Hollowmen
Hollowmen
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- Cowards who flee their posts in war their comrades do betray. Lured by golden lantern light, they die while off astray.
Deserters often follow the alluring glow of a strange lantern as they stumble through the dark—and perish. They rise again as empty husks, stripped of hate and fear. Now they bear rifles and march beneath that lantern in the ranks of the Hollowmen.
Holden serves as a warning to all who would oppose the Defiers. This creature was once a promising young man who might have been a hero, but his courage faltered and he failed in the face of the Wicked Harvest. For the impertinence of being sent against them, the Defiers transformed him into their own deadly tool, but they kept a tiny shard of Holden within his hollow shell to remember them. All Holden can do now is watch in silent horror as his actions answer a will that is not his own.
Contents
Basic Info
Hollowmen | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Abilities
- Entire Unit
- Eyeless Sight
- Apparition - During your Control Phase, place this model anywhere completely within 2" of its current location.
- Leader & Grunts only
- Lantern Man only
- He has 5 hitpoints, but otherwise the exact same statline.
- Officer
- Granted: Blood-Bound - While this model is in formation, models in its unit gain Blood-Bound. (Blood-Bound - When this model destroys a living enemy model with an attack during its activation, after the attack is resolved you can return to play one destroyed model in this unit. Place the returned model completely within 3˝ of this model. The returned model cannot activate the turn it returns to play. The destroyed enemy model is removed from play and does not provide a soul or corpse token.)
- Magic Ability [ 6 ] - This model can cast spells. Normally this uses up the model's Combat Action and as such is limited to one spell per activation, but exceptions do exist.
- Holden only
- He has +1 DEF, +2 RAT, and 5 hitpoints
- Annoyance - Living enemy models within 1" of this model suffer -1 to attack rolls.
- Granted: Pathfinder - While this model is in formation, models in its unit gain Pathfinder.
- Poisoned Fate - If Holden is in play during your Maintenance Phase roll a d6 (or flip a coin). On a roll of 1-3 (heads) this unit gains Bane this turn. On a roll of 4-6 (tails), Holden's weapons gain Weaken this turn. (Bane - A non-living model hit by a weapon with Bane suffers –2 ARM for one round.) (Weaken - A living model hit by a weapon with Weaken suffers -2 STR and DEF for one round.)
- Prowl - While this model has concealment, it gains stealth.
- Sniper - Instead of making a damage roll to resolve a ranged attack, this model can inflict 1 point of damage. A model disabled by a ranged attack made by this model cannot make a Tough roll.
Weapons
- Leader & Grunts
- Military Rifle - 10" range, POW 11 gun
- Bayonet - 1" reach, P+S 9 melee weapon
- Brutal Charge - This model gains +2 to charge attack damage rolls with this weapon.
- Lantern Man
- Unarmed - This model has no weapons.
- Holden
- Hunting Rifle - 14" range, POW 10 attack
- Trench Knife - 0.5" reach, P+S 9 melee attack.
Spells (Lantern Man)
- |-
|colspan=7 style="text-align:left; font-size:110%; border-right: 1px solid #fff; border-left: 1px solid #fff;"| |colspan=1 style="text-align:left; font-size:110%; border-right: 1px solid #fff; border-left: 1px solid #fff; border-bottom: 1px solid #fff;"| |- |style="text-align:left; font-size:110%; border-bottom: 1px solid #fff; border-left: 1px solid #fff;" rowspan=1| Ghost Light ! style="border-top: 1px solid #A8A8A8;"| (★ Attack)
! 10
! -
! -
! -
! Yes
|style="border-bottom: 1px solid #fff; border-right: 1px solid #fff; border-left: 1px solid #fff; border-top: 1px solid #fff;"| |- |colspan=8 style="text-align:left; border-bottom: 1px solid #fff; border-right: 1px solid #fff; border-left: 1px solid #fff; border-top: 1px solid #fff;"|On a hit, you take control of target living enemy non-warcaster, non-warlock warrior model. You can immediately advance the enemy model up to 3", then Ghost Light expires. The enemy model cannot be targeted by free strikes during this movement. A model can be affected by Ghost Light only once per turn.
