Calaban, The Grave Walker

Mercenaries Blindwater Congregation Legacy Warlock

The monstrous gatorman warlock called Calaban the Grave Walker commands fearsome powers over life and death. With his bone staff in one hand and skull talisman in the other, Calaban can drain the life force from an enemy and then use the withered shell left behind as a conduit for his dark magic.

Basic Info

• Minion - In a 2+ warlock game, Calaban will work for Template:Skorne minion, Template:Legion minion, Template:Circle minion, or Template:Trollbloods 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.

• Template:Gatorman Warlock

Feat: Death Harvest

Each time a friendly Faction model destroys an enemy model while in Calaban's Template:CTRL range, then ...

1. Calaban gains 1 fury point, and
2. Immediately after resolving the attack, Calaban can cast one spell. Calaban can boost attack and damage rolls on spells cast as a result of Death Harvest.

Death Harvest lasts for one round.

Abilities

• Template:Amphibious
• Template:Tough
• Template:Synergistic Magic
• Template:Dark Power

Weapons

• Heart Stopper - 10" range, POW 10 ranged attack.
  • Template:Magical Weapon
  • Template:Grave Door
• Bite - 0.5" reach, P+S 11 melee attack.
• Carcass - 2" reach, P+S 11 melee attack.
  • Template:Magical Weapon
  • Template:Life Trader

Spells

{{Category: Template:Bone ShakerTemplate:CarnivoreTemplate:Hex BlastTemplate:OccultationTemplate:Parasite }}[[Category: Template:Bone ShakerTemplate:CarnivoreTemplate:Hex BlastTemplate:OccultationTemplate:Parasite ]]

Theme Forces

• Template:Blindwater
• Template:Will Work for Food

Thoughts on Calaban1

Calaban1 in a nutshell

Calaban is a nasty debuffing warlock, able to handle almost any type of enemy. Parasite for high ARM, Carnivore for high DEF, Hex Blast for upkeep spam, his feat to take the edge off infantry spam, Bone Shaker for recursion, and Occultation for shooting. The only thing he doesn't do is extend threat ranges. Synergistic Magic is good on and off feat turn but still conflicts with Bone Shaker because the targets are RFP not destroyed if they make an attack.

Feat thoughts

His feat has a few counter-synergies with Bone Shaker, Grave Door, and the Sacral Vault's Deathly Domination. Those three abilities let you take control of the enemy model instead of destroying it, and as such they don't fulfil the "destroyed an enemy model" condition of Calaban's feat. And then even when you finish resolving the ability and the model is destroyed/RFP'd, that occurs while it is still under your control so it doesn't fulfil the "destroyed an enemy model" criteria.

Note that on the odd occassion where you take control of an enemy Minion model, and it destroys another model while under your control, then that does fulfil all the feat trigger conditions.

Of course, you can always choose to not take control of the enemy model, if you'd rather trigger the feat.

Spell thoughts

Calaban has a deep toolbox, but his two key spells are Parasite to break armour and Bone Shaker to deal with infantry swarms. On feat turn he can cast whichever he needs a lot of times (although Bone Shaker can break your Blind Walker with the channeling damage) and either allow you to wreck enemies

The other spells are either standard buffs or (in the case of Hex Blast) upkeep removal. The upkeeps should be cast early, and it's occasionally worth cycling Carnivore on feat turn,

Drawbacks & Downsides

• No threat range extenders.
• His personal melee threat is poor.
• A very effective jack of all trades is still a jack of all trades.
• He doesn't like anti-magic effects much.
• Despite answering almost all common questions, Calaban doesn't really ask any in return.
• Rask exists and does a very similar job to Calaban other than against infantry swarms while generally being more effective.

Tricks & Tips

• Use his feat to cycle either Parasite or Carnivore.
• Calaban really likes the Sacral Vault . Like, he REALLY likes the Sacral Vault. Telemetry and his own innate magical ability means that he almost never has to boost to hit (will hit DEF16 comfortably). This has massive implications on his feat turn, so make sure your positioning with the vault has all the potential targets in it's CMD.

List Building Advice

Strategy

His main method of winning is Attrition. Parasite enables almost anything you have to wreck things, while Bone Shaker and Carnivore deal with melee enemies.

Theme thoughts

Calaban's a debuff caster and he can happily go in either of the two themes available to him.

• Croak Raiders - With Parasite and an arc node (plus his gun) he can send Parasite deep and then uses ranged infantry to wreck the Parasite target.

• Sacral Vault will improve his already stella magic ability, and with Parasite the gun will get significant work done with a full soul stack.

Battlegroup

• Blackhide Wrastler - the best beast he can take, with an animus that combines awesomely with Parasite.
• Blind Walker - He's a spellslinger. Having models to sling the spells through is always and without exception a good thing.

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: Blind Walker
2. Warbeast: Blackhide Wrastler
3. Solo: Bog Trog Mist Speaker
4. Solo: Gatorman Soul Slave
5. Unit: Croak Raiders
6. Unit: Croak Raiders
7. Battle Engine: Sacral Vault

Other

Trivia

Released in Forces of Hordes: Minions (2010)