Terrorgheist

[Vespian]

Monster - Rare Choice

Cost - (A Black Coach plus a Sceptre de Noirot)
M6 WS3 BS0 S5 T6 W6 I3 A4 Ld 4

Special Rules: Death Shriek, Fly, Large Target, Regenerate (6+), Terror, Undead

Death Shriek -
A Death Shriek is a special attack that can be used against a single unit in the Shooting phase, even if the Terrorgheist has marched, charged, or is engaged in close combat. This attack has a range of 8" and needs line of sight to its target. If the Terrorgheist is engaged in combat, its Death Shriek may target a unit in base contact.

To resolve a Death Shriek, roll 2D6 and add the number of Wounds the Terrorgheist has left. For example, if a Terrorgheist had taken two wounds earlier in the game, its Death Shriek would equal a total score of 2D6+4. For each point by which this score exceeds the target unit's Leadership, the target suffers 1 wound with no armour saves allowed. A Death Shriek is a magical attack and wounds suffered from it are distributed as if from shooting.

Upgrades -
Infested: When a Terrorgheist with this upgrade is removed as a casualty, all units that were in base contact take 3D6 Strength 2 hits

Rancid Maw: Poisoned attacks (does not include Thunderstomp)

I'm so excited by this. I'm building a custom base for my Varghulf for a 'counts as' until I can get my hands on a couple of the new models. Judging from the pictures I've seen online it appears to use a non-standard 5x5 base.

I lean towards this being a worthy addition to the codex. Not crazy overpowered, but something worth putting on a list. I'll likely use this and my Black Coach for most lists. My poor Varghulf just got retired...

Putting a Vamp with the Blooddrinker on one of these would make for some nastiness too. I'm still loathe to do too much with that kind of build for tournaments simply due to cannons. I covet my general too much to let his awesome shine through...

 

[Sanai]

6 wounds and T6? Pretty nice. and that death shriek looks pretty handy, especially against low ld units (Die Skaven Die! Mwuhahahahaha!)
Even against high ld stuff like characters it should be useful, as the highest you can score is 18, which means you can put 8 wounds onto even an ld 10 stuff if you are lucky.. Depends on whether it can target characters in units, and even if it can't, you can still use it to shoot monsters and non bunkered characters. I can see this being a very useful unit, flying around death shrieking things.

 

[Capt Rubber Ducky]

You could couple it with a lore of death wizard (Vamp/ lord with forbidden lore) to snipe the enemy characters to remove the Lb bubbles to greater the effect, especially if you have a couple of hero banshees in there.

 

[Seneschal]

I'm still worried about people throwing 6 dice at Pit of Shades and nuking the thing. Bad enough the spell is extremely effective against 98% of our army but to have our new, supposed equalizer be something that very susceptible kind of worries me.
I don't want to be gloom and doom but the reality of 8th is PoS/Purple Sun spam being a common occurence.
We'll see what they do to wraiths and banshees.

 

[Capt Rubber Ducky]

I'm still worried about people throwing 6 dice at Pit of Shades and nuking the thing. Bad enough the spell is extremely effective against 98% of our army but to have our new, supposed equalizer be something that very susceptible kind of worries me.
I don't want to be gloom and doom but the reality of 8th is PoS/Purple Sun spam being a common occurence.
We'll see what they do to wraiths and banshees.

Still only a 50/50 chance If we assume it casts, they get 6 dice to use and it doesn't scatter, there are more annoying things you can use 6 dice for in the lore of shadow.

 

[Sanai]

Seneschal, purple sun/etc spam isnt a common occurence everywhere, it just depends on the atmosphere of where you play. Where I play, people don't really do the whole tourny list thing much.

 

[Skittles]

Another thing to keep in mind...the "Power scroll and throw 6/7 dice at a spell" tactic is going away. In the WD is an errata for the power scroll that changes the effect. It now halves the casting value of one spell, which cannot be boosted.

 

[Seneschal]

It's true that it does depend on your own environment but if you have no other gaming store to go to, you've got to deal with the lists that are present there. Some players using the big spells don't consider themselves power gamers because they aren't using a special character to cast them.
I honestly feel that PoS gets you the best results from Lore of Shadow. My colleague lost his GG block 1st turn the other night and there honestly wasn't anything else in his list that could help him be victorious.
Power Scroll isn't even the issue with my club. Roll high on the winds of magic and chuck all the dice you can at the big, uber spell and you erase the biggest threat on the table.
They need to errata the Lores. I'm psyched about the Terrorgeist and the possibility of bloodlines coming back like most VC players are but for those of us stuck with one gaming club, you have to field very specific lists or we get tabled in no time.