- |-
|colspan=7 style="text-align:left; font-size:110%; border-right: 1px solid #fff; border-left: 1px solid #fff;"| |colspan=1 style="text-align:left; font-size:110%; border-right: 1px solid #fff; border-left: 1px solid #fff; border-bottom: 1px solid #fff;"| |- |style="text-align:left; font-size:110%; border-bottom: 1px solid #fff; border-left: 1px solid #fff;" rowspan=1| Obscuring Mist ! style="border-top: 1px solid #A8A8A8;"| (★ Action)
! -
! (★)
! -
! Round
! No
|style="border-bottom: 1px solid #fff; border-right: 1px solid #fff; border-left: 1px solid #fff; border-top: 1px solid #fff;"| |- |colspan=8 style="text-align:left; border-bottom: 1px solid #fff; border-right: 1px solid #fff; border-left: 1px solid #fff; border-top: 1px solid #fff;"|Models in this unit gain concealment. Models are not affected while out of formation. Obscuring Mist lasts for one round.
Theme Forces
Recent Changes
2018.06 - Hollow Holden released
Thoughts on Hollowmen
Hollowmen in a nutshell
Hollowmen are a versatile multi-tool available to the Grymkin Bump in the Night theme. While on paper they appear to be a poor man's Trencher Infantry they have some very compelling and unique tech. They have a recursion angle, and Eyeless Sight, a very powerful rule for an infantry unit. Notably, Hollowmen are the Grymkin's only ranged unit (sans the Mad Caps, which only have two short range attacks).
Hollowmen are best used as a medium range unit with no dedicated purpose. Hollowmen will never dish out the melee punishment of Dread Rots, but they can clear a heavy if they can get the charge. They're very good at clearing jamming elements (or jamming themselves), due to the Lantern Man's Blood Boon. Hollow Holden can upgrade the unit into a premier flanking piece, ideally suited to support aggressive Murder Crow play. Hollowmen keep your opponent honest, there's few tricks which can get around a 10-man CRA with Eyeless Sight.
Thoughts on the Attachments
Lantern Man (CA)
The lantern man brings the cost of the Hollowmen unit from sheer chaff (1.3pt/model) up to a roughly elite unit's cost (1.6pt/model). For this, he offers essentially no increase in offensive ability, no mini feat, no threat range extension. So, why would you bring him?
- He provides RFP on the guns and melee of the Hollowmen unit. Ranged RFP is exceptionally rare in the game, and the hollowmen are one of the best sources of it anywhere. It also is one of the "True" Remove from Play effects in Grymkin that denies souls, unlike the RFP on the heavies. Remove from Play is very powerful as an effect to have against the right armies.
- He brings concealment to the unit - this takes their terrible statline and makes it so its sometimes decent against enemy ranged attacks. This is of course, assuming your opponent has no sprays, and their ranged force doesnt ignore concealment.
- He adds an additional defensive element to the unit - Recursion. Bloodbound is a very powerful recursion mechanic that actively punishes your opponent for running many troops that are killed easily by Hollowmen. If you are returning Hollowmen with this effect you will find the unit becomes hardier and more resiliant in an unconventional way.
Essentially the things to look out for is if your opponents are going to be running living armies (ie - NOT warjack heavy, undead heavy etc), and to consider if you need remove from play. If the answer to both of these is "No" then you should leave the lantern man at home. Do not treat him like an auto include, and do not netdeck him into your lists. He requires a very specific consideration of the match ups you'll face and the meta you play in.
Holden (WA)
Holden has fallen to the Grymkin at the Battle of Boars Gate! He has joined his fellow cowards and deserters with the Hollowmen. Holden before his turn was a marksman and a ranger. Holden provides hollowmen with some very powerful effects, so the question is, is Holden worth bringing? what he brings to the table is:
- Pathfinder in Steamroller 2017/2018 is very powerful. Boards are becoming more and more terrain heavy and the flexibility of having one of your units essentially ignore the terrain, while simultaneously ignoring clouds, concealment of enemies in terrain etc is powerful
- Holden's coin flip mechanic is both a reason to include him, and not to include him
- Reposition 3 will always be extremely welcomed on Hollowmen. Its a powerful ability and you'll know if you have access to it long before you activate the hollowmen.
