Post by Adam on Jul 9, 2009 15:11:58 GMT -5
The Night Walkers are guerrilla rogues that live in the shadows, fighting against the Arcanum and anything else that crosses their path. A mix between outlaw, duellist, black magician and rebel, Night Walkers have an odd code of honour and chivalry, but are usually too bitter or twisted to uphold morality when their lives are truly on the line. While not inherently evil, Night Walker wraiths are usually designed to terrify those who see them, and are often based on (or named after) depictions of emotions. Night Walkers occasionally act as assassins - more than one despotic High Arcanus has been ended by a fellow seer using contacts of contacts to get a (despised) Night Walker to take them out. Some Night Walkers see themselves as defending the people against an oppressive government, others masquerade as respected members of high society while unleashing their powers secretly for the sheer hell of it, and some just want to sow chaos and/or destruction. United only (but effectively) by metaphorically spitting in the face of the Arcanum, they fight among themselves for sport, but form a deadly dark alliance when things get serious.
- Spite - nasty scout wraith with a comparatively short sight range that increases sharply when more of them are on the table (and a pretty mean gun). Rank 2. A Spite's gun is more effective at close range, and gets more effective as other Spites shoot at the same target, meaning they're at their most deadly when they mob a target, but are still effective when summoned in number and spread out across your battleline. Spites have two spells; a Spite can spend an essence and wound a nearby other Spite to spawn a new one (leaves two vulnerable Spites, but can get your numbers up very quickly), and a two-essence spell that suicides the Spite but causes a powerful explosion; anything killed by the explosion... becomes a Spite. Both these spells remain restricted by the number ceiling of 9 minus the rank, otherwise things would get very silly very quickly. As one can guess, Spites in enough number become both an effective light defence (murdering enemy scouts and hunters encroaching into your lines) and a spell battery able to target enemies a ridiculous distance away (with seven Spites on the board, I'm thinking over 20"). Spites are kept in check mostly by being a) easy to kill, b) fairly rubbish in low numbers and c) this being the faction without any shielders. Nevertheless, they're probably the closest thing Wraithsight will have to a zerg rush.
- Suspicion - tricksy, hard-to-catch Rank 2 (Rank 3?) scout. It has a gun, but it's not as good as the Spite's. The gun does however blind targets on a critical, and the Suspicion can move when it damages something with the weapon. Suspicions are used more subtly than Spites. Spite spam can allow you to stack up the sight range long enough to plug the enemy seer with spells from miles away, if you're lucky enough to get LOS, and they're nasty as hell in number - they often form the frontline aggressive-defence of a Night Walker opening game, i.e. blasting anything your enemy summons that isn't a shielder or a Rank 5-6+. Suspicions don't have the insane sight range (although a Suspicion's base sight range is longer than a single Spite's). Their guns are scoped, letting them increase the LOS distance on ranged attacks (essentially, they have sniper rifles), but harassment is only a secondary role. What a Suspicion is for, is to slip into your enemy's lines, finding a place where it can act as the LOS origin for a spell, which is then used to nuke the hell out of the enemy seer. A Suspicion itself has a spell that lets it spend an essence point to boost the damage of spells cast at targets within its LOS. Suspicions have crap armour, making them most vulnerable to other scouts, which have the mobility to chase them down. Unlike Spites, Suspicions are better in low numbers. They become harder to hit and harder to see if they're further than a certain distance away from any other models.