 

[Vespian]

Oh joy, rules lawyering is already out and about... Share your thoughts as I'm confident a FAQ/Errata is needed ASAP.

Q.) Is the Death Shriek special attack considered a 'shooting attack' for the purposes of the Storm Banner and Magic Lores affecting non-BS shooting?

Q.) Can you use this Death Shriek on units in combat when the Terrorgheist is not in combat and has LoS?

Q.) Do you resolve the Death Shriek in both shooting phases or only in your own shooting phase?

Q.) Can/how would it work in challenges? What about challenges lasting more than one turn?

I have ideas on most of this stuff but wanted your feedback.

 

[Marius]

I'm yet to read the exact rules per the WD (I'm aware they're posted above - however until I've seen them in a WD with my own eyes, I'm using plenty of salt), however I believe that it would/should follow the rules for the Banshee's scream as that's the closest thing to it I'm aware of.

Therefore:-

1) No - per VC FAQ pg3 6th question on the left.

2) No - per VC FAQ pg3 8th question on the left.

3) Only your shooting phase.

4) I can't see why it wouldn't work. However, per the Banshee's rules about using it n combat - any wounds caused by it wouldn't contribute to combat res.

I think the 4th one could do with some clarification (a battle report in which the situation comes up perhaps?), but otherwise it seems reasonably straight forward.

 

[Fallen Angel]

Which number is the WD containing these new rules? I'm planning on ordering online since I live far from the closest GW. Thanks! :clown:

 

[Vorizah Vukotic]

I'm just not excited about this new monster for me it's just like bringing VC into line with all other armies. Have an amazing Monster for 200+ pts yaay so individual blah blah. But anyway giving it a scream attack like a banshee.... surely just madness this thing is supposed to be a zombie type creature? I think anyway? so why give it the ability of an ethereal it should have a different breath weapon attack, and the fact that only a Vamp with summon ghouls can ride it really p!"^%s me off, if they returned bloodline and alowed it to only be ridden by strigoi at the expense of zombie dragons I would say fair enough from a fluff point (cos strigoi don't ride ZD) or if afore mentioned zombie dragons were allowed to be taken as riderless rare choices I wouldn't have a problem, it just seems like GW is trying to turn VC into ghoul counts, an for those of us who remember the good ol days of ghoul skirmishers back in 4th (i think thats when ghouls could first skirmish, it was a long time ago after all lol)

well I've ranted long enough and kinda forgotten my point so yeah when I remember it an a not so frustrated I will finish this post, so to sum up I DO NOT LIKE THIS THING!

 

[Lamentandpaint]

The WD containing these new rules would presumably be WD NR 380, August issue of 2011, since July's WD was 379.

some random ordering page for a source:
http://www.infinitas.com.au/Product.php?bar=5011921022007

I noticed that you live in sweden FA, wouldnt you be able to get it from your local "Pressbyrån" store? Their all over Sweden and all the ones I've been to sell WD :)

 

[Count michael]

Looks like a cool model I will defiantly have to get one as the model looks awesome will be interesting to see how good it actually is in a game

 

[Vortaine]

Not only do I love the model, but I think that the rules are great, and put the silly zombie dragon we have to shame (I mean, for the price of roughly 6 ghouls less pointswise you get more wounds and better toughness, and cooler rules ;]).

My question is, how does the screech affect war machines, such as Steam Tanks. It seems to be identical to the Tomb Banshee's ability, which according to the FAQ CAN hit war machines. Last I checked, Steam Tanks don't have a leadership value (obviously the crew does), but does that mean you basically blow the bagebus out of it, or do you use crews, the generals, or what?

It seems, regardless, a good way to smash anything with a 1+ armor save ^^

 

[Marius]

My question is, how does the screech affect war machines, such as Steam Tanks. It seems to be identical to the Tomb Banshee's ability, which according to the FAQ CAN hit war machines. Last I checked, Steam Tanks don't have a leadership value (obviously the crew does), but does that mean you basically blow the bagebus out of it, or do you use crews, the generals, or what?

It seems, regardless, a good way to smash anything with a 1+ armor save ^^

You use the crew's LD - which iirc is 10.

