Clockatrice

If the clockatrice is born of nightmares, it comes from a dreamscape of fiendish engineering, the metallic grinding of countless gears, and a malevolence arising from an intricate mechanism that mimics a living beast. As in the fables it inspired, the clockatrice can freeze and kill with but a glance of its glowing eyes. Time flows differently around this creature, warped by the haphazard spinning of the arms of its giant clock, always to the detriment of any mortals facing its razor-sharp claws and beak.

Basic Info

Abilities

• Template:Assault
• Template:Construct
• Template:Eyeless Sight
• Template:Flight
• Template:Auto-Repair
• Template:Time Stutter

Weapons

Death Gaze
File:Gun icon.jpg		RNG			ROF			AOE			POW
		SP 8			1			Template:-			12
Template:Damage Type Magical Template:Slow
Tail
File:Sword icon.jpg		RNG				POW				P+S
		2				4				14
Template:Chain Weapon
Claw (x2)
File:Sword icon.jpg		RNG				POW				P+S
		1				3				13
Template:Open Fist

Animus

{{Category: Template:Time Lock }}[[Category: Template:Time Lock ]]

Theme Forces

• Template:Bump in the Night
• Template:Dark Menagerie

Thoughts on the Clockatrice

Clockatrice in a nutshell

The Clockatrice is a utility heavy, with a good control animus & very annoying survival tech (annoying for your opponent that is) between the Sacrifice Arcana, Auto-Repair, and Time Stutter. It doesn't hit very hard for a heavy, but it is cheap & fast. The combination of all these elements makes the Clockatrice a great warbeast to take in multiples. It is common for lists to run at least two Clocks, especially with models who can help their damage output.

Its utility makes the Clockatrice a great target for buffs, something which Grymkin is naturally very good at.

Clocks can get in and tie down elements of the enemy army, enabling the slower parts of the Grymkin arsenal to get in position. It can be best to think of the Clockatrice as fulfilling one of three roles, depending on the other elements in your army:

1. Jam/pin down the enemy.

   Lean into Labyrinth (-2 SPD Arcana) & Time Stutter to disrupt the enemy advance and buy you board space.

2. Hit above the 13 point cost.

   While the Clock's native attacks are only POW 13 & 14, it does have three as well as the ability to Slow living targets on the charge. A single +2 damage buff is often all that is needed to get the Clock to clear much more than its points worth of enemies.

3. Work on the Flank.

   By making use of the Clock's above average mobility (for Grymkin), get around and clear enemy support elements or deny out of place zones/flags. Note that Time Stutter often means that it is quite difficult to one round a Clock without at least two activations.

Combos & Syngergies

The Heretic loves him some Clocks.

• He likes to get up the table so he can make use of his auto-hitting melee attacks, and is likely to want the same kind of list/arcana which will support Clocks.
• Fury is his main buff mechanic, and oh boy does it work well with the Clockatrice. Four to five POW 16s/17s on a Slowed target will almost always take down a living heavy, making the Heretic + Clockatrice a notably scary enemy for other Hordes players (especially those with super premium beasts which lean on Def, such as Circle or Legion).
• A big weakness of the Heretic is his medium base, but higher mobility than the existing roster of Gyrmkin large bases. The Clockatrice is not only mobile enough to get in front & block for the Heretic, but is able to shut down multiple lanes if engaged first thanks to Time Stutter.

The Wanderer is a caster who wants to get to the middle of the table and then grind down the enemy with efficient fury management and above average threat ranges.

• The Clockatrice really needs some kind of damage buff to threaten heavies, so being able to charge for free (and an extra 2") is a really big deal. There aren't really any other specific synergies between the Wanderer & Clockatrice, which means the Clock is often unable to fulfill role 2) in his list.
• That being said, The Wanderer's want to be aggressively up the table makes Labyrinth already an Arcana, even without taking any Clockatrices. Clockatrices stacking SPD debuffs is just what the Wanderer needs to be nigh invulnerable, but also less than 8" away from the enemy frontline.

The Child is a master beast caster who like the Wanderer can make the Clock charge for free (and an extra 2").

• The Child is much better at supporting the Clock's output once it actually arrives, thanks to Abuse (+2 STR & SPD) and her trump (Wrath; +1 FURY). As of this writing (07.2019), it is uncommon to see Child lists which are not running at least two Clockatrices.
• Child lists will most often be in Dark Menagerie, where the Clock can work with Gremlin Swarm partners to bully and block opponents out of scenario.

