Analysis: Lich Lord Asphyxious

There are certain casters that are known to be "top tier", the best of the best, feared when they're set down on opposite side of the table.  Epic Haley, Epic Morvahna, Harbinger, and Epic Lylyth are the ones that come to mind for me.  And, of course, Epic Asphyxious.

But if you're newer to the game, you might be wondering why?  What makes some of these casters so good?  In this episode of Analysis, we're going to be going a deep dive into Lich Lord Asphyxious and attempt to show some of the tricks that make him such a dangerous opponent.

Stats and Abilities

Lich Lord Asphyxious has a SPD of 6, MAT 6, DEF 15 and ARM 16.  He has no ranged weapon so his RAT shouldn't matter (but it stinks) and his CMD is an 8.  His FOCUS is a very nice 7 and he brings 6 warjack points along with him.

He's wielding Daeamortus, a Magical Reach weapon that he made out of another Lich Lord who got in his way.  It's got a good P+S of 15 so "Gaspy2" could put a hurt on things up close if he had to.  Daeamortus has a Special Action (*Action) associated with it:

Soul Reaper: Place a 5" AOE anywhere completely in this model's control area.  The AOE remains in play for one round.  When a living enemy model is destroyed in the AOE, this model gains one soul token.  While the AOE is in play, this model cannot attack with Daeamortus and has no melee range.

The Lich Lord also has the Cull Soul ability.

Cull Soul: This model gains one soul token for each living enemy model destroyed within 2" of it.  When this model replenishes its focus during your next Control Phase, replace each soul token on it with 1 focus point.

Without that Cull Soul ability, the souls potentially gained by Daeamortus's *Action wouldn't do much.

Gaspy2 is also Undead and causes Terror.  One downside that's not printed anywhere on his card?  He's on a medium base.  Just keep that in mind when trying to screen him.

Spells

Lich Lord Asphyxious is definitely not hurting for spell selection.  He has six to choose from.

His first spell is Caustic Mist:

Caustic Mist: COST 2, RNG CTRL, AOE 3: Place a 3" AOE cloud effect completely in this model's control area. A model entering or ending its activation in the AOE suffers 1 point of corrosion damage.  Caustic Mist lasts for one round.

For only 2 points, you can place a small AOE cloud effect into play.  Single wound infantry has to avoid these clouds and you have enough FOCUS to drop more than one in a turn.  Most models can't see through a cloud effect so you can use the clouds to block line of sight.  No line of sight means no ranged attacks, no magic attacks, and no charging.

Cloud effects also provide Concealment to models inside of them.  You could put one of these on the Lich Lord and his DEF goes up to 17 against shooting (although he'd take one point of damage at the end of his activation).  You can put this over another one of your models for the same effect and as long as they've already activated, they won't take the damage.

You can use Caustic Mist in conjunction with an aggressive jam strategy against single-wound enemy infantry, too.  Run your infantry (Satyxis Raiders or Bane Knights work well because of Reach) up to engage enemy models.  Drop Caustic Mist templates on as many of the enemies as you can.  In their activation, the enemy either stays to fight and dies at the end of their activation, or they try to move away and take free strikes.  If you can position a Daeamortus Soul Reaper on top of the enemy models as well, you'll be able to get Souls no matter what your opponent chooses to do.

Lastly, in games where an opponent has to touch a flag or objective to control it, drop a Mist on it.  Single-wound models won't be able to touch the thing.

Death Knell: Cost 4, RNG 8, AOE 4, POW 10, Offensive: Before dealing damage, count the number of models in the AOE.  Add the result to each Death Knell damage roll.

This is a rather expensive spell with a nice AOE.  Starting at a POW 10, if you catch a decent amount of models under the template, you can certainly put a hurting on even high ARM models with good rolls.  Note that the spell doesn't say anything about counting only enemy models.  You can easily run some of your own models up into position and increase damage that way.

While only the model directly hit takes the POW 10 and other models only suffer half that, the "bonus" damage isn't halved.  If you are facing a high DEF/low ARM threat, go ahead and target your own model with this spell instead of the enemy.  You'll have a much better chance of hitting (without having to boost) and can still do enough damage to clear out the enemy.

Excarnate: Cost 3, RNG 10, POW 13, Offensive: When a living enemy warrior model is boxed by Excarnate, remove it from play.  You can then add one Grunt to a friendly Faction small-based undead unit in this model's control area.  The Grunt must be placed in formation and within 3" of this model.

