Thyra, Flame of Sorrow

Thyra, Flame of Sorrow Protectorate Daughter of the Flame Warcaster

Prime This model is available in one Prime Army, Temple Guardians. It can also be used in the Unlimited game mode. You can view the other Mk3 models that made it into a Legacy Army at this page. Note that the rest of this page is about the model's Mark III rules.

A fanatic assassin able to move between the bounds of life and death, Thyra, Flame of Sorrow is the peerless commander of the Daughters of the Flame. Her twin swords, Grief and Lament, weave a path of razor-edged destruction through the enemy ranks as she leads her sisters into battle. Thyra has become a living weapon of the Menite cause, her body and soul devoted to avenging the injustices carried out by those who oppose the Creator.

Basic Info

Thyra1
Missing Info
	COST {{{cacost}}} UNIT SIZE {{{casize}}} FA {{{cafa}}} Warcaster 0 BASE Small SPD 7 STR 6 MAT 8 RAT N/A M.A. N/A DEF 17 ARM 14 CMD N/A ESSENCE {{{essence}}} FOCUS 6 FURY N/A THRS N/A HP 15 F. Field N/A WJP +29 WBP {{{wbp}}} IHP {{{ihp}}} FA N/A UNIT SIZE N/A COST N/A N/A N/A N/A Warcaster 1 COST N/A N/A Understanding the Statblock

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 - Shadows of Urcaen

1. Immediately place Thyra anywhere completely within 2" of her current location.
2. When a friendly Faction model activates in Thyr'a control range, at the start of its activation you can place it anywhere completely within 2" of its current location.

Shadows of Urcaen lasts for one turn.

Abilities

• Parry
• Stealth
• Acrobatics - This model can advance through other models if it has enough movement to move completely past their bases. This model ignores intervening models when declaring its charge target.
• Blend In [ Daughters of the Flame ] - This model cannot be targeted by attacks, charges, or slam power attacks while there is one or more other friendly Daughters of the Flame models within 3" of it.
• Elite Cadre [ Daughters of the Flame Unit ] - Friendly Daughters of the Flame trooper models gain Vengeance. (Vengeance - During your Maintenance Phase, if one or more models in a unit with Vengeance were damaged by enemy attacks during the last round, each model in the unit can advance 3" and make one basic melee attack.)
• Gates of Death - At the end of your turn, place this model anywhere completely within 5" of its current location.
• Overtake - When this model destroys one or more enemy models with a basic melee attack during its Combat Action, after the attack is resolved it can immediately advance up to 1".
• Synergistic Magic - This model can gain power tokens. When this model destroys an enemy model with an attack, this model gains a power token. This model can spend power tokens to upkeep and cast upkeep spells as if they were focus/fury.

Weapons

• Grief - 0.5" reach, P+S 11 melee weapon..
  • Damage Type: Magical
  • Weapon Master
• Lament - 0.5" reach, P+S 11 melee weapon.
  • Damage Type: Magical
  • Weapon Master

Spells

	COST	RNG	AOE	POW	DUR	OFF
Carnage	2	SELF	Control	-	Turn	No
Friendly Faction models gain +2 to melee attack rolls against enemy models in the spellcaster's control range. Carnage lasts for one turn.
Occultation	2	6	-	-	Upkeep	No
Target friendly Faction model/unit gains Stealth. Models are not affected while out of formation.
Silence of Death	2	6	-	-	Upkeep	No
Target friendly Faction model/unit gains +2 STR and Take Down. Take Down - Models disabled by a melee attack made by a model with Take Down cannot make a Tough roll. Models boxed by a melee attack made by a model with Take Down are removed from play.
Stranglehold	2	10	-	11	(★)	Yes
A model damaged by Stranglehold forfeits either its Normal Movement or its Combat Action during its next activation, as its controller chooses.

Theme Forces

• Exemplar Interdiction
• Guardians of the Temple
• The Creator's Might. She can start the game with upkeeps in play, and upkeep them for free in turn 1, in this theme.
• The Faithful Masses
• Warriors of the Old Faith

Thoughts on Thyra1

Thyra1 in a nutshell

Speed and Mobility. That's Thyra. She is fast, stealthy and hard to hit. She plays very differently to other Protectorate warcasters, and can be a surprise to opponents used to the more slower attrition heavy warjack game that Protectorate often brings. Thyra and her army is very good at assassination, but this isn't the sole way to win with her. The deep threat, unusual attack vectors and her fast speed (if taken with Daughters of the Flame et al, means the fight is taking place in the opponents half of the board, and she can place the enemy on the back foot in terms of scenario.

