Greetings Legionnaires! To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven. For the warlocks of the Athanc the most important time is of course KILLING TIME! This issues is brought to you by a request from Jamora. Thanks for the request. Jamora writes

“I am having one heck of a time trying to use my forsaken. I keep taking it, and it does nothing for me. I’m sure it’s because I don’t know how to play it properly.”

Writing an article on the forsaken would likely be short so this piece we will be discussing the Forsaken AND the Shepard. Both models are fairly simple so I’m combining them both into a simple review and I’ll leave it to the community to contribute the cool tips, tricks & personal experience they find relevant.

This article the break down will focus on the when, where, and how hard.

When: in what instances you should obviously take one to the other. Where: placement in the field that is ideal to get the most out of your support staff How Hard: This issue I will not be filling out the final part of the break down. YOU WILL! I want you the reader to take a minute and answer the menu below or tell me about your experience with our amazing fury management. How hard can that be? WHEN? The Blighted Nyss Shepherd

Are you strapped for points? Legion can be one of the most point starved factions. Because of our high cost beast, low beast point warlocks like Bethayne and Thagrosh2, and small model count armies we need every point we can get. There are often times where that one point can be the difference between a seraph and one of our amazing 9 point beasts

Does your warlock have a low fury stat? The BNS can help those low fury warlocks to force on their warbeast outside of their warlocks CTRL area on key turns.

I don’t often play Rhyas. She is just not my play style. However I was musing with Neutralyze about her with Colossal and battle engines in mind. He was describing a mind trick where you run a shepherd up as close as possible. Then use her feat to teleport a rapport scythean behind the 120MM base to the squishy warcaster hiding behind it. The more I kill time thinking about it the more fun this sounds.

The Forsaken

How aggressive do you plan your list to be? I find games where your army is going to be very far across the field, has silly threat ranges or is going to engage the enemy on their turf you are going to need the Consume Fury ability. Warlocks like Vayl1, Saeryn1, and Absylonia all come to mind.

Is your Infantry fearless? I cannot begin to describe the logistic problems that come from brining non fearless models in a list with multiple forsaken. The Abomination ability can be a two edged sword and I often find that the hassle is not worth the time during a tournament. Nothing is worse than accidentally terrifying your own models especially if they haven’t activated this turn. In a list where you bring fearless infantry like legionnaires feel free to let your forsaken run amuk.

I have a Troll opponent who loves to slam models around. Many times he has slammed something like my Blighted Nyss sorceress& hellion near or into my forsaken. You would be surprised at how many models in legion are not fearless and have mediocre command stat. I have a tendency to roll high all the time and command checks are a nightmare for me. Savy players with access to Gallows or Telekinesis will use your own Abominations against you. The best way to mitigate this is to create list where you remove the fearful weakness or play very carefully.

WHERE? The Blighted Nyss Shepherd

Don’t get pulled into a game of tow the support around. Every turn you need to actively engage OR protect you Shepard. Here are a few questions you can ask to get the most out of your Shepard.

Am I going to need fury management or healing this turn? Will I louse a beast this turn? If I don’t need it on this side of the board this turn will it make an impact elsewhere?

Answering these questions can help you position, protect, and manage your support each turn.

Flank it, Shadow it, Rush it in. these are my three favorite ways to play my Shepherd. With warlocks like Lylyth1 I love to throw a shepherd out on the flank with an Angelius or a Scythean. this is also a great if you have beast in your reinforcements you can put it out there to help control those beast and keep them fighting. Shadowing is allowing your BNS to sit back in terrain or behind the lines and move into range to remove fury or heal when the time is right. Rush It in is a fun way to use your beast master ability. Let the Shepherd sit back 12″ from where you need it. Then when you have that turn you absolutely need to force a beast outside of control area you can rush it in and get that beast where it needs to be while keeping your warlock a safe distance back

One of my favorite warlocks to shadow shepherds with is vayl2. I love to sit my BNS behind layers of infantry and support. Then I use my Angelius to charge out and fly over my lines to stab a heavy or munch infantry. When it triggers refuge i bring it back behind my lines parking it right next to my shepherd snug in the back.

The Forsaken

You need to look at every model in your list and find out if you have ANYTHING that is not fearless. This will greatly influence how and where you can use it. If there are fearful things in your list don’t panic there are ways to deploy to get around this. First you can use the “dual flank” strategy. Place your forsaken on your farthest flank of your army. Then place your non fearless models on the opposite flank. With good strategy your models should never cross paths. The next option in this situation is to cluster. If you have something like the Hellion in your list. Place the non-fearless model(s) in the middle and then put the forsaken out on the far flanks. It’s not always ideal but with a spread out force you can avoid any issues with proper planning.

One of the best features of the forsaken is that it can take care of business in melee if the need arises. I often like to create a bubble with infantry and beast with my forsaken in the back with my warlock. Once my bubble has been breached I send in a forsaken loaded up with fury to put the smack down on something and plug the hole. There are also those times when my lines get steam rolled through by a fury loaded beast or a unit. This is a great time to let the forsaken get in there and blight shroud.

I had a game not long ago against The Testament of Menoth. In our game our armies clashed hard and by the third turn the only things on the table were kallus, a seraph, a fully loaded forsaken, and testament with 21 focus. He decided to attempt to camp the zone because he forgot that the forsaken’s ability works on focus as well as fury. For the first time ever I had to barrow my opponents dice to roll this damage. He was not happy with me once he realized why I asked to borrow his dice.

That’s all I have for now guys. I hope you can get in here and add some of the amazing experience our legion community is known for.
Wet your appetite with the below questions. If you don’t know what to post take a moment and leave your knowledge behind by taking a bite off the menu. How hard is that?

You can find more discussion on this topic at the original killing time thread on the PP forum
http://privateerpressforums.com/showthread.php?113714-Killing-Time-Shepherd-amp-Forsaken

-BloodRath

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