Theme - Oracles of Annihilation
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Theme - Oracles of Annihilation Legion Theme Force |
There is great power buried alongside the relics of the past, and the arcanists who serve the dragon are well versed in the history of the ancient world, receiving necessary knowledge directly from Everblight himself. These arcanists scour the ruins of lost civilizations, seeking to recover useful artifacts from their sacred places to aid Everblight’s cause. When met with resistance, they combine fighting skill and specialized arcane knowledge to best their opponents, and the flesh and blood of fallen foes are quickly harvested and brought to the spawning vessels, there to lend further strength to Everblight’s legion.
Theme Rules
- For the core rules on how Theme Forces work, see this article.
Theme Restrictions
An army made using the Oracles of Annihilation theme force can include only the following Legion models:
- Legion warlocks
- Non-character warbeasts
- Proteus
- Models/units with Magic Ability
- Spawning Vessel units
- Virtue models/units
- Solos with the Battlegroup Commander special rule
- Beast Mistress solos
- Blighted Nyss Shepherd solos
- Incubi solos
- Spell Martyr solos
- This army can include any number of minion units, solos, and battle engines that will work for Legion.
- These models/units can be included even if they have the Partisan [Legion] rule.
- Minion units can't have attachments (to be confirmed).
Full model list
This list was last updated: 2021.10 (Edit)
Warlocks
- All Legion warlocks
Warbeasts
- All non-character warbeasts
- Proteus
- Other character warbeasts can be taken, but only if they have a bond and they're in their bonded model's battlegroup.
Battle Engines
Units
Solos
- Beast Mistress - (Lesser Warlock equivalent)
- Blight Archon - (Lesser Warlock)
- Blighted Nyss Shepherd
- Blighted Nyss Sorceress & Hellion
- Forsaken
- Incubi
- Spell Martyr
- Succubus - (Warlock Attachment)
- Thagrosh0 - (Lesser Warlock)
- Virtue Champion
- Yssylla
Minions
- Any number of units
- Any number of solos
- Any number of battle engines
Requisition Points
You can spend each Requisition Point on either:
- One Legion command attachment
- One Blighted Nyss Sorceress & Hellion solo
- Five Incubi solos
- One other small- or medium-based Legion solo with a point cost of 5 or less
Theme bonuses
- Minion models in this army are Blighted models. When a living small-based Minion warrior model is destroyed by an enemy attack, collateral damage, or a continuous effect you can replace it with an Incubus model as if it were a Faction model.
- When an enemy model ends its activation within 2" of a Blighted model the enemy model suffers the Corrosion continuous effect.
- Friendly models can begin play affected by upkeep spells of friendly warlocks.
- These spells and their targets must be declared before either player deploys their models.
- Warlocks do not need have to pay fury to upkeep spells during your first turn of the game.
- This benefit does not apply to Lesser Warlocks nor Draconic Consorts.
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Recent Changes
2020.12
- Yssylla released
2021.10
- Thagrosh0 released, and immediately added to the models allowed in this theme.
2021.10 Mega Update
- The free solo option now has to cost 5 points or less with Blighted Nyss Sorceress & Hellion being the only exception.
Thoughts on Oracles of Annihilation
Oracles of Annihilation in a Nutshell
OoA is an extremely flexible theme in the Legion's arsenal. You want magic-wielding infantry? You want battle engines? How'bout Minions? Or Minion Battle Engines? Incubi popping up everywhere? Corrosion? Guess what, you can have it all - but you may never have the points to squeeze it in a list all at once.
For the sake of clarity let's examine each element separately:
- Magic-wielding infantry
That's a very specific part of the legion's army, namely the Blighted Nyss infantries with magic ability or action. For units it has 3 good-to-excellent units, namely the Blackfrost Shard, the Hex Hunters and the Ice Witches. For solos it has some of the most valuable support solos in the form of the Sorceress&Hellion, and the Forsaken. The stable has been further extended by Thagrosh0 and Yssylla joining the theme.
- Minions
Here you have an unrestricted access for all the Minions who care (or dare) to serve Everblight. Note however that unlike other factions, we have no ranking-officer equivalents and there are scant few warlocks in the Legion who offer faction-independent buffs. The good news is that all the Minions become Blighted models, something that sits well with your Blight Archon's ability.
- Battle Engine(s)
This is one of the theme that allows you bringing the only in-faction battle engine, the infantry-mulching and spell-slinging Throne of Everblight - sometimes 2 of them at once. They are autonomous weapon platforms that don't tax your warlock's Fury management - but also, won't benefit from the battlegroup buffs she/he might offer. Connecting to the previous point, you can also bring the Gatorman or Farrow battle engines if you want to knock things down or need infantry-clearing.