Understanding all the possible angles and movement vectors can take some time to master.

Alternatively, while Thyra is often advertised as speed and mobility caster, she doesn't offer that much more than Vindictus and Cyrenia (or Amon for that matter) and arguably even less in the terms of pure speed as theirs comes from spells and not their feat.

Thyra's spells allow her to take more mobile army and bump their offence up - But that's where the issue lies. You might use your caster to shore up or army's weakness or to further increase it's strengths. While Thyra is offering fairly good mobility with her feat, she is first and foremost a great force multiplier.

Feat thoughts

The most obvious and common application is being threat extender, but there is a bit more utility. You can also use it to change facing, place models outside melee range or even behind them. And of course, as placement, we can ignore free strikes, defensive strikes and terrain.

Spell thoughts

• Carnage - A key spell for Thyra. A great MAT fixer - that is helping her army hit more accurately. Note the wording that it gives a bonus against targets in her CTRL, not a bonus to her warriors. This is important to remember as the enemy targets are likely to be an inch or so farther away than models in her army making the attacks.
• Occultation - More stealth. What can be added to that simple fact? With Thyra and her Daughters of the Flame already stealthed, why not protect something else. The Blood of Martyrs for example. Although if you are taking the Choir of Menoth their Hymn of Passage helps protect them from non-magical shooting. Flamebringers make a good target for having stealth. A hard to shoot unit of them flying up a flank can give your opponent serious headaches. You can even cast Occultation on a battle engine, a stealthed Vessel of Judgment is worth it even just once just to see your opponent's expression.
• Silence of Death - Not only does Thyra have a way to increase accuracy, but this spell helps boost damage output. For example, this spell on even just four Flamebringers can wreck a Retribution heavy. Also placed on a warjack makes them hit just harder too, giving her warjacks, along with the choir, very serious damage output.
• Stranglehold - A utility spell, useful for limiting an enemy model, such as a warjack or warbeast. But likely won't be cast every game. It might help against an enemy caster, but if you are spending the focus to cast it and boost the attack roll, then that focus may have been better spent elsewhere. However, saying that it is her only offensive spell, but its POW is low, barely into double figures.

Drawbacks & Downsides

• She wants to play forward to apply Carnage to as much as possible. Sure, she has Gates of Death to get back to a safer position afterwards, but "safer" is not "safe".

• The combination of Blend In, Stealth, and her high DEF make her nigh-unkillable ... but it doesn't make her invulnerable. As Han Solo once said: Don't get cocky.
  • High-DEF can be countered by knock-down, auto-hitting attacks, etc.
  • Blend In can be circumvented by quite a lot of things - Electro Leaps, sprays that target something else, Rain of Death, etc
  • Blend In can be overcome by simply killing every Daughter within 3" of her - they aren't that hard to kill.
  • Stealth can be countered by the standard Anti-Stealth tech.
  • Overall, you need to have a strong understanding of what tools your opponent has, so that you know how aggressive you can be with her positioning.

• She has limited anti-ARM tools (only Silence of Death, and Stanglehold to 'soft lock' enemy heavies). This is exacerbated because of the type of army she wants to run tend not to be as good at ARM-cracking as other Protectorate casters/armies. She can still have a good game but if her army gets bogged down, it can be a bit of a glass cannon.

• If she puts Silence of Death on herself, the compulsory RFP at boxed will stop her from triggering Overtake and Synergistic Magic at destroyed (refer Attack Sequence Step 10c vs 10d).

Tricks & Tips

• Use Gates of Death to jump back behind your main forces or terrain after going forward.
  • Scenario scoring is resolved after Gates of Death.
• Place a Daughter within 3" of her, but completely out of LOS. The enemy can't target Thyra because of Blend In, and they can't target the Daughter because they can't see her.

