Spotlight: The Scavenger.

The Scavenger received a lot of hate when it arrived. It's expensive, fragile, and requires a lot of resources to be effective, but a few casters can really make it shine.

The Scavenger is based on the Stalker chassis, so it's almost impossible to hit, but that also means we're dealing with another jack that dies to blast damage.

The Scavenger: Abilities

As always the Battlecollege will take you through the abilities. Wait, no it won't, because no one loves the Scavenger enough to actually write anything about him, so I guess I'm doing this myself.

• Flight: The Scavenger ignores terrain, though not when it comes to Line of Sight issues. It also ignores intervening models when declaring a charge, but not when declaring a slam. I'll dedicate an entire section to the things you can do with flight later, but for now this will do.
• Finisher: An additional die of damage against wounded models. This is what makes the Scavenger an effective assassin, and with a bit of support it will take down most casters you manage to catch.
• Sprint: It rarely comes into play, but the ability to leave your nest (I'll explain that one later) to take down a solo, and then return to safety can be pretty neat.

That's it, it has no more abilities. It has a single attack that barely clears double digit PS, is about as survivable as a tough solo, and will set you back four points. It's not exactly appealing, so why do I love them so much?

The Scavenger: Assassinations

The Scavenger needs two things in order to work: Immunity to free strikes, and more speed. These abilities are found on several of our casters, but two of them stand out.

• The Witch Coven of Garlghast: Ghost Walk will clear up the free strikes, and Infernal Machine will handle the speed issues (and remove the need to boost attack rolls). 

This allows you to send in a Scavenger from more than twelve inches away, and several casters will go down to three attacks with Finisher. If you upkeep Infernal Machine on a Scavenger with Admonia, and apply Ghost Walk with your Skarlock, you can actually send in two fully loaded Scavengers, and just about anything will die.

Casting Infernal Machine on a Scavenger, this time not for the +2 MAT, but for the +2 SPD and Terror. Running the Scavenger 18" causing Terror checks to EVERYTHING that got within 1/2 inch of the Scavenger (found here).
-Corpazious

I've never thought about this way of using them, but with sufficient non-fearless models on the other side of the table, this could win you a game. Eighteen inches is a LOT of movement, and many units have average command scores, and a single unit failing could win you the game.

• Master Necrotech Mortenebra: Spectral Steel will handle the free strikes, and Terminal Velocity will turn the Scavenger into a GOD KILLING MACHINE OF UNHOLY TERROR. 

With three Focus, Recalibration, and Terminal Velocity, the Scavenger will put four attacks on that enemy caster (with re-rolls on everything), and with Overrun it will do it from more than nineteen inches away.

The Scavenger: Free kills for everyone 

Usually when an assassination attempt fails, you'll be in a horrible position, and probably lose an important model (or simply lose outright), but with the Scavenger missile you only really lose that one model. This is like getting a free assassination attempt, and even if his caster survives, he or she will be low on health, and in horrible danger.

The Scavenger: Nesting

When I field Scavengers, I like to find them a nest. Their nest should be located centrally on the table, and grant them cover, since defense twenty Scavengers are almost impossible to hit. With sprint you can leave the nest to feed, and then return to safety, and await the opening you need to take down your opponent.

The Scavenger: Slams

The Scavenger can perform some interesting slams.  I don't think there are any other flying slammers in Warmachine, and there aren't exactly a lot of them in Hordes either. While the Scavenger will need Line of Sight to slam, it has impressive range, and enough MAT to do it reliably. It can slam across enemy models, as long as it can ignore/survive the free strikes (and draw Line of Sight), and with Mortenebra it can do it for free (with additional range and boosted attack rolls against living models).