- Sorrow - Rank 3 scout that is my homage to the awesome Guilt from Chaos Legion. A floating, faceless duellist clad in armour the colours of midnight and shadow. One hand remains permanently at its hip, clenching the thorny knife driven into its side. The other holds a rapier. It glides ethereally through any obstruction, seeking out its repentance. The Sorrow, despite its ridiculous Speed of 7 or 8, is a mostly defensive wraith. Sorrows have a high melee skill but cannot pierce a seer's arcane protection (translation: its melee attacks cause damage like shooting attacks against seers). What Sorrows do is kill other scouts and hunters, in style. Sorrows have, as mentioned, a very high melee skill perfect for catching the high-Swiftness scouts and hunters, but fairly low damage, not really adequate for beating up high-rank warriors. A Sorrow's weapon has a crit that impales people with ice (for a hefty amount of damage) and a Riposte rule that lets it move or attack when someone misses it in melee. It may also be able to attack twice, I'm not sure. The Sorrow itself has three spells. Feint costs one essence and lets the Sorrow make its normal melee attacks against any enemy within a distance equal to its current Speed, then be placed up to half of said current Speed in inches away from its current position. Numbing Emotion costs one essence, lasts a turn, boosts the chance of a critical hit and debuffs enemy Swiftness within a short distance of the wraith. Catharsis costs however many essence the Sorrow has left. The Sorrow wrenches the other blade out of its side; spilling essence like blood from the massive wound, it goes on a rampage. It can make an extra attack, and every time it kills something, it can move up to 3" and do it all over again. When it runs out of targets or fails to kill one, Catharsis expires, and so does the wraith (from burning up all its essence).
- Craven - Rank 4ish scout that acts as a support unit, buffing/debuffing other wraiths but avoiding combat itself (it's afraid!). A Craven is capable of stealing the life from other wraiths to heal itself and power its spells, and can also have more essence than it started the game with, allowing it to stock up on power before throwing out a battery of spells. Even better, when a Craven charges or is charged it may immediately swap places with a higher-rank wraith within 6" of it - say hi to a Malevolence in your face!
- Cruelty - Rank 5 hunter that traps and pins down its victims before biting their heads off (it has a massive wide jaw filled with horrible teeth... go figure). Relies on being on the offensive - the Cruelty dies easily for a Rank 5, especially for a Night Walker wraith, but can deal out horrific damage during its activation, particularly on the charge. Not much of a one-man seer-killer without some setup; what the Cruelty is best at is jumping on shielders and killing them (and then dying). It has a spell called Corrosive Webs which debuffs the Swiftness of its victim by a little, and the Armour by a considerable amount. Two or three Cruelties can form a reasonably effective assassination team.
- Heartless - Rank 6 hunter. A Heartless is a phoenix from hell. Its tail branches out into a wide mouth, surrounded by spikes and with eyes tucked into the corners. Its head has two eyes in the place of one, and a sizable hole on the other side. Its legs are equipped with metal spurs and talons loaded with poison. A Heartless is fast-moving, and can fly over a lot of things. Its attack power is decent; the poison in its claws lowers its target's Swiftness and Will, and the arcane flames it can spew out can swathe a wide area in warpfire or form precise bolts to strike at single targets. Where a Heartless shines is in its tactical abilities. It has a lot of cheap spells. It can create an imprisoning ring of fire around itself that blocks enemy LOS and movement both in and out (want something to die? Trap it in a cage with a Malevolence). It can slipstream friendly models along with it, moving a significant force from A to B quickly. It can pick up and move enemy models when it attacks them. It can provide additional sight range on shooting attacks for wraiths near it. It can make cyclones of fire that push enemies away or scatter them, and cause damage and/or knockdown (this may simply be an AOE ranged attack with some movement effects and maybe a crit of more movement effects). What it can't do is recover all that essence very quickly, so feeding it unnecessary scouts is usually a good idea if you want to keep it going.