List Building Advice

Strategy

• Move fast, flank the enemy, and (usually) give an alpha, and then dance through or around the enemy troops to attack what you want when you want.
• Thyra wants a predominately melee based army that can make the most of her abilities and spells, ranged options may help her deliver her army, but a shooting game doesn't really suit her.
• Threaten assassination. If an enemy caster gets within 12" (sometimes more) of Thyra or the Blood of Martyrs they are risking getting mulched.
• Score on Scenario. The enemy will often be defending from multiple threats from the front and flanks, playing carefully to avoid trivial assassination, and probably in their half of the board which gives Thyra and her solos good chances to score. Gates of Death is great at getting to a position to dominate a zone or flag.
• Kill what you can. Avoid what you can't (yet). Units like the Daughters of the Flame excel at removing enemy infantry. Use them to kill everything they can, and then move deeper into enemy lines. Use mobility to keep away from enemy heavies where you can, and pick them off later, they will usually be slower and if they can't get into the fight, they can't kill much.

Theme Thoughts

    The Creator's Might    

As Thyra is mostly infantry-centric, you're unlikely to take her in this theme; Focus 6 and having three upkeeps limits the number of warjacks she can run. If you do take her in Creator's Might, it's best to take a Mercenary infantry unit along with warjacks on both Durant1 and Severius0.

    Faithful Masses    
Thyra offers quite a bit to this theme in the form of her upkeeps. Occultation is excellent on any unit, but especially Idrian Skirmishers - although Go to Ground is useful, it only lasts for one round, so having one unit with Stealth can help them survive longer. Additionally, her feat can let them disengage from enemies unless they're base to base or have greater than 2" melee reach. Her feat greatly adds to the non-linear movements of Paladin models with Righteous Vengeance, and Carnage makes them hyper-accurate.

    Guardians of the Temple    

Besides granting Vengeance to Daughter units, she helps the entire army hit more accurately in melee, something it might have problems with otherwise. Thyra also gets to have Blend In targets in this theme.

• She loves turning cheap, durable Temple Flameguard into (relatively) accurate and hard hitting troops, and you can easily cycle Silence of Death onto another unit after sending one in.
• Pyrrhus grants Flameguard Rapid Strike, so they make even better use of Carnage and SoD.
• Flamebringers love Occultation to get up the field and also appreciate Strength of Death, to stop enemy Tough rolls from stopping impact attacks.
• Daughters of the Flame models brought back by the Shrine of the Lawgiver get to make Vengeance attacks. It adds another layer of utility to the structure besides providing a powerful gun. But RAT 6 and not aiming means it is very reliant on hit buffs, which Thyra does not provide.
• Nicia1 grants her and fellow Daughter models Blast Resistance, adding another layer of safety.
• Eye of Truth - EoT is a great model who loves the speed buff from her feat and gives everything around it quasi-blessed weapons. It synergises quite well with her premier merc choice, the Hermit, making it able to negate two enemy damage rolls with oracular Vision and Mad Visions.

    Exemplar Interdiction    

Thyra is one of the more likely candidates to run a combined arms approach to Exemplar Interdiction due to two of her upkeeps (Occultation and Strength of Death) only affecting one model/unit at a time. However, she runs Exemplars well no matter what your army composition. MAT 9 makes them unlikely to miss even the highest DEF, and putting your prize unit (such as Exemplar Cinerators) under Occultation makes them more difficult and costly to dig out. The Exemplar Warder is a good solo in its own right and can make her nearly untouchable in melee at an impressive DEF 19. She also provides RFP in the form of Strength of Death, but keep in mind that if you put it on Knights Exemplar, they won't be able to make Cleave attacks due to the order of removing the enemy model. On Exemplar Vengers however its a high value spell, because it prevents their impact attacks from being stopped by one unfortunate Tough roll.

All warjacks appreciate Blessed weapons, and Blood of Martyrs is no exception. Taking it and Fire of Salvation gives Thyra a powerful, flexible battlegroup with innate non-linear out-of-activation movement that gets enhanced by Thyra's feat.

    Various Themes    

• Reclaimer Gatekeeper - Future Sight can be quite key in applying Stranglehold or when going for an assassination. DEF from ashen Veil can also keep her very safe.
• Choir of Menoth - You want to deliver her jacks and have them hit hard.
• Wrack, Vassal of Menoth - She has no focus to spare and Synergistic Magic rarely helps with that.

