Not Just Tactics
Not Just Tactics is a Warmachine podcast featuring fresh perspectives on the game and its community. This will be done through product review, game play mechanics, tactics, lore, and various other content.
Not Just Tactics
Nightmare Empire 101
The Nightmare Empire doesn’t want your land. It wants your aftermath. We take you from Toruk’s centuries-long hunt for dragon heartstones to the brutal bargain that delivered Blighterghast’s heartstone and tipped the Dragon War. Along the way, we map how Cryx weaponizes time, turns necrotite into industry, and uses espionage to bend entire campaigns toward harvest.
We also get practical. With Angus from our local group, we dig into the Command Starter to show how the lore becomes pressure on the table. Wraithbinder Nekane hardens spectral lines and punishes exposed models with Hellspike’s incorporeal payoff. Hades steals the spotlight as a soul-fueled artillery platform that ignores cover, interposing models, and math you thought was safe. The Furies arrive as fading executioners, their wails eroding flesh and armor alike. If you’ve wondered what “soul economy” really means in play, this breakdown makes it click.
Then we zoom in on two standout casters. Eviscerus, a six-century necrotech, plays like a scrapyard genius—repair lines, recycle engines, and steady pressure that grows as the battlefield falls apart. Mortenebra is the cold mind of the faction, a Convergence defector whose Necrogenesis blends machine logic with Cryxian deathcraft. Her rise under Deneghra’s shadow and against Dekathus’ blunt mandate shows how Cryx advances: not just with might, but with method. Finally, we share hopes for where Cryx goes next—faster thrall units, deeper spectral control, and casters who expand the faction’s identity without losing its ruthless efficiency.
Whether you’re lore-hungry or list-building, this is a tour through Cryx that connects story to strategy. If you enjoyed the episode, follow the show, leave a review, and share it with a friend who’s eyeing the Nightmare Empire. What Cryx model or caster would you build around next?
Music made by Y. Will
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Hey there, listeners, NJT here, bringing you fresh perspectives on all things war machine and building the community we surround ourselves with. Today, I'm going to talk about the Crick's lore and kind of give you guys a little bit of an update on what's going on over here with NJT. We have a little bit of news with Joe. He is going to be taking an extended hiatus from the podcast. He has some health issues going on, and he needs to focus on those to make sure that he is going to be in the best position for not just himself, but for his family. So let's definitely, you know, send our thoughts to Joe and wish him well. But today we are going to be covering lore, and I have another guest with me today from our local gaming group. I have Angus, been a friend of mine for quite some time. Say hi, Angus. Hey Tony, it's good to be here. So, what armies do you play in War Machine? Crix and Kador. Specifically Legacy. I will definitely tell you there is nothing that has been more of a bane to my existence than Sorcia. She runs around, freezes you in place, and then shatters you to a thousand pieces with an 18-inch threat range. Okay. Do you like that better or worse than the three juggernauts she comes along with? For those that have been listening since the beginning, there was mentions of the three juggernauts that I've had to face before. So this would be the gentleman that likes to put that on the table. The answer is neither. Uh I can handle two juggernauts. I cannot handle three. The third one will legitimately rip everything else apart. I can decimate up until that point. There's just nothing I can do against three. 30 points, three juggernauts. We're talking, oh God, what, 132 wounds right there? Armor 20? Yeah, maybe. Yeah. They're 34, right? Yeah, 34 boxes apiece on juggernaut. Yeah, so about 132 plus sortia and everything else that is not pleasant to deal with. It's it's a good time. So for those of you that are looking into starting, it's a relatively cheap entry point and uh will make people rage quit real fast.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, you hop onto eBay, you can find a ton of Sorches and Juggernauts. Dirt cheap. Yeah, they're everywhere. Uh so what kind of games do you play? Oh, everything. Um I probably got into venture gaming like 2003, 2004. My buddy sold me a Blood Angels Army for 20 bucks. A couple years later I met Tony over at a games workshop. And then since then I've you know broadened out into Bolt Action, Star Wars Legion, Batman, Marvel Crisis Protocol, Horse and Musket, Blood and Plunder. Yeah. There's a number of them. Oh.
