Caster Reviews 1: Master Tormentor Morghoul

Caster Review #1

Master Tormentor Morghoul

"These gloves are cool, but maybe I should get a fan. Fans are intimidating, right?"

Everything came together for me to talk about this caster. I recently tested my pMorghoul list in the Hardcore setting (Death Clock is something to get used to). Doug Seacat, writer extraordinaire, did a nice little fluff article, which you can locate here, and the first caster Chain Attack did with Skorne was pMorghoul, which you can listen to here. He is also the first Skorne caster you usually start with as well, so this article can apply to new players. Lots of reasons to write this article.

Chain Attack gave pMorghoul a rank 3 (which I assume is a "C" ranking in the newer format), which I strongly disagree with.

pMorghoul is one of the top tournament Warlocks in our faction. Competing with eMakeda and eHexeris for a top spot, though I think he loses to those two. So lets look at him:

Base Abilities and Stats:

pMorghoul is a Fury 5 caster with a very low ARM but an impressive DEF and a wide array of abilities.

He has pathfinder naturally with is excellent to get around obstacles and obstructions. It is especially important with all the movement shenanigans he can have.

Anatomical Precision is a situationally excellent ability, to be able to say "I don't care what your ARM is, just take the damage" is very useful against high ARM targets (like say a Warcaster), but unfortunately it only works on living models. Just don't take pMorghoul against Cryx, and this ability is extremely handy.

Maltreatment basically makes pMorghoul a Fury 6 caster, and really ties things together for him. Most of the spells he will be casting is a Fury cost of 2, so if you start with 5, you can cast 2 spells, and Maltreatment a beast to put you back at sitting on 2 transfers. Maltreatment also allows you a degree of Fury management. It does cause damage to the beast, but you can use your paingivers to heal if necessary. A rather crazy move, is that if you have only minimal health on a Beast, you can Maltreatment the beast, kill it, and reeve all that fury for transfers, or as part of an assassination run where Morghoul needs to buy attacks.

Overtake is awesome in that your opponent will never want to bunch up his models. It is only an inch advance on a model with no reach, but because he is immune to free strikes, he can easily charge into the middle of a unit, bounce around a little, and retreat to safety. I have had Morghoul kill whole units before when my opponent didn't see it coming.

Perfect Balance is fantastic. First off you can ignore knockdown without spending fury. Typically, if Morghoul was knocked down, he is dead, but certain feats, slams, etc. might get him and it is good to remember this. We have an animus that can almost ensure we never have to deal with this, but more on that later. He is also immune to CRAs, CMAs, and Backstrikes. A very important point because it forces your opponent to have to deal with their base MAT/RAT against your high defense. He doesn't have stealth, so this can be a big deal. The biggest deal is that he is immune to free strikes. It lets him walk away from models trying to tie him up, it lets him charge past models to get an optimum placement or get to a caster, he can advance wherever he wants, when he wants. It makes him very hard to tie down for your opponent.

He also has double strike, one fury buys 2 attacks. With Maltreatment and two initial attacks, his maximum attack output is 14 attacks. That leads to what I would like to call "death by a thousand cuts". If you can get to a knocked down living caster with only 14 damage left on them, you can just tell your opponent you win. 14 autohitting, autopoints of damage puts people down. More often though, you will use it to get 4 or 6 attacks in an activation to kill infantry while you bounce around the unit with overtake.

Finally he has Sprint, which is awesome, and really helps him with his style. His high MAT plus Anatomical Precision ensures that if you have a good charge target, you might as well take it. Even if you only kill a few, you can use sprint to get to safety. The biggest deal with sprint to me, is that it allows you to threat better with your control area. Charging 10", bounce around a unit a little, and sprint back to the point where you know you can get your beasts where you need them in your control area is extremely helpful.

So his base stat line allow him to play like a super solo a little, what about his spells?

Spells:

It is a small list, but a good one. Sometimes it isn't the size of the spell list, but how you use it.

Abuse - His signature spell. Probably the best beast buff in the game. It is a flat plus 2 SPD and STR for a minimal amount of damage. The best thing about this is that it isn't an upkeep, so can be cast multiple times. With Maltreatment and Marketh, you can cast this 4 times, but that would generally be inadvisable. The best thing is that you can still cast Admonition on the beast, and Rush. Coupled with Rush, a Beast adds an effective +4" speed to a charge. Suddenly a SPD 4 titan has an 11.5" threat range, which out threats a lot of jacks. Add reach, or a slightly higher base speed, and you have insane threat ranges on your beasts. The thing that keeps it under control is your small control area. But like I said, with Sprint, if your opponent places something within 10" of Morghoul, you can use that to get into optimal positioning. The other thing about those threat ranges is that, you are not forced to aggressively place your beasts. You could have a beast chillin near or slightly in front of Morghoul himself. This lets you guarantee that other Jacks/Beasts really can't stop you from getting the Alpha Strike, and played smartly, puts your beasts in the prime position to charge when they need to without risk of getting charged themselves.

