Welcome back, fans of Warmachine, to another gameplay deep dive. This time we’re learning about changes to the architects of the Wicked Harvest, the Grymkin!
The Grymkin have seen the most extensive gameplay re-development of the three armies included in the Lost, Damned, & Salvation FronTier campaign. In this article we’ll touch on key changes to the army, but this won’t be a complete list of all the changes, as there are too many to talk through all at once.
Surprise, Arcana!
Arcana are a unique set of Command Cards only available to the Grymkin. They’re far more powerful than standard Command Cards, because they serve as a replacement for Feats. That’s right — Grymkin Warlocks are the only Leaders in Warmachine to not have any Feats at all.
Previously, Arcana had been triggered by enemy actions. For example, Labyrynth was triggered by an enemy model ending a movement within the Grymkin Warlock’s control range. Once triggered, all enemy models activating within the Warlock’s control range would suffer -2 SPD.
This kind of triggered effect puts enormous strain on the opponent to remember not only what all the Arcana cards do, but also how they’re triggered. In effect, an opponent of Grymkin would need to play assuming that all Arcana cards are in play at once, because any of them could be.
Grymkin are less about raw stats and speed — they’re ultimately a “control” style of army. This means their abilities are designed to restrict or otherwise force the opponent into making certain decisions during the game. That said, there are other ways to implement control abilities, and we strongly felt we needed to adjust the flavour of Grymkin’s control style.
Updated Arcana
The themes of the older Arcana cards were based on “tension then jump scare” horror tropes. Now, the revised Arcana cards have changed direction to be more akin to the feelings of dread inevitability. It’s the nightmare where you can’t quite run fast enough to escape whatever’s chasing you.
Instead of these abilities being triggered by the Grymkin opponent, they’re now activated by the Grymkin player on their own turn, and their effects last for one round.
Let’s look at an example. The Grymkin warlock The Child is leading a warbeast heavy army list, including a Slaughterhouse gargantuan, and a Death Knell. The Child’s army has shorter charge ranges than their opponent, which will often be the case for Grymkin, so they’re going to have to work out how to both contest the scenario, and not lose too many models to the enemy assault.
They advance the Slaughterhouse into the central objectives, threatening to score scenario points if the opponent doesn’t send in contesting models. The Child herself then advances up behind the Slaughterhouse and uses Labyrinth, and Ill Omens. The Child positions herself so that she catches the opponent’s most forward models within her control range.
For the next round, those enemy models starting their activations within The Child’s control range might not even have the movement speed to reach the Slaughterhouse because of Labyrinth.
For the ones that do? They’ll be trying to take down a gargantuan that’s effectively ARM 23 when you take into account the damage penalty from Ill Omens and Warmth of the Grave on the Death Knell (this ability remains unchanged).
So, The Child has controlled the opponent’s engagement options in two very specific ways: Not as many charging models will reach the Slaughterhouse because of Labyrinth, and this lowers the amount of damage it will take. Additionally, Ill Omens and Warmth of the Grave significantly reduce the damage the Slaughterhouse will take from those models that do reach it.
All the updated Grymkin Arcana function like this. They’re used during the Grymkin warlock’s activation, and their effects last for one round and only affect models within the warlock’s control range. The benefit of this system for the Grymkin player is that they can now choose to use their Arcana cards in any order and combination that they like, rather than waiting for the opponent to trigger them.
Ruin & Sacrifice
Let’s look at another example of an updated Arcana: Ruin, one of two Arcana that still have a triggered effect. Ruin allows the Grymkin warlock to stop a single spell from being cast by the opponent, if they cast it within the Grymkin warlock’s control range.
The updated version of Ruin requires the Grymkin warlock to put the Ruin effect into play. So, the opponent now knows that if they cast a spell within the Grymkin warlock’s control range during the next round, it could be cancelled, once. Whether a spell is cancelled or not, the effect of Ruin expires after one round.
Ruin is an excellent Arcana card for the Grymkin warlock to play on a turn in which they’re being very aggressive. If they can end their turn with the enemy Leader already within the Grymkin warlock’s control range, it forces some very difficult choices onto the opponent for the next round.
Command Card Economy
Lastly, there’s a core rule for Command Cards that normally allows only a single card to be played on a model or unit each turn. Grymkin warlocks all have a new special rule called “Arcana Infused”. This rule allows the Grymkin player to play two Command Cards on them each turn, instead of one.
