Hordes: Helga – The Fat Lady Sings
Helga is a great gift to Farrow players who, lets face it, need all the gifts they can get.
With a fantastic list of spells she manages to bring some new tricks to the battlefield and still feel very Thornfall in her playstyle. Everything she does is useful and it all synergizes quite well with what the faction already has.
Cyclone is great for a Farrow Warlock given that one of the faction’s favored beasts has an Animus that gives Sprint. Helga can Cyclone in, smack a bunch of dudes around, then pop back to safety. If she does this on her feat turn that’s even more casualties she’s likely to inflict. The extra movement it will give her can also help on a potential assassination run, although with just MAT 6 and her P+S 12 spear, she can hardly be called a reliable caster killer. Make sure to soften up your target with a Road Hog spray or two if you’re going to make the attempt, and if you have a warrior model nearby they can help since Helga will get a Gang Fighter Bonus.
Distraction is a great prelude to a Cyclone Strike given it can drop an entire unit’s DEF by 2. Your Road Hogs will also thank you for making their sprays hit more easily, as will your Brigands who will be shocked to find themselves hitting anything at all for a change. Anyone still alive once the smoke clear will find it difficult to retaliate as their MAT will drop by 2 as well, and they will be completely unable to make ranged attacks. Ranged denial is a huge boon so you might also consider casting this one after a Cyclone, to help get the drop on say, a unit of Raptors or Tempest Blazers that has been harassing you and running off to hide. Seriously those guys are irritating. The one Downside: it only works on Warrior models/units, so it’s no good casting it on a Galleon or Stormwall. Finally it’s not an upkeep. This is, as always, a mixed bag. While you’ll have to reapply from round to round, an enemy force that brought along upkeep removal will be unable to free themselves from the spell’s effects.
Dash is another fantastic spell. It’s really easy to see this one as a threat-extender, but just the one extra inch will rarely see your Slaughterhousers getting the charge when they wouldn’t have been able to anyway. What this one is really about is the no Free Strikes. Making all your warriors immune to free strikes is freaking bonkers. You just can’t really appreciate it until you’ve seen it happen. Getting models stuck in melee is just one of those things you take for granted in this game. When your troops get stuck in with the other guy’s, they’re not supposed to be able to go anywhere without getting whacked – and whacked hard. When you’re immune to that it changes everything. If you want a more specific example, let’s look at Slaughterhousers. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen them close enough to engage a nice juicy target that’s taken a bit of damage, but they’re stuck in melee, and very unlikely to survive a free strike. Here, have some Dash. And even if they can’t charge, a Slaughterhouser with Dash can attack something up to 8″ away.
Ahhh… Defender’s Ward. Do I really need to write a whole paragraph on Defender’s Ward? You guys know how awesome this one is right? Well I’ll still point out that while Dug In, a unit of Brigands is immune to blasts and Def 18. Very few shooting-centric armies will be able to root these guys out. Watch out for those Vanquishers though.
That just leaves Muzzle. If you plan on casting this one, you better have at least 3 Fury to spare, maybe 4, because you won’t want to risk not hitting or not damaging. If you’re within 10 inches (12 with Bone Grinders) of anything that’s really worth muzzling the odds aren’t terrible it’ll be able to charge Helga if you fail. If your Muzzle target should have arm of 21 or higher it might not even be worth considering. At that point the odds hover just a bit too close to 50/50. But if it’ll get Molik Karn or Ghetorix out of your hair for a turn it’s worth considering.
Helga’s feat is fantastic. It can increase your casualties as you slam infantry into each other, and maybe even smack some enemy models out of/away from control zones. A lot of playing with Helga will be about planning your feat turn right. Since this is another one of those feats that depends so much on how you plan your turn, getting the most out if it is all on you. Dash will be key to making sure you can slam as many enemy models as possible. If it helps you make the charge that’s great, but it’s likely you may be good and stuck in when the time comes to use Grand Finale. Since your warriors can ignore free strikes they can spread out to be able to engage as many models as possible. Because of all the attacks they can make, Gudrun and Maximus can work great with the feat, batting more and more models into each other. All in all, Grand Finale is a great answer to infantry spam – a problem I often find vexing to Farrow. Really high defense infantry can still be a problem though. Unfortunately this is the second feat in a row I’ve talked about that relies on your enemies bringing a decent amount of infantry to be most effective – although even a lowly Bone Grinder can slam a Behemoth under Grand Finale. Unfortunately Huge Based models don’t care at all.