SPEAKER_02:Seems like every year I pick up a couple new games to try out. I will definitely say that if I've ever considered dabbling into a different game or moving in to try another game, I always reach out to Angus here and I'm like, hey bud, what do you think of this? And he'll be like, No, don't play that, it's garbage. Or yes, give that a go. It is fantastic.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:I'm pretty much down to try whatever game system is out there. Well, hopefully uh our gaming group hears back from Steamforged and you know get some of the test sampling and get to actually put that on the table and give it a go.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, that'd be nice.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Since you're a Crix player, I figured this might be a fun little topic for you. We're gonna dive into some Crick's lore. We're gonna go all the way back to the beginning, and then we're gonna kind of work up to present day. Reading over the lore has been very, how can I put it, interesting. There's a lot of repetition as they will they go through this stream of lore, and then they branch out into something else, but then they kind of recover everything again, and then give you a couple little new tidbits of information, and then they go into something else that recaps the previous two and then gives you a couple of tidbits of information. Yeah. Very helpful for if you're looking for specific things so that you can kind of keep up with what has happened, but when you're trying to break everything down and trying to get everything, there's a lot of, like I said, repetition.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Well, the Crick's motivations are pretty shallow. It's just recollect all the dragon heartstones.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. I mean, the dragon wars are a thing. Yeah. They also have not just the dragon wars, but just collecting and harvesting bodies and souls to continue their manufacturing and trying to learn as much as they can. Other than that, this episode uh was requested by Pyrromonkey and specifically for his son Henry. We're gonna go ahead, we're gonna dive into that. And we're gonna not just do the lore on it, we're also gonna do the command starter, which I have done before, where we don't cover the rules, but we cover the rules that are driven by lore. And then I'm also going to dive into a couple extra casters that I know Henry has. So we'll look into that, and we're definitely gonna start that right now. Sounds good. Alright. So the Crix lore. Crix, the Nightmare Empire, enslaved to Turok, the Dragonfather. Toruk? Yeah. I think that's fair. Turick. I don't know. War machine names are complicated. Yes, they are I will definitely put that. I I struggle and I pronounce things very simply, and uh I kind of lean more phonetically, and that has not been overly successful. But yeah, I've been struggling with Mortanabra all day. Yeah, Morton Nabra, Mortanabra. Yeah. Yeah. Torik is served by the Lichlords, which are charged with leading Crix in its wars against humanity. Crix operates on timelines unfathomable to mortals' comprehension of past and future. They're dedicated blindly to Tori's will and war against his rebellious offspring. Since the creation, Crix have built directly and indirectly for the Dragon Wars, to collect the hard stones so Torik can once again be whole. Agents of Crix will hunt down for any leads of the Dragon Spawn. Once detected, they will expend vast resources and armies to ensure success of their destruction. You know, it's never good when the dad is actively hunting the children. I don't know. Some of those children are scum. I mean, yes, Everblight, and especially if you guys listen to, you know, Dusk 1 and 2, you'll definitely hear how Everblight was a big problem to IOS and all the elves over there. Despite the Crick's devotion, they still maintain personal ambitions, which allows them to pursue petty aspirations in the eyes of Turek. Turek believes this allows for intercompetition and allowing the best to rise to the top. You know, to throw a little wrestling quote in there. The cream will always rise to the top. Little side note, Angus and I and another one of our friends also do enjoy wrestling, so we meet up from time to time and watch a pay-per-view. I have no skill at a macho man voice. Yeah, I I could try, but I'm not going to, because that that'll just be not good. Anyways. But when he calls, the entirety of Crix answers the call or face his wrath. Crixian espionage and infiltration is so vast and complete it would be staggering at scale. Mainly used for troop movements, industrial developments, and presence of Turex children. They're used for protection of assets, steer battles to places most advantageous for the Crix, and divert obstacles in their plans. The information gathered may seem mundane, but could have major implications over time. The Crix don't even look at time as a whole, and what might seem petty or minuscule, they're planning and scheming over decades, centuries even, for something that could take place.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it's all about getting the heartstones for the other dragons. To make Turac hole. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:All the corpses and shattered steel of warjacks are useful for reanimation of thralls or in general materials or research purposes. Even the blood, anguish, and suffering that permeates a stone in soil, which is known as necrotite, is used for the Crixian war machines as fuel. Crix has no desire for the territories of the Iron Kingdoms or its wealth. The Iron Kingdoms are just an obstacle for the Crix in their Dragon War. But they provide fuel for the Necrofactorum.
