Kommander Sorscha
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Kommander Sorscha |
Unlimited Only This model can only be used in the Unlimited game mode. You can see the other models with / without mk4 rules on this page. Note that the rest of this page is about the model's Mark III rules. |
Kommander Sorscha Kratikoff wages unending war against the enemies of Khador. After the untimely death of her father, she lied about her age and joined the Winter Guard, rarely leaving the battlefield since. As cold and stoic and the frigid northland from which she hails, Sorcha is the embodiment of the Khadoran Empire, both in terms of fighting prowess and unshakable resolve.
Basic Info
Sorscha1 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Warcaster - All warcasters come with a stack of standard special rules - most notably being awesome. Click here for a newbie-friendly recap, or click here for the full rules.
Feat: Icy Gaze
Enemy models without Immunity: Cold currently in Sorcha's control range and LOS become stationary for one round.
Abilities
Weapons
Hand Cannon | ||||||||||||||
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RNG | ROF | AOE | POW | ||||||||||
12 | 1 | - | 12 | |||||||||||
Frostfang | ||||||||||||||
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RNG | POW | P+S | |||||||||||
2 | 7 | 13 | ||||||||||||
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Spells
COST | RNG | AOE | POW | DUR | OFF | ||
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Boundless Charge
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2 | 6 | - | - | Turn | No | |
During its activation, target friendly Faction model can charge without spending focus or being forced and gains +2" movement and Pathfinder when it charges. Boundless Charge lasts for one turn. | |||||||
Fog of War
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3 | SELF | Control | - | Upkeep | No | |
Models gain concealment while in the spellcaster's control range. | |||||||
Freezing Grip
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3 | 8 | - | - | (★) | Yes | |
Target model/unit becomes stationary for one round unless it has Immunity: Cold. | |||||||
Razor Wind
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2 | 10 | - | 12 | - | Yes | |
This spell has zero special effects. | |||||||
Tempest
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4 | 8 | 4 | 12 | (★) | Yes | |
Models hit by Tempest become knocked down and suffer a POW 12 damage roll. | |||||||
Wind Rush
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2 | SELF | - | - | Round | No | |
The spellcaster can immediately make a full advance and gains +2 DEF for one round. Wind Rush can be cast only once per activation. |
Theme Forces
- Armored Korps
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Flame in the Darkness - Jaws of the Wolf
- Legion of Steel
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Warriors of the Old Faith - Winter Guard Kommand. In this theme the caster gains Sacrificial Pawn [Winter Guard trooper model].
- Wolves of Winter
Thoughts on Sorscha1
Sorscha1 in a Nutshell
Sorscha is a control/assassin caster. She is highly mobile and hard to hit. With Freezing grip, and Tempest she is able to control enemy models/units allowing for the rest of your army to dispatch them.
Sorscha's crazy assassination threat also dictates where your opponent moves, and what they move. Her ability to threaten a caster from a non-linear 19" is quite scary. Even veteran players can make mistakes allowing for an assassination opportunity.
Feat thoughts
Her feat is used to freeze the bulk of the enemies army in place, so you can clobber/shoot them all to death. If you also manage to freeze the opposing caster, all the better. The only tricky part is that, unlike most feats in the game, it is based on her LOS.
Spell thoughts
- Boundless Charge is great for moving a Warjack or Solo into charge range, or if needed, Sorscha herself.
- Fog of War is great for delivering melee brawlers like Doom Reavers.
- Freezing Grip is one of Sorscha's signature spells. Move forward, cast this on the most dangerous target, and use Wind Rush to fall back to safety. Alternatively, you can now freeze 2 units if you've already spent your feat, or if you want to save it for something else.
- Razor Wind is essentially a magic version of Sorscha's hand cannon. You're unlikely to use it, but it's there if you do.
- Tempest is more expensive than Freezing grip, but affects units with cold immunity, shoring up one of Sorscha's potential weaknesses. She can still Wind Rush after as well.
- Wind Rush is Sorscha's other signature spell, with a whole host of uses. It'll get her out of trouble, help out with an assassination run, and generally helps anytime you want her to be a bit more mobile or have a bit more defense. You're probably going to be casting this every single turn.