 

[Vortaine]

That isn't terrible then, by any means. An average roll is a 7, which means, assuming the bugger is at full wounds, you get a 13. Not super duper great for Steam Tanks, but my goodness that'll wreck decently sized units with high armor saves. I think in a 3k game I want 3. And then one as a mount for my lord. I think they are, in theory, a wonderful addition to our Army book and will become the bane of many armies!

Now, how can I make one from scratch?

 

[Dogmar]

I do like the rules for it and the points cost are not overly high so it's a good deal really. Not sure if it's in line with the recent TK monsters as I neither have rules nor points costs for them handy (yeah, I didn't spend 32 EUR on a book for an army I don't play).

While I definitely want to include one in my army for it's killing potential on high AS units that the rest of the army is generally lacking (well, let's not count GG) it bothers me that there is the potential to field LOTS of these things in higher points games meaning your army will basically consist of 4-6 big gribblies and some core to fill the minimum requirement. Might prove effective or not but is definitely unfluffy.

 

[Sanai]

I dont think they are turning VC into ghoul counts at all, and the terrorgeist is a corporeal spirit of terror, hence the name, so why not have a banshee style scream?
Also, I don't see where it says that strigoi don't ride zombie dragons.

Also, by 4-6 gribblies and some core, you really mean "4-6 gribblies and 100-200 skeletons or ghouls" that is not what I would call "some core" to me that looks like a pretty impressive amount of infantry.

 

[Dogmar]

Sanai, If you really want to go all out on monsters you can easily field 3 in a 2k army, 4 if a hero is allowed to ride one. To me this is monster mash and not a normal army any more.

The name is pretty dumb as it is just two random German words that are in a way connected to VC thrown together with a spelling mistake (GW: Terrorgheist, right: Terrorgeist). I'd have liked some more creativity on that one, but oh well, the model is cool!

 

[Seneschal]

Sanai, If you really want to go all out on monsters you can easily field 3 in a 2k army, 4 if a hero is allowed to ride one. To me this is monster mash and not a normal army any more.

Mannfred The Acolyte can ride an Abyssal Terror if I'm not mistaken...hmm...methinks we will indeed be seeing monster based VC in the near future...

 

[Luvadin]

I was thinking of switching from Black Coach to Varghulf and suddenly this little friend arrives, complicating my decision... Those who have experience using the Varghulf, what similarities/differences or pros/cons do you see if you compare it with the Terrorgheist?

I see a better fighter in the Varghulf and even though the Terrorgheist has 2 more wounds and 1 extra point of R, it still seems compensated in terms of durability as the Varghulf has a better regenaration. Hence, is this special ability worth at least "2-Sceptre-of-Noirot-points"?

Thanks

 

[Vespian]

Last night I played the Terrorgheist in our weekly escalation league. I used a Varghulf on a 5x5 base so we could get a feel for how it performed. My opponent for the night was WoC with a caster, war shrine, chosen, and warriors.

The Terrorgheist marched up to the flanks of my opponent's army in the top of turn one. It put three wounds on the war shrine in its opening turn and finished it in the second turn. Using flying I kept it out of charge arc and used it as a harassment unit. It finally died in turn six, every turn my opponent would throw six dice at the spell WoC have that causes one wound.

Through the course of the game it finished off a war shrine and a handful of warriors. It felt balanced and fun for flavor; nothing terribly game changing. A nice break from the usual VC play style. I think we have stronger rares but man it is nice to have a choice.

 

[Vortaine]

Not really sure how it is "unfluffy." Most of us run a majority of Ghouls anyways, and what I see is a very large Vargulf (which is the heir to the strigoi in this edition it seems). Vargulfs and Strigoi have a particular affinity for ghouls, and ghouls tend to flock towards vargulf.

Given that it can be used by a Ghoul King, aka a Strigoi-esque Lord, I think that it is entirely fluffy.

As for the name, you realize Geist/Gheist means ghost right? Poltergeist means "noisy ghost," for example. Given it causes terror, and is is pretty terrifying, the name fits in my book.

 

[Sanai]

I like the name. It is a fairly creative monster in my opinion, giving it a breath attack would have just made it a slightly different zombie dragon. Giving it a LD scream attack differentiates it from the Zombie Dragons noxious gas breath. One of our armies greatest strength is supposed to be causing fear, terror, attacking the enemies LD. So another banshee scream style attack is a pretty good addition. If you don't like monsters, dont use them. Those of us who do like them should be free to use monsters without any complaint from others (especially as others will just pit of shades/cannon snipe the monsters to death anyway)