Greylord Forge Seer

More than just craftsmen, Forge Seers also take to the battlefield alongside the warjacks they help create. These Greylords apply their knowledge of magic and mechanika to imbue the weapons of warjacks with the power needed to cut down unnatural foes who are more than flesh and steel. Clad in Man-O-War armor, Greylord Forge Seers charge into battle with the hiss of steam in their ears and the chill of winter at their fingertips.

Basic Info

Abilities

• Template:Immunity: Cold
• Template:'Jack Marshal
• Template:Battle Wizard
• Template:Drive Dark Sigils
• Template:Magical Ability
• Template:Repairable

Weapons

Rune Weapon
File:Sword icon.jpg		RNG				POW				P+S
		2				5				14
Template:Magical Weapon Template:Critical Freeze

Spells

{{Category: Template:Empower SpellTemplate:Hoarfrost AttackTemplate:Winter's Wind }}[[Category: Template:Empower SpellTemplate:Hoarfrost AttackTemplate:Winter's Wind ]]

Theme Forces

• Khador
  • Template:Armored Korps
  • Template:Jaws of the Wolf
  • Template:Wolves of Winter

• Other Factions
  • Infernal players can use this model in the Template:Hearts of Darkness theme, but only if Malakov2 is leading the army.

Thoughts on Greylord Forge Seer

Greylord Forge Seer in a Nutshell

Forge Seers are potent Greylord wizards donning ornate Man-o-War armor, pulling double duty as either capable 'Jack Marshals or by supporting their comrades by Empowering your warjacks, casting fatal Hoarfrost blasts at opportune foes or blowing the Winter's Wind over allies with Immunity: Cold to create a local coldsnap capable of freezing enemies that come too close. They're decent enough warriors--Battle Wizards wielding enormous runic axes celebrating their kills with magical encores--but their main purpose is supporting their army. They prefer to work from behind the front lines, enhancing their beloved machines until times get dire and they enter the fray themselves.

The Forge Seer is an excellent solo for a myriad of armies. Empower is an amazing ability in any faction, but Khadoran warcasters in particular tend to find themselves short on focus when battles turn rough and that extra point of focus for their battlegroup is a major asset for them. Doing nothing other than Empowering a warjack each turn is sufficiently valuable for the Forge Seer to easily make its 4 point cost back over the course of an encounter. It's no slouch as a 'Jack Marshal either; Dark Sigils is a very nice piece of tech to have on a warjack with ranged capabilities to take Incorporeal enemies and those hiding behind magical defenses. The Seer has the luxury of combining Empower and 'Jack Marshal abilities for some cool effects:

• Empower + Hurry!: A free charge with +2 to hit and 1 focus for another attack or a boost is almost the same mileage you get out of a fully allocated heavy with 3 focus from your 'caster.
• Empower + Crush!: An additional melee attack and all your melee attacks get +2 POW, and 1 focus left over; that's the potential for 3 POW 19 swings from a Destroyer.
• Empower + Take Aim!: +2 to hit due to aiming and +2 damage makes most of our 'jacks' effective RAT 6 and increases the POW of our already strong guns. 1 Focus either boosts to hit or damage based on your intended target.

Combos & Synergies

Warcasters
Literally any warcaster works well with the Forge Seer because of Empower, reducing the strain on their focus reserves so they can instead do as they please and go after their own objectives. Beyond that, of particular mention are:

• Kommandant Kratikoff: Her battlegroup have Flank Man-o-War, and the Forge Seer is indeed a Man-o-War model. She's also a legal Winter's Wind target and giving her Freezer is a perfect way to thwart melee assassinations.
• Obavnik Kommander Zerkova: Zerkova has Immunity: Cold for the aforementioned Freezer trick and her feat lets the Seer Empower twice in a row.
• Old Witch1 - Stacking the drive with Weald Secrets on a ranged jack under the Seer's control can be very powerful as it ignores a whole bunch of ranged debuffs. Double stack with Guidance from the Adjunct for even more value.
• Vladimir1 - Signs and Portents is useful for getting Battle Wizard off and Hoarfrost is very powerful under the same effect. Add in Boundless Charge if needed and use Wind Wall on the advance alongside Empower.

'Jack Marshal
The Forge Seer does best with warjacks with strong ranged weapons to take advantage of its Drive. Because the Seer prefers to stay back it pays to have it control warjacks that can do the same.

