Starting Skorne in the Age of Themes: Winds of Death

In my previous Starting Skorne post, I gave a general impression of what's changed in the faction since my first advice posts two years ago.  My next couple of posts are going to be some list building advice for playing the league with each theme.  This time, I'm going to talk about one of the better themes to start building at week 3 of a league: Winds of Death.

 


What can you take?

• Any Warlock (though you must start with Xekaar)
• All non-character warbeasts
• All Venator models/units
• Paingiver Beast Handler units
• All Extoller solos
• Mortitheurge Willbreaker solos
• All Skorne battle engines

This is a pretty reasonable selection of units, which is one of the reasons I recommended Winds of Death in my previous post.  It lets you experiment with a wide variety of warbeasts, units, and solos compared to our other themes, and is pretty strong.

What are the theme benefits?

• Skorne Warbeasts in the army gain Swift Hunter, which lets them take a short move after killing something with a ranged attack.  This is a pretty useful ability, and one which will help you understand what a big difference even a small move can make in your games.
• Before models are deployed, you can place a wall template (which is an obstacle and grants cover) anywhere completely within 20" of your table edge (and not within 3" of a hill, obstacle, or obstruction).  This is very useful,  Cover will make you a lot more durable against ranged attacks, and obstacles give you a Def bonus in melee as well.  Get used to placing your wall where you can incorporate it into your tactics.
• You get a free solo or weapon crew for every full 20pts of Venators and/or battle engines in your list.  Free models are one of the major benefits of themes, and your options here are pretty good.

Recommendations

For week 2, you can add 15 points of warbeasts to your battlegroup.

If you go for a second heavy warbeast, I'd recommend either a Titan Sentry or an Archidon.  The Sentry is heavily armored, and will be almost invincible on Xekaar's Feat turn.  It also has Shield Guard to help keep him and your other pieces alive.

The Archidon is a much faster piece, and functions as sort of a medium warbeast.  It's a little more complicated to use than the Sentry, but it can be very powerful if you know what you're doing.  Long Leash and the Lightning Strike animus let it get into interesting places.  With Enrage and Mortality, it can do a fair amount of damage.

Alternately, you can take a light warbeast or two.  The Cyclops Brute is a solid choice.  It can absorb a charge or two on the front lines, something Winds of Death can otherwise struggle with.  It also has Shield Guard to protect Xekaar and other important models from shooting.  Mortality helps a lot with its lackluster offense too.

The Cyclops Shaman is also good.  It can use other animi like Rush or Far Strike.  Craft Talisman is also a good way to get extra range on Xekaar's spells.  Between its shooting and the Raider's, you'll be able to inflict some serious harm at range.

This will leave you enough space in the list to take a Basilisk Krea or an Agnoizer if you want to.  Both are solid support piece that you'll use in other lists, so picking them up is a good idea whether you field them at this stage or not.  Either one will give you more durability in your list.  The Krea will protect you against shooting, and can paralyze enemy models.  The Agonizer will help protect you against melee attacks, and the Repulse animus can open up a lot of very interesting tricks, especially if you have a Shaman in the list as well.

For week 3, you get 15 more points, which you can use on anything besides battle engines, and you can start to benefit from your theme force.  If you have a bunch of points saved up, you can get a free model at this stage, but it's probably better to start by focusing on the basics.  You'll start getting free models soon enough.

My advice at this stage hasn't changed much either.  Paingiver Beast Handlers are a must for most Skorne lists.  A minimum unit should be enough for now, but a full unit might be handy if you have the points.  Aptimus Marketh is also quite good with a lot of our 'casters who can play in Winds of Death, including Xekaar.

Depending on how many points you have left, you might be able to fit in a unit and/or another solo.  For units, Venator Slingers and Venator Reivers are both solid choices.  Many competitive Winds of Death lists use both.

