Agathon, The Voice in the Darkness

The entity called Agathon has been transacting insidious arrangements with humans of western Immoren for centuries. Countless talented but impatient and greedy arcanists have been twisted to serve the Nonokrion Order as infernalists through the far-reaching schemes of Agathon. Though a creature of subtle power, will, and persuasion, Agathon is also a fierce battle master who takes delight in rendering lesser beings powerless and reminding them of their mortality. What those beings call magic is simple thought to Agathon, as reality bends and reshapes at a whim.

Basic Info

• Template:Master

Feat - Well of Sorrow

1. When an enemy model casts a spell while in Agathon’s Template:Control range, increase the COST of the spell by 1.
2. Additionally, while in Agathon’s Template:Control range, models gain one additional die on their magic attack rolls and magic attack damage rolls. For each of those rolls, you choose one of the dice rolled to be discarded.

Well of Sorrow lasts for one round.

Abilities

• Template:Eyeless Sight
• Template:Pathfinder
• Template:Revelations of the Outer Darkness
• Template:Cull Soul

Weapons

Pain Touch (x2)
File:Sword icon.jpg		RNG				POW				P+S
		1				Template:Star				Template:Star
Template:Damage Type: Magical Template:Dark Banishment Template:Needle

Spells

{{Category: Template:CensureTemplate:Curse of ShadowsTemplate:Dark FireTemplate:Dark SeductionTemplate:HellmouthTemplate:TeleportTemplate:Tether }}[[Category: Template:CensureTemplate:Curse of ShadowsTemplate:Dark FireTemplate:Dark SeductionTemplate:HellmouthTemplate:TeleportTemplate:Tether ]]

Theme Forces

• Template:Dark Legacy

Thoughts on Agathon, The Voice in the Darkness

Agathon, The Voice in the Darkness in a Nutshell

Agathon is a being of pure arcane might. They feature an extremely high Essence stat (9!) and a large selection of potent spells. Agathon's gameplay should revolve around summoning and spell-slinging. As the highest Essence Master, Agathon should be able to reliably summon a Horror each turn if necessity dictates, while still slinging a spell or two (or camping Essence for defensive purposes).

Additionally, Agathon has some features that punish puny mortals for trying to kill off their supply of Marked Souls or Essence in Revelations of the Outer Darkness which lets them throw out a spell for free after one of them gets destroyed in its command range. Their opponent must consider if killing off a few cultist is worth taking a free Hellmouth/Dark Fire to the face or triggering a free teleport to safety.

Agathon has the weakest Soul Collection abilities, which is offset by their extremely high Essence.

In concept, Agathon should feature a broad toolbox of spells that should give them something to do every turn. Agathon should be making turn-by-turn decisions of summoning and fueling their Horrors or going on a spell-slinging rampage during their feat. However, Agathon is defensively weak, and should be easily taken down if your opponent can scalpel out their defensive options. With their low defensive stats, huge control range, and readily available arc nodes, Agathon likes to sit in the back and do everything from a safe distance.

Spell thoughts

Agathon has a large toolbox of spells, featuring a "spell for every situation," though few are straightforward to use. Agathons enormous ESS stat makes their offensive spells very accurate, and they can manage to summon and cast a few spells without needing supplementary essence from souls (though with said extra essence they become despicably powerful).

• Dark Fire provides a decent nuke with Soul Collecting capabilities. If Agathon is able to snag a decent number of souls, using this and their feat together produce a large number of highly accurate attacks that can be channeled at odd angles. This can be the makings of an assassination or, more mundanely, a way to remove an enemy unit and brim with souls on the next turn as well.

• Censure can deal with enemy upkeeps or provide some damage to their caster and healing for Agathon. As Agathon can cast it twice as often as the spell suggests thanks to Revelations of the Outer Dark, they can quickly rid the field of junior war casters or force them to not use the powerful upkeeps they are often included for.

• Dark seduction can provide some great control and punish enemy infantry formations. It can be particularly brutal on units with low command, as moving the leader away can force them out of formation.

• Curse of Shadows can help with enemy armor and provide some interesting ways to get your units into tricky combat positions, such as walking Croe's through the target to allow for juicy backstab bonuses.

• Teleport gives them a defensive out. It can also be used as a pseudo sprint to leverage Agathon's odd melee abilities once in a blue moon.

• Tether increases the threat range of your horrors, but can be awkward to use as Agathon generally does not want to be in a position where it is in front of it's horrors. However, you can use Teleport to bounce back once the Tether target is moved. You can also use it to pull a horror backwards so that your cultists can sit further in the backfield before moving to fill it back up.

• Hellmouth is Agathon's most powerful spell, with a commensurate cost. It can annihilate infantry and drag in heavier targets to close threat distances alike. Note that running a cheap body, such as a cultist, into the midst of an enemy unit can allow you to drag in much more if your opponent has spaced their models to try to avoid Hellmouth.