• Behemoth - A pricey package, but Behemoth loves the drive and jack marshal orders and the focus from Empower is usually enough to do great damage from a distance thanks to powerful attack.
• Decimator: The Dozer's two shots are reasonably accurate and/or powerful under the Strike True! and Take Aim! commands combined with the Seer's focus lets it boost a shoot if needed.
• Destroyer: As with the Decimator, a Destroyer works well with the Seer, especially when you can land a Blessed AOE on a guarded cluster of low-ARM models.
• Mad Dog: Quite the unorthodox pick (and not an endorsement for the Mad Dog) but it can be used as a fire-and-forget missile to take out an enemy skirmishing unit. It only needs one focus to power its Fleet ability and after it goes down the Forge Seer can simply turn its attention elsewhere.
• Rager: The other Khador 'jacks with ranged weapons are a big points investment, but the humble Rager is cheap and packs the ever-useful Shield Guard to protect not only the Forge Seer but any other models you might want to keep safe. Its three initial attacks in melee work very well with the global Marshaling buffs to boot.

Other

• Warjacks
  • Beast-09 - Whether or not he marshals Beast, he can give it Freezer. This combination is actually deceptively powerful because many armies will have trouble taking Beast out using only ranged attacks (and if they try they'll just trigger Beast's Hyper-Aggressive ability) and if they charge Beast and fail to kill him, they'll be made stationary.
• Units
  • Battle Mechaniks: All Man-o-War models have the Repairable rule.
  • Greylord Units: Ternions and Outriders can benefit from Winter's Wind, and they protect it with Blizzards and target it with Winter's Wind in return.
  • Kommandant Atanas Arconovich: All Man-o-War models can benefit from his Tactician ability.
  • Man-o-War Demolition Corps: The Seer freezes something and the Corps come around to Shatter it.

• Solos
  • Koldun Lord: It can benefit from Winter's Wind, and the Koldun can copy his spells with Loremaster.
  • Kovnik Apprentice Kratikoff - She can let his jack charge for free with Boundless Charge, meaning he can usher an order other than Hurry!

• Mercenaries
  • Colbie Sterling/Gobber Tinker/Raluk Moorclaw/Widget1: These are all Mechanikally Adept, meaning they can Repair Khador models.

Theme Thoughts

Armored Corps
You'll rarely see this guy here because usually if you take AK. you take the fully MoW boat which leaves no points for jack marshalling, so his main role is being an Empower bot and at 4 points he's just doesn't cut it.

Jaws of the Wolf
He's an okay inclusion here because in Khador even jack casters are notoriously focus strapped so the extra focus really helps them, but 4-8 points for one-two focus a turn is a hard ask and the jacks he wants to marshal are expensive and don't receive battlegroup wide effects. Wolves of Winter
Odd, he does synergize well with other greylords due to Winter's Wind. However his drive isn't really worth it, due to the extreme density of Magical options in theme. Most of the time he'll just be taken if you are running a jack heavy build so you Koldun Lords can copy his empower spell for 4 potential empowers a turn.

Drawbacks & Downsides

• Like all Man-o-War infantry, his base SPD and DEF are very low.
• His doesn't have any defensive abilities, making him very vulnerable if you don't protect it and his defensive stat line is terirble.
• Outside of the Armored Corps it can be difficult to screen.
• A lot of its tricks don't work on models with Immunity: Cold or those that can't be made stationary.
• 4 points for a single empower per turn is terrible value, especially since his stats are shoddy for a medium based solo and he doesn't offer much else in utility other than giving a mediocre buff to Cold Immune models. There are also always better free cards in the theme he's available in so you will always pay the full price for him.
• Khador jacks don't exactly lend themselves to marshalling due to their high price tag and even the cheaper ones are horrendous (Berserker chassis) or don't get much from the drive (Marauder).

Tricks & Tips

• The Forge Seer is the only model Khador has to directly counter Disruption, making it an especially interesting tech choice against Factions like Cygnar.
• Khador can have trouble disposing of Incorporeal models, the Forge Seer brings some much-needed magical damage to alleviate that issue without relying on Mercenaries.

Other

Trivia

• Originally released 2017.03.
• Nickname(s): "Bad Santa."
• Its Khador Military insignia signify the Forge Seer's rank of Kapitan.
• Its Greylord Covenant insignia signify the Forge Seer's rank of Koldun.