- Malevolence - huge, fast moving Rank 7 warrior, and the least subtle Night Walker wraith by a considerable, ichor-spattered margin. The Malevolence has one purpose and one purpose only: destruction. If it's not heavily wounded, it can lead off with its devastating AOE debuff spell, Crippling Fear. Pay four essence, roll 2D10 and compare it to the Will of each model in the Malevolence's Will radius; if the roll is higher, the model is paralysed and suffers severe stat penalties; if the roll is lower they just suffer a minus on defence. Not sure whether you make one 2D10 roll for the lot (fast, but not very well balanced) or a 2D10 roll for each target (more evenly balanced, but slower; it's probably going to be this one). The Malevolence has two chainguns and two sets of talons, and possibly a gaze attack (another spell?). The chainguns don't pack the strafing ability that some similar guns have, they're just punishing multi-shot weaponry that let it gun down scouts at a distance. The talons are horrifically mean melee weapons, with a very high damage output augmented by the Malevolence's respectable skill stats, and a lethal 'chain attack', Soul Flayer - if you hit the same target with both weapons, the Malevolence gets to make another attack, only the damage caused by this one is also added back on to the Malevolence's own essence (which means more Crippling Fears... oh dear. Fret not; the essence doesn't appear until the end of the activation, allowing the enemy a chance at avoiding horrendous spell-based ownage). On top of all this, the Malevolence is a challenge to take down, with two or three points of Resilience, thick armour and good Swiftness for something its size. As you may have intuited based on the numerous references to it throughout the discussion, it's best used when set-up by another wraith. Heartlesses can give it victims in a can. Cravens can use their illusion ability to get the Malevolence into places it might not have been able to fit before (this thing has a large base, and no movement gimmicks whatsoever). And so on. Otherwise, it's more avoidable than most Night Walkers are, and can thus be debuffed/knocked down/fled from, and consequently forgotten.
- Contempt - Enormous Rank 8 warrior. Looks like a crossbreed of ankylosaur, lizard and insect. Six bulky scything-talon-esque legs. Sleek muscular body with armour plating, reptilian head on longish neck, tail with big mace thing. The Contempt is the closest thing the Night Walkers have to a defensive unit. Not because it's slow (it's the same speed as the Malevolence, that is to say, reasonably fast by other armies' standards) or buffs the armour of stuff around it, but because it's nigh unkillable. Eight points of essence and four (or even more?) regenerating points of resilience, a high armour value and additional resistance to magic. It can't be knocked down or moved. Its bite and tail form weapons; the tail can make a circular strike and flings its victims back, and the bite is a high-powered single attack with a critical that boosts its power even further. The Contempt's melee skill isn't the highest, but killing seers or hunters isn't what it's for. It has some spells as well. Challenge costs one essence and moves enemies within a certain radius an inch or two towards it. Horrific Roar costs two essence and makes spells cast by enemy models in its Will radius cost one essence more for a turn. Bastion costs one essence and lets it move through models, shunting them aside and attempting to damage them (a melee attack with a medium Strength and small negative skill modifier) as it goes. Essentially, the Contempt both protects your army and aids it in getting from A to B by engaging and tying down enemy models like a magnet. It's solid enough that it will last a turn or two in the face of all but the strongest enemy army, and can afford to use its spells from time to time. Horrific Roar can also protect the Contempt and models around it from nasty arcane retribution.
- Prayer/Sin - Avatar Wraith, summoned as a Prayer. 9 magic points to summon, but only has 5 essence. Kills wraiths very easily via a pair of short-ranged, high-powered fireball cannons (with a critical AOE) and its mace-like staff, which can stun models it hits if it does enough damage to them. The Prayer's main spell is Convert, probably for 3 essence, which takes over an enemy model (this can then be used to kill the Prayer, triggering its ability). When the Prayer dies, it turns into a Sin instead, a hunter with another 5 essence, which has a rule called Insidious letting it move through anything (probably even shielders), and whose main purpose is to make seers cry. A Sin has a spell called Touch of Blasphemy, which costs a solid amount of essence - most likely 3 - and allows it to roll 2D10 of damage on a single hit from its weapon, a soul-hungry double spear called a Whisperer. The Whisperer can make multiple attacks (make a second if you hit with the first?), does direct-to-essence damage and increases the Sin's melee skill and Swiftness when in combat with a non-wraith model. The Sin is also really fast and doesn't need line of sight in order to charge a non-wraith model. There's very little that can be done against a Sin when it's in its true form; the best defence is to avoid/misdirect the Prayer so that when it dies the Sin is out of striking range, to somehow imprison it, or to cluster models tightly enough around your seer that there's no room for the Sin's base. The Prayer has to get to you in the first place, so if your opponent summons one early on, it won't live. A Sin is very easy to damage, having pathetic armour, although its Swiftness is high. Taking its essence below the cost of Touch of Blasphemy will lower its threat value considerably, as a good roll on that 2D10 can one-shot a seer; if you've some accurate shooting or plentiful AOEs, those can blunt its bite reasonably well.