This enables you to play two different Arcana cards on your warlock each turn, combining different Arcana for some very potent control effects!
Diet Death Knell
This next one is a little change with a really big impact. First off, the Death Knell model looks lost on a 120mm base. If 80mm solos existed at the time of the Grymkin’s original release, we are absolutely certain the Death Knell would’ve been an 80mm solo, rather than a battle engine. So, now it is!
We haven’t reduced the scale of the miniature at all, it already fits like it was designed to go on an 80mm base. Some of the gremlins have been removed, or repositioned just to be safe.
Gameplay wise, this change allows the Death Knell to more easily fit into the middle of the Grymkin army without tripping up all the other models that wish to remain close to it to benefit from Warmth of the Grave.
Oh, and it’s also had a huge cost reduction, coming down from 9 points to 6. Enjoy!
Warlock Buffs
On to the Leaders! There’s so many interesting abilities and huge flavour to the Grymkin warlocks — it’s such a shame that we’ve only really seen Zevanna Agha and The Wanderer up to now. So, we haven’t done much with these two warlocks, they clearly already work well. However, we have made adjustments to the other four warlocks:
The Child
The Child has abilities that benefit running a warbeast heavy army list. The main issue for The Child has largely been with the warbeasts she wants to run, and the support structure for her battlegroup. Those models have all seen improvements, such as the above mentioned Death Knell.
The Child herself has gained a new spell, Awakened Spirit; an upkeep spell allowing one of her warbeasts to use its animus without being forced.
Additionally, one of her existing spells — Discord — has been updated to a new version named Discordance. This spell is no longer an upkeep for one model. When cast, all models in The Child’s battlegroup gain Wailing for one round, preventing nearby enemies from casting or channeling spells.
The Dreamer
Similar to The Child, The Dreamer has abilities that benefit her running a warbeast heavy army list. However, she’s different to The Child in that she does it with a little less speed, and more trickery, making use of spells like Abyssal Gate and Enfeeble to hamstring the opponent.
The Dreamer will similarly benefit from the improvements we’ve made to Grymkin’s stable of warbeasts, but also has a key change of her own.
The Dreamer had an ability called Wraith Walker that allowed her to become Incorporeal for a round, every other round of the game. This ability has been renamed to Dream State. Now when The Dreamer chooses to go Incorporeal for one round, all her warbeasts do too.
Like Wraith Walker, Dream State can be used every other round. If The Dreamer goes Incorporeal one round, she can’t do it in the following round.
The Heretic
The Heretic runs a more balanced army between warbeasts and units, mainly aiming to make use of his fairly potent spellcasting abilities, particularly Godlike Power, which allows him to cast a spell that was cast by the opposing Leader in the previous turn.
Unfortunately, The Heretic never really had the fury to power these additional spells when he had the option of casting one, particularly because The Heretic’s existing spells aren’t the cheapest.
So, now Godlike Power allows you to cast a copied spell for free, but only once per turn.
Maybe one of you will get to live the dream and copy Incite someday…
The King of Nothing
The King of Nothing doesn’t bother with copying other people’s spells because this lad already has a fantastic list of spells. Previously, his issue was between Cage Ragers being expensive arc nodes, and some fairly awkward special rules, The King of Nothing used to take a lot of effort to make “not a lot” happen on the table top. So, we’ve made some efficiency and effectiveness changes in a few places.
First up, The King of Nothing has gained Dark Rituals. This is most often seen on Dark Operations (Cephalyx) warcasters. Dark Rituals allows The King of Nothing to cast spells through friendly faction warrior models in exchange for causing d3 damage to them after casting the spell. That’ll open up some more spell casting routes!
Master of Ruin has gone from being an “always on passive” to a “switched on special action” meaning you only use it when it's beneficial to you, instead of this ability being a constant double edged sword.
Kingdom of Silence now triggers a free spell when a battlegroup cohort model is damaged, rather than destroyed. Imagine someone with low MAT charging one of your Skin & Moans only to have a Burning Ash placed on them after making the charge attack. Try hitting me at DEF 15!
Finally, The King of Nothing has learned a new spell. He’s picked up Breath Stealer, also seen on Shadowflame Shard’s Nyxyan.
Warbeast Buffs
There’s a lot of small changes across the warbeasts that you’ll be able to search through the change log for at your leisure, on the 10th of March when we release the updated stat cards for Infernals, Grymkin, and Convergence of Cyriss into the Warmachine app. In the meantime, let’s cap off the bigger ones.
