Minis Week in Review: Jarl and Naaresh Spoilers

Comic-Con is in full swing, and for those lucky enough to be there, there’s plenty of new comic and movie info. For this post though, I’m going to be looking at something dear to my heart: Privateer Press and Hordes Domination spoilers!

First up is Jarl Skuld, devil of the thornwood. The Bell of Lost Souls guys have been kind enough to provide a photo of his stats, as well as a description of the things not in the shot.

For ease of everyone, I’ve transcribed his stats here:

SPD: 6
STR: 6
Mat: 5
Rat: 7
Def: 15
Arm: 15
Cmd: 8

Gunfighter, Tough, Pathfinder, Evasive, Swift Hunter

Twin Rune Pistols: Magical Weapon, Black Penny
RNG: 12, POW: 12

Spells: Magic Bullet, Tactical Supremacy, Weald Secrets, Quicken

Feat: Rolling Fog. Allows you to place d3+3 4″ cloud effects that only block enemy models’ line of sight. Friendly faction models in the aoe get pathfinder and can move through friendly models and obstructions. Living enemy models in the clouds suffer a -2 penalty to attack rolls.

Quicken (and tactical supremacy by extension) is probably the biggest thing here: a speed buff on traditionally slow models means that your frighteningly tough models will get up the board that much faster. Spd 7 champions? Speed 9 Long Riders?! And one other unit gets a 3″ move on top of that? I will get him for those spells alone.

Weald Secrets adds to your army’s mobility, allowing your models to move through rough terrain with impunity. And magic bullet is the corner case spell, allowing a second POW 12 damage roll to another model. Probably good for thinning out infantry some (especially incorporeal ones), but I can’t think of many more than that.

His feat compounds his ‘my army acts more like circle than trollbloods’ schtick, with cloud effects that allow your own models pathfinder and movement through your own models. I wish it was movement past enemy models as well (and according to the forums it’s like veil of mists so we might be lucky in that regard). Even then, the devil of the thornwood definitely ups the trollblood’s mobility, and I can see him replacing Grim Angus for scenario games.

Master Ascetic Naaresh has also been spoilered some by the PP forums. I’m guessing some of the stats since the forums were a bit vague, but they should be correct within 1-2 points.

SPD: 6
Mat: I’m guessing 7
Def: Stryker
Arm: Stryker

FOC: Makeda
Warbeast points: average (6?)

2x Katars: P+S of not high (10? Seems a bit low), combo strike, life drinker

Abilities: Tough, Blood Trade
Flagellant: Allows our own guys to auto-hit Naaresh.
Pain Monger: Whenever he suffers damage he gets a blood token and can up to 5 of them. During his control phase he can remove up to 5 to get a +1 str and + 1 armor per blood token removed for 1 round. Pain Monger

Feat: You can mark up the 1 damage point in each aspect of warbeasts in your battle group in your control range. for each damage marked Naaresh heals 1 damage and the warbeasts get + 1 str and + 1 armor for each damage taken for 1 round. (I think that warbeasts can only get a max of +3 str and arm, but Naaresh can heal from all his warbeasts)

Spells: Bleed, Cyclone, Iron Flesh, Lamentation

I don’t purport to be an expert on Skorne, so take my opinions with a pinch of salt. He’s definitely about the alpha strike and assassination, with cyclone and all sorts of shenanigans to buff his strength. His feat is pretty frightening as well; an ability to buff beasts to +3 arm and str will wreak all sorts of havoc on multi-wound infantry, as well as beasts and jacks.

And Iron Flesh and Lamentation is just icing on the cake.

I think that Naaresh a bit too one-dimensional to be top tier, but Iron Flesh and Lamentation, as well as his buffing shenanigans will probably mean that he can go the distance most of the time. Only time will tell if he will be the new in Skorne warlock.

And that’s some of the new stuff we have this week; hopefully SDCC and NQ will bring out some more spoilers next week. Until then, what do you hordes players think of your new warlocks?