- Spite - nasty scout wraith with a comparatively short sight range that increases sharply when more of them are on the table (and a pretty mean gun). Rank 2. A Spite's gun is more effective at close range, and gets more effective as other Spites shoot at the same target, meaning they're at their most deadly when they mob a target, but are still effective when summoned in number and spread out across your battleline. Spites have two spells; a Spite can spend an essence and wound a nearby other Spite to spawn a new one (leaves two vulnerable Spites, but can get your numbers up very quickly), and a two-essence spell that suicides the Spite but causes a powerful explosion; anything killed by the explosion... becomes a Spite. Both these spells remain restricted by the number ceiling of 9 minus the rank, otherwise things would get very silly very quickly. As one can guess, Spites in enough number become both an effective light defence (murdering enemy scouts and hunters encroaching into your lines) and a spell battery able to target enemies a ridiculous distance away (with seven Spites on the board, I'm thinking over 20"). Spites are kept in check mostly by being a) easy to kill, b) fairly rubbish in low numbers and c) this being the faction without any shielders. Nevertheless, they're probably the closest thing Wraithsight will have to a zerg rush.
- Suspicion - tricksy, hard-to-catch Rank 2 (Rank 3?) scout. It has a gun, but it's not as good as the Spite's. The gun does however blind targets on a critical, and the Suspicion can move when it damages something with the weapon. Suspicions are used more subtly than Spites. Spite spam can allow you to stack up the sight range long enough to plug the enemy seer with spells from miles away, if you're lucky enough to get LOS, and they're nasty as hell in number - they often form the frontline aggressive-defence of a Night Walker opening game, i.e. blasting anything your enemy summons that isn't a shielder or a Rank 5-6+. Suspicions don't have the insane sight range (although a Suspicion's base sight range is longer than a single Spite's). Their guns are scoped, letting them increase the LOS distance on ranged attacks (essentially, they have sniper rifles), but harassment is only a secondary role. What a Suspicion is for, is to slip into your enemy's lines, finding a place where it can act as the LOS origin for a spell, which is then used to nuke the hell out of the enemy seer. A Suspicion itself has a spell that lets it spend an essence point to boost the damage of spells cast at targets within its LOS. Suspicions have crap armour, making them most vulnerable to other scouts, which have the mobility to chase them down. Unlike Spites, Suspicions are better in low numbers. They become harder to hit and harder to see if they're further than a certain distance away from any other models.
- Sorrow - Rank 3 scout that is my homage to the awesome Guilt from Chaos Legion. A floating, faceless duellist clad in armour the colours of midnight and shadow. One hand remains permanently at its hip, clenching the thorny knife driven into its side. The other holds a rapier. It glides ethereally through any obstruction, seeking out its repentance. The Sorrow, despite its ridiculous Speed of 7 or 8, is a mostly defensive wraith. Sorrows have a high melee skill but cannot pierce a seer's arcane protection (translation: its melee attacks cause damage like shooting attacks against seers). What Sorrows do is kill other scouts and hunters, in style. Sorrows have, as mentioned, a very high melee skill perfect for catching the high-Swiftness scouts and hunters, but fairly low damage, not really adequate for beating up high-rank warriors. A Sorrow's weapon has a crit that impales people with ice (for a hefty amount of damage) and a Riposte rule that lets it move or attack when someone misses it in melee. It may also be able to attack twice, I'm not sure. The Sorrow itself has three spells. Feint costs one essence and lets the Sorrow make its normal melee attacks against any enemy within a distance equal to its current Speed, then be placed up to half of said current Speed in inches away from its current position. Numbing Emotion costs one essence, lasts a turn, boosts the chance of a critical hit and debuffs enemy Swiftness within a short distance of the wraith. Catharsis costs however many essence the Sorrow has left. The Sorrow wrenches the other blade out of its side; spilling essence like blood from the massive wound, it goes on a rampage. It can make an extra attack, and every time it kills something, it can move up to 3" and do it all over again. When it runs out of targets or fails to kill one, Catharsis expires, and so does the wraith (from burning up all its essence).