    Mercenaries    

• Hermit of Hengehold - The Hermit provides some much needed damage buff and can provide Telemetry to make a Strangehold much easier to apply.
• Madelyn Corbeau She can help make Thyra very survivable via Parlay - warriors (and that includes non battle-engine casters) will not be able to target her or Thyra with attacks. That is huge, meaning only constructs and beasts are really the only things that can attack the pair. It is possible to land Thyra in the middle of a unit of enemy warriors (or even the enemy caster!) and be safe from their attacks, and even get a model in combat bonus to DEF if something can actually target her with a ranged non-spray attack. Madelyn's Sucker! ability can mitigate the hit of a ranged attack if a friendly warrior is nearby.
• Anastasia Di Bray- Well, a cheap solo with Ambush]] and[Stealth. Her Espionage ability is very effective with Thyra and her army who move fast and will take the fight deep into the enemy's territory. Daughters of the Flame with their Acrobatics, and Flamebringers with their long movement distance will threaten the enemy caster even more. Even if she doesn't get to use her ability, the threat of it will keep the enemy caster constrained to the central 18" of the battefield.
• Saxon Orrik If you need some Pathfinder (for example the Daughters of the Flame are fast but difficult terrain cramps their style), Saxon may be a better option than the more usual Rhupert Carvolo as he also has[Stealth.

Battlegroup

Blood of Martyrs is her pet warjack that she can take in any theme.

• Blood of Martyrs - Her pet warjack that she can take in any theme. It just does more of what Thyra loves to do, incredible mobility and unexpected vectors of attack. Its bond with her - it having Apparition - means it can move quicker up the battlefield, and almost keep up with the fast moving units in her army. It can also use this placement to get out of melee partly to help avoid free strikes, as it doesn't have Parry, but also to get in a good position to move or get into charge range or just better LoS. Its sidestepping ability helps get it into new positions, possibly into back arcs, or fully loaded it can cleave through up to five infantry. Under Thyra's feat and the bond, it gets two placements, even before it actually moves. That is hard to counter. Then, as if the sheer mobility of the 'jack isn't enough, it can get to outrageous accurace and damage bonuses. Its own innate Hand of Vengeance gives it a bonus to hit, and to damage. Then Thyra's Carnage spell increases the accuracy again. Then with Hymn of Battle from the Choir of Menoth, and Thyra's Silence of Death it gets two more significant bonuses to damage output. An effective MAT in double figures, and a P+S on its weapons means that it would hit a Stormwall with Arcane Shield and damage them with straight dice. This accuracy, mobility and damage powerhouse means it probably will not need to boost to hit enemy casters, and hitting even the hardiest casters at straight dice even after they use focus to mitigate damage. Oh, and finally as if all that wasn't enough, it has Grievous Wounds, so models hit cannot be repaired or healed and cannot make Tough rolls. Overall on feat turn it has a theoretical maximum threat range of 17" (Apparition + Thyra's Feat + Charge + Sidestep1 + Sidestep2 + Usual Heavy melee range). Just the threat of that should keep the enemy far far back, or well screened.
• Sanctifier - A good choice with Thyra running Daughters and Flamebringers. Firstly, it relieves the pressure on Thyra's meagre Focus by being fuelled by the souls of the infantry. Secondly, if Thyra is running troop heavy, she does not want many warjacks in her battlegroup, and the combo of Blood of Martyrs and Sanctifier uses up her warjack points quite exactly. Thirdly the reach weapon and tech of the Sanctifier can be very helpful.
• Vigilant - Works very well with Thyra. Especially in situations where her innate Stealth is not enough. In short you move Thyra up closer to the enemy, and cast Carnage to help hit her army hit the enemy. Run up the Vigilant to a good position and then at the end of your turn place Thyra behind the Vigilant through Gates of Death and gain cover from any ranged attacks. This will push her DEF to ranged and magic attacks into the 20s, and almost impossible to hit. Well, sprays will always hurt as they ignore cover, concealment and stealth.
• Dervish - More along the sidestepping, high mobility theme. While nowhere near as good as the Blood of Martyrs, it is a reasonable addition to her force, both thematically, and in bringing more models with unexpected attack vectors. It does at least have Parry which her character 'jack lacks.
• Other 'jacks. None are specifically good or bad with Thyra. But should cover some of her weaknesses. If you feel you really need ranged options, the ubiquitous Reckoner can help. Slow 'jacks will likely get left behind though, and she tends to play faster and has no way to speed them, besides her feat. And with her lowish focus, she probably won't want a large battlegroup, much beyond her warjack points. A Redeemer could be useful to hang back and provide carpet bombing. Taking an arc node like the Revenger or Guardian (which is also a good fighter) to swap buff spells or cast Stranglehold could be good, although she's usually mobile enough between her native SPD and Gates of Death to get the spells where she needs them while remaining safe.

