Nephilim Soldier

Everblight’s long study of the elves has borne horrific fruit in the nephilim. Everblight selects certain pregnant Nyss to receive a special draught of his warlocks’ blood. This blighted essence transforms the life growing within them into dragonspawn. Terrible hybrids of elf and spawn, nephilim soldiers possess the bestial strength and powers of dragonspawn while also being able to wield weapons as skillfully as the Nyss themselves.

Basic Info

• Template:Warbeast

Abilities

• Template:Eyeless Sight
• Template:Flight
• Template:Precision Strike

Weapons

• Two-Handed Sword - 2" reach, P+S 13 melee attack.
  • Template:Brutal Charge

Animus

{{Category: Template:Massacre }}[[Category: Template:Massacre ]]

Theme Forces

• Template:Children of the Dragon. Nephilim Soldier gains Unyielding in this theme.
• Template:Oracles of Annihilation
• Template:Primal Terrors
• Template:Ravens of War

Thoughts on Nephilim Soldier

Nephilim Soldier in a nutshell

The Nephilim Soldier is a melee focused light with a toolkit against warbeast and warjacks. Due to its low base strength on its single initial melee attack it requires support to work against its intended targets, in no particular order: accuracy buff, free charge and a damage bonus. If you cannot provide at least 2 of them, you will be better looking for cheaper warbeasts, or switch to dedicated heavies who cost about twice the Soldier's cost but work much more reliably in a beast vs. beast / jack fight.

Its 2" reach and Flight, coupled with the ubiquitous Eyeless Sight ensures that it can reach its target without much problem - it all depends on your army composition whether you have the points to squeeze in the support models the Soldier requires.

Combos & Synergies

• Blighted Nyss Sorceress - The Soldier's performance usually makes or breaks on its charge attack to connect. Aerial Coordination frees up a Fury to boost the attack roll. Blight Storm also ensures that if you want to use the Soldier to hunt single-wound infantry the Soldier may cause damage on its follow-up attacks as well and can chew through them via its animus.
• Mekanoshredder - Like the Strider Scouts in Ravens of War it offers free charge plus extra distance against constructs.
• Beast Mistress - Free charge and run because of her field marshal, plus extra threat due to Energizer - all that for a price of a Blight Archon. She sadly does not flank with the Soldier but apart of that this is some of the most economical way of bringing one to the table - provided you can avoid her getting sniped.
• Blight Archon - The flimsy defensive stats of the Soldier won't cause that much of a problem if they can sprint away after a successful kill with the Archon.
• Grotesque Assassin, Golab - Precision Strikes worth only so much if the enemy can't heal the affected systems/spirals. These two models, along with spells like Mortality stop the enemy of healing/repairing an injured target. Thagrosh0's or Absylonia1's Blight Burst may also occasionally help, because anything without a 2" reach melee weapon cannot stay out of a Blight Burst AoE centered on your Nephilim Soldier.
• Shredder - The Soldier is the cheapest warbeast with 2" melee range to trigger the Shredder's flank.

Warlocks:

• Fyanna2 - Her Field Marshal already offers Overtake, sparing Fury in the process, especially if you use the above mentioned tools to charge for free. Fury works every bit as nicely on the Nephilim as on other beasts to deliver an effective P+S 18 charge attack and P+S 15 follow-up hits.
• Kryssa - Her feat and Ignite are great damage fixers for a single turn, and can also extend threat with Energizer.
• Absylonia2, Thagrosh2, Lylyth1: offer a complete package of both damage and accuracy increase, occasionally handing out speed buff and/ or free charges to boot.
• Rhyas1 - Overtake is usually not an overly important animus, but Rhyas can Pac-Man through a whole lot of light/medium targets and still retreat with Sprint. This is also true to her epic form, just be aware that you can only advance via Flashing blade kills if you destroyed models during your Combat action.

Drawbacks & Downsides

• Average defensive stats
• Even with the above mentioned support models the Soldier's position is strongly contested - be sure it is the beast that suits the best for your army build:
  • For 1 point less you can get a Raek or an Afflictor
  • For 5 points more you get a Neraph who works almost with the same toolkit
  • For 2 Soldiers you'll get Ravagore or the Scythean - both able to dish out more melee damage due to their improved stats
  • For 1 point over the price of 2 Soldiers there's the Carnivean, a jack-of-all trades melee beast, and for 1 additional point you can get Zuriel, one of the best heavy warbeast in the faction with the same support toolkit as the Nephilim Soldier

Tips & Tricks

• There's a guide on which is the best column to pick on the Category: Precision Strike page.

Other

Trivia

Released in Hordes: Evolution (2007)