Come, sit by me and listen, followers of the Protectorate,

It is she who paves the road for the coming of Menoth, a leader so pure and full of the Protectorate’s power that will not even touch the ground, for it is filthy and filled with heretics. So ladies and gentleman behold, The Harbinger of Menoth!

Statistics

The Harbinger on first glance is as weak as she can get, when Choir members have a better stat line than your Caster something’s definitely going on. She has average infantry SPD followed by abysmal STR,MAT and RAT only with her DEF and ARM to be just one point above the DEF and ARM of the Flame Guard. Her strong points however is her incredible amount of Focus giving her a 20″ CTRL area, that being currently the largest in the game, and her elite level CMD value.

Feat

For one round, models ending their movement within her CTRL area closer to the Harbinger than they begun take an un-boostable high POW fire damage roll, for they are heretics and overall Harbinger doesn’t really fancy them.

Weapons

Providence: It is an average POW+S weapon.

Magical Weapon: It is a magical average POW+S weapon.

Guided: It is a magical average POW+S weapon that automatically hits. Note the blindfold worn by the Harbinger, sight is for the weak.

Abilities

Divinity: Menoth is guiding the Harbinger not allowing her to be knocked down or suffer Blind while also extending her front arc to 360.

Awe: So mesmerized enemies are by her presence that living enemy models suffer a penalty on their attack rolls while within the Harbinger’s CMD area. Note that the enemy models do not need to be targeting Harbinger in order for them to get the penalty on their attack rolls.

Martyrdom: It allows the Harbinger to use her health as a secondary resource giving her the ability to heal a friendly Faction non-warcaster warrior model for 1 point of health, while damaging herself for D3 damage points.

Spells

Cataclysm: A high COST offensive spell that hits automatically. The spell has an incredibly high base POW however it loses 1 POW for each inch between the Harbinger and your intended target. It’s large AOE only damages enemy models, if though the target is out of range the spell does not deviate instead it has no effect.

Crusader’s Call: An average COST spell that allows all Friendly Faction models beginning a charge within Harbinger’s CTRL area to get +2″ movement.

Fear of God: Low cost offensive upkeep spell leaving enemy model/unit hit incapable of giving orders,receiving orders or making special attacks.

Guided Hand: Low cost buff allowing a friendly model/unit to gain an additional die on each model’s first melee attack roll.

Purification: An average COST spell that immediately expires all continuous effects, animi and upkeep spells within her huge CTRL area.

Thoughts on The Harbinger of Menoth

The Harbinger truly embodies what Warmachine is all about, risk and resource management. Martyrdom adds a new dimension to her as a Warcaster now having two types of resources to work with instead of just Focus.

Harbinger is the Queen of stripping violence of action and initiative from your opponent while her abilities and spells are all geared towards that.

Her Martyrdom ability allows you to save one of your models from death by suffering D3 points of damage and although that might sound completely counter-intuitive, use it as much as possible. If you finish your game with more than half of your hit boxes unchecked you need to be martyrdoming more. It is crucial to understand that health is a resource for The Harbinger giving her a significant tactical and positional edge by being able to partially control your opponent’s resource expenditure. Martyrdom’s no.1 use is forcing your opponent to spend a disproportional amount of resources for his kills than what he would otherwise need. This way you secure control zones, flags, charge lanes and when those models finally die your opponent’s potential damage output would have not provided him with the results he was after and therefore giving you an edge in the potential war of attrition that might follow.

Spending health in order to Martyrdom models can be a doubled edge sword however, on one hand you want to have models in key positions within your CMD range in order to save them while on the other hand the more you Martyrdom the greater the assassination potential for your enemy. This is where the Harbinger’s huge CTRL area comes into effect granting you exceptional situational awareness as you can always have an accurate fix on how far your enemy’s threat ranges go.

Adding to the momentum killing capabilities of The Harbinger are her feat and Fear of God spell.

