Editing Hordes/Tactics/Legion of Everblight (section)

===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, <strike>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. </strike> 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.