Zaal2, Back in (Obsidian) Black...

Greetings Pop Pickers... it's Gencon, and what does that mean? Why, for the first time since Master Ascetic Naaresh there is a Skorne Warlock convention pre-release. And boy, has he generated some heat online.

So gather fellow tyrants, so that we can lament our latest triumph of Skornegy, and have the same conversation as everyone else is presently, starting with 'What the actual fuck were you thinking PP?'

First, because its how we roll over here at Imperishable Dominion, the most important thing is to discuss a little background for a second. What made our man Zaal go epic? Did he maraud across the land, murdering entire armies in the name of his ancestors? Perhaps he achieved a position of ultimate mortitheurgical and spiritual power? How about rising to command the armies of the western reaches?

Nope to all of those. Zaal became epic, because he bought the farm. Shed a tear for our most famous of Extollers. Only one though - in the Skorne Empire, as a wiser man than I once said, death isn't the handicap it used to be.

In game terms therefore, Zaal2 is an Ancestral Guardian now, with an impressive(ly bad) statline to match. At least he kept FURY7.

SPD4 - now, everyone who has ever played against Skorne will tell you that the SPD stats in the faction are really just for show. They're not really the right numbers. Except in this case, it kinda is. More on the one SPD buff he has later.

STR8, MAT6, 1x P&S14 Reach Magic Weapon - well, the POW and the Reach are to be honest fairly standard within Warlocks of the faction. What's particularly exciting is MAT6. Again, more on that later.

RAT6 - Fairly confusing why this is so high, considering he doesn't have a gun anymore.

DEF10, ARM18, 18 Boxes - hot damn, now we're talking. Two approaches to this. First one tells you he's awful. Easy to hit, and DEF+ARM 30 is not setting the world on fire for anyone. The second, and the one I subscribe to is that he's going to get hit by an opponent who wants to make sure it happens really; if Morghoul in his tee at DEF17 can be hit with worrying regularity, then Zaal certainly will. Therefore, I'll take ARM18. It's not the best, but its tanky enough.

CMD8, Construct - really interesting that he can actually use this. I'd have thought he couldn't talk, like his Obsidian buddies. Perhaps the big disk on his back is an electrostatic loudspeaker.

+6 Warbeast Points - kinda feels like he should have more, but its not bad, not good, just somewhere in the middle.

Nothing that's going to set the world on fire there then. Has he got some interesting abilities to go with them though? Sort of. Still feels a little shy of what you'd hope for.

Zaal2 kept Direct Spirits from his prime incarnation. This is actually pretty cool, and certainly plays into his other main abilities in a big way. Sucks to be you Cryx, although you probably won't like playing Testament much. Reclaim is what takes this ability and industrializes it though, offering Soul collection within his entire Control area of 14". Essentially, Zaal2 is a walking Soul battery then, whom can either farm out boosts / attacks to his Ancestral Guardian friends, or picks himself up a whole bunch of extra Fury each turn. 

Steady - always useful, especially meaning that he'll always be able to move around at the start of his turn for..

Righteous Vengeance. Now, this is a good ability on Hakaar the Destroyer, because that lad has MAT9, like an old, dead Butcher. For Zaal, MAT6 really isn't making this a reliable attack method, and its more a movement buff. And lets be realistic, if Zaal is within 5" on models that are being destroyed... well, you probably have some issues.

Finally, the imaginatively named Obsidian Staff has Silencer. Meh. You really don't want to have to be using this.

Now, let's talk the spell list, and the feat.

Annihilation - it's got to be a contender for one of the most extravagantly expensive to cast versus end result spells in the game. Have you ever seen Terminus, the original owner, use it? If this was a used car and Zaal picked it up from the Liche Lord, its a battered old Morris Minor. Remove from play is nice, and if you manage to actually kill a model with it, then the Soul you'll hopefully pick up effectively sets you up for a less expensive shot again in the next turn. I might get behind it, if it could be either cast by Marketh, or it was AOE4. Alas, its neither.

Mage Sight - situationally nice at most, this will at least help your beasts pick out that model hiding in the woods with the bears, or make up for when you left your Extoller at home. There's perhaps a little jank to this, but you really have to look to see it.

Sunder Spirit - boom, its the shitty nuke (tm). This one isn't awful, RNG10 and POW12 works, especially at cost 2. There's even a little bit of denial built in, stripping the animus of a Warbeast which it damages.

Transference - and this is going to be his big thing. With Reclaim, Zaal potentially has a whole bunch of boosts to chuck out here, especially helpful to the Immortals he'll want to run, or to allow the Ancestral Guardians with him to use their own Souls for exclusively buying attacks. How good is this? Well, it's downfall will be that to get the most out of it, he'll need to see a lot of his guys get killed, much like Zaal1's feat - thus making it a careful balancing act.

Vision - a spell which essentially lets you ignore a freestrike, as any player with any experience will easily remove from your crucial model before they go to kill it.

Now.. the feat, and I'll admit, this is a hard sell.

Strength Eternal.

All Friendly Faction Constructs gain +5 ARM, boosted attack rolls, and heal D6+3 damage.

Here's why this currently sucks. 

Immortals and Ancestral Guardians are not enough to make this work. Ancestral Guardians are not difficult to wipe out in one or two shots, or a dedicated attack. They won't get to heal, as they'll be destroyed the turn that they get attacked. Immortals won't heal - they have one box.  Ancestral Guardians at MAT8 don't need the MAT buff. Really, you're just looking at the boost for Immortals (although, they won't get the MAT buff on their vengeance move at the start of the turn..), and the ARM. ARM22 on a ARM17 model that shrugged off blast damage before and only have one box isn't the best. ARM23 on an Ancestral Guardian is nice I guess, but your opponent can ignore them for a turn, and then kill them the next.

At least Zaal himself might like it. 

So, time for the dojo.

Zaal2 is another Skorne infantry guy, like Makeda1, Makeda2, Xerxis1, Zaal1, and so on. His big problem is that for his feat, he wants that infantry to be constructs - for all of his other abilities, he wants them to be living. He's unfortunately not an Ancestral Guardian himself, so he'll want a couple of them at least along for the ride to get the best out of the immortals - the issue being that he then faces the choice of losing Souls himself to fuel Transference, or starve the other statues.

Sad times.

Beyond that, Zaal2 feels so directionless, that he could probably take anything in his battlegroup. There's an argument that an Aradius Sentinel or Cannoneer (people still take them, right?) will like Mage Sight, until you realise that giving out Eyeless Sight is not an issue. I'm also not sure how many points you'll have for the beasts. I've been playing around with lists, and by the time you've picked up two max units of Immortals, a couple of Ancestral Guardians and two or so units of Nihilators or Praetorians to make Souls.

His statline doesn't want him to be in melee at all, but Righteous Vengence does, to help him move around. If you keep Vision on him to effectively give him another transfer, then you'll be giving up on Transference which is absolutely his strongest element.

Looking forward, we'll see. He could have an extremely strong Tier. Devastation could also offer some more constructs, which could then give the feat more credence, or a UA for the Immortals. If we're making a wish list, lets have a tier that lets us make the Warbeasts count as constructs - imagine the painting you could do!

In short, at first glance, it looks like tournament play wont see this guy much, especially until Devastation comes out. After that.. well, that's going to depend on whats in the book.  I'd hoped that he'd be the control Warlock that the faction needs, which sadly he's not. In fact, he's kinda more of the same I fear, which is mildly depressing - when I saw Mage Sight, things seemed to be looking up..

But I'm still excited, and quietly confident. He can't be anywhere near as bad as he is on paper, right?