Grand Scrutator Severius

Severius lives to battle the enemies of his faith. He brings a commanding presence and undeniable genius to the battlefield, and his warjacks come alive with the same fervour as his converts. While age may have withered the warcaster and stolen his former strength, what he lacks in bodily prowess he makes up for with divine power. When he speaks the Litany of Menoth in battle, he can instantly silence the blasphemous sorceries of his enemies.

Basic Info

Warcaster abilities:

• Focus Manipulation

• Battlegroup Controller

• Power Field

• Spellcaster

• Independent Model

• Leader

Feat : Divine Might

While in Severius' CTRL range, enemy models...

1. cannot cast spells,
2. cannot be used to channel spells, and
3. enemy warcaster/warlock models suffer -2 FOCUS and FURY.

Divine Might lasts for one round. Template:Tipbox

Abilities

• Template:Eye of Menoth
• Template:Sacred Ward

Weapons

• Staff of Judgement - 2" reach, P+S 13 melee weapon.
  • Template:Magical Damage

Spells

{{Category: Template:Ashes to AshesTemplate:Death SentenceTemplate:Defender's WardTemplate:ImmolationTemplate:InfluenceTemplate:Vision }}[[Category: Template:Ashes to AshesTemplate:Death SentenceTemplate:Defender's WardTemplate:ImmolationTemplate:InfluenceTemplate:Vision ]]

Theme Forces

• Template:Exemplar Interdiction
• Template:Guardians of the Temple
• Template:The Creator's Might. He can start the game with upkeeps in play, and upkeep them for free in turn 1, in this theme.
• Template:The Faithful Masses
• Template:Si

Thoughts on Severius1

Severius1 in a nutshell

Severius is the epitome of support casters, not only in the faction, but perhaps in the game too. His defining traits are:

• Eye of Menoth, a rule which could be translated as an army-wide Veteran Leader for Menite models. Now, +1 to hit and damage may not look like much, but it can seriously swing the bell curve to your favour, even before counting any additional bonuses.
• He has the second-highest FOC stat after The Harbinger of Menoth, enabling him to stay well back, which he has to do, since...
• ...he has the so-called "old man stats" (aka. victim stats), the sad combination of a DEF14/ARM14. That means, even half-arsed assassination attempts may prove very dangerous to him.

He has very strong denial tricks, especially against lists that rely on magic. If you can keep him behind and safe, he is a very rewarding caster.

Feat thoughts

Severius1 is the natural predator of any caster and warlock out there, especially for those that need to cast spells to be effective. There are numerous casters with assassination potential, but only a handful of them can achieve it without their full stock of resources, and postponing spell casting. Butcher3, all versions of Caine, Stryker2, and so on are all available targets. Denying Flashing Blade, Teleport, Velocity and the like is a devious plan. Even casters, who are lingering behind may have to spend their resources wisely. Usually, players leave 1 or 2 FOCUS/FURY on their casters for camp, and to fend off assassination. Divine Might robs that amount of resource from them, and they need to divert it from elsewhere, or remain susceptible for assassinations. Hordes' beasts are also locked out of their animi, so if they rely on certain spells to be effective like Submerge (and Star Crossed) for Wrong Eye and Snapjaw they are likely out of luck. It is also quite good to preemptively counter-feat warlocks and casters, who could cast spell(s) for free (Sloan, Vayl2, Feora3, etc.) under their feat.

Unlike Garryth's feat, casters and locks can still spend FOCUS/FURY for reinforcing power field, transfer damage, allocate focus to their jacks, buy additional attacks, heal themselves or their monsters, and so on. However, this feat will decrease their CTRL area too (save for a very few examples, like Butcher2), denying a whole lot of things from power up to forcing, to transferring damage.

Spell thoughts

• Ashes to Ashes - Menoth's answer to Cygnar's Chain Lightning, it fills the same role - chaff infantry killing. Don't be afraid to cast it onto your own - preferably fire immune - jacks to kill jamming models.
• Death Sentence - the name speaks for itself; you should tag a critical target with it as soon as possible, preferably through an arc node.
• Defender's Ward - one of the finest defensive buff in the Menite arsenal; defending your most valuable units through advance, and prolonging their survival in melee too.
• Immolation - an OK ZAP, suitable for incorporeal hunting, but the faction in whole is not short on Magical weapons.
• Influence - can have fun with it, if you happen to have the spare focus for it. Don't forget, as the model is under your CTRL, it is affected by Eye of Menoth.
• Vision - life insurance either for you, or for a valuable model in your army. Especially useful against quality gunlines.

