Howlers

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Howlers Infernal Unit

Howlers take on a form that is extremely durable, each with a thick hide that turns aside blades and deflects or at least diminishes the impact of bullets. These beings warp reality around them in such a way that their presence facilitates greater infernals lingering on Caen.

Basic Info

Howlers
Missing Info
	COST {{{cacost}}} UNIT SIZE {{{casize}}} FA {{{cafa}}} Warcaster 0 BASE Medium SPD 5 STR 8 MAT 7 RAT N/A M.A. N/A DEF 12 ARM 17 CMD 8 ESSENCE {{{essence}}} FOCUS N/A FURY N/A THRS N/A HP 8 F. Field N/A WJP {{{wjp}}} WBP {{{wbp}}} IHP {{{ihp}}} FA 2 UNIT SIZE 3 / 5 COST 8 / 13 2.6 each N/A N/A Warcaster 1 COST N/A N/A Understanding the Statblock

Abilities

• Eyeless Sight
• Soulless
• Tough
• Berserk - When this model destroys one or more models with a melee attack during its Combat Action, immediately after the attack is resolved it must make one additional melee attack against another model in its melee range.
• Bloodthirst - When it charges a living model, this model gains +2" movement.
• Vengeance - During your Maintenance Phase, if one or more models in this unit were damaged by enemy attacks during the last round, each model in the unit can advance 3" and make one basic melee attack.

Weapons

Impaler
		RNG				POW				P+S
		2				5				13
Damage Type: Magical Grievous Wounds - A model hit by this weapon loses Tough and cannot have damage removed from it for one round. Brutal Charge - This model gains +2 to charge attack damage rolls with this weapon.

Theme Forces

• Dark Legacy
• Hearts of Darkness

Recent Changes

2021.10 Mega Update

• Points drop to 8/13 (from 9/15)
• Gained Brutal Charge

Thoughts on the Howlers

Howlers in a Nutshell

Howlers are the heavy beat-stick infantry of the Infernals, though they are surprisingly pillow fisted on their own. Like their Griever buddies, they are native Infernals, and therefore lack the souls required to contribute to an essence economy. Instead, they are a meaningful recursion target for the ever-useful infernal gate, and bring enough special rules that they're a few buffs/debuffs away from being truly menacing and difficult to take off the table.

Combos & Synergies

• They hugely appreciate any of the ARM debuffs available to Infernals, such as Curse of Shadows and Scything Touch, as well as the Desolator and Hermit.
• They’re the model you’ll most likely want to bring back with an Infernal Gate.
• Omodamos' feat increases their potential threat range to a whopping 14" and removes their difficulty with terrain. His signature spell also makes Howlers far more likely to weather a charge if necessary.
• Saxon Orrik can provide pathfinder to them before being sacrificed for a Desolator to further help the Howlers rip and tear.
• Wretches provide healing via That Which Does not Kill You in Hearts of Darkness, which is very useful if you just spawned some new ones with the Infernal Gate.
• Kommander Andrei Malakov has Veil of Mist, as a nice terrain solution and his feat works very well with Tough multi-wound infantry with vengeance.
• Lieutenant Crosse, Resistance Fighter packs Dauntless Resolve, making them ARM 20.
• Aurum Legate Lukas di Morray he can give them some very nice threat extension via Telekinesis. Alternatively he can make them ARM 19 with Iron Flesh. Oh and he also has the damage buff they so desperately want. He can also protect them on the approach with clouds.
• Valin Hauke, The Fallen Knight - He gives them immunity to knock down and stationary, to go with their native Tough and Vengeance.

Drawbacks & Downsides

• They have a lot of good special rules but lack the fundamentals of Pathfinder and hitting power. Howlers need a bit of help to tip over from being a good unit to being a great one.
• Berserk + Grievous Wounds + medium bases + 2" reach = You can remove Tough from your own Howlers accidentally.