SPEAKER_00:Interesting thing about the Necrotite, um, it burns hotter than coal, so their jacks can run for a longer period of time. With less fuel.
SPEAKER_02:Yep. Interesting. I did not know that. This is why you're the Crix expert. I know some Crix stuff. No more than I do. Luckily we've done the research. The Necrofactorum is charged with the construction of undead warriors, warjacks, and weapons. And in the Necrofactorum, Necrotecs produce the horrific monstrosities with support from the Necro Surgeons which animate and construct the thralls. Necrofactorums were originally established by Lich Lord Deamortis. They were meant as a means for centralized and standardization of production of thralls and warjacks. Deamortis eventually was killed by Asphyxius with the aid of the syphilis.
SPEAKER_00:Okay.
SPEAKER_02:Those are the uh spider folks, right? Correct. Those are the hive mind spider folks, the ones that uh were initially used for the creation of the chimera. They're the ones that live underground and do the weird, like no face people.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Steamforge has done a great job creating some beautiful STLs for those folks.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, which eventually I will have some photos of once I get them painted. Actually, Angus printed me out a set of them. A Cignar and Khador Alliance destroyed the Thornwood Necrofactorum. With the Infernal War a few years later, forced the Crix to fight alongside the living, which resulted in harrowing losses, which included the destruction of its remaining necrofactorums on the mainland. Torik was grievously wounded in the battle against his children a few years before, and was forced to retreat to Crix, where his recovery was expected to take centuries.
SPEAKER_00:So, in that battle where he's wounded against his children, I think he actually manages to kill off Bladergast in that fight. And then uh Bladergast shows up with a whole bunch of other dragons and they get into it with Torak.
SPEAKER_02:Bladergast was killed by the Orgoth. Which we'll cover that in a little bit. Hmm. Maybe you just severely wounded him then. That might be, because Orgoth was able to they offered to get the Hearthstone. Well, we'll cover that here in a little bit. With the wars that they had been fighting, the crippling losses of the recent wars and the elimination of the Lichlords in recent decades really stunted the Crix's growth. Much infighting and regular struggles of the politics of Crix led for this to happen. Torek believes in the supremacy of the fittest, hence he wants his lichlords to be the strongest versions of what they could be. So throwing in a kind of like a D reference here, it's kind of like the Drow, where you see the houses of the Drow fight and infite each other to climb, and you'll see the matrons also ascend in power by elimination of others. You make yourself into that position, you take it.
SPEAKER_00:Okay.
SPEAKER_02:And in this time frame, where you see Dinagra and Mortanebra, right? Mortanebra? Yeah, I believe it's Morton Abra. Yeah, Mortonabra. That's what we'll go with, Mortonabra. They rise in power. Dinagra eventually rises to become a kind of self-appointed Dominarch and oversees the Eternal Empire since Toruk is down for the count while he's trying to heal up. And she appoints Decathus to replace her as a Lichlord.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:That's the incompetent fool, I believe. Dinagra tasks Decathus and Mortonabra to revitalize the industries and replace the lost thralls and warjacks in the recent wars. The second Orgoth invasion occurs, and the Krix tries to stay neutral this time. They try to stay out of it. Orgoth came to Krix and they wanted to know how to kill the gods. And Krix was like, Well, we know how to do that. So Orgoth offers, hey, we'll go and get Blighergast's Heartstone. Which, I mean, you they wanted and Blightergast being the strongest dragon of his offspring. They haven't been able to get him so far. They figure, yeah, we'll we'll make that trade. A short little while later, Orgas shows up with Bleitergas's Heartstone, which that eliminates the largest obstacle in the Dragon War. And allows, once they have the Heartstone, for Toruk to heal much faster and to become more powerful than he's been in Aeons.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I believe Torek is actually fully healed now after consuming the Hearthstone.
SPEAKER_02:I know it says it takes a little bit, like he's healing much faster. I didn't get to that he's fully recovered.
SPEAKER_00:I could be mistaken, but I think I read something where it said that he's recovered.
SPEAKER_02:I absolutely believe that. And the reason why I say that is because if you move into any different lore sections of other things, you will find that there's not necessarily contradictory information, but you'll find that there's little bits of information here and there, and it kind of elaborates. And hence the reason that when I find something, I'll come back and I'll kind of not ret con, but I will share the information I do find once it kind of surfaces up. But yeah, I I could fully believe that he's, you know, fully healed and he's just hanging out in Cricks, just waiting, biding his time.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. The rest of the dragons are doomed now. Because Bladergast united them all. Right. And now he's gone, and it's like, well. Yep.