For week 4, you add another 15 points, and you can switch Warlocks if you want.  Some strong options who work well with Winds of Death are Dominar Rasheth (Rasheth 1), Lord Assassin Morghoul (Morghoul 2), Primus Jalaam (Jalaam 1), and Lord Arbiter Hexeris (Hexeris 2).  If you don't want to continue with Xekaar, any one of them will be a good replacement.  Rasheth is probably the strongest 'caster in Skorne, and runs a mean Winds of Death list.  All of them also work well with Marketh.

You have 15 more points to add, and if you didn't take a Venator unit last time, you should rectify that.  You also have space for some solos.  The best ones allowed in Winds of Death are the Venator Dakar and the Extoller Soulward.  Alternately, you can pick up another beast or two if doing so would give you list more hitting power or flexibility.  If you have 16 points in your list and are keeping Xekaar, an Aradus Sentinel is worth considering.  Swarm stacks with Xekaar's Feat against most models to give them -5 to hit on the Feat turn.

Try to leave yourself 2 points to play around with because...

For week 5, you might want to pick up a Siege Animantrax.  There is some talk about it getting a power reduction in the Skorne Exalted CID coming up in winter 2019.  If you feel like waiting until then, I won't blame you, because the model is quite expensive compared to heavies and units.

However, it's also quite powerful.  It's a staple piece of most Winds of Death and Imperial Warhost lists, and works well under just about anyone.  However, all of the Warlocks I recommended above (including Xekaar if you're sticking with him for the league) work very well with it.  It might take you a while to figure out all the Animantrax's tricks.

If you like the look of the Siege Animantrax, then more paingivers, either maxing out your current unit or taking a second unit, are a good idea.

If you don't like the Siege Animantrax, or you'd rather wait on it until you can be more certain of its power level, the jump up to 60pts is a good place to try to make sure you've got 40pts worth of Venator models in your list so far.  That will get you 2 free solos and/or weapon crew units.  The weapon crews do good damage, but they're fragile.  They are Venator units, so they do count toward other free models.  In terms of other Venators, both the Rievers and the Slingers are good.  Slingers do more damage to 'jacks and infantry, and provide some support with Flare.  Reivers do a bit more damage to non-'jacks, and have significantly longer range as well as Reposition [3].

For week 6, you're free to take what you want.  If you weren't able to hit the 40pt threshold for two free models last week (though the Animantrax counts for that if you want to take it), make sure you get that set up now.  If you've already got 2 free models, run whatever interests you.

There are a lot of Winds of Death lists to look at online that have ideas you might want to poach.

Here's a list I'd build toward for a JML.  It seems strong and fun, and has a good mix of shooting, melee, and assassination potential.



Lord Assassin Morghoul (*29pts) - Winds of Death
*Titan Gladiator (15pts)
*Archidon (10pts)

*Cyclops Raider (9pts)
*Cyclops Shaman (8pts)
*Cyclops Savage (7pts)
*Aptimus Marketh (0pts)

Siege Animantrax (17pts)

Venator Dakar (4pts)
Mortitheurge Willbreaker (0pts)
Extoller Soulward (3pts)
Extoller Soulward (3pts)

Venator Reivers (Leader and 5 Grunts) (9pts)
*Command Attachment (Officer and Standard Bearer) (4pts)
Venator Slingers (Leader and 5 Grunts) (8pts)
Paingiver Beast Handlers (Leader and 5 Grunts) (7pts)

My main game plan is to get Morghoul and/or the Archidon onto a blinded enemy 'caster, and end the game.  I'll use the threat of my assassination potential and the general bullying power of the Siege Animantrax to keep opponent's cautious and compete at the scenario, and my shooting to wear opponents down.  The Raider, Shaman, and Venators will snipe out key models from long range.

On a critical turn, I'll use Morghoul's Feat to shut down the opposing army and move in to set up my assassination run and kill what I can.

This list isn't incredible against heavy armor, but it can always assassinate, and has some tools to break armor - it'll just run out of them before most opponents.

I haven't ever played this list, and I'm not entirely sure how it will do, but when I do play, I'll be sure to let you all know.

Thanks for reading!