Tricks & Tips

• If you need Howlers to clump up around a target, and you are worried about Berserk killing your own guys, abuse the Field Promotion rules. What you do is attack your own unit's Leader model then field-promote the Berserking model. A model that is field-promoted cannot make any more attacks this turn.

Other

Trivia

• Released with the Faction launch (2019.06)

Other Infernal models

Infernal Index       (Edit)
Unique Rules : Masters, Horrors, Essence, & Summoning
Battlegroup
Infernal Masters	Agathon - Omodamos - Zaateroth
Attachment (1)	Lord Roget d'Vyaros
Master Infernalist	Princess Regna
Lesser	Foreboder	Heavy	Desolator - Soul Stalker - Tormentor
Light	Lamenter - Shrieker	Colossal	Guardian of Souls - Harvester of Souls
Units, Solos, & Structures
Structures	Infernal Gate
Solos	Eilish1 - Eilish2 - Great Princess Regna Gravnoy (Master Infernalist) - Hermit of Henge Hold - Lord Roget d'Vyaros (Attachment) - Lynda the Forgotten - Nicia2 - Orin1 - Saxon Orrik - Runewood2 - The Wretch - Umbral Guardian - Valin Hauke, The Fallen Knight
Units	Croe's Cutthroats - Cultist Band - Griever Swarm - Howlers
Theme Forces			Mercenaries
Dark Legacy - Hearts of Darkness			J.A.I.M.s
This index was last updated: 2021.07 (1) - Note that an Infernal Master Attachment is not part of the battlegroup, they are merely listed there for convenience.

Rules Clarifications

Rules Clarification : Eyeless Sight      (Edit) A model that ignores Stealth must ignore both aspects: both (1) the auto-missing, and (2) the 'not counting as an intervening model' parts. This can have some strange interactions with casters & channelers, if one has Eyeless Sight and one does not. There are examples on the Category:Channeler page. Blind vs Eyeless Sight (Edit) If a model is Blinded, and then given Eyeless Sight, then that model ignores Blind ... but it is technically still Blinded. So if you somehow later lose Eyeless Sight (for instance walking out of the range of Menoth's Sight), it will immediately go back to suffering the effects of Blind. (Infernal Ruling) Also this means stuff that only works vs Blind models (ie Hidden Blade) will still trigger vs a "Was Blinded but then got Eyeless" model. Anti-Cloud abilities vs Burning Earth (Edit) If you make a piece of terrain "Burning Earth" it counts as a cloud effect in addition to it's original type. This has 2 odd rulings: If any part of the terrain piece is "hit" by an ability that makes clouds expire (such as Gale Winds) then the entire terrain piece is taken off the table. (Infernal Ruling) If a model can ignore clouds but not the original terrain type, they don't ignore the terrain. For instance if you have a burning forest, then Eyeless Sight can't see through the forest. (Infernal Ruling)

Rules Clarification : Soulless - None yet. (Edit)
Rules Clarification : Tough - None yet. (Edit)

Rules Clarification : Berserk      (Edit) Berserk attacks will generate even more Berserk attacks. You keep going until you miss, something survives, or you run out of targets. Berserk grants an additional attack which by definition can only occur during your Combat Action. Therefore Berserk doesn't work on free strikes, impact attacks, etc. "Immediately" means you can't save it until later in your activation. Berserk must be resolved at step 14 of the attack sequence (refer Apdx A). You cannot use "Any Time" abilities while resolving the original attack, the Berserk attack, or between the attacks. Refer Apdx A. Berserk doesn't trigger during a frenzy. (Infernal Ruling) Berserk will not trigger if the target uses an ability to move the damage to another model (such as a warlock transfer). But it will trigger if they use an ability to move the attack to a different model (such as Grim Salvation). Berserk has a weird niche interaction with Agathon's abilities, which you can read here. Attack-Generating Abilities (Edit) From the core rulebook: When a model is granted more attacks as a result of an attack it made, it gains only one. If two or more special rules would grant the model another attack as a result of making an attack, its controlling player chooses which special rule to apply. If you trigger two attack-generating abilities (such as Black Spot and Kill Shot) you choose to resolve one and "lose" the other (unless you trigger it again later). If you trigger two attack-generating abilities, and one of them is compulsory (such as Black Spot and Berserk), you must choose to resolve the compulsory one. (Infernal Ruling)