SPEAKER_02:Pop a dragon can start picking them off one by one. That's why they're in hiding. Mm-hmm. So after receiving the Heartstone, the Cricks decide that they're going to team up with Orgoth to assault the mainland. Once dominion over Western Imorin is accomplished, the Crix intend to drop their full might on the Orgoth and their Felgoth masters for a third and final time, completing Orgoth's complete destruction once and for all. Essentially they go and Orgoth gets beat on the mainland and they get pushed back. So they retreat back to their main stronghold. Crick's already devising this plan that they're going to attack them, they knew that they would not be able to fight navally against Orgoth's Black Fleet. They go in, most of the ships are still at port, because they caught them by surprise, because they don't anticipate this betrayal. They capture most of the ships at port, so they take all of their ships, then they assault inland, because now they push through the gates. They take the fight to them, and they are beating them terribly. The war witches of Orgoth sacrifice themselves and unleash a torrent that wipes out three Lich Lords and all of the thralls. They're just gone. No big deal. So they have all of these guys just obliterated. But in that process, Orgoth is destroyed. The little that do remain are captured. They are captured by the Crix, enslaved, they also take their immortal souls, they capture those as well, and they bring them back. Now you're like, well, how does Orgoth still remain around? Well, advancing forward in time, they break free. They figure out how to escape the controls of the Crix, they escape, and as they escape, they free the souls, and then they start the process over for Orgoth. They might not be at their full strength like they were, but they are well on their way to returning.
SPEAKER_00:I believe the Orgoth gods are also the infernals. Or at least it's hinted that they are.
SPEAKER_02:I could believe that. Because they are Orgoth are definitely demon-worshipping, like infused kind of things. And Orgoth is definitely another one on the lore list that I want to dive into.
SPEAKER_00:Right.
SPEAKER_02:And then right after the infernal war ends, Orgoth shows up. Right, their souls are returned. And also they there's more immortal souls. But yeah. That that's another army I actually have kind of looked at that. I was like, you know, maybe as a bad army, I think I would like kind of I want the mummies. No, no, no. I mean, for me, I would like to do the infernals. I think that would be kind of fun. Yeah, well, soon enough. That's what, February? I I've heard that they're coming soon. But oh man, I got so many other things on my plate. Anyways. A little distracted. So at the present, the Necrofectorum is commanded by Decathus and Mortonabra under Dinagra's direction as a proxy for Torik's will. She has tasked Decathus with rebuilding the Necrofector. Okay, if if anybody was able to see this, as I was saying that Angus immediately starts shaking his head with Decathus. He's obviously not a fan of Decathus. He's a worthless character. So so more uh Denagra appoints Decathus to revitalize the Necrofectorum on the mainland and Mortanabra on the islands. Yeah, trade islands. Yep. And that's where we're kind of at at the present lore time with the Crix. And after reading into that, we look at the command starter. And your caster in there is Wraithbinder Nakane. Which I am kind of glad that this kind of fell in place with how we've done things as of late, because this couldn't have been a more fitting warcaster for how we've done things lately. Because she is a former disciple of Gorshade. So when you listen to Desquante 2, Gorshade was the Krix version of Gersheld. When Gersheld died and was brought in under Crix, he became Gorshade. He got mad, wanted to finish his, you know, slaying of the Iosian gods. He leaves as Gorshade and then becomes Gersheld again. But when Gorsheld left to go slay the Iosian gods, Nakane stayed behind. She now serves the Dragonfather directly by dominating wraiths and turning them against the enemies of Krix. You have the master necrotech Chatterbane, who is a lunatic butcher with surgeon-like hands and an engineer's devotion to the infernal machines. His skills lie in pushing Crix Warjacks to the limits and turning them loose on any foes.
SPEAKER_00:I assume that's the necrotech that comes in the command stutter. Yes. Okay. Yeah, it's the guy with a bunch of the arms. I have ordered that stutter. I haven't actually looked at what comes inside of it.
