Cage Rager

"Shake the cage and rattle the bones! From Defiers’ thoughts the Cage Rager comes!"

Thunderous and ponderous and ten timbers thick, the Cage Rager stuffs its cells with the bodies of the wicked for its masters’ harvest. Within this confinement their torments mount, and the Cage Rager harnesses their sweet terror to help the Defiers bend the world to their will.

Basic Info

Abilities

• Template:Warbeast
• Template:Arcane Vortex
• Template:Bone Picker
• Template:Grave Secrets
• Template:Rattle Bones

Weapons

• Gibbet (x2) - 1" reach, P+S 17 melee weapon
  • Template:Magical Weapon
  • Template:Beat Back

Animus

{{Category: Template:Wraithbane }}[[Category: Template:Wraithbane ]]

Theme Forces

• Template:Bump in the Night
• Template:Dark Menagerie. In this theme, this model gains +1 corpse token at the start of the game.

Thoughts on the Cage Rager

Cage Rager in a nutshell

A big, slow, hard hitting heavy, the Cage Rager can bash without any buffs and hard enough to wreck face if it can be supported. Cage Ragers are great at controlling space thanks to their natural toughness and their defensive utilities. Their animus is extremely threatening to normally highly disruptive solos such as a Gremlin Swarm or Machine Wraith.

Competitive Viability
As of August 2018 Cage Ragers are considered extremely viable, and feature in almost every competitive Grymkin list. Notably, the Lock-N-Load 2018 Iron Gauntlet champion, Patrick Dunford, included three in his Dreamer Dark Menagerie list; using their defensive abilities to dominate Aaron Wale's Slayer-spam list in the finals. (You can watch that game, with live commmentary by executive director Will Schick and game developer Will Pagani, on YouTube.)

Combos & Synergies

• Deathknell - Best way of getting the corpse tokens to the Cage Rager. In turn, the Cage Rager can protect your softer Death Knell from charges & spells while also gaining a defensive buff in return. It's usually advisable to consider two or more Cage Ragers in any list which includes a Death Knell, so that they can effectively protect it from the front.
• Skin & Moans - Cage Ragers can protect the more fragile Skin & Moans, as well as provide them with the very useful Blessed & Damage Type: Magical
• Dread Rots - Can get corpse tokens to the Cage Rager. In addition, Dread Rot corpses can be hoovered up by the Death Knell to further fuel the Cage Ragers & Skin & Moans in your army.
• Old Witch3 - Being on a huge base, Old Witch3 really likes space controlling heavies which are hard to remove. Old Witch3 also really appreciates being able to channel spells across the board.
• The Child - Gets them to SPD 6, P+S 19, making them one of the hardest hitting models in Grymkin.
• The Heretic - The Heretic's spell list pairs extremely well with Cage Ragers, with Gallows negating the Cage Ragers lack of SPD and Fury maximizing their hits.
• Lady Karianna Rose - Loves to be in the middle of a pair of Cage Ragers, helping them hit much harder while also managing Fury.

Drawbacks & Downsides

• With a base speed of 4, the Cage Rager can easily be caught out of position if you are not vigilant, and arrive too late to be helpful. Watch your positioning carefully.
• Somewhat corpse dependent and can't take corpses from its own side.
• Cage Ragers aren't cheap and usually want to be taken in pairs or triples with a Death Knell, eating up a lot of points.

Tricks & Tips

• You typically want to get your first couple corpses on your Cage Ragers, as opposed to your Skin & Moans, so as to switch on their defensive tech.
• Keeping two Cage Ragers within 3" of each other and the models you want to protect, typically your caster & Death Knell, gives you lots of options when activating their defensive tech and controlling space.
• A Cage Rager is almost always going to be the 'beast you bring in with The Shadows. Skin & Moans need a couple of corpses to really reach their potential, while a Cage Rager serves as an effective roadblock even if it's only there for a turn.
• Coupled with the Ruin arcana, a corpse-fueled Cage Rager can create a huge magical deadzone for your opponent the only solution to which is to spend heaps of Focus/Fury

Other

Trivia

Released with the Faction release (2017.06)