- Craven - Rank 4ish scout that acts as a support unit, buffing/debuffing other wraiths but avoiding combat itself (it's afraid!). A Craven is capable of stealing the life from other wraiths to heal itself and power its spells, and can also have more essence than it started the game with, allowing it to stock up on power before throwing out a battery of spells. Even better, when a Craven charges or is charged it may immediately swap places with a higher-rank wraith within 6" of it - say hi to a Malevolence in your face!
- Cruelty - Rank 5 hunter that traps and pins down its victims before biting their heads off (it has a massive wide jaw filled with horrible teeth... go figure). Relies on being on the offensive - the Cruelty dies easily for a Rank 5, especially for a Night Walker wraith, but can deal out horrific damage during its activation, particularly on the charge. Not much of a one-man seer-killer without some setup; what the Cruelty is best at is jumping on shielders and killing them (and then dying). It has a spell called Corrosive Webs which debuffs the Swiftness of its victim by a little, and the Armour by a considerable amount. Two or three Cruelties can form a reasonably effective assassination team.
- Heartless - Rank 6 hunter. A Heartless is a phoenix from hell. Its tail branches out into a wide mouth, surrounded by spikes and with eyes tucked into the corners. Its head has two eyes in the place of one, and a sizable hole on the other side. Its legs are equipped with metal spurs and talons loaded with poison. A Heartless is fast-moving, and can fly over a lot of things. Its attack power is decent; the poison in its claws lowers its target's Swiftness and Will, and the arcane flames it can spew out can swathe a wide area in warpfire or form precise bolts to strike at single targets. Where a Heartless shines is in its tactical abilities. It has a lot of cheap spells. It can create an imprisoning ring of fire around itself that blocks enemy LOS and movement both in and out (want something to die? Trap it in a cage with a Malevolence). It can slipstream friendly models along with it, moving a significant force from A to B quickly. It can pick up and move enemy models when it attacks them. It can provide additional sight range on shooting attacks for wraiths near it. It can make cyclones of fire that push enemies away or scatter them, and cause damage and/or knockdown (this may simply be an AOE ranged attack with some movement effects and maybe a crit of more movement effects). What it can't do is recover all that essence very quickly, so feeding it unnecessary scouts is usually a good idea if you want to keep it going.
- Malevolence - huge, fast moving Rank 7 warrior, and the least subtle Night Walker wraith by a considerable, ichor-spattered margin. The Malevolence has one purpose and one purpose only: destruction. If it's not heavily wounded, it can lead off with its devastating AOE debuff spell, Crippling Fear. Pay four essence, roll 2D10 and compare it to the Will of each model in the Malevolence's Will radius; if the roll is higher, the model is paralysed and suffers severe stat penalties; if the roll is lower they just suffer a minus on defence. Not sure whether you make one 2D10 roll for the lot (fast, but not very well balanced) or a 2D10 roll for each target (more evenly balanced, but slower; it's probably going to be this one). The Malevolence has two chainguns and two sets of talons, and possibly a gaze attack (another spell?). The chainguns don't pack the strafing ability that some similar guns have, they're just punishing multi-shot weaponry that let it gun down scouts at a distance. The talons are horrifically mean melee weapons, with a very high damage output augmented by the Malevolence's respectable skill stats, and a lethal 'chain attack', Soul Flayer - if you hit the same target with both weapons, the Malevolence gets to make another attack, only the damage caused by this one is also added back on to the Malevolence's own essence (which means more Crippling Fears... oh dear. Fret not; the essence doesn't appear until the end of the activation, allowing the enemy a chance at avoiding horrendous spell-based ownage). On top of all this, the Malevolence is a challenge to take down, with two or three points of Resilience, thick armour and good Swiftness for something its size. As you may have intuited based on the numerous references to it throughout the discussion, it's best used when set-up by another wraith. Heartlesses can give it victims in a can. Cravens can use their illusion ability to get the Malevolence into places it might not have been able to fit before (this thing has a large base, and no movement gimmicks whatsoever). And so on. Otherwise, it's more avoidable than most Night Walkers are, and can thus be debuffed/knocked down/fled from, and consequently forgotten.
