by Patrick Nevan

Its a nice bit of artwork but big deal, my grey haired mother could waste a unit of Vanquishers

The embargo has dropped on the new FEC battletome and thanks to the tireless efforts of various men who read books (mainly The Coach for me) we now know what’s in it. I don’t normally get too fussed about new battletomes. With the current Zeta standard of playtesting you can generally wait until the first FAQ and battlescroll update to fix the more glaring errors before you invest too much thought in new material. Still I’ve always had a soft spot for the FEC so I took a look and damned if I didn’t like it.

While I’m not sure what the actual power levels will be, the standard of Verisimilitude seems pretty high with this one. Somebody sat down and had a think about what people would like to see in a horde of demented, delusional flesh-eating Brettonians and had a decent stab at putting it on the table. You’ve got horde, you’ve got knights, you’ve got freaky-ass monsters, a bunch of demented heroes vital to making it all work and the rules to back it up. Good job FEC writers, feel free to drop by the Khorne writers’ desk and give them some tips.

Anyhow my man Calvin is juiced for this one and working on the full review but I thought I’d have a look-see at some of the new stuff. Starting with the new Mortarch of Delusion, the big cheese himself Ushoran, back from the Old World to prove that cool names never go out of style. Lets see how the big guy measures up.

Rules from GW via whoever put em together into a pdf, seriously what a Mensch

So we’ll look at his individual abilities and his output and resilience further on, but initially he seems ok on paper. Like any self-respecting Mortarch he is a 2 cast wizard and Warmaster. More wounds than Nef and Manfred but a very inferior 4 up save. With 10 inches of movement he is on the slow side for his weight division. He can get run and charge from a Ghoul King on VLZOD spell but that’s a lot of points for this army.

The good news is his movement doesn’t degrade. You will probably be fine with his reduced Epicentre of Delusion but the drop off from 10 to 6 in his claws on the first bracket hurts. If you are fighting against him it is worth your while to try and bracket him before he attacks.

He does have the Monster keyword which has become a bit of a mixed blessing with all the specialist monster hunting units around these days. Still pretty good though. He also has the Abhorrant keyword to return units. Interestingly he has the Hollowmourne keyword which is a faction buff he can’t use, so you won’t lose a lot taking him in another subfaction.

This is his big army-wide buff and it’s honestly pretty good. At full health, which he should be most of the time you will get two Courts of Delusion buffs on the bulk of your army. It gives you a chance to take one of the always useful buffs permanently and pivot with the second. Say The Grand Tournament giving you a plus 1 to hit while charging (not for Ushoran), and use the others as required, like with the plus 1 to save when you are getting brassed up first turn. This one should reward smart play.

Another great centerpiece ability. Keep 6 noble deeds points on the guy and you can spend whatever with the other heroes in your central blob without too many worries. Spend Ushoran’s noble deeds to spawn units, fight first with him in the combat phase and regain the buff. If you can’t do six wounds him you have bigger problems. Worried you might not get to fight first, well just read on.

I’m actually half way convinced this one is a translation error, if not it should be slated for early FAQ’ing. On the face of it you shave a point off someone’s leadership then make them fight last if you can roll over it. A great ability against Gitz or other Destro trash but a bit iffy against Death or Chaos Deamons.

The kick in the dick here is that the lost of leadership is permanent and stackable. Spend a couple of turns in combat with that buffed up Anvil unit and they’re at neg 3 leadership for the rest of the game, fighting last and getting torn to bits by the rest of your army. Worth noting here that Core Rule 22.2.1 does specify that you can never reduce a characteristic below 0 however.

This one will weigh heavily on your opponent’s mind. There are plenty of hammers with enough juice to take Ushoran off the table, but who really wants to risk having their charging unit fight last? The downside is a 1″ range that people can pile in around and it will be tricky to affect multiple units, but still an awesome ability.

Does what it says and toughens him up while only scratching the surface of the jank available to him.

The spell is a bit goofy and highly situational making it an excellent choice for a unique hero who is more of beat stick anyway. Its utility would depend on what is in range and what they can hit so a smart opponent can keep the good stuff away from other stuff, but I would suggest this is the kind of thing people will forget in the heat of battle.

Extra points for this one because it really is the bane of the powerful. It goes from “Oh no my skeleton hit my necromancer fiddle di-di” to “Oh fuck my Mawkrusha is killing a unit of pigs, I wish I hadn’t given it a damage buff” to “Oh for fuck’s sake my Neferata just flattened my VLoZD with her instant kill dagger”. Just a lot of fun with this spell, hats off to the designers.

Output

22 points of statistically unlikely max damage on his basic profile. While Ushoran is unlikely to be doing a lot of fighting on his base profile, he misses out on the very tasty plus 1 to wound buff from the Deranged Transformation spell but is generally going to be getting plus 1 attack from Feeding Frenzy. Eh we will try him with each of his normal profile, plus 1 attack and plus 1 attack and to hit.

Taken from aos-statshammer

Honestly not too shabby. He throws too many dice to totally whiff easily and has better output than his fellow Mortachs. Ushoran suffers from a lack of rend that has no easy fix besides a Whorefrost on his claws. Without the double pile in he won’t tear an army apart on his lonesome in the approved FEC fashion but he will go through the lightly armored like shit through a goose and at least get his noble deeds points up against heavily armored targets. Not a great candidate for monstrous duels with heavily armored and warded opponents.

Resilience

I was a little bit dissapointed with the lack of methods to buff his output but boy are there a lot of ways to toughen him up. Before we look at healing the first thing to do is stand a unit of Cryptguard next to him:

These guys will find there way into every FEC army just for the ward although they are a pretty good unit in their own right. The four up ward, Finest Hour and All Out Defence toughens him up for that all-important first shooting turn and you have plenty of options for Mystic Shields and Courts of Delusion save bonuses once you get rolling.

Note: A couple of people have raised the very important question about whether Ushoran’s base will fit wholly within 3″ of the Crypt Guard. Once we know the exact base sizes we’ll have a follow-up article to cover off that topic – but we think we can make it work. 

(We got tired of waiting for the official base size so Pete wrote a whole damn article on the subject. He fits.)

Still he doesn’t have that all-important base 3 up save, so if someone really gets after him with bulk shooting or attacks he will go down. Still, that’s AOS.

The good news is that he has access to more healing than the fairly good 2d3 points he gets on his warscroll. The Chalice of Ushoran does what it has always done and there is a very nice healing prayer:

Obviously you can fail the spell or the prayer or not find a good enough target or whatever. That’s AOS, do I need to put up the Rick Gif again?

Conclusion

On the face of it Ushoran seems to be one of those units whose job is defined by their warscroll. (Like every other unit, I know, but hear me out). He isn’t really fast, tanky or hard-hitting enough to act as a solo monster against quality opposition. His casting and buffs aren’t good enough to keep him out of combat as a support hero at 480 points. Ushoran’s best support ability is his expanded range on the Feeding Frenzy battle trait and he needs to be in combat to get the use out of it. Not only can he easily max out his noble deeds, every other hero can spend theirs. He belongs in the middle of the line.

The new unique Judge Jeffries guy adds a lot to Ushoran’s game but I don’t have time for that. You will get your points worth out of him when he is front and center of your battleline with support on either side. He may well be able to act more independently late game when the enemy has been softened up and he is still at full health. Of course there’s a pretty good chance I’m flat out wrong about all of this but he is a damn cool model with a well-thought-out set of rules. Can’t wait to see him on the table.

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