The Scavenger: Alternate casters

While the Scavenger really appreciates the previously mentioned casters, there are others that could have some fun with the Scavengers:

• Warwitch Deneghra: Though limited in range, the debuff queen can send in a Scavenger with The Withering and Crippling Grasp up. This allows the Scavenger three attacks with MAT 11 and PS 15, which should kill several casters.
• Goreshade the Bastard: Shadowmancer allows Goreshade to apply stealth and Dark Shroud to his Battlegroup, which turns Scavengers into light jack versions of Bane Thralls. While he lacks the ability to grant them immunity to free strikes, he has the ability to run them as attrition models.
• Pirate Queen Skarre: Defense sixteen and armor eighteen can survive a free strike or two, and a PS 16 Scavenger with Dark Guidance up, can take down squishy casters. I would probably leave them at home with her, but several others have claimed success with this setup.
• Lord Exhumator Scaverous: Telekinesis allows for fourteen inch threat, and Ghost Walk solves the free strike issues. I've placed Scaverous in alternate casters, because he doesn't have the available Focus to turn the Scavenger into an effective assassination piece.

As you can see the Scavenger is far from the useless piece of junk it's made out to be, but I wouldn't recommend it with anyone but Mortenebra or The Coven.

The Scavenger: Summary

The Scavengers are loathed in my meta, and I'm currently taking down two casters for every Scavenger I lose. They strike from miles away, and leave nothing but broken corpses in their wake, while remaining universally underestimated and ignored.

Spotlight: Helldiver; part 2

Continuing this article, I'd like to talk a little bit more about the Helldiver. When I look at my statistics there's no caster I've lost more games with, than I have with Mortenebra, and in the words of Roosevelt "You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face". This means I'll be trying for more games with Mortenebra, and that means more thinking.

In every game with Mortenebra, the Helldivers have been instrumental to my success, and when I've lost it's been by no fault of theirs. The Helldivers are three points worth of pure gold, with a mind-boggling amount of game applications. I talked a bit about this in the last article, but I'd like to expand a little on the possibilities that a Helldiver brings to the table, particularly slamming.

Slamming. In every game there are models you would just love to slam. This could be a model you need moved, knocked down, or slammed into another model in order to get that second model on the ground. The main problems associated with this move is the resource investment in Models, Actions, and Focus (M.A.F), as well as the problem of angles because the slam is limited to moving directly towards the target. A Terminal Velocity Helldiver solves every problem in that equation.

• Resources: The Helldiver is only three points, and often requires no investment of Focus to perform. This means the Slam is incredibly cheap in M.A.F, and allows you to apply your M.A.F to a kill instead.
• Emerge: When the Helldiver emerges, you may position it as you please in any legal position, which means that if there's room for it, you will get the perfect angle and range for the Slam. Slamming anyone at an angle you choose, makes for some very interesting possibilities.
• Range: The Helldiver can hit a living target within fifteen inches of the burrow marker. This is a range just rivaled by the Ghordson Basher, does not require a Jack Marshall, and is extremely hard to prevent.
• To hit: Will be boosted against living targets, but against DEF 11+ non-living targets it will probably require a Focus. This can be supplied by the Warwitch Sirens, if you really need Mortenebras Focus elsewhere, or if the Helldiver is outside Focus allocation range. If this is happening during Mortenebras feat turn, you can assume that anything without DEF 15+ is going down hard.

Since the Helldivers can strike where they like, and at any angle they like, you can keep an eye out for Warjacks on the edge of your opponents control area, and slam them out of it. This will probably hurt your Helldiver, but even heavies will have problems wrecking the Helldiver without Focus, and will have to spend an action getting up in the first place. In a kill-box scenario you also have the option of chain slamming a caster outside the box (as Rick has noted in a comment, chain slamming only works against casters immune to knockdown), in case you have issues taking him down with raw damage, which will probably result in heavy objects being thrown at your face in real life.

Slamming is such a versatile tool, that having multiple slams in a round with a very low M.A.F cost, becomes a massive force multiplier. Whether you need Mulg out of the equation, a caster on the ground, or room for your assassination piece by his caster, a Terminal Velocity Helldiver will solve your problem.

A special mention should go to Head-butting as well. This is much the same as slamming, but only works against medium bases with a Helldiver. This is a nice option if there's no room for picking up speed to slam, or free strikes would become a problem. Head-butt is fun, since it requires no movement at all, so if there's room for the Helldiver, that caster is going down.

Terror. It's not on the card, but Helldivers cause terror, though not as a game mechanic, but against players. These little homing missiles are coming at him, and there's not a damn thing he can do about it, so either he denies them a charge or he takes his chances on the dice. The most effective way seems to be building a castle, but this dictates how the entire game unfolds, and a predictable opponent is a dead opponent. At some point the Helldivers will get an opening anyway, or just slam multiple models on the caster, and you can send in something else to kill the pile of knocked down models.

