole order of fanatic moves up a notch when partaking in eating human hearts with his Tharn friends. More complicated but also streamlined, comes with flying instead of needing to buff himself to fly. Is able to push and pull things around like Rahn but without being a condescending elf about it, instead being smug religious fanatic. Is one of the Big 3 for this faction. Tends to be one of the stronger Sticks And Stones warlocks as his spell list feeds their control powers but equally good in a Defenders or Tharn list.

*'''Mohsar the Desertwalker''' - An interesting bloke, taught Baldur about stone and is the old man who keeps saying "I'm too old for this shit." and yet continues to do said shit without being asked. He can mess people around in scenarios, turning an ally into sand and stepping out of said sand so he's always where you want him. His signature trick is spam summoning pillars of salt that due to rule wording can't be shot at with 90% of all ranged attacks and can't be charged at, using them to pretty much lock your opponent out of doing anything you don't want them to do. Gallows Groves are pretty much mandatory and between them and his teleport ability you can reach a lot of the board with your spells without ever being in your opponent's reach, cue trollface.

*'''Morvahna the Autumnblade''' - Once the premier infantry warlock of the Circle, like all women, she delights in having men and fight and die for her because of absolute bitchiness (wow, warmahordes players are assholes). She supports infantry well, with lots of healing both for them and her and can turn their deaths into a benefit for her so that when a stalemate occurs, she can leverage a slight advantage out of it, or if an infantry stalemate starts turning in the other side's favour, she still has some ability to comeback. She really likes to play infantry vs infantry games as she gets benefits for both sides dying, and can heal/resurrect her own while getting free terrain and aoe damage on enemies near someone she or someone on her side kills. Because of this, she does dislike some of the infantry hose builds like Kruger with 2 Woldwardens.

*'''Morvahna the Dawnshadow''' - Now she literally looks down on men to the men she sends to their death instead of metaphorically, very similar to her non-epic form, she overtook her previous incarnation as our go-to infantry commander. Fog of War is a cheat spell in this faction especially with anything packing Prowl, cast it, upkeep it and move as many infantry units under its cover as you can while being smug in the huge amount of protection your horde gets to his horde. She is one of our Big 3.

*'''Grayle the Farstrider''' - This guy exists to rationalize the existence of Wolves of Orboros and Reeves of Orboros. An infantry general who can fight as good as a berserk Kromac in combat and comes with Stealth. Not bad per se but sort of upfront and direct, which is completely alien to this faction where being a irritant who refuses to fight fair is the defining characteristic. He tends to take Defenders of the Wild hordes along with Morvahna.

*'''Kromac the Ravenous''' - He transforms and can be either melee butcher with no abilities other than to kill things or a decent supporting warlock with good melee stats. When he's in combat mode he can't upkeep spells or cast anything new, so choose carefully when to transform back and forth as he loses a lot of his ability to manage his beasts when he himself becomes a rapebeast.

*'''Bradigus Thorle the Runecarver''' - Circle's latest warlock. He builds golems and can use landslides to move around. Can be incredibly powerful but he's also incredibly difficult to use. Bradigus is restricted to only constructs in his battle group but his kit is such that you'd be all construct anyway.

===Warbeasts===

'''Light Warbeasts'''

*'''Argus''' - Isn't great, nor is good something you use to describe him. The model has its uses, it can paralyse a larger beast with its Doppler Bark animus, buying time for you to get something lined up to beat it. The standard battlebox gives you two, but paint one white and use it as a Winter Argus (which is, in fact, legal for battlebox-only games!).

*'''Argus Moonhound''' - Basically a two headed hunting dog. He will help your dudes see and hit their targets at range. His Animus negates stealth on enemies in 5" which means pairing it with at least 1 ranged unit like Reeves of Orboros, the Celestial Fulcrum, or a Druid Stoneward and Woldstalkers unit. It has an aura that adds +2 to shooting attacks against enemies in 5". Another trick with this beast is to charge an enemy bodyguard unit with the Shieldguard ability which is negated by being in combat, while granting the range attack bonus on the real target. Being cheap & squishy means this is like a once-off buff on a stick, rather than a beast, and your only concern should be positioning missile units to be ready for that one turn of shooting before the Moonhound is killed. Meh in a vacuum, but becomes great the more ranged attacks in an army, easily one of the best light warbeasts in Circle.