- Weaken is... situationally useful at best. Sometimes it will be a benefit, like during an assassination, or gunning down a living warbeast. However the -STR part is not very useful for Bump in the Night
- Holden is a powerful sniper in his own regard. RAT 7, long range, long threat eyeless sight makes him a terror for many solos and command attachments.
- He synergises with the Lantern man, who provides him with stealth (through prowl) and bloodbound. Holden can be returned on full health from bloodbound as it has no restrictions regarding characters.
When evaluating Holden for 4pts, the role he plays as a deadly sniper who can provide grymkin with something they usually lack - a scalpel to pick out something important is very unique. The sniper rule means he'll also not randomly fail against a tough model too. He then provides his unit with a very powerful buff in Pathfinder. The poisoned fate at that point is effectively a "bonus" effect that can sometimes be very powerful. Holden pulls enough weight and is available as a theme freebie that he is quite worth it despite the randomness of his coin flip mechanic.
Essentially - take him to handle pathfinder, or if you feel like you play in situations where having a long range accurate eyeless sight sniper would solve problems.
Combos & Synergies
As a generalist infantry who slogs forward with a goal to face a wide variety of targets, both in melee and at range the Hollowmen have a surprising amount of synergy.
- The Warlocks of Grymkin are almost all very happy to include Hollowmen in their army, and bring some kind of interesting benefit for them
- The Heretic - will usually run two units of them, as his Trump arcana will benefit both their ranged and their melee abilities. He can also place Fury onto them to give them POW 14 charges which is high enough to allow hollowmen to chip down even khador heavies.
- Old Witch 3 - Provides them with the best ranged protection in the faction with Windstorm. It can't be over stated how much Hollowmen appreciate this. Their defensive stats are very poor, and windstorm also protects them from blasts that would massacre them. She also can push their recursion even further with hellhole. Additionally, there is no penalty to the Hollowmen when she uses her gun at all, as Eyeless Sight allows them to essentially ignore concealment and the cloud effect. She can also fix their accuracy either through her gun or Scourge.
- The King of Nothing - can cloud wall without them caring, as they can casually fire through it. Scything touch lets them deliver in melee in a similiar way to Heretic. King can buff their ranged attacks during assassination run too by using sands of fate to get close to the opposing caster.
- The Dreamer - While not typically run in Bump, it should be noted she can use the little phantasm to apply mark target. She also provides cover for them with Artifice of Deviation. However keep in mind how rare it is to see Dreamer run in Bump, it is definitely a "snowflake" build.
- Glimmer Imp - fixes their RAT and MAT against key targets.
- Twilight Sisters - can return additional hollowmen to play when they don't have better options. Makes the amount of potential hollowmen recursion a little silly.
Drawbacks & Downsides
As a generalist infantry hollowmen are a jack of all trades, master of none unit. A standard melee unit hits harder and more accurately, a ranged unit will beat them in a fair gunfight. They are often ridiculed as the poor man's Trencher Infantry.
- their accuracy is appalling in terms of Warmachine in 2018. Most armies have veteran leaders and other hit fixers, so rat 5 units are rarely truly rat 5. Hollowmen however are rat 5 and mat 5 and the main fixer for this is an expensive solo who dies in the process usually.
- Their defensive stats are laughable. 12/12 is a statline that gets slaughtered by all but the weakest of attacks. Even the CA does not mitigate this much as concealment has many answers and does not work against melee.
- Their recursion only works against living models - meaning against many lists they lose the ability entirely
- Low range guns brings them into danger of retaliation against essentially most enemies except the slowest and most ponderous.
- Dedicated anti shooting tech such as windstorm, swamp pit, Rask feat, artifice of deviation, dig in etc really hurts them as they gain value shooting primarily, even if they close to melee later. If they are forced to fight as a melee unit with no shooting element they will greatly disappoint you
- While CRA is great, sometimes it can make them feel like they have a low output when your 10 man unit only makes five (better) attacks.
Tricks & Tips
- When models with 2" melee go base to base with you to jam - apparate behind them and shoot them in the back.
- Models with less than 2" melee cant jam you at all thanks to apparition.
