Gorehound

"Slinking in the shadows upon feet like grasping hands, the horror called the gorehound ranges all across our lands."

The gorehound hunts far and wide at its masters’ bidding. Its long tongue tastes the air for the sweet taint of corruption as it stalks its prey. Once a stonehearted coward falls within its grasp, the gorehound leisurely sups on the victim’s fear and flesh—a just reward for callousness.

Basic Info

Abilities

• Template:Warbeast
• Template:Prowl
• Template:Extended Control Range
• Template:Ghosty

Weapons

• Bite - 2" reach, POW 4, P+S 12 melee weapon
  • Template:Pull

Animus

{{Category: Template:Lightning Strike }}[[Category: Template:Lightning Strike ]]

Theme Forces

• Template:Bump in the Night
• Template:Dark Menagerie

Thoughts on the Gorehound

Gorehound in a nutshell

The Gorehound bears many similarities with the Legion's Raek, and not just in appearance. It is very fast, navigates terrain with ease, can operate far away from your warlock, and generally will be a real pain in the behind. Sprint and Ghostly is also a very nice combination. When it gets there it won't crack hard armor - but six points for a full light warbeast is a steal.

Why Should I Bring Gorehounds?

Gorehounds are absolutely stellar lights. They act as a fast skirmisher, a scalpel, they can fight infantry well due to their low cost even. They're no Rattler but they're also cheaper and significantly faster, with inbuilt better pathfinder. Gorehounds are also one of the single best triggers for The Shadow arcana in the faction, as they are a medium base with 2" melee it means all heavy warjacks and colossals except the rare few with 4" melee will trigger the arcana approaching the gorehound.

Take gorehounds when you want a good scenario light and mobile skirmisher, but don't want to commit yourself to something more deluxe like a Rattler.

Competitive Viability
As of June 2018 Gorehounds are considered extremely viable and are present even in multiples in some very successful list pairings. As an example, Pat Dunford runs three of them in his Dreamer Dark Menagerie list. The overall package that gorehounds bring is extremely compelling for 6pts.

Combos & Synergies

• Extended CTRL range applies to all of your support spells with CTRL range. As the Gorehound will usually be too far forward for targeted spells, make the most out of these ones:
  • The Wanderer pushes its DEF even higher with Fog of War, while triggering Stealth from Prowl. Always on stealth is a really nice benefit for the Gorehound
  • The Dreamer makes it very accurate with Manifest Destiny, while also making it hit harder
  • The Child can choose the Gorehound due to Tantrum up to 28" away, if one of her "toys" were damaged within her CMD range
  • Control Range arcana such as The Sacrifice / Fortune's Path / Shroud Arcanas, along with the trumps of The Child, The King of Nothing and The Dreamer all measure a doubled control range.
• The Gorehound's animus is good value for warlocks who have very strong melee output. Notably Old Witch 3, The Heretic, and The Child.
  • The Heretic can easily clear a jam of high def models with his auto hitting sword and then move back to a reasonable position for example
• The Child runs a really mean Gorehound, Abuse takes a cheap light and gives it a 14" melee threat with a POW 14 attack, and allows it to sprint 9" AND it charges for free with pain response.
• Glimmer Imp is almost self explanatory, basically every Grymkin model synergises with this guy for his accuracy buff.
• Death Knell bring his stats up to a super respectable 14/15.
• the Four Horseymans can provide stealth via their Pestilence effect.

Drawbacks & Downsides

• Low MAT and low POW - It's a 6pt light warbeast and you aren't getting an incredible output out of it. the MAT alone means its favourite prey (solos, UAs, lights it can drag into danger, casters) usually requires boosting to hit which lowers its overall output
• Very, very low Arm. Blast damage can significantly threaten ARM 13, let alone direct hits. Def 14 is nice but not incredible in Warmachine in 2018.
• Having to pay for Sprint cuts into its output, if you want to sprint with the gorehound, it's effectively FURY 2
• It doesn't threaten heavies, and won't massacre infantry. It's just a skirmisher.
• Remember to have a hearty laugh whenever opponents use effects that remove Pathfinder. Gorehounds have Ghostly, and nothing in the game removes Ghostly and the always on pathfinder it gives you.
  • This includes ignoring effects that say you treat open terrain like rough terrain, Ghostly ignores rough terrain.

Tricks & Tips

• It can use power attacks slam and headbutt. These are extremely under employed uses of a 6pt light.
  • Just because the target is bigger than you doesn't mean you can't slam them! Slam distance is halved but if you have good odds to just shove a heavy out of scenario and KD it, why not?
• The Gorehound can act as a scalpel, running through the enemy frontlines because it ignores free strikes and terrain to kill key targets before sprinting is a very legitimate use
  • a good example of this is would be to slip past a frontline of trenchers and kill Ragman
• Against dig in models the gorehound's immunity to free strikes, 2" melee, and high speed stat means it can run down a line and un-dig the models. This is mostly a Bump in the Night tactic where you will reasonably have follow up guns who will benefit greatly, such as Hollowmen and Frightmares.
• It's expendable!! its a 6pt light. If your opponent has to send their 15pt heavy into it because its in an annoying location and that puts that heavy in range of your list that's a great trade for you.
  • It can body block charging lanes and landing spots to help blunt alpha strikes against you when you are radically outthreatened
• Don't be afraid to send a gorehound in on something it can't really damage well and give it the old college try. Pow 12 (especially with some kind of buff like Manifest Destiny) can put chip damage onto arm 19/20 models for example, especially on a spike.
  • This can block up something like a Colossal badly while doing some chip damage, because the gorehound is a medium base it can't be trampled over and it blocks the movement for the colossal while also denying aiming, as Colossals can't aim while in melee even if they can shoot out.

Other

Trivia

Released with the Faction release (2017.06)