Defense. Though I rarely get to use them like this, the Helldivers are excellent defensive models. Most opponents seem to forget that you get to choose the facing when the Helldiver emerges, so you can hit anything within 13-15" in any direction. The two Manhunters I took down for the price of one Focus (had to buy an extra attack) was probably the best hit I've made, but the owner of the Totem Hunter (in a forest, behind my army) made the most memorable face.

Objectives. There's no stopping the Helldiver, and we've already established the merits of slamming. Three Helldivers will clear an objective rather effectively, if your opponent relies on tough single models to contest it. Since most scenarios are simply disguised caster kills, a lot of opponents tend to forget that you can actually win on objectives, and if you keep that in mind it will happen (exactly why I lost a game this Saturday... sigh...). With the great slam angles, you can even use the larger models to clear out a few contesting infantry while you're at it, or just load up the Helldivers with a bit of Focus and have them end up in a position to chomp the last couple of guys.

Threat.  I was playing a game of Warhammer 40.000 a while back, and I had a couple of Grot Missiles. For those of you that are unfamiliar with these, they're cruise missiles with a suicide pilot. They have a massive blast, and are deadly to packed infantry. I'd brought six of them, and I'd launched five, doing a massive amount of damage to my opponent, but I never fired the last missile. A friend who watched the game asked me about the remaining missile, and why I didn't just fire it and kill of some more infantry. I explained to him that "as long as I have one left, I dictate how his army moves". He could never bunch up, he could never effectively charge a vehicle (that requires bunching up), and he always had to think about cover, which would slow him down.

Helldivers are like that, because as long as one of them lives, your opponent has to take that threat into account, and then you control his army. When your last Helldiver dies, that threat is gone for good, so before you throw the last one away to kill some random solo, you should think about how that will allow your opponent to play from there on. No, strike that... unless it's a game winning move, you should never throw away your last Helldiver.
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A lot of excuses...

Well it wasn't that bad. I was having a lot of issues assembling the Leviathans, so it was around two in the morning before I finally fell asleep. About fifteen minutes later a drunken idiot on scooter just managed to avoid killing himself, when he played chicken with a parked car and lost... badly. After the whole mess with the emergency service, the guy seemed to be doing alright, but I was to wound up to sleep. In the end, I think I managed about four hours, and I arrived in Silkeborg with a minor headache. As it turns out, the shop has no coffee machine, and no painkillers, so I prepare for a long day (next time I'll bring my pharmacy and some instant coffee).

Round 1: Terminus Vs. pSkarre; Overrun.
Silkeborg seems to mean Cryx mirror matches, and of course the two Cryx players got to face each other in the first round. To my surprise he was fielding a very nice army of Satyxis (almost exactly like one I'd contemplated running myself, so I had done the math on this build), backed up by two Reapers and two units of Black Ogrun. I had to play very carefully with my Leviathans, to avoid having them pulled in and charged by hordes of Raiders (which would mean a dead Terminus). I was outgunned, outmaneuvered, and in pretty bad shape until he missed the Bile Thrall hiding behind Terminus (teeheee, wings are awesome for more than one reason) and lost half his squad of Raiders on that flank without pulling Terminus away as I think was his plan.

In the end, he had no way of getting to Terminus, no Arc Nodes (he had one, I had one Bane Thrall in range), and no real chance of winning, so he gave me a charge on Skarre. He could probably have played me to a tiebreaker, but he had so many models within range of my purge capability, that it would have been a waste of time. He did exactly what I would have done, and gave me a shot at Skarre, which was very likely to work, but might fail. I've won several games on "sure things" failing, but this one didn't.


Round 2: Terminus Vs. Vindictus; Outflank, Outfight, Outlast.
My headache was getting worse, and since I had to pee three or four times within ten minutes, I began thinking that maybe I should have stayed at home. I was getting a bit feverish as well, and the shop still had no painkillers, but that being said; I just wasn't thinking. I messed up an activation sequence badly, forgot to move a unit to contest a zone, cast the wrong spell with Darragh, and then I forgot about Madelyn Corbeau in the maintenance phase so Terminus was out of range for a gamble (which I do think he could have managed, as I got him to armor 30-something in a last ditch attempt to recover the game).