This spell does decent damage, but choose your targets carefully.  POW 13 isn't enough to really hurt high ARM targets.  Even boosting, ARM 18 targets are only going to take about 5 to 6 damage, which isn't going to be enough to seriously damage 'jacks or beasts.  However, it's great at picking off enemy solos or high value infantry models.

If you get to use the secondary effect, remember it has to be Undead.  You can add to a unit such as Bane Knights or Bile Thralls, but not Satyxis.  It gets placed within and not completely within so it's a little easier to make sure it gets put in formation.

Hellbound: Cost 3, RNG Self, Upkeep: This model cannot be targeted by charges.  While within 5" of this model, enemy models treat open ground as rough terrain. 

If the clouds aren't enough to keep enemy infantry away from you, check this spell out.  The combination of "cannot be targeted by charges" and the rough terrain should keep enemy infantry off you.  If the enemy has some speed and reach (or Pathfinder) they might be able to run and engage you, but that's better than the alternative.

Cast this early, upkeep it, and enjoy the level of protection it provides.

Parasite: Cost 3, RNG 8, Offensive Upkeep: Target model/unit suffers -3 ARM and this model gains +1 ARM. 

You're playing Cryx so you know you're going to end up with a quality debuff spell.  It's got a short range but you know what else Cryx has?  Cheap arc nodes.  If you want to make this even worse, get some Bane Thralls up near the targeted unit as well.  They have Dark Shroud which is another -2 ARM while within the melee range of the Thralls.

Teleport: Cost 2, RNG Self: Place this model anywhere completely within 8" of its current location, then its activation ends. 

This spell allows you to play Lich Lord Asphyxious much more aggressively.  As long as you save enough focus to cast it at the end of his turn, you can get Gaspy2 to a much safer location.

Feat

This absolutely amazing feat is a big part of what makes Gaspy2 so scary.  Get ready though.  This is wordy:

Spectral Legion: Return up to 10 friendly destroyed non-warcaster small- or medium-based Faction warrior models to play, placing them within 3" of Asphyxious.  Returned models gain Undead and Ghostly, become solos, and cannot be attacked or damaged for one turn.  Returned models must charge during their activations and leave play at the end of this turn.  (A model with Ghostly can advance through terrain and obstacles without penalty and can advance through obstructions if it has enough movement to move completely past them.  A model with Ghostly cannot be targeted by free strikes.)

This is NOT the same wording as you might find on Asphyxious's card or in the Cryx book.  Privateer Press put out an errata that changed it from Incorporeal to Ghostly.  It's a nerf, but it's not enough to worry about.

So some things to note about this feat:

• The models that are returned to play become solos.  That means they activate and operate independently of one another.  It also means things like Combined Melee Attack obviously won't work (and neither will Gang on the Satyxis Blood Witches).
• The models have to be placed within 3" of Asphyxious but not completely within.  This gives you a little more space to place the returned models.
• The models are placed when you pop the feat, but they don't immediately activate.  You have to continue doing the rest of the Lich Lord's turn before taking advantage of your respawned dudes.
• "Warrior" models are warcasters (which are excluded specifically by this spell for obvious reasons), troopers (members of units), and solos.  This gives you a lot of options for what you bring back.
• Ghostly essentially gives your models Pathfinder and the ability to move through obstacles, but you can't move through models.  

This feat has multiple uses, but it's going to be difficult to plan for ahead of time because you don't necessarily know what's going to be dead on your side.  Be careful for enemy models with "remove from play" effects too.  You can't bring back anything that gets removed.

You have a lot of potential threat range with this feat.  Gaspy2 can charge something up to 9" away from him (and if it's a friendly warrior model, you can bring it right back when you kill it).  You can pop your feat and place your models at the very edge of that 3" radius (which can give you another 1.5 inches).  Bane Knights that come back can charge 8" and have Reach.  Satyxis Raiders don't hit as hard but can charge 10" and have Reach, Critical Knockdown and Feedback along with a second attack.  Bane Thralls have Dark Shroud, like I mentioned before, so it might not hurt to bring one of them back just to get that debuff out there in a key spot.

The returned models have to charge.  This means a few things.  First, watch your positioning.  Don't crowd your lanes and end up with models that get stuck without good charge targets.  Second, don't bring back things like Bile Thralls, since their ranged attacks won't do you much good and they can't take the Purge *Action.  Third, this does work on solos so don't feel too bad if your opponent takes out Bane Lord Tartarus early in the game.  Just bring him back (and he can still use Curse [Bane] when he is returned).