Her Feat stops enemy infantry advance for an entire round leaving them unable to reach positions of tactical interest as any such movement that would result in them coming closer to the Harbinger and within her CTRL area would most likely kill them. Timing is key with her feat, and the best time to use it is when the two battle lines are about to clash. Her feat will not allow charges from enemy infantry while at the same time your units will be able to advance to advantageous positions and gain the alpha strike. Note that Holy Zealots synergize perfectly with this as the turn after they use their mini-feat, creating a wall of models that cannot be damaged, further more suppresses any enemy charging potential.

Last component of this momentum-killing combo is Fear of God, leaving a model/unit incapable of giving or receiving orders as well as making special attacks. This spell is there to make sure that when your line finally contacts the enemy you are stripping any defensive or offensive orders from the enemy unit (such as shield walls, bob and weave etc) as well as making sure that not even then will your opponent get to make any charging attacks against your front line.

An Hierophant is a must with Harbinger as he can heal D3 hit boxes of hers in an attempt to keep her health up for as long as possible and extending the range of her spells. Devout provides excellent protection with Shield Guard as any point of damage the Harbinger is not taking is a potential Martyrdom’d grunt or solo. In addition, Devout can also protect the Harbinger from spell assassination for just a point of focus. The Vessel of Judgement also works as a great centerpiece for your army packing significant anti-infantry abilities and miracles while at the same time providing large cover for the Harbinger to hide behind.

Overall, The Harbinger is amazing, her ability to stop an army on its tracks through her feat and spells is invaluable and her Martyrdom ability makes her an incredible attrition caster. A balance needs to be found however, as she is in a constant struggle to balance the risk of her being assassinated with the benefit of playing an incredibly powerful attrition game.

Points to remember when using The Harbinger

Harbinger loves camping on Focus, the more she has the more she can use on spells and healing herself while still having some remaining to boost her armor. Consider using focus efficient Warjacks with her such as the Avatar of Menoth or Reckoners backed up by Choir and Vassal. Wracks are a solid option as well as the Harbinger will not be limited in her movement knowing that she will always have them in her control area.

Try and keep the Hierophant within arms reach. You need to have the healing ability readily available while at the same time make sure that stray blasts wont be hitting both him and the Harbinger.

Keep your Devout B2B with the Harbinger. The Devout provides a good amount of defensive tech and its important to capitalize upon it. Placing the Devout B2B in front of your caster will allow you to: Benefit from Spell Barrier, which goes a long way towards protecting your caster from spell assassination or debuffs. Protect the caster through Shield Guard, adding one more defensive layer between you and ranged assassination. Use defensive strike on an enemy model that is attempting to charge the Harbinger.



Paladins of the Wall become incredible defensive pieces, their abilities makes them tough as old boots, add Martyrdom on top of that and those zones will not be captured easily. Using the Paladins with Harbinger adds one more dimension to them, not only are their incredible defensive abilities amplified through martyrdom but can also act as a great counter attack piece when Crusader’s Call is used having an 11.5″ threat range.



Never guess threat ranges, you have a 20″ inch CTRL area and you should be using it constantly in order to measure ranges of interest. Be aware however, if you know a distance so does your opponent.

If it comes down to it the Harbinger despite her stats is a good melee model, as her horrendous MAT is being remedied by her auto hitting sword while she is also able to buy lots of attacks and boost damage rolls.

Errants become a real obstacle with the Covenant and Carvolo. Tough, self-sacrifice and Martyrdom is a combo that will frustrate most armies.

Crusader’s call will be of utmost importance as it allows you to control more of the battlefield and aids in delivering Paladins of the wall and Errants to the enemy lines. With this in mind Reckoners become a real nuance in their own right as they gain a 14″ threat range. Charge them up and sent them to deliver the messages of Menoth.

Be aware that Armor heavy lists will not be affected by your feat the same way, the POW of Harbinger’s feat and the inability to boost makes it simply not effective.

How have you used this great warcaster? What lists do you usually prefer when running The Harbinger? Leave it on the comments below!

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