Drawbacks & Downsides
- She lacks a damage buff.
- She's nimble, but very fragile; boosted blast rolls and knockdown effects can be deadly for her.
- Remember that enemies in Sorcha's CTRL range also receive concealment from Fog of War.
- She's focus-starved.
- Freezing Grip and her Feat are useless against enemies that are immune to cold.
Tricks & Tips
- Under Guidance Sorscha will ignore the concealment bonus she will give the enemy via Fog of War. If your force consists mainly of melee brawlers, you can keep it up the entire game without repercussions.
- With Eiryss, Mage Hunter of Ios ability Disruptor Bolt and feat you can completely disable a warjack for entire opponent turn, because a disrupted warjack cannot shake the stationary in the maintenance phase.
- You can also combine the feat with precision strike and sniper. Cut out a warjacks cortex or a warbeasts spirit and then they can't activate.
List Building Advice
Strategy
Sorschas strategy is simple enough. Protect your troops with FoW on the advance, gain Eyeless sight from the Greylord Adjunct, freeze everything and then unleash hell upon the enemy. Thus you either win through attrition because everything got shattered into pieces or you straight up assassinate the unfortunate enemy caster. It put this into practice you will need lots of hard hitting bodies, which will either be the resident weapon masters that are Doom Reavers or Winter Guard Rocketeers with Brutal Damage on their guns (so effectively weapon masters), with some help from jacks sprinkled in. Note this makes Sorscha a very good counter to lists that rely on lots of tough dudes like Flames in the Darkness. Making live hell for Morrowans is the thing she does best. She doesn't really ask your opponent questions but answers theirs instead.
Her assassination run is tempting, but choose your engagement wisely. If you need to use both Wind Rush and Boundless charge, you'll have only 2 focus left to help with damage, giving you little room for error. Your target should be stationary before you hit them, so you don't have to waste focus trying to hit, as well as crit. Also be aware of how much armor the target has, and if they have any camped focus to prevent damage, which could screw you up if you roll poorly. If you happen to be up against one of the few warcasters that are immune to cold, then you probably just want to avoid making an assassination run to begin with. Alternatively, let her set up a warjack to do the assassination. Assigning 2 focus and Boundless charge to almost any Khador Warjack will enable it to do far more damage to target than spending the same amount of focus to get Sorscha there, especially if Sorscha also pops her feat. This also makes it less likely that in the event of a failed assassination that Sorscha will get killed. Kovnik Malakov can assist here as Redline + Boundless Charge = 4 extra inches on your unsuspecting opponent. Be on the lookout for enemy feats and spells which prevent / punish spell casting, or make them harder (like Lamentation) - in such cases, you better forget about your assassination run.
Theme Thoughts
- Doom Reaver Swordsmen - Freeze the enemy in place, then clobber them to death with about 30 Doomies. It doesn't get much simpler, yet more effective that this. They also really like the FoW buff, going from DEF 13 to DEF 15 against shooting, which is reasonable.
- Koldun Lord - An in-theme damage buff is great since Sorscha has none herself. Puppet Master also ups the odd of hitting Freezing Grip. Leadersip: Prowl means all your Greylords have stealth under FoW.
- Ruin - Provides spell hate and other than that acts as a focus efficient beat stick, which is always great to have, especially if you can cast Boundless Charge on it.
- A Void Archon or even two will provide your army with significant fire power as well as some much needed damage buffs Sorscha can't provide. Freeze some fools, then spray them to death, then Void Walk into melee with a hard target and apply Dark Shroud for the follow up crew (don't forget to slap it twice if you haven't done your melee attacks yet). As Void Archons fold pretty easily into guns, they will also love her Fog of War bubble.
- Greylord Ternion - They recurr fallen doom reavers but Blizzard and Ice Cage are not that necessary with her kit.
- The weapon attachments for the Winter Guard Infantry and Rifle Corps are the important part here. After Sorscha freezes everything, shoot it all to pieces with Brutal Damage!
