Then & Now – Mortenebra’s Infernal Machines

While chatting with Dicewraith the other night, he mentioned that Mortenebra was worse in Mk3. She lost a spell to Venethrax. Of course I had to go look and I was quite surprised at what I found.

In Mk2 her theme list was pretty simple. Two War Witch Sirens, No units, Four Helljacks. You got bonuses too. Scrap Thralls Advance Deploy, Hell Jacks get Stealth first turn. Hell Jacks -1 pt and deployment +2″. Heck Mortenebra never really wanted infantry anyway. Her options included any Non Character jack, Death Jack, War Witch Sirens, Bloat Thralls, Necrotech and Scrap Thralls. I will stick with that and see if it works.

Mortenebra has very few changes, but one is significant and it will wait till the end. Her jack points went up to +24, still at the low end of the scale.

Her Feat is the same. Re-rolls for everyone, well almost.

Her spells.

• Doom Spiral – Shoot a Jack and hurt the Warcaster. Nope, that one is the same.
• Jump Start – Stand up, Skake it off, look around. So good, so cheap, no changes here
• Overrun – Kill something, move something. Cast it more than once for loads of fun.
• Spectral Steel – ARM buff and movement tricks, you can’t stop me. To good to change.
• Void Gate – AoE 4, screws your opponents spell casting and arcnodes, price went from 4 down to 3. It doesn’t stop you from forcing or allocating focus anymore.
• Teminal Velocity – Charge & Power attacks with boosted melee attack rolls vs living and +2″ movement for Charge or Slams. This super wonderful spell is gone. Someone else got that design space…

Doom, Gloom, Forum Rants, Rage table flips…..  Nope, I like what she got…

• Sacrificial Lamb has been on the High Reclaimer, but I think it is new to Turok’s kiddies.

For 1 Focus you remove one warrior model to give every Jack in your Battlegroup a Focus. The High Reclaimer doesn’t use that many Jacks does he? What, give up a warrior in a list with no units. Solos are to expensive you say? Scrap Thralls are 2 Pt for 3 of these little walking bombs. You can also make them with a Necrotech, So it you have 7 Jacks, that one scrap thrall gives you 7 focus. That means 2 focus on every Jack. Running a little bit hot.

Deryliss must be sad. He lost Arcane Extension, he doesn’t extend the control area anymore. He repairs for D3+1 and still has Spell Slave. Doom Spiral and Void Gate are his options.

Deathjack – His price went down a little bit. Necromancy still casts spells. Doom Spiral and Void Gate could have their uses. His Skulls of Hate allow him to have 5 focus total and a +1 focus for each working arm. Snacking will RFP a living model and heal d3 HP. Always nice. Hard Headed rounds out his card. Not many real changes. He is an Advance deployed Monster that wants to rip things apart. If he gets beat up, repair a couple of points and feed him some Grunts.

Deathripper got cheaper by 25%, but….  He lost some MAT, DEF & POW. His is still a cheap arcnode with sustained attack. You could take three of him and have points left over if you drop the Deathjack. Hmmm, how many chick jacks could Mortenebra take?

Stalkers are among my favorites Jack to drive my opponent crazy. His price didn’t change. He lost a point of DEF. Extended Control Range means he can be way out on the flanks. Arcane Assassin is gone, but he gained Bounding Leap – Spend a focus after a normal move to be places 5″. Still nasty and if you opponent keeps looking at them, he might miss something else.

Inflictor is really new, I have not put him on the table. His price went down a little, but he lost Soul Driven. A little Sad, but he will have at least 2 focus every turn. Shield Guard near your fragile little (medium based) caster is always a good thing.

Reaper is without significant changes or surprises. Cheaper, check. Drag, check. Sustained attack, check. He gained Hard Headed. Shoot something, drag it in beat on it…

Slayer a little bit cheaper. Gained Hard Headed. Cheap, fast (compared to most heavies) and nasty. Again a melee monster, get him in the Alpha strike and let him earn more than his points.

Warwitch Siren has +MAT, – DEF with Perry and stealth.  Seduction, check. Venom, check. Power boost, well – it’s gone! But Empower give one focus to a jack that has focus, better! Shadow Blade still works, but you can shake it. She is still a nasty little toolbox. Take two and call me on the morning. With two you can have two jacks with 3 focus or Death Jack with 5! Try it you’ll like it…

Necrotech doesn’t come with a Scrap Thrall anymore. I guess got sick of having a mobile hand-grenade as a buddy. Nothing change on his front card, the points are what you would expect. Steady, Repair D6 are no surprises. Spare parts collects scrap tokens from from dead jacks. Use them to improve repairs or Create Scrap Thralls. You get D3 Scrap Thralls for each scrap token spent. Still dirt cheap. We will see more of these now.

Scrap Thralls are 3 solos for 2 PTs. Not much to say really. If you can pull off a Pow 16 for 2/3 of a point, why not. A little knockdown goes a long way to BOOM!

 

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Master Necrotech Mortenebra – WJ: +24
– Deryliss
– Deathjack – PC: 0
– Deathripper – PC: 5
– Inflictor – PC: 13
– Reaper – PC: 13
– Slayer – PC: 10
– Stalker – PC: 8
– Stalker – PC: 8

Warwitch Siren – PC: 4
Warwitch Siren – PC: 4
Necrotech – PC: 2
Necrotech – PC: 2
Scrap Thrall – 3 Scrap Thrall: 2
Scrap Thrall – 3 Scrap Thrall: 2
Scrap Thrall – 3 Scrap Thrall: 2

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Here is my first shot at a Mk2 list. 4 Helljacks, 3 Lightjacks, 4 solos and 9 hand grenades (cheap warriors)

I can get 16 focus a turn with an option for 2 more from the Warwiches. That still leave the 6 on Mortenebra too. I’m sure there are some lists somewhere that give you more focus a turn, but not very many.

The typical tactic is a Jack-in-yo-FACE. Even a fully focused Slayer or Stalker can seal the deal. Other options are possible.

Spectral Steel opens a lot of charge and slam lanes by running thru the opponents army.

If you slam the target, the knock down make Doom Spiral a valid option. It is POW 12 so you might need some boost to damage. If you knock down a Warjack you get a D3 on the caster. You can cast it once with Deryliss, twice with Deathjack (it just says “spend focus to cast it’s controllers spells” so do it twice if you have 4 focus. Mortenebra give you 3 more. Most wounded caster won’t survive 6d3. Ya, it’s a finishing move, but it’s an option.

The loss of Terminal Velocity is a change, not a bad one to me. Try different combinations of Jacks. Slayer Spam. Chicken Jack Spam. Try the three Bloat Thrall flankers dropping a bunch of green circle all over that side the board. If you want run jacks like you never could in Mk2 try it.

So much focus, so much fun.

Till next time

Just do it.