Vessel of Judgment

Each Vessel of Judgment is a reliquary containing the sacred remains of one of the Menite priest kings of old and is capable of the most potent manifestations of Menoth’s power on Caen. The blazing fury of the Creator scourges infidels who venture too close, and the faithful who fall in battle around it can stave off death long enough to strike one last blow for their god.

Basic Info

Abilities

• Template:Construct
• Template:Gunfighter
• Template:Pathfinder
• Template:Fire Immunity
• Template:Destructive Power
• Template:Holy Reliquary
  • Template:Bonds of Faith
  • Template:Doors of Judgment
  • Template:Eruption of Faith

Weapons

• Divine Wrath - 12" range, POW 15 ranged attack
  • Template:Magical Damage
  • Template:Admonisher
  • Template:Reload 1

Theme Forces

• Template:Exemplar Interdiction
• Template:The Creator's Might

Thoughts on Vessel of Judgment

Vessel of Judgment in a nutshell

The Protectorate Battle Engine has a nice gun for hurting heavies, toasting infantry, and provides some useful tricks. Admonisher is the Protectorate version of Lightning Generator, and unlike electro immune things, very few units are resistant to magic damage. Unfortunately, it only triggers upon hitting an enemy first, so not useful to unjam your heavies - but eliminating squishy support pieces, or fragile infantry standing close to some Girded heavy is always fun. Divine Wrath is a great gun, and it is boostable without spending focus. It is especially useful against Hordes and/or upkeep heavy armies, as Bonds of Fate can remove annoying enemy animi and upkeeps from every model in its respectable 10" CMD range, while leaving yours in place. Eruption of Faith is useful mainly when the enemy tries to jam your Vessel, while Door of Judgement can be a really nasty surprise for an unprepared enemy.

Combos & Synergies

There's a lot of models that can get a lot of work out of Doors of Judgement. You're looking for accurate, hard-hitting models such as:

• Units: Knights Exemplar, Exemplar Cinerators.
• Solos: Pyrrhus, Nicia, Vilmon, Bastion Seneschal.
• Special Mentions
  • Exemplar Bastions can whack enemies twice in the enemy turn (once with Defensive Strike, second with the Doors)
  • Captain Sam MacHorne & the Devil Dogs (and an Attendant Priest) can knock down the enemy in the enemy's turn via Doors of Judgement. Models can't stand on the turn they were knocked down, so they lose the turn.

A few models to repair the Vessel when it hurts itself:

• Vassal Mechanik fixes the Vessel when it hurts itself.
• Colbie Sterling. Probably only necessary if you're taking double vessels and need more repairs than just the full FA of Vassal Mechaniks.

Caster Synergies

• Kreoss1 - The Vessel can emulate Kreoss1's Purification (though in a smaller radius), and also under his feat it can hit reliably hit knocked-down enemies and trigger Admonisher.

Drawbacks & Downsides

• It's expensive for a support piece and not hurting heavies much. (Light infantry on the other hand should be very afraid).
• It eats its own HP to be effective - on a particularly bad turn you can lose up to 11 HP.
• You basically have to add the price of the repair solos to its cost to keep it working, while inflicting damage upon yourself.
• It is painfully slow, and anything that messes with your SPD, will make a sitting duck out of it.
• Range denial tricks will make it near-useless.
• Not a battlegroup member, so battlegroup feats and spells will not support it. Neither the Choir.
• Its abundant health boxes are deceiving - if you take too much damage, you won't have enough left to hurt yourself to support your army.

Tricks & Tips

• It's theoretically possible to have a last ditch win by using Doors of Judgement on your warcaster just as they are dying to counter-assassinate. Theoretically.
• It's almost always worth boosting both attack and damage rolls on any worthy target.
• Low DEF targets (knocked down heavies, super heavies or objectives) are all excellent targets for delivering Admonisher to weaker targets nearby.

Other

Trivia

Released in the Warmachine: Wrath expansion (2011)