How do Warmachine's Infernals play now?
In today’s Lost, Damned, & Salvation update, Warmachine's Creative Director and gameplay lead, Mat Hart and Jamie Perkins, give you the details on new Infernal gameplay updates, plus the first in-depth look at our new horde-summoning Infernal master: Vorgoroth, Conduit of the Abyss.
In case you missed it, Lost, Damned, & Salvation is our very first FronTier campaign over on MyMiniFactory, where we’re dropping three whole armies for you to print, paint, and play with straight away, using the free rules in the app. Followers also get a free, limited edition variant of Eilish Garrity, the Occultist, just for following the campaign.
The Infernals saw a significant update as part of Warmachine's January balance update, which you can read about here. Since then, the Infernal Gate's been under the microscope (or whatever the Infernal equivalent is).
This glowing portal of horror assists Infernal Masters with summoning, returning destroyed warriors to battle, threat extension, and fire support.
Up until now, some of its most useful abilities require spending souls. Fortunately, the Infernal Gate can collect souls in quite a large area — anywhere within 15” of itself.
But because the Gate is a structure, it can't move once deployed, meaning it's not too much of a challenge for your opponent to prevent the Gate accruing souls. In addition, a lot of armies include few living models to collect souls from.
Now, the Infernal Gate is getting a whole new ability similar to Lost Souls on Lich Lord Dekathus. At the start of Dekathus’ activation, if there are no models with a soul within 12” of him, Dekathus gains d3 soul tokens.
The Infernal Gate’s equivalent will grant it 1 soul token each turn if there are no models with souls within 15” of it. This means the Infernal Gate will be close enough to models with souls to gain them if they’re destroyed by it or other Infernal models, or it’ll generate 1 soul for itself by pulling energy from the Infernal’s dimension.
A related change, Dark Abyss — the Infernal Gate’s ability to return destroyed warrior models to play — previously triggered in the Maintenance Phase. This meant the Gate would need to accrue souls in one turn, and wait to spend them in a following turn if it’s intended to return destroyed models. Now Dark Abyss will be usable during the Infernal Gate’s activation, instead.
Conductor of Abyscity
She’s finally here. We said Vorgoroth is the ultimate summoner among the Infernal Masters, and we weren’t joking.
Alter the Deal, Master Summoner, and Malignant Conduit all facilitate Vorgoroth bringing maximum Horrors to the table without breaking a sweat.
Alter the Deal is also reaped during list construction. Normally, Infernal armies need to bring a healthy amount of solo models, because these are their best supply of Marked Souls. Marked Souls are the only models that can be used to summon additional horrors into battle. With most solos costing 3 or 4 points each, having the option to convert a unit of Cultist Band into Marked Souls at a cost of 4 points for 3 models puts a lot less pressure on Vorgoroth’s need for solos.
Clearly a spellcasting powerhouse, Vorgoroth brings an impressive Arcane Attack (AAT) and Arcana (ARC) of 8 placing her firmly among the most powerful magic wielders in the Iron Kingdoms.
What can she use this immense spell casting power for? Being a summoning specialist, it makes sense that most of Vorgoroth’s spells would be battlegroup focused.
Expendable Creation is a horror-specific equivalent to the spell Redline. It grants bonus speed, melee damage, as well as free charges and slams (even for a heavily damaged horror). Like Redline, Expendable Creation causes a small amount of damage to the affected horror at the end of its activations.
Jackhammer needs very little introduction as a spell that’s been seen before on battlegroup focused Leaders. The unique aspect for Vorgoroth is the flexibility of combining Jackhammer with a newly-summoned horror. Remember, you can cast Jackhammer multiple times.
Mobility is essential for Vorgoroth improving the speed of her horrors (and for herself). Granting Pathfinder will help her army with navigating battlefields with a lot of rough terrain.
Psycho Surgery will help Vorgoroth keep her horrors fighting fit. Massed healing of all the horrors in her battlegroup can be critical to maintaining their combat effectiveness.
Finally, Soulfire. Unlike her other battlegroup and horror-buffing spells, Soulfire delivers damage directly to enemy face. In a pinch, she can do scary numbers with a few boosted Soulfires. It also doubles as a way of Vorgoroth gathering additional souls to turn into bonus essence points in her next turn.
Being more of a spell caster, Vorgoroth's melee attacks aren’t anything to write home about. If she’s attacking enemies up close, you’ve either got a very bold plan, or something has gone horribly wrong. However, if the time comes and you need to bonk something with her Infernal Staff, or shoot with her Infernal Bolt, having up to 8 essence points to boost your attack and damage rolls will come in handy.
Next week, we’ll find out more about the strange and nightmarish force the Great Witch summoned to stop these incomprehensible horrors… the grymkin, also coming to the Warmachine 3D FronTier on MyMiniFactory.
