Wednesday, March 15, 2017

Horus Heresy Review: Priest of Fenris


Background.
To those outside of the Space Wolves legion, these "Priests" are barbarians at best, and shamans and superstitious men who should know better at worst. Within the legion, they are highly respected and sources of great support for not only the technological, but also for the spiritual side of the legion.

Strengths.
In a nut shell, they are the medics, librarians and chaplains rolled in to one. Well, not quite. Rolled in to two really. Well, three really really. The Priests are divided Speakers of the Dead (medics and chaplains) and the Caster of Runes (librarians). On top of this, the "Priests of Iron" also exist but don't have a distinct entry here, and are instead represented by Forge Lords, Master of Signals, and Praevians.

For the Speakers of the Dead, there is the usual feel no pain advantage, combined with fearless and preferred enemy. They also get a vial they can toss at enemies to cause pain.

For Casters of Runes, they are a low level psyker with slight bonuses for denying the witch. I find the Casters of Runes odd in the sense that the Space Wolves don't really recognise them as librarians at all (and Leman Russ himself was all for sanctioning Magnus and the Edict in general). In other news, Sanguinius was a mutant, but we can overlook some things, right?

Weaknesses.
They cost slightly more than what they might in other legions, but they get a few bonus boons for it (refractor fields), but its not too much.

Forge Lords get cyberwolves instead of servo-automata … I haven't worked out whether I like this better or not … its just different and a better (fluffier) fit for the Space Wolves.

Finally, the Priests do not get any option to travel fast (e.g., jump packs). Hence this needs thought (and probably use of land raider transports arguably!).

Builds.
A couple of builds to touch on here. I won't bother with Priests of Iron though, might as well see the Consul article instead.

Speaker of the Dead, hand flamer, melta bombs, artificer armour (125 points).
Add to a blob of infantry and go forth charge. Add in a specialist weapon like a power fist to taste. Equip with terminator armour to sally forth with other terminators (probably Tartaros to take advantage of sweeping I think).

Caster of Runes, second psyker master level, combat shield, aether-rune armour, melta bombs (165 points).
The aether-rune armour is an interesting choice and possibly a reasonable alternative to terminator armour in certain circumstances. But to be honest, I can also see the case for terminator armour as well. I like the combat shield option here as the psyker powers might as well be the shooting weapon here instead. 

1 comment:

Noodles said...

I really like the idea of these priests, and they will be great filing to model/convert.

Re the caster, agree the shield is a good option, but not very fluffy! :)

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