The Helsmiths have been given their due and have been granted a set of Scourge of Ghyran rules. Currently, the Helsmiths are in a weird spot and have quite a few warscrolls that can use some shoring up and some great opportunities to shake things up. Does this pack deliver the extra daemonstuff necessary to light the forges of this battletome? No, but let’s look anyway.
Battle Formations
We have two formations to look at. First up is Domination Force which lets you count as double your wounds for the purposes of Power Through. This is… fine? Ok? Its kind of baffling because it feels like a half measure when the army of renown based around powering through is right there. Also, this is competing with giving Urak Taar +3 to cast which this pales in comparison to.
Next up is maybe one of the worst bits of rules I’ve seen in this edition of the game. Industrial Polluters gives you -1 to hit in shooting. If you’re infantry or cavalry. If you’re wholly within 9” of a war machine. In Ghyran. This really doesn’t do a single thing for anything, pass on this one.
Accursed Devices
This is a unique table of enhancements for War Machines in your roster. As far as extra upgrades go, this is a really neat way to add a bit more personality to your guys. There are three options to pick from. First is Greed Pistons which gives a War Machine 3d6 take the highest charges, this is pretty good for a melee Domination Engine to tie something up early or for an Infernal Taurus to missile out to stay in range of Bull Centaurs. Breath of Contempt is up next, letting you do D3 mortals on a 2+ to three things in combat range at the end of the turn. This is nice but doesn’t really compete with the other two picks. Last up is Overdrive Switch which gives a unit +1 to hit once per turn when you use an attack but on 1s to hit they take a mortal wound. You also only get this bonus when targeting something within 9”, so artillery can’t get much in it. Again, nice on a melee domination engine or taurus but kinda whatever on anything else.
Warscrolls
Warscrolls are definitely the area this faction needs the most help. There are certain units that are a bit of a head scratcher as to when you’d ever use them (looking at you, Anointed Sentinels) so I was very keen to see what’s here. Well, first up is Infernal Cohort with Hashutite Blades, which gets an upgraded gong ability that always gives you extra rally rolls until you roll a 1 on the rally (with that many dice it’ll likely happen the first time) and their extra run ability is replaced with the ability to either refill a nearby infantry unit with up to 3 models by removing up to 3 models from this unit, OR heal an artillery piece via the same method, giving it a wound for each model removed from the unit. This sounds cooler than it is I think, mostly because I can’t think of a situation where I would really want to do this outside of my flamehurlers getting shot a bit and wanting to get them back in the action. That said I would just take the vanilla version of these. The auto run is really nice to get on objectives fast.
Next is the War Despot who absolutely needed a rework. He gets to finally use his gun now, allowing him to use it to do D3 mortals to an enemy unit on a 2+ and allowing an infantry unit in combat with them to retreat with no penalty and with some extra speed. In addition he has a passive ability to give everything within 9” that has no Power Points count as having 1. This aura grows by 3” for each point the War Despot has. This is a great addition to the roster and is fantastic for keeping your less important pieces interesting while the important pieces get the lion’s share of the Power Points. The only issue is this dude is 140 Points, making him as expensive as a Deathshrieker with no access to prayers or spells. While I like this guy, I don’t really think he’s worth the points.
Regiments of Renown
Okay, this isn’t part of the Ghyran update, but came out alongside it and I’m not gonna write a whole post about it so I’m putting it here. Helmsiths gained access to all of the Chaos RoRs, which can be a big help to shore up their roster. Currently I’m looking at taking Skarbrand as a unit I can bridge across the battlefield and actually have kill something. Alternatively, the RoR with 10x Chaos Warriors, 5x Knights, and a Lord on Steed add some extra durability and killing power to the list.
Final Thoughts
A bit of a swing and a miss here. There isn’t really anything here outside the Accursed Devices that I’m running to include in a list and that’s only because they’re free. Nothing here really addresses the core issues with the faction and doesn’t really change how it plays. Here’s hoping the Battlescroll does something to help us out a bit.
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