Starting a 25 point Brawl list

In 2020.11 Phillip Melvin, one of the LOS authors, put together this list for the Brawlmachine format. It was then updated for the 2021.10 errata. He even wrote about it's playstyle and expanding it beyond 25 points, which you can read here.

Theme - Guardians of the Temple

Thyra1: [+29 WJP]

• Blood of Martyrs: [14 pts]
• Sanctifier: [14 pts]
• Dervish: [7 pts]

Pyrrhus, Flameguard Hero: [Free] (5 pts)

Nicia1: [4 pts]

Vassal Mechanik: [1 pt]

Temple Flameguard (Min unit): [7 pts]

• Command Attachment: [3 pts]

Choir of Menoth (Min unit): [4 pts]

Similarly, in 2020.11, Jaden Iwassa, another of the LOS authors put together this list and wrote an article that you can read here.

Theme - The Faithful Masses

Thyra, Flame of Sorrow: [+29 WJP]

• Blood of Martyrs: [16 pts]
• Indictor: [14 pts]
• Hierophant: [3 pts]

Menite Archon: [8 pts]

Allegiant of the Order of the Fist: [3 pts]

High Paladin Dartan Vilmon: [6 pts]

Initiates of the Wall: [Free] (7 pts)

Choir of Menoth (Min unit): [4 pts]

Total RRP: USD $240 (based on PP's online store prices 2021.05)

Note - This list/article was written before the 2021.10 Errata and therefore may have incorrect point values

For more Brawlmachine list ideas, see Category: Brawl List

Other

Trivia

Released in the Warmachine: Wrath expansion (2011)

Video Battle Reports

• Arcane Assist, 2018.03 75 points vs Jarl
• See also Category: Video Battle Reports for more casters with videos.

Rules Clarifications

Rules Clarification : Parry - None yet. (Edit)

Rules Clarification : Stealth      (Edit) Stealth models are not invisible and you can target them - you'll just auto-miss most of the time. You can target them with a charge. You can target them with an AOE, have it auto-miss and scatter, luckily land on top of them anyway, and that will hit them.

Rules Clarification : Acrobatics      (Edit) Charging through models (Edit) You can't charge all the way through your charge target, with the intention to turn around and face them once you're on the other side. Because you aren't able to satisfy the "must keep the charge target in melee range" clause at the point after you are through the model but before you turn to directly face. At that point the target is behind you, not in your front arc, and thus not in your melee range. Your melee range only extends to your front arc. Refer to the latest errata. You can still "skim" through the edge of their base, if you're careful and smart with your positioning.

Rules Clarification : Blend In      (Edit) This model can still be damaged by attacks that target something else nearby, such as a spray weapon or an AOE weapon.

Rules Clarification : Elite Cadre      (Edit) Elite Cadre bonuses persist even after the model dies. Elite Cadre bonuses can apply to teammates in multiplayer games. It is possible for a model to receive multiple Elite Cadres. All will benefit the model (excluding receiving the same benefit twice). (Infernal Ruling) Elite Cadre applies to both singular and plural. For instance Elite Cadre [Daughters of the Flame] will apply to Thyra even though she is only a Daughter of the Flame. (Infernal Ruling)