Drawbacks & Downsides

• His "old man" stats mean that he dies very easily to anything that can get to him.
• Anti-magic and upkeep hate can give him a bad time.

Tricks & Tips

• Learn how to use arc nodes. He's pure support.
• Bond between the casters and their character beasts/jacks provide their respective bonuses only if the model is in their CTRL area. If they get outside this area due to your feat, they'll lose a bunch of cool rules, like Ashen Veil, Shield Guard, special ammo types, extra movement, and so on.

List-Building Tips

Strategy

Severius is a denial caster, who revels in trolling the opponent. Though he is pretty squishy, direct spell assassinations can be forgotten, thanks to Sacred Ward (though he can still be caught in an AoE/Spray's area, which targets another model, or secondary hits from spells like Chain Lightning, or Eruption of Spines). His feat can really force the opponent to play forward, as Divine Might will severely decrease their CTRL area - which can be annoying for a FOC6 caster, and crippling for FURY5 warlocks. This usually leads to either attrition or scenario victory.

Theme Thoughts

Long story short, Severius can handle it all. There's hard to find anything that doesn't get a helping hand from the Priest King. With his Eye of Menoth ability, he can take any unit, jack, solo, or even battle engine and make them hit a little more often and a little harder.

Template:Header

• Vilmon the leader of the Paladin package is an excellent target for Vision.
• Champion of the Order of the Wall, Initiates of the Wall and Paladin of the Order of the Wall - All of them are excellent pieces that don't need much support and keep him and his Judicator safe.

• Rhoven - Eyeless Sight on a spellslinger is a very useful buff and he comes in a bundle with two Shield Guards
• Exemplar Warder - More Shield Guards.
• Elias Gade - +1/+1 from Eye becomes quite ridiculous on this model.
• Exemplar Errants - They love Eye and the CA can apply Mark Target for his Judicator.

• How does a model negating two damage rolls a turn sound? Eye of Truth with vision and a focus can do this, making him resilient into low volume attack opponents.

• Idrian Skirmishers - Few things make as much use of Eye of Menoth as a unit with 22 guns and Prey. Supported by the Book and Rhupert they become difficult to remove as well. If you run a Shrine, Hand of Silence or a Sanctifier they are also very ready sources of souls.
• Menite Archon(s) - +2 damage on Ashes to Ashes, and Vision on an Archon this tough is almost unfair.
• A Hierophant and the Book are always nice support tools available in most themes, to tame his spells' cost and to fend off pop & drop tricks.
• Shrine of the Lawgiver - Eye makes it RAT 7, POW 15 with access to boosts, which is quite good and it can recur fallen grunts.

Battlegroup

File:BlessingofVengeance.jpg

Blessing of Vengeance is his pet warjack that he can take in any theme.

• Due to his very fragile nature, an arc node is mandatory in his list. Perhaps even two, as enemies will try to dispatch them ASAP:
  • His pet warjack, Blessing of Vengeance, is an arc node that he can take in any theme force. He is strongly encouraged to run it, as it comes chock-full of useful abilities for a bargain price, and the arc node offer Sev a +2/+2 to his arced spells. In a pinch, it also goes up to DEF 14, ARM 21 under Defender's Ward.
• Taking a Shield Guard like the Devout or Templar to keep him safe from enemy shooting might be a good idea. The Templar especially, as it goes up to ARM 23 under Defender's Ward.
• Severius runs a strong Judicator. Between increasing its offensive capability with Eye and Death Sentence, and its defense with Defender's Ward, as well as being able to easily fuel it, it's a strong choice in any list. Many lists will struggle to chew through 60 HP and ARM 21 if backed up by Vision'd Shield Guards.

Other

Trivia

• This man was a warcaster on battlefield well into his 80s.
• His character is dead, killed by Hexeris in the book Godless.
• He is one of the three original Protectorate casters, released way back in Warmachine: Prime (2003)