“My angelius overtakes to here, and that will do him.”

“Okay, not so bad.”

“I activate Saeryn, move up, I’m going to blight bringer, then cast tenacity on her, then feat.”

“And so we play the waiting game… I hate the waiting game…”

This week we’re going to talk about how to deal with Epic Asphyxious, the Lich Lord, when playing Legion of Everblight. First we will discuss legion models and tactics that are useful in this matchup, and then I will go into the warlocks that deal well with it, both unusual and the more expected choices.



Check out the first two articles in this series for background on the Lich, and what to expect from him.

The Toolbox

Legion is THE premier beast faction. No-one runs them as well in such numbers with so many warlocks. So surely that makes them the worst against Cryx who love to see warbeasts/jacks? Not at all! The faction is bedecked with ranged attacks and infantry clearing options and they don’t rely on the poor defensive stats of their beasts against almost anything, so Cryx debuffs aren’t as devastating as you’d expect.

The ravagore is incredible in this matchup. It can kill both the hag and Tartarus from relative safety, it ignores Lich’s defensive clouds, and it can keep him honest if he’s not camping. Just in general it hunts the lynchpins of your opponents plan. When dealing with Cryx, you should almost always have a ravagore in your list. Don’t be afraid to shoot other models in the butt to place scathers on them against non-reach infantry.

I can leave scather?

I always imagine dragonspawn as internet cats. I have problems.

A lot of people are liking the afflictor at the moment, but the living requirement of his incubi creation is a bit mopey in this matchup. He has a whole turn where he can’t kill the one unit he’d be able to kill which is not great. The naga isn’t neccesarily a bad idea to let your beasts get into the incorporeal units, but I much prefer using hex hunters. They are a great little unit, very good at killing blackbane’s raiders or blood witches with startling speed, but they are unfortunately excarnate fodder. If you can keep them alive, or at least turn them into food for your pot after they do some damage they will be worth their cost, but you need to get work from them.

The sycthean and angelius are both good, shockingly I’m sure. The scytheans animus removes from play, which is excellent though hard to apply enough to actually counter the feat. Angels have overtake, so if you can boost their accuracy then you can eat your way through many models a turn. Many of the best tools are obvious models. Though I think triple spray Typhon should get an honourable mention for chewing through units at startlingly speed if played well. That’s the key to Legion though, isn’t it? Play your beasts carefully and well and you will decimate your foe.

The Garden Shed

Now I’ll discuss two warlocks. One who is lesser used but very good, and a personal favourite of mine. One who I see mentioned, but think has less of a good matchup than people think.

Bethayne is phenomenally fun. She has the longest single quality of any caster, cool interactions, a great animus, a brilliant spell list and if you’re lucky a devastating feat. While ashen veil and carnivore lose a lot of power against Lich and Cryx in general, (carnivore only rfps LIVING models), eruption of spines is still excellent on her. She often takes more models with magic attacks, and sprays, etc. than beasts. Belghagors animus is excellent against everything but bane knights, and if you roll well the feat can strip incredible amounts of infantry off of the table. Her problem, ultimately is that turn you roll nothing but 1s for eruption bounces and lose the game because of it.

It’s okay! You can be in my belly!

Lylyth2 on the other hand gets mentioned a lot because she can ignore the cloud wall almost entirely, but I don’t like it. She’s weak in scenario where he’s strong. He should be in a bonejack bunker and camping loads to survive the feat. And the horde of weapon masters is a serious threat. It’s far from awful, but it isn’t what I’d call a favourable matchup.

The Kitchen Sink

Now we move on two my two favourite solutions, but hardly very inventive ones.

First up is Vayl2, and you’ve already seen the list everywhere. It lets you shoot out the key pieces, it let’s your angels get involved then back up (don’t partly dip into bane knights though) while boosting the accuracy of those angels with icy grip to a reasonable level. Occultation can kind of help your legionnaires not get excarnated, but anyway, they were pot food. If they bumper for even a bit you’re doing great. She also has so many beasts that if you are careful and only lose 1-2 to the feat, you might actually have one or two left near the end of the game. Having a fully functional warbeast after Lich’s feat is amazing. Every now and then you can shoot Lich to death if he slips up, which is a bad game plan, but a great threat/option. Do keep Vayl very safe though, she’s very susceptible to the feat assassination.

You know that face when you breath stealer their last hope?

I love that face.

Finally, the ultimate in Cryx matchup and my favourite Legion warlock, Saeryn. I love Saeryn. And she is happy to play this match. Banishing ward is as always very useful against Cryx, especially on hex hunters here, she has a Def and Spd debuff so you can really manage units and kill them effectively with you’re beasts. Her feat is devastatingly effective, buying you an entire turn wherein you can get huge amounts of work done with no retaliation. Blight bringer is fantastic, mimicking and surpassing all the pros of shooting your own models with a ravagore. There is the all important JVM, Noah’s ark list with two of many things. This is the best Cryx matchup list available in Legion I feel.

Instead I’d rather discuss the fact that I think Saeryn can run several ravagores well. She boosts accuracy, she has incredible infantry denial and her feat is very, very powerful if your able to save it longer. I feel three ravagores win most shooting games, and give you a reason to take a naga, which lets you ignore many buffs and better deal with her issue with higher armor lists, especially if you also take the blackfrost which you should. The game plan then is to shoot like crazy, then feat when they close and start making ravagores into mat 7, pow 18 bruisers with blessed if needs be. Now, I haven’t tested it out much, because I haven’t been playing Legion, but I’d love to see people try her in that alternate style and figure out if it’s good, or whether I’m just obsessed with guns.

Next time we’ll discuss the mirror match! How do Cryx take on the Lich? Just play ther direct mirror? Or are there other options?

Stay Classy!

-Eoin/VP