*'''Gorax''' - If you're running Living warbeasts, you take this guy first. His Animus is amazing on Warpwolves and Satyrs and he himself can use it to destroy any other light warbeasts. He's mostly used for his animus, but when battlegroups collide send him after any utility lights while your heavies focus on the harder stuff.

*'''Scarsfell Griffon''' - Has the Long Leash ability which means your Warlock's control area is calculated as double its size for the purpose of controlling this beast, this means that Kaya1 can pretty much cross the battlefield to wherever she wants, while Mohsar can reach anywhere from near the centre of the table. Is a good combat light that kind of invalidates the other 2 griffons, its animus grants dodge so that enemy attacks that miss grant a 2" free move.

*'''Razorwing Griffon''' - Has Long Leash. He got blades on his wings and can use them to trample everything, vector strike-like. Is kind of meh in combat directly compared to the Scarsfell, and because trample power attacks lack supporting buffs it needs to start close to light infantry which is risky for a light beast. Rotterhorn does the same job but less risk and less predictable.

*'''Rotterhorn Griffon''' - Has Long Leash. This bird screams loud enough to hurt, this is it's animus. Once per turn if it kills a model in melee it can use its animus without being forced. Its kind of meh, its suited for killing light infantry, especially blobs where you can cram a lot of bodies into the 2" radius of its scream.

*'''Winter Argus''' - Basically a two headed dog that barks ice breath. His Animus is a Self-range buff so you can only use it on the warlock and the Winter Argus, but if you're in a battlebox game and you find yourself fighting Sorscha she suddenly can't feat assassinate you, the cold immunity is niche but applying stationary to anything in 2" is potent whether you're attempting melee assassination or defending against it. Is too niche to take regularly, but ok if cold effects are an issue or you want to go all-in on warlock assassinations.

*'''Woldwatcher''' - Bodyguard golem, can shield people from arrows and bullets and harden itself. It also has a pretty solid ranged attack and any living enemies it kills turn into forests, which is nice for most warlocks but with Bradigus and Baldur can be hilariously powerful.

*'''Woldwyrd''' - The most niche of the Woldnouns, a specialised anti-magic warbeast, usually taken when you have issues with Druids of Orboros but want to fuck over magic heavy lists.

'''Heavy Warbeasts'''

*'''Feral Warpwolf''' - You will learn to love this guy, or play pure construct, definitely the workhorse heavy beast of the Circle. He's got the most straightforward Controlled Warping list that makes him faster and tougher than the other Warpwolves and he's got lots of high-POW attacks to wreck armour with.

*'''Gnarlhorn Satyr''' - He's a ram, so he loves to charge things headfirst to slam them away. So much in fact he can do it during your opponent's turn.

*'''Pureblood Warpwolf''' - Usually run with a Feral at the least, a very common sight. Hits very hard and has bark that is arguably as bad as its bite. He lets your Warpwolves walk through walls to kill people.

*'''Riphorn Satyr''' - The bodybuilder Satyr. Tough and strong, he can push people around.

*'''Shadowhorn Satyr''' - Light Satyr, he knocks down people who miss him in melee and can jump around.

*'''Warpwolf Stalker''' - Usually taken with a Pureblood, a Feral or complementing a Gorax and Argus. This werewolf uses a bigass sword and can go berserk on people with it, or hide really well in the woods. Considered the best non-character heavy currently. His Pathfinder and Animus let him move in, trash something and then back into the cover of nearby trees, sort of like a lurking predator... because you know its a werewolf with a sword trying to be a ninja. If you're only taking one heavy he's usually a strong contender since he's good at killing almost anything.

*'''Wold Guardian''' - The big brother golem bodyguard. Slow, but hits hard, immune to explosions and can become impervious to ranged attacks. Pay attention to the knockdown on his melee attacks.

*'''Woldwarden''' - One of the more infamous beasts in Circle, Geomancy is a very strong ability and was responsible for Mk1 Kruger's reputation for evaporating infantry from whole metas. He's good in normal lists and the goddamned backbone of Sticks And Stones lists. Also something that is frequently overlooked is that Geomancy functionally makes this guy a shooty beast and having 2-3 of him means you have better ranged output than many Warmachine lists. Keep in mind that he's pretty pillow-fisted and takes support to take on heavy warjacks in melee. Woldwardens heal themselves 1 point every turn which adds a little bit more resiliencey.

