So after my first post giving a brief into to my Guild Crew my first Master review is actually going to be on the Neverborn master, Lilith.
Quite the switch-a-roo for me, going away from my favoured all guns blazing approach to the get up close and personal ways of Lilith and her nephilim cohorts.
This was helped along by another slow grow so first up I purchased the Lilith crew box and the Nephilim themed box both of which I'll go into more detail about below.
5 Points for those interested in Lilith
1) The Initial Box
So what's in the box? Well Lilith is accompanied by her trusty Henchman Barbaros, 3 Terror Tots (love those little guys) and her Totem Cherub.
Without upgrades this gives you 25ss which is a pretty good starting point. Barbaros is your tank, you want him up the front taking the hits and pushing people around with his movement shenanigans. The Terror Tots are the ultimate scheme runners, these little guys drop at the first strong breeze but they are fast ... so , so fast and finally the totem Cherub who runs about with a bow and arrow and is not going to make you fall in love with someone however he will give you the 'Slow' condition and generally cause a nuisance of himself/herself/itself!?
2) Lilith - Front of Card
Ok, so what's on the front of her card? The basics are she is a Master (duh!), Living, a Nephilim and has a healthy Soul Stone cache of 4.
Her stats, going from left to right, we get defence (DF) 7, yes 7! This, quite frankly. is awesome and can really catch opponents off guard. On top of this if you have a mask in your defensive total thanks to Disappear and they miss the attacking model gets a -2 to their melee (MI) for the rest of the turn, so try to keep a high card (or soulstone for a mask) on that first attack from their big bruiser and you are looking good.
WP 5 is next and is pretty average, it looks bad against her defence (DF) and basically is so be careful of any WP based attacks, especially those that like to paralyse you. She is often a big target of these kind of attacks.
Next we have wounds (WD) of 10, pretty standard stuff for a master and a walk (WK) of 6, this is excellent, With 3 APs she can move 18 inches and combined with her Master of Malifaux ability that means severe and hazardous terrain does not hinder her movement (or sight!) she can really motor. Her charge (CG) is also 6 so therefore respectable and height (HT) 2 is standard for a humanoid model.
Also on the front of her card is Black Blood as per all Nephilim models that causes 1 damage with (1) when she suffers damage and last but certainly not least Rush of Magic. This allows her to draw an additional card in the Draw Phase and then discard a card. Great ability for hand manipulation. The more cards you can see the better.
3) Lilith - Back of Card
Lilith has three Attack Actions and just one Tactical Action 'out of the box' and these are as follows:
First up is the (1) Greatsword Attack, this is a very good attack with an MI7 so you'll hit just about anyone you want with a 13 in your hand, a 2 inch range and a damage spread of 3/4/6 make her someone to be wary of. Furthermore if she didn't charge she gets a plus flip on damage and if she did charge, no problems just ensure you use your Tactical action (0) Sudden Darkness and charge through some terrain (easy to do with some planning when you don't need line of sight) and you get +1 damage to all change attacks.
Next is the (1) Wicked Vines spell. This has Ca6 with a built in mask needing a TN (target number) of 12. So, pretty easy to get off however it is resisted by your targets Defence. If successful the targets takes 1 damage but primarily they gain the Rooted condition. This holds the target to the end of the turn disallowing them to make Walk or Charge actions, so ensure you target a yet to activate model. If they are pushed free of this condition they take 3 damage for their troubles. Most Nephilim have a push mechanism in their attacks so there are some good combos to be had here. The denial or movement though is a fantastic result that often leaves your opponent scratching their head.
Finally (1) Tangle Shadowsthis is a teleportation style spell that places a friendly model of your own (within 6") in base to base with the target model and places the target into base to base with Lilith. Let the smack down commence! This also allows you to advance a model up the 18" (the range of the spell is 12" and your model with 6") so some serious in your face action here and needless to say there are plenty of other tricksy movement shenanigans you can get up to with this one. One very important thing to note with Tangle Shadows is that it needs two masks to complete, one is built in but you will need to ensure you have the card in your hand or burn that soulstone to get two.
4) Venturing into the upgrades
So this is very subjective based on schemes, strategies, models selected and of course your personal play style but I will briefly touch on a few I have used to success or not!
First there are three main upgrades that I enjoy using with Lilith, they are Beckon Malifaux, Living Blade and Wicked Mistress.
Beckon Malifaux, a 1ss upgrade allows Lilith to take two (0) actions, as normally you can only take 1 and gives her a second (0) action (surprise, surprise) that with a card of 7 or greater (as the suit is built in) she can summon two touching 50mm illusionary forest tokens. Needless to say her other (0) action that gives her extra damage on the charge through terrain is an obvious synergy. These tokens have all the normal forest terrain traits and remain until the next time this action is taken, so no end of the turn it goes business it is there to stay until you say otherwise.
Living Blade is 2ss and upgrades her weapon to 3" range, which further increases her threat range and also allows her a free swing at anything that ends a push within 1" (not 3"). With so many pushes available to the Neverborn and in particular her Nephilim this triggers quite regularly with a little planning.
The third upgrade I enjoy is Wicked Mistress for 1ss that gives Liltih a (1) action lure called Transfixing Gaze, the range is 12" so not quite as good as others but the casting is 8 so you are likely to get it off, much like Tangle Shadows however it needs an additional mask so make sure you plan accordingly. Lure said enemy, get a free strike thanks to Living Blade and then add more smack to target and rejoice in their demise. One thing to watch for though is it uses a models charge for the push distance and the odd models does not have a charge value.
Obsidian Talons and Pact I also like. Briefly Obsidian Talons allows all Nephilim models to cheat on a negative damage flip as long as you get two masks. One is built in to every Nephilim attack so one additional is required via soul stone or card use but this can be brutal when you have the Red Joker in your hand and want to ensure you inflict the hurt. This particular upgrade does not NEED to be on Lilith, any Nephilim model can have it.
Pact allows you to cheat when the Black Joker appears, so this can be seen as a bit of a waste of 1ss but the amount of times I flip the Black Joker is uncanny so I like this on a big hitter like Lilith or a Mature Nephilim to ensure the attacks are not foiled.
5) The first expansion to her crew
As I mentioned at the start of this article I purchased the Nephilim box that gives you two Young Nephilim and one Mature. These, in my opinion are a natural choice first up with Lilith as even if not purchased in your initial crew they may well be needed if the Terror Tots grow through the aptly named Rapid Growth upgrade that allows Tots to grow to Young and Young to Mature on certain triggers, generally the demise of an enemy model ... think feeding the cubs!
I hope this has helped give any budding Neverborn or Lilith players a leg up on what they can expect with Lilith. It future posts I'll expand on her crew and other options available to her within the Neverborn ranks.
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