• The Skin & Moans & Cage Rager are big beefy boys whose big weakness is their low mobility. This has historically been solved by spending significant amounts of fury (Bushwack on the Skin & Moans, Abuse from the Child, the Wanderer doing his thing), capping their actual hitting power (a Skin & Moans who has to pay for both a charge & bushwack only has 2 fury to buy/boost with, which often isn't enough to do anything other than straight trade). The other big problem that often comes up with the original Grymkin heavies is their frequent frenzying to solve the need to run hot. The Clockatrice does not need fury to be mobile, and will never frenzy. On top of this, the Clock can actually equate the hitting power of the other heavies, given a damage buff and assuming it can land Slow. This makes it an attractive alternative; shaving a few fury & points in exchange for a few POW.
• The Grymkin lights, Gorehound, Rattler, & Frightmare, are all solid beasts in their own right, but each is capped in some way by the historical need to spend precious fury on managing the heavies. The Gorehound & Frightmare are solid solo hunters, who are hamstrung somewhat by light stats (the POW 12 on the Gorehound will threaten, but often not guarantee, a kill on tougher targets for example). The Rattler wants to go Berserk all over enemy infantry, but his MAT 6/POW 13 profile often isn't enough (especially in today's meta of medium base tanks. 07.2019). Swapping heavies to the Clockatrice opens up fury to be spent on the lights (such as in the form of Fury), and the Clock's spray is especially good with these already points efficient lights.

• There are three features unique to Dark Menagerie, free corpses, Kariana Rose, and Gremlin Swarms. Of these three, it is the four Gremlin Swarms seen in 99% of lists which synergise the most with the Clockatrice.
  • Grymkim lacks for fury management, and the high frenzy risk of Grymkin’s more premium beasts means that if fury must be left on the board, it will be left on a Clock. Gremlin Swarms cut right through that, and provide such a buff to Clockatrices that they might as well have “+1 FURY on the nearest Clock”.
  • Kariana Rose provides a temporary, but substantial buff to all Clocks. She also provides that oh so critical +2 STR a turn to one of your Clocks. She takes an otherwise soft hitting heavy and makes it hit at much more respectable levels. If running three or more Clocks, it is folly to not bring Rose.
• Grave Ghoul & Death Knell are Grymkin’s two corpse collectors (which aren’t beasts), and both work great with the Clockatrice.
  • Grave Ghouls are unique to Bump in the Night, and are almost always taken as a two of in every list. They make Clocks, much much more powerful thanks to an always on offensive buff (rerolls are especially useful for making sure Slow lands) and an often on defensive one (Time Stutter is most effective against melee targets, and the ability to force your opponent to reroll before applying damage makes it much easier to guarantee a column will go out at some point).
  • Remember that damage is rolled BEFORE rolling for column, which means a forced reroll of damage is effectively also a forced reroll of column. Make sure your opponent is rolling their column separately, and make sure you catch the window correctly.
  • The Death Knell is most often seen in Dark Menagerie due to how it competes for corpses with Grave Ghouls (Ghouls preferentially collect corpses, which means a Ghoul in range will always mess with a DK). In that theme it really shines, buffing the already tough Cage Ragers and Skin & Moans to silly levels. The Clockatrice is no exception and it’s auto-repair & Time Stutter abilities means it benefits extra from increases to its ARM.
• A Grymkin list built to win scenario will often run Mad Caps & Malady Man with Clockatrices. The Malady Monkey is often fast enough to keep up with the Clock, and has a very useful Countercharge to protect the Clock from a surround. Mad Caps don’t have any particular synergy with Clocks, other than the Clock’s spray being a particularly good way to blow up a Cask Imp which just didn’t quite make it to the opponent’s front line.