All of Agathons spells can potentially be cast during your opponents turn for free if they kill one of your non-souless models. This creates a huge amount of weird and powerful interactions, such as spoiling a charge with dark seduction, unjamming a heavy while also pulling it forwards with Hellmouth, or simply teleporting Agathon away from harm. Not many casters can manage to fire off two Hellmouths in a turn: Agathon barely struggles to use three!

Feat thoughts

Well of Sorrow increases the cost of enemy spells cast in their control range and adds an extra dice to the spell attack and damage rolls, dropping the one of your choice for both friendly and enemy models. Agathon doesn't have to play as forward as most would in order to catch the opposing caster in their feat due to their very large control range. The feat can set up a very scary assassination run from Agathon and with their huge control range and arc nodes will not be left in a vulnerable position if it fails. This threat will also have a psychological effect on anyone facing Agathon as they must keep it in mind

Infernals also have a few solo and attachment options that can benefit from their feat. Eilish, Regna, Lord Roget, Orin, and Wretches all can make use of it, but they are worth bringing for many other reasons besides and shouldn't be included with Agathon for the idea that they will help them. Dark sentinels can also benefit from the feat, though usually only via Battle Wizard.

There are casters that will be undone by the increased difficulty of spellcasting, but they are few in number and overall this is primarily a selfish feat to boost Agathon's output.

Drawbacks & Downsides

• Old man defensive stats on a Large base. Agathon is the most fragile of the Infernal Masters and careful planning will be required to keep it safe.
• Agathon needs to channel, otherwise it's average spell ranges bring it far too close to the action for comfort. Taking out Foreboders severely limits what it's spells can accomplish. Summoning Foreboders is costly, slow and obvious, providing an entire turn to react to any plan Agathon is trying to salvage the game with.
• Poor soul collection capabilities.

Tricks & Tips

• Revelations of the Outer Darkness can be used in each player's turn. During your turn, try to get some cheap cultists to die to free strikes so you can get an extra spell.

List Building Advice

Strategy

Agathon has three basic strategies, and can be taken as a ranged version of the melee Omodamos list

• The main plan is the same with any Dark Legacy list, attrition the enemy with a weight of heavy Horrors backed up with insane Essence economy.
• The secondary plan, and one which should be set up every turn by Foreboder positioning, is to spellsling the enemy caster to death.
• Finally, Agathon can run a more conventional scenario game very well thanks to its ability to focus Essence resources from one part of the board to anther basically freely.

The backbone of playing Agathon well is Foreboder positioning. You'll always bring a minimum of three, most often four, and ideally that will be all you need for the entire game. Foreboders need to be placed each turn such that they will A) allow Agathon access to a different are of the board safely, B) threaten an assassination, and C) keep the Foreboder safe for next turn. Simply spreading out Foreboders isn't enough, as a savvy opponent will take them off the board first thanks to their necessity to Agathon's gameplan and their specific weakness. The worst case scenario for an Agathon player is being down to just one Foreboders coming out of turn three, and needing to spend a summon on a Foreboder so Agathon can stay out of threat in the second half of the game. An Agathon player without Foreboders on the table is an Agathon player with half of their threat vectors gone, a massively tactical victory for their opponent.

Army

• Agathon will always take a minimum of three Foreboders, often four. This enables its spellslinging anywhere on the table.
• An Infernal Gate helps Agathon stay even further back while also pushing forward when it goes for an assassination
• A Griever Swarm or two helps to clear chaff, while also serving as chaff for the enemy
• Unlike the other Masters, Agathon does not have a preference as regards heavy Horrors. It will summon whatever best fits the current situation (so usually Tormentors). Soul Stalkers are great for Agathon into lists with lots of available souls, since Agathon can so efficiently convert souls into damage.
• Agathon will always take the standard Dark Legacy support package of Lord Roget d'Vyaros, Valin Hauke, and the Hermit of Hengehold. Even more so than Omodamos, Agathon needs as many resources as possible on the turn in which it decides to go after the enemy caster.
• Agathon generally needs more Umbral Guardians then the other two Masters, as it lacks a good way to protect the Infernal army from shooting. A full package of three is not uncommon.
• Several Cultist Bands, obviously. Conventional wisdom is usually a full size unit with or without Dark Sentinels plus Orin, and a min unit for essence fuel.

Other

Trivia

• Released with the Faction launch (2019.06)
• Agathon is based on an old IKRPG model, "Curator & Discerning Beast, Nonokrion Order Infernal". Despite a superficial resemblance, Agathon is much more detailed and far larger.
• While Zaateroth goes by "she", Omodamos goes by "he", Agathon goes by "they", as seen in their POV in the Hengehold Scrolls and is as such the first confirmed non-binary character in the setting.