Hail, faithful of the Lord of the Flies for another Trench Crusade Faction Focus! Today we’re looking at the goopy, gross guys known as The Black Grail. These scions of Beelzebub come packed with some incredibly unique mechanics and specialized units to make them one of the most unique factions in the game outside Court of the Seven Headed Serpent. Let’s take a look.

Overview

Black Grail may look like your stereotypical tough-and-slow faction on its face, but they’re a little more nuanced than that. With limited access to armor but the Undead Fortitude rule and Fear present on almost all your units, you’re more differently durable than straight up tough. Some units like your Lord of Tumors and Grail Knights can combine these to make some disgustingly resilient units. In addition, while your basic troops move 5”, you actually have access to one of the fastest units in the game with the Herald of Beelzebub and when supplemented with Grail Hounds you can have a lightning fast force. 

They also have the Infection Marker special rule on a lot of their weaponry, which not only acts as a Blood Marker that ticks up every time your opponent activates, but also can’t be healed in the normal ways Blood Markers are generally removed. This all comes together to create a force that will knock an unprepared opponent off balance.

Strengths and Weaknesses

Strengths

• Some Great Special Rules: Infection Markers, forcing -1 Dice to Morale Tests, and Undead Fortitude make for a great and unique set of rules that will win you games
• Speed of the Fly: You get some very powerful skirmishers that can be a terror to your opponent.
• Heavy Hitters: There are some combos in the faction, like the Lord of Tumors with Beelzebub’s Axewith some Devotees, that can easily kill a model in a single activation.
• A Fantastic Armory: Devotees, the Black Grail Shield, the Compound Eyes Helmet, and more all make for some very strong picks from the armory

Weaknesses

• Limited Upgrade Potential: Very few things in the Black Grail roster have the ability to draw from the full armory, if at all. You’ll be struggling to spend all your ducats late into the campaign.
• Your Big Guy Isn’t Great: The Amalgam could solve the above problem but as it stands it’s not the most impactful piece on the field. With no bonuses to hit in either melee or shooting, no way to get armor outside a shield, and no way to advance it, it’s more of a paperweight than a threat.
• Heavily Specialized: Your tough guys are slow and your fast guys are fragile, expect no jack of all trades units here
• Limited Ranged Potential: You will be getting the job done in melee for the most part, you’ve got some great ranged options but nothing to write home about.

Unit Overview

Leaders

Kicking us off is the head honcho, the Lord of Tumors. This dude’s a beatstick, getting a staggering +4 Dice in melee making contact all but a sure thing. He’s only got +1 dice to ranged but this can be improved with equipment if you want him to be more of a generalist. He’s got STRONG and TOUGH as well as the Black Grail special rule Undead Fortitude which imposes -1 Dice on non-fire injury rolls which makes for a difficult piece to shift. He also has the Beelzebub’s Touch rule, which has him inflict an extra Infection Marker any time he does damage. In addition when he fights, you can choose to fight twice with his fists instead of any melee weapons he’s equipped with. If you’re playing vanilla Grail, this guy is kinda a must take. With Beelzebub’s Axe and a couple devotees he can take out almost anything in the game with relative ease. Sitting at 120 Ducats he’s a pretty expensive piece, but well worth the cost.

If you want to you can forgo your Lord of Tumors for an extra Plague Knight. On their face they’re a pretty standard unit. With STRONG they can carry pretty much anything in the armory alongside a shield. Also present is the standard Undead Fortitude and Fear rules present on most Black Grail units. They have +2 Dice in melee but no bonuses to ranged attacks so you’ll have to use the Compound Eyes Helmet to get them shooting. You can’t field them without armor but you weren’t gonna do that anyway. Where they get interesting is the Knightly Ranks you can buy for them. Each can only get one so you have to be choosey, but these are a game changer. Knight of the Rotten Cross is the standout, letting you grab a weapon from the armory of either Heretic Legion or New Antioch. This can give you tech from other armies to help shore up your lackluster shooting or unlock some pretty nasty combos. Combine with Devotees for a +4 to Injure Sacrificial Dagger or grab a Compound Eyes Helmet and an Anti Material Rifle for a potent shooting threat. Less impactful but still good is Companion of the Fly which grants +1 Dice to either Ranged or Melee. The +1 to Melee is kind of overkill, but +1 Dice to ranged attacks is something this army lacks so its not a bad pick here. Lastly there’s Plague Almoner which lets you Bloodbath with one less Blood or Infection marker. This is the most expensive at 10 Ducats (the others cost 5 but that doesn’t include the cost of the weapon for Rotten Cross) but is well worth it, allowing you to potentially throw a gas grenade, get the downed result, and bloodbath on the charge. Don’t sleep on this guy. The knights sit at a cost of 60 Ducats, which is a pretty cheap base before you include the mandatory armor. Well worth the cost and I don’t expect to see a list without one.