• Labyrinth (-2 SPD) is the Clockatrice's jam (heh). It stacks with the Clock's animus, meaning a very difficult to pin down -4 SPD aura which can be parked largely wherever thanks to Flight. Even a prepared opponent will often be unable to prevent this time-walk -like combo from going off, giving you the time & space needed to really take control of the game.
• Sacrifice (heal everything) can be used to reset Time Stutter for future turns. It can even time-walk opponents who carefully scalpel out everything but what will trigger Time Stutter, before getting unlucky and whiffing their final roll.
• The Clockatrice has respectable defensive stats for its points (it is Grymkin after all), which makes Ill Omens (-1 attack & damage on enemies) especially aggravating. Layering even a single other Grymkin defensive aura (Death Knell, Grave Ghoul, the Wanderer) will often push the math so far out of your opponent's favour that their only solution to the Clock will be a complete surround.
• The Shadow (free beast for a turn) has always been somewhat underwhelming, after all your only real option was the Cage Rager. The wording of the arcana is such that Time Stutter still works, a level of synergy baffling for first-time opponents.
• Fortune's Path (+1 attack & damage on friendlies) is a big deal with a lot of Grymkin models, and obviously it is good with the Clockatrice. However with just this arcana, the Clock is only hitting POW 15/14, which still isn't enough to deal with tougher heavies or huge bases. Another buff of some kind is still needed, and at that point it is often better to run Labyrinth or Sacrifice to maximize the control elements native to the Clockatrice.

Drawbacks & Downsides

• Slow is useless against warjacks, undead models and construct warbeasts, which is 99% of the Convervence's lineup (though some of their casters like Aurora or Axis are living models) and almost all of Cryx.
• As far as raw combat potential is considered, it is possibly the least hard-hitting heavy warbeast at its cost.
• Time Stutter:
  • It is good, and should mathematically trigger at least once per Clock per game (twice if you factor in Sacrifice). That being said, it is still dice dependent, and if hit hard enough (or in the wrong spirals), it's possible for it to never trigger.
  • It be shut down by using three models to surround the Clock, trapping it in melee with the intended target. Now that it can only Time Stutter once per turn it can also be negated by using models with 3" or 4" melee or simply using multiple models/units to clean up after Time Stutter triggers.
  • Accurate, powerful guns (such as those carried by many heavy warjacks) will kill Clocks day & night, Time Stutter be damned.
• Construct warbeasts
  • They never frenzy, which can be used against you. If you're running multiple warbeasts hot (such as on the Child's Wrath turn) then your opponent will engage the Clock with something it needs fury to deal with. You'll be forced to take fury off the Clock to get anything done with it this turn, leaving your other warbeast full of fury and about to frenzy.
  • Constructs can't be healed by your warlock. However the Clock does have Auto-Repair (which should fix at least one crippled system per turn), and also the Sacrifice Arcana heals it just fine.
• Precision Strike almost completely negates Time Stutter. Notably, Black Dragons & Locke. Same goes for Marksman or Applied Knowledge that can also delay the trigger of Time Stutter, knocking out damage boxes in such fashion that the aspect will fall out only at the final blow.
• Grievous Wounds prevents Sacrifice and prevents the Auto-Repair. A single hit will cripple a Clock for a turn, even if it loses an aspect and gets to Time Stutter (in fact especially if it loses an aspect, as that will affect its output next turn). Mortality and Entropic Force are other killer mechanics to watch out for.

Tricks & Tips

• A Clock or two is a great way to trigger arcana (or maximize the value from triggering said arcana).
• The Clock can Time Stutter partway through an opponent's series of activations to move the -2 SPD aura and "double dip" on affected enemy models. Using the Clock in this way, it ends up being a gotcha for your opponent's order of activation; they have to deal with the Clock first or be unable to charge anything else.
• A Clockatrice with Fury (thanks to The Heretic) has a POW 17, 2" reach free strike, which can be wherever it needs to be thanks to Flight. That is not something to sniff at, even for Arm 20+ Khador or Skorne heavies.
• Slow cannot be shaken.
• Activation order: if you're wiling to fail a charge to trigger your assault spray, but also want to use your animus, first cast Time Lock, and only then proceed with the assault spray, lest your activation ends before you could cast the animus.
• Placement from Time Stutter is not an advance, thus won't trigger things tied to advancing (Enliven, Countercharge, etc).
• You can use Time Stutter offensively - especially against gunlines, to jam enemy models. It is especially annoying against jacks/bests with multiple powerful shots that lack Dual Attack or similar abilities, like the Thunderhead - if you jump in to engage after its initial shot crippled your aspect, it can't make its other shots.

Other

Trivia

• Released at LVO (2019.02)
• Based on the cockatrice myth, a two-legged dragon or serpent-like creature with a rooster's head.