'''Character Heavies'''

*'''Ghetorix''' - Boss Werewolf. He used to be one of the half-furry people but became so angry he flipped off the druids, specifically Morvahna. He was pounded into submission by Kromac, at Morvahna's request, because she needs to see men fighting for her to get off and then was force fed <strike>bong water</strike> the Warpwolf Elixir because Morvahna can't go a day without being a massive fucking bitch. If you want to run 4 Dogs, then this guy is the 4th instead of a second Feral. Hits like a truck etc.. Really just a REALLy strong Warpwolf.

*'''Megalith''' - Very good and often the second or first construct purchase for Circle players, subs for a Woldwarden. Baldur always takes him because of their synergy, Baldur1 and Megalith become a solid pair of unkillable badassness, while Baldur2 benefits from being able to run hot on wurm tokens with Megalith's healing mitigating the burn, late game Baldur2 can swing for stupid amounts of damage thanks to Megalith's assistance. Bradigus also likes having him around, as Woldwardens B2B with Megalith heal D3 from their Mending ability instead of 1.

*'''Brennos''' - Morvahna's character warbeast, a Satyr wizard who works for the Circle in exchange for their protection for Satyrs in general. He's got a weird assortment of abilities; his affinity is great for EMorvahna, but his animus support and Mage Killer almost make him better in a warbeast-heavy Kaya list.

'''Gargantuan'''

*'''Woldwrath''' - Huge golem that shoots lightning from his eyes. One punch knocks everyone around on their ass. Is sort of a mixed bag, some warlocks find him a straight upgrade to the mainline Wolds, while others can't really do much due to his Construct nature.

===Units===

*'''Druids of Orboros''' - Magical tricksters: they heal warbeasts use magical smoke grenades, push or pull things around and their boss can stop enemy magic around them. People either love them of hate them.
**'''Overseer''' He can make the unit immune to most elemental effects and throws spells much better.

*'''Druid Stoneward & Woldstalkers''' - a druid with his pet laser-shooting golems. A good ranged unit. With the Druid's Concentrate Fire spell they hit harder for every member of the unit who hit the same target previously, this means that they start at POW 12 and get to POW 16. The unit is fucked if caught in melee so use Zephyr to GTFO as <strike>PP didn't give these guys gunfighter</strike> they still don't fair well in combat but they have gunfighter now. Have lost their title as workhorse shooting unit as Reeves are good now and Mannikins got buffed.

*'''Reeves of Orboros''' - Hunters with double-shot crossbows. <strike>Considered poor for their cost</strike> Now they're actually good again. Reeves continue a trend of Circle having good anti-infantry options, recent changes to themes have lowered their popularity a little from everywhere to just common, but they're no longer the joke they were awhile ago. Keep them out of melee and and away from blasts as each casualty is 2 shots lost.
**'''Chieftan & Standard Bearer''' <strike>generally considered the most useless unit attachment in the whole game because it attaches to Reeves</strike> Now its almost mandatory to take the CA with Reeves as the Chieftan's mini-feat protects against blasts, gives you some ability to respond to melee threats, while the standard bearer lets you spread out wider to avoid blasts.

*'''Sentry Stone & Mannikins''' - Wooden golems and their control tower. A utility unit that can kill easy-to-hit units, provides fantastic Fury management, and provides forests for defense; it's not going to kill a lot alone but it's crucial to some lists.

*'''Shifting Stones''' - Magical stones that heal or teleport things. One of the best support pieces in both games. With several spaced apart properly you can chain teleport things across the board to deliver them anywhere.
**'''Stone Keeper''' Hides the stones to protect them, allows them to spread more. Often used for the forward set of stones while you leave a set without the Keeper in your deployment zone to start the teleport chain.

*'''Tharn Bloodtrackers''' - Women who are really good at throwing javelins on people. This is our other main ranged unit, it can hold up better in combat than Reeves or Woldstalkers but it brings very mobile shooting and coupled with terrain generation they can dance out of combat range throwing their Weaponmaster Javelins.
**'''Nuala the Huntress''' Tharn queen, allows the Bloodtrackers to hit and run, makes a great unit fucking amazing.

*'''Tharn Bloodweavers''' - the Tharn priestesses, they gut people to do magic. They're a quick melee toolbox; they can clear light infantry, crack heavy infantry, and take buffs off of enemies.