The Rest

Grail Guard are your only other elite and honestly not a ton to write home about here. You can only take 0-3 so don’t expect them to be the main battleline of your force. They come with the standard Undead Fortitude and Fear present on most Black Grail units. They get +1 dice in melee and nothing for ranged, making them a semi reliable front line fighter. They get access to your entire armory though, a rarity amongst the rest of your forces. For special rules they have Parasitic Tick which lets them heal off of inflicting markers and Bodyguard which lets them redirect attacks into them (with the exception of Blast weapons). He’s a neat piece but far from mandatory. Once your campaign gets going though, you’ll max on these pretty quickly with them only costing 55 Ducats.

Hounds of the Black Grail are your midrange fast movers. Moving 8” with +1 to Dash rolls, they can get up the table quickly and tie things down. For 5 Ducats they can also do Infection Markers instead of Blood Markers as damage (you’ll want to do this). In addition, with the Disease Carrier rule, whenever an enemy model activates near them, they get an Infection marker. This means if they already have a marker, they get 2 upon activating, meaning things can get out of hand quickly. They have a rather long base too, so tagging multiple things isn’t out of the question. They have Undead Fortitude and Fear as well, so don’t worry about missiling these living tar pits into your opponent’s lines. At 60 Ducats, I almost always start with 2 of these in any list.

Heralds of Beelzebub are one of the standout units of the faction. They have no bonuses to any of their attacks and can’t wear armor, but move a staggering 10” with fly. This means with a successful dash they can zip up 20”. They can take only ranged weapons from the armory and the only equipment they can take is the Compound Eyes Helmet, which increases their Ranged Bonus to +1 Dice,. A single Herald can also be upgraded to have the Maddening Buzz ability which makes every action within 8” a risky action. This is really strong but with no armor and being the only Black Grail unit without Undead Fortitude, this makes him a sitting duck out in the open that’s easy to pop. They do however have Skirmisher, allowing them to move D3” when targeted by a charge. With this you can move near another, more threatening, melee unit or even just behind a wall to make the charge a Risky Action. There’s a lot of nuance to this rule so you’ll wanna develop this skill. If you do get bogged down in melee you always count as armed with an Infected Proboscis which lets you do infection markers instead of Blood Markers as damage and heals you if you manage to hurt someone with it. I wouldn’t toss these into melee, but it’s definitely nice to have. Outfit wise, I would suggest Corruption Belchers or Putrid Shotguns with the Compound Eyes Helmet.

The mainstay of the Black Grail lineup are your Thralls they come in two flavors, Grail Thralls with Undead Resilience and Fly Thralls that move an extra inch and, well, fly. Neither can take any type of equipment so they’re going into battle naked. Both have -1 Dice in melee but get +1 Dice for each Black Grail model within 3” with Overwhelming Horde. At 25 Ducats, these make for some great bozos to throw on an objective or tie up some idiots for a few turns. 

Lastly there’s the Amalgam, your large adult son who never really figured out what he wanted to be when he grew up so he kinda does nothing. He’s a bit of a weird one, he has six arms, two of which have a special version of STRONG which lets him wield a heavy weapon in each. It can pull any weapon from the Black Grail armory for these arms and one can take a trench shield but he has access to no other equipment. He has Corpulent which is like a super version of Undead Fortitude, granting -2 dice to Injury Rolls against him and Toxic, allowing him to ignore Gas. He gets an extra attack against things on the floor and can freely move in and out of combat. This is an interesting suite of rules, but ultimately without any bonuses to hit most of the weapons he can take won’t reliably connect. There are a few ways to try and make him work, first is taking two Corruption Belchers so he can be a walking flamethrower turret. Another is to outfit him with a bunch of melee weapons and a few pistols which can work double duty. Ultimately though at 140 Ducats I’d pass on him until later in the campaign when you have some Ducats burning a hole in your pocket.

The Armory

In addition to the normal fair of weapons, Black Grail gets access to some interesting special equipment to wage war against the living world.

Ranged Weapons

Infested Rifle (15 Ducats): A pretty standard weapon but has light armor piercing, ignoring 1 point of reduction to your Injury Rolls when firing at an armored target. This isn’t quite +1 to Injury, but considering so much of the game has access to standard armor and how cheap it is, this is a pretty good pick. At 15 Ducats its a bit expensive but a worthy addition to your force

Corruption Belcher (30 Ducats Limit: 2): Think a flamethrower but gas. It ignores armor and auto hit, doing an extra Blood Marker when it does. It also doesn’t have the normal -1 dice to injury a lot of flamethrower type weapons have, making it a reliable armor buster.

Putrid Shotgun (20 Ducats Limit: 2): its a shotgun that does Infection Markers as damage. Its got assault and shield combo. Its stronger than your average shotgun though, with no negatives to injure and a bonus to hit, very valuable on your inaccurate bozos. 

Viscera Cannon (50 Ducats Limit: 2 Elite only) This is the Black Grail heavy artillery. It gets +2 Dice to hit and when it does you can inflict up to 3 bonus Infection Markers by doing those markers to yourself. This one’s very expensive but can be a great way to get some Infection Markers out there early.