SPEAKER_02:Well, lucky for you, we're covering that. Lucky for you, we're going over this right now. In there is the Hades, which is an unnatural hunter that hungers for immortal souls. So elves, Orgoth, right along those lines. It uses the souls to enhance its power and fuel its destruction of its necromechanical cannon. And then the unit is the furies. They're spirits that are slaved to the corporeal world, which are unliving avatars of death and entropy. Their cries can putrefy flesh and wither bone and steel, striking from the shadows and quickly fading away without a trace. The rules that I found to be most I want to say the most important or the ones that I found to be most relevant as far as the lore influence goes. Nakane and her rule with Wraithbinder, which allows for incorporeal units within 10 inches to gain plus three armor. Very handy for the Furies. Absolutely. She also has a melee weapon that allows for her to turn incorporeal. Really? Yep. It's uh was it Hellspike, I believe is her melee weapon?
SPEAKER_00:I will let you know in a second. Take a look.
SPEAKER_02:Alright, we're gonna take a quick break while we look that over and be right back. Alright, now we've taken a look back at the quick little card.
SPEAKER_00:And it is called Hellspike, correct? Yes, it is. And when she boxes an enemy model, she gains incorporeal. So that can actually stack up pretty nicely.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it'll throw her armor up to 18. Granted, it only lasts for one round, but definitely I'll take that over not being incorporeal.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Defense 16, armor 18 is no joke. Yeah. We've got Cheddarbane, who makes models do melee attacks, or when they take damage, they will be able to make an advance. But you gotta be within three inches of them, which it's a little close for that, but I feel like that kind of does apply to how he does because he's pushing them to their limits, he's making them go forward, he's really kind of driving that home. But the one I think that has the most lore-based rules is definitely Hades. He gets three different abilities that function off of the souls that kind of hype him up and power him up. But when you look at his Necrocannon, holy cow, his n canon is ridiculous. It's I forget what the range is, but it's power 15, power eight, AoE 2, range 12, range 12, so that's uh it's a spicy meatball there.
SPEAKER_00:And then a model hit by the attack doesn't block line of sight for one turn.
SPEAKER_02:Right. But now if you spend a soul, you can ignore interposing models. Yep. It and it also automatically boosts attack and damage rolls. It also gets rid of concealment and cover. Correct. So this for one soul, you're getting like so much bang for your buck.
SPEAKER_00:And then uh the Hades head, it lets him collect souls from 10 inches out. Correct.
SPEAKER_02:Which is foolishly good. Yeah. He can drop somebody and then get the power up, and he can just shoot somebody and you target a unit that's going to be relatively squishy, you drop a shot on them, and now you just got boosted up, now you can turn around next turn and start blowing away casters, warjacks. Power 15 on a ranged attack, especially at 12 inches, is not anything to shake a stick at. Right. Which is unfortunate because it's a character model. Having more than one, I think, would be a problem. Problem for me, I guess. Well, that's the lore in kind of covering the box. But I did want to kind of touch on two other warcasters I know Henry has. We're gonna cover viscerus, which I know he's been playing games with. So Eviscerous is the most ancient of Necrotechs. His role is to scavenge new tech and the know-hows from the battlefields of the continents that he's on. He has hidden bases across the continent and recalls them when they suit his needs in the moment. There's nothing funnier than when all of a sudden you're like, somebody somebody will just spout something out, and he's like, Oh yeah, I've got this thing over here, or oh, I've got that over there. Yeah, well, he's 620 years old. Yeah, he's super old and he just like rolls around. I mean, for somebody who has eternal flesh, it just like he's just like wasted away because he's so old. Yeah. He's gone insane. His first hand knowledge has been pivotal in the reconnaissance because of how careful he has his notations and how his observations are. As they go to set up reconnaissance and try to set up forward bases, not only is he like, oh, I've got bases over here already, or they're like, hey, you have really, really detailed notes on some of these areas. Thanks. And now they know where to go, where to hide, how to go about it without actually being seen or caught.
SPEAKER_00:Now, how helpful do you think he's going to be going forward in the story? Because he hates Orgoth so much.