I was manhandled a bit by the dice as well, but mainly I just played a bad game and lost. I always tell people that blaming the dice is a poor excuse, and I'll stick to that and claim, that had I thought this game through and played my best, I could have won the game with the rolls I received. My opponent was really pleasant though, so I had no issues at all with congratulating her on being the first ever to best my Terminus list (never send a man to do a womans job and all that...).

Edit: I finally found a way I "could" have won this game. I had a Leviathan with a Focus in his back arc, that could have thrown Terminus in the Zone (only used them a couple of times, and never noticed the open fist on the claw today). It was by no means guaranteed to work, but at least I would have had a chance, and nothing could have killed Terminus that round, even prone.


Round 3: Mortenebra Vs. Grim Angus; Overrun.
I'd decided to bring Mortenebra as my secondary list, and as I was out of the race for medals (the good ones anyway) I decided to at least try to learn something, and salvage a bit of the day. I was still feeling poorly, but I just had lunch and a break, so it wasn't to bad. I was feeling pretty cheerful about the game though, because it was the same list I faced last time Mortenebra was up against Grim Angus, and it was the same player, so I knew what I had to look out for this time around.

Exactly as the last time we fought, he mashed most of my army to a pulp, and then took Helldivers & Scavengers to the face. I lost my Stalker to another lapse in concentration, as I forgot to slam Mulg with my Reaper before activating the Stalker, and Stalkers don't survive free strikes from Mulg. In the end a Terminal Velocity Scavenger made four hits of 8-11 damage, and Grim ran out of transfers. I must admit that I'm taking a liking to Mortenebra with the Errata to the Stalkers (though that made no difference here), but now I'm a sad puppy whenever I think about the four Stalkers I've given or traded away. Mortenebra is still to frail for my taste, but I kind of like having her as a secondary list, when Terminus fails me (well... I fail him actually... you know what I mean).


Round 4: Mortenebra Vs. Gorton; Revelation.
My headache was returning with interest, and I was sweating like racehorse. I was matched up against a guy with three losses, while I had a 2-1 score, which made no sense at all, but hey... GRUDGE MATCH! This was my friend I hadn't seen in years, so I decided to let weird matchups slide, and go kick Gorton in the face. In retrospect I should have drawn the game out a bit and given him a chance, because the poor guy just returned from a year long break from Warmachine. He sort of deserved a game where he could relearn some things, but my head was killing me and promptly vetoed that idea.

I'd never faced Gorton before, but heard all kinds of nasty things about him. I won the roll to go first, and crammed my army as far up the field as possible, while castling up to protect Mortenebra from shooting. I'd found in the game before, that having the Scavengers block LoS to Mortenebra worked well, when they were protected by four stealth heavies to stop any rushers, but the shooting here was out of range or failed to hit the high Def. He had to do something, because I would own the flags in round two if he didn't, but Gorton was still way behind, and he moved a couple of jacks just an inch to close. The Reaper pulled in his Wroughthammer Rockram, and dis-armed it. The Slayer was just in range of a Gun bunny, so after he had Spectral Steel applied by Deryliss, he rumbled up there and wrecked it, while getting in line for the punishment to come.

I'll admit that my friend could have used a new set of dice, or maybe a hammer, but due to deployment issues and failing a few critical rolls, he just never stood a chance. I had two Helldivers and a Scavenger ready to finish the job when the Slayer was destroyed, but when the smoke clears from my opponents turn, it's still fully functional. Overrun (Deryliss) on a Scavenger moves the Slayer forward, and Terminal Velocity, Feat, and three Focus on the Slayer means Gorton receives a steel enema.


Final score: 3-1; and I took 6th place (16 players) due to my really poor strength of schedule, but I got to play my friend so it's all good. I think I might have appreciated it more if I had been able to lay my hands on some painkillers to knock the fever down (I'm typing this a couple of hours after returning home, the fever is gone, and I'm feeling fine), but I'm happy I went anyway. I'll try for some analysis tomorrow if I can find the time, but in any case it was great to roll some dice again.
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