The Pheromancer from Conquest’s Spires faction will either be the most exciting card you draw from your command stack during a game or the most disappointing. While the Biomancer’s buffing ability and healing is relatively straight forward, the Pheromancer will require much more finesse to use effectively on the battlefield. However, once a Spires general masters the card flipping, command stack altering, force multiplying buffs that the Pheromancer can put out they will be a truly scary opponent to face in a game of Conquest.
The majority of Pheromancies require the Spires player to flip the next command card in their stack, and, as long as that regiment is within 12 inches of the Pheromancer, they will receive the benefits of the chosen Pheromancy. BUT, the command card also goes to the bottom of the Spires player’s command stack making any immediate benefits from these buffs a little tricky to benefit from. The one work around to this, other than just waiting until the end of the round to activate the buffed up regiment, is having multiple of the same regiments in your Spires army. By double stacking the duplicate regiment’s command cards after the Pheromancer a Spires player can buff a regiment, put the command card onto the bottom of their command stack, and then activate their next regiment which is the same as the regiment who received the Pheromancy! Of course, this does give your opponent one activation between when you give a regiment a Pheromantic buff and when that regiment actually activates, but how much damage can your opponent do with just one measly activation before your Brute Drones smash them with +1 Attacks.
Speaking of +1 Attacks, let’s look at the Pheromancies that you will get access to by including this complicated chess piece in your army:
Siphon Strength: +1 attack AND Dread is an extremely powerful buff. If it didn’t come with the balancing factor of placing the Command Card of the unit to the bottom of the stack it may be one of the strongest buffs in the game. Throwing this onto a unit who is in combat early in a round can make your opponent’s clash much less effective, and when your unit goes at the end of the round they will even get +1 attack on their profile for their troubles.
Accelerated Hibernation: The Biomancer is generally the better healer in a Spires army, but a quick burst of 4 wounds healing from a Pheromancer never hurt. This can get especially nasty with the Underspires’ army rule on a unit with Regeneration 4 (assuming the regiment survives to activate at the bottom of your command stack of course).
Pheromantic Drive: Decay hurts, sometimes it hurts a lot, but making a unit act immediately to Clash twice is EXTREMELY strong in Conquest. Spires is all about stacking your command deck in the perfect way, and this Pheromancy is the perfect example of the risk and reward playstyle of the Spires faction. This can also be used to make a unit Volley twice for a surprising output of ranged damage your opponent wasn’t expecting. It might be best to have a Biomancer close if you plan to use Pheromantic Drive more than once for a regiment though.
Induced Vigor: There are just better uses for your Pheromancer than using this Pheromancy. Tenacious and re-rolling 6s for morale isn’t a bad buff, but the Spires generally have high Resolve with their Characters and larger than average regiment sizes. The Pheromancer even has an ability to give a regiment near him +1 Resolve. Just use that instead.
Pheromantic Compulsion: This is the Pheromancy you should not forget you have. Removing Broken from a regiment that’s command card is right behind your Pheromancer is going to be a tough combo to pull off, but it could be a situation you find yourself in. Also, handing out Inspired is never a bad thing.
Aside from the buffing abilities of his Pheromancies, the Pheromancer also has an ability called Pheromone Gland Burst. This ability allows the Pheromancer to select one regiment within 8 inches to give either +1 March or +1 Resolve. While this may seem much less exciting than the Biomancer’s Mend Flesh ability, getting +1 March on a Spires regiment also using Burnout to gain +2 to their March can make some extremely long charges possible on the tabletop. If anyone has seen some of the shooting armies that did well at Adepticon in their Conquest tournament then they will know why making long bomb charges where your opponent isn’t expecting it can be game winning.
If you are still reading, planning all of the combos you could pull off with a Pheromancer, you are exactly the person who should be playing Spires in Conquest! While the buffs are harder to pull off than ones accessed through including a Biomancer in your army, the Pheromancer’s buffs can turn your Spires regiments into absolute powerhouses on the tabletop. It may just cost you your sanity from trying to figure out the order of operations on character/regiment activations.
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