Neraph

Considered Everblight’s messengers of death, the seraphim and neraphim are winged spawn of sublime but horrific elegance. Seraphim possess deceptively slender frames that slice through the air on multiple powerful wings, their blighted energy leaving a distorted contrail in their wake. Other dragonspawn following in this slipstream are accelerated forward, while the seraph delivers incinerating blasts of blighted ash. Meanwhile the neraph closes to seize its prey in its prehensile tail before finishing it with a lethal strike.

Basic Info

Abilities

• Template:Warbeast
• Template:Eyeless Sight
• Template:Flight
• Template:Soulless
• Template:Serpentine
• Template:Sprint

Weapons

• Grasping Tail - 1" reach, P+S 13 melee weapon.
  • Template:Open Fist
  • Template:Coil
• Hammerhead - 1" reach, P+S 15 melee weapon.
  • Template:Beat Back

Animus

{{Category: Template:Attractor }}[[Category: Template:Attractor ]]

Theme Forces

• Template:Children of the Dragon
• Template:Oracles of Annihilation
• Template:Primal Terrors
• Template:Ravens of War

Thoughts on Neraph

Neraph in a nutshell

The Neraph is the Legion's cheapest heavy with an occasionally useful animus. On paper it is woefully weak as a pure beatstick, and you'll have a bad time, if you intend to use it without support. However, it sports the same excellent mobility and above average DEF, as the other 2 winged Legion beats, namely the Seraph and the Angelius. For its point cost it also brings a surprising amount of HP onto the board, and good MAT (which is very good in the faction).

The Neraph surely requires some practice to master. It has good board controlling tools between Beat BAck and its animus, while fixes MAT issues on its follow-up attacks thanks to Coil. However, its low FURY and middling P+S on its melee weapons require support, more than any other warbeast in the faction. Also, without proper target selection the Neraph is just dead weight on the board, and will make you wonder why you didn't spend a few more points to a stronger warbeast. However, with the proper combinations built upon each other, it can be a capable - if not outstanding - warbeast.

Combos & Synergies

• Sorceress - The Sorceress and the Neraph are near-inseparable from each other. Aerial Coordination is a must for proper FURY management, and to allow key boosts on attack and damage rolls.
• Mekanoshredder - its animus is another way to charge for free and if the target is a construct model Neraph can dive 2" deeper in enemy lines.
• Fyanna2 - Queen of the Flying Circus type lists, her Fury spell can make the Neraph hit way outside its weight class. After the Grasping Tail hits, auto-hitting P+S 18 attacks and extra attacks can do a lot of job. With Dodge, her feat and Sprint this beast becomes very hard to be brought down, before it deals damage.
• Rhyas1 may find some value in using a Neraph on feat to teleport behind the enemy and use Beat Back to push models forward, or use Attractor behind the target to pull models behind it closer to the rest of the army. The extra feat attack ensures an extra inch of push, which could help make your main heavy hitter stay safely back. There's also the option of using Rapport to have the Neraph serve as an extreme flanker, but it's probably better to give that job to a Raek, and just put Rapport on your main damage piece.
• Kryssa has a feat that allow the Neraph to do a lot of damage considering its point cost, something, you should exploit in the battlebox fights too. Keep in mind that her Tactical Supremacy does not stack with Sprint, but Energizer improves its impressive threat range.
• Absylonia2 - A beast caster second to none, her Alpha Hunter and feat can make a super scary, MAT9 SPD9 P+S 17 heavy out of the Neraph, which threats up to 14", plus as many beat back move you make.

Drawbacks & Downsides

• Fragile with low P+S on its weapons
• Low FURY makes it hard to take advantage of its animus, and if you just want the animus, the Afflictor will do it for half the price.
• If you treat it like a heavy warbeast you will find it lacking, it needs to bully weaker targets it will not crack armour alone.

Tips and Tricks

• Beat Back on your attack is optional. Don't trigger it, if you want to charge in with other models to finish the job.
• The Grasping Tail has the Open Fist advantage; it might occasionally come useful, if you want to throw your target.
  • If you hit, but failed on the STR test, the attacks you buy may still hit automatically.
  • Normally, a thrown target is knocked down after the throw, making your additional melee attacks to hit automatically (provided the target is still in your melee range). If you throw a Knockdown-immune model with the Neraph, your additional attacks will still auto-hit, thanks to Coil.

Other

Trivia

Released in Hordes: Exigence (2014)