New rules for Daemons via the Warhammer-community team!
Engine War adds new Stratagems, Relics and the ability to make Greater Daemons into Exalted Greater Daemons. Yes, if you ever thought that the reality-murdering awesomeness of a regular Greater Daemon wasn’t worthy of your worship (and immortal soul) then these are for you. Find out why the Grey Knights are about to have their work cut out.
Khorne
Get ready to claim even more blood for the Blood God and even more skulls for the Skull Throne. For a single Command Point, you can declare one of your Bloodthirsters to be an Exalted Bloodthirster – giving it access to new abilities. You can either randomly determine two of these, or you can freely select a single one. If your Bloodthirster is getting stuck in (and it’s a Bloodthirster, so if it isn’t, you’re probably not getting the most out of it), then give it the Slaughterborn ability.
Extra strength and an extra attack on top of those from Unstoppable Ferocity? Yes please! Anyone who says that they like facing a Strength 9 Bloodthirster with 8 Attacks is lying.
You can also equip your Bloodthirster with a Blood-drinker Talisman, a new Hellforged Artefact, to steal the very life essence of those that it kills.
Now you use enemy models as “blood batteries” to power up your Warlord! Khorne has also blessed his followers with some new Stratagems, such as The Scent Of Blood.
Get your Flesh Hounds to rush ahead of your army and tie down enemy units until your Bloodthirsters arrive to finish the job and claim those skulls.
Slaanesh
She Who Thirsts is turning up the dial of excess with a bunch of treats for their followers. Firstly, you can upgrade your Greater Daemons, to gain an Exalted Keeper of Secrets.* Sometimes, the servants of the Dark Prince seek out the musk created by their enemy’s fear.
After hunting down the fearful, you’ll need something to kill them with. That’s where this new Relic comes in.
Offering an extra point of Strength over the witstealer sword AND extra attacks, use this to slice your way through your enemies. Slaanesh has also provided an excess of new Stratagems.
Add this, alongside the Fear-seeker ability, to your Exalted Keeper of Secrets. The Fiends will overload the enemy with fear, and the Keeper of Secrets will drink deep of their terror.
Nurgle
Our kindly grandfather brings us new ways to spread his plagues. First up is the Exalted Great Unclean One.** Give them the Avalanche of Rotten Flesh ability and nothing will be able to stand in their way when they get up to full speed.
The enhanced Crushing Bulk ability means that you can wear down enemy units before the Great Unclean One finishes them off in combat. Nurgle has also offered us some of his finest Relics to choose from. Do you ever struggle to choose between Stream of Corruption and Nurgle’s Rot? Well, now you can pick an extra psychic power AND it can’t be stopped if you roll Nurgle’s chosen number.
Equip this Relic to really turn your Warlord into a psychic master. Whoever your Warlord is, they’ll have some new Stratagems to choose from too and, for Nurgle, sometimes not even death is enough to stop the spread of a plague.
Wait until your enemy has a few units close together, and then send your cavalry into the heart of their lines. Of course, this is just when you’ll start passing all of those Disgustingly Resilient rolls!
Tzeentch
Just as planned, Tzeentch brings some new tricks to the party. If your army needs an upgrade, make your Lord of Change Exalted and he can shut down enemy psychic powers permanently.
Use this to quell your opponent’s crucial psychic power or even just to prevent them from casting Smite again. What could be even tricksier than taking away a psychic power? How about taking away an aura ability?
Primaris Lieutenants have been having things their own way for far too long, it’s time to shut them down. Just as planned. It’s not all exquisite schemes that make you steeple your fingers and grin like an evil villain though – there are also some out and out offensive buffs too.
Use this on large Flamer units to maximise your mortal wounds and watch the galaxy burn (literally).
Whether you’re a fan of mono-god armies or you like to mix and match your neverborn, Engine War is bringing you some incredibly powerful new abilities with which you can spread ruination to the mortal plane. The next Psychic Awakening book is available to pre-order from tomorrow. In the meantime, grab one of the Start Collecting! sets for Daemons to bring in some reinforcements for your army.
* Just imagine how important those secrets are!
** We suggested Great Uncleaner One but were shouted down at the meeting by a Spoilpox Scrivener.
And remember, Frontline Gaming sells gaming products at a discount, every day in their webcart!
Yeah this worries me a bit, I was so hyped for potential T8 greater daemons. I don’t know if 1 CP for a special ability of your choice is a good deal or solves any of the infamous issues of greater daemons being expensive T7 models without shooting that get shot of the table easily and can’t reach combat easily except for the keeper of secrets.
I admit it’s better than not having the option, especially since 9th Ed is supposed to make it easier to hide models and to bring models in via board edges with new tactical reserves.
And if hordes are less common, value of smite on greater daemons goes up.
I do think that a Lord of Change with Impossible Robe, Incorporeal Form, and Spell Thief is a solid pick now for the post-Chapter Approved points cost. However, that is your warlord trait, your free warlord relic, and 1 CP for that model.
Going to reserve judgement until I see the book. So far it looks very interesting but not what people were probably hoping for.
It’s only 1/6 of the book. If there’s not a T8 option for GUO at least, it’s such a missed opportunity.
All previewed Tzeentch and the nurgle relic are pretty good. Slaanesh remains to be seen with 9th’s morale rework.
However I love how careful they are with Bloodthirsters. To heal more than 8 wounds they’d need to be degraded. So about 8-10 attacks at 3+ to hit. And then it’s only 5+ to get the wound. Sure, you can fight twice but woe is me if someone gets more than 8 wounds once every 10 thousand games…
Karanak looks more usable with the new strat, LoCs are the winners from the greater Daemons and Poxbringers with the book relic for an extra spell and the chance to make it undeniable looks decent, besides that it’s a bit meh.