Hi everyone we have another guest article, this one is an introduction to the Forces of the Abyss, basically a why play this army, written by returning Abyssal general, Todd Serpico.
For other army introductions, you can find them here.
If you want an unit by unit analysis of the army you can find all those here.
Archfiends and Chroneas, and Molochs, Oh MY!
Why should you choose to play a Forces of the Abyss army? Why did I
choose to? Well, for starters for me, the hordes of demonic creatures are
such an iconic fantasy trope/theme – it is one that cries out for all manner of
large, crazy, nasty, awful, wonderful models … whether you are using
Mantic, or looking at the many options from other companies, there are so
many options and themes and directions you can take it.
Who doesn’t enjoy painting large, fearsome, awesome models? What could be more
metal than that?? (Rock on Garth!)
There are also so many wonderful basing and hobby themes to build your
project around. Of course, the flows of magma are a common theme seen,
but you could also have your army pouring out of a corrupted temple,
attacking a castle fortress, gating into some civilized area … so many
different things stand out to inspire great modeling opportunities.
It was the modeling that first inspired me to want to start abyssals in fact,
certain kits that I just had to model and paint up, and the rest grew from
there. “But what if I’m not a hobby guy? Why should I actually PLAY the
army?” you might ask …
A Tool for Every Situation
Forces of the Abyss are an army that can really fit many playstyles. But my favorite style of play has always been to have a toolbox army … something that has tools
to accomplish most scenarios, and to deal with most opponents, basically a balanced build.
With so many solid to great tools in the kit for Forces of the Abyss, there are
many ways that one could go about building such a force. What I have found
works best for me, and has also been a lot of fun, is to build around a solid
checkerboard infantry core, with a fast flank, built heavily around big
gribblies and things that smash face and go bump in the night.
We’re Marching to War, We’re Marching to War: Infantry
Maybe you love infantry, and you want to play around more with
the variety of such options in the army – well, this is also something that the
Abyssals can do in an elite fashion. When you think of grinding forces you
might first think of hordes of tough to crack orcs, or walls of D6 elementals. Forces of the Abyss, however, have access to some builds that can do a
sneaky good job of the same, despite their generally lower defense stat.
There are a variety of tools in the army to use here; the sacrificial imp
upgrade is a very strong upgrade, that can quickly restore a large number of
wounds. Back this up with some drain life warlocks, and keep your well of
soul nearby, and you have an infantry core that is very hard to remove.
Support that line with some of the great, cost-effective monsters in the list
and suddenly it’s an army that can really smash face.
After years of playing faster and/or toolbox armies, this is the type of force
that I’ve been running for the past few months in fact, and I have had great
fun with it.
With a lot of different kinds of infantry to choose from, Forces of the Abyss have a ton of options to design a tough and durable infantry heavy army.
SPAM, SPAM, SPAM- Succubi
“But Todd,” you say, “How can I be truly metal unless I’m spamming
something to make my opponent cry?” Well, you don’t have to play the
grinding game to bring lots of boots to war either. Units like succubi, who
although slightly fragile, put out a ton of attacks at a budget cost, allow you
to build around flooding the field with screaming, charging, demonic lasses,
bent on the destruction of your enemies.
You could build an effective MSU army around such a build, and the lurker upgrade allows them to sweep through terrain to get to the enemy. With ensnare and a ton of attack Succubi can be a highly effective unit.
Great Individuals
One of the things that is very unique to and about Abyssals is that we aren’t
reliant on the Wings of Honeymaze to get a flying individual like so many
other armies … we come with lots of our own already built-in. Early on in
third edition spamming those flying individuals has been a popular style of
play among some generals, and when you have some relatively hard hitters
with those abilities, it can be pretty effective.
The Seductress and the Abyssal Champion can innately have wings, freeing up their item slot for any number of options.
Now Go Out and Find Your (Evil) Inspiration!
With an army with a wealth of balanced options there are many ways to plot to murder your opponent’s forces with impunity. Now it’s time for you to dream up all of the terrible plots you have for your opponents and go out and make the army
your own! I hope though that along the way you got some insight into the
army that I love, and if you have questions and see me around, by all means,
hit me up and strike up a conversation! May the dice be ever in your favor …
