Warmachine Dev Diary – Reforging Dusk's Final Hunt for Fane of Nyrro
We couldn’t keep the Final Hunt at bay any longer. This vengeful Dusk cadre are just dying to get back into the fray alongside Fane of Nyrro, and who are we to stand in their way?
From today, the Final Hunt cadre return to Dusk Fane of Nyrro, fuelled by new rules befitting their eldritch alliance that are free to download in the Warmachine app (along with all the rest of the rules for Warmachine).
We know you’ll have questions, so we grabbed Fraser McFetridge of the Warmachine dev team to share all the gory details:
Bringing Final Hunt into Fane of Nyrro
Greetings, fellow eldritch. Fraser here.
For the newer players, some quick context. Because Final Hunt is a cadre for the Dusk faction, Final Hunt models can play for both Dusk armies: House Kallyss and Fane of Nyrro.
Previously, Lanyssa was planned to be a lesser warlock for House Kallyss, and a “full” warlock for Fane of Nyrro. However, from today’s rules update, Lanyssa is now a lesser warlock for Fane of Nyrro.
Before we carry on, an important note:
Although Lanyssa is now a lesser warlock for both House Kallyss and Fane of Nyrro, this doesn’t prevent her from being used as a force leader in Command-level (i.e. 30 point) games.
You can still crack open the Frozen & Forgotten two-player set to pit Lanyssa against Anathia (using Anathia’s lesser Orgoth Sea Raiders warlock rules) and have a great intro game in the process. The only time it really matters is in tournament games where you’d need a tournament-legal army.
Now, back to the main thread:
As we explained in the Lock & Load Preview stream, there’s a few reasons behind this change. The story side of it I’ll leave to Sherwin, Warmachine’s Loremaster, for a future article. But from a gameplay perspective, the answer is pretty simple: design space.
A general design pillar for Fane of Nyrro was that their unit-to-unit damage output should be lower than other armies. This gets balanced out by the potent personal power of the Fane warlocks.
Hysene with her extremely potent blade
Early testing told us this was not only achievable but also fun to play out. So, we ventured down this path and ended up with the Fane of Nyrro design you see now (and much more you will see very soon).
However, this did leave the army with a bit of a “your warlock can’t be everywhere” problem. So, we need a solution with respectable damage output, but not one that can Shadow Shift, so as to not upset the delicate balance established for such a potent army ability.
That solution also needed to operate outside of Fane’s general hunger economy, so it could function effectively outside of the warlock’s control range and not positively contribute to the army’s hunger generation. In addition, we were keen to keep it a friendly faction, so as not to wipe out the synergies with Fane’s very different warlocks.
After taking a long look at this criteria, we determined the Final Hunt cadre was the ideal place to address all of it most succinctly. Simply put, Lanyssa becoming a lesser warlock opened up a world of play for Fane of Nyrro by making her and her cadre playable alongside “full” Fane warlocks.
This fortunately lined up with a story issue we were encountering at the same time. Again, I’ll leave that to Sherwin to go into detail on but, in short, it involved Lanyssa not having progressed far enough in her planned story arc to fit in with the Fane of Nyrro.
This brings us neatly to the second big change: the Fane of Nyrro Final Hunt have a huge amount of potent internal synergies, but they don’t extend these synergies to the rest of the army.
(Unless you count killing enemy models as “internal synergy”, that is.)
Lanyssa Ryssyl, Aransor of Vengeance
As you will probably note, Lanyssa’s Fane rules come with significant increases to both her personal damage output and mobility. She’ll routinely be charging into the fray, killing her target, and sprinting elsewhere with Crimson Ballet.
Before getting into that, though, she has a rule that appears on all Fane of Nyrro Final Hunt models: Ally of Necessity. Very simply, this removes them entirely from the hunger economy. Now, let's talk about the fun stuff.
Lanyssa gaining Flank from any Final Hunt model is both very important to her personally, and for the updated Final Hunt as a whole. It's a rule that appears on multiple cards, along with the ability to sprint. Put together as a whole package, there’s a significant gameplay focus on setting up a Flank, then sprinting to set up the next one… and so on.
Outside of that, Lanyssa’s new spell, Subdue, is worth taking a quick look at. Obviously, this package needed to retain some kind of fury management, but not one that could affect Fane’s regular warbeasts.
Subdue not only allows this, but comes with a few neat tricks. First off, it's a blood boon-able spell, allowing efficient casting. Secondly, and more interestingly, it has no range stipulation — meaning Lanyssa can end up quite far away from her cats and still manage their fury. Very useful for models that can sprint all over the table.
Cool cats
I’ll be honest, most of the headline changes were on Lanyssa, but there are still some interesting bits to look at on Benkei and Sasha.
Besides the animus, Benkei and Sasha share the same ruleset, most notably updating their Flank to work with any Final Hunt model.
By combining each of their animus, the pair stalk up the battlefield, waiting for their moment to pounce. Very difficult to address with both effects in play, but vulnerable without. Of course, Lanyssa can also cast these in their place, allowing them to spend all their fury on attacks before sprinting back to her.
The sword is mightier than the bow
Cylena, while still a potent threat with her bow, has swapped Prey for Flank and Swift Hunter for Sprint. All in all, you’ll find her partaking and contributing to the general playstyle Lanyssa brings to the table.
Better watch yourself
The Last Watch have swapped one vengeful rule for another, losing Righteous Fury and gaining Bitter Reprisal.
This massively improves their capacity to contribute to the Flank chains, at the cost of some survivability and personal damage output.
As a package, Dusk Final Hunt offers Fane of Nyrro something crucial: a self-sufficient module, capable of operating away from the eldritch warlocks and holding their own on a flank.
Update your app now and get ready to add Final Hunt to your Fane of Nyrro army when Executioner's Toll releases on June 23.
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