SPEAKER_02:Well, to be honest, since he hates Orgoth so much, and after what the Cricks did to Orgoth, I think any interaction is going to be very explosive. They are not gonna, like, nobody is going to do well. But I also don't think Orgoth would be foolish enough to engage Toruk, especially after giving him uh Blighter Gas uh Anthank, or so hard. Stone. I think I think they are possibly regretting that. How could you not? Right. Well, they That's a first class bonehead move. Well, and they they've also but now they've gained the knowledge on how to kill a god, which is very beneficial to them, but it's not I don't think it's enough to to take them on.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. In all fairness though, who doesn't have the knowledge on how to kill a god in war machine land? Like Kador, maybe.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Well, I I'm I'm trying to think. I'm like, I know IOS definitely knows. So that would be Dusk because they've watched it happen, so they know how it goes. Pretty sure Minoth is in the know. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I I think I think pretty much a lot. Uh maybe Signar. Yeah, I don't know about Signar. Yeah, I I I don't know. Like I'm sitting here thinking about it. I'm like, I think like Signar and Kador are like the only ones that wouldn't know how they're the most, I don't want to say, like, removed from religion as a whole. Yeah. I I think I think those might be like the larger two that if they did have it, I would kind of be surprised.
SPEAKER_00:And I would venture to guess that at least for Cador, the old witch probably knows. Oh no, she knows.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, she she definitely knows. Oh, old Umbre. We're gonna Yeah, we're gonna dive into that too eventually. But swinging back to the visceraus, over time his undying flesh has deteriorated and fallen away, which has forced him to replace large portion of his body with mechanical prosthetics and adaptations. Which, looking at his model, he looks like a hunched over. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Just looks like a robot covered in rags.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. What's that hero? Or is he a villain? Ragman? Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Do you see?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. I remember playing hero clic uh hero clicks with him.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. He's my favorite hero click.
SPEAKER_02:As we were talking about in the last episode, we had talked about uh playing hero clicks with the boys, and that's where I got my love for hero clicks was playing with Angus and another one of our friends. Yeah. Every night, Buffalo Wild Wings Hero Clicks battles. Yes. They actually we would frequent it to the point that they knew our drink orders and they would have them ready by the time we would show up. Because we came in at the same time every night. Monday through Friday. Yep. It was just it was so regular that they knew. Who was the server we had? Jamie. Jamie, thank you. I was like, I knew you would know. Good dude. Yeah. The other one that Henry had. The other Warcaster that I know Henry has, I don't know if he's played with him yet. Or I should say her. He has more Tanabra. She is coldly calculating and inhumanly dispassionate, even compared to the other undying Cricks. She is renowned as the most prolific necrotech to serve the Dragonfather. Once a member of the Convergence of Cyrus, she long ago split to find her own path. With each creation her knowledge grew, even the failures that she suffered, she learned from and applied them because failure could be calculated. She dubbed her work as Necrogenesis as it was a twisting of the Cyrus teachings and the Crix Necromancy. Her rise to Lichlord came after the infernal invasions, which she didn't really try for. No. She was under asphyxius, and she just sat there and bided her time. She just kept waiting. She never was one to step forward, step out of line. She was definitely, I don't want to say the cog in the machine, but she was definitely just plugging away, doing her stuff. Yeah. Kept her head down, and you know, just waited it out.
SPEAKER_00:She doesn't seem to be particularly enthused about being a Lichlord now either. Yeah. Like no problems with it, but eh.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, she was definitely It is what it is. Yeah, she's like, cool promotion. Yeah. She remains silent and workbound even when Denagra became the Dominarch. But when Denagra appointed the blunt and unsophisticated Decathus to be her equal, this caused her criterion to change. She believed Decathus would take her experiments to war and provide nothing but failed experiments leading to a lack of empirical evidence. This is when her demeanor had changed. She became restless for the first time in her time of existence. Even with Decathus in command of the mainland, she was determined to test her new creations personally on the field of battle against the enemies. She does not trust that Decathus is going to do either the right thing, or she doesn't believe that he's going to be able to do anything in that capacity.
SPEAKER_00:Just blindly follows Dinagra.
SPEAKER_02:I mean, when you're working for promotions, you know, following boss's orders kind of make it a little bit easier to go about. Yeah, but he just wants to boot look. I haven't looked too far into Deckathus, and I do kind of want to like look at that a little bit more. And that is something that I do intend to do. Because how negatively he gets painted in the lore and also in Denabra's or Mortanab Mortonabra. Man, this has been the struggle all day. Mortonabra? Mortonabra? Maybe. Yeah, yeah. Largely. Reading over Decathus with Mortonabra, it definitely shows that he is not the fan favorite there. No. The interesting thing is that when you look at Mortonabra, she's got as far as like lore-based rules, she's repairable, which is nice because again, being from Cyrus, that makes sense. She's very resourceful, which she has a resourceful rule. Her feet reduce, reuse, recycle, also falls in line with that. But then everything else kind of doesn't really fall into place.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. She's good. Yeah. But unlike all the other casters, there isn't like a battle group or an army box built around running her.