- Incubi
Here you can bring a lot of cheap (minion) body who are eligible for Incubi spawning, providing a strong recursion trait for this theme. Note that Minions themselves don't produce Incubi upon getting destroyed, you still must pay for these figures either in points or with a free card.
- Corrosion
The continuous corrosion itself is a fairly minor benefit because it only comes into play if 1) they aren't immune to corrosion to begin with, 2) they trigger it during their turn, 3) you don't kill them during your next turn, and 4) it doesn't randomly expire. If you manage to do that then, one round after the turn they triggered it, the enemy model will take one point of damage. Big whoop.
However it is good for stacking with Peel Back the Layers on the new Virtue models, and/or using with the Blight Archon's Meltdown rule (note that Archons are not actually Blighted models so won't themselves trigger the corrosion benefit).
Blight makes Right
- Beast Mistress
- Spawning Vessel
- Ice Witches
- Hex Hunters
- Blackfrost Shard
- Thagrosh0
- Yssylla
- Blighted Nyss Shepherd
- Plus various warlocks are Blighted.
Theme Weaknesses
- This is some of our most versatile theme - but at the same time it can be downright confusing for beginners.
- Most of the models allowed here are also available in Children of the Dragon, mainly, Blighted Nyss, Virtues and Thrones. o to justify this theme you really have to lean into the theme benefits and unlimited minion availability.
- The corrosion theme benefit is not as awesome as it sounds. Your opponent must finish his activation within 2" without killing your model. Even if they did not kill it but managed to move away before their activation ended (Sprint, Reposition, etc.) the effect won't take place. Then they must survive an entire turn unharmed, only to suffer a single point of damage in their Maintenance phase... unless the effect goes off... or they tough it out.
- Some of that changes under the Bight Archon's and the Virtue Champion's aura (the former stripping off Corrosion Immunity while the latter counters the wearing-off of the corrosion effect), but they already have other means to spread corrosion in order to boost their combat output.
- This Theme does allow access to unlimited Minions units, but they are hard to support since very few Legion spells and Feats benefit non-Faction models - and your Minions become only Blighted models, not friendly faction models.
- The Incubi generation can be shut down via non-attacks (electro leaps, etc) and RFP effects - something that is also quite good to counter your other theme benefit.
- Not a weakness per se, just a word of warning for new players, who should thread carefully with the Minion element of this theme. Legion can have any number of Minion models in this theme (of those who work for them, of course). That is not true for the other 3 themes though; you can have there up to one unit and up to one solo from the Minion range. And even if you can bring Minions, it doesn't mean you always should. So to play this theme the intended way you'll have to purchase a number of models that you will likely never use in any other theme because Legion never really rewarded you to incorporate minions into it's gameplan. This can cause inexperienced players to buy an excessive amount of Minion models that they then cannot fully use neither in a Legion, nor in a Minion army to form a proper 75 pts theme force. When in doubt, ask veteran players first.
- As a rule of thumb, there are very good support solos with whom you cannot really go wrong. Here's a small - and deliberately incomplete - list of those worthwhile purchases:
- Feralgeist or Gremlin Swarm - These choices are excellent scenario pieces, and your enemy must use Magical weapons to get rid of them.
- Bog Trog Mist Speaker - Though most of your beasts have Eyeless Sight, this one can help you out against Incorporeal models, and can even make your battle engines immune to Blind.
- Croak Raiders - These skirmishers may have a lot of merit to boost the shots of your warbeasts, and nearly must-have choices if you plan to play Kallus2.
- Wrong Eye and Snapjaw - A good brawler beast and a spellcaster with a great defensive magic (Star Crossed), they can get a lot of work done.
- Swamp Gobbers Bellows Crew - 5" AOE cloud to block LoS to your caster or give concealment to your DEF 14 heavy? Yes, please. In addition they are the cheapest unit in the game (2 pts.) and can help you out with scoring in round zones. Native DEF 15 + concealment from cloud is extremely hard to remove at range.
Hex Hunter list building
This theme can be built around Hex Hunter, but the only thing this theme "gives" them is the Corrosion benefit - if you want Hex Hunters for the sake of Hex Hunters, you may be better in Children of the Dragon.
- Bethayne1 - Will be reaching for the Hex Hunters before anyone else as her feat makes them truly frightening. Blood Thorn allows them to hit even harder during a charge, triggering Battle Wizard all the more reliably. That being said the same can be done in Children. The main niche this theme has for her is that fact that her feat works minions. So you can have a fully boosted spray coming from Kwaak & Gub, Eilish1 and the Spirit Cauldron don't have to spend resources to boost, ect.
