Hordes – NQ #32 Blindwater Congregation Impressions

Now that we have No Quarter #32 firmly in-hand, we finally have a look at the rules for the Blindwater Congregation, Bloody Barnabas, the Blackhide Wrastler, and the Croak Hunter.  Here are my first impressions:

The pact seems to be a very nice complement to the farrow-centric Thornfall Alliance. Where the Alliance thus far concentrates on resilience through ARM buffing and the internal defensive strength of Tough Brigands with Dig In, the Blindwater Congregation is thus far geared towards defensive abilities that completely deny shooting, increase DEF, or slow your opponent down. Between Barnabas’s Swamp Pit spell, Snapjaw’s Submerge animus, ambushing Bog Trogs, the Swamp Gobber’s Cloud Cover ability, and the stealthy Totem Hunter and Croak Hunter, ranged armies could potentially struggle a great deal against the Congregation. When stuck in, Barnabas’s Iron Flesh will work wonders for keeping your army alive and kicking, working great on a unit of Gatorman Posse with stacked abilities like Dirge of Mists and Unrelenting, making them an effective DEF 16, ARM 18 unit with eight wounds. The only thing the Congregation currently lacks is ranged attacks, which are limited to the Croak Hunters single, RNG 8 Thrown Spear and Pendrake’s Lucky Bow and Bola.

Looking a bit deeper at Barnabas, he’s a warlock with a plethora of good spells and abilities. His three attacks combined with Blood Boon make him an attractive choice as a mid- to front-line warlock. Clever use of Blood Boon allows Barnabas to charge in, kill an enemy model, and then get a free casting of Iron Flesh onto himself, bumping him up to DEF 16, ARM 17 (19 in melee via Unrelenting).

Swamp Pit is an incredible ability, albeit a little tricky to use. Since you cannot place the template touching any models, it might not necessarily be easy to get it where you want it, and will often dictate that Barnabas will be among your first models to activate early-game. Swamp Pit’s most obvious uses are as a means of keeping your Amphibious models safe from ranged attacks or denying models without Pathfinder, Amphibious, Ghostly, or Flight from closing on your own forces. Swamp Pit can also allow you to shut down an enemy warjack by throwing or slamming it into shallow water, extinguishing its boiler and taking it out of the game for at least one turn. This can be extremely handy given the Congregation’s inherent lack of hard-hitting choices.

Warpath is a nice tool for getting your warbeasts a bit more threat range or ability to reposition before or after an attack, letting you get a perfectly lined up slam attack or pull a warbeast out of harms way during a critical moment.

Barnabas’s feat is much like Kreoss’s feat, save that it only effects models that are not Amphibious. This can act as another nice denial tool against infantry-heavy lists or as a DEF debuff for when you’re sending your sending your forces in for the kill.

The Blackhide Wrastler is an expensive, but strong option. While it’s not very hardy, Snacking in addition to access to protection via Iron Flesh or Swamp Pit can keep your Wrastlers intact and kicking throughout the game. Its three attacks aren’t particularly hard-hitting, but repeat purchases of its POW 17 attack will be sufficient for taking on most heavy warbeasts. Heavy warjacks, however, are more of a concern, and should be dealt with via the aforementioned tactic of tossing it into a Swamp Pit template. Its Deathroll attack can give you some extra punch on the initial attack, and when combined with the Wrastler ability and the Wrastler’s animus, recovering from the added Knockdown effect won’t be much trouble. The same animus also grants the player some clever options for tossing your own models forward for longer threat range, a topic currently of some concern considering that abilities like this were rumored to completely disappear when MkII was released.

The last new addition to the Congregation is the Croak Hunter. These frog-like creatures called anura have a nice threat range and are fairly survivable thanks to Hunter and Stealth. On the offensive, Croak Hunters have Poison on both their ranged and melee attacks, giving them the flexibility to be effective at both roles. Gang Fighter helps even more, making the Croak Hunter an effective MAT 8, P+S 12 Weapon Master against living models that are engaged by another friendly.

The Blindwater Congregation is shaping up to be fun pact to play with. While it does have some weaknesses, specifically a lack of hitting power and ranged capabilities, its strengths look like they’ll more than make up for it. I’m personally eight painted Bog Trogs away from being completely ready for Barnabas, the Wrastler, and the Croak Hunter’s release late next month.   Previews are also starting to pop up for the next gator models, like the upcoming Bull Snapper and Calaban the Grave Walker, so keep an eye out!