*'''Tharn Ravagers''' - Furry lovers who took things too far. Now look like monster movie rejects. Our heavy infantry, and true to form, softer and more mobile than the next leading competitors. Have an advantage if they can alpha strike a light infantry unit and get a bunch of hearts before hitting their main targets and using the hearts to boost. They can get places they really shouldn't be if you can put forests on the field.
**'''Ravager Chieftain''' - He gives the unit Advance Deployment and a bonus to charge damage to get the Heart Eater chain going.
**'''Ravager Shaman''' - He provides a mid-POW ranged attack with Assault and Electro Leap to soften up the enemy before the heavy hitters get into the fight.

*'''Tharn Blood Pack''' - Ravagers who decided to grab bows. They can do a respectable amount of damage if the dice cooperate, but they're pretty dependent on killing things with their charge.

*'''Tharn Wolf Riders''' - Bloodtrackers on wolves to go faster. They're about twice as expensive but they come with some extra damage output tricks and they're a fair bit tougher.

*'''Warpborn Skinwalkers''' - Man-sized werewolves. They are tough and go faster when you hurt them. Most Circle players swear by them when they have their Alpha.
**'''Warpborn Alpha''' Makes the skinwalkers be able to attack twice and eat their enemies to regenerate. No point taking the Skinwalkers without him thanks to the sheer damage boost.

*'''Wolves of Orboros''' - Basic grunts and all around expendable troops. Cheapest infantry in the faction.
Potential attachment - Chieftain & Standard: can make the Wolves of Orboros very effective in melee one turn per game.

===Solos===

*'''Blackclad Wayfarer''' - This dude can warp to shifting stones anywhere on the board, or make your dude charge from further away. Immune to most elemental effects. His main trick is using Hunter's Mark and terrain to setup unexpected charging lanes to deliver Tharn Ravagers or Skinwalkers into your opponent's face.

*'''Druid Wilder''' - Druid apprentice learning the job. Helps micromanage your beasts, this guy can take the stress of keeping things in check, but is usually unnecessary with Constructs as they don't Frenzy.

*'''Reeve Hunter''' - Reeve boss, teaches the others reaves to use camouflage. Can theoretically kill 6 things <strike>before breakfast</strike> each turn thanks to Quick Work and Snap Fire. Unlike his underlings, this guy is actually respectable, not a super assassin like the Elf Hooker, but he can breakup light infantry units and becomes a "can't ignore, but too wasteful to commit a unit to killing" factor in games.

*'''Tharn Ravager White Mane''' - Old tharn man who fought a lot of battles and lived to tell stories about them. He's there to wander through infantry units with Overtake and Heart Eater to keep going.

*'''War Wolf''' - Trained wolf. Can charge things Reeves put bolts in. To get the most out of this you need Reeves... so thats pretty much another miniature gathering dust on the shelf. Has some funny synergy with EMorvahna's feat, but that's about it.

*'''Gallows Grove''' - Barknodes and a big middle finger to Toughness/Healing. Gallows Groves are mandatory for the control heavy casters as its giving them so much reach and the ability to just flatout deny areas of the board because even though you're not near there, your warlock can still fuck things up there. Tends to get targeted by players who've experienced them before because trees mean your warlock is going to stay back and poke them until the trees are lopped. Their cost and FA means that you will always see two of them unless your opponent is going to just go for your throat.

===Character Solos===

*'''[[Lord of the feast]]''' - The manifestation of an old, angry god. Called that because he feasts on enemy infantry. Can theoretically kill a light infantry unit, bird into another light infantry unit kill that one and then start ripping into a third because it was bunched up next to the second. You will like never pull this off, maybe once, and then everyone will space their units apart because of stupid Circle ploy. Hell this guy earns his value back because your opponent must react to his presence on the board. Hilarious if against a Damiano tier 4 list where you have like 40+ Silverheads to rape.

*'''Wolf Lord Morraig''' - A general for Wolves and Reeves of Orboros. Mounted on a big wolf, he hits fast and hard with flank for five damage dice on the charge.

*'''Una the Falconeer''' - A lesser Warlock who can only take Griffins, though at a discount. Not a must buy, but a respectable purchase to fill out a list. Works good with the various builds. Used to be great with Scarsfell Griffons before the nerf stripping them of Long Leash.

===Battle Engines===

*'''Celestial Fulcrum''' - Giant weather machine able to cause floods, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. Do not leave on.

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[[Category: Hordes Tactics]]