- When choosing CRA size take into account what you need to hit and how much damage you'll do. 2 man CRAs are very often the most efficient but this is not universal.
- Be very aware of how much of the unit your opponent can kill - they die easily and you want to gain value off recursion and keep an effective unit chugging
- Hollow Holdens roll happens in the maintenance phase - this lets you plan your activations dont forget him!
- If you roll Weaken consider aiming at taking out a beast. Say you combine Curse of Shadows along with landing a Weaken shot, 2 man CRAs will be effectively rat 9 pow 15. Also briefly consider Assassination whenever you roll Weaken.
- If you roll reposition 3 then you can skirmish with your hollowmen better. It lets you avoid the clumping that gets hollowmen destroyed. You can also move out of LOS by moving deeper into forests or slipping behind buildings etc.
- On rare occasions the lantern man can use his ghost light to great effect. For example if a road block model like a MoW drakhun toes a zone it can be much more convenient to just walk it out and turn it around - also cancelling its shield.
- Hollowmen are fast! They have an 11" melee threat and a 17" shooting threat - both of these are a little higher than typical. Holden himself has a terrifying 21" threat
- Hollowmen get to aim surprisingly often, make sure you make good use of Apparition to gain the aiming bonus against important targets who were initially out of range.
- You get to ignore a lot of standard tech against shooting, such as Concealment, Cloud walls and Stealth. This essentially is the compensation for being RAT 5 MAT 5, and it is a very powerful rule.
- You can bait the opponent into fighting cheap as chips chaff hollowmen with their guns, and then nail them with your powerful backline models such as Neigh Slayers
Other
Trivia
- Unit and CA released with the Faction launch (2017.06)
- Holden released in 2018.06
- Holden's backstory was shaped by the players in a narrative league that stretched across several seasons. You can find the pre-Grymkin versions of Holden on the League Models article.
Other Grymkin models
Grymkin Index (Edit) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Battlegroup | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Warlocks |
The Child -
The Dreamer -
The Heretic -
The King of Nothing -
The Wanderer -
Old Witch 3 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Warbeasts |
Lesser: Crabbit |
Light: Frightmare - Gorehound - Rattler | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Heavy: Cage Rager - Clockatrice - Skin & Moans |
Gargantuan: Slaughterhouse | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Units, Solos, & Battle Engines | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Units |
Dread Rots - Hollowmen - Mad Caps - Malady Man - Murder Crows - Neigh Slayers - Piggybacks - Twilight Sisters | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Solos |
Baron Tonguelick, Lord of Warts - Cask Imp - Defiled Archon - The Four Horseymans - Glimmer Imp - Grave Ghoul - Gremlin Swarm - Isiah, Dread Harvester - Lady Karianna Rose - Lord Longfellow - Trapperkin - Weird Wendell - Witchwood | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Battle Engines | Death Knell | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Theme Forces | Minions | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Dark Menagerie - Bump in the Night | Refer to Category: Grymkin Minion | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
This index was last updated: 2021.08 |
Rules Clarifications
Rules Clarification : Powerful Charge and/or Brutal Charge (Edit)
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Rules Clarification : Unarmed (Edit)
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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 : Combined Ranged Attack (Edit)
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Rules Clarification : Eyeless Sight (Edit)
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Rules Clarification : Apparition (Edit)
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Rules Clarification : Officer (Edit)
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Rules Clarification : Tactics vs Granted (Edit)
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Rules Clarification : Blood-Bound (Edit)
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Rules Clarification : Magic Ability (Edit)
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Rules Clarification : Ghost Light (Edit) Taking Control of an Enemy Model (Edit) [Show/Hide]
General
Movement
Attacks
Destroying the Controlled model
Taking control of an enemy Trooper (member of a unit)
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Rules Clarification : Obscuring Mist - None yet. (Edit)
Rules Clarification : Annoyance - None yet. (Edit)
Rules Clarification : Tactics vs Granted (Edit)
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Rules Clarification : Pathfinder (Edit)
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Rules Clarification : Poisoned Fate (Edit)
Rules Clarification : Bane ability - None yet. (Edit) |
Rules Clarification : Prowl and/or Just a Tree? (Edit)
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Rules Clarification : Sniper (Edit)
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Note to Editors
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