Thoughts on Venethrax

Lich Lord Venethrax

From when I started playing in MK2, Venethrax always seemed like he was about being a counter to legion. The transition to MK3 drastically changed his kit, but made him a counter for all Hordes instead of a single faction. From the first time I saw his new spell list and feat, I knew I would want to be playing a lot of Venethrax in MK3. He encourages bringing jacks and looks like he can actually make it work.

 Stat Line and Abilities

Venethrax has a solid defensive statline. DEF 15 and ARM 17 is a fairly solid statline to be starting with, however he is on a medium base and his army is likely to have difficulty blocking line of sight to him.  Unfortunately, he doesn't have much in the way of additional defensive tech, so he generally needs to make sure he is sitting on some focus if he is playing forward and his offensive capabilities will frequently encourage this.

If he needs to get into the mix and do some work himself, Venethrax is quite capable of dishing out some damage. MAT 8 will ensure he is likely to hit whatever he is attacking and a P+S 15 can do some decent damage. When fighting Hordes, Venethrax can do the work to bring down your opponents beasts due to his dismember ability that makes him a weapon master against warbeasts. 

Like all lich lords, Venethrax has the Soul Taker: Cull Soul rule. However, he isn’t likely to make much use of it as his weapon has eruption of ash, which removes from play before a soul token is generated. As I type this, it occurs to me that I have played that interaction wrong in at least one game recently.  If the eruption of ash kills additional models, Venethrax could pick up souls from them, but this is probably not going to be a part of the game plan.

His final special rule is his field marshal, and this is one of the abilities that had me most excited to try him out. Venethrax comes with field marshal: counter charge. This can be used defensively to help block charge lanes during your opponent’s activation or offensively to extend threat ranges of your jacks.  Even if you don't trigger counter charge, I have seen opponents burn a lot of clock trying to decide where is a safe place to end their movement.

Spells and Feat

Venethrax’s spell list is full of great options. He has terminal velocity to make his jacks more efficient and give them bonuses against living models. He also has lamentation, which makes casting and upkeeping spells in his control quite expensive. When he keeps lamentation up, there are times he can move forward aggressively and really hurt the opponent’s ability to affect the board with spells. The extra fun here comes from the fact that, unlike MK2, when a warbeast casts its animus, it is casting a spell. This can really hurt fury management or make certain strategies much less efficient.

His spell list also comes packed with three offensive spells. Blood rain is actually a decent nuke to use against infantry, but will almost never be cast. Deadweight can be really interesting to try and lock down a large or huge base, but is also very rarely cast by Venethrax himself. Finally, mortality is his debuff that he will want to spread around as much as possible.  Debuffing ARM, DEF and preventing tough and healing amplifies the offensive firepower of the entire list.

The biggest issue Venethrax has with all these spells is that even at FOCUS 7, I find that I don’t have enough focus to do everything I want in a turn. I know these are good problems to have, but it can be frustrating to know that you have the answers to all the questions that are presented to you on the board, but you don’t have enough focus to actually address them all. Likely this is an issue with me trying to stretch things too far, rather than a short coming of Venethrax, but it is something to keep in mind. Assuming lamentation is upkept for free and you don’t want to be sitting on 0 focus, Venethrax can really only cast a single spell himself. I have found that normally it’s a choice between terminal velocity and mortality. This leaves you on 4 focus, 3 if you elected to boost your mortality. Unless you are targeting something DEF 10 or less, you probably want to be boosting your mortality.

Finally we come to the feat. It has two separate effects. First, if you are playing against Warmachine, it prevents allocating focus to jacks in his control area. This is actually a little less useful than it might sound. It does not prevent power up and if your opponent has anything with power boost or a similar rule, it does not prevent gaining focus through those rules. Finally, it does nothing to stop Convergence from using induction. Typically, it’s not going to be great against Warmachine.

The second half of the feat affects Hordes. Models within his control range cannot have fury leeched from them. Much like his feat does not stop power up, it does not prevent warlocks from gaining fury from dead warbeasts through the spirit bond rule. However, it does stop a warlock from cutting for fury, as the rule books states that the warlock leeches from itself. It also stops any additional fury bank type rules as long as it uses the term leech. The kriel stone falls into this category.

This means his feat can be very powerful against Hordes, but it needs to be used early in order to get best effect. If timed correctly, the feat can force an opposing warlock to have little to no fury for a turn and potentially cause some inconvenient frenzy checks. If his beasts frenzy, they might take out a key solo or put some damage on another beast. Even if they don’t frenzy, they are already partially filled with fury and likely won’t be fully effective for that turn.

Everything adds up to a caster who makes life very difficult for Hordes casters. He can have game into Warmachine, but he won’t have as advantaged of a matchup as he would when played into Hordes.

Army Composition

When I look at his kit, I end up thinking that there are some things he really wants in his list. Mortality not being an upkeep means that multiple copies can be put out each turn. It’s not uncommon to want two mortalities out at a time, which means he wants something with spell slave. Getting to upkeep lamentation for free can help him stretch his focus to the limits. Generally, this means taking the withershadow combine, but a skarlock thrall could also do the trick. Additionally, Deathjack can help with getting out an extra spell each round while making sure Venethrax still has some focus to camp.

The combination of terminal velocity and field marshal: counter charge tends to lead the list towards a more jack oriented configuration. This isn’t required, but I have yet to put together a list that doesn’t feature at least 5 heavies. That said, I have been considering trying to put together a list that takes less jacks and just spams mortality all over the place. I don’t believe there is a unit in the game that doesn’t love its target getting hit with mortality.

All this has generally lead me down the path of Black Industries for my Venethrax list. It allows the withershadow combine as well as Deathjack to help with focus efficiency. Additionally, it encourages you to bring lots of heavies to get good work out of counter charge and terminal velocity. Finally, the theme granting carapace helps with the issue of Cryx heavies getting shot to pieces before they can get across the board.

Here is the list I ran in the last Scrum:

Lich Lord Venethrax - WJ: +26
- The Withershadow Combine - Maelovus, Admonia & Tremulus: 9
- Deathjack - PC: 23 (Battlegroup Points Used: 23)
- Harrower - PC: 16 (Battlegroup Points Used: 3)
- Malice - PC: 15
- Ripjaw - PC: 0
- Ripjaw - PC: 0
- Slayer - PC: 10
Warwitch Siren - PC: 4
Warwitch Siren - PC: 4
Soul Trapper - PC: 1
Cylena Raefyll & Nyss Hunters - Cylena & 9 Grunts: 19

While I like the list, I do know that all my heavies are very expensive and I need to get maximum work out of each one every turn. In part, the limitation is related to the models I actually own, but when I try to think about what to drop I find that I like everything that is included.  I keep trying to build an Infernal Machines list with Venethrax, since the withershadow combine and Deathjack are still available, but it allows for more possible units. However, every time I put a list together I find that I am not making use of any of the theme benefits. At that point I start to think about my first MK3 Venethrax list, which was before any themes had been released. It featured Erebus as a defensive centerpiece. Counter charge that causes stationary on hit is quite an entertaining concept, but the only way to make this work is outside of themes. As entertaining as the idea is, it’s not worth giving up the benefits of the theme lists.

Overall, Venethrax is a super strong drop into Hordes that still has some game into Warmachine. While I understand that Cryx is spoiled for choice when it comes to strong casters, I keep feeling like there is more there for the faction to unlock. I would love to be the person to unlock this potential, but it will probably need to wait until a better player decides to dedicate time towards him. As always, thanks for reading and I welcome any and all feedback!