So let’s look at lists.
Helga the Conqueror – WB: +6
– Targ
– Road Hog – PC: 9
– War Hog – PC: 8
– Razor Boar – PC: 2
– Razor Boar – PC: 2
– Razor Boar – PC: 2
– Razor Boar – PC: 2
Saxon Orrik – PC: 2
Maximus – PC: 2
Gudrun the Wanderer – PC: 3
Farrow Slaughterhousers – Leader and 5 Grunts: 6
Farrow Slaughterhousers – Leader and 5 Grunts: 6
Farrow Bone Grinders – Leader and 3 Grunts: 2
Farrow Brigands – Leader and 9 Grunts: 8
I don’t know if this is the ideal Helga list, but it I think it’s about the best I can do with the miniatures I can buy right now. I have other plans for Helga once the Meat Thresher and the Efaarit Scout show up. This is a Thornfall list rather than a Tier, so all four of those Farrow units can advance deploy. Get Helga up and cast Dash, and you can get 35 inches across the battlefield turn 1 – 38 inches if you go second. Whether or not you’ll actually want to cover that much ground will be up to you. After all, a big part of having all the infantry in this list is to give the Gang Fighter benefit to all those Razor Boars. You don’t want them too far away from all the Warrior models.
Depending on how this list works out, I may swap the Razor Boars for another War Hog, and I might drop Gudrun and reduce the Brigands to min to bring in a third unit of Slaughterhousers. I do think this list will have some trouble with an excess of heavy armor, and this could definitely help.
Helga the Conqueror – WB: +6
– War Hog – PC: 8
– Road Hog – PC: 9
– Razor Boar – PC: 2
– Razor Boar – PC: 2
Meat Thresher – PC: 8
Meat Thresher – PC: 8
Maximus – PC: 2
Efaarit Scouts – PC: 3
Farrow Bone Grinders – Leader and 3 Grunts: 2
Farrow Slaughterhousers – Leader and 5 Grunts: 6
Farrow Slaughterhousers – Leader and 5 Grunts: 6
THEME: Curtain Call – Tier 4
This is what I’d probably be running with Helga if I had all the new models at my disposal. Her Tier might be the only time when I’ll run double Battle Engines. There are other occasions when it might be worth taking two, but not with the factions I play. The point discount on them is great, but the Farrow have limited options and the meat thresher is one of their best. It would be hard to resist taking two even at full price. The other big benefit with the tier is the extended deployment zone, Maximus getting Advance Deploy, and Slaughterhousers getting back Advance Deploy. The loss of all that AD can make any of the Farrow Warlock’s Tiers a tough sell. In fact I once converted three different Brigand Shamans so that I could have four different leaders for a Lord Carver Tier list. I ended up deciding the loss of Advance Deployment wasn’t worth the few extra points I’d save. Fortunately that won’t be a problem with Helga’s Slaughterhousers. In fact, with AD, the extended deployment zone, and Dash, you can actually be in your opponent’s deployment zone Turn 1. Even if you go first your Slaughterhousers can run and engage any models deployed along the front line. Since I’m taking two units, I’ll bring an Efaarit Scouts. Those guys are gonna be great at softening up targets for Finisher. The downside with this list is that with all the points spent on Battle Engines there are fewer warrior models for the beasts to use Gang Fighter with.
Regardless of the list you use, Helga is going to be a tricky Warlock to master. All of her best abilities want her to get close to your opponent. While she’s harder to kill than most Farrow Warlocks, you may need to resort to having her cast Defender’s Ward on herself. If you want to use her in a competitive setting, a lot of practice with her feat will be required. Resolving all those slams can take time, so you need to learn how to do it right or you’ll run the clock down fast. Don’t be surprised if your opponent requires some kind of explanation on how it all works. In fact they’ve already errata’d it so you should check this thread for the real wording since as of this writing I don’t think it’s been added to any official errata. It’s definitely wrong on War Room. Basically it means whenever you hit, you can slam or resolve damage normally. For example Slaughterhousers don’t get to use Finisher if they slam. Any effects that resolve on hit can still be chosen in whatever order, so the Meat Thresher can slam, even though its hits cause knockdown and knocked down models can’t be moved by a slam. And of course don’t forget that a model slammed by a model with a smaller base is only moved at half the distance.
~Hope this article was helpful! How do these ideas compare to how you see Helga being played?
