Spawning Vessel

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

The cowled acolyths entrusted with spawning vessels prowl the battlefield behind the front ranks, gathering corpses and flinging them into the waiting cauldron. Bodies splash into the brackish fluids to become part of the charnel reduction that sucks additions into its depths. Once the churning contents of the foul vessel have simmered sufficiently, a spawn leaps out of the cauldron, newly created and ready to sate its ravenous hunger.

Basic Info

Abilities

• Vessel
  • Template:Construct
  • Template:Officer
  • Template:Carried
  • Template:Focal Point
  • Template:Recycle
  • Template:Spawn Horror
• Grunts
  • None

Weapons

Vessel
Grunts	Gaff File:Sword icon.jpg  RNG   POW   P+S  2 3 9

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.

Thoughts on Spawning Vessel

Spawning Vessel in a nutshell

On paper, the Spawning Vessel is a very cool, interesting, and solid unit, with a pretty powerful recursion mechanic in Legion lists that were already bringing a bit of infantry.It's actual efficacy relies directly on the power level of the Lesser Warbeasts it can create each turn. That is to say, you will usually just create Mekanoshredders, barring some niche cases where you'd want Shredders or a Blight Wasp.

"The Pot" is unique among recursion mechanics in that the models it creates can activate the same turn they enter play, which is one of the many reasons it looks so good on paper. Keep this in mind when trying to make the best out of what it can do in the current game landscape. Also, remember that you can kill your own models to feed the pot if you want. Many players will form a "conga line" with the shepperds in this unit and have them all backstab each other to feed them to the pot.

Combos & Synergies

• Kryssa the vessel isn’t a unit worth dedicating a lot of spell support to due to poor stats and low(ish) model count. However a passive tough bubble helps everyone who can keep up with Kryssa. If you have no better target tactical supremacy is useful for covering a lot of ground to collect in and because of the nature of her feat if you spawn a lesser it will still pull its weight in melee if it’s in her ctrl. A bunch of Shredders under hear feat become an actual threat on feat turn
• Bethayne2 - She absolutely loves Harriers for Spell Driver, the vessel can make more Harriers. She cannot weave the Vessel into her Flesh Web though, so watch out.
• Abyslonia2 - Abby loves herself some shredders for her feat, and loves them even more with Killing Spree, which you can only get from a Blight Wasp, another lesser. Assuming the Vessel gets to spawn 2 lessers per game, at least, you save two points by paying for a minimum vessel over a shredder and a wasp.
• The Pot can actually replenish the battlegroup of a Beast Mistress. She struggles for the same reason the Vessel does (i.e. she's not the problem, Lessers are), but if you want to field her, the pot can let her use her battlegroup like homing missiles more freely.
• Speaking of the Blight Archon a +1 to hit buff is useful even on the lacklustre gaffs. Though the main draw here is giving the archon some lessers for support duty and the occasional sprint.
• If you're going to bring the pot, make sure you have enough infantry to support it. Also, cheaper infantry are better, since they are more cost efficient. A single Raptor corpse is a lot more wasted points than a Grotesque corpse..
• The Gatorman Bokor & Bog Trog Swamp Shamblers is a good source of corpses, particularly in the Oracles theme where you can have more than one unit.
  • If you want to push the recursion to the max, run a Vessel, Shamblers, a Sacral Vault and Incubi together. Dying living models become souls, incubi and shamblers, dying shamblers become tokens for the vessel, incubi further fuel the corpse collectors.
• Boil Master & Spirit Cauldron - The Cauldron has a massive CMD range of 10" within which it can collect corpses, generates some extra corpses with Season the Sauce, and can give said corpses to the Vessel while it is within 5" of the Cauldron. This drastically increases the effective corpse collection range of the Vessel to a massive 15", regardless of how many grunts are still alive.

What to Summon?

• Shredders and Mekanoshredders are basically the only thing worth grabbing out of your Vessel if you need to play offence. Go for the regular Shredder if you can set up flank or it’s robot buddy for it's always useful Full Steam animus.
• The Harriers Annoyance makes it useful if you are leveraging Defensive traits (say on a Fyanna2 feat turn). Bethayne2 loves these as arc-nodes.
• If you love to hate yourself, or need Counterblast you probably want to field a Stinger. Putting oneone a Blight Archon or a caster with a good gun can be an okay-ish defensive play. It's possible to place the Stinger in a way that maximizes its spray angle and allows it to aim, meaning it might just actually clear that infantry. This is incredibly corner case, but it's a tactic to keep in the back pocket just in case it comes up.
• The Blight Wasp probably won’t see another turn after being spawned but it’s animus will help you refill the pot. Usually only recommended in an Abby2 Shredder spam list.

Drawbacks & Downsides

• Even when you get them "for free", non-Shredder Lesser Warbeasts are very weak options. Even assuming you spawn nothing but Shredders, it's questionable whether the Pot pays for its points cost - it takes two spawns before the pot has "made back" its points.
• If the pot is dead, the unit vaporizes thanks to Focal Point, and the pot is a medium base and therefore pretty easy to shoot. It's surprisingly resilient against random pot shots (get it?), but if the enemy wants it dead, it will die.
• Losing grunts quickly reduces the Vessel's impact as the collection range goes down.

Tricks & Tips

• Don't forget that the Grunts aren't above stuffing each other into the Pot.
  • If you make a conga line with the Grunts (if you prefer, "Lunch Ladies"), you can set up a chain of back strikes and toss three bodies in, then immediately spawn a Shredder. A useful tactic in the late game if bodies are running out.
• The Spawning Vessel can move before it spawns a Lesser. That movement, plus the additional placement range can be factored into the threat range of the spawned beast.
  • You can increase this by using a Seraph to Slipstream it (although normally you've got better things to Slipstream).
  • A Shredder or Stinger spawned this way can threaten something 20.5" away. 22.5" if you Slipstream the pot and him. Add an inch for Harriers. This is both amusing and impressive, but try not to think of it as anything more than a party trick. One Slipstream on the pot is good enough, and even that's pushing it unless it's an emergency tactic.
  • any ‘place’ effect works on the pot so Lylyth2 casting Mirage still works.

Other

Trivia

File:Blighted Bather.jpg

Limited Edition sculpt

• Released way back in Primal Mk1 (2006)
• The Blighted Bather model can be substituted for the spawning vessel model.