Rules Clarification : Bloodthirst - None yet. (Edit)

Rules Clarification : Vengeance and/or Righteous Vengeance and/or Retaliation and/or Swift Vengeance and/or Tantrum     (Edit) Vengeance moves do not have to be towards an enemy model. You can choose to not move, but still get the attack. One is not conditional on the other. In this case, you will not count as advancing and thus will not trigger stuff like Countercharge. (Infernal Ruling) Vengeance is not an activation. It does not prevent the model/unit from activating and acting normally later in the turn. Stationary and knocked down models may not perform Vengeance moves nor attacks. Units only Out of formation models cannot make Vengeance moves nor Vengeance attacks. However if the unit commander uses their movement to bring the Grunts back into formation, then they can move and attack. When resolving Vengeance, move all models in the unit before making any attacks. (Infernal Ruling) If you have more than one unit with Vengeance, move all of unit A then complete all of unit A's attacks, before starting to move unit B. If you manage to spawn new models during the Maintenance Phase (such as with Reconstruction or Blood-Bound) then those new models can also make Vengeance attacks. (Infernal Ruling) Due to the way it is worded Vengeance can be "inherited" by unit attachments that do not actually have the Vengeance ability themselves. For instance, a Soulless Escort attached to the Spears of Scyrah. If anyone is damaged, including the attachment, everyone in the unit gets to trigger Vengeance. But if everyone is killed except the attachment, then he doesn't get to trigger Vengeance because the rule is "no longer on the table". Granted [ Vengeance ] If the model granting Vengeance dies, the unit will not get any Vengeance attacks. It is "If you have Vengeance, and you were damaged last turn, you get a move+attack." It is not "If you get damaged, you get Vengeance next turn." If you lose Vengeance halfway through resolving Vengeance, then you stop resolving Vengeance immediately. (Infernal Ruling) Triggers Only enemy attacks trigger Vengeance. There are plenty of ways enemies can damage you without attacking you (such as Electro Leap) and these will not trigger Vengeance. If a CA has Granted: Vengeance then only models in formation have it. However, models that are damaged while out of formation can trigger Vengeance, they just will not benefit from it. (Locked thread)

Rules Clarification:  : Magical Damage      (Edit) (Click Expand to read)

* The "Damage Type: Magical" is not inherited by "secondary" damage from a weapon. That is, stuff like arcs (Electro Leap) or hazards (Scather). (Infernal Ruling) All spells have "Damage Type: Magical" (refer errata). This is inherited by "immediate" secondary damage (such as Eruption of Spines). (Infernal Ruling) and might be inherited by "lingering" secondary damage (see below). If a spell leaves a template in play that does damage to models that walk around in it, then: if it is not described as a hazard it will do magical damage to models that walk around in it. (Example: Razor Wall) if it is a hazard then it will not do magical damage to models that walk around in it. Instead, it does whatever damage type is specified by the spell description. (Example: Breath of Corruption). (Infernal Ruling) If a weapon/spell includes Magic Damage and another kind of elemental damage it will still damage Incorporeal models. Incorporeal models are not affected by the rule "if an attack does multiple types of damage and a model is immune to at least one it is immune to the entire attack." The phrase "immune to non-magical damage" should be interpreted as "immune to damage that doesn't include Damage Type: Magical" (not interpreted as "has immunity to Corrosion and Electricity and Cold and etc.")

Rules Clarification : Grievous Wounds      (Edit) GW prevents "repairs" as well as "heals". It does not stop a warlock transferring damage, or stop the wounded model from being able to 'heal' someone else. Does not affect models with the Massive rule.

Rules Clarification : Powerful Charge  and/or Brutal Charge     (Edit) If you declare a charge but move less than 3", then the attack doesn't count as a "Charge Attack" and you won't get the bonus.