- Same goes for the Mortar Crew. POW 16 direct hits will really hurt.
- A Boundless Charge'd Gun Carriage is just fun!
Support Models - Various themes
- Greylord Adjunct - The most important model in any Sorscha list. Not only is extra range on freezing grip and a free FoW nice, but Guidance is where it's at. The importance of Eyeless sight for her LoS based feat can not be overstated, since enemies will hardly be able to hide from her frosty gaze, thus rendering potentially the entire enemy army stationary.
- Malakov1 works great with Sorscha. She has no battlegroup spells so you're not losing anything by having a warjack outside the caster's battlegroup. Additionally, she is usually focus starved so he can help her bring jacks along without paying the focus bill. Last, Redline improves STR and SPD but not MAT, but if Sorscha freezes a model you can focus your Malakov controlled jack on buying additional attacks instead of boosting attack rolls.
- Greylord Forge Seer - He ups her focus efficiency and she is a valid Winter's Wind target.
Mercenaries
- The usual damage buffs: Ragman, Aiyana & Holt, Gorman1, Hutchuck. Special mention to the latter two as they will have no trouble hitting their AOEs on frozen targets.
- Eiryss1 - A costly investment, but the combination of Disruptor Bolt and stationary can be very much worth it.
- Alexia2 - Another huge investment, but she brings spell hate and Weapons Master Thralls for scenario purposes, or to simply whack enemy popsicles hard.
- Saxon Orrik - As usual, he brings crucial Pathfinder. You can't boundless charge your entire army after all.
- Hermit of Henge Hold - Sorscha likes all of his buffs and debuffs. Telementry makes her Freezing Grips M.A. 8, so she will hit most things pretty reliably. A damage buff is always solid to a caster without one herself and Mad Visions allows her to be more aggressive and threaten assassinations.
Battlegroup

- Beast-09 is her character warjack, that she can take in any theme. He hits hard and protects her from shooting, which is all good for a caster like her.
- Marauders can be a huge help to Sorscha since huge bases are immune to stationary.
- Juggernaut - Apply axe to face has never been easier when said face is frozen solid.
- Victor - Your enemy will be cold. Warm them up by dropping some incindiary pie plates on their heads!
- Berserkers, Ragers & Mad Dogs really love the free charges due to the wording of unstable - they also become Def 13 under fog of war which is still not great but it’s right on the edge of the curve for unboostable guns.
First Seven Purchases
A few veteran players have put their heads together and tried to figure out the seven best things to buy for this specific caster. This is not designed to add up to a nice round points limit, nor be balanced vs other "First Seven" lists you find on this website. It is simply going to give you some of the essentials this caster needs most of the time.
- Warjack: Marauder
- Warjack: Juggernaut
- Solo: Greylord Adjunct
- Solo: Koldun Lord
- Solo: Koldun Lord
- Unit: Doomreaver Swordsmen + CA
- Unit: Doomreaver Swordsmen + CA
Other
Trivia
- Released way back in Warmachine: Prime (2003)
Video Battle Reports
- 2019.06 Tiny Men, vs Gunnbjorn1
- 2019.02 Tiny Men, vs Goreshade4
- 2018.12 Tiny Men, vs Issyria1
- See also Category: Video Battle Reports for more casters with videos.
Other Khador models
Rules Clarifications
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Rules Clarification : Feat : Icy Gaze
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Rules Clarification: : Magical Damage (Edit) |
* The "Damage Type: Magical" is not inherited by "secondary" damage from a weapon. That is, stuff like arcs (Electro Leap) or hazards (Scather). (Infernal Ruling)
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Rules Clarification : Freeze (Edit)
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Rules Clarification : Shatter - None yet. (Edit)
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Rules Clarification: : Warcaster (Edit) | ||||
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Rules Clarification : Cold - None yet. (Edit)
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Rules Clarification : Boundless Charge (Edit)
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Rules Clarification : Fog of War (Edit)
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Rules Clarification : Freezing Grip (Edit)
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Rules Clarification : Razor Wind (Edit)
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Rules Clarification : Tempest (Edit)
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