Howlers

Howlers take on a form that is extremely durable, each with a thick hide that turns aside blades and deflects or at least diminishes the impact of bullets. These beings warp reality around them in such a way that their presence facilitates greater infernals lingering on Caen.

Basic Info

Abilities

• Template:Eyeless Sight
• Template:Soulless
• Template:Tough
• Template:Berserk
• Template:Bloodthirst
• Template:Vengeance

Weapons

Impaler
File:Sword icon.jpg		RNG				POW				P+S
		2				5				13
Template:Magical Weapon Template:Grievous Wounds Template:Brutal Charge

Theme Forces

• Template:Dark Legacy
• Template:Hearts of Darkness

Thoughts on the Howlers

Howlers in a Nutshell

Howlers are the heavy beat-stick infantry of the Infernals, though they are surprisingly pillow fisted on their own. Like their Griever buddies, they are native Infernals, and therefore lack the souls required to contribute to an essence economy. Instead, they are a meaningful recursion target for the ever-useful infernal gate, and bring enough special rules that they're a few buffs/debuffs away from being truly menacing and difficult to take off the table.

Combos & Synergies

• They hugely appreciate any of the ARM debuffs available to Infernals, such as Curse of Shadows and Scything Touch, as well as the Desolator and Hermit.
• They’re the model you’ll most likely want to bring back with an Infernal Gate.
• Omodamos' feat increases their potential threat range to a whopping 14" and removes their difficulty with terrain. His signature spell also makes Howlers far more likely to weather a charge if necessary.
• Saxon Orrik can provide pathfinder to them before being sacrificed for a Desolator to further help the Howlers rip and tear.
• Wretches provide healing via That Which Does not Kill You in Hearts of Darkness, which is very useful if you just spawned some new ones with the Infernal Gate.
• Kommander Andrei Malakov has Veil of Mist, as a nice terrain solution and his feat works very well with Tough multi-wound infantry with vengeance.
• Lieutenant Crosse, Resistance Fighter packs Dauntless Resolve, making them ARM 20.
• Aurum Legate Lukas di Morray he can give them some very nice threat extension via Telekinesis. Alternatively he can make them ARM 19 with Iron Flesh. Oh and he also has the damage buff they so desperately want. He can also protect them on the approach with clouds.
• Valin Hauke, The Fallen Knight - He gives them immunity to knock down and stationary, to go with their native Tough and Vengeance.

Drawbacks & Downsides

• They have a lot of good special rules but lack the fundamentals of Pathfinder and hitting power. Howlers need a bit of help to tip over from being a good unit to being a great one.
• Berserk + Grievous Wounds + medium bases + 2" reach = You can remove Tough from your own Howlers accidentally.

Tricks & Tips

• If you need Howlers to clump up around a target, and you are worried about Berserk killing your own guys, abuse the Field Promotion rules. What you do is attack your own unit's Leader model then field-promote the Berserking model. A model that is field-promoted cannot make any more attacks this turn.

Other

Trivia

• Released with the Faction launch (2019.06)