The Cage Rager is a little faster going from SPD 4 to SPD 5. It’s also swapped ARM 19 for ARM 16 and Impervious Flesh. Honestly it felt a little odd with so many low ARM values in the army for the resilience of this model, that wears no armour, not to be represented by Impervious Flesh.
Fightmare and Gorehound have received some very minor stat tweaks and both come down 1 point in cost.
The Slaughterhouse has retained ARM 20 (it is, after all, a BUILDING). We’ve increased the melee range of the Tree Limbs from 2 to 3.
But the super exciting new thing is a brand new hit effect on both the Tree Limbs and the Porch Light weapons. They both now have “Into the Light”.
Into the Light is a more powerful version of Drag that cannot be stopped by intervening models or terrain. If you hit the enemy model with the attack, it’s almost like they move towards you with the benefit of being Ghostly. If there is space for their base to land in front of you, they’re going to move no matter what else is in the way.
Solo Buffs
Not quite as many changes here for the solos but, as with the warbeasts, there are a few key ones to pick out:
Isaiah is no longer a dragoon. The trend with MK4 armies has been not to release Dragoon models and instead just release mounted versions of models. To this end, Isaiah’s dismounted and mounted versions have been combined together. Isaiah now has 14 health, and gained the dismounted version’s thrown weapon attack. Additionally, Isaiah has a new Leadership ability for Dread Rots that grants them Ghostly while within 10” of Isaiah.
Oh, and Lord Longfellow has increased from cost 4 to 5.
Wait, trust me, it’s for good reason. He’s picked up 3 more health boxes, 1 point of ARM, and his Pistols have gained 2 inches of range AND Snapfire. See? Worth it.
Unit Buffs
Some small and some very big changes to the units are coming. Let’s start small.
Twilight Sisters
The Twilight Sisters have returned from cost 5 to cost 6 as part of being included in the Grymkin “Command Starter” set, as it needs to level out at 30 points total. They have gained some benefits to justify going back up in cost, going up 3 health boxes and 1 point of ARM each. Also, Heidrun has gained MAT 7, and Agrona has gained AAT 7. Lastly, they gained Force Barrier.
Lantern Men
You heard us, men, plural. This former Command Attachment is now a fully fledged unit of its own. They’ve swapped their old granted abilities and picked up Condition in addition to keeping Ghostly, Ghost Light, and Obscuring Mist. They cost 4 points for 3 models, and will serve as a fittingly unusual support unit.
The Bloody Parliament
We saved the best until last. The Murder Crows unit is no more, that stat card has gone off to Legacy land.
They’ve been replaced by a Murder Crows character unit, The Bloody Parliament. There’s a lot going on with this stat card so we’ll summarise the intended play experience.
The Bloody Parliament take hunting down their Prey target to a whole new level of inevitable horror. Several of their abilities stack on top of the Prey special rule in addition to some powerful control spellcasting abilities.
No Escape means the prey unit can’t really fight back effectively since they’ll be rolling one less attack die when fighting The Bloody Parliament, and with this character unit clocking in at DEF 15, they’re already not the easiest to hit with attacks.
A Fate Worse Than Death is an incredible late game ability. Simply activating near to The Bloody Parliament will leave their Prey frozen in terror, literally!
Dark Seduction is a more general-use control spell that’s quite powerful, seen before on Exulon Nostilla. Combined with Shadow Walk, The Bloody Parliament can be quite hard to pin down in the early game while they stalk their Prey.
Some nasty hit effects on their two different melee weapons round off this unit to be a royal pain in the patella to deal with.
Command Attachments
The Night Slayer War Horse has lost Leap Frog and Tag! but has retained Playing Dead since it’s the main ability the Neigh Slayers used. For losing these extra abilities, the War Horse now costs 3 instead of 4 points.
Hollow Holden has changed from a Weapon Attachment to being a Command Attachment. He still only costs 1 point and instead of granting Dual Shot to his Hollowmen unit, he grants Snapfire instead. He is otherwise unchanged.
That’s all we have for today, humble reader! Join us again soon for another exciting gameplay update, next time for the Convergence of Cyriss.
And don’t forget to follow Lost, Damned, & Salvation over on MyMiniFactory to get notified when you can pick these armies up to print at home!
Got a favourite of three yet? And if it’s not Grymkin… have you considered reading the article above one more time?
