Bloody Barnabas

Template:Minionbox This model is playable only in an Unlimited format.

Bloody Barnabas is an aged gatorman warlock and a veteran of countless battles. In the wilds of western Immoren, only a gator of surpassing strength and tenacity could hope to reach his level of combat expertise. Barnabas calls upon the great warbeasts of the swamps to combat his foes, and he directs their attacks with cunning precision. Before his hungry children swarm, Barnabas summons a magical black tide to choke the enemies of the congregation, leaving them vulnerable.

Basic Info

• Minion - In a 2+ warlock game, he can work as a Template:Skorne Minion, Template:Legion minion, Template:Circle minion, or Template:Trollblood minion.
• This model is a Warlock.

Warlock Rules A warlock is an Independent Model. a Leader model. a Battlegroup Controller controls warbeasts. Warlocks use Fury Manipulation Uses ARC to determine how many fury points it gains each turn. Begins the game with a number of fury points equal to its ARC. Cannot exceed its ARC stat in fury points as a result of leeching. Can spend fury points only during its activation (unless a special rule states otherwise) for the following: Buy additional attacks Boost attack rolls Boost damage rolls Shake some effects Can leach fury points from warbeasts in its battlegroup in its control range. Spirit Bond allows the warlock to gain a fury for each of its dead battlegroup warbeasts. Reaving allows the warlock to pull fury points from a warbeast in its battlegroup when it dies.

Feat: Black Tide

Enemy models without Amphibious currently in Barnabas' Template:CTRL range become knocked down.

Abilities

• Template:Amphibious
• Template:Tough
• Template:Countercharge
• Template:Gatorman Warlock
• Template:Unyielding

Weapons

• Bite - 0.5" reach, P+S 14 melee attack.
  • Template:Critical Consume
• Bone Cleaver - 2" reach, P+S 15 melee attack.
  • Template:Magical Weapon
  • Template:Blood Boon

Spells

{{Category: Template:Death MarchTemplate:Flesh EaterTemplate:Swamp PitTemplate:Warpath }}[[Category: Template:Death MarchTemplate:Flesh EaterTemplate:Swamp PitTemplate:Warpath ]]

Theme Forces

• Template:Blindwater
• Template:Will Work for Food

Thoughts on Barnabas1

Barnabas1 in a nutshell

Barnabas is a well-rounded warlock with an excellent Pop & Drop feat which is normally followed up by volleys of shooting that only misses on snake eyes. He is strong in melee and can protect his army from shooting with a Swamp Pit while getting his warbeasts into interesting places via Warpath. Unfortunately he's probably the least popular warlock in the faction since the Blindwater CID because he doesn't have a damage buff and although he's a solid toolbox warlock Rask is an exceptional toolbox.

Feat thoughts

All Fall Down! Except steady models, amphibious models, huge based models, and maybe a few others. It flattens the DEF of all its victims (which can be devastating to infantry if you have ranged firepower, and can lead to assassinations) - and keeps melee infantry out for the next turn while forcing beasts and jacks to shake.

Spell Thoughts

• Death March - a Mat buff is cool. Vengeance is excellent.
• Warpath - cast on your first turn and just upkeep for the rest of the game. Mobility and flexibility.
• Swamp Pit - that's either blocking shooting (but not charges) if you group up or 5" of AoE. Either way it's an excellent spell in the early parts of the game
• Flesh Eater Zap. It's an expensive zap with a not especially good effect that the Gatorman Soul Slave can't exploit, but it kills incorporeal enemies.

Drawbacks & Downsides

• He does little to break armor.
• Enemy heavies just shake his knockdown, and lowering their DEF is not dealing with the hard part. So his feat is more of an anti-infantry feat.
• He is a bit too generalised vs other Gatorman warlocks...
  • Rask also has a speed buff, protection from shooting, and helps you hit better. He also hands out Pathfinder, gets rid of upkeeps, and has a really nasty feat.
  • Calaban the Gravewalker also has some anti-shooting tech, a MAT buff, and some anti-infantry tech including an anti-infantry feat. He also has Parasite, and a lot of Remove from Play effects.
  • Maelok runs a infantry brick amazingly well and debuffs armour and defence.
• Counter Charge can be a trap on a warlock if he puts himself in danger.