- Contempt - Enormous Rank 8 warrior. Looks like a crossbreed of ankylosaur, lizard and insect. Six bulky scything-talon-esque legs. Sleek muscular body with armour plating, reptilian head on longish neck, tail with big mace thing. The Contempt is the closest thing the Night Walkers have to a defensive unit. Not because it's slow (it's the same speed as the Malevolence, that is to say, reasonably fast by other armies' standards) or buffs the armour of stuff around it, but because it's nigh unkillable. Eight points of essence and four (or even more?) regenerating points of resilience, a high armour value and additional resistance to magic. It can't be knocked down or moved. Its bite and tail form weapons; the tail can make a circular strike and flings its victims back, and the bite is a high-powered single attack with a critical that boosts its power even further. The Contempt's melee skill isn't the highest, but killing seers or hunters isn't what it's for. It has some spells as well. Challenge costs one essence and moves enemies within a certain radius an inch or two towards it. Horrific Roar costs two essence and makes spells cast by enemy models in its Will radius cost one essence more for a turn. Bastion costs one essence and lets it move through models, shunting them aside and attempting to damage them (a melee attack with a medium Strength and small negative skill modifier) as it goes. Essentially, the Contempt both protects your army and aids it in getting from A to B by engaging and tying down enemy models like a magnet. It's solid enough that it will last a turn or two in the face of all but the strongest enemy army, and can afford to use its spells from time to time. Horrific Roar can also protect the Contempt and models around it from nasty arcane retribution.
- Prayer/Sin - Avatar Wraith, summoned as a Prayer. 9 magic points to summon, but only has 5 essence. Kills wraiths very easily via a pair of short-ranged, high-powered fireball cannons (with a critical AOE) and its mace-like staff, which can stun models it hits if it does enough damage to them. The Prayer's main spell is Convert, probably for 3 essence, which takes over an enemy model (this can then be used to kill the Prayer, triggering its ability). When the Prayer dies, it turns into a Sin instead, a hunter with another 5 essence, which has a rule called Insidious letting it move through anything (probably even shielders), and whose main purpose is to make seers cry. A Sin has a spell called Touch of Blasphemy, which costs a solid amount of essence - most likely 3 - and allows it to roll 2D10 of damage on a single hit from its weapon, a soul-hungry double spear called a Whisperer. The Whisperer can make multiple attacks (make a second if you hit with the first?), does direct-to-essence damage and increases the Sin's melee skill and Swiftness when in combat with a non-wraith model. The Sin is also really fast and doesn't need line of sight in order to charge a non-wraith model. There's very little that can be done against a Sin when it's in its true form; the best defence is to avoid/misdirect the Prayer so that when it dies the Sin is out of striking range, to somehow imprison it, or to cluster models tightly enough around your seer that there's no room for the Sin's base. The Prayer has to get to you in the first place, so if your opponent summons one early on, it won't live. A Sin is very easy to damage, having pathetic armour, although its Swiftness is high. Taking its essence below the cost of Touch of Blasphemy will lower its threat value considerably, as a good roll on that 2D10 can one-shot a seer; if you've some accurate shooting or plentiful AOEs, those can blunt its bite reasonably well.
