Blighted Nyss Sorceress & Hellion

Sweeping out of the frozen skies, Hellions fall upon their land-bound enemies and deliver their masters to the heart of battle. The half-mad sorceresses who ride them must be agile enough to stand precariously atop their steeds without saddles or harnesses. With a shouted word and a pointing finger, a sorceress summons a knot of howling wind to rip a distant victim limb from limb.

Basic Info

Abilities

• Template:Cavalry
• Template:Flight
• Template:Aerial Coordination
• Template:Magic Ability
• Template:Reposition 3

Weapons

Spear
File:Sword icon.jpg		RNG				POW				P+S
		2				4				9
Template:Magical Damage
Mount
File:Mount icon.jpg		RNG						POW
		0.5						10

Spells

{{Category: Template:Blight StormTemplate:FrostbiteTemplate:Wind Ravager }}[[Category: Template:Blight StormTemplate:FrostbiteTemplate:Wind Ravager ]]

Theme Forces

• Template:Children of the Dragon
• Template:Oracles of Annihilation. In this theme, enemy models that end their activation within 2" of this model suffer continuous corrosion.
• Template:Si
• Template:Ravens of War

Thoughts on Blighted Nyss Sorceress & Hellion

Blighted Nyss Sorceress & Hellion in a nutshell

The Blighted Nyss Sorceress & Hellion ("Sorceress") is a very unique support solo, aimed towards Legion's penchant for wings in their battlegroups. At a reasonably low price, she offers free charges for flying warbeasts in her CMD range, which at a fairly decent 8" covers a bubble around her of approximately 18" accounting for her base size. This is just her passive ability as well - she can contribute in a couple useful ways to the battle beyond just increasing fury efficiency.

Her Frostbite Spray is backed by a very solid Magic Ability score of 7, more accurate than most solos in her point class with access to similar attacks. At 8", it's not difficult to tag a fair few models. At POW12 it can threaten a lot of middling ARM infantry or scratch warbeasts/warjacks.

Blight Storm offers some interesting utility against single wound trooper walls relying on tactics such as Shield Wall, Iron Zeal, and/or ARM buffs from spells. With a well placed Blight Storm, it doesn't matter if their ARM is 5 or 500, that trooper will die (or make a tough check if they're stacking tough with their other buffs). Its effectiveness against heavies should also not to be underestimated - if you have units with high volume fire, you can easily inflict more damage, than the unit's basic weaponry would warrant.

Wind Ravager is her hardest spell to use as most guns will not have any issue simply shooting the Sorceress off the board from outside her range. It's uses are generally limited to enemies with 8"/6" sprays, or models with Assault, Gunfighter, or Dual Attack.

Combos & Synergies

The Sorceress is a specialized model. Fortunately, she can find place in many of your theme forces:

• Children of the Dragon - Since both Zuriel and Azrael can be included in this list - and honestly, they're usually the first entries in a CoD list, you already have 2 models, who can greatly benefit from Aerial Coordination.
• Oracles of Annihilation - it is your mage-user theme, and you can get the Sorceress for free
• Ravens of War - probably you won't field this list without the Sorceress, even though you can't take her for free, as it features mainly Beasts with Flight.
  • The best list to consider this with would be Fyanna2 as she gets the most work out of the Angelius and will bring several in theme; coupled with her lower FURY stat and the nature of an Angelius charge, that spare fury saved on the charge will very valuable.
• Bethayne2 loves to run Archangels and can feat on the Sorceress to keep her alive, meaning she turns them into indestructible Wind Ravager bubbles.

Blight Storm synergies deserves special mention:

• Archers with their command attachment (which you probably should no matter what) work wonderfully together with Blight Storm. Beside enemy infantry swarms dying in droves, you can occasionally put 22 damage from 22 single shots into a particularly heavy target (or one, which is unassailable in melee, for example the AFG, or anything under Polarity Shield).
• Shredders under the Blight Wasps' animus can chew through similar numbers of targets under this spell as well.
• Strider Blightblades usually have to rely on their CMA to hurt heavier targets, but with a fix damage their 12 attacks can chew through quite a few infantry at once. Add in Ambush for mobility tricks, and Critical Grievous wounds, which might occasionally help you with pesky Tough rolls.
• Blighted Rotwings and Golab love Blight Storm for easy Finisher attacks. Golab is also a flying warbeast so he loves Aerial Coordination.

Drawbacks & Downsides

• The Mechanoshredder also hands out free charges with its animus and costs 2 points less, but also gives the affected model +2 movement and Pathfinder (against constructs) and can target models without flight. If you want to get better value out of the Sorceress you need to squeeze multiple models with flight into her cmd range. So the McShredder is more flexible and more cost efficient, but generates fury in the process, which is usually a non-factor because you can just put the McShredder on a Blight Archon.
  • Also, Aerial Coordination works even under anti-spell effects which would otherwise negate your animus casting (Brain Damage, etc).
• Laughable melee potential, even with the advantages of Cavalry Charge.
• She's expensive, yet pretty flimsy for her cost, and her large base makes her very shootable as well.
• In lists where she's brought for Aerial Coordination, she becomes a higher priority target.
• Most guns exceed the range of Wind Ravager, limiting its utility.

Tips & Tricks

• Take advantage of Reposition to extend the threat of Frostbite and Blight Storm placement while keeping her safer against retaliation by retreating backwards - only Wind Ravager follows the Sorceress around after she has used it.
• Her spear is weak, but one of Legion's few Magic Damage weapons not located on a warlock. If you didn't bring a Naga Nightlurker, she might be handy in hunting weaker incorporeal models. Don't forget Cavalry get boosted hit rolls when the charge and her charge range is a respectable 11" + 2" for her spear's range.
• Blight Storm requires a direct hit from an attack - meaning that neither blasts, nor non-attack related damage rolls (like the secondary hits from Spine Burst) will trigger the automatic 1 damage.
• Wind Ravager will not protect you against Point Blank attacks since they're melee attacks made by ranged weapons.

Other

Trivia

Released in Hordes: Metamorphosis (2009)