3.11.11 New Releases!

Today brought quite the excitement with 2 new releases, one resculpt, and spoilers on the Retribution Battle Engine!  Stay tuned for speculation and comments!

First off, we have the Gorax resculpt!  Being a long time Circle Orboros player, I'm particularly excited about this.  The first thing I noticed when I looked at the new sculpt is that there is no rock!  Poor Gorax used to have to drag a heavy rock around with him during battle.  Of course, that might be the reason he's so muscular in the new sculpt.  I'll definitely be picking this guy up.  In terms of gameplay, he's been getting a lot of playtime recently in my armies (same goes for other Circle players in the area).  I'll still use him all the same, but I'll be very grateful for a great re-sculpt.

The new House Shyeel Artificer looks awesome!  According to his blurb, there are a few things that are pretty easy to guess.  I think it's about a 50/50 of having Force Bolt, the other option being a new magic missile, possibly called Rending Bolt (based off of the phrase 'rending energy').  He'll probably have the ability to create a wall, just like Janissa Stonetide can, which makes it better than the warlock/warcaster spells, because those can be purified.  Along with the Magister, he'll probably have either Combo Strike or Combo Smite.

However, according to the blurb, it seems as though he doesn't have any Leadership, Veteran Leader, etc. for the Battle Mages, which I think would be great.  That's not saying it couldn't happen though.  A small range amplifier or a Leadership that grants Battle Wizard might give them a slight buff.

Next up is the Flameguard Cleanser Officer!  This guys blurb sounds like the Cleansers are gonna get a huge buff.  'Range and destructive power of Cleanser purifiers are greatly increased' could mean several things.  It could mean a straight increase from SP 8 to SP 10, which is possible, but that might be too good.  It could mean that two Cleansers could combine their flame to a SP 10 POW 14, which could account for both the increase of range and destructive power.  If it were either of these, it would most likely make the Officer PC 3.  One more possibility would be a mini feat granting SP 10, with the Officer naturally granting Fuel to the Fire, which is an additional die on damage to models suffering the Continuous Fire effect (featured on the Blighted Shadows League card for the Temple Flameguard unit attachment).

The part of the blurb mentioning incinerating could remove the restriction of doing only one incinerate shot per turn, or possibly making it a suppressing incineration.

All in all, my guess would be combining two Cleanser shots to a SP 10 POW 14 (of course it would have to be an order), and suppressing incineration.  He would obviously also have +1 MAT and RAT.  PC 3.

Finally, we have the spoilers for the Arcantrik Force Generator!  Comparing to my original guess, I was only correct on the STR, ARM, and ROF!  Oh well.  Without seeing the back of the hard, it was pretty hard to tell.  According to the Privateer Insider that announced this, the Force Generator will have three different shot types (a la Gun Mages), and some sort of range booster.  In terms of the back of the card, it's all pure speculation, but here goes:

-a shot that makes it AOE 4.
-a stay in play effect (like lightning storm) that does POW 10 blast damage upon entering or ending activation.
-some sort of flare, removing stealth, and allowing friendly Faction models target inside the flare regardless of LoS.

The range booster could be Steam Pressure (different name, of course), giving +4 RNG when you forfeit movement for the aiming bonus.  But that also depends on whether the Battle Engines can get the aiming bonus or not.  The +4 RNG could also be gained by being close to a Battle Mage unit or solo, so they could add Arcantrik energy to boost range.

PC 10 was a lot higher than I though it would be, and because it's squishier than a Myrmidon, let's hope it makes up for it in hitting power.

Well, that's it for my blind speculations and reviews of the new and upcoming models!  Feel free to leave comments or questions below, or send me an email!