Tricks & Tips

• Watch for any chance to pull off a Pop & Drop assassination by flattening the caster and then shooting them while they are at DEF 5. This mostly gets newbies.
• He also has to worry about countercharging into assassination range.
• He can’t use blood boon when counter charging - but he can use Crit consume consider if this is worth -1 pow depending on your target.

List Building Advice

Strategy

Barnabas wins fights through strategically applied pressure, not sheer brute force.

Barnabas's boasts a solid toolbox, but due to his lack of innate armor cracking abilities, will see him best served aiming for victory by scenario or assassination. Usually you'll want to avoid the enemy heavy jacks/beasts and work your way through the enemy infantry, picking at key supporting models as you go. It may be tempting to throw your heavy warbeasts right into the foe's own jacks/beasts, but keeping them back until the mid to late game will give you more options once holes in the opponent's lines start to open up. This will also discourage your opponent from throwing said warnouns directly at Barnabas, who is very vulnerable to them.

Black Tide is a strong psychological weapon: anyone who knows about it will be anticipating it, and you can use this to bully them into playing defense. Once it's gone, so is a fair chunk of your leverage. You're not helpless without it, but wasting it will hurt you. More experienced opponents will try to force Barnabas to feat defensively- Black Tide isn't essential to winning, but you want to play it offensively.

That said, don't let it's potential overshadow Warpath and Death March. These two upkeeps give Barnabas' forces a deceptive degree of mobility that will give you the means to play the feat to maximum effect.

A shooting-centric army will serve you well, because you generally get to kill a much wider swathe of the enemy's army on feat turn, thanks to the near inability to miss.

Theme thoughts

Template:Header If you're going to pick a theme with Barnabas, this theme is the way to go. Barney B's toolbox of spells, abilities and feat demand a mixed group of infantry and warbeasts. You won't be maxing out on troops as a result, but Barnabas wants at least 1 gatorman posse for screening, so you may as well get that extra mileage out of the theme benefits. 8 boxes, snacking, prayers and Death March on top mean your gatormen will cut their way through most infantry.

• Croak Raiders - Burn, baby, burn. Excellent shooters.
• Gatorman Posse - in The Blindwater Congregation Death March gives them some of the speed they like.

Template:Header It's worth mentioning a couple of decent options that he can get in this theme, but not Blindwater:

• Cylena Raefyll & Nyss Hunters Decent shooters who can also melee.
• Targ can give an Ironback Spitter two ranged blasts per turn. That's a lot of pain on feat turn. Targ is also 1 point cheaper than the Gatorman Soul Slave, which Barnabas really doesn't need anyway since he's not really fury hungry outside of casting upkeeps on turn 1.

Battlegroup

• Swamp Horror - in Will Work For Food the Swamp Horror gets to play Pac-Man on feat turn. Warpath, Chain Strike, Overtake, and auto-hitting knocked down targets.
• Blackhide Wrastler Because nothing else he brings is going to break armor.
• Bull Snapper - Spiny Growth is 2 ARM for 1 Fury which is starting to let him play forward.
• Ironback Spitter - His best shooting beast.

First Seven Purchases

A few veteran players have put their heads together and tried to figure out the seven best things to buy for this specific caster. This is not designed to add up to a nice round points limit, nor be balanced vs other "First Seven" lists you find on this website. It is simply going to give you some of the essentials this caster needs most of the time.

1. Warbeast: Blackhide Wrastler
2. Warbeast: Swamp Horror
3. Warbeast: Ironback Spitter
4. Solo + Warbeast: Wrong Eye & Snapjaw
5. Solo: Gatorman Witch Doctor
6. Unit: Swamp Gobber Bellows Crew
7. Unit: Croak Raiders

Other

Trivia

Released in Forces of Hordes: Minions (2011)