Rules Clarification : Vengeance and/or Righteous Vengeance and/or Retaliation and/or Swift Vengeance and/or Tantrum     (Edit) Vengeance moves do not have to be towards an enemy model. You can choose to not move, but still get the attack. One is not conditional on the other. In this case, you will not count as advancing and thus will not trigger stuff like Countercharge. (Infernal Ruling) Vengeance is not an activation. It does not prevent the model/unit from activating and acting normally later in the turn. Stationary and knocked down models may not perform Vengeance moves nor attacks. Units only Out of formation models cannot make Vengeance moves nor Vengeance attacks. However if the unit commander uses their movement to bring the Grunts back into formation, then they can move and attack. When resolving Vengeance, move all models in the unit before making any attacks. (Infernal Ruling) If you have more than one unit with Vengeance, move all of unit A then complete all of unit A's attacks, before starting to move unit B. If you manage to spawn new models during the Maintenance Phase (such as with Reconstruction or Blood-Bound) then those new models can also make Vengeance attacks. (Infernal Ruling) Due to the way it is worded Vengeance can be "inherited" by unit attachments that do not actually have the Vengeance ability themselves. For instance, a Soulless Escort attached to the Spears of Scyrah. If anyone is damaged, including the attachment, everyone in the unit gets to trigger Vengeance. But if everyone is killed except the attachment, then he doesn't get to trigger Vengeance because the rule is "no longer on the table". Granted [ Vengeance ] If the model granting Vengeance dies, the unit will not get any Vengeance attacks. It is "If you have Vengeance, and you were damaged last turn, you get a move+attack." It is not "If you get damaged, you get Vengeance next turn." If you lose Vengeance halfway through resolving Vengeance, then you stop resolving Vengeance immediately. (Infernal Ruling) Triggers Only enemy attacks trigger Vengeance. There are plenty of ways enemies can damage you without attacking you (such as Electro Leap) and these will not trigger Vengeance. If a CA has Granted: Vengeance then only models in formation have it. However, models that are damaged while out of formation can trigger Vengeance, they just will not benefit from it. (Locked thread)

Rules Clarification : Gates of Death      (Edit) End of Turn Abilities (Edit) Scenario scoring is resolved after stuff that happens "at the end of the turn" (such as Gates of Death, Hoof It, Last Stand, etc). (Judge Ruling)

Rules Clarification : Swift Hunter and/or Overtake     (Edit) The free move must be resolved before other abilities that involve attacks (such as Quick Work or Berserk). Refer Step 12 vs 14 in Appendix A. This ability does not trigger off special attacks, only basic ones. An important difference: Swift Hunter can be triggered by any attack, including out-of-activation attacks. Overtake only works on attacks during your Combat Action. Even stuff like Impact Attacks won't trigger it. If you make a free strike during your Combat Action (for instance the enemy used a special rule to move during your Combat Action) you can trigger Overtake on that free strike. It still counts as being during your Combat Action. (Infernal Ruling)

Rules Clarification : Synergistic Magic - None yet. (Edit)

Rules Clarification:  : Magical Damage      (Edit) (Click Expand to read)

* 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) All spells have "Damage Type: Magical" (refer errata). This is inherited by "immediate" secondary damage (such as Eruption of Spines). (Infernal Ruling) and might be inherited by "lingering" secondary damage (see below). If a spell leaves a template in play that does damage to models that walk around in it, then: if it is not described as a hazard it will do magical damage to models that walk around in it. (Example: Razor Wall) if it is a hazard then it will not do magical damage to models that walk around in it. Instead, it does whatever damage type is specified by the spell description. (Example: Breath of Corruption). (Infernal Ruling) If a weapon/spell includes Magic Damage and another kind of elemental damage it will still damage Incorporeal models. Incorporeal models are not affected by the rule "if an attack does multiple types of damage and a model is immune to at least one it is immune to the entire attack." The phrase "immune to non-magical damage" should be interpreted as "immune to damage that doesn't include Damage Type: Magical" (not interpreted as "has immunity to Corrosion and Electricity and Cold and etc.")

Rules Clarification : Weapon Master - None yet. (Edit)

Rules Clarification : Carnage      (Edit) The target needs to be in CTRL range. The location of the attacker doesn't matter.

Rules Clarification : Occultation      (Edit) Rules Clarification : Stealth      (Edit) Stealth models are not invisible and you can target them - you'll just auto-miss most of the time. You can target them with a charge. You can target them with an AOE, have it auto-miss and scatter, luckily land on top of them anyway, and that will hit them.

Rules Clarification : Silence of Death      (Edit) Rules Clarification : Take Down      (Edit) If you have Take Down innately, then the RFP is not optional. If you have Take Down granted by a theme force benefit, then the RFP is optional. If you choose to RFP at boxed, you don't get to trigger anything that happens at destroyed (such as Cleave). If you choose not to RFP them, they're destroyed normally. They produce corpses, can be returned to play, etc, and most importantly you can trigger stuff at "destroyed" (such as Cleave). Technically the theme benefit doesn't actually grant models Take Down, it just gives them a rule with almost the exact same wording as Take Down.

Rules Clarification : Stranglehold      (Edit) If a warbeast is affected by this spell and then frenzies, that negates Stranglehold - A frenzy is an activation, and beasts that frenzy always ignore effects that require them to forfeit Movement/Action.