- Vayl1 - can build a fairly strong mixed arms list and can make some use of Hex Hunters. They're not her first choice of infantry, but among Legion's warlocks, she is in the unique position to improve their accuracy and damage across the board. Incite not only improves their melee prowess but also their Hex Bolt magic attacks. Free upkeeps streamlines some of her first turn clunkiness since you'll likely get Bayal for free - meaning you can start them with Frost Field and not have to worry about arcing spells and your army is likely further up the field on Turn 1.
- Lylyth1 - Makes strides with Oracles for similar reasons as Vayl1 and may be a good mixed arms warlock if you want to try out the theme. She also can make Hex Hunters hit hard and accurate both physically and magically between Parasite and her feat. Unfortunately, she lacks any friendly upkeep spells to leverage that portion of the theme bonuses. You can also bring Ice Witches for very accurate Spray on her Feat turn.
Throne list building
Thrones can also be in children of the dragon, but they are not affected by the Tactician benefit which can cause headaches with their huge bases. Here they can also start with upkeeps on them in play.
- Fyanna2 - She can run a decent double thrones list. Cycling Fury between them both for POW 19 attacks and they can Dodge away during her Feat make for interesting shenanigans.
- Rhyas1 - She is a popular choice for a double thrones list because of her Feat. Battle Engines are Huge base models, but still can be placed and with 4" melee give them a crazy threat range.
- Saeryn1 - Lots of debuffs to protect the Thrones and ARM 23 under Feat is nothing to shrug off.
- Thagrosh1 - Death Shroud makes the thrones brickier and Draconic Blessing makes it hit very hard with its four tentacles.
Minion-heavy list building
- Kallus1 - Despite being the Incubi king, he doesn't want to go Minion-heavy, sorry. Minions don't work with his Feat, because the feat triggers at disabled and the Minions trigger at destroyed. Also all his other buffs are friendly Faction only.
- Saeryn1 - Her spell list is offensive spells/debuff, a warbeast upkeep and non-faction upkeep (the only one in Legion). She can safely bring Tough minions infantry like Farrow Brigands with Prey, and use Breath Stealer with Grievous Wounds for devastating effect. The corrosion bonus also plays right in the style of game she wants, slowing down the enemy and keeping them at bay. Only downside is her Feat, which will only affect her Battlegroup.
- Thagrosh1 - Surprisingly, Thagrosh can really help Minions, since Fog of War affects every model and his Feat touch only his battlegroup. Malvin & Mayhem under FoW and Death Shroud are a scary proposition for the enemy as well. He can also get some mileage out of Croak Raiders as he wants to bring Typhon or Carniveans most of the time.
Other Warlocks of note
- Abyslonia1 Can run a mean double Archangel list, with added support from free Sorcerers, Croak Raiders for Oil, and Farrow Valkyries and The Wastelander to make gunlines cry.
Starting a 25 point Brawl list
In 2021.01 Phillip Melvin, one of the LOS authors, put together this list for the Brawlmachine format. He even wrote about it's playstyle and expanding it beyond 25 points, which you can read here.
- Vayl1: [+27 WBP]
- Angelius: [15 pts]
- Neraph: [12 pts]
- Mekanoshredder: [4 pts]
- Virtue Champion: [Free] (6 pts)
- The Wastelander: [5 pts]
- J.A.I.M.s.: [5 pts]
- Feralgeist: [2 pts]
- Blighted Nyss Shepherd: [1 pt]
- Virtue Host: [8 pts]
Total RRP: USD $178 (based on PP's online store prices 2021.03)
For more Brawlmachine list ideas, see Category: Brawl List
Other
Trivia
Released in the Themopocalypse (2017.09)
Other Legion models
Rules Clarifications
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Rules Clarification : Oracles of Annihilation (Edit)
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Rules Clarification: Theme Forces (Edit) Themes that change a model's Faction [Show/Hide]
Rerolling the starting roll [Show/Hide]
Warjacks/Warbeasts with bonds [Show/Hide]
Including Mercenaries [Show/Hide]
Number of Mercenaries
Mercenaries and Ranking Officers
Other
Including Partisan Mercenaries [Show/Hide]
Partisans & Theme Forces (Edit)
Requisition Points [Show/Hide]
Free models and Specialists (ADR) [Show/Hide]
Unit Attachments [Show/Hide]
When to apply theme benefits [Show/Hide]
See also these Theme-Specific Rulings [Show/Hide]
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