Infernals
Infernals are evil beings from a mysterious realm that is beyond both Caen and Urcaen; Caen being the mortal world in which Warmachine and Hordes is set, and Urcaen being essentially the afterlife world.
The inhabitants of Caen lack deep knowledge of the Infernals, only knowing that they are ruthless predators with a thirst for mortal souls. Infernals will go to great lengths and may offer tremendous power to those who betray and offer up the souls of their own species or other intelligent creatures.
They have moved in the shadows of civilisation for millennia, but they have now come in force to claim the debt humanity owes them for receiving the gift of magic (that helped free mankind from its Orgoth oppressors). While staved off by the Wicked Harvest, the Infernals have not been deterred, and are here to reap the souls of two-thirds of humanity.
With the power to summon their beasts and warriors right into combat from their own Infernal plane, nothing like these creatures has ever been seen on the battlefields of the Iron Kingdoms before.
Contents
Infernals for Beginners
Aesthetic
An Infernal army can be broadly split into four model groups
- Infernal Masters - reminiscent of "Greys" with slender, overlong bodies and large heads. Except for the big guy who just looks badass.
- Horrors - very Lovecraftian with plenty of claws, tentacles, and deformed alien bodies.
- Lesser Infernals - same as Horrors, but at a smaller scale. These Infernals use the regular unit/solo rules (Horrors and Masters have custom rules).
- Infernalists - Human mortals who have devoted themselves to the Infernal Masters. Lots of spiky armor, tattered cloaks, etcetera. Oh, and big masks a-plenty!
The look was established in the 2005/2007 Monsternomican books (published for the Iron Kingdoms Role Playing Game).
Playstyle
Infernals' playstyle is dictated by their unique rules (see below) namely their ability to summon multiple horrors every game, and the way they need to spend resources + sacrifice parts of their army every turn just to stay in play.
This makes them play very fast and rough. Infernals peak in power at about turn 4 and never want to see the late game - upkeeping lots of horrors is difficult when all your cultists are dead.
The Infernals Faction has powerful solos, decent units, and somewhat average horrors. The horrors average-ness is offset by being able to summon what you want, when you want, where you want. You can summon a very robust frontline, a near endless stream of hard-hitting contesting models, or simply create a transfer target to make your Master harder to assassinate.
It's a delicate balance to play, weighing your need to spend essence on summoning and upkeeping horrors, versus spending essence to cast spells. Then, after the first few turns, your "easy" sacrifices are all used up and you need to weigh up which of your powerful solos will next be sacrificed for the greater bad.
Starter Sets
As a limited faction, Infernals do not have a traditional starter set or Battlebox. They do have an all-in-one army box, but it is a limited production run. If the availability of the previous army (Crucible Guard) is any indication, you can expect the all-on-one box to be difficult to get ahold of from about 2020.03 onwards.
The contents of it are:
- Umbral Guardian solo
- Cultist Band
- Leader & 5 Grunts
- 3x Dark Sentinel (weapon attachments)
- Master Preceptor Orin Midwinter (command attachment)
- Griever Swarm
- Leader & 9 Grunts
Starting Infernals
Obviously the army box described above is a great place to start, and beyond that you'll want to expand your roster of horrors and solos. Horrors because summoning is the main, and most powerful, mechanic that Infernals have and it's a lot less powerful if you don't have a swiss army knife worth of different tools to summon in. Solos because, as a faction, Infernals live and die by their solos - they're excellent and incredibly powerful models.
William "Spell my name right" Cruickshanks recommends this as a buying guide to create a competitive 2-list 75 point force:
- The army box
- Omodamos, The Black Gate
- Horrors
- Units
- Cultist Band (×2)
- Solos
In regards to the Hearts of Darkness theme - which requires you to buy a bunch of non-Infernal models to use it - it's not essential to have a Hearts list if you want to play Infernals competitively. Infernals have very much been balanced around Dark Legacy, and don't rely on having a Hearts list to cover their weaknesses. Obviously if you like the look of Hearts, or already own models which you want to put in Hearts, then that's fantastic. But do not feel obligated to buy into Hearts "as well as" Infernals.
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Line of Sight article : Brawlmachine List Building - Infernals |
Unique Rules
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Masters, Horrors, and Essence
Infernals introduce two new model types to the game, Infernal Masters and Horrors, which are the Faction's equivalent to warcasters and warjacks respectively. These models use essence instead of focus or fury. You can spend essence points pretty much the same way as focus (to buy attacks, cast spells, and so forth) however it has a couple of advantages (it doesn't expire every round, and Masters can use it to transfer damage instead of reducing damage) and one notable disadvantage - the main way to replenish it is by sacrificing the human models within the Infernal army.