Parasite Grenades (15 Ducats): These are funny, they’re normal grenades with Assault but also when you hit with them you can move the target 3”. This can make them fall, get into combat with an enemy they don’t want to be in combat with, or even move out of combat. That said these are probably more cute than good when Gas Grenades are right there and their effect doesn’t work on things immune to Fear.

Melee Weapons

You get a slew of standard weapons but there are a couple treats for Beelzebub’s faithful

Beelzebub’s Axe (30 Ducats, Limit 1): I’ve mentioned this guy a few times now and for good reason. It’s a pretty straight forward weapon that grants +2 Injury Dice and it does Infection Markers. In the hands of something with the right support this thing can absolutely carve right through enemy armor. Throw this on a Lord of Tumors for a great time.

Plague Blade (7 Ducats Limit 3): Another straightforward one, it’s simply a melee weapon that does Infection Markers. A fantastic default pick for a Plague Knight or a Corpse Guard .

The Rest

Compound Eyes Helmet (5 Ducats, Limit 3, Elites and Heralds Only): This gives you all the benefits of a combat helmet as well as +1 Dice to hit at ranged. With very few things in this army being any good at shooting, this is a must take to build shooting threats. Throw this on a Rotten Cross Knight or a Herald.

Grail Devotee (15 Ducats/2 Glory, Limit 2, Elite Only): We’ve talked about these quite a bit and for good reason. A model can take 2 of these for 15 Ducats each and a second model can grab some for 2 Glory Each. For each Devotee a model has, they get +1 to the Injury roll. This kind of armor piercing is massive for the Black Grail gameplan, allowing your boxing Lord of Tumors to turn his fists into Sacrificial Daggers.

Black Grail Shield (20 Ducats, Elite Only): This works like a normal shield but when the bearer is targeted by a ranged attack you can perform a Success Roll to impose -2 Dice on the attack or force it to completely miss on a crit. This is fantastic for keeping your melee threats alive as they close the gap with the enemy.

Dirge of the Great Hegemon

The Dirge of the Great Hegemon are the remnants of some of Beelzebub’s most successful wars against the faithful. When the leaders of these forces fall in battle (referred to as “Hegemon Leaders”) their forces fall into deep despair and Beelzebub turns his back on these wretched beings. The gifts of the Hegemon remain however, with Plague Knights full of otherworldly power and thralls capable of understanding complex weaponry and instruments.

Special Rules

In order to take a Dirge list you have to give up quite a bit. First and most impactful, you cannot take a Lord of Tumors. This is perhaps the best unit in the default roster, so you’re losing a lot here. You are also limited to two each of Heralds and Hounds, meaning your forces’ fast movers are a bit stymied. You lose access to Beelzebub’s Axe and the Grail Shield. It’s not all bad though, you also don’t have to consider taking the Amalgam!

It’s not all bad though. You get a special Plague Knight called an Executor which gains +1 Dice to Ranged attacks and Tough, making for a proper leader to lead your warband. Most impactful of all is the addition of Bereaved which replace your thralls. These are identical in all ways but Bereaved of both types can take Ranged weapons with a Ranged Characteristic of +0. They also get access to Musical Instruments and Standards which means you get normal bozo warriors. You also get access of up to 3 Viscera Cannons which can be equipped to Bereaved, which can make for a pretty nasty gunline, if a bit expensive. 

Lastly your Plague Knights get the Hegemon’s Will ability. This allows you to remove Infection Markers from enemy models and in exchange command a thrall for each Infection Marker to Charge, Fight, Move, or Shoot. This is the mechanic that makes these warbands tick, allowing you to create some real threats out of your idiot thralls.

Equipment

Dirge warbands get access to a few special pieces of equipment.

Broken Crown (25 Ducats, Elite Only, Limit 1): Every time this model is activated, each enemy model within 1” of them get an Infection Marker. If you’re throwing your Plague Knight into the thick of it to tussle, this is a great add for them to help them spit out a bit more damage or set up Bloodbaths.

Urn of Bitter Ashes (40 Ducats, Elite only, Limit 1): Add -1 Dice to ranged attacks that target something within 3” of the bearer. This is a great defensive buff for your army, allowing your thralls to move with your Plague Knight and be defended all the way. I would strongly recommend throwing this on something as early as possible.

Great Hunger

We actually did an entire focus on just Great Hunger! You can check it out here

Example List

The Goop Gang - Click to Expand

This list gives you a pretty decent spread of stuff to try in a One-Off game. Your Lord of Tumors will absolutely punch idiots to the moon, while your knights provide some tough threats to spread around the table. Your heralds are going to be playing peekaboo, dashing out to No Man’s Land to blast something and then zipping back to safety the rest of the list exists to harass and tie stuff up or just play the mission depending on what you’re playing while your big guys get into position.

Final Thoughts

Black Grail have surprising depth considering their specialized units and give you an interesting an unique playstyle to mess around with. Between their subfactions and some really interesting equipment, theres plenty to like here. If you enjoy drippy gross guys, these guys are absolutely worth checking out and messing around with. 

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