Editing Hordes/Tactics/Legion of Everblight (section)

====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.