Synergies

You're probably going to want an arc node because of Death Knell, Excarnate, and Parasite.

Asphyxious2 doesn't have any defensive debuffs.  High DEF targets are going to require the application of Bile Thralls, Bane Knights used in conjunction with Tartarus's Curse, Raiders using Combined Melee, or Blood Witches using Gang.

Reach warrior models are great with the feat, so look at Bane Knights and Satyxis Raiders.  Bane Knights hit harder but Raiders are used to jam early because of their speed and might be more likely to be dead.

Bile Thralls are good at taking out infantry but they're kind of slow.  You can use Excarnate to take out a living enemy warrior model and bring in a Bile Thrall, getting it into a better position compared to the rest of the unit he just joined.

Darragh Wrathe is worth a mention.  His Death Ride *Action works on Friendly undead Faction models, allowing them to advance up to 1".  Since the feat brings back things as undead, they can benefit.  

The Withershadow Combine has some potential with the Lich Lord.  It lets you play them more aggressively early game because they can come back under the feat.  Just be warned that Granted: Dark Industries will only apply to Maelovus if he gets returned because he'll be his own unit.  They also allow you to upkeep Hellbound for free (or Parasite, but more likely Hellbound).

Saxon Orrik can be taken in order to give Pathfinder out, since Gaspy2 can't give out any movement buffs (other than giving Ghostly to the returned feat models).

If you want to be a little silly or out-of-the-box, you can get some synergies between the feat and Deathjack.  While Asphyxious can't use the feat + Death Knell (unless he's close enough to bring the models into play surrounding the intended target), Deathjack can cast it thanks to the rules for Necromancy.

Necromancy: While this model is in its controller's control area. it can spend focus points to cast its controller's spells.  When this model casts its controller's spells, the controller is considered to have cast them but this model is their point of origin.  When making a magic attack roll, this model uses its controller's FOCUS.  This model cannot cast spells with a RNG of SELF or CTRL.

Death Knell costs 4 focus to cast, but that's okay since the Skulls of Hate say
"gain 1 focus point" which allows Deathjack to get more than the standard 3.  More than likely you're not going to run into a situation where you want to do this (because the returned models already did enough damage and/or you have better things to do with a fully loaded Deathjack), but it's there.

Here's a sample list taken from the Adepticon Masters.  Dan Simmons took second place with this as one of his three lists:

Lich Lord Asphyxious
     Nightwretch
     Nightwretch
Bane Thralls (Leader & 9 Grunts)
     Bane Thrall Officer & Standard
Bane Knights (Leader & 9 Grunts)
Satyxis Blood Witches (Leader & 9 Grunts)
     Satyxis Blood Hag
Bile Thralls (Leader & 5 Grunts)
Darragh Wrathe
Bane Lord Tartarus
Pistol Wraith
Gorman di Wulfe, Rogue Alchemist

Two arc nodes start off this list, giving dual threat vectors with his awesome attack spells.

You're going to see max units of both types of Banes in most Gaspy2 lists.  They're going to move up the field behind a wall of Caustic Mist clouds.  Any of them that die will just be feeding the feat.  Bane Knights also have Vengeance, so don't be surprised to see a Lich player trying to bait his opponent into just killing one or two "unprotected" Knights.

Bane Lord Tartarus is going to be there for the Curse and the additional +2" of movement and +2 to attack rolls.

The Blood Witches are there to run up the field, using Blood Shadow to gain Incorporeal when they need it.  They'll use Gang and Death Strike to take out high DEF models, while producing their own cloud effects with Blood Mist.

A minimum-size unit of Bile Thralls can threaten enemy infantry and the unit can easily be expanded with use of Excarnate through the arc nodes.  The Lich Lord can move, Excarnate, and then Teleport away leaving a Bile Thrall in his wake.

Darragh hands out his movement buff and protects the Lich Lord further with Beyond Death.  The Pistol Wraith gives some shooting and Chain Attack: Death Chill is always a factor.  Gorman di Wulfe is a huge threat to colossals and gargantuans who hate Blind.  He can also toss out yet more LOS-blocking smoke clouds or hand out -2 ARM to jacks with Rust bombs.

Overall, Lich Lord Asphyxious is a versatile, powerful, and very scary warcaster.  His spell package is extremely high quality and his feat can be game winning.  Even when you're losing your units with Gaspy2 you're gaining flexibility and power on your feat turn.