SPEAKER_02:No, for sure.
SPEAKER_00:Like every other character comes with a whole mess of models.
SPEAKER_02:But eviscerus, I mean, this guy's kind of fun. He's got chop shop, he's repairable, he can repair, he's steady, his weapons are bone picker. He has two of them. Looking at this guy and his feet, boneyard, this comes through as he's just like a scrounge and a scavenger. Yeah. I find he's probably, with the little sections of lore that you've got on him, I feel like he's definitely that guy.
SPEAKER_00:Oh yeah, he's insane. He's 620 years old and just hangs out in his shop and builds jacks. Right. Which and again, when you look at his rules.
SPEAKER_02:And grumbles about how much he hates Orgoth. Yeah. But when you but looking at his rules versus his lore, I feel like his definitely falls in line a little bit more than I would say Mortanabra.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:It's fair. I mean, Carry and Feast as far as the spell goes, deceleration, red line, I mean, these are all pumping up and dampening down. These are these are definitely like I feel that this fits very much into the lore. And hopefully, Henry finds this bits of information to be either enlightening and entertaining. Well, that concludes the lore section. What are you looking forward to, Angus? As far as Cricks go? Well, as far as Cricks go, anything else war machine-based.
SPEAKER_00:Uh, well, I'm looking forward to getting my hands on the mummies that are coming out in the uh two-player starter with the uh the dusk elves. And then uh very much looking forward to getting the Crucible Guard STLs next month. Wasn't so excited this month when they handed out the train, because what am I gonna do with the train?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, when it falls into a 75 to 100 point army, and you start off with something that you can't essentially field. But it is a big model and it is a pretty model, but it's still unusable for months at a time.
SPEAKER_00:Send that out the second month.
SPEAKER_02:First month, give me a battle group. Get get onto the field. Right. The forgotten side of Frozen and Forgotten is Orgoth, and it's they're undead. I wonder what they're gonna be called.
SPEAKER_00:I have no idea.
SPEAKER_02:I don't know. I know that the frozen side is all the Nessian elves, which I could see them coming out and having like some sort of Arctic themed living elf faction as their second subfaction for Dusk. But for Orgoth, having some sort of dead, some sort of hybrid fusion of Cricks would be interesting.
SPEAKER_00:The elves feel very Everblighty to me.
SPEAKER_02:Well, they they shouldn't be because they ran away from Everblight.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, but they have like that same aesthetic as like the old Everblood.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, like the old armored, yeah, like the Legion of Everblight models. Yeah, I have a I have a few of them. Almost untainted version. Yeah. I did read somewhere that somebody mentioned that there was possibly gonna be like ice dragons that were gonna show up with this dusk part. Drakes or something, like some sort of like flying reptilian things. No.
SPEAKER_00:If Steamforge wants to give you like a really big model, give me a toruck.
SPEAKER_01:Right.
SPEAKER_00:STLs for a toruck. Just saying. If any of you are listening. Yeah. At Steamforge. So make it happen.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Gigantic dragon model. How many points would that be?
SPEAKER_00:All of them.
SPEAKER_02:All of the points? Yeah. Okay. Also, extreme Yana. Need an STL for that. Uh, I do believe in the episode that we had talked about that there was a guy who was shouting out for an extreme Yana or Yana everything. Uh, that was also Angus. It's true. Which uh here at NJT we did not dive in on the extreme yana model, but we will uh support if they did do an extreme yana.
SPEAKER_00:What would you like to see for the future of Crix?