Admonition - This is also a fantastic spell. Basically when anything advances within 5" of the admonition model, that model can immediately make a 3" advance, ignoring free strikes. It is a "can" ability, so you get to decide when to trigger is. It is awesome to cast on that forward placed beast, so if your opponent does get a charge in on you, you simply walk away. When a enemy unit charges you, you can wait to see how each model is positioned, and use admonition at just the right time. It is an advance, so a smart opponent may try and run models behind you to prevent you from getting away. This is why judging threat distances is so key, if they run that first model behind you, and you see another model or two have the distance to do so, just immediately trigger it to get behind whatever got behind you. Now, you messed with that unit's charge lanes and distances. Another way to get around it is to knock that model down. However, we have an animus for that. Another way is to knock it off (since it is an upkeep), you can use shield guard from the brute to save yourself from eEiryss, admonition away from a Thrullg, or just stay more then 11" away from Admonia. Played smartly, it is an extremely hard rule for your opponent to get around and can save your beasts bacon.

Torment - This is a very, very, situational spell. It is a magic missile, so can be handy to kill annoying incorporeal solos. It's benifit is that you can prevent transfers on a warlock. Considering Morghoul's base speed and the speed of his beasts, that can be super handy for an assassination run. Any of our beasts punching any warlock with inability to transfer equals a dead warlock. However, it is very risky to cast, Morghoul is only a focus 5 warlock, so against most other warlocks, on a boost, still puts it a a 10 or 12 on three dice. Still enough to fail, and you will have to boost to get damage on the caster to. So for 4 Fury, is it worth it? Questionable. I personally have never cast it. Not that I wouldn't, but because of how he plays, there are more important things to do with his fury most of the time.

Feat - Pain & Suffering:

I rank this as feat number 3 in our faction in order of effectiveness (eMakeda being 1, pHexeris being 2). It is very simple, while within his control area, no Warmachine model may spend focus, and no Hordes model may be forced, healed, or transfer damage. In my experience, the best use of this feat is as a defensive measure. Keeping your beasts inside your control area while your feat is up makes your army incredibly hard to put down, especially in combination with admonition on a key piece. Basically, you can push forward aggressively, pop your feat, and wait for the chance to strike. Thanks to scenarios, you put your opponent in a position where they have to move forward or risk surrendering points to you, and if they move forward, you can start applying beasts to your opponent's face next turn. It also can assist in the assassination of a warlock, but to do so, you better have Morghoul in that area, and can easily get a beast to that caster. Otherwise Morghoul may not like where he is at. It can really put a beast you where able to hit but not finish, no healing means that if it lost a spiral it is truly lost, and no forcing just rubs salt on the wound.

Unfortunately, it doesn't help against high damage dealing infantry. You do have admonition, but you can only get that on one piece. So judge your counter attack well, and use the feat to maximize your protection, while setting up a counter charge angle.

Play style, Optimum Pieces, and Must Haves:

If you are new to the game, you may be surprised to hear that pMorghoul is a beast caster. He actually competes with Naaresh as the best beast caster in the faction.

It is all about speed and threat, while being very protective of Morghoul. Because he has a low control area, you are forced to be very aggressive with his placement, which can scare players away. Because of this and his low ARM, you need a Brute with him. The Brute does nothing but keep casting immunity to knock down on Morghoul. Sure, upkeep hate does take this off, but if you are careful, outside of Purification or an arced Hex Blast, there is very little to knock this off that can't be either shield guarded or simply staying outside of threat ranges. Once you are in the thick of it, cycle Admonition onto Morghoul if you see the possibility of something reaching him.

He has the possibility of adding a cumaltive +4 SPD to a Beast. With a Shaman, Marketh, and the Gladiator doing nothing else but casting its animus, you can push that to two beasts, and still have fury to sit on for transfers.

The Bronzeback is my favorite front line beast for Morghoul. There is an interesting interaction with admonition and counter charge. Since they trigger at the same time, you can choose the order. It is depended on what is getting close to you, but to be able to admonition out of engagement range, and then counter charge a model, usually putting it down, can be quite fun. Also, because of the beast heavy nature of a typical pMorghoul list, beast back is phenomenal in allowing you to bounce around an infantry unit, or beat backing to a caster. I have just recently started using a Sentry as another Beat Back Target. With reach, it doesn't need abuse for the additional threat (though the threat range on an abused enraged Sentry is insane), but you can charge into an infantry unit, and between 3 initials and 4 fury, really put a hurting on it, even if they are spaced out. If you have a Shaman, you can use his ghost shot to clear that optimal charge lane, or just let Morghoul do it for you.

If you do take infantry with him, make sure it is very self sufficient, as he provides you very little infantry support. I usually run Gatormen and a task master with him, if I really feel I need it. With Beat Back and strategic use of admonition, you can actually get away with not needing any infantry sans the mandatory pain givers.

Final Thoughts:

Morghoul is not an easy caster to play, and he has some rough match ups. However, a well practiced Morghoul player will win a lot of games.

His biggest difficulty is recognizing threat ranges. Because of the tiny control area, it is hard to gauge exactly how far certain things are. More then likely, you have the greater threat on the table then your opponent. Use it wisely. Don't over commit your beasts and try and bait your opponent to charge one of your forward beasts with Admonition. Opposing armies find it very hard to put down 3 to 4 heavies, especially 3 to 4 heavies with such rules as Hyper Aggressive, Grand Slam, Locker, and counter charge.

I love me some Morghoul (or Catman as I have called him). He is very rewarding to play once you have his style down, and he can win a lot of games. A solid warlock worthy of a B+, A- rating.