Summoning Horrors mid-game
The other defining characteristic of the Infernal Faction is the Masters' ability to summon one new Horror every round. There's a few hoops to jump through, such as spending essence points and sacrificing a Marked Soul, but you can summon any kind of Horror, you're not limited to what's written in your army list. Being able to adapt the army you're using to better to suit your current opponent and the current gamestate, with what is essentially "free points" - well let's just say it's a very powerful rule!
Theme Forces
Dark Legacy
Dark Legacy is the "pure" Infernal force and includes all the Infernal models available. It represents the invading armies of the Infernal Masters themselves, and makes heavy use of the Marked Soul rule found on human Infernalists.
Hearts of Darkness
The Hearts of Darkness theme is very different to Dark Legacy. It doesn't allow the Infernal Masters or most of the Horrors (you can still get access to Lesser Horrors and/or Light Horrors by taking Princess Regna). Instead you choose one of the available "corrupted" warcasters, and you then then get access to all of that Faction's warjacks, plus up to 2 units and 3 solos from that same Faction to supplement your Infernal units/solos.
This list was last updated: 2020.05 (Edit)
Infernal Masters
- None
Infernal Horrors
- Only Lights and Lessers that are in Great Princess Regna Gravnoy battlegroup
Warcasters
- Feora (1), (2), (3) or (4) - Protectorate
- Mortenebra (1), (2) - Cryx
- Lukas1 - Crucible Guard
- Sloan1 - Cygnar
- Malakov2 - Khador
- Crosse2 - Mercenaries
Warjacks
- Any non-character warjacks that are from the same original Faction as the warcaster.
- Character warjacks can be taken, but only if they have a bond and they're in their bonded model's battlegroup.
Units
- Up to two non-Partisan units that are from the same original Faction as the warcaster.
- Croe's Cutthroats
- Cultist Bands
- Griever Swarms
- Howlers
Solos
- Up to three non-Partisan non-Archon solos that are from the same original Faction as the warcaster.
- Eilish1
- Eilish2
- Great Princess Regna Gravnoy (Master Infernalist)
- Hermit of Henge Hold
- Nicia2
- Orin1
- Runewood2
- Saxon Orrik
- Umbral Guardians
- Valin Hauke, The Fallen Knight
- The Wretch(es)
Structures
Mercenaries
- No "extra" Mercenaries allowed.
Models
Infernal Masters
Horrors
- Lesser
- Heavy
- Colossal
Structures
Solos
- Lord Roget d'Vyaros (Infernal Master Attachment) - D'Vyaros
- Eilish Garrity, the Occultist (Partisan) - Eilish 1
- Eilish Garrity, the Dark Seeker - Eilish 2
- Valin Hauke, The Fallen Knight - Hauke 1
- Hermit of Henge Hold (Partisan) - Hermit 1
- Lynda the Forgotten - Lynda 1
- Refer to the Protectorate solo - Nicia 1
- Nicia, Hound of the Abyss - Nicia 2
- Orin Midwinter, Rogue Inquisitor (Partisan): Orin 1
- Master Pereceptor Orin Midwinter, Cultist Band UA - Orin 2
- Saxon Orrik (Partisan) - Orrik 1
- Great Princess Regna Gravnoy - Regna 1
- She is a Master Infernalist, the equivalent of a "Junior Warcaster" or Lesser Warlock.
- Her battlegroup is limited to Light and Lesser Horrors.
- Archduke Runewood, refer to the Cygnar solo - Runewood 1
- Alain Runewood, Lord of Ash - Runewood 2
- Umbral Guardian
- The Wretch
Units
- Croe's Cutthroats - (Partisan)
- Cultist Band
- Dark Sentinels (WA)
- Orin2: Master Preceptor Orin Midwinter (CA)
- Griever Swarm
- Howlers
Model Gallery
Here is a link to the entire Infernals Gallery
Mercenaries that work for the Infernals
Last Updated: 2019.01
- J.A.I.M.s
- Everyone else that will work for Infernals is Partisan [Infernal].
- Note that Infernals have wide access to models from six other Factions via the Hearts of Darkness theme force, and one of those six is the Mercenary Faction.
See also Category: Infernals Mercenary and/or Who Works for Whom.
Other
Trivia
- Infernals invaded the internet first
- On Privateer Press' forum, they have a specific subforum for asking questions about how the rules of the game work. Although anyone can answer questions, there is a team of official volunteers that have direct contact with the lead developers and can answer questions officially on the dev team's behalf. This team have been known as Infernals, for as long as the rules forum has been in existence.
- The Infernal theme force, Dark Legacy, is named after this forum's most active volunteer Infernal. He has also organised a bunch of large conventions, is the admin of the Facebook Infernal group ... in all respects, he is super excited about this Faction.
Official Short Stories
See Lore - Source Material#Short Stories
Deep Lore
Refer to the Iron Kingdoms wiki (separate fan-site).