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So, I'm just getting into Warmachine/Hordes. I've decided to play Cryx, primarily because I am a sucker for aethestics and fell in love with the bane thralls. I'd like to play a thrall heavy army. I'm thinking that Goreshade is the way to go with these guys, or am I wrong. I have limited knowledge of a lot of the mechanics of the game so far. What would I field with bane thralls? Which Cryxian caster supports them the best, and makes them more dangerous?

Goreshade is good. eGaspy is much much better. Make sure you pick up Lord Tarturous as well.....

Forgive my newishness ... what/who is eGaspy?

epic Asphyxious, or Lich Lord Asphyxious for his full title. His feat is made for Banes

Goreshade2 loves him some Bane Thralls for his Elite Cadre. Goreshade1 doesn't really care about them other than his Feat making a small unit of them for free. Asphyxious2 prefers Bane Knights for their Reach. Other than that they're pretty much just a simple, solid unit for any other caster, no one does anything extra special for them that they wouldn't do the same for any other one of Cryx's sweet units.

Notes on Thralls though. A min unit plus a UA is probably better than taking a max unit without. Make sure you have Tartarus to help their threat range and hitting accuracy.

Also, if you wait three months, you can get them in plastic and $30 cheaper.

I'm sure Sanctjud will be along shortly to give you all you need to know

But till then...


eGoreshade does a heck of a lot for Banes. Bane Thralls get additional members whenever they kill a living Warrior model, his Feat can turn junk Cryx models(like Mechanithralls) back into Banes you have lost previously, Sudden Death makes Tartarsauce nasty, etc...

With Banes, you want Bane Lord Tartarus, AKA: Tartarsauce.

He can use an ability of his to Curse an enemy unit. Banes which charge that unit get a boost to speed and accuracy.

And finally, whenever he kills something living you can add a new grunt to a nearby Bane unit with small bases.

This is all on top of his solid melee capabilities. Reach, Thresher, and Weapon Master.


eGoreshade's basic stick is "Your opponent brought infantry, they're getting turned into MOAR BANES on top of the 30 you actually brought!"

I am 99.9% sure Sudden Death is Small Based only and does not work on The Sauce.

Not sure how effective it is from a purely competitive standpoint, but Goreshade has the potential to end the game with more models than he started it with...which is pretty hilarious. That said I really see him as a massive example of a "win more" caster. If your opponent isn't equipped to handle banes then 30 will be enough to take him down and ~15 more over the course of the game isn't going to do anything you couldn't already do, but if he can handle banes then the extra banes you get aren't going to help you.

If you're curious about how the game plays a podcast I follow called "chain attack" just played a game with epic goreshade against Vlad from Khador. Not saying they know evreything there is to know about warmachine, but they generally do at least a fairly good job of being honest. They play a battle report, describe it for the podcast, then rate the casters on what they do in a bunch of different categories like aggression, spell list, feat, etc... They weren't all that kind to Goreshade though, saying he compared pretty unfavorably to Epic Asphyxious (then again so does pretty much everyone else who isn't named Deneghra or Haley).

 AduroT wrote:
I am 99.9% sure Sudden Death is Small Based only and does not work on The Sauce.

Pretty sure its just FF non-warcaster warrior model.

Battle College suggests putting it on Tartarsauce.

 AduroT wrote:
I am 99.9% sure Sudden Death is Small Based only and does not work on The Sauce.

Unless there's been some errata on eGoreshade that I haven't seen, Sudden death is faction any non-warcaster warrior like Templar said. eGoreshade seems to be growing in popularity lately with a Phantom Huntered Kraken, so you can almost feel like you're playing the MHSF.

You pretty much picked a perfect time to look into thralls. Their plastic release just got announced.

Bane thralls go well with just about any caster as long as you get the UA and bane Lord Tartarus.

But casters that can help them move faster/ignore terrain (Ghostly, etc) are nice as well as ones that improve their accuracy (pretty much all the DEF debuffs, etc).

So both Deneghra's are nice.

IMO the UA is a must. Tartarus is really nice, but not completely required. I find certain armies tend to shoot tartarus up badly so if you learn to play them without him you will get better mileage out of them.

And even a min Bane thrall unit will give you mobile debuffs and weaponmaster attacks. Running that single bane thrall up next to a bad guy before your Deathjack charges it effectively gives DJ +2 POW.

I'm a fan of Bane Knights, not Bane Thralls. :-/

One thing, Ghostly casters will include a Skarlock to babysit the Thralls, if not, then Saxon can be around to pathfinder them.

In most cases, the bane Thralls do best with Casters that will help them connect with their attacks, so you'll want to look into those casters.

 Surtur wrote:
You pretty much picked a perfect time to look into thralls. Their plastic release just got announced.

You mean so that he still has some time to stack up on metals before the horrible plastics are released?

 fishy bob wrote:

 Surtur wrote:
You pretty much picked a perfect time to look into thralls. Their plastic release just got announced.

You mean so that he still has some time to stack up on metals before the horrible plastics are released?

If only I could replace everyone's attitude with this one.