SPEAKER_02:Who let's see. Extreme let's see, Crix. Well, they did just come out with Mortonabra. They did also just come out with their new uh big model. Yeah, the Colossal Worm or whatever. Yep. I mean, that one's pretty nifty looking. Yeah. As far as like Crixian models bursting through the ground, I I like that. I I like I like the aesthetic. Maybe something that's a little bit faster. Like uh a unit that's a little bit faster, not actually like jacks and things like that. I actually want to see like a unit, because everybody right now is fielding sludge thralls because they are very good. Maybe something older the bane thralls, like seeing more of the thralls kind of show up again. Okay. Because they talk about in the lore, they constantly talk about the thrall army and the jack army. Those are your two things. But really, you've only got really the sludge thralls, and then everything else is filled in with jacks, and no, I I could be wrong. I I don't play them, but from what I've seen and from what I've read, that's where a lot of people go. And that kind of makes me when I see John play his Cricks, and he puts down those Bane Thralls. Yes. Or Bane Warriors. Is that what they're called? Bane Warriors? Uh guys with the axes. Yeah, I think they're Bane Warriors. Okay. So the Bane Warriors, which they would fall under the thrall category, they go out there and they do work. They get out there, they start beating stuff up, and they're good at it. Yeah, they die a little bit faster because they are a unit model, but even still, they hold up, they get in there, and they they start messing people up. And I've watched it. Kind of makes you think, you know, what else is there? What else could they do? What models could they bring in? I I would like to see another faction of critics. They they're starting to flesh out these other factions, like Dusk is coming out with one, they're getting their second, uh Signar and Kador have theirs. Trolls are right around the corner. They were supposed to be out in September, but they wanted to make sure that they had enough production in line to accommodate the demand for it. That's why they're getting pushed off too, I think February. Uh I would like to see another faction of Cricks. Agreed. And I would certainly hope that Denagro is an option. I I would like to say yes. Uh hey, they did make uh a reference in the Ask Me Anything that we had did our episode about with their creative director or their creative chief creative director? No, chief creative officer, CCO. He said that there is going to be a permanent two-player starter set. So all the ones that you've been seeing as of late are only limited supply, limited run. When they're gone, they're gone. That's the reason why I say if you want to pick these up, you're gonna save yourself about$20 at least when you buy these. If you're thinking about it, it's well worthwhile to do it. But when they said that they're going to blow our minds with this two-player starter set, that to me is some pretty big talk. I do believe with things that I've seen and how they're not being rash, they're calculating and how they're going about the way they're doing things. I'm excited to see what that box is gonna be. How great would it be if it's Dinagra and Haley? I mean, that would be a fun little box to fight out. Twins dueling it out. Yep. One way to find out. Right. Just gotta wait and we just gotta see. And and uh unfortunately, patience is not necessarily one of my strong suits, hence the reason that I'm like, what army do I want to start next? It's like you haven't even finished your first one.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. I think crooks desperately need some more interesting casters. The only one that actually interests me right now is Mornabra.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. She's she's definitely interesting. I like that she definitely has the Cyrus background. That definitely, to me, kind of spices things up a little bit and lends for more diversification because now you're gonna want to have a healer near her just in case, where some of the other ones, not so much. Yeah. I am primarily waiting for Kithcard. Understandable. But I will definitely say that I know when you ordered your uh command starter, I definitely almost ordered the exact same thing. I saw it and I was like, ooh, these boys look fun. And especially after reading some of the rules and going over the lore, I was like, oh, why do we keep doing this? I'm gonna go broke. Like, oh, this hobby.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, Nickane's rules look interesting. Her lore, eh, not so much.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I uh to be fair, it felt a little rushed on her lore end. Now, again, there might be more hyper specific, also with the rule book coming out here in next month, two months, because I believe it comes out December or January. I'll have to double check. I forget what the pre-order is. Either way, got one on pre-order and looking to potentially get a couple more. I'm hoping that there's going to be some not necessarily updated lore, but seeing some depth in some of this lore where it it almost feels like they looked at marks one through three, took mark four, put it on top of them, and gave this top-down impression, and then lifted it up like it's silly putty, and now we're reading the newspaper print. Yeah. Which is fine, but it does leave for little gaps. And hence with some of our listeners, they've been kind enough to point us into the direction of where to go find it, or contributing, you know, books, contributing other things. Uh, and also at the time of the recording, I received the package from Steven, and uh John was able to open it up and take a look inside, and he was very excited. So thank you again, Steven. And Angus got to see it, and Angus was very jealous. It's true. He's like, I've been looking for those for a while. It's like, well. But again, thank you for that. Thank you for sending that out, and I'll definitely be sure to get him working on those soon.
SPEAKER_00:You got anything else for me, Angus? Uh, don't believe so.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, I don't think I have anything else for you. All right, guys, on that note, have a wonderful day. Get out there and play some games. Thanks again for having me. Absolutely. Until next time.
